Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (16 page)

Chapter Thirty Two

Tommy had been in the house for a few minutes, grabbed an empty plastic bottle that was sitting on the sink, and went upstairs to fill it from the bath that was slowly losing water. There was probably another week left, he guessed.

He immediately took a swig and sat on the bed. His Glock was now sitting on the side-table and he decided to try and have a nap, but every time he closed his eyes he could see the face of one of the creatures. It wasn't any ghoul in particular that he had been in close contact with; it was just a random beast that Tommy's mind had managed to paint.

A noise could be heard from outside, and Tommy soon shot off the bed. He peered out of the bedroom window, but couldn't see anything. He exited the bedroom and went downstairs. He had forgotten if he had locked the door. He checked it to find that he had. After checking through the front and back window, he decided to go back upstairs and go back to trying the nap. He knew his sleep would be a broken one, and he felt that what his body craved the most was eight hours of solid sleep, but at least a nap would take the edge off. He felt exhausted, and even though it was only the afternoon, he didn't care if he was up for most of the night.

He looked in the cupboards under the TV for anything that could help with his sleep whether it was melatonin, kalms, or, even better, sleeping pills.

He had already checked the bathroom beforehand, as a lot of people kept medicines there. The only place he could check afterwards was the main bedroom where the three dead had stayed for weeks. Maybe there was some medication in either the male or the female's bedside table.

There was nothing of interest in the cupboard apart from a bottle of Famous Grouse. He took the bottle, and went upstairs. He lay back on the bed and unscrewed it. "Well, if this doesn't make me sleep, nothing will." He took a greedy mouthful from the bottle and could feel the heat growing from inside of him. He was feeling better already.

He swigged from it again and then threw his head back, almost smiling from ear-to-ear. Tommy liked the occasional marijuana smoke but this was a very good substitute, and finally he was now feeling relaxed. Another drink was taken, and he already felt tipsy. "Slow down," he laughed to himself, seeing that there was still three quarters of the bottle left. "You've got all day."

He went to put the top back onto the bottle, but tossed it onto the quilt and put the bottle to his lips once more. He took three large gulps, the alcohol sloshing down his throat and heating up his body. This time he
did
put the top back on the bottle, and placed it on the table, near his Glock.

His eyes had only been closed for a second when another sound could be heard, a groaning sound. Tommy still had his window open, so he was able to hear the noises from outside.

He sat up and climbed off the bed, stumbling a little. Bemused by this, he looked at the bottle of Famous Grouse and it was clear that he had almost drank half. His eyeballs peered outside, but he was finding it hard trying to focus, as well as stand straight. It was one of them. But it was just the one. "Fucker."

Tommy grabbed his Glock and went downstairs, bouncing off the right wall on two occasions. He unlocked the door and went round to the front where the ghoul was now on the road. The thing was five-nine, slim build, shaven head, and still wearing his spectacles.

He clocked Tommy straight away and staggered towards him. Tommy smiled overconfidently and raised his gun, finding it difficult to get a proper aim at the thing that was only ten yards away. "Stay still, you fucker."

His finger slipped on the trigger and he tried again. One shot rang out, but he missed, and the creature continued to progress in his direction. A gunshot to a normal human would spark fear inside of them, but this noise only managed to make the creature even more determined to take down its prey.

Tommy fired again and again, but the thing walked awkwardly another couple of yards, now with its arms raised, ready for its feast. Another round left the gun, this time hitting the thing in the bottom of its jaw, taking most of its chin away. Tommy staggered to the left and the panic shooting through his veins had somehow managed to sober him up a little. His fifth shot took the thing down.

He walked away and went round the back, locked the door behind him and then went upstairs. Once he reached the bedroom again he plonked himself on the bed and began berating himself. "You fucking idiot. Why didn't you just leave it? What the fuck were you thinking?" He then slapped his face and banged the top of his head. "Stupid bastard, Tommy. You're a stupid bastard."

He grabbed the bottle of Famous Grouse and poured it down the sink of the bathroom. He was sure that it was the hard stuff that caused him to behave so irrational in the first place, and he didn't trust himself to never have another drop again, so he thought that the best thing to do was remove it altogether.

He was no alcoholic, but removing the temptation of alcohol seemed to be the safest option.

"You idiot."

*

Karen told Wolf that she was feeling nauseous and wanted some alone-time. She chose to leave the premises, went through the greenery, and sat on the slant of the hill, not straying too far from the cabin. She didn't have the energy to walk to the top again. She just wanted a little air to greet her face.

Wolf's garden was spacey, but it was enclosed from the trees and bushes that he had allowed to grow over the years, and sometimes it was hard for the sun to shine through and for the wind to creep in. It was no wonder that the group, sometimes together or individually, would leave the cabin during the day and walk to the top of the hill.

It was nice being outside, and it also relieved some of the boredom and the feeling of claustrophobia.

Karen was pleased and felt lucky to be alive, but at the moment living was extremely monotonous. In a weird kind of way she missed the couple of days she had when her and Pickle went to the back of the estate to gather supplies. It was dangerous, but it swallowed up a few hours during the day.

Since she had left her house in her Cherokee Jeep, this had been the most comfortable she had been, but it bored her, and she found this worrying. She was pregnant, yet she still craved a little excitement.

There was no TV anymore. She had no work to go to, there was no music to listen to, and she missed her iPod. If ever she was off work on a Saturday or a Sunday, she would ask Gary to go to the local Indian restaurant, get her a Chicken Chasni with boiled rice, then after it was consumed, she would have a couple of glasses of white wine and sit down with her fiancé to watch a movie before bed.

Karen smiled when she tried to remember the last movie they had seen together. It was a few Saturdays before the outbreak occurred and it came to her. It was
Seven
, the Brad Pitt movie. A film she had never seen. Karen had asked Gary if he had ever seen the film, and he answered: "Is that the film where he found his wife's head in a box?"

Even though he had ruined the film before she even pressed play, she decided to watch it, and made sure that he watched it with her, which was his punishment for spoiling it.

She laughed to herself and shook her head at her fiancé. "Gary, you was such a douche. But you were
my
douche."

Her face went pale and she suddenly turned her head and threw up.

Chapter Thirty Three

Before leaving for the main road and walking along it to the camp, the remaining dead that were by the canal were pushed in by Shaz, Vince and Jack, and were simply left there. There were only five left, and Vince convinced them that there was no way they could get out.

Shaz and Jack went back to his caravan and the first thing she did was plonk her backside on the couch. Before Jack could close the door he heard Vince yell, "You've got half an hour before we go back."

"What's up with him?" Shaz began taking her shoes and socks off and scrunched her feet, moaning in delight.

"He's a bit nervous about breaking his news to the people that live here." Jack sat down next to Shaz. "We lost a couple of people on the way back from Stafford when we were carjacked. We lost a nice girl called Claire." Jack paused and didn't want to go into details about the way she died. "Paul was stabbed to death; Vince has to tell the news to his wife."

Shaz continued with her feet-scrunching and allowed there to be silence between the pair of them before speaking again. "You sounded sad when you mentioned Claire's name." Shaz leaned back and closed her eyes. "A girlfriend, was she?"

"No." Jack lowered his head, and paused before speaking again. "Maybe she could have been if she hadn't have died."

"Is it really wise, getting close to someone in this world? Only to lose them some weeks later?" Shaz sounded cold, but she had only lost her son and husband in the space of a month.

"Probably not," snickered Jack. He knew where Shaz was coming from, and Jack himself felt the way Shaz felt not so long back. "Still..."

"Still?"

Jack shrugged his shoulders and looked coy.

Shaz decided to guess what he was thinking. "You're a man. You have needs, apocalypse or no apocalypse."

"Pathetic, isn't it?"

"It's the way men are made." Shaz sat up straight and looked at Jack. "But
yes
, it is." She began to giggle. "Women have needs too, you know."

Jack stared at Shaz and looked into those extraordinary blue eyes of hers. She kind of reminded him of a girl he used to date at school. Shaz was good-looking, maybe not quite as good-looking as Karen, but Shaz wasn't scary and was easy to talk to. He looked down at her wrist and saw a bracelet. He opened his mouth, about to ask her the relevance of the bracelet, but she jumped in before he had the chance. "Don't."

He slowly leaned in for a kiss, and was taken by surprise when Shaz responded. Their passionate embrace was only seconds old when the pair of them began to pull each other's clothes off.

Jack pulled off Shaz's grey T-shirt, revealing a bra that had seen better days, and she began pulling down his green combats. Once his trousers were down to his ankles, she immediately pulled on his briefs and dragged them down. Jack stood up and kicked off his trousers and briefs. He turned to Shaz and they kissed once again, with Jack now on top of Shaz, his hand under her bra and stroking her right breast.

Shaz's eyes opened and she immediately began pushing Jack off.

"What is it? What have I done?" Jack stood up from the settee and wondered why Shaz was putting on her T-shirt so quickly. Jack still remained naked and turned to see Vince standing inside the cabin with a wide smile on his face, the main door wide open.

"What the fuck do you want?" snapped Jack. "You've only been away five minutes."

Vince looked at Jack's manhood and giggled, "Cold, are we?"

Jack immediately covered his genitalia and then reached for a tea towel that was sitting on the nearby table and covered himself properly. "Didn't you fucking knock?"

"Yes, I did." Vince nodded. "Obviously not loud enough."

Shaz stood up and stormed by Vince to get to one of the bedrooms, her face was lowered and she was clearly embarrassed.

"How long has your husband been dead?" Vince called after her. "Three weeks?"

Jack took a step forward threateningly towards Vince, but Vince couldn't take him seriously. "That's not fair, leave her alone."

"I came to tell you that we're going up there with guns, just in case we run into any carjackers like the last time. Any objections?"

Jack shook his head, hoping Vince's stay would be a short one.

"I'll show you what's what." Vince giggled and nodded to Jack's crotch, "So that'll be two loaded guns you'll be walking around with."

Jack sighed at Vince's pathetic attempt at humour, and snarled, "Anything else, before you fuck off?"

"Yes." Vince folded his arms, and this time his face took on a more stern look. "I've just told Paul's wife the news."

"Oh." Jack still stood with the tea towel covering his private bits, and had temporarily forgot how ridiculous he looked. "How did she take it?"

"She didn't seem that bothered."

"Really?"

"Of course not, shagwit. She's devastated, of course. But at least the rest of the residents seem sympathetic to our disastrous run."

Jack asked Vince something that had been bothering him. "Were you really prepared to leave Karen and your dad behind after what happened to Pickle?"

"I said before, I just wanted to know your opinion." Vince looked embarrassed for Jack bringing up the subject. "What are we actually going back for? A pregnant woman who hates my guts and a coffin dodger."

"It's your dad." Jack was baffled at Vince's attitude. "Doesn't your own flesh and blood mean anything, even if he wasn't the greatest father?"

"You mean my drunk-of-a-father? The one that used to beat mum and kick the crap out of me if I so much as looked at him wrong?"

"He seems like a nice old man." Jack tried to stick up for an individual he didn't even know, and knew himself that people deserved another chance with what was happening. "I wasn't a great dad myself, but I'm glad my son's last days were spent with me."

"Don't compare yourself to my father, Jack. You're nothing like him."

"All I'm saying—"

"My dad came in drunk one night and I was up watching TV with my mum. He told me to go to bed, and for whatever reason I cheeked him back and said
no
. He fucking exploded and grabbed an empty bottle and began hitting me with it. The bottle broke." Vince then pointed at his scarred face. "But he continued to hit me, and gave me this."

"Look—"

"The guy's an old cunt," Vince said sharply, with venom in his tone. "You're a good man, Jack, so don't compare yourself with that piece of crap again."

Jack was shocked by the story and asked, "What happened after?"

"Oh, it was covered up. They told people that I had fallen through the window, playing about. My mother and father spent months giving me everything I wanted, just to keep me quiet."

Jack sat down, stunned, and didn't know what else to say.

"Anyway," Vince clapped his hands together and tried to lift the sombre atmosphere that he had created with his confession from the past. "I'm gonna crack one off and be back later."

"You're a disgrace." Jack almost raised a smile, and had forgiven Vince for his intrusion. Shaz had emerged from the bedroom and went past Vince and straight outside.

Vince turned to leave as well, but suddenly stopped and clicked his fingers as if he had remembered something. "Oh, and Jack?"

"Now what is it?"

"I was impressed with your foreplay technique there. Very good."

"What the hell do you know about foreplay?"

"I know it's like having a KFC. I always start with the thigh and breast, then all you have left is a greasy box to put your bone in."

"You're a disgusting letch, Vince."

"A letch?" Vince laughed, "I'm not the one with a tea towel covering
Gonorrhoea Greg
and his two hairy companions." Vince pointed at Jack's briefs that were lying on the floor. "You need to put those boys back in the barracks." Vince turned on his heels and headed for the door. "Oh, and one more thing."

"Now what?"

"You've got a boil on your arse."