Snatchers (Book 9): The Dead Don't Scream (24 page)

Karen had answered his questions for him when she mumbled that she just wanted to be left alone.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay." Vince turned around and headed for the landing, ready to close the bedroom door behind him.

"Vince?" Karen called out.

Vince popped his head back round and asked, "What is it?"

"Thanks for stopping by."

"No problem."

"I love you to bits, Vince." Karen then began to laugh. "Who would have thought that when I first met you five ... six weeks ago, I would have said that?"

"I was a dickhead six weeks ago."

"True," Karen nodded, "but
I
was hardly nice to you, was I?"

"If I remember correctly, you said that I could guess the flavour of a tub of ice cream by sitting on it, because I thought I was so clever."

"But we're okay now, aren't we?"

"We're
more
than okay," laughed Vince, and tried to joke, "even though you killed both my parents."

Karen lowered her head sadly. "Sometimes you forget. To be fair, I put that sharpened wooden spoon through your mother's eye when she was a Snatcher, with your father's blessing. Your dad..."

"I know. He stood no chance after the crash. You put him out of his misery, before those Rotters ripped him apart." Vince Kindl rubbed his hand over his scarred face in reflection and added, "It's a funny old world, isn't it?"

"Hilarious," Karen derided. "May Wolfgang and Grace Kindl rest in peace."

"Amen. I'll be seeing you later, Karen." Vince blew her a kiss. "I don't want to see you vertical until later on."

Vince went to close the door, but Karen called him back once again.

"Now what, woman?" he huffed light-heartedly.

"How are you feeling? You know, about Rosemary?"

Vince released a slow breath out and gently shook his head. "I don't know. Paul said Stephanie had told him what had happened before he, Stephanie and Bentley ran into trouble at the Horns pub. I don't know how I'm feeling right now. Did he tell you about Bentley and..?"

Karen nodded. "I'm sorry about Rosemary."

"I'll be off." He gave her a wink, shut the bedroom door and galloped down Lincoln's stairs and reached the outside, tears in his eyes.

Chapter Forty Seven

Pickle felt refreshed after his short nap on the lawn, and was informed of a trip that would involve himself, Vince and two of the locals from Colwyn Place. Once he was awake, he was approached by Lincoln and was asked if he would take a walk with him. Pickle walked by the side of Lincoln and had complained earlier about the trouble he had had with his machete, even when sharpened, so John told Pickle that he would take him to a place where he could solve his little 'problem'. They both headed for 2 Colwyn Place.

"The people that used to live here were a family," John explained to the new resident. "They left in the first week. I hope they're okay."

Pickle followed John inside and the portly gentleman took Pickle to a cellar. "If any more people turn up, this house will be available for them, but at the moment, because nobody's here, we store weapons in the cellar."

Pickle's eyes widened with joy. "Weapons?"

Noticing the look on Branston's face, John said, "Don't get
too
excited. We have no firearms."

Lincoln opened the cellar door and Pickle followed John down the concrete steps. It was a bit dark, but Pickle could see bats and blades in the corner of the room.

"Take your pick." John Lincoln stood back and added, "If you're really getting sick of the machete, we have a wide range of other things you can try out."

Harry Branston went over and took a look at what was on offer. There were large knives sitting in a crate, a few cleavers, a hatchet, a few axes, and something else that caught his attention. Something unusual.

Pickle pointed at the weapon. It was leaning against the wall. "Yer rob a museum or something?"

Lincoln laughed, "Not quite. I think one of the guys saw it in one of the houses near the Lamb and Flag pub. The guy must have been a Medieval enthusiast. I think it was an ornament of some kind."

"Looks real enough to me."

"Obviously a replica, otherwise it'd be in a museum."

Pickle glared at the unusual weapon. "It looks brand new."

"Pick it up," urged John. "See what you think."

Pickle picked up the thing. The handle was wooden, fifty-six centimetres in length, 1.6kg in weight, and at the end it had steel crossed spikes that were fastened onto it. "It's like something out o' the dark ages," Pickle remarked, and gave it a gentle swing, aware that John was standing behind him.

"A bit too heavy for some our other guys, but for a man of your size..."

"I like it." Pickle took another swing. "The spikes are only a few inches long." Pickle inspected the end of the weapon. "But it's enough to penetrate their brains."

"Penetrate?" Lincoln scoffed. "With your strength there'd be nothing left of them. So you're taking it?"

"I'll give it a go for this little trip we're going on." Pickle took a gander at his Omega watch that he had taken off one of the dead, when he and Bentley were out looking for Karen.
Poor Bentley
. He turned to face John Lincoln. "When are we going on this trip to the other side o' the village?"

"As soon as you're ready. Vince is outside ... somewhere. Hopefully you’ll find young Danny. He’s a good guy, he just panicked."

"Don’t worry. If he's alive, we'll bring him back. And if we find that he's not, we'll still bring his body back, if we can."

"If he's dead, he'll have to get burned with the rest on the abandoned field." John smiled sadly.

"Yer burn all yer dead?"

John nodded sadly. "Fortunately there hasn't been many from this street. The dead in ... No Man's Land, shall we say, are still where they ... fell. It'd be too dangerous to clear the place up, but Danny's just a young man."

"Right," Pickle kept a hold of the mace weapon and said to John, "Let's go and get Vince."

"As soon as you're back I'm gonna put you and Karen in number ten," John announced as they walked up the cellar steps. "You’ll be opposite Vince in number eleven. I'm putting Vince with a man called Gareth. Nice guy."

"What about Paul?"

"Number thirteen," said John. They were now both in the living room of the empty house. "He'll have a house all to himself."

Pickle thought it was an unusual idea, but chose to keep his mouth shut. Paul on his own? After what he had been through? And why didn't John Lincoln put all four in the one house?"

"You'll all get a ... welcome pack, shall we say," John laughed. "We keep our supplies in number seventeen. Under guard, of course. That's also empty, for now."

Both men stepped outside, onto the street and walked towards Vince, who was sitting on the kerb, waiting.

"They're waiting." Vince pointed over to the steel gates where a black Range Rover sat.

Both men said farewell to John Lincoln and were heading towards the vehicle. They could see that Rowley was sitting in the driver's side, window down.

"Jesus," Vince scoffed, finally noticing the mace that Pickle was carrying. "What the fuck is that?"

"My new toy," announced Pickle, holding up the mace weapon.

Vince got into the back of the vehicle, Pickle went in the other side, and Kindl began to snicker to himself when he realised that the obese man who he had a falling out with earlier was sitting in the front passenger seat, next to Stephen Rowley.

Vince, Stephen and Freddie had opted for the machete on this occasion, but Stephen and Freddie weren’t expecting trouble. It was going to be a short journey to the other side of the village, checking out the streets for the missing young man. Or so they hoped.

"Right then," Stephen fired the ignition and added, "Are we kids ready?"

Nobody answered.

Freddie then turned around and glared at Vince.

"Problem?" asked Kindl.

"Jesus, Vince." Pickle shook his head. "Yer have only been here a few hours and yer fighting with the locals already."

"He started it," said Vince, petulantly. "Earlier on."

Stephen Rowley turned off the ignition and said, "Right, Vince." He then cleared his throat and twitched his neck. "We'll always be grateful for what you did, but I can't go out there if there's animosity between you two. We need to watch each other's backs when we're out there. I don’t need to tell
you
that, chap."

"So what do yer suggest?" Pickle spoke up and tried to make light of the situation. "An arm wrestle?"

Stephen shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't know."

"Okay." Pickle sat in thought, then glared at both men, Vince and Freddie. "I want yer to both apologise to one another and shake hands, then we can go and find this Danny guy with there being no hostility towards each other."

"His name is Danny Goslin!" Freddie snapped. "Not
this Danny guy
. He's a good bloke. A tough nut."

"Tough?" Vince laughed. "I heard he ran off."

Nobody responded right away.

"Anyway," Pickle jumped in before an argument materialised. "Let's shake hands. I'm dying o' old age here."

"He called me fat," said Freddie, pointing at Vince.

"That wasn't my exact words," Vince tried to explain.

"More or less."

"You're not fat." Vince patted Freddie on the shoulder from the back of his seat, but it was a patronising pat. "You're just easier to see."

"See what I mean?" Freddie glared at Stephen and Pickle, looking for support.

"Jesus," Vince cackled. "Calm down, for fuck's sake."

"Don't tell me to calm down! I don’t like it!"

"It's true, chap." Stephen Rowley nodded and turned to the two men in the back. "Telling Freddie to calm down works as well as baptising a cat."

"Right, yer two." Pickle decided to take control of the situation. "Yer need to sort it. The longer we stay here, the longer this Danny guy is missing."

Vince puffed out a breath and offered his hand. "I suppose I need to set an example, being the eldest."

"Setting an example? I think it's too late for that," sniggered Pickle. "But well done anyway, Vince."

Freddie reluctantly shook Vince's hand and both individuals mumbled an apology to one another, like children.

"Done?" queried Rowley.

Freddie nodded.

"Thank fuck for that." He started the engine and nodded at the guard by the steel gate, telling him that they were ready to leave.

Once the gate was pulled back, they departed Colwyn Place and turned left at the junction.

Chapter Forty Eight

Vince, Pickle, Stephen and Freddie sat in silence as they made the short journey to the other side of the village. After Vince and Freddie shook hands and apologised to one another, hardly a word had been spoken.

The black Range Rover slowed down and turned left onto a long road. It was the road into part of the village that some of the residents of Colwyn Place now called "No Man's Land."

"Wind your window down, chap," Stephen said to Freddie, then dropped the vehicle in first and purposely drove at walking pace. "You and him are good pals. If he sees you, then he'll come out."

"Won't he recognise the vehicle anyway?" Freddie sat, staring out of his passenger window that was still closed.

"Just do it," said Stephen with impatience in his tone.

"What's this guy's name again?" Vince sat in the back, next to Pickle, machete lying across his lap.

"His name's Danny. Danny Gosling." Stephen Rowley then twitched and added, "Thinks he's some kind of hard case, tough man, but showed his true colours when he shat it."

"We all panic once in a while," Pickle spoke up, sticking up for a young man he hadn't even met. "When the panic kicks in, yer not thinkin' straight."

"He just ran off," Stephen cackled. "Left us to deal with the dead ourselves. He should have stuck around."

"Some people take time to adapt to this new world."

"Well, if we don't find him today, I'm not searching for him every day. John can forget about that. Fuckin' waste of petrol. If he's that desperate to come back he could get to the other side of the concrete fence and climb it into our camp."

"Maybe he's trapped." Freddie tried to stick up for Danny.

Stephen quickly responded, "And maybe he's just shamefaced."

All four craned their necks to see if they could spot any sign of life. Nothing.

Pickle and Vince looked as bodies were seen strewn across the street. Some of the dead could be seen, shuffling about, but there weren't many. There was the odd one, but nothing to disturb the four individuals in the vehicle.

"Are we driving by the cul-de-sacs, or are we going
in
them?" Vince questioned the driver. He noticed that on the main road they were on, side streets were appearing on both sides.

"Probably best to go in them," answered Stephen, clearing his throat loudly. "If he's hiding in a house in one of the side streets, he's not gonna see us if we just stick to the main road."

Stephen Rowley turned the vehicle right, into the first side street.

All four could see something that would have horrified them in the first week, but were all immune to this kind of horror now, especially Vince and Pickle.

Four bodies were lying on the pavement, one particular one was unrecognisable due to the severity of its wounds. For ten minutes they went in side streets on both sides of the main road, but there was still no sign of Danny Gosling.

"If he'd seen us, he would have come out to us." Stephen shifted the vehicle into second gear, cranking up the speed along the main road, becoming bored and impatient with the trip.

They came to a junction and Stephen announced that they had four more side streets to check, then that was it. They were going home.

In this part of the village there was a lot of dried-in blood on the road and pavements, but very little bodies, just the occasional limb and entrails. A severed head was also on the left side of the road, near the kerb.

Before they could comment at what they had seen, Pickle spoke up and pointed out, "Up ahead. One of them."

A member of the dead could be seen walking in the middle of the road, crash helmet on, but there was no sign of its bike.

Stephen sighed, slowed the vehicle down and could see that the dead fiend was only yards away from the four men. Stephen brought the vehicle to a stop.

"How do you know it's definitely a Creeper?" asked Freddie.

Stephen turned and looked at the young man and shook his head. "What a dumb thing to say. Haven't you learned anything?"

"But you can't see his face. It could be someone who's drunk," Freddie tried to explain. "Or someone who's starving and are walking like that because they're weak."

"I've got it," Pickle said with no hesitation, and left the vehicle and jumped out onto the road with his mace weapon.

"Shall we go with him?" asked Stephen.

"Don't worry," Vince reassured the two men in the front. "He's been wanting to do this since he got that thing from John Lincoln. Just let him have his fun."

Pickle held the thing up as he strolled in front of the vehicle, and looked at the steel spikes at the end. It looked like a hell of a weapon. Now it was time to test it out.

Vince leaned forward in his seat and put his head inbetween the front passenger and driver's seat, glaring out through the windscreen. Stephen and Freddie watched Pickle saunter towards the beast that had the crash helmet on, visor down. They watched in morbid fascination as Pickle took a hold of the weapon, that was just over half a metre in length, and held it up above his head.

They heard him shout something to the beast.

What was he doing? Was he giving it a chance to respond if it was a human being or not? Was he making sure it was definitely one of them?

They watched as it stumbled towards Pickle, who brought the mace down hard, hitting the top of the helmet. The crash helmet wasn't damaged a great deal, but the trauma of the pounding forced the creature to fall to the floor. Pickle put the mace on the floor and bent down to check on the dead thing.

It lay motionless.

He grabbed the helmet and tried to take it off. With a bit of force he had managed it, threw the helmet away, and could see now for himself that the individual was definitely a Snatcher.

Its eyes were still open and it was obvious that he had damaged the brain to a certain degree, but not enough. He stood up, took a step away and looked down at the top of its head. The creature lay on its back, its limbs moving a little. Pickle looked around, then took a swing, like it was a cricket bat, and watched as the spikes at the end of the mace stuck into the top of its head. He saw the creature had stopped moving, and he then pulled his new weapon out.

Pickle then twisted his head to the side, and noticing this Stephen wound his window down and popped his head out. "What's up? You hear something?"

Pickle never said anything. He stayed still, waiting for the noise again, to make sure he wasn't hearing things. He heard the faint noise again. A thud. He pointed over the road where there was an abbey. St Mary's Abbey. "O'er there," said Pickle.

The remaining three exited the black Range Rover and walked over to the ex-inmate. All stared at the main doors of the magnificent building and wondered what to do next.

"Shall we just go round the back?" Vince asked Pickle.

"I don't know. I lived here briefly, but I've never been anywhere near this place." Pickle was undecided and turned to Stephen and Freddie. "Yer guys are from round these parts. Is there a back entrance to this place?"

Both Freddie and Stephen nodded.

Pickle told Freddie and Stephen to go one way round the back of the abbey, whilst he and Vince went the other, just in case there were any nasty surprises.

"Okay. Let's hope that it's Danny that's in there." Stephen Rowley nodded, twitched and cleared his throat loudly.

"For fuck's sake, Twitch," Vince scolded. "Keep the noise down."

"We'll meet you at the back door," said Stephen, ignoring Vince's rude comment.

"Good." Pickle picked up the mace and rested the shaft on his right shoulder. "Nobody goes in until we're all together."

All four went by the archaic stone walls and Vince and Pickle went round the right part of the abbey, whereas Stephen and Freddie went the other way. There were bushes to Pickle and Vince's right as they strolled down the cobbled path, and could see that they were thirty yards from getting to the end.

Once at the end, both men needed to turn left at the corner of the building where they were going to meet Stephen and Freddie by the back door. Whether the door was open or not was another thing.

Walking down the side of the abbey, Vince and Pickle walked side-by-side, a little paranoid of the bushes that were to their right.

"We never seem to get a day off," Vince joked with a chuckle, knowing he wanted to come on this run. "We've spent one night at the place and now we're looking for a guy we've never met."

"At least they trust us," Pickle spoke with a whisper, clasping onto his mace.

"Of course they trust us." Vince swapped his machete from one clammy hand to the next, and mocked. "I'm a legend round these parts. Haven't you heard?"

"Well, from what yer told me," Pickle said, with his tongue in his cheek, "yer gunned down Kevin Murphy when he'd just come out of the toilet, and yer shot his dad when he was sleeping in his bed. Yer hardly John Rambo."

"I got there at a good time. At least I was honest when I told you. I could have told you that there was this massive shootout and—"

"True," Pickle chuckled, turned, and spat to the side. "But I'd be able to smell the bullshit off o' yer."

Both men stopped walking when a dead child appeared from around the corner of the abbey, from around the back. They stood motionless as the dead girl with the dark hair shuffled her way towards the two men, hoping for something to eat, not knowing her demise wasn't far away.

Thinking about Vince's son, Brian, Pickle told his friend that he would sort out the problem himself.

"I
have
killed kids before, Pickle." Vince shook his head as soon as those words left his mouth.

"Now there's something yer wouldn't have said three months ago."

"True."

Vince stood back as Pickle quickened his pace towards the dead girl, then pulled his weapon back and caved in the little girl's head with a ferocious swing of his new mace. He removed the spikes from the corpse's collapsed head and looked down on the little girl. She couldn't have been no older than eight or nine. She was wearing pink leggings and a yellow T-shirt with a picture of an ice cream on it. He dropped the mace, picked up the child and placed her gently into the bushes on his right. He whispered a prayer for the poor soul and the melancholy that he was experiencing was almost suffocating the man. He should have been used to this by now.

Pickle shook off his sadness when more shuffling could he heard, and another creature appeared from around the corner of the abbey. How many more were there?

This one was a little girl, had dark hair...

"What the fuck is going on?" Pickle heard Vince call out from behind him.

Pickle noticed that the little girl was wearing the same attire as the one that had been removed: pink leggings and an ice cream T-shirt. He then looked at her face; he realised that they were twins.

Pickle gave the little girl the same treatment he gave her sister, and then turned round to see a shocked Vince. Not much shocked the two men anymore, but this was unexpected.

"Well that's a first." Vince walked over and stood next to Pickle.

"A damn shame." Pickle sighed and could feel a lump in his throat. "I bet they were gorgeous little girls a few months ago."

"Yeah, in a
Shining
kind of way."

"Come on, Vince. Show a bit o' respect."

"It's just my way of dealing with things. I thought you'd know that by now."

Ignoring his comment, Pickle picked up the girl and placed her by her sister, in the bushes, then progressed forwards with Vince following behind.

As soon as they turned the corner of the abbey, Freddie and Stephen were already waiting for the two men.
Their
walk down the side of the building had been trouble-free.

"We've already tried the door, chaps," announced Stephen. "We were just waiting for you two."

"And?" Pickle asked.

"It's open."