"That was fucking mad!" Pickle exclaimed; his adrenaline was clear for all to see, as his body shook with excitement like a five-year-old child on Christmas day.
"There were loads of them." Janine shuddered. "Makes you wonder how places like London and Manchester are coping if that's what can happen to a little village."
"I'm sure the survival rate would be the same," Pickle expressed. "At least in the cities there're high up places, apartments and offices to hide in for a few days."
"Not much use if those things are already in your office or apartment," Jamie snickered falsely, the same way someone would politely laugh at a bad joke in order not to offend the storyteller.
Pickle went to the back of the van and opened up the vehicle; the three inmates spilled out of the back and groaned as they were introduced to sunlight once again.
"That was scary shit," Laz spoke, running his trembling fingers through his greasy grey hair. "Was that noise what I think it was?"
Pickle, Jamie and Janine all nodded simultaneously.
"Are you okay?" KP asked Pickle.
Pickle nodded and appeared a tad embarrassed with KP's concern, which baffled Janine.
KP sauntered over to the car park of the Wolseley Arms and stroked his short beard. He looked around at the pub and saw the sight of the River Trent that he hadn't seen in years. "Why don't we stay here for a night?"
"Why?" Pickle asked, and looked over at the pub. "So we can spend all night getting drunk?"
KP beamed. "And what's wrong with that? Besides, there should be plenty of food in there. I quite fancy a rib-eye steak myself. In the morning we can put whatever's left in the back of the van."
Jamie looked to Pickle. "He's got a point. We could stuff our faces for a night on good food, before we move on and have to eat what's in the back of the van."
Pickle stroked his chin, and a thin smile emerged on his face. "I think it's fair to say, I haven't had a decent meal in years." Pickle turned to Jamie and then said, "Yer do realise that four inmates who haven't had a proper drink in years and being allowed in a pub, isn't the greatest idea in the world? It's gonna be messy."
"That's all right," Jamie tittered. "We're all on the same side now, as long as they don't do anything stupid and attract unwanted attention. The pub looks solid enough, just make sure we lock up and we'll be fine."
Pickle took out his Browning shotgun. "Let me check the place out first."
"Erm...and where're our guns," KP joked.
Pickle patted his sports bag. "You'll get them as soon as I've taught yer how to shoot 'em."
"And when will that be?"
"After I've checked the place out. This is the plan: Jamie and Janine have been on nightshift, so we should let 'em sleep for a few hours. Then we do a bit o' shooting practice, I'll show yer how to load, reload and take yer pistol apart, as it needs to be cleaned. We won't shoot much, don't wanna waste the bullets or attract too much attention. Then we can lock the place up, eat and get drunk. Then we head to Stile Cop in the morning."
"I'll cook," KP chipped in.
Laz looked at Jamie. "KP worked in the prison kitchens; he's a great cook."
Jamie nodded his head. "I do know. I used to work there."
Janine, who was standing next to Jamie, said to Laz. "He doesn't say much," she spoke, referring to Grass, who was propped against the van chewing on his fingernails.
"Nah," Laz responded. "He's a quiet one; he's just a boy really. Probably just frightened; we all are."
Pickle left the group to stretch their legs; he tried the main door of the pub and was pleased that forcing it open was unnecessary as it was already unlocked. He walked alone into the establishment and entered the lounge. It was an old-fashioned country pub that sat next to the bank of the river, and there was a fireplace at the end of the lounge, and all the seats and tables looked heavy and made from oak.
He looked into the barren bar area and was pleased to pick up a set of keys for the place as well as some menus. He put the shotgun down and looked through the menus. Everything that wasn't available in the prison was on the menu: Burgers, steaks, pizza, ribs, the more he read, the more he salivated and his stomach growled impatiently.
He carefully took the stairs and went to the first floor and checked the living arrangements. He checked the living room and bedrooms, and was satisfied—although a little baffled—that the owners had decided to leave once the crisis had been announced. There was no car in the car park to suggest that there was any sign of life inside, but he needed to be sure.
There was one more place to check.
The cellar.
Every pub had a cellar.
In the bar area there was a small wooden door; it was padlocked. Sure that the door led to the pub's cellar, Pickle placed his ear against it. He could hear faint groaning, and sighed as the moans told him that at least one of them was inside.
How did it get in there? Was it a worker?
He used the butt of the gun to break the lock, and after three attempts, it began to give way, but he felt the noise he was making probably enticed the thing to the door. He was correct, as the noise that he had made seemed so severe that he could hear thuds coming from behind the wooden door. He had attracted the attention of the creature and with no hesitation he opened the door, which revealed a former young girl dressed in waitress attire. It immediately raised its arms reaching for Pickle; its face was grey, the eyes were lifeless and her mouth was almost purple. She looked more like a victim of domestic abuse more than anything else.
He fleetly responded by striking the thing hard in the face with the butt of the gun; it fell backward down the concrete ramp that was normally used to roll barrels of beer down. If it was steps, Pickle was pretty sure the thing wouldn't have been able to climb them to the door. It had struggled and crawled to get up, tumbling hard. He, at last, managed to find the light switch to the cellar that was situated outside to the left of him. The place lit up once he flicked it and it was like any normal cellar, apart from the body at the bottom of the ramp.
It had wine racks with numerous bottles, and barrels of beer situated in the corner. The body at the bottom began to flinch, and Pickle quickly trotted down and stood over the thing. It appeared that the frightened owners may have put the infected girl in there themselves, locked her in, and fled the establishment. He couldn't think of any other scenario that made sense how she got there in the first place.
Because the being was already in a precarious position and there was no danger to Pickle's life, he decided to save on a valuable cartridge. He turned the gun around and used the butt of the shotgun to hammer at the young girl's head that still lay on the floor.
He slammed the gun at the skull, and it eventually cracked like an Easter egg. A black substance oozed out of the top of the skull, and more followed as he delivered the final blow that revealed a black and diseased brain that half-slipped out like a stone from a ripped open peach. He felt queasy, but knew it had to be done.
He carefully placed his shotgun on the floor and dragged the body to the corner of the cellar; the smell from the body was foul, like a sewer full of dead fish. Pickle guessed that the body had already been technically dead for many hours, as only death could smell that bad.
He trotted back upstairs and wiped the butt of his pride and joy with a dusting cloth that sat on the bar. He walked through the lounge and stepped out into the glow of sunshine to greet his new friends.
"It's all clear."
Chapter Twenty Four
Oliver could hear the filtering whispers of leaves in the timid breeze, and the bracken clung to his feet as if they were anxious about something. The woods were surrounded by the call of crickets that sang beneath the shy sun that shone timidly through the gaps of the trees, and the wind hushed again, but this time, the leaves' voices were slightly muffled.
He looked at his watch. It had been half an hour since Karen had fallen asleep, and it was heading for midday. He could tell by her heavy
snoring that she had fallen into a deep one. He spent the last thirty minutes exercising his neck muscles, not intentionally, but his unbalanced mind suffocated his thinking.
Every snap of a twig, every rustle of a branch, and every tweet from a bird, forced Oliver to twist around to see if the coast was clear. The woods were heavily overcrowded, so it wouldn't take much to be ambushed. He tried to brainwash his mind by telling it over and over that if those things were to head for their area, he would hear their clumsy progression first. Because the things walked awkwardly, it would be impossible for them not to make any kind of noise.
He opened up his bag, took out a bottle of water and took a measurable gulp. He looked back at Karen and looked around, embarrassed what had to be done next. He could feel his bowels loosening and took out a kitchen roll from his bag. He stood to his feet, his knees cracking as he straightened the legs, and crept deeper into the woods with his short-handled axe in his left hand. He took one last look around him before dropping his trousers and squatting down.
A rustle behind him forced him to crack his neck, as he saw a figure move many yards away from him. It was a grey squirrel.
He laughed and whispered jokingly, "I can't go if I'm being watched."
As if the squirrel could understand English, it scampered off and left Oliver to complete his task. He used up six sheets of the kitchen roll, and left the evidence in a small, neat, smelly pile.
As he pulled his trousers up, he felt guilty for what he had done, but it was something that was out of his control. He walked through the bushes to see Karen still sleeping, but she had become restless. Her head was shaking from side to side, and she began murmuring nonsensical stuff that baffled Oliver.
He placed his hands on her shoulder, in two minds whether he should wake her up. Her murmuring was becoming more aggressive and he wrapped his arms around the distressed woman comfortingly.
She woke with a fright and pushed Oliver in the chest and screamed, "Get off me!"
"Relax." Oliver looked generally hurt at Karen's action. "You sounded distressed, I was just comforting you."
Karen breathed out and once her head became clearer, she shook her head and apologised. "I'm sorry. You caught me in mid-dream."
Oliver sat down next to her. "It sounded like a bad one."
Karen ran the palms of her clammy hands through her hair. "I was just re-living what happened this morning with Gary, and something that happened at Milford."
"I'm not being patronising," Oliver spoke with sincerity. "What you've gone through this morning is similar to what the rest of the survivors have gone through. Some have gone through worse and have seen their loved ones eaten before their very eyes. I'm not saying your story isn't horrific, but any survivors that we meet up with, if we meet up with any, they will have their own personal horror story to tell as well."
Karen reluctantly agreed with what Oliver had said, although it didn't make her feel any better. She felt he was hinting for her to stop feeling sorry for herself, but he was correct to say there were people worse off: People who had to witness their own family being ripped to pieces, their children, their parents.
Karen tried not to think about it and asked Oliver for a drink of water. She handed him back the bottle and rose to her feet and wiped the bottom of her nose with her thumb.
"Where are you going?"
"For a piss," she snapped.
Oliver tittered and joked, "That's not very lady-like."
"Well, neither are blowjobs, but you men don't complain about that." Karen responded to his remark with disdain and disappeared for a few minutes.
The thirty-four-year-old man lay down on the grass and gazed at the broken bits of blue sky that he could see through the stretching trees. Although, unlike Karen, he had had a decent sleep the night before, he still could have gone for another hour. Now that his adrenaline had diminished, he felt exhausted. He sat back up, knowing that another minute of this tranquillity and he really would drift off.
*
Karen pulled up her underwear and her uniformed blue trousers. She looked at her trousers and it seemed an age ago since she worked at the hospital. Her black T-shirt was covered in grass and she brushed herself down.
She walked over to Oliver and saw that he wasn't there anymore. His bag lay on the floor, so she was definitely in the right place and couldn't wait to go further into the woods. She knew that the further they went in, the less condensed the trees were, and there was actual dirt paths they could follow. She heard the rustling, but whatever it was, it seemed too quick to be a Snatcher, as Oliver called them. She stood up straight and her nerve held, as it was Oliver who jogged through the trees.
"Where have you been?" she demanded, with relief in her tone.
"I heard a noise, I went back down and I could see the cemetery."
"Idiot! There were nine of those things down there when I left. They could have seen you."
"It's okay," Oliver protested. "There's only one there at the edge of the woods, but the rest that you just mentioned don't seem to be there anymore. They must have gone back to the edge of town."
"If we make so much as a noise, it'll be up here, and could bring more up along with the rest from Draycott Park. We're talking hundreds, and then maybe the population of the town will follow. We're then talking thousands."
"It's okay."
Oliver could see that Karen was becoming agitated, and began to bite her nails. She looked up at the thirty-something male. "Give me your axe."
"Why?"
"Because if there's one, more will follow. We need to get rid of that one by the woods now."
"You don't know that; they can't communicate with one another for Christ's sake."
"Just give me the fuckin' axe."
The mild-mannered Oliver Bellshaw was taken aback by the ferocity in Karen's voice. Oliver stood tall and shook his head defiantly. "No, I won't."
Karen pulled out her thick branch that she had taken earlier, and showed it to Oliver, as if she was saying that if she didn't get the axe, she's gonna do it anyway with this.
Oliver stood firm, and Karen stormed by him. Oliver grabbed her arm and took a heavy left hook into his cheekbone for his troubles.
In a matter of minutes, their relationship had deteriorated, and Karen was heading for the solitary man-eater drifting their way. She didn't want to do it; she felt she had no choice.
Oliver wished he had kept his mouth shut; he sat down, convinced Karen was going to come back with a change of heart, but three minutes had passed and there was still no sign of her.
He paced up and down the small area that was circled by trees and hoped that she would come back in one piece. He wanted to go after her, but the truth was, he was petrified. He had never killed one of them before, and was quite content to spend his life running if it meant staying alive.
A faint rustling could be heard in front of him and was relieved to see Karen had returned. Maybe once she saw it, she changed her mind.
"Fuckin' cocksucker," she muttered, as she wiped some of the dark spray off her left cheek and placed the thick branch onto the grass, staining the green blades with the creature's blood.
Oliver gulped hard. Karen was a woman, but she had more balls than he would ever have. She tried to shrug the killing off, but he could see she was a nervous wreck and felt it was something that she had to do. Oliver remained silent, but he offered her a bottle of water, and she took it off him without uttering a word.
Chapter Twenty Five
David Pointer and his wife sat in silence, mesmerized by their daughter who was playing with her tea set, completely oblivious to the crumbling decaying world around her.
The daughter and the mother had both had a pee in one of the buckets while David was out, and he knew there and then, that this situation was going to grow worse as time went on. He never told his wife about the creatures and his episode in the back garden, he didn't want to worry her. He didn't want to tell her that they were almost surr
ounded. David was sure that this was information she didn't need to know.
He needed his highly-strung wife to be as calm as she could be, and extra negative information about the situation they were in would only enhance her angst, and David was certain that if Davina began freaking, their daughter would feed off this and would know that there was something wrong.
They looked at one another and smiled thinly; the situation they were in was hopeless. They had only been in the attic for a matter of hours, and already knew what each one was thinking: We need to get out of here.
Davina only knew half of the situation, and even without knowing that they were being surrounded by many of those things, she came to her own conclusion that the danger out there was horrendous, and this attic situation just wasn't going to work.
The choices were not attractive.
What did they want? To be cooped up and face a fate of eventual dehydration, or the fear of being torn to pieces? What kind of life is that for a four-year-old girl?
At first there was relief that they were somewhere reasonably safe, but a month down the line, they would be mentally ill with the boredom and enclosure. They would be starving, which meant David would have to leave the house and put his life in danger to loot a place. Eventually, months down the line, there would be nothing left to loot. Houses and shops would be empty.
They needed to go somewhere where there were less of them, somewhere where the population was low. A farm maybe, or a little village like Colton or Hazelslade where the area was surrounded by the woods.
"I need the toilet." David smiled at his wife.
His wife pointed at the bucket, her face telling her husband that already she was losing hope. Not just for their survival, but for the future of her daughter.
"No," David spoke. "I mean I really need the toilet."
Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3) Page 14
