Stephen Rowley was outside, sitting on his doorstep and Joanne Hammett was on her doorstep, puffing on a cigarette.
"You bored, chap?" Rowley called over to Terry.
Terry laughed, "That obvious, huh?"
He approached the concrete wall and sat down with his back against it. He leaned his head back and thought back to the days when things were normal, when his family were alive. The good days.
He thought about when they used to take jaunts out to the cinema at Stafford. Little Haywood didn't have a cinema, and Rugeley used to have one before it closed down and was refurbished and became a Wetherspoons pub.
Because of the age of his kids, Terry and his wife had to take them to the cinema whenever the latest Disney or Pixar release was out. Every time they visited the movies, Terry would fall asleep during the film. His wife kept on telling him that it was a waste of time—and money—taking him, but he went nevertheless and always claimed that he got a better sleep in the cinema than he did at home.
Tears formed in Terry's eyes yet again, and before they were ready to fall, a sound coming from behind him made the man snap out of his dreaming of yesteryear.
Still sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, he turned his head and placed his ear against the wall to get a better listen.
It sounded like buzzing or ... groaning. He wasn't sure. To clarify what it really was, he needed to get up and peer over the wall. But he couldn't be bothered. Not yet.
The noise was slowly growing from behind him.
"What the fuck is that?" he moaned to nobody in particular.
Terry shook his head, staggered to his feet, then peered over the wall.
At first there was no emotion on his face. It took a few seconds for his eyes to widen in horror, his heart to gallop furiously and for his bottom lip to quiver in fright.
He took a step back and exclaimed, "Jesus Christ Almighty!"
*
Stephen Rowley and Vince Kindl were sitting on a doorstep of the house that belonged to Stephen. Vince had seen Rowley and decided to chew the fat with the individual for a few minutes and kill some time.
They made idle chat for a minute or so, and Stephen admitted to himself that he now liked Vince. The chat had ceased for a while and both stared out and remained silent, until Vince decided to open his mouth once more.
"He's a bit of a strange one." Vince nodded over to Terry Braithwaite. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the concrete wall.
"He's a good chap." Stephen grunted and twisted his neck. "He's had a rough ride."
"So has Paul, but he doesn't seem to be getting any sympathy from your lot."
"Maybe he'll grow on us, chap." Stephen cleared his throat and looked at Vince. "You know, I never liked you at first, but you're okay ... different."
"Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment."
"Don't get me wrong, I never hated you, I just didn't get you."
"Well, thanks for that," said Vince. "The only people I hate are people who use big words just to make themselves look perspicacious."
Stephen looked at Vince strangely. "I don't understand you sometimes."
"The trouble with you, Stephen, is that you don't really have a sense of humour."
"Yes, I do." Rowley looked outraged. Despite being on his own doorstep, he was in two minds whether to walk away from Vince or not because he was that incensed. "Me and Nick used to have a great laugh doing runs together."
Vince rubbed his chin in thought. "Nick?"
"You know, Pickle hacked his hand off after he was bitten," Stephen said sadly. "You were there. He got back to Colwyn Place and died of blood loss."
"Yes, I remember now." Vince took another gander over at Terry, then looked at Stephen Bonser at the other end of the street, guarding the gate. Vince decided to start a new conversation. "So, what do you do for laughs around here?"
Rowley hunched his shoulders. "People aren't really in the mood." Stephen twisted his neck and said, "You know, since what's happened, people don't seem to laugh as much these days."
"That's a shame." There was genuine sadness in Vince's words. "It's good to have a chuckle every now and then."
Vince sat and thought about Rick Morgan, and some of the atrocious banter the pair of them used to have when on guard duty at Sandy Lane.
"What do you miss the most?" blurted out Rowley.
"What? You mean since..?"
Rowley nodded.
"A lot of things," sighed Vince. "I miss music. Although, I don't miss Coldplay. You?"
"I miss my guitar." Stephen smiled.
"Didn't realise you could play." Vince looked impressed.
"Oh yeah." Stephen rested his chin on the palm of his hand, now reminiscing. "I used to have a semi—"
"Steady on." Vince widened his eyes.
"A semi-acoustic."
"Oh."
"But I had to sell it a few years ago. I promised myself that I was going to buy myself one for this Christmas, but..."
"I used to be in a band." Vince bit his bottom lip, trying not to snigger.
Rowley looked surprised. "Yeah?"
"Yep. We were called Lost Dog. You probably saw our posters."
"Nice one." Stephen Rowley grunted, twisted his neck and cleared his throat a little louder than he normally did.
Vince winced when Stephen did this. His clearing of his throat sometimes turned Kindl's stomach. Vince didn't know if Stephen generally had a dodgy throat or it was some annoying habit he had had for years. "Is that really necessary?"
"What's that, chap?"
Vince sighed, "Never mind."
Stephen Rowley began to whistle a tune, trying to fill the silence.
"Okay, I've got a joke," Vince spoke up.
Stephen stopped whistling. "Okay, chap. I'm all ears."
"Why did little Billy fall off the swing?"
Rowley thought for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders, gently shaking his head. "I have no idea."
"Because he had no arms." Vince placed his hand over his mouth and began to giggle like a school child, but Stephen didn't look amused.
He scowled and said, "That's just plain stupid."
"Okay," Vince sighed. "Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Not Billy."
To the side of them, Terry cried, "Jesus Christ Almighty!"
Vince Kindl immediately stopped laughing and he and Stephen turned their heads to their right, where the wall was, once they heard Terry Braithwaite yell out.
They both stood to their feet and raced over to the wall, over to Terry.
Chapter Forty Nine
After Vince had peered over the wall, he ran back into his house to retrieve his machete, and by the time he returned outside there were many people by the wall, including, Pickle, Karen, Stephanie, Elza and Ophelia.
Others that were there, Terry, Stephen Bonser, Stephen Rowley, James Thomson, Freddie and Danny looked nervous, but at least they had showed. There was so much chaos and quarrelling with one another on what to do, no one did anything, they just stood helplessly and exchanged angry words.
Vince approached the confused group, looked over the wall and witnessed for the second time the group of the dead. When Vince and Pickle first looked over the wall they knew it was the dead from the abbey. None were against the wall, but were scattered along the road in their dozens, shambling in no particular direction. Pickle told the group to stay calm whilst he tried to think.
"We need to keep the noise down. But the wall will hold them, if they approach it." Stephen Bonser tried to appease the worried faces of the other residents. "Don't worry. It'll hold."
Vince looked behind him, at the new Colwyn Place, and gazed at the street. He could see some of the residents out on their doorsteps. Old Tom, Joanne Hammett, Brenda Hatchet and partners, Gail and Paul Smith from number twelve, were outside their houses, and looked worried to death.
John was clearly upset when he first peered out of his
bedroom window and saw the dead over at the old street, after Terry's yell. John Lincoln now stood on his doorstep with his arms folded and had no plan on moving anywhere. Lincoln stood and shook his head in disbelief at what was happening.
Vince didn't understand why he was looked up to and why he was in charge. He never did anything. He stood and watched as Pickle took control of the group, trying to keep them calm and gesturing to the others on their doorsteps to go inside and watch from their windows, if they really had to.
"We can't just leave them roaming around," Danny Gosling cried.
"We just need to sit tight and wait it out," said Freddie. It was all he could think of. He was twenty-one and had spent most of his time hiding in Colwyn Place, from the outside world. What did he know?
"Pickle," said Karen, peering over the concrete wall, "I think we can take them."
"Are you mad?" James Thomson growled at Karen, unsure whether she was joking or not.
Ophelia nodded, agreeing with Karen, and was quite willing to go over and remove the dead.
Elza Crowe peered over and also agreed with Karen. "They're quite spaced out. If we all go over, and stay in a tight formation..."
"Bollocks to that." Stephen Bonser shook his head. "I'm not going over. Why are all the new people fucking insane?"
Nobody could give him an answer.
Pickle looked at the people that were around him, all carrying a weapon of some sort, mainly blades, and realised he had something in his living room that would be ideal for this scenario.
With his spare machete in his belt, he walked back to his house, ignoring the people who yelled and asked where he was going, and returned quickly with the mace in his right hand, resting it on his shoulder. The panicky chatter was still ongoing and Pickle held his left hand up and shushed the group. Some chatter was still going between James Thomson and Stephen Bonser, and they were shushed by Elza.
"Don't fucking shush me, darling," Thomson spat. "You've only been on this camp for a matter of hours."
"Pickle's trying to speak," Elza hissed back. "Shut up."
"I ain't having no split-arse telling me what to do."
Ophelia stepped forward, approached James Thomson and raised her chipped and bloodstained bat. James gasped and took a step back, but Elza called Ophelia back, and now the chatter had died down.
"So, what are we gonna do, Pickle?" Terry Braithwaite spoke up.
"Okay," Pickle began. "This is what's going to happen. We're gonna peer o'er this wall and holler like a bunch o' crazy bastards."
Stephen Rowley interrupted, "Wait a minute—"
"I 'aven't finished yet." Pickle stuck his index finger up at Stephen, shushing the man. "Then they should come towards the concrete line o' defence. The wall will be our protection, our shield, if yer like. While those dead fucks are against the wall, tryin' to get at us, we put them down. It's not difficult."
"That's it?" Bonser scoffed.
"That's it." Pickle nodded, and could see Bonser laughing to himself and shaking his head at Pickle's 'plan'. "Unless yer would rather go over, possibly get dragged to the floor and see what yer insides look like before yer die?"
Bonser gulped and lowered his head.
Pickle smiled. "Thought not."
Pickle put the mace on the floor, had his machete ready and walked over to the centre of the wall, about a yard away from it. Karen Bradley copied him, then Vince and a few others, all stood in a line, side by side. The bat and the knife-wielding folk all stood back, a yard from the wall, waiting for the horde to reach them.
"Get ready, guys," yelled Pickle. "Stay lined up, side by side. And I don't want any one invading another's space."
"That's how you will get injuries," said Vince.
"We've all played whac-a-mole, haven't we?" Pickle giggled. He was answered my moans and some yeses. "This'll be the same thing, but a bit bloodier."
Pickle began to yell and clatter his blade off the wall, and was soon copied by many others.
He turned and could see that twelve residents were by the wall. It was a pathetic turnout considering the whole population of the street, and half of the people at the wall were the 'new people'. It was something that Pickle would have to address with John Lincoln at a later date. Many of them continued to yell and hit their blades off the top of the wall.
The machete holders could now see the dead bastards staggering towards them, towards the wall. The well-dressed dead were in healthy numbers, nearly fifty of them, but Pickle assumed there could be more scattered about in other side streets, in the old part of Little Haywood, in No Man's Land.
Pickle raised his hand, telling the machete holders to stop hitting the wall and stop yelling. There was no need now.
They were coming.
Pickle put his blade back under his belt and grabbed his mace off of the floor. He told the rest of the group to get their weapons ready. The dead nearest the wall were now just yards from the concrete barrier.
"Now what do we do?" Freddie Johnson cackled nervously. "Wait for them to climb over?"
"They can't climb. It's quite simple," said Pickle. "As soon as yer see the top o' a head, yer damage it, depending what yer carrying. Stabbing, hacking or bludgeoning should do the trick either way. Try not to get any blood in yer eyes."
They all glared and could now see the tops of the heads of some of the dead from behind the wall. Some of the Colwyn residents gazed at Pickle, wondering what the hell to do. He began to laugh. "Do yer need permission off me to scratch yer balls? Yer see one in front o' yer, yer smack it."
Machetes and baseball bats rained down and knives stabbed at the tops of the exposed heads. As the group continued to attack anything that approached from behind the wall, blood flew and diseased brain matter scattered. More of the dead staggered to the wall, unaware that their demise was only seconds away.
For minutes, the twelve individuals that were lined up put the relentless ghouls down; some had to peer over and stab at the shorter beasts.
Sometimes the arms of the dead would try and reach over for the people on the other side of the wall, but limbs belonging to the dead would be hacked off by the machete holders like Karen and Vince before the ghouls' demise.
It seemed to take ages, but the exhausted group stopped one by one when the dead eventually stopped coming. Every blade and bat was covered in dark sticky blood and it appeared that every single beast that they had seen scattered on the road was now in a heap, on the other side of the wall.
Pickle looked at the exhausted and sweat-stained group and was proud of them. Yes, the likes of Karen, Vince and Elza were veterans when it came to killing the dead, but the likes of Danny, Freddie and the others that had been hidden from many of the horrors that the new world had to offer, had done their bit as well.
Pickle looked over to see John Lincoln, arms still folded, wearing a proud smile. Pickle raised his arm, telling the people to keep back, and slowly poked his head over the wall. There were none left standing. However, he was pretty sure that there were more. These things had escaped the abbey somehow, and from what he could remember there was a lot more in that abbey that what was lying motionless on the ground.
"Who's knackered?" Vince asked the rest of the people.
Most put their hands up, apart from Karen, Vince, Elza, Ophelia and Stephen Rowley.
"Good." Pickle nodded. "We need to get rid o' these bodies ... now. Otherwise the place is gonna stink."
Karen peered over the wall and sighed at the many bodies. "There's too many. There's no way we have the strength to shift them over the wall. Must be at least fifty of them. Have you ever carried a dead body, let alone try and get one over a six foot wall?"
"That's why we're gonna grab the pickup, drive round and dump them in the back o' it." Pickle smiled. "Then we drive back round to the gate and get them buried in the field."
"That sounds like a better way." Karen nodded.
"So how're we gonna do this, chap?" Rowley queried.
&n
bsp; "Rowley, Elza and Ophelia ... get yer arses over to the field, grab some shovels and get digging." Pickle looked at Vince and Karen. "I'll jump in the truck, go around and get the bodies. Yer two jump o'er the wall once I've arrived and help me put them in the back." Pickle peered over the wall again to estimate how many bodies were lying on the floor. "It might be two journeys. We'll see. By the time we drop them off, we should have a decent size hole waiting for them." Pickle looked at the tired and frightened faces of the other residents such as Terry Braithwaite, Stephen Bonser, Freddie, Danny and a couple of others, including young Stephanie. "Everybody else ... go. Go and clean yerselves up."
No one argued and slowly trudged away and went back to their digs.
The back of the pickup was layered with a plastic sheet and Vince and Karen were going to wait by the concrete wall. Once Pickle arrived, they were going to jump over and help throw the bodies in the back of the truck, then Pickle would drive back round to the gate and dump them on the field that was opposite the entrance of Colwyn Place, where Rowley, Ophelia and Elza would be waiting.
Pickle sat in the driver's seat and placed his machete and mace on the passenger's. He fired the engine and slipped the vehicle into first. After he had exited the street, he went by the Wolseley Arms pub and turned right onto the Stafford Road. He slowed the vehicle down and could see another dozen or so shambling away from him, down the main road, all in suits and dresses. Thankfully, he didn't need to drive through them to get by. There was a right turn, a few yards up ahead, and that was where he was going.
He made the turn and went over a hump bridge. He was now entering Little Haywood at the other end. No Man's Land.
The drive through the village was a short affair; he had driven by six Snatchers that were obviously from the abbey because of the way they were dressed, and didn't understand why more wasn't seen. He then remembered the small group of the dead, yards down from the Stafford Road. That must have been the rest from the abbey.
He could see the concrete wall from a distance and his eyes picked up no more dead, so he decided to pull up and remove the six that he had just passed, before removing the bodies that were by the wall.
Snatchers (Book 10): The Dead Don't Care Page 21
