Snatchers (A Zombie Novel)

by Shaun Whittington

  Karen saw the bodies circling them, and stated the obvious. "We've gotta go! Now!" She then looked over to see that it was impossible to get to the van with the amount of bodies on the beauty spot.

  Janine let out a shriek as three of them grabbed her.

  She was pulled to the floor, but she held onto Jamie. She had already been bitten in her left tricep and now she felt the side of her stomach being bitten into several times, as they crowded around the two officers, circling them. The creatures were not just standing and crouching over her and Jamie, some were lying on their chests and crawling through the crowd to get a better chance of getting at the two delicious humans.

  Janine looked over to Jamie and he stared into nothingness through shock and had stopped fighting them off. Cold sets of fingers dug into his mouth and ripped the face off him in front of her eyes. He didn't scream once.

  She felt another bite into her shoulder and her screams of pain and for help were pointless, as one of the things lying on top of her legs opened its decayed mouth and took a huge chunk through her trousers, inbetween her legs.

  Karen, KP and Pickle pointed their guns from ten yards away over in Janine and Jamie's direction. For fear of shooting them by accident, neither one squeezed their trigger. They never attempted to help Janine, as they saw her being bitten and all three knew that with one bite, she was good as dead.

  Instead, the remainder of the group responded by only firing at those who gained on them. They all walked backward away from the two almost defunct officers and were now being circled by at least twenty of them. They continued to carefully aim in order not to waste a single bullet and fired.

  The demise of the two officers was a huge distraction as most of the things were attracted to the free lunch, and this gave the remainder of the group valuable seconds of survival. The creatures wasted no time in devouring and ripping off the bloody limbs of the pair of the officers and because they had circled around them, they couldn't be seen, but the horrific screams from Janine were unmistakeable.

  KP looked at Karen; the panic scrawled on his face was self-evident. They watched in horror as severed arms and the entrails of both of their short lived friends, were being devoured by the cannibals, as gaps in the crowd began to appear now, as some of the things began to stand up from the massacre and faced the three survivors, knowing there was other warm flesh on offer.

  Karen looked behind her and pointed toward the van, there was many of them on the beauty spot now and this made getting to the doors of the van, a pointless and suicidal exercise.

  "Shit!" KP screamed; he had never been so frightened in all his life. "What the fuck are we gonna do now?" He looked behind him down the steep hill that led to acres of bracken. "Let's just run for it!"

  "We can't leave the van," Pickle yelled, "We won't last five minutes out there on foot, in the darkness."

  "I'll create a diversion," Karen shouted over the moans and groans off the hundred or so things that were almost encircling them.

  The three survivors were all now standing on the edge of the beauty spot, behind them was the steep hill covered in healthy bracken—their only way of escape. They could have easily outrun the things, but they didn't want to leave the van, as well as the supplies inside, behind.

  Karen began re-loading the other gun. "You and KP go a few yards down the hill, then run across so you're near the van. Once you can see it's clear, get in. I'll go further back to create a diversion. That should get some of them away from the van. Once they get near me, I'm gonna run down the hill and head for the crossroad to the right while you two are getting the thing moving; most of the dopey cocksuckers will just fall anyway trying to chase me. Get the van and meet me at the crossroad at the other end of Stile Cop Road."

  KP and Pickle nodded in agreement to her plan, as it wasn't as if they had time to deliberate on it. Karen sidestepped ten yards to the left away from the two men who had now disappeared from view as they ran down the hill. Karen saw that some of them were not falling for this trick as some went over the direction where KP and Pickle had disappeared from, so she began to shout and holler in a desperate attempt to attract their attention.

  Once it began to work, she raised both of the loaded Brownings. Her inexperienced hands shook with fear as they got nearer, and with guns cocked, she began squeezing the triggers. Only one bullet was wasted, as she allowed them to get near her before giving them a bullet each to end their miserable lives.

  As they gained nearer, she backed a little and moved back from the grotesque looking things. All around her they dropped to the floor as the bullets made their violent impact; some of them were getting so close, her T-shirt was being soaked as if some one with a wet paintbrush was flicking her with every shot that was taken.

  She kept here eyes at a squint, paranoid the blood could get in there, and she could now feel her heels on the edge of the Stile Cop and she could see that the area where the van was. The doors to the van looked reasonably clear, making it possible for the two inmates to reappear further along the beauty spot, get in the van and escape without being attacked themselves. It was too dark to see, but Karen thought that they should be near the van by now.

  She knew if she stayed a few seconds longer she was going to be snatched and would end up with the same fate as Janine and Jamie. She squeezed the trigger for one last time and her last victim was so close, that the gun was shoved in its mouth when she pulled it. She turned away from the risky shooting so the spray didn't hit her face.

  That was the messiest of the lot, and as she turned around to run down the steep hill, she could feel dozens of dead hands desperately grabbing and snatching at her clothes and her hair as she turned to face the hill. The momentum of her fall allowed their grip to be futile, although she lost a handful of hairs from the grabbing. She began to pick up speed down the steep decline; she could feel her legs were not going quick enough for how quick the body wanted her to go, and she fell over to the floor and grazed her palms on the hard dirt, thankfully not losing the pistols that still remained tightly gripped by her hands.

  She stood up immediately and looked up at the edge of the beauty spot from the bottom of the hill, and saw the silhouette of body after body clumsily falling over the edge and tumbling after and toward her down the steep hill.

  Noticing that the ones that fell first were now staggering to their feet twenty yards away from her presence as the decline was beginning to subside, she picked up the pace once more and was coming to the end of the hill and was now running on a flat surface.

  She could just about see the crossroads ahead in the darkness, and wondered where the van was. She turned around and looked up to see the beauty spot from an angle she had never seen before, it looked almost like a mountain.

  Again, she wondered where the van was; it was taking its time but when she looked up, she saw the headlights come on; it was finally beginning to move from the Stile Cop area.

  They had made it! They were inside! The plan had worked!

  Because of the amount of bodies that it was being surrounded by after seeing the inmates climb in, the vehicle was struggling to move as it shunted back and forward in order to get out onto the main road. Karen needed to get to the crossroads quick, as she was certain that the things that came from the woods, and the things that had made their way up the Stile Cop Road that were initially banging on the van, would more than likely follow the van to the crossroads, albeit slowly.

  She needed to turn up early. If she turned up late, there would be too many of them, and Pickle and KP could decide that it would be too dangerous to hang around for her.

  She ran hard, as the van at last was moving slowly on the main road toward her as she waited on the crossroad. Her body was drenched in light from the moving van's headlights in the distance, which made her feel vulnerable as it highlighted her presence.

  The vehicle finally began to pick up pace as it progressed on the main road toward her, as it crushed and ran over body after body. As
the van got nearer, her frame became even more lit up as the headlights got closer, and she could see in the murky distance, the creatures from the beauty spot area beginning to spill out of the entrance, onto the main road and hurriedly heading toward the van.

  This didn't unnerve Karen as, van or no van; the things were a fair distance away and could be outrun. What did bother her was that she couldn't see what was to her right or behind her. She was standing on a crossroad, in the middle of the country where there was no streetlights, and all that surrounded her was woods, darkness, and the headlights of the prison van. The main thing that worried her was that she might be vulnerable from the right as when she fled down the hill, many of them followed her. Sure, they fell down clumsily, but they still eventually got to their feet and were probably stumbling toward her as she stood anxiously waiting, but she couldn't see the things. Not yet.

  The van stopped at the crossroads, only yards from Karen who was in front, and KP stuck his head out of the window and fired a shot near the young woman. She quickly turned around as she heard a thump behind her, and because of the light from the van's headlights she saw one of them a metre away from her, lying face down with the contents of its head oozing out from where the bullet penetrated it. It was ten yards behind her. KP had spotted it and had saved her life. Great shot!

  Pickle stuck his head out of the driver's side window and calmly said to Karen. "Err, anytime this week, if that's all right with you, Missy."

  He pointed behind her; she turned around to see three beings walking down the adjacent road and could now hear the shuffling of many feet coming from her right—most probably the things that pursued her as she descended down the hill.

  She pulled out the two Brownings; cocked both of them, and focused on the three behind her and began to release some of the contents of the magazines. She fired eleven bullets and all three of them eventually fell, as the headshots were eventually successful.

  "Come on, Lara Croft!" Pickle instructed sharply, with a tinge of sarcasm, but mainly anger. "Yer wasting bullets and time!"

  "Move your fuckin' butt, or we're going!" KP urged. "There're hundreds behind us, about thirty seconds away."

  She stuck the guns into her belt and ran to the already opened passenger side of the van and went to jump in. Suddenly, from out of the darkness, she felt a pair of cold hands grab her arms making it impossible to draw her guns, and she let out a frightened shriek.

  She stared into the black lifeless eyes of the bloated female being and saw that there were many not far behind her from the right road. She struggled to reach for her guns stuck in her belt and KP decided to save her life for a second time and pointed his gun and squeezed the trigger, but his magazine was empty.

  Karen managed to release one of her arms and threw her elbow forward into the face of the beast and was told by Pickle to 'get the fuck out of the way.'

  She ducked and lay on the road, while simultaneously KP hit the floor by the passenger seat, which was followed by Pickle releasing another cartridge from his Browning shotgun from the driver's seat. The head of Karen's attacker exploded, decorating some of the opened inside passenger door with dark blood and brain matter. KP got back up off the van's floor, his ears smarting, and Karen didn't need a second invitation. She jumped inside, closed the passenger door and wound the passenger window fully up.

  "Don't ever fuckin' do that again, that was a waste of a cartridge," Pickle pointed out, and then changed the tone in his voice immediately to a more softer manner. "Are yer okay? You bit?"

  Karen shook her head.

  "Yer sure yer never shot a gun before?" Pickle looked at Karen with sceptical eyes.

  "Of course," she sniffed.

  "You didn't even hesitate," Pickle said. "I'll give you credit for that, although you nearly wasted a full magazine on three of them."

  "It's not as if I'm shooting actual people, is it?" Karen shrugged, although underneath she was a nervous wreck, and KP could see through her fake bravado. After all, she was still a nurse.

  Their temporary break had allowed a lot of the beings to catch up to the van and Pickle slipped the van into first, ready to get the van moving again, and could feel the van rocking from side to side. He thrashed the gas. Jesus, there must be at least a hundred of the things around us from all angles.

  It took a while, but the van eventually got moving, crushing anything that dared to go in front. The van jumbled around as ten bodies felt the weight of the van. Some of the things had limbs crushed and didn't show any signs of pain on their emotionless face. Two bodies were almost halved in two as the wheels went over their torso, their rotten guts spewing out onto the tarmac, and another two heads popped like champagne bottles, smearing the tarmac with the contents of what used to be inside their diseased cranium.

  Once ahead seemed clear, the van began to pick up momentum. Pickle checked the offside mirror and saw the army of the dead, slowly but surely, disappearing as the van progressed straight ahead at the crossroads.

  "Do me a favour?" KP asked Karen, who was staring out of the window as the last remaining beings of the crowd slammed their hands against the side of the van.

  "What is it?"

  "Pass me a bullet," KP ordered with a sad smile.

  "What for?" Karen and Pickle both asked in unison.

  The van was now progressing nicely along the long country road, heading toward Upper Longdon; the beings had disappeared from view.

  "For me." KP pulled his sleeve back and revealed a small bite mark. It was small, but it was a bite all the same. "One of them got me up there, as we were trying to get in the van."

  Pickle began to shed tears and repeated the word no constantly when he saw the wound. His reaction touched, yet, confused Karen.

  Karen knew that KP was infected and never hesitated as she emptied the magazine from one of her guns and passed KP the one solitary bullet he asked for.

  "Stop the van," KP demanded.

  "No chance," came Pickle's reply, wiping his blurry eyes with his forearm, staining his combat shirt that he had taken from the supermarket.

  "Come on, don't be a hypocrite. You had to kill Laz. I shot Davina. Now it's my turn." KP put the barrel of the Browning to his left temple. "If you don't stop, I'll do it right here. I don't know how long I've got before I turn into one of them. Could be hours, could be less."

  Karen put her magazine back into the pistol and turned to Pickle. "Just stop the van."

  The van came to an abrupt halt, and Pickle slammed his forehead on the steering wheel and began to sob gently.

  KP touched Karen's face affectionately and opened the door, slammed it shut and went around to the driver's side. KP opened the driver's side of the door stared at Pickle who refused to look at the man. KP could feel himself getting emotional and fed off Pickle's distress. He touched Pickle's face tenderly, leaned over to him and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Goodbye, Harry Branston." KP managed a thin smile. "I love you."

  Pickle's head remained on the steering wheel and found it too hard to look at KP, let alone, say goodbye.

  KP shut the door firmly and walked away onto the main road that was surrounded by what seemed like, an everlasting forest. The van grudgingly moved away, and KP disappeared into the darkness and was never to be seen again.

  Pickle raised his head off the steering wheel and looked in his wing mirror, and even though his lover was maybe only yards away, only darkness could be seen.

  He composed himself and slowly drove away, and tried to keep his emotions in tact with little success. It was clear to Karen that she was now sitting next to a broken man. He continued to drive slowly, as the tears were making his vision impaired. Karen sat silently and looked at the distressed Pickle; her feelings were becoming fragile also, as she felt for her driver.

  She realised that she had forgotten to thank KP for saving her life; she looked in her side mirror in hope that he was still there, but he had gone. Pickle revved the van hard and had still kept it
in an unnecessary lower gear. She was about to advise him to change gear and then suddenly stopped herself, as she had an idea why he was doing it.

  The loud revving continued as the van loudly growled through the snaky roads. The audible revving of the engine did make them more vulnerable as far as attracting the dead were concerned, but it was also loud enough to drown out a gunshot. KP's eventual gunshot.

  Pickle turned the van at a sharp right bend, and finally slipped it into a higher gear it so craved.

  Karen took a look in the glove compartment and took out some hankies. She began to use them to wipe away some of the debris on the passenger side door where Pickle had shot one of them, but she was running out off hankies to remove the stubborn liquid. She wound down the window and threw the used tissues out, pulled the window back up and gawped at the distraught driver once more.

  "About KP," she began. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that you two…"

  Suddenly a figure could be seen up ahead. Pickle increased the pressure on the gas pedal, as he was unsure if it was a ghoul or not. As he passed the figure to his left, nearest to Karen in the passenger seat, it looked to be a young man and he began to frantically wave. Karen's eyes followed the man and could see drenched in the headlights in dark blue letters on his white T-shirt: 'Slightly Damaged Human.'

  "He was human," she announced, as the van purred by him.

  Pickle remained transfixed, looking through the windscreen and shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, well. Good luck to him."

  He never stopped for the frightened individual; he had no intention of stopping, but Karen refrained from trying to persuade him. Pickle was hurting, and a confrontation about picking somebody up they didn't even know was something Karen decided to avoid. She didn't want to start a fight with a man that had just lost his lover.

  She then thought about Jamie and Janine. Her throat began to swell.

  Chapter Fifty Three