Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (51 page)

Paul smiled and said, "Well, that's one way of describing it. Are you missing your games?"

Kyle nodded, took a deep breath in and looked around the greenery. "Look." He pointed ahead of him, and for a moment Paul's heart sped up. He was expecting another encounter with the dead. It wasn't Kyle's fault, but his sudden outburst made his dad scared. Kyle pointed at a grey squirrel scampering down a tree that had barbed wire wrapped around it.

"I hope he doesn't get caught in this." Young Kyle pointed all around at the barbed-wire perimeter that Bentley had created to protect the cabin from wandering deadheads.

A silence enveloped father and son for the second time, and they remained both sitting on the large tree stump.

Out of the blue, Kyle announced, "I miss mummy and Bell."

"Me too, son. Me too." Paul dug his top teeth into his chin, just below his lower lip, in a desperate attempt to stop himself from crying. He didn't want Kyle to be concerned and wondering why his daddy was so upset.

Kyle's head gently lay on Paul's shoulder. Paul sniffed his son's head and planted a gentle kiss on it; he then felt Kyle's warm hand stroke his forearm.

There was no mummy and no Bell anymore. It was just the two of them now, and Paul Dickson held his son tightly and didn't want to let him go.

He was all he had left.

Chapter Forty Four

They scanned the area to find only six lumbering at the back of the establishment.

Vince pulled out his machete and laughed, "We can take these fuckers, no problem."

"Aye, but what about them?" Pickle pointed up the road that led to the exit of the grounds, and Shaz puffed out her cheeks in defeat and muttered a swear word. It had been a long night, with little sleep, and they were all drained and famished.

They could see at least twenty of the dead roaming around the area. There was six at the back of the hangar. They knew that there was over seventy that had been cooped up inside the shed, and assumed that there was forty or fifty Snatchers that were spilling inside the hangar and feasting on what was left of Gavin's sister. But she wasn't going to provide a meal for very much longer, and the group knew that the clock was ticking.

"You three take those six out." Karen pointed at the advancing fiends. "I'll be back in a sec."

"What?" Pickle spun around to see that Karen had already disappeared back into the hangar. The three of them swiped and sliced their way through the six ghouls, and while the last one dropped, Pickle could hear the sound of the diesel forklift truck from inside the hangar.

Karen appeared outside on one of the trucks. She exited through the large roller doors that were fully up, but used to be automatic, and stopped by her three friends.

"I can clear a kind of path with this," Karen tried to shed a little light on her plan, "and mow down the things."

"Off!" ordered Vince.

"What?" Karen laughed.

"Off!" Vince wasn't joking. "It's too dangerous and you're pregnant. I used to drive these things for a living. I'll drive into them with the forks raised, then turn around and do the same."

"Er..." Karen scratched her head. "Didn't you just re-word my plan?"

"We don't have time to bicker," Shaz spoke up, and pointed at the opened shutter. "They'll be another forty coming through that entrance any minute, once they've finished with Gavin's sister."

Karen stepped off of the truck reluctantly, and Vince tucked his machete into his belt and climbed on. He tapped the fuel dial, on the small dashboard, and said, "It's in the red."

"As soon as we get past these cocksuckers," said Karen, "we need to pick David up."

"Who?" asked Shaz.

"David Watkins. He's hiding in the field."

"The kid? How—?"

"It's a long story."

Pickle gave Vince the thumbs up, and the three on foot had their weapons ready.

Vince hit the accelerator and the truck gathered up speed. The forks were raised three feet off the ground and Vince kept his foot hard on the gas. He took a deep breath as he ploughed into the twenty-strong crowd. His perspex windscreen was hit with specks of dark fluid as the forks penetrated the dead. The wheels of the two and a half ton truck crushed heads and bodies as they went under the wheels. Vince held on as the bumpy truck became so out of control that he thought it was going to topple over. The ones that he had missed tried to claw at him, but the perspex that surrounded him was protecting him from any scratches or bites.

As soon as he had driven past the crowd, he turned the truck around to see eight had been crushed, and three were penetrated by the forks. One was skewered on the left fork, and there was another two on the right. It hadn't worked as well as he hoped.

He put his foot down and aimed the thing at the remaining nine that were heading towards his friends, but they were so spread out he had to make a choice. There were three that were huddled together and he aimed the truck at them. The truck ran down the three beasts, leaving Shaz, Pickle and Karen to handle the remaining six.

Vincent Kindl jumped off of the truck, and by the side of a shed he could see the same pick-up truck that they had arrived in.

"We don't have a key." yelled Shaz. "They took it off you when they padded you down."

"Just keep running," Karen panted. "I have a car further up, in a lay-by. She then stopped and grabbed Vince by the shoulder. "Lee said that you sometimes keep a spare in your car manual."

"Lee?" Vince screwed his face in confusion. "From the camp?"

Karen nodded.

"In the compartment." said Vince. He continued to run and stopped by the truck, surprised to find the doors open. He went into a compartment on the floor where the driver's manual was kept. He pulled out the manual and put his hand in the side and pulled out a key. "Karen," he said, "I owe you a foot-rub."

"Er...you're okay." Karen could just imagine what Vince's foot-rub would be like. She then waved at David as the young man sprinted from the field. Once he reached the group, Vince said to the girls, "Get in."

Shaz and Karen got into the front with Vince, while Pickle and young David jumped in the back.

The truck pulled away and Vince checked the fuel. They hadn't touched it.

"The fuckers are following us," David screamed from the back, staring at the moving dead, as they began spilling out of the hangar.

"Yeah," Pickle nodded, "but very slowly. Relax."

Karen saw the beasts, and then remembered the driver she had knocked out. He was as good as dead.

*

"The bastards made it!"

Gavin punched the nearest wall and saw in the distance that the people he had captured, were now heading down the road, towards the house. He knew they were going to stop by at the house. He just knew it. Even if his car wasn't sitting outside the place, he still knew that they'd come here because they had been here before, and they knew that there was food to take.

"Bastards!"

He ran down the stairs, and headed towards his vehicle. Once he was inside he pulled away in his car, now that his life was in danger. He didn't have a choice.

*

The vehicle screamed its way out of the place, and through the security area where the barrier was already up. The truck veered right out from the junction and Karen told Vince to drop her off, past the house, as her black Vauxhall was sitting in a lay-by. He passed the house and slowed his means of transport down until it stopped by Karen's car. "I recognise that car," Vince said.

Karen never responded to his statement. She opened the door and went into the vehicle. "Meet you back at the house."

Vince nodded and did a sloppy U-turn and drove the short journey to the solitary house. Both vehicles had pulled up, and once the house was checked they began picking up boxes of tins and made the slow and arduous task of going down the stairs and filling the back of the pick-up truck.

Karen stood guard outside, and was instructed by Pickle that she shouldn't lift as it could harm the baby. She thought it was a humorous instruction considering what she had just been through, but adhered to his command as she didn't want to start a petty argument and she was tired anyway.

Despite her tiredness, she remained vigilant and her eyes scanned all around while her companions were going in and out of the house. As soon as the pick-up truck was full, Vince told Karen that David would travel back with her and they should try and fill the boot of the Vauxhall as well as try and cram a few boxes on the back seat.

Vince then puffed out his chest and placed his hands on his hips. He looked frustrated and Pickle asked him what was wrong. He sighed, "That's the vehicles full and we've only taken a quarter of what's in the house."

"If we come back," Pickle began, "those things will probably be swarming around this place. They were following us as we left."

"It's just frustrating. And there's all those pallets in the hangar."

"Just forget it."

"We could come back." Vince looked up at Pickle, waiting for a response.

Pickle was in disagreement with Vincent. "If yer really want to do this, we should wait a few days, allow these fuckers to disperse, to spread out."

"What happens if someone else—"

"Vince," Pickle bellowed. "I personally don't think it's worth the risk. Yer already better off than most folk, even without the food we have in the cars. Let's just leave it."

Vince disagreed, and Pickle could see that he wasn't going to let this go. He admired Vince for going to such lengths to keep his camp stocked, even if it did give him hero status. The fact that he had already been involved in a trip gone wrong and that he was admittedly nervous whenever he left the camp, proved that his trip to Fradley was a bold and a brave decision. It was a journey that had gone wrong, just like the Stafford trip, but at least this time there were no casualties—not ones that they cared about. It may not have been much, but at least he came back with something, and the tins and bottles of water would be put in the Spode Cottage as soon as they returned.

Chapter Forty Five

"I hate doing this," Paul Dickson snapped.

He helped Kyle into his booster seat and the little boy strapped himself in. The main reason why Paul never ventured outdoors with his son in tow in the first place was because of the potential dangers that lurked around, quite literally, every corner.

The journey to his mum's was a short journey, and even though Bentley offered to go with Paul and Kyle, as added muscle, Paul politely declined his offer. The thought of Bentley then having to walk back alone—which was more than likely, as Bentley Drummle had proved that his car-thieving skills were pretty poor—influenced Paul's decision.

With the exception of the occasional creature stumbling about, the journey to his mum's was relatively straightforward. Only the once Paul had to swerve his Mazda around a lone ghoul that had stumbled out into the road, and that was as much excitement there was.

This time, for the short journey, Paul had told Kyle that he could keep his eyes open if he wanted. Paul didn't think there was much point trying to protect his son from seeing these things anymore, as he was more than likely going to be growing up as a young man with these beasts still present.

It seemed strange that the presence of these ghouls could be considered normal in a few years' time. However, Paul was certain the dead were eventually going to fall to pieces, quite literally, and the main threat would come from desperate and vindictive humans.

This outbreak was just over a month old and already he had witnessed savagery by a nefarious family. He was also positive and fearful that normal families would also be leaving their barricaded homes to do despicable things, to feed their own family. This is where he thought that Bentley had been extremely clever. Not only was he and Laura stocked up with supplies, but they were also well-hidden and out of the way of populated areas.

Although Paul's town of Little Haywood and his mother's village were small in population, he still feared what it was going to be like in another month or so. He knew from watching the TV, in the first weeks, that cities were experiencing the massacre of thousands. He still thought that at least some cities, especially London, were probably getting some kind of help with quarantines and aid, whereas villages and towns outside of London were being left to fend for themselves.

A lot of people must have guessed this, because in the first days the motorways to the south were grid-locked, and it was reported that a lot of people eventually abandoned their cars and began walking. Most of the people who thought that walking was their only option left were eventually taken down by the dead.

Once Paul entered his mum's village, he turned left into her small street and breathed out a relieved sigh when the street was barren.

"I've missed grandma," said Kyle with excitement in his voice.

Don't build your hopes up, son
.

Now, Paul was stuck in a quandary. Does he leave his son in the car, leaving him exposed, and search the house himself? Or, does he take Kyle with him, and allow his son to potentially witness his grandparents reanimated?

Taking Kyle with him into the house, or leaving him in the back of the car, was going to put him in danger, whatever he did. Paul decided to take Kyle with him.

"Right, son." Paul switched the engine off and turned around so his son could see his face. "We're going into grandma's house." Paul took the key out of the car and checked to see if he still had his mum's key on his key-ring. It was there, and Paul added, "You need to stay behind me and not make a single sound. Understand?"

Kyle nodded. "Don't worry, daddy. If one of those monsters are in there, I'll punch one right in the face, like Batman does, and—"

"Just listen, big chap." Paul was becoming exasperated, and tried to keep his emotions in check. The thought of Julie and Bell began to plague his mind once again, and he apologised to his son. He added, "We're going to go inside and I'm going to take that crowbar," Paul pointed to the tool on the passenger seat, "to protect us. I want you to stay behind me, hold onto my T-shirt with both hands, and keep your eyes closed. Got it?"

Kyle stared at his father and had no expression on his face.

"Son, do you understand?"

"Yes, Daddy," Kyle Dickson finally answered.

Paul took a deep breath in and blew out his cheeks. "Right. Time to go."

"Daddy?"

Paul had his hand on the handle, ready to exit his vehicle. He turned around to his son, and sighed impatiently, "What now?"

Kyle's eyes were bloodshot and his lower lip wobbled. "I'm...I'm scared."

"Oh, son." Paul shook his head at himself for being so impatient. "God, I must be the worst dad in the world."

Paul then thought about if his parents had reanimated and were wandering on the ground floor. This would mentally scar Kyle and would also put him in unnecessary danger.

Paul couldn't think. Finally, he changed his mind.

"Okay, I've changed my mind. This is what's going to happen, big chap. You listening?"

Kyle nodded with a blank look on his face.

"I want you to unbuckle yourself and crouch down between my seat and the passenger seat, and hide. Do you think you could do that?"

Again, Kyle nodded with no emotion shown on his face.

"And I want you to stay like that until I come back. Don't worry, I'll lock the car as soon as I leave the vehicle."

"Okay."

"Remember rule number..." Paul couldn't remember the rules from the blackboard in Bell's room.

"It's rule number five, daddy: Always do what dad says," said Kyle.

"That's the one." Paul winked, then grabbed the crowbar off of the passenger seat. The father could feel himself getting emotional and asked his son to crouch down as he left the vehicle.

Kyle did what he was told. Paul left the car, locked it with his key fob, and went towards the front door of the house. He then leaned his head against the door and broke down. For minutes he released tears for his wife and his five-year-old girl, and once he managed to compose himself, he was ready to go in, gripping the crowbar with his other hand.

He was preparing himself for the worst.

Paul slowly slid the key into the hole and twisted it. The door opened slowly and he carefully peered in to make sure there wasn't anything untoward on the ground floor. He shut the door behind him and glared at the frosted glass in the door. Paul had always been a Little Haywood man, but his parents had moved from Little Haywood and he spent a few years with them in this village when he was a young man. He returned to Little Haywood once he flew the nest, when he was nineteen. He remembered the time he was a teenager when he ran towards the house. He tripped over the step and his arm went through the glass of the door. He took a look at his left arm to see the small scar still there, sitting just above his left elbow, just to prove that it really did happen, and he wasn't in some kind of surreal nightmare.

The first room to greet Paul, once in the house, was the kitchen, and straight ahead of him was a door that led into the living room. Paul peered as best he could through the frosted glass of the living room, and as far as his eyes could make out there were no entities in there.

Once established that the ground floor of the small terraced house was clear, he felt a little relief. He opened the living room door and walked straight through the room to the door that led to the stairs. Again, he could see that nothing was behind it, opened it confidently and took a gape upstairs. He was going to call out, but refrained from doing so. If they were in, he was certain that they were on the first floor and not the attic. The attic was tiny and it was hard to move in the place, even when it was empty.

Gripping the metal bar with both of his clammy hands, he took a second to climb every step. Once he reached the landing, he could see four closed doors.

He tried the spare room to his left first, but placed his ear against it before doing so to see if he could hear movement. His head remained there for ten seconds before hesitantly trying the door. He peeked inside to see it was how it always was, although the room desperately needed some fresh air, and he closed the door slowly and gently before approaching the door that used to be his bedroom.

Once more, he placed his ear against the door and tried the handle. With his shoulder he budged the stubborn thing open and saw that the room was immaculate, apart from the stale smell due to lack of fresh air that an opened window could easily sort out. The room was clean, the blue carpet looked spotless, and the bed was made. He took a look around and saw dust on the side table, and this made Paul grow concerned for the welfare of his parents that were in their mid-sixties. Never would his mother allow dust to gather in any of the rooms in her house, apocalypse or no apocalypse.

He closed the door and bypassed his parents' room and decided to try the bathroom. He opened it and he peered over at the bath and saw that it was empty. He now began to panic.

Why didn't they fill the bath? Isn't that what the media told us to do in the first week?

Paul shut the bathroom door and looked at his parents' room with utter dread. He was getting a deja-vu feeling, and he was bracing himself for a scene that he had witnessed earlier when he broke into Sandra and Harry's house.

He took in a few deep breaths, and prepared himself for the worst case scenario that he could think of: his parents, lying in the bed, dead from an overdose.

He opened the door with his eyes shut, and slowly opened them, like one would after a scary scene in a horror film to see if it was safe to do so. But this horror was real, and Paul never expected what his eyes were now witnessing.

He suddenly stopped breathing and, almost cartoon-like, he closed his eyes, shook his head and refocused, just to make sure that his eyes weren't playing a cruel trick on him.

His mum was sitting on the carpet, gnashing and snarling at nothing in particular. His dad lay motionless on the bed, both wrists had been slashed and it looked and smelt like he had been dead for weeks, which probably explained why the bath was empty. The pair of them had no intention of living very long, and this explained why he had lost contact with his parents after just three days.

He looked back over to his mother, who had now reanimated, and couldn't understand the situation. He guessed that they had both been attacked, probably by one of the neighbours, and maybe agreed on a suicide-pact and shut the bedroom door. His mother seemed to have changed her mind on killing herself, and had let the bite on her arm to snowball into the terrible disease that was guilty for the huge destruction of human beings. Because his mother lacked the courage and decided to sit around to see what happened, it had turned her into a monster.

His mum still sat on the floor, staring at the wall and making the uncomfortable noises, still unaware of Paul's presence. He slowly shut the door, went into the bedroom that used to be his, and broke down for two minutes.

How much grief can one man take?

He then got off the bed and peeped out of the window that looked down onto his Mazda. He could see Kyle's back, still staying in his position and still doing what his daddy had told him.

Not wanting to leave him alone for another minute, Paul wiped his eyes and went downstairs, ready to leave the house. As soon as he got to the living room, he took a look around at the house, and was certain it was a place he was never going to see again, at least from the inside. He went through the main door and, for whatever reason, he locked it behind him before going back to the Mazda.

As soon as Paul opened the driver's door, he spoke, "It's okay, son. It's only me."

Kyle sat up and climbed back onto his booster seat. Paul braced himself for a barrage of questions and Kyle didn't disappoint him.

"Daddy?" Kyle began. "Aren't we going in grandma's?"

"No, son." Paul cleared his throat and couldn't think of anything to say. "There's...there's nobody in."

"Can't we just stay in there, wait till they come back?"

With the supplies that he had in the boot of the car, that he had split with Bentley, he was sure that he could move himself and Kyle into the house and live there for a couple of weeks, despite the carnage in his parents' bedroom. If he could somehow block off the room and keep Kyle from going in there, it could be liveable. The trouble with this plan was that the door opened inwards, into the room, and if his reanimated mother could somehow open the door, then blocking off the door wasn't going to make much difference. His only option was to completely board up the door with planks of wood and nails, which he didn't have, or kill his mother and tell Kyle that the room was completely out of bounds.

Whatever scenario went through his head, one thing was certain: with two dead bodies in one room, the smell would be too much to live with, and Kyle had a thing about smells anyway.

The thought of living there skated across his mind once again. Paul didn't really want to pursue the option of killing his own mother, even though she was already technically dead, and finally decided to go back to Bentley's. He didn't want to try Julie's parents or other peoples' houses either, as it was too dangerous. If ever he was bitten or attacked by a frightened human and lost his life, Kyle would be on his own, and that thought alone frightened Paul to death.