Snatchers (Book 8): The Dead Don't Pray (16 page)

Chapter Thirty Three

Karen Bradley and Sheryl Smith walked across the road to get to the already-opened steel gates of the church. The building was called 'The Church of the Good Shepherd' and the girls decided to walk around the building, through the overgrown grass, and was satisfied that the area around the church was clear of danger. Now that the area was checked, they could go inside.

"What if it's locked?" asked Karen.

"Er ... then we can't go in," Sheryl sarcastically remarked. "Anyway, didn't that man say he saw someone go inside."

"A man?" Karen scoffed, now reaching the double oak doors. "Is that what it was?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sheryl said with a straight face. "With that beard shaved off and a bit of a wash, he might be a half-decent looking bloke."

Karen reached for the brass handle of the door and pulled out her machete with her other. She looked over at Sheryl, who was standing next to her, and laughed, "A half-decent looking bloke? He was drinking his own piss."

"Okay, okay," continued Sheryl, still keeping a straight face and enjoying the fact that she was winding Karen up. "So maybe he needs to brush his teeth."

Karen stared at Sheryl for a few seconds and she thought she'd seen a sign of a smirk on Smith's features. "Fuck off. You're trying to wind me up."

"I think you'll find that I
am
winding you up."

Karen twisted the door and gave it a small nudge. It opened. She nodded to the door and said, "Ready to go inside?"

Sheryl took out her ten-inch blade and put her other hand on Karen's chest. "Let me go in first."

"Okay." Karen never argued with Sheryl. She didn't see the point.

Sheryl pushed the door open further until she could poke her head through the gap. It was like any church. There were wooden benches—or pews—on either side, and small black bibles sat on some of the seats. The windows were plain, unusual for most old churches, and it could be seen that the wooden floor of the place had blood spilt on it. At the end of the church was a stage with a reading stand where the pastor would preach the word of God to his audience, but this was something that hadn't been done in many weeks.

The two women were now inside, and Karen shut the door quietly, trying to make little noise, just in case. With Sheryl leading the way, they crept along the floor, avoiding the blood, and as soon as they were halfway Sheryl held up her hand and stopped walking. She pointed at two doors on either side of the stage. They had no idea what was in there. Was it the pastor's office? Or did the pastor live in there?

Sheryl whispered to Karen, "Shall we call out Paul's name? Or try a door?"

"I have no idea," Karen said with a murmur.

Sheryl made a decision and headed for the door on the right. She tried it, but it wasn't budging. She turned to Karen and shook her head. She made a gesture to suggest that she was going to try the other one, but both women were certain that that was
also
locked. Sheryl crept over to the other side of the stage and tried the other door. It
was
locked.

Karen moved and stood next to Sheryl. She looked behind her to see that on the wooden reading stand was a red bible. She walked over to it. On top of the red bible was a message written in blue ink, on a piece of small white paper. On the paper was the message:
God help us all
. Karen opened the bible to see that one of the pages had been earmarked. The earmarked page was Psalm 27, and it had been circled in red ink.

Karen looked down to see a key on the floor. Maybe it had been dropped. Why? Did someone leave in hurry? Was it the pastor himself? Whatever happened, Karen was sure that Paul wasn't, and hadn't, been in the place at all.

Karen turned to her left to see Sheryl on her knees, looking through the keyhole of one of the doors.

"Anything?" Karen asked.

Sheryl shook her head without making eye-contact with her female companion, and said, "Nothing. The whole place seems to be clear. No man in here. That scruffy guy is obviously full of shit."

"Poor guy probably panicked after you kneed him in the face."

Karen walked over to the other door, on the other side of the stage, and copied Sheryl. The room behind the door she was looking through also looked clear. Karen then rose and stood up straight. "We better get back before it gets dark."

Both women now had their weapons tucked away, and Sheryl walked over to the reading stand. "What's this?"

"Just a bible."

Sheryl looked at the page that Karen opened and looked at the passage that had been circled in red ink. Sheryl wasn't a religious person at all. She was never brought up with religion, and didn't care too much for it as she got older.

She looked at the opened book for a moment, whilst Karen waited patiently behind her. "Well, this is not creepy at all," Sheryl spoke with derision in her tone.

"What is it?"

"Listen to this." Sheryl began to read out a section of the psalm from the book, but her reading had come to a premature end once the church doors slowly opened.

Karen and Sheryl jumped off the stage and hid inbetween the seats.

*

Still on the Pear Tree Estate, Bentley and Pickle walked for a further minute and could see two females from a distance. They looked at one another, but knew that it wasn't Karen and Sheryl. They could tell, even from that distance. One had short blonde hair, and the dark-haired female had a long ponytail. The two women from afar eventually disappeared around the bendy road.

They continued their walk in silence for a further minute. Pickle's arm was gently slapped by Bentley and pointed to his left. They both looked to their left and could see, in a bedroom window, a man with a scruffy beard. The man waved, but neither Bentley and Pickle waved back. They weren't out to bring strays back to the camp, and were now getting tired.

They finally reached the bend in Hislop Road and could see a church to their right. The place was called 'The Church of the Good Shepherd' and both individuals had never been to this part of Rugeley before and never knew the church existed.

"Shall we try the church?" asked Bentley with a yawn.

Pickle looked up to the darkening sky. He looked at the Omega watch. He had no idea if it was the right time, but it stated that it was after eight. It was probably right. "No. Let's just get off this estate. They're probably already back at the camp."

"Yeah." Bentley nodded. "Probably."

*

Karen and Sheryl drew their weapons and waited for whoever was approaching. They could hear the sounds of careful footsteps walking on the hard wooden floor. It was two sets of feet they could hear, and their eyes clocked one another. Both girls were nervous, but neither one wanted to show it. What they knew these days was that even after a month or so, some of the living were more dangerous than the dead.

Karen was aware that some of the 'bad apples' that were making people's lives a misery was down to the four hundred or so inmates being released from the jail in Stafford, and had probably now scattered themselves around the Staffordshire area. But if that hadn't have happened, she would never have met Pickle and might have been dead by now.

They took in a deep breath as the boots got nearer to them, and from the side they could see two figures, both holding baseball bats. Two women.

The woman nearest to them looked to be in her early thirties. She had dark hair, tied in a ponytail that reached the middle of her back. She grunted, turned to the side and spat to the floor. Her companion looked to be a few years younger. She was shorter than the older woman, by about two inches, short blonde hair and not the prettiest of females.

The one on the left, nearest to them, turned to the girls, as if she already knew they were there, and released a small smirk. "Hiding from anyone in particular?"

Karen and Sheryl got up, both a little embarrassed, and watched as the two female strangers casually walked towards the stage. They both turned and sat on the stage, facing the front, legs swinging, and their baseball bats sat by the side of them. Sheryl and Karen relaxed, convinced that these girls weren't a threat to them, and sat on the wooden bench at the front and was now facing the women.

"So here we are." Karen was the first to speak, but none of the women sitting on the stage responded. They ruffled through their bags, pulled out a small bottle of water each, and sipped the liquid in silence, both staring into space. Looking at their clothes, it was clear that they had been through a lot. Dried-in blood was evident on their clothing, some on their hands even, and their baseball bats were bloodstained, chipped and worn-looking.

"So, are we gonna get an introduction?" Sheryl asked.

The one on the left nodded, screwed the top back onto her bottle and put it into her bag. "Yeah." The older-looking woman on the left picked up her bat and said, "This is Maria," she then pointed at her friend's bat, "and this is Frieda."

Sheryl swallowed her anger and decided not to bite. It was obvious that the girls were not in the conversational mood, maybe even psychologically scarred—who wasn't?—and probably just wanted somewhere to rest and not be bothered.

Karen tried this time. "Where're you from?"

The woman on the left spoke up again. "Does it matter anymore?"

The woman's short answers were annoying, but at least she spoke. Her partner on her right hadn't said a word, and looked to have drifted off. She was sitting upright, but her eyes were closed. She had a two-inch scar on her left cheek, but neither Karen or Sheryl asked where it came from. The new arrivals looked unbothered that the two women from the Sandy Lane camp were there, and certainly wasn't threatened that they were present.

Like Karen and Sheryl, these women were survivors. They had probably did inexplicable things in order to continue to exist, so it was wise for both girls not to antagonise the pair of them. Two months ago they could have been secretaries, with a husband and a dog. Now, they had killed the dead to continue living and, more-than-likely, killed other people too.

Taking the hint that these two women wanted to be left alone, and the fact that the evening was drawing in anyway, Karen stood to her feet. Sheryl did the same a second later, making the ponytail woman on the left reach for her bat.

"There's enough room for four of us," the woman on the left spoke up, thinking that Karen and Sheryl was about to approach them.

"We know," Sheryl responded, and walked out into the aisle with Karen beside her. "Relax. We're not a threat."

"We already have a place to stay," Karen intervened. "We're here because we're looking for somebody."

"So you've checked the place out?" The woman that was still holding her bat—that she named Maria—asked.

Karen nodded.

The woman on the left, holding her worn bat, walked over to the reading stand and bent down. She picked up a key.

Knowing what she was thinking, Karen said, "We looked inside the doors, through the keyhole. They're both empty."

"But you didn't actually go
inside
the rooms?"

Both Sheryl and Karen shook their heads. Karen announced, "Anyway, we need to go back to our camp. Why don't you come with us?" asked Bradley, without conversing with Sheryl.

"No." The dark-haired woman with the ponytail added, "Camps have people. When there're people, relationships are formed, and then they die and you get hurt."

Sheryl and Karen turned on their heels and slowly walked to the main door of the church. Sheryl peered over her shoulder to see both of the strange women were now on their feet. And the woman with the bat that was called Maria, was unlocking the left door with the key.

The woman then said to her partner, in a quiet voice that Karen and Sheryl could hear, "If we're gonna be staying here, we better absolutely make sure that it's clear."

Karen and Sheryl watched as the girls pushed the door, to the left of the stage, wide open. Karen pulled onto Sheryl's sleeve and said, "Are you coming, or what?"

Sheryl hushed Karen. "Wait."

They watched as the two female strangers went into the room, and then heard the words, "Fuck me."

Intrigued by this, Sheryl and Karen headed towards the now-opened door, next to the stage, and went inside with hesitant feet. Both women could see the room was bare, apart from a table and a chair in the corner, and could see another door to the room's right.

The two strangers were standing by the frame of the door, holding their bats, and Sheryl and Karen went up beside them and peered inside.

"What is it?" asked Karen, now able to smell death coming from the room.

"I thought you'd left," the woman with the ponytail spoke.

"The intrigue was killing us."

"Take a look for yourself."

Sheryl and Karen could see eleven boys, under the age of ten. They were dressed in green shirts, wearing toggles, and some still had green caps on their heads. They were cubs, but there was no older kids, scouts, and no scoutmaster either. There was remnants of a body in the corner—maybe
that
was the scoutmaster—and all eleven boys had their backs to them. Some were standing and facing the wall, and others were sitting down, with their heads lowered. They seemed unaware of the girls' presence.