He hushed the group, mainly David, and went over and sat back down where the other three were.
The side door was opened and Hutty, Jamo, and a man Pickle had never seen before walked in. There was no sign of Marsden or the injured Manson.
The man that Pickle didn’t know was holding a machete. It was Pickle’s. He walked over to Branston and placed the blade against Pickle’s throat, telling him not to move an inch.
Jamo then pointed at Richard, clicked his fingers and told Richard to get up and go towards them.
Richard looked at Pickle but received no response. Stephanie and David also never looked at the man and had their heads down, scared out of their wits.
“We don’t like traitors,” Jamo snapped. “You’re worse than Pickle, despite what he did. You, Richard ... we took you in—”
“I thought you were good people,” Richard tried to protest. “I wanted what was best for me and Tracy.”
“So you went with other people and then came back to the village and took her as well?”
Richard nodded.
“Let me show you something.” Jamo grabbed Richard and took him outside.
Richard shielded his eyes once he was out and could see a body sat up against a tree on the pavement. Jamo asked Richard if he recognised the man. Richard couldn’t see properly because of the blood on the man’s face and shook his head.
“Derek Love,” Jamo said. “He was the guy in charge at the gate when you picked up your slag girlfriend.”
“Why’d you kill him?” Richard shook. “He never had a choice.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Jamo laughed.
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“Doesn’t matter. He was still in charge while we were out and allowed a resident to leave.”
“Why are you showing me this?” cried Richard.
“I’ll tell you once you’ve watched this.” Jamo pointed over to the body.
“Watch what?”
Jamo released a sharp whistle and a guy, dressed all in black, walked over to the body and pulled out, what looked like, a small sword or a large dagger. He pulled Derek’s head back, by grabbing the hair, and placed the large blade across his throat.
Richard winced and was told not to look away.
For fear of punishment, he did as he was told and retched as the blade-wielding man sliced through Derek’s throat and eventually took his head off.
Richard placed his hand over his mouth as the blood gushed out of Derek’s neck, and watched in horror as the executioner placed the head on the ground. He then picked up a sack and calmly picked the head up and placed it into the sack.
Jamo pointed over at what was left of the body and said, “At least the dogs will have a good meal tonight.”
“Look,” Richard shook with nerves. “I don’t know what you want—”
“We want revenge,” Jamo snapped. “And we want to know where you’re staying.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“Now what?”
“Now, back inside.”
Jamo grabbed Richard by the hair and the two of them entered the garage. As soon as Jamo let go of Richard’s hair, the youngster ran to the corner of the garage, threw up, and then sat down.
“What did yer do to him?” Pickle yelled, but received no answer.
Richard wiped his mouth and was told to sit back down with the rest.
“Right,” Hutty said, glaring at Pickle. “Where are you staying?”
Pickle spoke with a straight face. “We have a camp in the woods.”
“Bullshit!” Hutty laughed.
“It’s true.” Pickle nodded.
“Whereabouts?”
“Hard to say.” Pickle lifted his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs. “Take us all there and I’ll show yer.”
“You don’t live in the woods,” Jamo snapped. He turned to the guard with the small sword and told him if Pickle moved, cut his throat.
The guard nodded and Hutty nodded at Jamo, who then walked over to Richard and booted him in the face.
Richard collapsed to the floor, and Jamo grabbed his legs and dragged him five yards away from the other three.
Ignoring the protest from an angry Pickle and Stephanie, Hutty stepped to the side as Jamo continued with his attack on seventeen-year-old Richard. The seventeen-year-old received a kick in the stomach, forcing Richard to moan and curl into a ball. Jamo then bent down and punched Richard’s head a couple of times. He then stood up and kicked him three times in his midriff and then stamped on his head.
Stephanie and a frightened David had their heads down, but Pickle could see that Richard was out of the game. A few more kicks to the head would kill the young man, but Pickle couldn’t tell them where they stayed. Almost a hundred lives would be at stake. Jamo looked down at Richard’s body and looked annoyed. He then looked up at Pickle and smiled.
“You want me to do him?” the man holding the large blade to Pickle’s throat said.
Jamo shook his head. “We’ve been told to leave him ... for now. Manson wants him.”
“Manson’s out of his face on painkillers.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Right,” Hutty groaned, and pulled out a blade and headed to the three captives. He stepped behind them, making all three paranoid and nervous, especially David, and began to whistle a tune no one recognised.
He said, “Still keeping our mouths shut, eh?”
There was no response.
Hutty bent down and whispered in Stephanie’s ear, “What about you, Goldilocks?”
“Piss off, creep,” she snapped.
“Creep? Me?” Hutty laughed. “You think I’m bad? Wait till Manson comes along. I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna take a shine to you, if you know what I mean.”
“Leave the girl alone, dickhead,” Pickle yelled.
“Tell me where you’re staying,” Hutty continued, ignoring Pickle’s remark, “and I’ll make sure he doesn’t lay a finger on you.”
“Leave me alone.”
Hutty stood up and could feel his blood simmering.
“You know what?” Hutty snarled. “I’m getting fucking bored of this.”
He grabbed the back of David’s hair and placed the cold steel against his throat. “I’m gonna kill this little fucker, and then maybe you two will start speaking.”
“Don’t kill me!” David cried out. “Please! Pickle! Help me!”
David sobbed and Pickle and Stephanie made their verbal protests.
“I’m sorry, son,” Hutty whispered in David’s ear.
“We’re staying at Stafford Hospital!” David called out. “We’re at Stafford Hospital.”
Hutty released David’s hair and said, “There you go. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Get Rich in here,” Hutty said to Jamo, referring to Richard Marsden.
Jamo nodded and left the garage.
A sobbing David wiped his eyes on his sleeve and looked over to Harry Branston, and said, “I’m sorry, Pickle.”
“It’s okay, son,” Pickle responded. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The month was September, the temperature had dropped, but the woods were suffocating and Paul Dickson left his cabin to take the short walk to the country road to get some vital air. He had a half bottle of water left and hadn’t eaten in two days, which was a thing of the norm these days.
He vowed to finally leave the area where he lived, but he couldn’t quite do it. Where would he go? Initially he wanted to go north, but what new obstacles would he have to face?
He was making his way north after his brief encounter with Karen and had found a cabin. He was then struck down with a fever for a few days and did nothing but sleep. At one point he thought he was going to die, but had managed to struggle through it. If he was at home, back in the normal world, he was convinced he would have been over it by now, but food, plenty of water and vitamins were not availabl
e these days.
Paul was sat up with his knees up and scratched at his scruffy beard and needed to make a move. As the months went by, the harder it was to get food, but he needed to try something in order for him to survive.
He was a mile away from his old village of Little Haywood. He decided to visit the place and also see if there was anything left to eat, which he doubted.
He stood up, threw his empty rucksack over his shoulder, and began to walk out of the woods and descended down the grassy hill.
He reached the desolate Stafford Road and climbed over the rotten wooden fence. His worn boots made their way across the road, and Dickson headed for the small bridge up ahead that led into the back of the village of Little Haywood.
He remained in the centre of the road and rested his left hand on top of the handle of the machete that was tucked into his belt. He went over the bridge and entered a street that was all too familiar to him. He looked around and could see drives without cars, overgrown lawns, and some houses that had their main doors wide open. Dickson wasn’t sure if the owners had fled or if they had been broken into by desperate survivors.
Another quarter of a mile walk and he’d be at the concrete wall that divided Colwyn Place, but he decided to keep away for now. It had been four months since the announcement, but he had to check the houses for anything that could be devoured. He was going to check every house until his bag was full.
He went down the drive of one house and approached the open door. He gave it a quick knock and then waited five seconds before stepping inside.
He peered up the stairs and sniffed the air. He could smell death and heard the buzzing of flies coming from the living room.
Dickson brought his right arm across his chest and pulled out his machete. He passed the kitchen and peeped in for a second to see it was empty, and then stepped into the living room to see a Snatcher.
He sighed and shook his head. He took a seat and stared over at the poor thing.
It was a female and was crawling along the floor, very slowly, once she spotted Paul Dickson.
Behind the crawling Snatcher was a wheelchair lying on its side that she had obviously fallen out of, and he waited for her to get near him and touch his boot before putting an end to her dead existence. He checked the rest of the house and left empty handed. He had checked six other houses and never came across another Snatcher.
He could see his old house as he slowly progressed down the street, checking each place on the right side. He had managed to come across a jar of jam, some crackers, and a bottle of coke that he had downed as soon as he saw it.
Apart from the people from Sandy Lane, most of the people hated him when he stayed at Colwyn Place, so it wasn’t a place he wanted to approach. The day was getting dimmer and Paul decided to stay in one of the houses.
He was now in the old street of Colwyn Place and could see the concrete wall that divided the old street and the one that was inhabited by the survivors.
He crept into a house that was six down from the wall and checked it out before settling down. The cabin could wait, and Paul didn’t know if he was going to stay there tonight. Apart from a tatty sleeping bag, there was nothing else to go back for.
He picked what he thought was the main bedroom, peed in the defunct toilet first, and then entered the room.
He placed the bag on the floor and wanted to keep the jam and crackers for his breakfast the next day. He grabbed a chair from the corner and wedged it under the door handle before lying on the bed fully clothed.
He slept for two hours.
*
Paul Dickson’s dreams were plagued about the recent past, as they usually were. Over the last few weeks he had suffered dreams that replayed certain events in his life that had occurred since June 9th.
Everything, from hiding with Kyle in a caravan when Vince’s camp was awash with the dead, to burying his son, was projected in his mind when sleeping, but this time he experienced something that happened when he hooked up with Bentley Drummle.
When he met Bentley and was at his camp, he told him that he needed to go to the local supermarket to find his wife and daughter. Bentley decided to go with him. Bentley’s partner agreed to look after Kyle, whilst the two guys went to the supermarket in Bentley’s car. They reached the supermarket and went inside, then when they left Paul Dickson spotted his wife’s car and spotted her and his daughter inside. They had both turned and Bentley, a handgun carrier, shot them both with Paul’s permission. Dickson never witnessed anything. He only heard the shots, but the realistic dream still made the man wake up with tears in his eyes.
Paul wiped his eyes and ran his fingers through his beard. For a moment he had forgot where he was and had a look around in the bedroom. He rubbed his face when he realised he was in a house in Little Haywood, just a few streets from where his own house was, which was now burnt out, all thanks to the Murphys from a few months back.
Dickson decided to get some air. When he stayed at Colwyn with Pickle, Karen and Vince, very little action was seen by the wall, apart from one major incident.
He galloped down the stairs and stepped outside after removing the chain off the main door.
He peered from around the corner of the house and looked down the street. In the distance he could see a face behind the concrete wall staring back at him. Dickson wasn’t sure if the figure had spotted him or the man was just staring into space. He wasn’t sure, but he did recognise the man. He recognised that ginger beard anywhere. Terry Braithwaite was never a fan of Paul Dickson, and when Paul used to go out for his walks to beat the cabin fever, Terry used to moan and complain to Pickle and John Lincoln about him.
Paul moved away and decided to make the walk back to the cabin. He felt it was safer there, out of the way.
Torn between leaving for pastures new, as he had been for weeks, he threw his bag over his shoulder and headed back to the woods for the day. He had threatened to leave before. Only a week ago he walked through Rugeley and reached Armitage, past Vince’s old camp, but once he found a bed for the night and slept till the morning, he woke up and made the four mile walk back to the Wolseley area. This wasn’t the first time he had left and had changed his mind, and it wouldn’t be the last, but he would leave for good.
One day.
Chapter Forty-Three
Karen Bradley went to her quarters and checked if anyone was around. Satisfied that she was alone, she sat on her bed and released a sharp whistle. Vince Kindl, who was hiding round the corner at the end of the corridor, emerged and eventually entered Karen’s area where she slept and shared with a few others.
Vince sat on her bed next to her and said, “Right. You go first.”
“Okay.” Karen took a deep breath in. “Something weird is happening in this place.”
“I know,” Vince responded with a straight face.
“You know?”
Vince nodded. “I saw Findlay taking one of those chickens into the toilet with him.”
“I’m being serious, Vince,” Karen huffed. “I followed Drake’s brother earlier and he had arranged some kind of secret meeting with a few others, Findlay being one of them.”
“And?”
“I don’t feel safe here,” Karen confessed. She huffed and brushed her hair behind her ears. “Maybe they’re plotting something.”
”Findlay seems okay.”
“Yeah, to our faces. But Paul Dickson had killed his best friend, so I hear.”
”Okay.” Vince could see the concern on Karen’s face and decided to lay off the jokes. ”All we can do is be vigilant. Does Drake know?”
Karen nodded. “He said he’d talk to Alan.”
“Speaking of Drake...” Vince raised his eyebrows, prompting Karen to tell him that if he had anything to say then hurry the fuck up.
“Mildred told me that when we went to Amerton Farm, she said Drake killed the old couple. He claimed that the place had been attacked by other survivors, and the elderly couple were attacked a
nd left for dead. The old girl was alive, according to Mildred, and she told Mildred that her and her husband had changed their minds, which enraged Drake, so he attacked them. She spoke to her and told her what happened before she died. She described Drake’s appearance to Mildred.”
Karen lowered her head and it took a while for her to process the information that Vince had just given her.
A noise could be heard in the corridor and Karen told Vince that they’d talk about it later, when Pickle returned.
The unusual noise grew louder, and both Karen and Vince stood up and could see Stephen Rowley going by.
“Stephen,” Vince called out.
“Alright, chap?” Rowley was in his wheelchair and had stopped moving. “Thought I’d cut through the building and head towards the gate, get a change of scenery.”
“I’ll come with you,” Vince said. He then looked at Karen as if to ask if that was okay.
She nodded and told Vince she was going to go back to Ward 22.
Vince stepped out of Karen’s quarters and started to push Stephen. They were halfway down the hall when Stephen asked about the disappearance of Pickle, Richard, Stephanie and David.
“Mildred and I left the Workout World place and they and the van were just gone,” Vince tried to explain.
“Any idea where, chap?”
Vince hunched his shoulders. “We’re guessing Gnosall, but Drake is reluctant to go out there.”
“Don’t blame him, chap.” Stephen grunted and twisted his neck. “A bit perilous as it is, going out for supplies. But to go out there and try and find them would be too dangerous.”
“We went out and found you, didn’t we?” Vince actually agreed with Rowley, but it had escaped Stephen’s mind temporarily that Pickle went out looking for him and Craig a week ago.
“That’s true.”
“Anyway,” Vince sighed. “Humans, especially ones that have had criminal records, are probably worse than the dead.”
“Except Pickle, chap.”
Vince nodded. “Except Pickle, of course.”
Snatchers (Book 14): The Dead Don't Hate Page 16
