Vince looked at Mildred and asked if she was ready.
She placed her bat on her shoulder and said, “Does a rocking horse have a wooden dick?”
“Don’t really get that.” Vince narrowed his eyes in confusion and added, “But I’ll take that as a yes.”
The two of them stepped inside and went through the ground floor, quicker than last time, knowing that the floor was clear. Vince went behind the counter and jogged up the stairs, with Mildred following. He could see the landing was darker than the ground floor, but light still spilled in from a window.
Vince kept the torch in his pocket and could see three doors. He knocked each one and was happy that there was no sound coming from behind any of them.
“We’ll try this one first.” Vince pointed at the door to the right. “Then we’ll make our way to the last one.”
He opened the door and could barely see. It was a small room and they could both see that it was just a room that was used as storage. There were many boxes piled up on top of one another.
He closed the door. “Nothing in there.”
“This is a bit of a kick in the flaps,” Mildred snapped. “Let’s just go back if there’s fuck all here.”
“We’re here now.”
Vince tried the middle door and it wasn’t budging. He turned to Mildred. “Locked.”
The final door opened and this room was as black as coal. They couldn’t see a thing.
Vince took out the dynamo torch and began to squeeze it a few times.
The light wasn’t great, but he could see another door in the room, on the left, and wondered where it led. He walked over to the door and placed his hand on the handle, but Mildred tapped him on his shoulder, which stopped him from opening it.
“What is it?” Vince asked her.
“I can hear a noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
She took the torch off him and squeezed it hard half a dozen times and the torch revealed six dead faces, near the door where they had entered. Mildred released a shriek and Vince pulled down the handle and they both entered, the door being slammed behind them, and the sound of hands slapping it could be heard by Vince and Mildred. They were now sitting with their backs against the door.
Mildred used the torch, and the light that lasted literally seconds told the pair of them that they were in a large cupboard and it was clear of danger.
“What do we do now?” Mildred asked him.
Vince shrugged his shoulders. “I spy?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pickle sat on the grass bank, whilst Richard was sitting against the front tyre of the vehicle, and Stephanie and David were standing up, talking about their school days.
Vince and Mildred had been away for just two minutes and Pickle looked at his Omega Speedmaster and decided to give them ten minutes before making any hasty decisions.
“So what was it like?” Pickle called over to Richard.
“I’m sorry?” Richard stood up and walked over to the grassy part, at the side of the road, and sat next to Pickle.
“Gnosall. What was it like when yer were there?”
“It was okay at first,” Richard’s answer surprised Pickle.
“It was okay?” he said, eyebrows elevated.
“At first.” Richard cleared his throat and continued, “They were nice in the beginning, Marsden’s lot. The people in the village seemed on edge when Tracy and I first arrived, but we put that down to the apocalypse itself and not the way Marsden and his lot were treating some of them.”
“And after that?” Pickle pushed.
“After the first day things started to get a bit weird.”
Pickle never queried why things got weird in Gnosall. He allowed Richard to tell his story without interrupting him.
“Tracy started to get a bad feeling about the place,” Richard continued. “And then we met a girl called Erica. She told us that she and her friend were trying to escape and that we should leave as well. That’s when the alarm bells started ringing. If the place was perfect, why would you want to leave? She told us stories about Marsden’s men killing anyone that tried to escape. And that some women had been raped by the guy they call Manson. Then the next day I was told I was going out on a run, and that’s where we met you guys.”
“Well, they used to be in the same prison as me,” Pickle said. “I can tell yer they are bad ‘uns.”
Richard nodded. He had heard that Harry Branston used to be an inmate and Pickle must have assumed that Richard already knew, the way he was talking.
Pickle continued, “They were bastards even inside. And that Manson guy, Freddie Newton, ... well, I’ve heard rumours about that prick. I think he raped a couple o’ the young remands when he was there.”
Richard blew out his cheeks and realised he and Tracy had had a lucky escape. He always thought that the Manson character was untrustworthy and leered at Tracy now and again. If they had stayed, things could have become ugly for the pair of them, especially Tracy.
“Snatcher!” Stephanie called out.
They all looked down the road, to their left, and could see one of the dead straggling towards them. Stephanie grabbed her bow, but Pickle told her not to bother.
“What?” She looked at the ex-con with confusion.
Pickle nodded at David MacDonald and said, “Let David get it.”
David smiled, but was nervous at the same time. He was nervous for obvious reasons, but with Pickle trusting the youngster to deal with the dead alone, gave him a good feeling.
David pulled out his blade and slowly made the thirty-yard walk to the dead female.
As he got closer, he could see that the female had on a dress that was hard to fathom what colour it had been when it was first purchased. It had been stained with blood on the people she had possibly feasted on, the dirt and mud she fell in whilst making her clumsy steps, and from the weather that had more than likely burned her over the last few weeks, or maybe months.
She looked rotten, cheekbones literally protruding through skin, and her stomach was bloated, but David didn’t know if it was with gas or the flesh she had eaten that had nowhere else to go. His nose picked up the ghastly smell of death once he was five yards away, and retched once before telling himself to breathe in and out through his mouth.
The Snatcher snarled as its dilated eyes looked up and clocked his frame. Her arms were raised and hands went into the shape of claws as she prepared to rip him to shreds, oblivious of any danger that could come her way.
David allowed the creature to grab him by the shoulders and he rammed his blade under the chin, the whole blade going in a lot easier than he thought, and a satisfying smile emerged on his face.
The Snatcher was still moving and the smile soon evaporated off his face when the dead thing leaned in to bite the boy, but the knife through the chin prevented the mouth from opening. It took a few seconds for David to realise that the knife may have gone straight through, but it hadn’t been long enough to penetrate the brain.
He pushed the creature back and she stumbled back only a yard. It quickly went for him again, but MacDonald moved out of the way and pushed her again, this time making her fall over. He ran over to her and kicked her in the head, again and again. Five times she had been kicked, but she was still moving and it looked like she was trying to get back to her feet.
He took a run and kicked her again, like a football. She collapsed and never moved after that.
David could feel smarting in his right foot. He left the knife in the woman and headed back over to a baffled Pickle, Richard and Stephanie. He was limping, but he hoped the pain was temporary and nothing was broken.
“What’s up?” David asked, knowing that they were looking at him funny.
“That was probably the weirdest kill I’ve ever seen,” Richard commented.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Stephanie remarked. “Quint used a combine harvester on a horde when Vince and David came out looking for me.”
“A what?�
�
“True story.”
“Why didn’t yer just stab her in the ‘ead?” Pickle asked him.
“I thought under the chin would be softer.” David hunched his shoulders.
“On top or the side o’ the skull,” Pickle told him. “No messin’ about.”
David nodded and told them he was going in the back. Stephanie did the same, seeing how David was and making sure he was not too despondent from his comedic way of putting down a single Snatcher.
Richard and Pickle were left alone, and Pickle looked over to the Workout World establishment, wondering how long Vince and Mildred were going to be.
He looked at his watch and Richard asked how long the pair of them had been away.
“Six minutes,” Pickle sighed. “Another four and I’m going in.”
*
Drake walked through the outpatients building and reached the ward at the end of the building that had been turned into a small crèche.
The woman that mainly ran the crèche was called Beverley and immediately went over to Drake as he entered the area.
“Everything okay?” she asked him.
“Just having a nosey,” he said. He looked around and could see seven children and a couple of teenagers who were under the age of sixteen, who were helping out but also there to keep out of trouble.
“The teenagers doing okay?” Drake asked.
“I don’t think they wanna be here, to be honest.”
“They’re not old enough to go out on runs and stuff, and even then they’d need sufficient training. I don’t think these youngsters know how to do a basic leg sweep.”
Realising he was waffling, Drake looked at Beverley and apologised and noticed she was looking at him strangely.
“It’s been a few weeks,” she said.
“What has?”
“You know.”
“Oh.”
“I feel a bit...” She never finished her sentence and blushed.
“A bit what?” Drake wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
She was still blushing and said quietly, “You know.”
“Oh, right,” Drake laughed. “Fancy a walk to my office?”
She nodded and called over to her young helper that she’d be back in half an hour.
The two of them walked away and headed outside. They walked over to the reception building in silence, and Drake was the first to speak.
“Take a break, Mick,” he said to the guard outside his office, the old staff room. Mick left and he and Beverley both entered.
Drake shut the door and said to the woman, “Are you going first, or shall I?”
“I would like to go first.”
“So how do you want to do this?”
“From the back,” she said.
“Okay.” Drake nodded. “And you’re clean, right?”
“As a whistle,” she laughed.
“Okay.”
Beverley pulled her trousers and knickers down and bent over the table.
“Okay,” Drake sniggered. “Going in.”
Drake went behind her, playfully smacked her behind, and dropped to his knees.
Chapter Thirty
“Well, this is nice,” Vince said with a smile.
The sounds of rotten hands continued to slap the door, and both experienced survivors, Vince and Mildred, seemed unmoved by the dead trying to get in.
Vince leaned his head back and grinned. “This reminds me of a time I was stuck in this woman’s bedroom.”
“Should I ask?” Mildred wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear the whole of his story.
“I won’t tell you if you don’t want me to.” Vince pointed at the door behind them and said, “With our new fan base, I have a feeling we could be here a while.”
“I think we can take them,” Mildred said.
“Maybe, but it’s too risky. There’s six of them and it’s dark.”
“So?”
“Be better if we waited for the cavalry to arrive.”
“You mean Pickle, the young lad, and the two fourteen-year-olds?”
“One of those fourteen-year-olds has killed more of the dead than some of us.” Vince puffed out a breath and said, “Let’s wait a while. Be patient.”
“Okay.” Mildred rubbed her eyes and said to Vince, “So tell me about this bedroom you were stuck in.”
“About a few years ago, I was seeing this married woman. Her husband worked night shift, so we had this arrangement to see one another on the evening. Low and behold, he took unwell as soon as he got to work and came back. Of course, we never heard he was in the house. She was moaning that much, bouncing on the old Kindl pogo stick, that we never heard him until the sound of running feet could be heard coming up the stairs. As I heard the sound, I panicked, threw her off me, and pressed myself against the door to stop him coming in.”
“How did you get out of there?” Mildred asked.
“I managed to drag a cupboard against the door, while holding the door with one hand, and then I made my escape through the bedroom window.”
“Naked?”
“Not entirely.”
“Not entirely?”
Vince smiled and reflected on the incident. At the time it was a moment of panic. The woman’s husband was a karate instructor on an evening, and Kindl knew he’d come off second best if the two of them came to blows.
Vince explained his ‘not entirely’ comment. “I had a Mario Brothers T-shirt on, and that was it. Didn’t have time to put the rest of my clothes on.”
“So you ran home almost naked?”
“Not entirely.”
“Not entirely ... again?” Mildred giggled.
She was beginning to warm to Vince. He was good entertainment.
“I grabbed her pants that were strewn on the floor, and put them on. I didn’t have time to look what I was putting on. It was the only thing I could reach.”
“So you ran through the streets wearing a Mario Brothers T-shirt and a pair of ladies knickers?”
“Hobbled,” Vince corrected. “I didn’t run. I sprained my ankle once I jumped out of the window. I didn’t want to go through the streets with my tackle out.”
“She didn’t mind about the knickers?”
“No idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had threw her off the bed when her husband came up the stairs so vigorously that she was almost unconscious, lying on the carpet, moaning.”
“No way.”
“Anyway, I managed to escape by going through the window before he could grab me. Happy days.”
The banging behind them persisted, but it wasn’t as audible as it was two minutes ago. It sounded like less effort and less hands hitting the door, as if the dead had grown tired of trying to get in.
Once it dwindled down to just one pair of rotten hands hitting the door, the conversation continued, but they talked in a quieter tone than before.
“Anyway,” Vince said in almost a whisper. “That’s a story I’ve never told anyone before, maybe Stephen, so your turn.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“You’re a bit of an enigma, Mildred,” Vince spoke. “No one knows much about you.”
“I’ve only been around just under a week,” she said, almost defensively.
“Well, tell me a secret,” Vince persisted. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. Who knows? We could die in here.”
“God, don’t say that. I don’t mind putting a bullet in my brain, but if we do die here today, then it’s because those fuckers out there have ripped us to pieces. We’ve all seen it happen. It’s the worst way to go ... ever.”
“Agree with that.” Vince nodded.
The two became silent and Vince wondered how long it would take Pickle to spark into action. How long did they need to be absent? Ten minutes? Longer?
The last set of hands had given up slamming the door, and Vince decided to speak to Mildred further. Mildred didn’t seem to be in the mood to tell Vi
nce a story, so he decided to speak once more.
“I remember Lee and I went out one of the weekends—”
“I had to kill my own parents,” Mildred blurted out, interrupting Vince’s sentence. She then cleared her throat and dropped her head with sadness.
“Go on.” Vince looked at the woman with sympathy. “If you want.”
“My partner was out the night before, Saturday night, and I went up to see my parents after watching the news on the Sunday morning.”
“Were they there?”
She nodded. “The house was littered with Snatchers and there was nothing left of them. My dad’s remains were in the front garden and my mother was in the kitchen, back door wide open. I don’t think they even knew what was going on. Probably didn’t even see the news. At their age, social media wasn’t really a big thing.”
“Their age?”
“Mum and dad had me late. I think I was a surprise. They were in their late sixties when they died.”
“Did you go back to your place?”
“For a while.” She nodded. “Tried my partner again.”
“Wasn’t he answering?”
“She,” she corrected.
“Oh”
“Anyway,” Mildred ran her fingers through her blonde hair. “I tried to call my best friend Julie to see how she was, but there was also no answer.”
“Dead, you think?”
“I hope not. If so, then her kids and husband are probably dead as well. Her kids were the absolute cutest. Kyle and Bell.”
Vince scratched his grey hair and it took a few seconds to process what she had just told him. He lowered his head and began to think, then looked up at Mildred.
“Kyle and Bell?” Vince queried. “Is that what they were called?”
Mildred studied Vince’s face and asked suspiciously, “Yeah. Why?”
“Um...” Vince ran his palms over his face and released a sigh. “Was your best friend married to a guy called Paul Dickson?”
Mildred looked at Vince strangely. “How the—?”
“He was with us for a while,” Vince began.
“With you?” Mildred gulped. She was fearful that Vince had only mentioned Paul being with them and not the rest of his family.
Snatchers Box Set | Vol. 5 | Books 13-15 Page 35
