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

by Shaun Whittington

  Wolf then stood to his feet, adjusted his straw hat and began to make the short walk back to the cabin with the other two. The decline was proving a little tough for Wolf, especially on his knees, and Karen came to his aid. She placed her hand under his armpit and he smiled and thanked the young lady.

  Wolf added, "We'll need to find some bleach as well, if you can."

  "Bleach?" Pickle queried.

  Said Wolf, "It's to disinfect the water that comes out of the sink's tap. It should be okay, but I'm paranoid to drink from the tap. I still have some bottled water and a small bucket of rain water, as well as the barrel. I can't really boil water; it takes ages with the fire, but with a little bleach you can disinfect it. Bleach will kill some, not all, types of disease-causing organisms that may be in the water. If it's still cloudy, we can filter it through clean clothes or allow it to settle, and draw off the clear water."

  "You mentioned getting buckets," Karen reminded him.

  "I have a couple inside the cabin," Wolf said. "It's for rainwater. If the tap in the sink goes, we'll only have the barrel and buckets to rely on. Just trying to think ahead, especially if the water coming out of the tap becomes polluted with...whatever."

  Pickle and Karen nodded in agreement.

  Wolf had already explained that the water supply to the cabin was very basic and came from a tiny stream near the bottom of the hill, by using inexpensive sprinkler-type tubing that was placed underground. But for drinking water, Wolf preferred using buckets for rain water and the large water barrel that collected the rain that hit the house and went into the guttering, because he was paranoid about what state the stream could be in.

  A pipe from the barrel to the guttering was attached, and this was how he got most of the water. He hardly used the water for drinking in the past, because he never had to, as he only used to come to the cabin for retreats. Now he was here on a permanent basis.

  Pickle thought that their little expedition may consist of numerous trips to the Pear Tree Estate over a period of days, instead of just the one trip. Apart from the lack of food and sanitation, the cabin and location seemed perfect. The sanitation wasn't a problem for the pair of them, considering they had been living in the woods for the last three days.

  They entered Wolf's garden and Karen turned to Pickle and asked him if they should both head right now. Pickle agreed, but Wolf politely asked them to wait outside the cabin for a second. They did as they were told, as the elderly man walked through the cabin's door and disappeared. He then returned, holding a machete in each hand.

  Wolf released a smile and said to his guests, "Well, you didn't expect me to send you down there without being armed, did you? I bought these to keep the bushes and branches trimmed back. I have a few."

  He handed one machete each to the newcomers, and he thanked them, even though they were getting something in return.

  Looking at the reasonably new machete, Karen asked, "You said back at the hill that you wanted two favours; so what is the second one?"

  Wolf lowered his head forlornly. He gaped back up in Pickle and Karen's direction and they both could see desolation in the man's face, his eyes were reddening as if he was about to cry. He cleared his throat. "Follow me."

  With no hesitation, they walked inside the cabin.

  Karen was glad to be inside, as she was intrigued to see what it was like. She walked in, and it was a basic set-up as to be expected. As soon as they stepped inside, they were greeted by a small kitchen. The sink was basic and was the only place in the cabin that produced running water; the place didn't look big enough to have a bathroom, even if Wolf wanted one.

  Once they walked past the kitchen there was a reasonable-sized living room, with a set of stairs at the end of the room leading to just the one bedroom. That was it.

  Once they reached the top of the stairs, Wolf allowed his guests to take in what he was showing them.

  A once-female human was tied to a wooden chair in the corner of the bedroom. Her appearance was now becoming stereotypical to pretty much most of the others they had seen on their travels. Its face was yellow, eyes milky, and its face was bruised-looking.

  She was one of them now, and her teeth snarled and gnashed at her guests, informing them that if she could ever get out of this, they would be on her menu as far as lunch was concerned.

  They didn't need an explanation, but Pickle had to ask, "So, how long has yer wife been like that?"

  Wolf explained, "As soon as we left, a couple of those things grabbed us. Grace took a little bite to the hand when we fought them both off, and thought nothing more of it. Then she got sick, and the radio was telling people that bites, sometimes scratches, was causing this thing to spread, so I knew she was finished."

  Asked Karen, "So what happened next?"

  "She became unwell. And when she became unconscious, I decided not to take any chances and tied her to the chair she was already sitting on. I hated doing that to my Grace, but I was already convinced that I'd lost her."

  Pickle placed his hand on Wolf's arm as he could see the man was becoming upset, while the shell of his wife, that looked to have been taken over by some possessed demon, continued to struggle in the corner of the room because of the ropes that bound her to the chair.

  "How on earth can yer sleep with that in here?" queried Pickle. He didn't mean the question to sound so cold, after all, 'that' used to be the woman Wolf was married to for many decades.

  "It was a struggle for the first week, but you kind of get used to it." Wolf then looked over to his wife and began to sob. His quavering hands wiped away the tears that ran down his cheeks, and Pickle was beginning to feel emotional for the poor man.

  Pickle looked at Karen, but she looked unmoved.

  Wolf added, "I couldn't do it. I know it's daft; I know she's already gone, but I just couldn't do it."

  Pickle couldn't make out what Wolfgang Kindl meant. "Couldn't do what?"

  Wolf was beginning to compose himself. The weeping had now ceased, but the bloodshot eyes and stained cheeks would be there for a while. "That's my second favour that I want from you."

  "What is it?" asked Karen.

  "I want you to kill her for me."

  Chapter Twenty One

  "They'll be coming inside soon!" Johnny exclaimed. "What do we do?"

  Jack and Johnny had been keeping an eye on the situation, regarding the looters in the street. They didn't seem to be just a bunch of opportunists; they seemed to know what they were doing, as if they had been doing this for days, weeks even. They had wheels—probably stolen, were armed, and had a leader that they listened to.

  "Let's just give up," Johnny suggested.

  Jack shook his head. "You saw what they did to that man, in front of his family."

  "That's because he was making it hard for them."

  "And so he should. He had a family; you can't just let people walk all over you, Johnny."

  "We can't all be like you," Johnny sneered.

  Jack smiled at Johnny, his eyes narrowed. "I was just like you a few weeks ago, before all of this kicked off. I was one of the biggest cowards on the planet."

  "So what happened?" Johnny didn't seem to be bothered being labelled as a coward.

  "I killed some of these things because I didn't have a choice. Then I lost my son, and then I just stopped caring."

  "Stopped caring? But you're still alive."

  "I know." Jack glared into space, and added, "When that belt slipped and I went crashing into the swimming pool, I felt that I had been given another chance."

  "By God?"

  Jack shrugged his shoulders and snapped out of his hypnotic stare. He had no definite answer. "By God, fate, something else—I don't know."

  They both continued to glare outside and saw three bodies go into the house next door.

  Johnny looked back at Jack for a reaction, but his male companion seemed unruffled by the people in the street. "This house will be next," said Johnny.

  Jack agr
eed, and said nonchalantly, as if he had all the time in the world, "We better hide, and you better go downstairs and grab yourself a knife."

  Johnny's facial expression suggested that he didn't want to be the bearer of a weapon. "If they find me, I don't want them to think I'm hostile."

  "Please yourself," Jack grunted.

  Johnny ran into the spare room that had a bed and a cupboard. He hid in the cupboard and Jack looked around to see where he could go. He placed his hand on the doorknob of Thomas' bedroom door, but something was stopping him from going in. He felt that if he went in, he could have an emotional breakdown with all the reminders of his little boy, his toys, his quilt cover, amongst other things.

  "Fuck it." He went into Kerry's bedroom and whispered under his breath as he went under her bed, "This has got to be the worst fucking hiding place ever."

  Despite the doubts suffocating his psyche, he remained under the bed and kept the crowbar by his side. He then thought it would be better to hide in the built-in cupboard, at least then he would be in a better position to attack if he was found. He changed his mind and crawled out from under the bed, then went into Kerry's cupboard just as the front door was forced open, moving away the barricade.

  Jack tried to keep his breathing under control, but he was a little nervous and the cupboard was stifling hot. He listened to the voices and footsteps on the ground floor of the house and could hear them ransacking the place. He knew that if staying in the house became untenable, then they would have to find an empty one to dwell in, and hopefully feed off the scraps that had been left behind.

  He could hear bags being filled, plates being smashed, and cupboards being emptied. It angered him that these vagrants had come into Kerry and Thomas' house and were helping themselves to what they wanted.

  Then he heard the sound of thudding footsteps making their way up the stairs, and the chesty cough of a man could be heard as he reached the landing. It sounded like just the one person, but Jack grasped his crowbar with both hands, ready to strike.

  His breathing became heavier when he heard the bathroom door open. There was silence for a few seconds, and then the door was shut. Then he listened to the door to Thomas' bedroom being opened.

  Jack became enraged that a strange man was poking about in his son's room, and envisaged coming out of the cupboard and smashing his brains in. There was a lot of noise coming from Thomas' room, and it sounded to Jack that the place was being turned upside down.

  His son's door was now shut, and the man had two rooms to go. Jack had already agreed with himself that as soon as the cupboard was opened, the intruder was getting it.

  The bedroom door that used to belong to Kerry, before she had fled to her mother's in Hazelslade, remained closed. Jack was baffled by this, as he was convinced that the room he was in was going to be checked next.

  Maybe he had gone.

  Maybe he had decided that the house was vacant.

  Maybe he was just too damn lazy to check the rest of the house, and was going to tell his pals that it was clear.

  Jack's little theories were quashed once he heard footsteps on the landing. The man hadn't left. He was still on the first floor of the house. The creak of the door belonging to the spare room was the next sound Jack could hear from within the hot cupboard he was standing in, and he hoped that checking the spare room would be a simple look-over, followed by a quick exit. But Jack was wrong.

  "Hey guys," he heard the man shout. "I've got a little hider up here."

  "Bollocks," Jack muttered quietly.

  They'd found Johnny.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The last half an hour had passed without incident, but as Jade decided to have a sit down, she could hear a twig snap in the suffocating greenery. She had no idea what to do, and no idea which direction to run, if she needed to.

  She remained standing still; her heart rate speeded up, and she released an anxious intake of breath when she heard the rustle of a bush a few yards away. Out of the bush, a grey squirrel scurried up one of the trees. She placed her hand on her chest in relief and almost smiled. "Little prick," she muttered.

  She sat on the grass, leaned against a tree and placed her head inbetween her knees for a short while. She then threw her head back and cried once again for Paul. She knew that if she stuck by his side, she would have been killed with him, but it did nothing to douse the guilt that was burning away from inside her.

  Once she had composed herself the best she could, she staggered back to her feet and continued to walk, with her paranoid eyes moving continuously. She desperately wanted to rest, but she wanted to find a road so she could maybe flag down a passing motorist, but she didn't want to go back to the road she had just crossed. She assumed that the road would be now infested with those fiends, and possibly even more had been attracted now that they had made a kill.

  Jade had only walked a matter of minutes into the woods until she had another run-in with one of the creatures. It appeared to be unusually on its own, and the single ghoul was still enough to put the fear of God into the twenty-five-year-old. She frantically looked around for something to use for a weapon, but there was nothing, so she decided to make a run for it.

  The fitness instructor ran and swiped away any overhanging branches that were a potential threat to her face, and once she came to an open part of the woods, she ran onto the dirt path and decided that this particular path would be safer for her when she thought about the hidden animal trap that had injured Paul, and had become the first step to his demise.

  How many more of those traps were there in the woods?

  Her run turned into a brisk walk when her eyes told her that her surroundings were reasonably clear, and she licked her dry lips and could have murdered a drink.

  Before she could breathe a small sigh of relief, a rustle came from the right of her and another two could be seen shambling in her direction. She shook her head, angry more than anything else, that she couldn't have a minute to herself, and began to jog away from the two stalkers quite easily.

  Jade's foot then hit an exposed tree-root, sticking out of the ground, making her tumble to the floor. She fell and scraped her arm against a jagged rock in the ground, and she yelped out in pain. She could see the two walking her way, albeit slowly, and she inspected her wound.

  Her left arm, just above the elbow, had been badly grazed and cut, and the blood ran down. She wiped some of the blood away with her hand, and got back into position to quickly move away from her admirers.

  The woodland was beginning to become heavier, and the dirt path was slowly disappearing. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the two were lagging behind. As soon as she turned back round to face forward, she was almost face-to-face with another one that seemed to appear from a huge shrub.

  She released a scream, and was grabbed by the thing. It dug its nails into her shoulders and they both fell to the ground, and began to tussle. It appeared that the monster was a female when it used to be in human form, and its bloated and peeling face was trying to bury itself into Jade's neck, aching for some flesh.

  Jade screamed out as she fought with the relentless thing, and as it opened its mouth to take a bite out of her shoulder, she finally managed to move it off of her. She crawled from the beast and eventually got to her feet. Her feet pounded the ground and she never looked back while she sprinted through the trees.

  Up ahead, she could see the trees becoming a lot less dense and crowded, and a relieved smile emerged on her face when she realised a road was up ahead. She then looked down on her arm and her features created a look of sorrow, but she tried to shrug it off, especially when she could hear a vehicle groan in the distance.

  She reached the side of the road and looked ahead to see a farmer's jeep coming her way. She held out her hand and told herself that if the vehicle showed no signs of slowing down, then she would jump in the middle of the road if she had to. She was that desperate.

  It began to slow, and she puffed out her
cheeks in relief.

  When it came to an eventual stop, Jade looked down at her left wounded arm, and covered the wound the best she could with her right hand. It wasn't bleeding that bad, but she didn't want the driver to refuse her a lift because she could mess up his means of transport.

  She was greeted by an elderly man of an age no younger than sixty-five. His wife was a heavy woman, of similar age, and they both greeted Jade with a warm smile.

  "You okay, young lady?" the driver spoke. "Where're you headed?"

  "Anywhere," said Jade, and almost burst into tears.

  "Anywhere?" The old man smiled and looked at his wife. "I think that's exactly where we're going."

  "I'm sorry to bother you." Jade's eyes were pleading, but she needn't have bothered.

  "Just you get in the back, love," the elderly woman spoke with comfort in her voice. "We're getting out of here and heading north."

  Said the old man, "Those things were everywhere for days. As soon as they dispersed a little, we made a run for it."

  "We're from Heath Hayes." The elderly woman began to pick her teeth with her forefinger. "Our village was fine, then suddenly, one afternoon, we looked out of our bedroom window to see loads of those things, spilling in the street. We saw people jumping from a bedroom window onto a big prison van that was parked on a front garden. The thing then rammed its way through them and then disappeared, taking most of those things with it. But some still hung around."

  "It's been a strange few weeks," the old man laughed. "That's for sure."

  "You getting in, or what?" The female passenger stared at Jade and added, "You don't look too well, girl. Get in the back, but watch out for our stuff."

  Jade nodded, and went to the back of the jeep. She thought that the couple's jovial attitude was bizarre, and thought that individuals of their age should have been tormented by terror. She climbed in and sat near some boxes that could have been food or household equipment, and dropped her head in her hands. She was dying to sleep.