"Some o' the people we lost," Pickle began, and had to swallow his displeasure, "were good people, lovers, even kids. I know you've had a drink, Shaz, but please don't mock."
Karen tried to lighten the mood. "Anyway, Shaz, where'd you get that daft bracelet from?"
"Which bracelet?" Shaz began to look at her hands: her soused state took Pickle by surprise as she had hardly had that much wine. But then again, for a lot of individuals, it could have been three weeks since they'd had a drink, and even a glass could go to someone's head, especially for a person who hadn't eaten properly in under a month.
Sharon finally found the bracelet Karen was referring to; it was hanging off her left wrist. It was cheap-looking and the assortment of beads had all the colours of the rainbow around the elastic. Sharon stared at the bracelet and puffed out a breath that was full of despair. She touched the bracelet with the fingers of her right hand, and looked at Karen with her glassy eyes and finally answered, "Spencer made me this two days before he died. He made it at school. I'll never forget it. It was Friday afternoon, June 8th."
Karen tried to explain. "I'm sorry, I di—"
"It's okay."
"Yer told me before, in a brief summary, that yer husband killed yer son. Are yer in any state to tell us what happened?" In a matter of seconds, Pickle had forgiven Shaz for her crass comments about his group. He missed KP like hell, but losing a child was the worst thing that could happen to an adult, and it was something he hadn't and would never experience, thankfully.
"Nothing to tell really." Shaz was trying her utmost to put on a brave face, but she was losing the battle. "I went on the sofa because of my husband's snoring, and I heard noises from upstairs. I went up and saw my husband had reanimated."
"Spencer too?" asked Pickle.
Shaz shook her head. "Thanks to my husband, there was hardly anything left to reanimate."
"How did your husband turn?" Karen asked. "Was he bit, or...?"
Explained Shaz, "You see, this is the thing. He drank in the house and then went to bed. But before he went to bed, he was putting bottles in the recycling bin, and I heard him shouting at someone. Maybe it was one of them, and he had somehow been bit or scratched. But he never said anything to me when he came back into the house."
"Maybe he didn't wanna worry yer," Pickle spoke up.
"What happened to your husband after you saw he had turned?" queried Karen.
"I don't know." Shaz nodded in Karen's direction. "I did the same as what you did. I left the house and took the car. It was stolen three days later."
Pickle lowered his head inbetween his knees and then looked up again, his neck cracking. "I'm sure yer Spencer is with God now."
Sharon smiled at the thought. "I hope so, Pickle. I really do."
As Shaz and Pickle continued to converse, Karen decided to get herself a drink of water. Wolf kept a few bottles on top of the sink that had been collected, bleached and sieved. She walked into the kitchen from outside and helped herself. She took a large swig, and Wolf came in from the living room and stood next to her. He peered out of the main door while in the kitchen, and gawped at Pickle and Shaz who were deep in conversation.
"Well, they seem to be getting on," Wolf said.
Karen nodded and screwed the lid back onto the water bottle. "She seems nice enough. Wasn't too sure at first, but it's amazing how this thing can psychologically fuck you up."
Wolf made a facial expression to suggest that he agreed with Karen, and he looked at the twenty-three-year-old. Karen glared back at him with her head lowered, but she was joking with her stare. "What is it, Wolf?"
Wolf walked over to the main door and slowly shut it properly, as if he was about to tell Karen a secret and he didn't want the other two to know. He finally asked her, "How are you these days?"
Karen sniggered and was baffled by his query. "Er, fine. And you?"
Wolf ran his fingers through his grey beard and took off his straw hat, revealing his damp, grey hair. He placed his hands on both of her shoulders and gazed at her. "I may be a man, my dear, but I know when someone is pregnant."
Karen burst into hysterics and while she did this and kept up her pretence, Wolf remained glaring at the former nurse. Her snickering had finally ceased and she said, "What are you talking about?"
"You know."
Karen half-laughed, lowered her head and began rubbing her eyelids. She quickly lifted her head up to reveal her rainy eyes and pleaded, "Please, don't tell anyone else."
"But you had that wine the other day."
"Yeah, and I was sick as a dog. Just don't tell anyone. I don't want sympathy."
"How long gone?"
Karen sighed and seem to take an age to answer Wolf's question. She slowly shrugged her shoulders. "No idea. Maybe just a few weeks, or a month or so. I could still lose it, with a bit of a luck."
Wolf let go of her shoulders and took a step back. For a minute, she thought he was going to slap her, as she saw the venom in his face. But he was never going to strike a pregnant woman. "That's a terrible thing to say, Karen. That baby is the only bit of Gary you have left. It was Gary you was engaged to, wasn't it?"
She nodded sadly. "Yeah, well, I can't have a baby in this fucked up world."
Wolf took a sip from a cup of tea he had made earlier and wetted his lips. "It's not ideal, but it's still a life. You have a son or a daughter, Gary's son or daughter, growing inside of you. Doesn't that mean anything?"
"It means it's gonna slow me down."
Wolf shook his head in exasperation. "You don't mean that."
"Oh, don't I?"
Wolf had sadness in his eyes and looked over both shoulders as if someone could be around, eavesdropping. "Look, children are a gift from God. You see, I..." He paused and lowered his head, as if he was about to say something personal to Karen, but was unsure whether to say it or not. "I was a shitty father, especially to my son. If I could have my time back again..."
Karen could see the hurt and regret on Wolf's face. "You said you had kids before, what were they?"
"I have a daughter and a son."
"And what are their names?"
"Sadie and Vincent." Wolf smiled and gently placed his wrinkly hand affectionately on the left arm of Karen Bradley. "Sadie is forty-one. She lives in Ireland. And the other one is around somewhere. He just lives on the other side of the town. He's the eldest."
"Vincent?"
Wolf nodded. "But we just call him Vince."
Wolf then went back over to the main door and opened it. He looked up to the black sky and called out to Pickle and Shaz. "Better get inside, folks. I think there's going to be a storm soon."
Pickle and Shaz looked up in unison to the depressing clouds, and agreed wholeheartedly with Wolf and told him that as soon as they had finished the rest of their drink, they were going to retire into the cabin. Because of the rain, it was going to be a bit cramped on this particular night, but Mother Nature had forced all four people to stay indoors. Even if the rain had stopped completely, the grass was still soaking wet.
Pickle was the first to get in and walked past Karen in the kitchen. Shaz soon came in and placed her hand on Karen's shoulder and looked out of the window. "That's gonna be some storm tonight."
Karen sighed and looked up at the depressing clouds through the window. "Yep." She nodded her head in agreement. "And I've got a feeling there's gonna be a few more storms to come."
THE END
If you enjoyed reading SNATCHERS: Volume One, feel free to mail me your thoughts on FB or Twitter, or/and leave a review where you've downloaded the book.
Very kind regards,
Shaun Whittington
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Snatchers: Volume Two (books 4-6) will not be available until 2016. If you can't wait that long, you can purchase book 4 and 5 right now from Amazon.
Snatchers 4
UK: Snatchers 4
USA: Snatchers 4
Snatchers 5
UK: Snatch
ers 5
USA: Snatchers 5
And if you haven't had enough of zombies, you can try my stand-alone novel, The Z Word.
The Z Word
UK: The Z Word
USA: The Z Word
Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3) Page 85
