"Oh?"
Paul's shoulders rose up as he took a deep breath in. "I'm going home."
"But what about those things? I thought they were all around your village."
"I don't care anymore!" he snarled. "When I woke up on that morning, my family were gone and my house was swarming with the things. I had no choice but to run. Now, who knows?"
"If you go back to your village, there could be hundreds of the things."
"True. But what if they're not there? What if there's no one left, and the Lurkers have moved on somewhere else? That means my house is lying vacant. I have more of a chance finding my family being back at the house. Since I left for the village hall, I seemed to be moving further and further away from where I used to live, which probably means further away from Jocelyn and Hannah. I need to go back; if we ever get to a stage where it becomes safe to walk outside again, the family home is where they'll go."
"Okay." Jade sounded dejected with Paul's determination, but she knew that she could hardly stand in the way of a man wanting to find his family.
"And I want you to come back with me," said Paul.
"Really?"
"Really."
Jade released a smile; her face was full of so much relief and happiness that she began to cry. She was convinced that Paul was going to suggest for the pair of them to part their ways. Paul walked over to the fragile, young lady and gave her a hug. Once their embrace was broken and Jade managed to pull herself together, she asked, "How far is it to your house from here?"
Paul Parker shrugged his shoulders and released a false smile. "With travelling in that pick-up truck, and then running about a mile in the woods away from those four arseholes, I have no idea where we are and what direction we should be heading. I'm guessing we're about four or five miles away from my village."
"So we need to find a road."
"Yes," Paul agreed. "There's a good chance I could recognise the road, and even if I don't, we should eventually approach a junction. Junctions usually have road signs to state which village is what way and how many miles it takes to get there."
"So do you wanna head back the way we came from?"
"No I don't," he said sharply. "I think we should go that way," he pointed to his right, "and see where it takes us."
He walked on, with Jade following behind. Their tired feet were dragging through the long grass and bracken, and once they finally came across a dirt path, it made their walk a little easier.
Jade ran her fingers through her dark, greasy hair and pulled a face that was the same kind of expression one would show if they had tasted a bitter lemon. Her fingers struggled through her hair, and her expression was made because of how greasy and unkempt her hair had become from days of not washing and sleeping rough in the woodland.
Her eyes stared at her feet as she walked on the dirt path, and she felt a sudden slap on her chest from Paul who was in front of her.
"Ow!" Jade rubbed her chest and looked up at Paul. "What was that for?"
Paul shushed the twenty-five-year-old and urged her to crouch down behind him. She did as she was instructed, and followed him as he crawled off the dirt path and hid behind a tree. He then pointed ahead of him and she took a gander; her eyes widened when it was clear what she was now witnessing.
There was nine Lurkers—a name Paul gave them—about a hundred yards away. They appeared to be walking away from Paul and Jade, and they had no idea where they were going and where they had come from. They both continued to watch as the small gang of the dead stumbled, very slowly, away from the two hiding humans.
Paul turned to Jade. "We'll keep away from the paths for a few minutes, until they're gone. When we're on the paths, we're more exposed and less hidden."
Jade silently agreed with head movement.
The two of them slowly walked through the long grass and Paul whispered to Jade, "Once they're completely away from view, we can get back on the path and head that way." He pointed to the right.
Jade giggled nervously a little, and asked Paul, "Why are you whispering? They're almost out of sight."
Paul had managed a smile himself; it was a smile Jade hadn't seen in a while, and he puffed out his lower lip and shook his head. "I have no idea."
"You're not right in the head," Jade joked.
"I don't think many survivors are these days, not what after some of us have seen."
Paul's comment had quickly crushed the light entertainment they were experiencing. It wasn't intentional; it just slipped out.
Jade then suddenly heard a snap to her left, where Paul was situated, and heard the thirty-one-year-old cry out and fall to the ground. Paul was on the floor, holding his right foot. "Bastard poachers!" he screamed. "Get it off!"
Jade scanned around and began to panic. She had no idea what he was talking about and what was actually happening. "Get what off?"
Paul screamed out again, and this time Jade shushed the man that was in excruciating pain. Paul Parker raised his foot a little to reveal that his body part had been the victim of a coil-spring animal trap. He couldn't raise his foot any higher as the chain of the trap was hammered into the ground with a metal peg.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?" Jade was hysterical and was no use to anyone. She was a fitness instructor and had to take her HSE First Aid course every three years, but a foot being caught in an animal trap didn't cover what she had been taught.
The sweat on Paul's head was raining down and he was certain that his foot was broken. He spoke with a grimace, "Grab both jaws of the trap, and pull them back as wide as you can. At least then I can get my foot out."
Jade did what she was asked, but she found that it was difficult and was struggling to get the jaws open. "I can't do it."
"For fuck's sake. Let me do it."
Paul leaned over and pulled back the jaws of the trap. He cried out again when his fingers slipped and the trap snapped shut once more, sending the pain straight through his body. He stuck his fist in his mouth to prevent him from screaming any more, and drew blood as his teeth sank in.
"I'll try again." Jade bent over and tried once more; this time she had managed to get the jaws wide enough for Paul to remove his foot. Once he did, he could feel his foot pulsating. His head dropped in his lap and tears were released, due to the pain.
He heard Jade say, "Oh no."
He blew air out of his mouth, wiped the tears from his face, and spoke with frustration. "Now what is it?"
She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed ahead of her. The melee had attracted the horde from afar. They had turned around, and were now shambling their way towards Jade Greatrix and an injured Paul Parker. "They're coming."
Chapter Seventeen
They had spent the night in the garden, but felt it was reasonably safe with the fence and the gate as protection. The owner had offered them the poky shed, but once they took a look inside, they kindly refused and wondered when was the last time it had been cleaned. It stunk of animal droppings.
This wasn't the first time these pair had slept under the stars, but it was the first time that they had had a good night's sleep in a long while.
Karen was the first to wake.
Still lying on the floor, she stretched out her arms and felt amazing. For the first time in a long time, she had slept for more than five hours—in this case, nine—and was hydrated. Her throat wasn't sore with dryness anymore and her headaches had disappeared. She sat up in the sleeping bag that had been given to her by the owner of the cabin, and she looked over to Pickle who was still sleeping.
After much talk, the pair of them had convinced the occupier that they came in peace, and only arrived at the cabin in hope that it was empty. They were honest with the man and each one told him their story, from the moment the outbreak occurred to the present day. The man had then lowered his gun, told them that he believed them, but made them sleep outside and appeased them that it would be safe.
He had been a man of his word.
&nb
sp; The occupier off the cabin was called Wolfgang Kindl. He was a sixty-nine-year-old man with grey hair, a thick grey beard, with a straw hat sitting on top of his head. His appearance was like something out of Deadwood in the nineteenth century, and his shotgun was an old thing, and he admitted to the pair that he only had one box of shells to his name.
Karen heard the door of the cabin swing open and slowly stood to her feet. Wolfgang stepped out into the new day and greeted Karen with a smile.
She said nervously, "Good morning, Mr—"
"None of that Mr bollocks, Karen." He tittered, and revealed his yellow grin. "I told you before; it's Wolf, and Wolf only."
"Sorry...er, Wolf." Karen felt silly calling him that; it was like something out of a DC comic. Karen watched as the old man began to walk the perimeter of the fence, checking for irregularities. She took a deep breath in and had to ask, "How did you get the name Wolfgang Kindl anyway? You sound English; you don't sound foreign."
"My parents were Austrian. They moved over here in the fifties." He walked over to a little black part of the grass, where it looked like there used to be a fire or two in the past. He went to the corner of the garden to pick some already-chopped sticks and disappeared into the cabin, only to return with some firelighters. He placed the firelighters under the sticks and pulled out a lighter. He used the lighter to light them and they both watched in silence while the fire began to take shape. Karen looked over to him with slight confusion and consternation on her face.
As if he could read her mind, he said, "Relax. It gives out a little smoke, but not too much. I've been doing this for two weeks now, and I haven't attracted much attention. Just make sure when you put it out, you do it with dirt, not water. Water makes the fire smokier, plus it's a waste of water." He pulled out a frying pan from the end of the cabin that must have been sitting in the grass, checked it was clean—ish—and put it by Karen's feet.
Wolf explained, "I'm sorry I didn't offer you any food last night. I'm pretty short, but if you are going to eat, and you can only have one meal a day, it has to be breakfast. You hungry?"
Karen nodded. "Starving. We both are."
"Well, have I got a treat for you two." He began to chuckle and disappeared into the cabin once again. He returned into the enclosed garden with six rashers of bacon and an egg box with eight eggs.
Karen couldn't help but smile. "Oh my God. I think I'm gonna cry."
"Happy?" he asked.
"Like a pig in shit." As he began making breakfast, she looked over to Pickle who was still sleeping. "Wait till Pickle sees this."
He hovered the pan over the fire and explained to Karen it may take a while. Wolf said, "Probably one of the best feelings is waking up on a morning to the smell of bacon. My wife used to cook the stuff every Sunday morning."
Wolf lowered his head sadly at the mention of his wife, but continued to cook. Karen was dying to ask him about her, but feared of upsetting the kind man that had just taken them both in. She tried a different approach and asked him where he was when the outbreak was announced. He knew all about them, when he had the shotgun pointing at them, it was now his turn to be grilled a little.
He stroked his grey beard in deliberation and rolled his eyes. He finally spoke. "Well, at the beginning, the first thing I did was pack our things and told my Grace that we were heading for our cabin."
"Oh." Karen looked around the place, and thought at first that maybe Wolfgang had come up to the cabin on his own accord, and claimed it for himself. "So this place is yours?"
"Yeah. I used to come up here on the weekends to shoot, relax—that kind of stuff. The hill was beginning to kill my back, and Grace had stopped going altogether, so we decided that next year we were going to sell it. I'm seventy years old next year."
"So why didn't you stay indoors like we were told to?"
Wolf gave off a laugh that was infectious and stroked his grey beard again with his left hand, while gently shaking the pan with his other hand so the bacon and eggs wouldn't stick too much. There was just two of each on the pan, and Karen assumed that he was making them all breakfast individually. Wolf spoke, "Once all the rules of society have disappeared, you're on your own. We had to escape, from those things, and from man."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm too old to be fighting, Karen. If those things or looters came into our house, we wouldn't stand a chance, so we had to be somewhere away from the public. We came up here before the weekend announcement; I knew something wasn't right beforehand. There were reports for weeks about biting epidemics, riots. You know what the main cause of this disaster is?"
Karen shook her head.
"Denial. Denial occurs because of the arrogance of the government, and also one of the worst things governments hates is social panic."
"You said, we. Is your wife here?"
Wolf lowered his head despondently, the first breakfast was nearly ready. "She's dead. She's in the back room. Another reason why I didn't want you guys sleeping in there."
"I'm sorry." Karen felt a shiver rattle her vertebrae, and thought that it was rather odd and unhealthy to have his dead wife still in the cabin. She thought that the stench must have been awful. Was that why he didn't want them to stay inside for the night, or was it the fact that they were strangers and he didn't trust them yet?
She had noticed when she and Pickle turned in, he had locked the door from the inside. Despite taking them in, it was too early to trust them. Why didn't he just tell us to go away?
Karen decided to tackle the subject a little later as she didn't want to piss off her host so soon. She then looked over to Pickle; he was stirring. It appeared the smell of the bacon was working its magic. To break the silence between her and Wolf, she asked, "You have kids?"
Wolf nodded his head. "Somewhere; well, not really kids anymore, they're grown ups." He then changed the subject. "Right, your breakfast's up." He slid the contents onto a plastic plate which was accompanied with a plastic fork. "I'll do your friend next."
The body of the woman inside was still irking Karen. She couldn't help herself. She couldn't keep her mouth shut. "Look," Karen forced a full rash of bacon in her mouth, quickly chewed, and swallowed before finishing off the sentence she had started. "We can give your wife a decent burial, if you want. It's not healthy for you to have her—"
"I'll deal with it!" Wolf snapped. His face was thunderous, but as soon as he released a long breath out, the redness in his cheeks quickly diminished and he put on a brave smile, knowing that Karen didn't mean anything by her interfering. He was sure she was just trying to help.
Karen nodded her head apologetically; she didn't mean to upset the man, but it appeared he had forgotten all about the incident within seconds. Karen tried to lighten the mood. "By the way; the cabin being on a hill is a stroke of genius."
Wolf tittered a little. "I know. The hill's that steep, the atrophy stops them from getting up here. Some have crawled, but they can only get so far. There's a few at the bottom of the hill; did you see them by the hedge?"
Karen shook her head, and became a little unnerved once he had revealed this information. "For a person who has hardly any contact with these things, you seem confident they can't get up."
"I am." He released a smirk. "They've been there for nearly two weeks now. They won't turn back knowing I'm up here. These things don't walk away; there's no surrender, and that's what makes them so dangerous. As long as you have a heartbeat, you're a meal."
"What about humans? Have you had any bother with people coming up here?"
"No. Just you two. I think most people have moved elsewhere, barricaded themselves in, or dead. I listened for the first week on my radio, before the batteries conked out, and I was pleased when they informed us that these things were unable to run, climb—whatever."
"You're a lucky man, Wolf."
"Am I?"
Karen had briefly forgot about his wife and was about to apologise once again, but Wolf had halted her temporarily.<
br />
Said Wolf, "Aren't we just putting off the inevitable?"
"You mean...death?"
Wolf smiled and watched Karen tucking into her eggs. He wished he had more food on offer; she looked ravenous. "Karen, the trouble now is that the boats have stopped sailing, and the trucks have stopped moving. Where are we going to get food and medicine in the long-term? These things are not just killing the human race by eating us, they're killing us with starvation, dehydration and disease."
Karen nodded, and already knew that this disaster was in its infancy and their problems were just beginning. Even though the dead were the main source of the collapse of the old world she loved and had taken for granted, just like every other human, she was certain that the Snatchers were eventually just going to be put in the background and the main problem was going to be humans and how the desperate survivors were going to react. Most of the people out there were scared, hungry, and psychologically scarred by witnessing death in such a destructive and bloody way, and some of that death may have been members of their own family.
She finished her meal, but she refrained from telling Wolf that it was a meal she could have eaten four times over. She didn't want to offend her gracious host, so she told him it was lovely, and verbally greeted Pickle with a 'good morning' when he opened his eyes.
Wolf looked at the two of them; they seemed like a nice, genuine pair, and was contemplating on telling them something that they probably had a right to know about if they were to stay for a day or two.
He decided to hold off. It can wait, he thought.
Chapter Eighteen
Jack and Johnny had spent most of the time blocking off windows, and the entrance to the front door that led out onto the road. It had been a laborious couple of hours, but they still had air in their lungs and there was scraps of food and liquid in the residence that could be consumed.
"Fill the bath," Jack commanded Johnny.
"What?"
"Fill the bath." Jack tried to explain, "The power's out. Running water could be next. It's the power helps the water pump."
Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3) Page 66
