“Was that supposed to be a joke, Vince?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Karen rubbed her head and was thinking about having a lie down. She was going to go to Ward 22 first and tell the guard outside the clinic that she’d be back in an hour or so.
Karen informed the guard and came across Joanne Hammett as soon as she stepped out of the building.
“How’re things?” Joanne asked her.
“Not bad,” Karen groaned. “This clinic is boring the tits off me, if I’m being honest.”
“Probably better than what I’m doing.” Joanne pulled out a cigarette and a lighter from the same pocket and lit up without asking Karen if it was okay.
Joanne blew out smoke and Karen asked if she was okay.
Joanne bowed her head and said, “If I tell you how I’m feeling, you’re gonna think I’m an ungrateful bitch.”
“Try me.” Karen smiled and folded her arms across her chest.
Joanne looked ashamed at what she was about to say, and looked both ways before opening her mouth. “I can’t seem to settle. I don’t like it here.”
“I know what you mean,” Karen moaned. “The facilities are great here, but something isn’t right.”
“Some of the people clearly don’t want us here.” Joanne took a drag of her cigarette and the blue smoke escaped out of her mouth as she spoke further. “It’s obvious.”
Karen opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. She was going to tell Joanne about the meeting she came across, but decided not to bother. She didn’t want Joanne to worry, which she would. Joanne Hammett was made of softer stuff compared to Karen.
Compared to most survivors, Joanne had been lucky and had lived a sheltered life. Her contact with the dead had been minimal, and the only danger she had experienced was from humans. In the beginning, she hid, like others, from the Murphys when they were rampaging through Little Haywood, and then the attack by Drake’s gang a couple of months later.
The only good thing the Murphys did was to clear the area of the dead, but they didn’t do that to help the residents, they did it because they enjoyed the killing.
Karen looked over Joanne’s shoulder and could see two guards in the distance, walking side by side. They broke away and one of them was heading Karen’s way.
“Anyway,” Karen said, changing the subject. “You and Vince?”
“You know?” Joanne blushed and ran her fingers through her blonde hair.
Karen nodded and flashed Joanne a cheeky smile.
Joanne smiled. “He makes me laugh.”
“It’s okay,” said Karen. “I don’t want the gory details.”
“Good, because you’re not getting any.”
Karen looked up and could see the guard staring at the two of them. He was a heavy man, in his late forties, and was an individual that Karen had only seen once before. The guard never looked away and both he and Karen glared at one another as he approached. Joanne turned and wondered what Karen was staring at.
The guard’s face changed a little and his poker face changed to a snarl.
“Yeah?” Karen snapped at the man, as he was about to pass the two women. “Want a picture?”
”What’s your problem?” he snapped back.
“Just wondering what you’re staring at?”
The man seemed annoyed, looked Karen up and down, and snarled, “Why don’t you wear a bra?”
“Is that all you’ve got?” Karen laughed. “I think you need a bra more than me, tubs.”
“Stupid bitch.”
“Original,” she sighed.
“Why don’t you smile more?” the guard laughed and had now passed the two women. “Fucking miserable bitch.”
“Why don’t you fuck off?”
“Not very ladylike,” the man giggled as he walked away.
“Neither is me giving you a handjob, but you wouldn’t turn it down, would you, tubs?”
The guard stopped walking and turned around.
“That wasn’t an offer, Rambo,” Karen snapped. “Now, keep walking. And don’t forget to erase us two from your wank bank when you go back to your quarters to tug one off.”
The rotund guard stood and stared at Karen, and it looked like the cat had got his tongue. He then flushed a rose colour, due to a mixture of embarrassment and anger, and then stormed off, cussing under his breath.
Joanne turned to Karen and laughed, “Well, that’s not gonna help relations, is it?”
“Fuck ‘em.” Karen held out her hand and nodded at the cigarette in Joanne’s hand. “Give me a drag.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Pickle, Richard, Stephanie and David sat huddled in the corner of the van.
There was very little space left in the van with all the supplies from Workout World, and Pickle and the rest remained quiet, unsure what was going to happen.
When the Range Rover turned up and two men jumped out carrying shotguns, Pickle knew fighting back would be suicide and had to yield. Now they were in the back of the van and being driven, no doubt, to the village of Gnosall.
Pickle turned and saw the outline of a petrified David MacDonald. He placed his hand on the teenager’s shoulder.
“We’ll be fine,” Pickle told him. “Don’t worry.”
“Will we?” David didn’t share Pickle’s confidence.
“They’re doing this to scare us,” said Pickle. “If anyone will get hurt, it’ll be me.”
“And me,” Stephanie spoke up and shuddered. “I put an arrow in that man’s hand, remember?”
“I’m the one they want,” Pickle tried to reassure them. “They’ve got a vehicle, a van full o’ stuff, and they’ve got me. They should be happy.”
“I’m scared, Pickle,” said David.
“Me too,” Richard spoke with a quiver in his voice.
“It’s okay,” Pickle tried to reassure them. “I’ll do all the talking.”
“What happens if they want to know where we stay, Pickle?” Stephanie asked. “If we—”
“Just...” Pickle was becoming annoyed and was letting the situation get to him. He had to remind himself that they were just kids. “Let’s see what they want, before we start panicking.”
Pickle was also nervous, but one thing he was positive about was that Stephanie and David would be okay whatever happened. Marsden and his crew were many things, but he was certain they weren’t child killers.
Stephanie was responsible for mutilating Freddie Newton’s hand and with Pickle unnecessarily damaging Manson’s hand afterwards, he was hoping that full attention, as far as revenge was concerned, would be focused on him and not on the other three youngsters.
“I wonder how Vince and Mildred are?” Richard asked.
“I would have loved to have seen their faces when they realised that the van was gone,” Pickle released a small chuckle.
“How do you do that?” asked David. He was shaking with fear and almost in tears.
“What are yer talkin’ about?”
David shuddered when he responded. “I’m really scared, Pickle. And you’re cracking jokes.”
“Nothing will happen to yer. I’ll make sure o’ it.”
“You promise?”
Branston paused and could see the terror on young David’s face. “Aye, I promise.”
Chapter Forty
“Another mile and we’ll be there,” was the announcement from Vincent Kindl.
Mildred could see the town up ahead, as the pair of them passed a soft play area building for infants. She was deliberating on telling Vince something that had been bugging her.
“How do you like Drake?” she asked him.
Vince looked at Mildred and said, “That’s an out of the blue question, is it not?”
Mildred shrugged her shoulders and elevated her eyebrows, demanding an answer.
“Why do you ask?”
“I dunno,” Mildred sighed and added, “Just wondering.”
“Must be a reason why you’re
asking.”
Mildred shrugged her shoulders and said, “He’s a bit...”
“Yes?”
Mildred stopped walking and Vince did the same. “I...” Mildred looked up and could now see Vince’s attention was elsewhere and was looking to his right.
“Well, that’s a first.”
Vince pulled out his machete and the pair of them gazed at the dead thing. It had emerged from around the corner of a building that used to be a pub called The Grapes.
The male Rotter, as Vince mainly called them, was slower than the average one and both could see why.
It had a dog lead wrapped around its wrist and had two dead pugs being dragged along, four feet behind it, as it made its slow progress. The two small dogs were on their sides and both had been clearly dead a while, but apart from the rottenness, they were untouched.
“He must be one of the many that were attacked on the first day, maybe even the Saturday before it was announced.” Vince gazed at the rotten corpse coming towards them and added, “No one in their right mind would take their dogs out for a walk after the announcement, so it must’ve been Saturday morning or afternoon when he was attacked.”
“Why didn’t he eat them?”
Vince turned to Mildred and asked, “What?”
“Why didn’t he eat his own dogs?” she elaborated. “Obviously when you turn, you are oblivious to who or what you were close to.”
Vince had no answer for Mildred’s query, initially. He shook his head and guessed, “Maybe they just starved to death.”
“But why didn’t he eat them?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Vince snapped. “Maybe he didn’t know they were behind him as he walked along in his dead world. I’m not entirely sure the dead can see. If they can, then probably not that well.”
Vince put the Rotter down and walked by it with Mildred as it was slumped on the floor. The pair of them continued with their brisk walk and knew they weren’t far away from the hospital now.
“Anyway,” Vince began, wiping the blade on the dead’s clothes. “What was you going to say to me earlier? About Drake?”
Mildred clocked the entrance to the hospital and could see a female guard she had never seen before. “Later. It can keep.”
“No, now,” Vince laughed. “You sounded pretty serious earlier on.”
Mildred lowered her head an inch and rested the tip of her tongue on her bottom lip. “The old woman of the farm, Mrs Greendale,” Mildred began at last. “Drake killed her and her husband.”
“What?”
“Both of them had been attacked by Drake, but she was still alive and—”
“You serious?”
Mildred nodded. “She told me herself. I went inside, she was dying, and she described the man that hurt her.”
“Okay.” Vince held his hand up and said, “We’ll talk about this later.”
The two approached the gate and it was slid back with no hesitation, but confusion on the face of the female guard.
“Where’s the van? Pickle?” were her queries to the two of them, which they had no answer.
“Where’s Drake?” Vince asked. “Usual place?”
The guard nodded.
Vince and Mildred entered the reception building and could see a guard by the staff room.
“Is he in?” Vince asked.
The guard nodded.
“Right.” Vince grabbed the door handle and entered the room with Mildred behind him.
Drake was at the table, holding a pencil and a large sheet lying on the table, trying to sort out a rota of some sort.
“Not heard of knocking?” Drake snapped. “How do you know I wasn’t tugging one off?”
Ignoring his comment, Vince announced, “We’ve got something to tell you.”
Karen walked in and was out of breath.
She had heard that Vince and Mildred were back and wondered where the rest were.
“Where’s Pickle?” were the first words out of her mouth.
“We don’t know,” said Mildred.
“What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Right!” Drake banged his fist on the table and told everyone to shut up. “Close the door and tell me what happened from the beginning.”
Karen closed the door and stood in the corner with her arms folded. Drake remained seated, and Vince and Mildred took a seat opposite him.
“We all went into Workout World and managed to almost fill the van,” Vince began to explain.
“Just give me the short version,” Drake moaned. “I’m trying to do the guard rota for next week.”
“Mildred and I went back in to check out the first floor, because there was still some room left.” Vince paused and clocked his left hand. He needed a change of dressing on what was left of it. “We came back and Pickle, Stephanie, Richard and David and the van were gone.”
“You … you mean they fucked off?” Drake was just as confused as Karen with the story.
“He wouldn’t,” she chipped in. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“I know,” said Vince. “The only reason they would leave or move the van would be if a large horde turned up. There were a couple of Rotters, but no sign of a horde.”
“So they’ve been taken?” Karen asked.
“Possibly.”
“Pickle wouldn’t allow that without a fight.”
“But the people he was left with were kids, and what if the people had guns on them?”
“Well, you know what’s going to happen now, don’t you?” Karen spoke up.
“No fucking chance.” Drake shook his head. “It’s not happening.”
“We have to go out there,” Karen said.
“It’s too dangerous,” said Drake. “It’s bad enough going out there getting supplies, but Pickle can look after himself. You know that.”
Karen paused for thought and Drake could see that she was concerned.
“Look, maybe I’ll send out a couple of riders in the morning,” he tried to appease them. “If I send out a lot of people to look for them and then they go missing, then I’m gonna have to send out more people that we’re looking for the original missing people. It’s too much of a headache.”
“You know Pickle better than anyone,” Mildred said to Karen. “He’ll be okay, won’t he?”
“He has three kids with him,” said Karen.
“Richard’s seventeen years old,” Vince intervened. “Richard’s been out there and Stephanie is tougher than most. Okay, David’s a bit wet behind the ears, but they’ll look after him.”
“So do you agree with Drake?” Karen asked Vince.
“I think they could be anywhere, but my guessing is that it was Marsden’s lot and they’re at Gnosall. I think we should wait till the morning with clearer heads and a new day.”
“I better break the news to Tracy,” Karen said.
Vince said, “They’ll be okay. Pickle’s been in worse scenarios than this and has managed to come through.”
“I’m going back to the clinic.”
“I’ll walk with you,” said Vince.
They strolled away from Drake and Mildred, and headed for the outpatients building.
“I need to talk to you about something,” Karen said. “About Drake’s brother.”
Vince nodded. “And I’ve got something to tell you as well. About Drake.”
Chapter Forty-One
Once the van had been parked up, they were told that they were being moved to an abandoned garage.
Pickle, Richard, Stephanie and David were warned that if they tried any ‘funny business’ then they would regret it.
The four individuals could hear muffled voices from outside and had no clue what was going to be done with them. They weren’t blindfolded or even tied up. They had more than enough people to restrain them if they tried to retaliate.
All four sat on the cold floor of the garage, apart from Pickle who was pacing up and down. He had no idea what was going to happen, but was ce
rtain they had been taken for two reasons: for revenge and to find out where they stayed. The others knew it as well.
“I’m scared, Pickle,” David cried.
“I know.” Pickle nodded. “I’m not comfortable with this either. Just stay calm. We’ll get through it.”
“What do you think they want?” Richard asked.
“I think we all know,” Pickle sighed.
“I don’t.” David wasn’t sure and wanted clarification.
“Taking the van was an opportunistic moment. Unfortunately for us, they were passing while we were parked up. Then they see a guy they’ve hated for years, a young girl who shot an arrow through their friend’s hand, and Richard who’s a traitor and left, along with his girlfriend, to another camp.”
“We were at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Richard, “and they were at the right place at the right time.”
“What do they have against me?” David cried. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“It has nothing to do with yer,” Pickle said.
“Vince and Mildred would work out what happened,” said Stephanie. “They know where Gnosall is.”
“That’s our only hope, but I’m not sure Drake would want to get involved, lose more guys, and possibly start a war.”
“A war?”
“Okay,” Pickle managed a chuckle. “Maybe war is a strong term o’ phrase.”
“I don’t want this, Pickle.” David began to sob and sniffled, “I don’t want to come out with you guys anymore. I’m not cut out for this.”
Stephanie shuffled over to David and put her arm around him, telling him it was going to be okay.
“You don’t know that,” he snapped, raising his voice. “Stop saying that, will you?”
“Keep yer voice down.” Pickle stood up and made the short walk to the large garage door and placed his ear against it, trying to listen in what was being said.
He could hear the sounds of feet walking away and Pickle continued to listen. There was silence and Pickle then could hear the sounds of boots coming his way. He had no idea how many, but there were definitely more than two pairs. They were growing louder and Harry Branston was sure that they were heading to the garage and would be coming through the side door.
Snatchers (Book 14): The Dead Don't Hate Page 15
