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

by Shaun Whittington

  He tried his best to keep his eyes on the road and was, so far, doing it with success. He couldn't get anything on the station and looked up and felt his heart jump into his mouth as one solitary walker appeared from nowhere and was slammed by the Clio, its body splitting in half with ease. Drenched in panic, and with his windscreen being decorated with dark fluid from the walking corpse, he released a gasp. Jason then steered briskly to the left, albeit too late, and the car swung round ninety degrees, hit the side of the fence and toppled a few times, like a rolled dice, until it came to an early stop.

  He was out cold for ten minutes.

  His eyes opened slowly and the constant banging and slapping on the vehicle aroused his suspicions. Although it took a few seconds for his brain to register what was happening, when he did realise he shot up and quickly felt for the door handle. The car had rolled back onto its wheels after the crash, and Jason was mildly concussed. Now he was trapped in a real nightmare scenario. The motor was finished for sure, and was sat crumpled in what looked like a farmers field.

  Outside there was three of them, all at the driver's side, only inches away from Jason, and all were ashen with their bloated, gross faces, snarling at the potential protein meal that sat inside. They growled and slammed the window with their fists. Sometimes when they snarled, dark blood would exit out of their mouths and splat onto the driver's side window. Jason frantically searched for the tyre iron, and once he found it on the floor next to the passenger seat, he wasted no time in exiting the vehicle before more of them turned up and ended up covering both sides of the door.

  He shuffled over to the passenger seat, the gear stick caressing his buttocks while doing this, and tried to open the passenger door. The creatures suddenly realised that their meal was trying to escape, and stumbled around the car to get to the other side. Noticing this, a panic-stricken Jason pulled the door handle and then kicked it open. The door swung open, and the inmate jumped out with the tyre iron in his right hand, and began to run. They pathetically tried to follow him as he ran. He checked himself and couldn't believe he had managed to escape the crash unscathed, considering he wasn't wearing a safety belt either.

  He estimated that he had travelled eight miles as he had made it to Milford, before crashing into the fence. Now he was on foot, and all that surrounded him was main roads and woodland. He was two miles from Heath Hayes, and his original destination was to get to his sister's in Norton Canes, if she was still alive. Thankfully, the street he was in and was heading out of, seemed barren. It wasn't a surprise as the population of Milford was pretty low in normal circumstances anyway.

  He started his journey on foot at a pedestrian pace and decided that once he got to the last house of the street, he was going to break in, replenish his energy levels by taking food, and his body thoroughly needed hydrating as well.

  He had seen the twitches of curtains as he walked past most of the houses in the street, but with the end house it looked, and he had a feeling, that it had been left abandoned as there was no car on the drive. The last thing he wanted to do was break into an already populated house and be stabbed by the scared residents, or worse.

  His pace quickened as he got to the last house of the quiet, empty street and stood still, admiring its structure. He looked up at the windows and could see they all had their blinds and curtains drawn. He looked to his right, to the end of the street, then to his left where the beginning of Cannock Chase was, and crossed the road and headed for the front door. He decided to do the polite thing at first and knock on the door just to be absolutely certain. The last thing he needed was to break into a house and get attacked for his troubles.

  He waited patiently, and knocked a little louder and a little longer the second time. Again, there was no answer, so he began to tap the glass of the front door with the tyre iron to shatter one of the small panes of glass. Once this was achieved, he put his left arm in and reached for the handle and opened the door with ease.

  He was greeted with an empty ground floor, but could hear the faint sound of a woman crying. Disappointed that the house wasn't vacant, he shut the door gently and put the snib on to lock it. He then crept upstairs and continuously whispered the words, hello. As he got to the top of the stairs, a bedroom door opened. Inbetween the crack of the door was a half nose and one bright, round blue eye. The door suddenly got wider and both persons exhaled in relief.

  "Who are you?" she gasped.

  "I'm sorry, I thought the house was empty," Jason tried to explain. "I didn't realise someone was in. Didn't you hear me knocking?"

  She nodded her head, and seemed to take an age to answer his question. "I thought it might be them, trying to get in."

  Jason took a step closer, but the woman held her hand up in an attempt to stop him from progressing any further. She put her right forefinger to her lips, urging him to keep quiet and ushered him downstairs into the dark ground floor, where every window had been covered up. They both walked downstairs, with Jason leading the way. He sat on her couch and she checked if he had locked the door properly and asked if he needed a drink. He nodded and asked for a coffee, and water. She returned from the kitchen with a pint of water, which Jason had drank in a matter of seconds, and asked for another.

  Two silent minutes had passed, and the woman eventually arrived with two hot cups of coffee.

  He peeped at the woman and although she was in desperate need of a makeover and a shower, he came to the conclusion that with a little effort, she would look reasonably attractive. "So what's your name?" Jason asked.

  She sat herself down. "Jenny." She also gazed at the man, and came to the conclusion that he looked like a brute, a man that probably had steroid sandwiches.

  "So where is everybody?"

  She shrugged her shoulders. "My husband went to work last week; he works on a construction site, but he never came back. I've been in here ever since it happened. Starting to run out of food now, though. There's a local shop down the road, but I'm guessing that it's already been burgled and stripped."

  Jason took a sip from the coffee. "Wow, that's good coffee."

  "Thanks. Not much of that left, either."

  "You have a phone?"

  "Not one that works," she said sadly.

  There was a silence that greeted the two strangers and Jason bit his bottom lip. "I'm sorry about your husband."

  She sat up and looked affronted with what Jason had said to her. She shook her head. "He's not dead."

  Jason raised his eyebrows as if to say, really?

  Her face looked sad and she lowered her head. Maybe he isn't coming back. Maybe he is dead.

  Chapter Eleven

  "So what book do you want me to read to you?"

  Jack Slade took his son away from the group, and went into one of the rooms that would eventually be shared by another six people. The plan was to read to his son, get some shuteye himself before he and Gary were up for the night watch. The hall had a large room where most people slept on the floor, while others slept in the offices.

  "I don't have any books." Young Thomas sniffed, and kicked the thin air with his right foot, as if he was in a bad mood about something.

  "What's up, squirt?" asked Jack.

  Thomas stopped walking and turned to face his dad, and sighed, with his young shoulders slumped. "I don't like it here," he said with sadness. "I miss my friends. I miss grandma. Why can't I go back to school?"

  Jack owed it to his son to protect him, but was unsure that lying to him was the best idea, as it made his confusion even greater. "Have you been told about what's been happening?"

  "About...the monsters?"

  Jack understood that he should have talked to Kerry about the subject, but simultaneously felt that telling his son that he was on holiday and then also stating that he wasn't allowed to go out on his own and play too loudly, just made him even more confused.

  Jack sat his son down on the floor on top of a sleeping bag. His place was in the corner of the hall, and Jack
wanted to get him down before other people decided to turn in. Because it was a hall, the echo of even just footsteps was enough to bring someone out of a coma. It wasn't ideal, but at least his son was alive, all thanks to Kerry. Jack helped his son strip down to his pants, and he slipped his little body into the sleeping bag and stared at his daddy.

  Jack quizzed, "What do you know about these...monsters?"

  "Just that they're dangerous...and mummy's frightened of them."

  "You do realise why we have to stay here, don't you?"

  Thomas nodded. "Yes. Or they'll find us and eat us," he said with a straight face.

  Jack twisted his face. "Who told you that?" Jack was annoyed that his son had this information, although what he said was technically true.

  "Yoler," he said with no hesitation.

  "Well, it looks like I'm gonna have to have a word with Yoler's daddy. She can't go round saying things like that."

  Jack was referring to Yoler Parkinson. She was only eight years old, a cute kid with black curly hair. Her father was Ian Jenson, and her mother had been attacked while the family tried to escape from the house. The eight-year-old witnessed her mother through the back window being mauled by a gang of the dead as her distraught father drove away, a story she had told young Thomas on a few occasions.

  Yoler wasn't upset about the situation. She missed her mummy. She had been told that she was dead, but Yoler wasn't aware that being dead was such a bad thing. When her daddy told her tearfully that her mummy was now in heaven, she nodded her head in agreement and then turned around and asked, "What's for dinner?"

  Jack remembered when Ian told him that story about his wife and Yoler. Jack knew he had lost family members, like cousins, uncles and aunts, although he couldn't be completely sure, for all they knew, he was also dead. Jack thought that Ian Jenson telling his daughter that her mummy had died must have been incredibly tough for him.

  Jack couldn't believe how tough Ian had been in the last few days that he knew him, as he thought that if that was his beloved that had been killed, he wouldn't be able to cope. Ian informed him that when you have children, you have to cope; you don't have a choice in the matter.

  Even Kerry seemed to be cold, considering that she had lost her mother only a few days ago. The subject had only materialised once when Kerry and Jack were reunited for the first time. He asked where she was, and she told him coldly that she was dead, and that she had been buried in the woods. She didn't cry, although her face was filled with sadness, but her mother had lived till the age of sixty-seven and had died of natural causes, which these days was a comfort considering the way people were dying now.

  To a certain degree, he envied her mother. She had managed to live a full life—although sixty-seven wasn't deemed that old in the civilized world they used to live in—and had died a relatively painless death. And although it was the beginning of the new world that had put stress on her mother's heart and had helped her to an early grave, at least her frail old mother didn't have to witness any kinds of barbarism that could involve her family members or even herself.

  Thomas lay on his side, and Jack lay next to him and tried to remember some of the stories that he used to read him on a night when Thomas was a baby. There was a rigid rule set on a night by Kerry: He was allowed two stories and two songs.

  Jack stroked his boy's head and begun telling a made-up story about Postman Pat who got stuck in the mud in his bright red van. This short story was followed by a story he used to be told by his parents, called Peepo. Once he finished Peepo, he noticed that his boy had fallen asleep, but he decided to sing him the two songs anyway.

  After he sang Bananas in Pyjamas and The Rainbow Song—he still didn't understand the lyric 'listen with your eyes' even now, but he sang them anyway—he continued stroking his son's head. After he had finished the last song, he fell asleep as well.

  Chapter Twelve

  After thinking of nothing but the poor family who lay above them, both individuals knew that it was going to be a restless night until they removed the bodies the next day. Pickle had waited for this night for days, and now he had found a house that finally provided a bed with reasonably safe surroundings, his moment was going to be ruined by the knowing that a dead family lay above him. He thought at first that it wouldn't bother him, but it did.

  They thought about trying the next house, but they both seemed content to stay where they were, despite the corpses that lay above them. It was nearly ten in the evening, and both individuals planned on sleeping together in the same bed as a security measure. Although each one was grateful for the company, neither one of them would admit it.

  Pickle lay on his back, fully-clothed, and glared at the ceiling. Karen had her back to him trying to force herself to sleep, but she was wide-awake. Every time she closed her eyes, flashbacks of the previous week ambushed her. She thought about going home to Gary and finding him in such a state, seeing Sharon Henderson eaten to death, being carjacked, meeting Oliver Bellshaw, before he turned out to be some kind of sexual deviant and then finally meeting up with Pickle in the woods, although she originally thought he was a Snatcher and nearly broke his nose.

  Pickle released a sharp breath out.

  "What's wrong?" Karen had to ask.

  Pickle sighed, "I was thinking about Laz."

  "Why?"

  "Well," Pickle cleared his throat, "the radio reckons it takes about an hour to change, yet, it took Laz hours before he slipped into a coma, or whatever it was, about six or seven hours to be exact. He was bit in the supermarket and was ill for most o' the day."

  Karen added, "The truth is they have no idea. Half an hour, twelve hours—who cares? As soon as you're bit or scratched deep enough, you're screwed."

  "It was just something that was beginning to bother me. Makes yer wonder if countries overseas end up nuking this country if it isn't a global thing."

  "Isn't that a bit extreme?" Karen began to laugh, but she was sure he was being serious.

  "Also, these things can't drown; there could be hundreds o' the things floatin' in the English Channel or the North Sea. The last thing the French would want is for those things getting washed up on their beaches and then for them to find their feet and start walking again."

  "Now you're being ridiculous."

  "Just saying." Pickle continued, "The winter's gonna be a nightmare. Unless it works in our favour and the cold kills these things off."

  "I've thought about it. We're gonna be freezing our tits off. The snow will be a problem, not just the temperature."

  Continued Pickle, "Not only that, with the snow we won't know when it's coming, how many inches we'll get, and how long it'll last."

  "Sounds like my ex-boyfriend," Karen cackled and Pickle joined in as they continued to lay in the darkness, with sleep being almost impossible to achieve.

  "Honestly, Bradley," his snickering was beginning to diminish. "Yer have a mind like a sewer."

  Karen could sense that there was something else that was bothering Pickle, and there was another reason why he was still awake. She spoke once more. "You really okay?"

  Pickle cleared his throat, and seemed to take an age to answer. "Not really."

  Karen thought for a second if she should ask the next question. The subject hadn't been tackled for days, so she went ahead. "You thinking about KP?"

  "Maybe," he snapped. "Yer thinking about Gary?"

  Karen smiled, and wasn't sure if Pickle's question was a retaliation for bringing the subject of KP up. She lied, "I wasn't. But I am now, now that you've mentioned him."

  "Sorry," he whispered.

  His apology seemed false, but Karen forgave him. She had only known the man for nearly a week, and already knew that the pair of them were like brother and sister with a love/hate relationship. She thought back to the run-in they had when they were back at Stile Cop. Pickle thought that Karen had made an uncomplimentary comment about the body of Laz stinking the place out, and Pickle took exception to it. They
had a couple of other run-ins during the week, but nothing that would give Karen sleepless nights.

  Since the news officially broke last Sunday morning, Karen had to take up a new role in order to survive, and it was a role she had grown into with ease. Pickle was already a tough cookie being from the background that he came from, but found Karen equally as tough as him.

  Karen had every respect for Pickle, despite his past antics, and said to herself that she would rather have someone like him by her side, than someone who was weak and would literally fill their shorts as soon as one of the Snatchers was spotted. In order for her to survive in this new, terrifying world, she needed someone to watch her back.

  As Karen lay awake on her side, with her back against Pickle's back, she reminisced about a conversation they had a few evenings ago. The two of them had spent yet another monotonous evening on the top of the multi-storey car park, and Pickle and Karen were exchanging stories about their past. Pickle decided to confess something that he seemed deeply ashamed of.

  According to a story Pickle told her, nearly ten years ago, he and a colleague had to visit a drug supplier at a dock who owed them thousands in drugs. They had paid for the delivery and one of Pickle's men put the merchandise in the back of the van and drove away. Once the merchandise arrived back at Pickle's place and was checked, they realised that half of the product—heroin—was missing. The van driver was beaten for not checking what he had picked up. Then Pickle himself, and a colleague, decided to drive back to the port themselves to meet up with the Dutch supplier. He was bungled into the van, and Pickle and his colleague tied the Dutchman up and drove him to an abandoned warehouse.

  Pickle had informed the supplier that since he had fucked them, he was going to return the favour. The Dutchman was tied up and raped in the back of the van, then his legs were stabbed and he was driven back to the port and thrown out.

  They soon switched suppliers.