“Yer asking me for permission?” Pickle was astounded that one minute Drake was kicking a man to death, his own man, and the next he was being polite again.
“Yes, I am.”
Pickle nodded and gestured to Vince to open the steel slide gate. Vince walked over and once it was opened, three men got out of one of the pickup trucks and entered the street without Drake having to say anything.
Two men grabbed Mac's body and dragged it away from Colwyn Place. They placed the body into the back of a pickup, and the remaining man walked around to the driver's side of the Audi and sat down inside, waiting for Drake.
“Guys,” Drake said. “It's been a pleasure.” He looked down at a patch of blood where Mac once lay and added, “Once again, sorry for the mess.”
Drake turned around and walked towards the Audi and got into the front passenger side. Vince was still by the gate, waiting for Drake to leave so he could close it. The car started up, did a three-point turn, and then slowly left the street. It turned right onto the Wolseley Road and the four pickups and ten mopeds eventually followed the car.
Vince slowly closed the gate and looked over to Pickle and Karen. Both were standing still, in silence, unsure what to do.
Paul was gone and he was never coming back.
Chapter Forty Five
Once Drake's vehicles had left, the first person to leave their home was Stephen Rowley. Terry Braithwaite stepped out of 1 Colwyn Place, then Joanne Hammett returned to the street and Stephen Bonser. In a matter of minutes they were all out, except Jim Danson's wife and his two kids, and all slowly approached Pickle, Vince and Karen and created a semi-circle around them.
It was clear they wanted answers, but no words had been said yet.
Before a query was fired at the three of them, Pickle cleared his throat and decided to speak up. Pickle and Vince had their heads up and were looking at the small crowd, but Karen had hers lowered and was clearly unhappy.
“Paul's gone,” Pickle said.
“What do you mean?” Rowley spoke up.
“A lot of Drake's men were killed by Paul. Those men had families back at their base in Stafford, and they want some kind of justice.”
“And what about our revenge for the ones we lost?” Bonser spoke up and added, “Paul's heroics saved the rest of us from being butchered. Don't these idiots know that a toddler was killed?”
Pickle gulped. “I don't really know what to say.”
“So you just let them take him away?”
“Didn't really have a choice in the matter,” Branston sighed and said with his teeth clenched together. “Drake gave us two choices: We either give Paul up, or the street was going to get attacked again and Paul dies anyway, which means we all die, more or less.”
Terry said, “I suppose it wasn't much of a choice.”
Pickle shook his head. “It wasn't. There was only one option to make, but even then it was difficult to see him go.”
“So what happens now, chap?” Rowley twisted his neck and loudly cleared his throat. “What happens if they come back and—?”
“As far as Drake is concerned, it's finished. He more or less gave us his word.”
“And you believe that?”
“I have to. We have to.”
“What if he goes back on his word?”
“We're gonna have to trust him. Nothing else we can do. We can't live in fear. The good thing is that they have a lot o' supplies back at their place, so robbing us never even crossed their minds.” Pickle wasn't sure that what he was saying was entirely true, but the people needed some kind of positive comments. There were going to be a lot of people that wouldn't be sleeping tonight.
“What's going to happen to Paul?” Joanne shook with nerves as she asked the question.
Karen kept her head down when she said, “What do you think?”
A hush fell on the group and was soon shattered when Stephen Rowley spoke. He said, “We need more people, weapons, better security.”
“True.” Pickle agreed with Rowley's suggestion. “But in order to get that, we need fuel, and we're running short. Thankfully, Elza, Ophelia and Stephanie came back with some fuel, and that is an absolute lifesaver. There is the option o' a couple o' us goin' out there on foot, to see if we can return with anything, but the numbers in this street are low enough as it is. Let's try and live in peace and get through the winter, then we'll decide what to do to improve the camp.”
“Live in peace?” Bonser scoffed. “Get through the winter? You want us to live in peace for the next five or six months and get through the winter? You think we're not gonna have another incident between now and January?”
“I'm trying to be positive,” sighed Pickle.
“You know better than most people that something will happen,” Rowley said with a shake of the head. “Some crisis will pop up, whether it's tomorrow or next week.”
“Okay, what the fuck do yer want me to say!” Pickle's yell made half of the people jump in fright, including Karen who was next to him, and Rowley gulped and took a small step back. “Eh? What do yer want, Rowley? The fucking truth? Okay, here we go!” Pickle looked at the frightened faces of the residents and growled, “Are yer listening? Good! Yer all gonna die! Whether it's the dead, Drake, or some other group o' bandits that we'll no doubt come across, and we will come across more people, we are all eventually going to die.”
Karen tried to step in and calm the man down, but he told her to shut up and continued.
He said, “You think it's bad now, but in six months or a year from now, survivors won't have any medical supplies at all, food and water, maybe, if we grow our own. A lot o' people out there are starving to death or are gonna starve to death.” Pickle snickered gently at the shocked faces and pointed at the crowd. “If yer lucky, yer might go the way John Lincoln did, nice and quick, but for most o' us it's not gonna be pretty. It could be cancer and there'd be nothing we could do, unless you ask us to put you out o' yer misery. It could be something simple like appendicitis. Or yer could be killed by the dead, which is not a great way to go either. So from now on ... we just carry on.”
“So now what?” Bonser sighed and was the first person brave enough to speak up. “You've given Paul a death sentence and we all carry on living as normal, is that what you're saying?”
“Given Paul a death sentence?” Pickle laughed, but there was anger behind that laugh which they all could see. “Stephen, yer didn't even like him, and now yer moaning that we've let him go. Yer and James made his life a misery when he was first here. I've said this once and I'll say it again: I had no choice. I sacrificed Paul to save yer lot. Me, Karen and Vince have known Paul a lot longer than yer guys, and it was a tough fucking call to make. Even he understood the decision.”
Terry Braithwaite grunted, stroked his ginger beard and said, “What's done is done. I'm sorry Paul has gone and ... well ... is going to be put to death, but it is what it is. I know it sounds strange, but Paul dying has saved the rest of us. You saw how he reacted. He went in peace and didn't need to be forced into the car. Maybe he wants to be reunited with his family. I know I have thought about dying since losing my family. Let's stop bickering, and remember ... Paul went in peace.”
“He went in peace?” Vince cackled. “Apart from biting that guy's nose off.”
“I have to admit, I did fear for the camp when he did that,” Rowley spoke up and tried to make a joke. “But if you're gonna go, chap, best to go out with a bang.”
“You said that the relatives of the people that Paul had killed wants vengeance.” Terry paused and was unsure whether his query was going to be appropriate. “How will they do that?”
Pickle asked, “What do yer mean?”
“Well, do you think they'll execute him quickly or ... I dunno ... take him somewhere and beat him to death?”
Joanne began to cry on hearing this and Terry immediately apologised for his insensitive query.
“I have no idea.” Pickle hunched his sho
ulders and threw his arms in the air. “They may want him to suffer for what he did, and I have a feeling that it's going to be watched by the relatives of the deceased, whether it's a slow beating, a bullet to the back of his head, or a hanging.”
Pickle could feel his throat getting tighter and began to think of what Paul had been through. And now to end his life like this! It seemed too cruel.
He looked at Joanne. She was crying, which was understandable. Her and Paul had grown close over the few weeks he had been at Colwyn Place. Pickle then looked at Karen and could see that she was grinding her teeth and her eyes looked wet.
“You okay?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Yer don't have to hold back, you know, if yer feel the need to cry.”
“I'm okay.”
“Again, I'm sorry about Paul.”
“There's always hope,” she said.
“Not in this situation, Karen. Paul's gone for good.”
Karen lowered her head and headed back to her house. Soon after, everybody else did the same.
*
Craig had been told by Pickle in private that Jez had been killed. Craig took the news well and told people that he would go out and find him himself and put him in an unmarked grave.
He left with a shovel in his left hand and his hockey stick in his right, and headed to the gate and let himself out. Craig could hear the gate being locked behind him, but never turned to see who it was.
He then turned left and went out to find Jez's body. He didn't exactly know where his body lay; he was certain that it was in 'some field' near the street and most of the fields were to Colwyn's left.
Craig felt for Jez and hoped that his death was a quick one, but because of Drake and the other Wrath of Evil members desperately wanting to sort out this 'traitor', Craig was already convinced that Jez had died brutally.
Poor Jez was in a no-win situation when Craig had hit him with the hockey stick in that ditch. Craig and Jez had left together, but Jez had no choice. If he stayed behind, then he was going to be killed by the gang members for failing to kill Craig as part of his initiation test.
Walking along the road, he twisted his neck from side to side, looking for a field with a body in it. He could see up ahead that the road was bending and he followed it round. A few minutes later, he was surrounded by more fields and could see to his right that a body lay motionless on the ground.
He knew it was Jez.
With a heavy heart, Craig walked into the field and headed for the body. He stopped once he reached Jez. He dropped the shovel on the ground, grabbed the top of the hockey stick with both hands, using it to keep his balance as he crouched down.
There was a lot of blood present around Jez's midriff, and Craig could see that the youngster had been knifed to death and could feel tears welling in his eyes. Jez would always say that he wasn't strong enough and cut out for the new world, and Craig would reassure the frightened teenager and tell him that he'd be okay if he stuck with him.
Jez had obviously had enough and decided to leave the street.
He was right. Jez was right about not being strong enough.
He had only been away from the camp briefly and had lost his life.
“I'm sorry, buddy,” Craig sighed. “I'm so sorry.”
Craig dropped the hockey stick and began to dig. He never stopped once until he had successfully managed to create a hole that was big enough for Jez to lie in.
It was shallow but it'd have to do.
Craig took a rest for a minute, then used the shovel to put the pile of dirt over the body. He did this with narrow eyes and tried not to look at the mutilated body of the poor boy. He patted the earth once the nineteen-year-old was laid to rest, but decided not to say a prayer.
What was the point? He didn't think there was any point.
Craig Burns wiped his wet head with the back of his forearm and picked his hockey stick up with his right hand, and kept the shovel in his left.
He walked away and headed back to the main road that ran past Colwyn Place. He had no idea how long he had been out of the street. Maybe an hour. Maybe longer.
His walk was only minutes old when he saw an unusual sight, especially in this barren area. He saw one beast walking in front of him. It had its back to him and was struggling to walk. It must have walked by the field whilst he was digging Jez's grave.
Another five minutes and it'd be walking by the gate of Colwyn Place and would probably be dealt with anyway, but Craig decided to remove the male creature himself.
He moved closer to the dead being and then placed the shovel at the side, on the grass, then walked up behind the Creeper—as the Colwyn residents called them—and whacked the thing at the top of its skull. It fell immediately, but it wasn't quite finished, forcing Craig to give it two more blows as it twitched on the floor.
With its head crushed and polluted brain matter exposed, Craig wiped his hockey stick on the grass and placed it next to the shovel. He grabbed the legs of the creature and dragged it to the side, leaving a small bloody slug-like trail.
He took in a deep breath, picked up the shovel and stick, and headed back to the street.
Chapter Forty Six
With his hands tied behind his back with a black plastic cable tie, Paul Dickson sat in the back of the Audi, inbetween two gang members, staring out of the windscreen.
This was it. He was going to die.
Unless...
This was not the way he had envisaged his death.
For many weeks, when he was stuck in his house with Kyle, hoping that one day Julie and Bell would return, he would think about his own demise. He had thought of numerous ways he was going to perish, but never like this: Taken back to a camp to be killed as an act of revenge. This was something that you'd see in a Mad Max film. But it was happening.
Drake was in the front passenger seat, sitting in silence, in fact they were all sitting in silence, and Paul began to wriggle about in the back seat and was beginning to annoy one of the men sitting next to him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” the man sitting to Paul's right asked. His name was Bill, Drake’s second in command.
Paul never answered and continued to wriggle.
“What are you doing, fucker?” the man asked once more.
Paul never answered and Drake asked from the front, “What's happening back there?”
The WOE man could see that Paul had both hands down the back of his jeans and grabbed his wrists, pulling them back out, making Paul yell in pain.
“You prick!” Paul exclaimed and spat in the man's face.
Bill wiped off the spittle and swallowed his anger. He didn't want to react with violence. He saw what happened to Mac. They all saw what happened to Mac.
After wiping off the spittle, Bill answered Drake, “He had his hands down his trousers. Fucking weirdo.”
“I was itchy, okay?” Paul shook his head and added, “Jesus, doesn't Drake let you retards scratch your own arses?”
Drake laughed from his seat, surprising both the driver and his two men that sat inbetween Paul Dickson. They'd seen Richard Bromley, only six days ago, being beaten to death with a crowbar for being cheeky to Drake. The only solace about losing Richard was that he had no other family that stayed with him at Drake's place.
He didn't kill many of his own men, but the ones that he did were on their own and had no family. So Drake had some compassion. Didn't he?
Drake had stopped laughing and managed to compose himself. The tall, thin male ran his fingers across his shaved head, and moved the rear view mirror so he could see Paul in the back.
“I just love the way you're putting a brave face on,” Drake said. “One thing I can't stand is to see grown men crying and begging for their lives. It's pathetic. But this tough guy act won't last long. When you get back to—”
“Save your fucking speech,” Paul mumbled.
“Don't you fucking interrupt me, you cunt!” Drake yelled, making every pe
rson in the car, even Paul, jump in fright. “When I'm talking, you fucking listen, you hear me? Two things I hate the most: Cunts interrupting me, and being ignored. Don't you fucking do that again! Understand?”
Paul never responded, making Bill and John on either side of him tetchy.
“Under-fucking-stand?”
Paul began to laugh and giggled, “Go fuck yourself.”
A silence fell on the men. Apart from the engine, no other noise could be heard. Drake had his hands on the dashboard and his nails were digging in. Paul thought he was going to pull the vehicle over and kill him at the side of the road, but thirty seconds of deep breathing and Drake slowly sat back and seemed to be relaxed again.
Drake cleared his throat and said, “So this is what's going to happen to you, Paul Dickson. We're going to take you to a courtyard where we stay. There are two relatives, brothers in fact, of one of the guys you ran down and killed. We'll keep you tied up, and the brothers will then repeatedly stab and beat you until you are dead. It's not going to be quick. You'll probably be stabbed in the legs and arms before your heart takes a blade. The other relatives didn't want to take part; they just wanted to watch, and I’m not going to take part to avenge Gerry’s death either. Allowing them to kill you is the least I could do for them, don't you think?”
Paul never answered and continued to squirm in his seat.
“What the fuck's wrong with that cunt?” Drake asked one of the men in the back.”
“I dunno, Drake,” said Bill who was behind Drake.
“If he keeps it up, give him a fucking slap. You have my permission.”
“Sure thing.”
Paul continued to wriggle his bum. He lifted one cheek, and then relaxed again.
“What the fuck is that smell?” the driver began to cough and twisted his face in disgust.
“Jesus,” John, who was sitting to Paul's right said, “That's fucking disgusting.”
Paul lowered his head and apologised for what he did. “I'm nervous. What do you expect?”
Snatchers Box Set, Vol. 4 [Books 10-12] Page 47
