Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3)

by Shaun Whittington

  Janine remained sitting and her left hand that flopped by the side of her body opened up, Jamie instantly held it and looked at her; his strong face told her that it was going to be okay. As for the morning shift, it seemed there wasn't going to be another officer to walk through the gates of the prison.

  The two of them sat slumped in their seats; the information had mentally drained them, and were both finding it difficult to take it all in. No wonder the prisoners were going mental. They all had access to radios and were probably listening to the information also.

  "You have family?" she questioned.

  "Thankfully, no. Well...not really. You?"

  She nodded. "My mum and dad...my brother."

  "No point going home, you live miles away and they'll be barricaded in their house, either that…"

  Jamie allowed his sentence to trail off, he wasn't thinking. His thin smile to Janine was his way of apologising for his crass, yet realistic, comment. He continued to hold her hand.

  "We should stay here," Janine suggested. "There's a canteen. Fuck everyone else."

  "And what about the prisoners?"

  Jamie had now let go of Janine's hand, not because she made a comment without engaging her brain—that was understandable as she was in shock, he simply let go because their palms were becoming clammy.

  Janine thought about her male colleague's question. They couldn't stay in the prison and eat what was left in the canteen, while six to seven hundred inmates from both house blocks slowly starved to death. Their conscience wouldn't allow that. If they did leave them, it would make them mass killers, worse than Seung-Hui Cho or Anders Breveik.

  Janine opened her mouth, and she was ready to ask her male colleague what his next plan of action was. The ringing from the phone in the bubble prevented her from beginning her sentence. Jamie walked over to the phone and picked it up.

  She stared at Jamie Thomson as he listened intently to the other officer on the line. Jamie quizzed, "What about the prisoners?" He hung up and looked over to Janine.

  She had to ask. "What is it?"

  "They're leaving," Jamie announced.

  "What about the prisoners? Our keys are different to the ones in house block one, they won't work."

  His body language suggested that the inmates in the house block were going to be left to their own devices.

  "What are we going to do?" She stood to her feet, awaiting his answer. This was a unique situation and she wasn't embarrassed to admit that she was frightened.

  She had already made up her mind that wherever Jamie Thomson went, she would go. It was selfish, but being by Jamie's side would enhance her own survival. She had seen him in action; she had seen him take down four prisoners in one go, he was a beast of a fighter and she wasn't going to leave his side. She just prayed her own family were okay.

  Jamie at last had finished his pause, and finally answered Janine's question. "There's nothing we can do about the guys in the other house block. But we're gonna release our prisoners."

  Chapter Four

  David Pointer had been given his first lie-in for months and embraced it with open arms. By day, David Pointer was a driving instructor and worked five days a week. His shifts were unpredictable as he worked for himself.

  His wife, Davina, worked night shift as an auxiliary nurse at Stoke hospital. She only worked two nights a week, and spent the rest of her time keeping the house in order, shopping, taking care of the bills and looking after their four-year-old daughter, Isobel.

  Their daughter was still too young for Primary school, so the routine was to take her to nursery at 8:30am, then pick her up at 11:30am and then to think of things to keep her entertained, such as jigsaws, painting and playing with her toys. Davina preferred the old fashioned way of entertaining her daughter; she didn't want her four-year-old hooked on computer games before she was even in her first year at school.

  David was awake; he looked over to the alarm clock and although it stated that he had slept for eleven hours, a personal record that David never even achieved when he was a teenager, he still felt powerless to get his body to move. He remained on the bed, his eyes glaring at the ceiling. He noticed a slight brown stain on the ceiling and made a mental note that that was his first job he was going to tackle, once he had had his breakfast.

  He swung his legs to the side of the bed and managed to sit up on the side with his feet touching the floor. He looked over to a bag that was sitting in the corner of the room. He forgot it was Sunday, which meant it was swim day.

  Every Sunday morning David would take Isobel to the local swimming baths; it was the highlight of the four-year-old's week. It was just her, spending the day with her daddy.

  He got off the bed and, fully naked, he walked over to the bag that had been made up by Davina only an hour ago. The small Minnie Mouse rubber ring stood next to the bag that had the usual swimwear in it as well as shampoo and some towels. David pulled out his top drawer and put a pair of shorts on. On the front, was a picture of Animal from The Muppets, a fun Christmas present from Davina. He also had matching socks, but decided to go for plain black.

  He opened the blinds, took a glimpse out into the garden and gawped to the left and right, scanning the neighbours' gardens. The sun shone brilliantly and David sighed with contentment. It was going to be a glorious day, he thought to himself.

  He opened the window to catch a stray breeze, and could hear a cacophony of sirens and, what sounded like, children shrieking from a few houses away. He smiled to himself and shut the window. He could have thought of worse places to live.

  He put on his jeans standing up, feeling his lower back smarting as it always did when he first got out of bed, and managed the task successfully without falling over.

  *

  Downstairs, Davina Pointer was dressed in her grey housecoat, a Christmas present from David, and wore nothing underneath it. She had on her burgundy slippers, and was making herself a cup of coffee. This had been the first time David had slept in for a while, and she looked at the clock thinking that he certainly was embracing every minute. She had been up since 7am, and had spent most of the morning with the curtains drawn, reading with Isobel, and watching Peppa Pig.

  It was now after ten, and she thought that twelve hours was more than enough for her husband. Now bored after spending three hours watching children's TV, she turned on her phone and logged onto her social network.

  Her eyes widened. Surely must be some mistake.

  She had never been so popular. She had thirteen messages on her personal message inbox. She placed the phone on the side of the sink, and patiently waited for the kettle to boil. She made her coffee, and with her right hand holding the cup and her left holding the phone, she began to scroll through the messages. She started from the bottom, and decided to work her way up from the earliest sent to the latest.

  The first message was sent at 7:46am; it was from her sister who lived in Norwich. It read: R u ok up there? Call me ASAP. Love you.

  Davina tucked her short brown hair behind her ears and shook her head. "What's wrong, sis?" she muttered to herself. "Has Barry left you again?"

  She checked the second message of the thirteen. It was from her work colleague, Amanda, who was working the night before—Davina was due to go in on Tuesday night. It read: Hi hun, can't make it tonight. I feel ill, gonna go to my bed and see how I feel later.

  Another five messages she had received were very short and asked her to put on the television. A couple others were random bullshit, apart from the one by her mother that was sent at 8:23am. It was Davina's final message.

  It read: Tried to call. Where are you? Your dad and me are hiding in the living room. They're banging on the windows, trying to get in. For God's sake, keep your doors locked. Get David to get you lot up in the attic. Look after that granddaughter of mine. Love you always, Mum.

  Davina stroked her upper lip with her forefinger and thumb, as if she had a moustache to play with. It was her thinking pose, but i
t didn't matter how hard she thought, she couldn't fathom what was going on. She read her mum's message once again. They're banging on the windows, trying to get in. What does she mean?

  She took a slurp from her piping cup of coffee and read the messages over and over. She placed her phone onto the side and strolled into the living room. Her daughter was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, colouring in her books. Davina switched over the channel to the news.

  The British news was proving difficult to get on; she punched in the channel number for the BBC and a message came up on the screen. There were four messages in bullet-points, telling the viewer that the programme was off the air due to the new circumstances that had occurred. It also advised people to stay indoors and to keep their doors and windows locked.

  Davina placed her hand on her chest and immediately thought about a nuclear attack, but then she reminded herself of her mother's message. They're banging on the windows, trying to get in. It wasn't making any sense.

  She decided to change the channel to CNN, as she couldn't get FOX news because it was a channel that they had to pay for, and it wasn't a channel that was in their package when they bought cable.

  As Isobel continued to use her crayons innocently in the corner of the room, Davina's mind slowly managed to digest some of the information that was being fed to her. Here eyes narrowed and her forehead scrunched tightly, creating wrinkles.

  Surely this has got to be a joke?

  She flicked through other channels that she never knew existed, and looking at the images that were being shown on Russia Today and Al Jazeera, she realised this was no joke. She put the channel back on to CNN.

  Davina looked up to the ceiling and could hear the gentle thuds coming from above; it sounded like David had finally awoken. Maybe he could make sense of all this. She got to her feet to greet her husband; her legs wobbled a little as she stood. The astonishment and surreal event of what was happening had stunned her so much she couldn't even feel her legs walking to the bottom of the stairs; it was as if she was floating.

  They're banging on the windows, trying to get in.

  "Morning," came David's tired greeting.

  He trudged down the stairs, where at the bottom, Davina was waiting for him. Her skin was snowy white; the blood from her face had been wanted by other parts of her body. "Morning."

  David stood still on the very last step and gazed at his wife; he was certain she had received a distressing phone call. A relative had died? Her mum? But then again, Davina was a sensitive soul. She also looked this way when she found out that Amy Winehouse had passed away. He didn't know what to think, so he asked her what was wrong.

  She shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I think you need to sit down and watch the TV. I'm just gonna double check the doors and windows are locked, and then go upstairs and get dressed."

  "Okay." David's head was being suffocated by mystification.

  Davina walked past him and checked the front door, as she went through the other rooms downstairs. David smiled at his daughter, who smiled back, and then sat down on the brown leather couch and gaped at the television for a minute to be greeted by shaky mobile phone footage and presenters looking like they had seen a ghost.

  Shit!

  Chapter Five

  It had been an arduous shift in the A and E department, and it had been a typical Saturday night/Sunday morning as the grade D staff nurse was coming to the end of her shift.

  Her feet ached for her shoes to be kicked off, her head pounded and she would have welcomed eight hours sleep right now. It had been a crazier night than normal. So much so, that a four-man armed police guard had to be issued in the department, which had been the first time she had experienced anything like that—albeit she was only twenty-three and had only been qualified for two years.

  At around midnight the usual drunks had wandered in; stomachs were pumped, some were aggressive than normal, and a junior doctor was even bit by one of the drunks. It took three nurses to restrain the attacker, and that was when they needed to call the police. The junior doctor was treated and taken to another unit.

  Around 6am, Staff Nurse Karen Bradley, had taken her break and found that the ward had been overrun with people who had received bite wounds, just like the gang member the night before. It had been a surreal night; three nurses as well as the junior doctor had been attacked, and she was seriously considering a new career.

  The Saturday before, the department had dealt with twelve drunks, two stabbings and a young girl who had been killed by a hit and run driver. There had been a lot of local media attention surrounding the town suggesting that knife crime was rising by an alarming rate. A week later, a biting epidemic seemed to be the new thing. What on earth next?

  Since the government cuts, Karen had felt like she was trying to do her job with one hand tied behind her back. Beds were short; staff were not being replaced by the ones that were leaving, so the remaining staff had to deal with what crap was thrown at them. It had come to the point that they had to start and turn away patients, and refer them to the nearest hospital in Stoke, as Stafford was heaving.

  Five minutes before her shift had finished, she and another nurse were attacked by an individual who ran in from the outside and tried to bite them. Luckily for the pair of them, nobody was injured as a police officer had restrained the crazed individual. Her boss had asked her to do some overtime, but she refused. She had had enough, and welcomed her two days off that she was due.

  She walked out of the department briskly, almost in tears because of the crazy night that she had experienced, and went towards her vehicle which was thankfully parked near the A and E department, and she took the short journey to her Cherokee jeep.

  She fumbled for her keys, fired the ignition, and slipped the jeep into first without putting on her seatbelt. She shook her head as she saw mindless idiots in a daze strolling around the staff car park; there were three to be exact, and one even ran with a hobble towards the department's entrance.

  The hospital was away from the town centre, and almost in the middle of the countryside, which was a pain for patients who had no car, but Karen liked that, as she thought if the hospital was situated right in the heart of the town they would be inundated with patients with minor problems. Minor problems that could be solved with a small bandage, or a burn, that could have been easily treated with an immediate run of a cold tap.

  She pulled out of the hospital car park and headed towards her hometown of Rugeley. She was missing her bed, and more importantly, couldn't wait to snuggle up to her boyfriend who always loved his lie-in on a Sunday, as he always went out with the boys on a Saturday night.

  As she exited Stafford, she headed for the country. It was another two miles before she would reach her hometown and blasted up her iPod and began to sing out to a track from a Stereophonics album she had purchased a few weeks ago. In the distance, she saw a figure up ahead who was shuffling slowly in the middle of the road.

  Fuck 'em, she thought.

  She had already done her bit working in that crazy hospital; she was too tired to play Mother Teresa and give a drunk a ride home. Besides, picking up a drunken man wouldn't have been one of her better ideas. Her Gary certainly wouldn't be too impressed with her kind-hearted behaviour, if she did indeed stop for the individual.

  As the man stumbled to the other side of the road, she felt comfortable that she could pass him without slowing down, and more importantly not strike the drunken fellow.

  At last, she entered the town and bizarrely saw a handful of people shuffling around the streets; two were in the road. She shook her head and wondered if it had been a charity 'drink yourself into oblivion weekend.' Too tired to even care, she pulled up into her quiet street, and parked the jeep into the drive. She looked at her house and sighed with contentment.

  For a twenty-three-year-old, she was lucky to have such a place. With her twenty-six-year-old boyfriend being a newly qualified lawyer, she kn
ew it was a place she couldn't afford on her own nurse's wage.

  She stepped out of the jeep and headed towards the front door. She took a gander to her left in the desolate street. Her instincts also forced her to look to her right.

  She saw one of her neighbours dressed in sports attire; it was Sharon Henderson. She was a fitness instructor at the local gym, and would religiously go for her Sunday morning jogs without fail. It seemed that this particular morning, her exercise session wasn't going to take place, as she tried to chat to a person that was stumbling towards her in the street. She asked if that person was okay, but there was no answer from the worn-looking individual, just a gentle moan. To Karen, he looked like a drunk—but more than that, he looked like a drunk that had been dragged through a hedge and then beaten up.

  Karen saw the woman being pulled to the floor by the being she had never seen before.

  "Sharon!" Karen called out, totally confused.

  Her body nudged forward to help her neighbour who was situated twenty yards away, but fear had paralysed her legs temporarily and instead of helping the distressed woman, she stood and watched the whole event that was about to unravel before her shocked eyes.

  She called out helplessly once more. "Sharon!"

  Her neighbour never called back, and now her attacker fell on top of the fitness fanatic and buried its head into her neck. Karen couldn't see what was happening in this bizarre, surreal situation, but the high-pitched scream from her female neighbour suggested that her throat was being ripped out by the thing that was on top of her.

  This was confirmed, when it lifted its head and blood ran from its mouth that chewed at something frantically. Its mastication was rushed and it went in for another bite. The screaming had stopped from Sharon as a pool of crimson developed around her neck area, and she lay lifeless on the pavement, apart from the twitch in her left leg. It stood to its feet as if it was bored by its prey and turned towards Karen.