The Dead Don't Fear

by Shaun Whittington

  “Just fucking drive, Pickle!” Vince spoke with panic in his voice.

  “I can’t see in front o’ me!”

  He looked to the side and wound his window down when he could see no dead, and stuck his head out. He looked in front of him and could see it was clear and all that was ahead of him was the long stretch of road and Stafford Prison’s high brick wall to his right.

  He turned and jumped when he was grabbed by the hair by a lone Snatcher. Pickle punched it in the face and tried to push it away, but it made no difference. He grabbed the creature by the hair, pulled its head into the truck and slammed his foot on the accelerator pedal. The truck shot forwards and Pickle turned the steering wheel and mounted the pavement, getting closer to the wall. The dead being’s body was dragged against the brick wall and eventually came apart, until there was just its head, arms and upper body left. Pickle punched it repeatedly and eventually the Snatcher let go and the remains of its body fell under the wheels of the truck.

  Pickle stopped the truck, panting hard, and looked to the side to see how his passenger was. He got out and asked Vince to pass him some water. Vince took out a bottle that was half full and Pickle used some on his face to wipe a small spray of dark blood that came from the being when it came apart, and then used the rest to clean the windscreen. He got inside, used the wipers twice, and was satisfied that he could see better than before.

  “We’ll be okay,” Pickle said. “A few minutes and we’ll be there.”

  “Shame about Chris.”

  Pickle nodded in agreement. “I’ve got a feeling that Drake isn’t gonna be too bothered.”

  Vince nodded in agreement. “I hope the barbecues aren’t too damaged.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Karen had just left the new clinic area, and headed down the corridor and back to her own ward and where she slept. She decided to get some air first and stepped outside to see the line of vehicles along the wall that were near the two greenhouses. One of the vehicles was the large prison van that they had returned with. She thought she had heard Drake mentioning it being a good prop for a barrier, but he had obviously changed his mind.

  Karen lifted her head and took in the air, smiling as a breeze glided over her features and her eyes dampened when she thought about Craig.

  “Hiya,” the voice came from the side of her, making her jump.

  She smiled when she saw Darren looking at her and greeted him with a small smile. She never asked why he had left so abruptly earlier and decided not to bring the subject up, but he did anyway.

  “Sorry about before,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She smiled. “I’m a nosey bitch.”

  “I’m just not handling it as well as others,” Darren said. He lowered his head and added, “You, Drake, Pickle... You guys seem to be coping really well.”

  “Let me just stop you there. Maybe on the outside we look like we’re handling it, but not everybody wears their heart on their sleeve. Pickle and I have had many wobbles over the months, and I’m sure Drake is a different man when he’s left alone.”

  Darren wiped his clammy hands down his jeans and used his thumb to wipe the tear that was about to fall from his eye.

  “I was at work when it happened,” he began.

  Karen smiled. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “No, I want to.”

  Darren gulped and continued, “I saw numerous incidents on my phone, but brushed it off and finished my shift. When I got home, I could see that my parents were in. I stayed in the house and watched the news.”

  “And your parents?”

  “They never came back,” Darren responded. “I did what the TV told me. You know, about filling your bath and barricading your door, but starvation makes you leave eventually.”

  “Didn’t you have...?” Karen tried to choose her words carefully. “Didn’t you have a special someone to go to?”

  “I hadn’t had a special someone in two years.”

  “Oh?”

  “She died a couple of years ago,” he confessed. Karen dropped her chin an inch and told him she was sorry.

  He continued, “She was coming back from a pub and this piece of shit hit her with a car. She was found lying in the street.”

  “And what about the person that ran her over?”

  “Never caught him.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  Darren released a depressed sigh and rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. “She was in hospital for three days, critical condition, but she died.”

  “This is going to sound a bit weird,” Karen said. “Maybe even a bit cruel, but...” She paused.

  Darren smiled. “I’m looking at the positives,” he said, “if that’s what you mean. She could have turned, like your partner, and that would have killed me to see her like that. Even if she survived, I don’t think she’d cope with everything that’s happening. She wasn’t the toughest person.”

  “Neither was I,” Karen said, “but when you’re in a corner and you get prodded, you can either cower or snap like any other animal.”

  “Did you snap back?”

  “Well, in the second week I blew a man away with a Browning handgun for raping another man in a supermarket.”

  Darren widened his eyes and knew she wasn’t kidding. Why would she make something like that up? “Handgun?”

  “Long story.” Karen snickered. “I’ll tell you about it one day.”

  “I wonder...”

  Darren was distracted and Karen also turned her head on hearing the sound of a vehicle.

  She looked at Darren and said, “Main gate.”

  The two of them walked around the building to the front and could see a red pickup outside the fence. Findlay pulled the gate back and watched as the vehicle parked up beside them and Pickle and Vince quickly got out.

  Drake exited the building on their arrival and started laughing when he clocked the two barbecues and the gas canisters in the back.

  “Excellent,” he cried. He then looked around the truck. “Something’s missing.”

  “Um ... yeah.” Pickle scratched his head. “About that.”

  Vince decided to speak up. “We had an accident. Pickle had no choice and had to slam on the brakes and Chris flew out the back and was flung about twenty yards.”

  “Dead?” Drake asked.

  Vince thought it was a bizarre query. “Of course he’s dead. We wouldn’t just leave him out there if he wasn’t.”

  Pickle nodded and said with regret, “He’s definitely dead.”

  Drake asked, “Why didn’t you bring him ... bring his body back?”

  Vince and Pickle looked at one another; Pickle cleared his throat and decided to speak up this time.

  “He was alive when he hit the road,” he began, “but these Snatchers came out o’ nowhere and killed him. We barely got out ourselves.”

  “So...” Drake squinted and held his finger up in the air. “Chris was thrown from the truck, survived that, and then was ripped apart by the dead?”

  Both men nodded sullenly.

  Drake burst out laughing and said, “Talk about rotten luck. No pun intended.”

  “It’s not funny, Drake,” Pickle snapped at the man that was still cackling. “He really suffered.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. At least you came back with some goodies, eh?” He slapped Pickle on the shoulder, started to walk away, and added, “I’ll get a few guys to give you a hand with getting them out.”

  Karen approached her two friends as Darren hung back.

  “Are you two okay?” She asked them. They both nodded. “That Drake has a heart of stone, doesn’t he?”

  Pickle said, “I’m beginning to believe that.”

  Vince yawned and moaned that he needed his bed.

  “Bed?” queried Karen.

  “Haven’t slept for nearly a day,” Vince moaned.

  “That’s right,” Karen said. “You did the night shift, didn’t you?”

&nb
sp; “Well, most of it.” Vince yawned once more and said, “See you two later on.”

  “Right.” Pickle watched as Vince walked away and then turned to Karen. “What have yer been up to?”

  She turned and pointed to Darren who was ten yards away with his head down. “Just hanging out with Darren.”

  Pickle could see she was crestfallen.

  He put his arm around her and gave her a kiss on her cheek. He asked her, “Are yer okay?”

  Karen nodded. “Just thinking about Paul.”

  He released his arm and nodded over to where the reception area was, where two guys walked out, one of them cracking his knuckles.

  Pickle took a look at the contents in the back of the truck and then back over to the approaching men. “Looks like the cavalry have arrived.”

  *

  Paul Dickson’s eyes opened and he sat up, rubbing his back. Whether it was the hard ground of the woods or the floor of a building, he would never get used to hard surfaces. He should have chosen a house on Sandy Lane.

  He pulled out some water from his bag, had a sniff of the plastic bottle and took a swig, then took out a toothbrush and started brushing his teeth. He had no toothpaste, but it was better than nothing.

  A minute had passed and he left the office with his bag and blade, crept through the dusky corridor with his senses on high alert, and exited the Lea Hall building.

  He turned right and walked a few yards towards the hut. He had one last glance at his son’s grave, this time not stopping, and then exited the grounds of Lea Hall and walked down Sandy Lane.

  A couple of minutes later he turned right, onto a road called Horsefair, and walked by the Globe Island, which was basically a roundabout in the town centre, avoiding dead bodies and abandoned cars. He continued to move and went by the old clinic, went under the railway bridge and continued on Armitage Road, as if he was going to Brereton, spotting two of the dead up ahead. Two females.

  Pulling out his machete, Dickson released a wolf whistle and enticed them over. He brought the machete behind his head as the first female approached. He brought the blade down and watched as it buried itself into its head and went down to the bridge of her nose. He held onto the handle of the blade and front kicked the dead female in her midriff, pushing her to the floor and freeing his blade.

  Female number two went down by the same method.

  After wiping the machete’s blade on the tattered yellow summer dress of the second female, Paul tucked his weapon away and continued with his walk, passing The Ash Tree pub and eventually reaching the top of a long road. Once he reached the top of the steep road, he looked down and could see The Plum Pudding pub on his left and The Spode Cottage and the caravan park on the right, Vince’s old place.

  Paul revealed a small smile and began the descent to the bottom of the road. He never stopped walking as he passed the caravan site, but he did turn his head to the right and gazed at the caravans, including the one that he and Kyle had briefly stayed in.

  Paul Dickson passed the company Armitage Shanks and pulled out his blade once more when three Snatchers were seen up ahead.

  “Jesus,” he moaned. “Same shit, different day.”

  He was heading north. He didn’t know specifically where he was going, but he needed to be away from this area.

  THE END

  Author Notes

  Okay, so it’s been a while since I did one of these books and I had to re-read some of the old books to be re-acquainted with the characters, to know their history, mannerisms and how they spoke.

  I get a lot of negative reviews/private messages telling me to “end the damn series” and “give it an ending” which I find a little bizarre, and this has been the main reason why I held off from doing another book. The last Snatchers book that came out was over eighteen months ago, when normally I put out three a year.

  There are plenty of books, comics, TV shows, etc., that have been running for years, and still are ongoing, so I don’t really see what the problem is.

  Compared to previous books, I feel that this is one of the gentler ones, and the shortest at 75,000 words, and was done like this purposefully. I also wanted to take a break from the old “her comes another bad guy” scenario and make the dead, the Snatchers, the primary focus in this book.

  In these books I do tend to nod towards the first books, and this one is no different. For the first time, Pickle returns to the prison and we come across the same mug from the first Snatchers book. The “Sex Instructor: First Lesson Free” mug was first discovered by the prison officer, Jamie, who was looking for keys for one of the prison vans when he and Janine were trying to flee the place. Jamie takes a set of keys and decided to take the smaller van. Pickle himself comes across the mug when he finds the keys for the remaining prison van.

  Despite bringing the dead into the forefront of being the main danger, realistically, if this were real, experienced survivors would be almost desensitised by the presence of the dead. With the scene of Vince in the hospital, in that dark corridor and then stuck in the baby unit, as well as Stephen and Craig getting trapped in the ditch, I wanted the dead to be the primary enemy as they were in the first book.

  Anyway, I do tend to write these books in threes, so there will be at least another two after this one, regardless of the reviews or sales. Whether you’ve been with me since the beginning, or have just picked up the series, a big thanks. No matter what else I put out there, this series seems to be the one that most people look forward to.

  All the best,

  Shaun

  Other books set in the Snatchers world

  The Girl with the Flying Saucer Eyes (set 6 months after the outbreak)

  Ghostland series (set a year after the outbreak).

  These books include some characters from the Snatchers books.

  If you enjoyed reading SNATCHERS 13: The Dead Don't Fear, feel free to mail me your thoughts on facebook or Twitter, or leave a review where you've downloaded the book.

  Very kind regards,

  Shaun Whittington