"I'm afraid I can't do that," announced Shaz.
He then moved the knife from Karen's throat and placed the blade against her cheek. "She's cut me, now it's my turn to cut her."
Karen remained motionless; she was scared, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of him knowing this. She could feel his breath on the back of her head and gave Shaz a wide-eyed look as if she was trying to communicate with the thirty-year-old.
Karen dropped her head a few inches, feigning tiredness, then quickly threw her head back and connected with Mangy's nose. He released a painful yelp, and she then stamped on his foot, speedily turned around and tried to prise the knife out of his clutches by grabbing his wrist with both off her hands. It became a struggle, until Shaz ran over and struck his wrist with her cleaver.
Mangy released an awful scream, and his disbelieving eyes grew like saucers once he could see his hand hanging off of his wrist, blood escaping plentifully onto the carpet.
"You stupid bitch!" he screamed, and continued to look at the damage to his hand.
Karen grabbed the bag off of the floor while the injured man remained on his knees in the corner, and she calmly began taking clothing items from the cupboard, while the injured man fell onto his back and writhed about.
"Any preference?" she called over to Shaz, over the male screams, but Shaz shook her head and just wanted to get the hell out of there.
Once the bag was filled, Karen threw it over her shoulder and told Shaz to fill hers. Then they were leaving.
Karen walked past her and opened the door. "You coming or not?"
Shaz filled her bag and then pointed at Mangy; he was still on the floor, sobbing with the pain. "What about him?"
"Leave him. He deserves everything he gets."
Chapter Fifty Two
"Where are they? They should be here by now?"
Vince was pacing up and down on top of the HGV that was blocking the Armitage Road, and was waiting on a vehicle that had been sent out over an hour ago after their own pub excursion.
Claire quickly turned her head, making her blonde ponytail swing from side-to-side, and held her finger out to Vince, telling him politely not to utter another word. "I can hear an engine," she said.
Vince brought up the shotgun, and aimed it at the brow of the hill, ready for whatever was going to emerge over it.
It was one of his own, as he recognised the pick-up truck straight away, and this made Vince breathe some relief and even managed a smile across his face. The vehicle stopped by the HGV and waited for the thing to move so they could go through and into the camp.
Vince climbed down from the truck and sauntered over to the vehicle that had just arrived. Vince looked at the back of the truck and grinned at the faces of the men when they got out of the vehicle. Both men were carrying shotguns, and Vince asked Claire, who had just sat in the HGV ready to reverse it back and allow the truck in, to hold on for a minute.
He took a look at what they had. "There's a shit load of stuff here." Vince beamed and patted both men on the shoulders, who took the praise and seemed rather smug with themselves.
The driver said, "We had to drive a bit further out, up through the countryside, but we saw an abandoned house and basically everything that was in it is in the back of the truck."
Vince then scowled in confusion, furrowing his brow, and pointed at the two large canisters. "Is that what I think it is?"
Both men from the pick-up truck looked at one another and smiled; they were certainly in Vince's good books on this particular evening. They both nodded, and the driver added, "Two large canisters of fuel; the one on the left is diesel, we've marked them."
Vince looked to see that they had marked, faintly in chalk, petrol and diesel on each canister. "Petrol stations?"
"We tried the two that we had passed," the passenger was speaking now and began to pick his teeth with his forefinger, "but they were completely empty and raided."
To quash Vince's confusion, the driver pointed at the labelled canisters and said, "We siphoned some cars to get those."
"Fuck me," Vince laughed. "You've certainly done well tonight, lads. The diesel will be great for the generators. You can never have enough."
Claire wound the window down of the HGV and asked if they were coming in or not. Vince held his hand up at her, rudely, as if he was gesturing to the impatient woman that he was still talking and she shouldn't interrupt.
The passenger spoke, "We came across the diesel just by chance."
Vince folded his arms. "Oh?"
The driver added, "A couple of miles up the road, there's a bit of a smash. Some sporty car and a black jeep."
Vince turned around and could see that, with her window wound down, Claire could hear every word and knew that there was a good chance that inside that black jeep they were talking about was Jack Slade.
"Did you get a look inside?" asked Vince.
The driver shook his head. "We saw the bodies slumped in their seats, so we just took the gas."
Vince nodded his head and motioned for Claire to reverse the HGV back, and allow the pick-up truck through. She never responded; so he motioned again. Again, the HGV never reversed back, in fact, Claire never even started the engine.
Vince turned around and glared at the twenty-seven-year-old. He looked at the two men and released a sigh. "Give me a minute, will you?"
Both men nodded obediently. The driver asked, "What's going on?"
Ignoring the driver, Vince looked at Claire. "It was his decision to leave."
"I know." Claire bit her lower lip. She liked Vince. He had been good to her, but she felt under all that bravado was a man who had a kind heart. "You can't just leave him there, Vince."
"We don't even know it's definitely him."
Claire stared at Vince with those big, beautiful eyes of hers and nodded. "It is."
"I don't give a shit. He's made his bed. He can lie in it."
"He'd be a good addition to the camp. You know that."
"Yeah, once he gets rid of his soft attitude." Vince smacked the side of the HGV with the palm of his right hand, clicked his fingers and pointed at Claire. "They said that the men were slumped in their seats, so he might be dead."
She huffed, "He might not."
Vince rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. He looked back at the two men who stood patiently for their leader to make some kind of a decision.
"Okay." Vince scratched his head full of grey hair. "Can you gentleman keep guard for half an hour or so? We're gonna have to go out and pick up Claire's boyfriend," mocked Vince.
Protested Claire, "He's not—"
"Well you seem to like him, don't you?"
Claire never answered.
"Move the lorry back," Vince instructed Claire. "We'll both go out in another truck." He then pointed at the pick-up truck that the two men had returned in. "I'm not looking for him with a pick-up truck full of food and gas. If any looters out there jump us, they'll think their Christmases have all come at once."
Claire started up the engine of the lorry and reversed back with a wry smile on her face.
"Are you sure about this?" one of the men called out.
Vince nodded and joked, "I'm done arguing with her. Besides, we don't wanna be pissing her off too much. I think she might be on the blob. And in my book, anything that can bleed for a week and not die, is pure evil."
Both men began to cackle, but Claire was less than impressed.
"Come on," he looked at her morose face. "Where's your sense of humour?"
"It went weeks ago," she calmly spoke.
"Okay, we're going, lads. We won't be long."
One of the men called out, "But it'll be dark soon, Vince."
"I know, guys," Vince pointed at a determined Claire sitting in the HGV's driver's seat. "But there's two ways to argue with a woman. And let me tell you that neither one works."
Chapter Fifty Three
Both Karen and Shaz strolled through the str
eet and both, in unison, turned around as if it was the last time they would see it. At the end of the street was a road to the right that led into the heart of the estate, and Karen wondered that with the amount of action that this one street had seen, what else was going on in the others, even the whole town.
She remembered how her own street was when the outbreak was first announced, when there were scores of them. But was that still the situation now? Or had some rotted away and fell to the floor in pieces, and the new danger for the town now were individuals willing to kill others for their own survival.
Suddenly, behind the girls around the corner of the street, five beasts emerged and headed for the young women while their backs were turned.
"Karen." Shaz's voice was controlled when she had heard shuffling behind her, and both women faced the five ghouls lumbering towards them, rather quickly.
Karen shrugged, took off her bag, and pulled out her machete, "Jesus, these ones are really quick. Do we run or get rid?"
Shaz, without making any verbal or physical response, dropped her bag and pulled out the cleaver. She stepped forwards, struck the first one and killed it, but she struggled to release the embedded weapon. "Shit!"
The thing fell on top of her, dead. And as she struggled to get the thing off of her, another one, whose left part off the face was hanging off, made its way towards her. Karen ran forward and took half the cranium away from a once-male that was completely naked, apart from a dirty pair of Kermit the Frog boxer shorts it was wearing. It fell with a large amount of blood gushing out onto the road as it made impact with the concrete.
Karen then set her sights on the female who was dressed in Lycra. It appeared that her trip to the gym had somewhat been rudely interrupted by the apocalypse. Karen took a swipe at the thing who simultaneously reached out to grab her, and the machete took its right hand off.
Unbothered of the loss of a limb, it continued to walk towards Karen, who was now a little distracted that her new friend was struggling to get free and had the dilemma of another one heading towards her. The thing lashed out with its left hand, and Karen side-kicked it into the stomach. It fell backwards, giving her precious seconds of breathing space, and she went over to the struggling Shaz and struck out at the ghoul that was yards away. It fell to the floor, but Karen had no time to help Shaz get up, as the two remaining beasts quickly moved towards them.
Shaz struggled to her feet, whereas Karen quickly walked backwards on the road and fell over onto the pavement. Her heels had hit the kerb, and the back of her head had taken a knock. She dropped the machete onto the floor, and she was sprawled out onto her back.
The back of her head received a little trauma and she could see the disgusting thing getting nearer, and then it fell on top of her. She grabbed the thing by the throat, desperate for its mouth to be away from her flesh, and winced as its smell assaulted her senses. She took a quick second to look at Shaz's predicament, and she seemed to be in a far less dangerous state.
Shaz was trying to avoid her attacker, but had no weapon, as the embedded cleaver remained in her first victim. It appeared that Shaz was trying to entice the thing away from the other body, so she could have a few seconds to make a run for the cleaver and try and prise it out.
With her one hand, Karen tried with all her strength to push her assailant away; her right hand was outstretched, feeling for the machete that was frustratingly only a few yards away.
Because she was holding the thing back with the one hand, she could feel that the Snatcher was winning the battle as she was weakening. She decided to forget about the machete and concentrate more on not getting bit.
With both hands, she grabbed its neck and pushed it further up. Its mouth opened, and Karen retched when she saw that the thing's mouth was littered with maggots. Some of the things fell out and landed on her shirt, but she tried to not let this affect her, as she had more pressing matters to be concerned about than a few insects. The maggots continued to wriggle excitedly and a couple fell from its left nostril, which told her that its insides were completely infested with the flesh-eating insects.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a whizzing sound could be heard and the head of the thing exploded. Karen quickly threw her head to the side as blood hit her in the face, and the thing became motionless. She moved the ghoul off of her and stood up immediately, brushing off the few maggots that were aching for flesh. She then realised what had happened and rapidly scanned the area of the street, and then tried to look in the windows of the houses belonging to the next road.
Shaz had finally managed to get the cleaver free while her 'admirer' was still trying to catch her up. But before the exhausted woman had chance to strike, the front of her attacker's skull received trauma from 'bullet number two' that had originally entered the back of its head. It fell to the floor with a slump, and the fall to the concrete increased the damage to its head.
Both Karen and Shaz were stunned and out of breath.
They looked at one another, and the two women, who were both sprayed with blood and drenched in sweat, slowly peered around the area that was devoid of human life.
Shaz then became a little distracted when she saw the maggots pouring out of the mouth and onto the road of Karen's, now defunct, attacker that had received a bullet from a mystery gunman. She pulled a face and asked, "How did that happen?"
"Insects are attracted to decomposition," Karen explained robotically, not even eyeing Shaz, and proceeded to look around to see where those damn bullets had come from. "Flies will lay eggs in skin openings and in entrances to the body; nose, ears and mouth. Maggots will hatch and start eating the decomposing flesh. But forget about that. My question is: Where the fuck did those bullets come from?"
"I don't know."
Shaz tried to look at every window—not just the windows in the street they were standing in, but the windows that belonged to houses in other streets, behind. "Are we being watched?"
Karen Bradley shook her head. She was unsure. "Possibly; but whoever shot those things must be friendly and no danger to us, otherwise we'd both be dead by now."
Shaz put the cleaver into her belt and squatted to the floor in the middle of the carnage of the bodies they had just killed, and the bodies from the day before that Karen and Pickle had executed. "This place stinks."
Karen was trying to get her breath back. Once she had given up scanning for the shooter and was reasonably sure his or her action was in the girls' best interests, she looked around at the fresh carnage that had taken place, and wasn't impressed with their 'work'. "For fuck's sake. Five of them, and we needed help with that."
"We were tired before we came down," was Shaz's defensive response.
Karen's facial expression was in agreement with Shaz's comment. "Maybe I should have waited till the morning. Don't tell Pickle. I don't want him knowing about this." Karen giggled, "I'll never live it down."
"I think we should go."
"I think that's a great idea."
An exhausted Karen threw the bag of clothes over her shoulder, Shaz did the same, and both girls strolled their way out of the street and onto the football field. They both looked up at the hill that they had to climb, and both released false laughter, knowing that the cabin was going to be a bitch to get to.
Karen kept on repeating, 'I should've waited till the morning', over and over again, as if she was punishing herself for making the spontaneous decision to go and get clothing.
"Look on the bright side," Shaz tried to appease. "We'll sleep like babies tonight."
"That's for sure," Karen responded; but she wasn't sure.
Karen's mind wandered; it plagued her psyche that she didn't know who the shooter was. She never actually heard the gunshots and wondered if the shooter had had a silencer attached to his/her rifle, or maybe they just couldn't hear the shot over the yelling and groans coming from both the women and the ghouls combined.
Whether the gun had a silencer or not, who was the shooter? Ex-army? A soldi
er that had escaped and fled his position? Or just a random psychopath with an arsenal of weapons and was now finally putting them to some good use?
She had no idea, and knew that, exhaustion or not, this was going to mentally torture her when she finally settled down to get some shuteye.
Chapter Fifty Four
The smashed and crumpled vehicles had been stationary for the last half an hour, and the Vauxhall Corsa was smoking at the front. The man inside was unconscious, moaning a little, but the dashboard had been pushed and crushed so much, due to the impact, that a lot of debris had been inserted into his stomach and chest. The man was losing blood and was minutes away from death.
The other man, Jack Slade, wasn't wearing a seatbelt when the impact occurred. He had minor whiplash and had hit his head on the dashboard when the Corsa ploughed into the side of the black jeep. He had been unconscious, but was finally coming around.
For a moment, Jack thought he was waking up in his own bed. He looked around the inside off the jeep; his eyes then saw the state of the Vauxhall Corsa, and had noticed that both cars were sitting in the middle of the crossroads. To the right of him was Stile Cop beauty spot, Hazelslade was straight on, and the road to the left led to Longdon.
He then realised what had happened.
He realised that he wasn't at home anymore, and he was probably never going to see his home again. He understood that Thomas was deceased, and that the world had turned into an apocalyptic place.
His realisation had depressed him, but before he had any more time to dwell on this and burst into tears, a mixture of hideous and familiar moans and groans could be heard to the left of him.
A small group of the dead could be seen coming down the Longdon Road, the road to the left, and they clumsily progressed towards the two cars. Jack struggled to get out. He was beginning to think he was cursed every time he got behind the wheel of a vehicle.
Snatchers (Book 3): The Dead Don't Cry Page 24
