"Oh God," Jack spoke out.
Paul stopped in his tracks and turned to his colleague who had his head in his hands.
Paul walked over to Jack, and the closer he came, the more he could smell that recognisable smell of death. The annoyed flies buzzed away as he stepped closer and stood side-by-side next to Jack. They were both ten yards away from the bloodied corpse of Jemma Marlow. The bracken and grass around the body was dyed with her blood; her legs and arms were half-eaten and her torso was almost non-existent. A bloodied breast could be seen attached to a part of her chest that hadn't been devoured. The breast lay next to her severed head, and although it looked like her brains had been scooped out by using the opened neck as a means of getting to them, it was still obvious who it was. Her eyes were missing, but her nose and mouth were intact.
Jack released a muffled belch in an attempt to stop his body from rejecting the breakfast he had earlier; the taste of eggs as well as the sight of Jemma's body wasn't helping.
"Let's keep moving," Paul said coldly.
"What? We can't just leave her here."
Paul was putting a brave face on, Jack could see that, but he remained cold in his speech. "You want to give her first aid?"
Jack shook his head at the crass comment. "Don't be ridiculous."
Paul added, "One question: Can you help her?"
"Of course not."
"Then let's move."
Chapter Twenty Eight
Karen looked out of the living room window from behind the curtain. The sky possessed a few cotton balls of grey clouds that hung threateningly over the small village, and she sighed at the depressing sight. The month of June had just experienced its second shower of rain. She released the curtains and sat back down; the lack of exercise was making her irritable.
The company wasn't much better either.
She was glad that she had managed to potentially save a life, despite Pickle hinting previously that they shouldn't bring anyone back, but as a conversationalist, George Jones wasn't the best. It was as if the art of conversation wasn't his strong point. She cruelly assumed that his job as a labourer consisted of years of talking about women in a derogatory way, with the rest of his male colleagues talking about football, and arguing with one another, using a profanity with every sentence. She couldn't be sure, but a job where there was no contact with the public must have had some effect on his talking skills, unlike her old job, where she was always in chatter mode with someone. She worked and talked with sick people, as well as relatives of the sick, other colleagues, as well as police and fire crew that would come into the A and E department.
George was okay, Karen thought, but he wasn't Pickle. And as soon as Harry Branston recovered from his virus, the better, she thought.
She peeped to the side and saw that George was in the single chair, nursing his sixth cup of coffee of the morning. He also looked bored rigid, and even though she had a cheek to even think of it, she contemplated on whether to go upstairs to lie on the bed and possibly go for a nap.
She had come to a quick decision and rose to her feet, and informed her surprised guest of her intentions. She walked lazily upstairs and once she got into the bedroom, she lay on the bed and closed her eyes. The head sank delightfully into the soft, cold pillow and she released a contented moan. She began to daydream about Gary, which was interrupted as her eyes shot open of the realisation that she had left her Browning on the side-table in the living room downstairs. She then closed her eyes again, and tried to appease her weary, paranoid mind that George didn't seem the type to gun down a woman and a sick man just for the extra food that was left in the cupboard.
What was the worst he could do? Pick it up? The gun wasn't cocked and the safety catch was on, and he probably didn't even know what that was. She slipped away into unconsciousness. Her peace lasted thirty-seven minutes.
*
"What the fuck?"
She shot out of bed and collided with the side-table. She lost her balance and bounced off the wall as she hastily stood on her wobbly legs. She never gave her body time to wake up, and this was self-evident from the drowsiness that had caused her to lose her bearings.
She had heard shots. But she didn't know where they were coming from. She left the bedroom and went into Pickle's room, which faced the main road of their street. Pickle could be seen wearily hunched over the windowsill, glaring out of the window.
"Nice one, Karen," he chuckled falsely, without turning round to face her. "This street's gonna be awash with those fuckers, if he gets his way. How on earth did he get yer gun?"
Karen stepped forwards and stood by Pickle's side. She looked out of the window to see George holding the Browning she had left on the side-table. She looked past him to see one solitary Snatcher lying dead in the middle of the road. George looked pretty pleased with himself, and Bradley could see the twitches of three sets of curtains across the road, probably from families wondering what the hell was happening and hoping and praying that this maniac would disappear shortly. So far, the street had been relatively quiet, but the sounds of gunshots could easily put that to a stop.
She left the bedroom, hurriedly, and galloped downstairs and went through the already-opened front door. She ran out into the desolate street and was greeted by a smiling George Jones. Without thinking there was a danger that the gun could go off, she snatched the gun out of his hand and screamed, "What the fuck are you doin'?"
George was taken aback by Karen's outburst, and struggled to explain his action.
Karen continued, "We're trying to keep a low profile here, not just from them," she pointed at the dead creature, "but from outsiders as well!"
George shrugged and explained. "I peered out the window and saw it walking along the road."
"So instead of letting it harmlessly walk past out of the village, you decided to put two rounds into it?"
George went to open his mouth, but refrained from answering her question immediately. He rolled his eyes in thought and said, "And what's wrong with that?"
"Where there's one, there could be others."
Karen waited for a response from the confused George, and could see for the first time in his face, a wave of rage building up. He grinded his teeth together, took a deep breath in and shaped his lips in an O shape as if he was about to blow out smoke rings. He then released carbon dioxide from his mouth and Bradley wondered if this was an anger management technique.
Shit! Is he going to hit me?
Despite being the carrier of the Browning pistol, she took a step backwards and was pretty sure that there was a good chance that George was going to lash out, but Karen didn't want him to think that she was intimidated by this, so she continued with her rant. "And how did you learn to shoot, anyway?"
George never answered her; he continued to glare at her, and Karen wondered if he had rage issues. Whether he didn't like being spoken to in that tone, despite him being in the wrong, or the fact that it was a young woman who was verbally abusing him, his face suggested he was not happy. George's silence was more threatening than if he launched his own verbal attack, but instead, he chose to continue to exhale out slowly and then gulped hard as if he was trying to move the anger back into his gut.
She could see his flushed face beginning to return to its original colour and this eased her own heartbeat, and although still at a moderate gallop, it had reduced its pounding.
George spoke, "I'm gonna grab myself a drink." That was all he could muster. That one sentence.
"Wait a minute." Karen pointed at the body lying in the middle of the road. "You just gonna leave that there?"
George turned and stared at the body. The creature looked like it used to be a female teenager. Its face was bloated and had black marks as if it were rotting. It was dressed in a bloody stained blouse, that probably was a freshly ironed yellow item when the woman first put it on, and she donned a black knee length skirt with her legs covered in ripped tights that hid her porcelain legs that looked painfu
lly swollen and bruised. Although the back of its head was producing a fair amount of blood from its ravaged cranium, the entrance wounds in the forehead were just a couple of clean dark holes.
George remained glaring at the body, and Karen was now beginning to think that this silence was being done on purpose. He finally turned back to Karen and gave her the answer by nodding his head.
Yes! He was going to leave the body there. And his face suggested: What are you going to do about it?
He walked away and went back into the house, without turning around. Karen muttered an expletive under her breath and decided to leave the body where it was. She shook her head in frustration and tucked her brown hair behind her ears that was now getting damp from the persistent rain that fell from the skies.
She looked up to the sky angrily as if the weather was God's fault, and followed George in. As she approached the house, with the backed-up van sitting on the front garden to the side of her, she looked up to see Pickle still peering out of his window. She could feel that there was something more sinister to this George, and the sooner she had a fit Pickle to use as back-up, the better.
She didn't want to point her gun at him and kick George out of the house just yet, as his shooting may have been just a dumb, spur of the moment thing. It was his attitude afterwards that bothered her.
She was beginning to regret her act of charity. She wasn't scarred by this however; she knew that the next time she had to take the van out and get more supplies and there was a family with children hitching, her conscience wouldn't allow her to just drive past if there was no danger. She felt that she had toughened up over the last week since the pandemic, and in front of Pickle she was perceived as a tough cookie, but the old Karen was still in there somewhere. She still had a heart. She still had empathy.
She locked the front door, placed the keys into her pocket and decided to go upstairs for an hour. At the moment, she didn't want to look at George or be anywhere near his presence, and she had an inkling that the feeling was mutual.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Many hours had passed, and with missing lunch and dinner, they were still relying on their breakfast for fuel for their bodies. Three of the moving dead appeared in view up ahead and Paul Parker and Jack Slade knew that trying again in the morning was not an option, so they had a five-minute breather, allowing the beasts to disappear from view, and began their search once again.
Because they were achieving no results, they were getting close to turning around and heading back to the village hall, but Jack insisted on giving it another twenty minutes. The image of Jemma Marlow was still imprinted on both men's minds and plagued their concentration as they continued to trudge their way through the damp plantation.
In a weird way, Jack was relieved that he never had to break the news to Jemma about the horrid torture and death Gary had to endure, and it appeared that she had suffered a fate even worse. He was unsure whether she had been conscious while being ripped apart by the ravenous things; it was this that made him feel ill, and selfishly hoped that Kerry and Thomas were okay. If they were okay, he hoped to God that his son hadn't witnessed Jemma's demise, or even heard it.
He wondered where the rest of them were, and hoped that they were all together as a group rather than just Kerry and Thomas on their own...or even...just Thomas on his own. He didn't want to think about that situation. He knew thinking in a negative light would do nothing for his own psyche and decided to concentrate on where he was walking, as for the last ten minutes he had strolled through the woodland and hadn't remembered a thing about it. It wasn't a good frame of mind to be in, especially considering the predators that were out there, he thought.
Jack turned to Paul and gave him the thumbs up, asking in body language if he was okay. Jack responded with one sharp solitary nod. Paul took one look at his new friend who was nine years his senior and thought to himself that already he looked weary. They both had had a decent enough sleep one could get in such a dire situation. Paul managed six hours broken sleep, but knew the adrenaline would keep them going until they were completely exhausted and there was nothing left in their tank.
Paul made a psst sound at Jack, and waved his right arm to the side frantically for a few seconds, urging him to stay low. Like a couple of Marines in a Nam film, they both lowered themselves into the grassy floor, and both men were semi-hidden by a tree stump each. Still twenty yards away from each other with their own tree as cover, they peered out from the side to see two of the creatures in the far distance stumbling around. On a flat road these things didn't seem too sturdy, but on uneven ground they looked even more awkward, like a couple of old drunks not knowing where to go and what day it was.
Confident that their movement wouldn't arouse suspicion from the beings that were hundreds of yards away, they slowly stood up and continued with their search. Ever since they left the village hall, they hadn't moved in any direction and had no intention to, because Paul knew that there was a cabin further up which he used to go to when he was a kid.
It didn't belong to anyone as such, until squatters began to use it for years. As far as he knew, the cabin that was made by fishermen years ago for a place to dwell, was still there, in fact, the woods had a few of them and they were in good condition as well. They weren't furnished, but as far as Paul could remember, they were basic, had a door and latch inside for a lock, no fire or kitchen place, but a table and chairs someone had made.
He used to go up there as a child with his friends, by breaking the lock and using the place as a base. The fishermen got so fed up with the break-ins, they stopped going eventually and the cabin was abandoned until months later, squatters claimed it as theirs. This was a similar story that plagued a few of the cabins in the woodland area.
Paul and Jack looked around them and noticed that there didn't seem to be any other form of life in the area; it was almost as if the animals knew that evil was lurking and they had abandoned the place that they used to call home. There was no hoot of an owl, no twitter from a bird, no rustle in the bushes from a disturbed deer, and no sign of the chatter and chirp of the grey squirrel that was deliberately introduced to Britain from North America in the nineteenth century.
They both stopped once again and Paul said quickly, "Do you see what I see?"
"A cabin." Jack nodded and walked briskly towards the cabin in the distance. His walk was slowly turning into a gallop and Paul was about to tell Jack to slow down, but didn't have the heart to do so, as the man was obviously tainted with excitement that his son might be in that cabin. Then Paul thought about the things that he called, Lurkers. What if one, or more than one, was inside for whatever reason? He then increased his pace to catch up with an excited Jack Slade in case he stumbled into some kind of accidental ambush.
"Don't go in yet," were the only words Paul could muster through his heavy breathing as they got nearer to the cabin; they were now only eighty yards away.
Jack slowed right down and switched to walking pace as if he heard what Paul had told him, and as he got nearer the place, he became more hesitant. His pace slowed, until it eventually came to a stop.
"Wait for me," Paul said in a sharp whisper.
Both men arrived five yards away from the closed door that led inside to the rundown-looking cabin, and both gawped at one another. Paul placed his hand on the door and slowly pushed it open; both men were surprised that it wasn't locked. Paul peered in and saw in the darkness that there was no life inside, although four unlit candles sat on the floor. Jack remained outside, now too scared to go in, scared of what he might find, or what he might not find. He opened his eyes and looked at Paul's face. Jack queried, "There's no one there?"
Paul replied with a shake of his head.
On the outside, Jack tried to remain calm, but could feel his chest bubbling with a cocktail of emotions that was only going to lead him to break down in tears.
"It's just the first one." Paul tried to appease him. "There're many to check before we're
finished. Then after that, we can go back, get the cars and check the villages, if it's safe."
Jack agreed and thinned his lips in order to keep his emotions in check; his lips were thinned so much it looked like there was a large stitch sitting under his nose. There was no point in crying at the first hurdle, as he was sure that there were many more to come. He blew out his cheeks in an attempt to lower his temperature in his face that had blossomed into a pink colour, and gave off a false, yet, brave smile.
"Next one then," Slade snapped, and ran his fingers through his dark, sweaty hair. The grey at the side of his hair had increased over the week. "We'll try the next one."
"Dad?"
Both Paul and Jack spun round to their left and saw three frightened figures crouching twenty yards away from them, behind a tree.
Jack narrowed his eyes, and wondered if his cruel mind was playing a trick on him. "Thomas?"
The three figures stood to their feet; there was only two that he cared about, and one he really cared about.
His son ran towards him and Jack could feel the relief smoulder out of his shoulders. He held out his arms and scooped him up. Both father and son hugged one another—probably a bit too tightly—and wept hard for minutes. Jack opened his bleary eyes to see a smiling Kerry walking towards him, and Kerry joined in and now all three were embracing.
While Jack was having his moment with his second family reunion in a week, Paul Parker choked back the tears as he thought about his own family. He was pleased for Jack, but couldn't help feeling a smidgeon of envy. He stepped towards the third member of the hiding party; it was Lee Hayward. Lee Hayward shook his hand.
"Good to see you again, Lee," Paul greeted.
"You too," Lee said with a quaver in his voice; it was self-evident he was frightened to death. He tried to speak, but at first, the apprehensive words stumbled out of his shuddering mouth clumsily, making his first full sentence sound like nothing but a weird noise. He tried again, and this time his words were understood. "We've been staying in the cabin. We went out for air and saw you guys in the distance; we thought you were them, so we hid."
Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3) Page 45
