Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (67 page)

Chapter Twenty Three

July 15th

The drive along Power Station Road was a quiet affair, and once the pick-up truck exited Rugeley and zoomed along Stafford Road, Vince began to slow down as they were approaching a double roundabout. It wasn't the roundabouts that Vince was slowing down for. The Wyevale Garden Centre's entrance was to the right and Vince pulled into the almost-barren car park.

Vince had asked Pickle and Shaz if they were prepared to go on a little run, and both grudgingly agreed once he highlighted what could be waiting for them.

All three couldn't believe that the drive had been uneventful. Not a single Snatcher had been seen. Vince had gone along Power Station Road instead of going through the town centre for safety reasons. There was some carnage in the town, bodies and vacant cars, but it was also where the Sandy Lane Camp was. He was still unsure about that place, despite the fact that the people in there were his fellow townies six weeks ago.

Once the truck turned into the car park of the garden centre and the vehicle came to a halt, they exited their means of transport and had a look around the grounds, all three had their machetes slipped in their belts.

Shaz took a scan around the area and was the first to speak. "Of all the years I've lived here, I never once visited this place. I always used to go to B and Q in Stafford."

Vince took a gander at the road to the garden centre's right that led to Little Haywood. The village was only a mile away.

Pickle could see, by the road and past the two roundabouts, the Wolseley Arms pub. He raised a smile and briefly thought back to when he was first released from prison, and staying the night at the pub with KP, Laz, Conor Snodgrass, Janine Perry and Jamie Thomson.

He remembered when they first arrived; he was confronted by a female Snatcher when he opened the cellar door. He caved her head in with the butt of his Browning shotgun, which he had lost a week later when they were fleeing the house in Heath Hayes and had to jump on the roof of the prison van, with Jack Slade taking the wheel and Thomas and Kerry in the front. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

He thought about the food they had eaten that night when they stayed at the pub, and the alcohol they had consumed. All of them were dead now, and had been dead a while.

"Pickle?"

Pickle jumped once he heard his name being called.

Shaz said, "You were miles away. You okay?"

Tears had formed around Harry Branston's eyes and he nodded unconvincingly with a large gulp.

"Okay, guys." Vince smacked his hands together. "No messing. Just a quick in-out."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Shaz laughed.

Vince tried to look at Shaz with a disappointed face, but his smirk was a giveaway. "You wouldn't be able to handle me, darling. The trouble with women—"

"The trouble with women," Shaz interrupted the cocky Vincent Kindl, "is that we reach our sexual peak after thirty five years. Men reaches theirs after four minutes."

Vince laughed and walked away, pulling out a list of stuff to get from the garden centre to take back to the camp, if it was possible. They only had one pick-up truck. They didn't see the point in bringing a HGV, as they were unsure if the place had been raided or not. They were a little apprehensive after what had happened with the 'Gavin' situation a week ago, but sometimes risks needed to be taken if they wanted the camp to flourish.

If the garden centre was untouched, then they'd make the short journey back and return with a larger vehicle. Otherwise, they were just going to take what they could and put it in the back of the pick-up. He took a look at the list. They already had a barbecue back at the camp, but if he had the room, he could manage to put another two in the back of the truck, along with gas canisters that should be inside. There should also be bags of coal, packets of vegetable seeds and garden utensils if the place had received little or no visitors, of the human kind, over the last few weeks.

Someone back at the camp suggested getting more material to build a couple of sheds, but they already had the Spode Cottage for storage and Vince said that he would think about the sheds if they brought the HGV for a possible second run.

All three pulled out their machetes as they entered the establishment. Vince ordered, "Check out the aisles first, then if it's clear we'll go shopping."

Shaz scoffed, "That's if there's anything left."

They entered the automatic doors that were already open, and decided to start at
Aisle One
and check each one right down to the last one before loading the pick-up truck.

It was a slow process and
Aisle One
was full of paints and other home decor accessories.

It was clear.

Aisle Two
had two dead bodies in the middle of it, and there was blood all over the floor. Before Vince and Shaz had a chance to open their mouths, Pickle announced, "I'll check it out."

Pickle stepped towards the two bodies whilst Shaz and Vince looked on. Once he was two yards from them and his boots inches from the pooled blood, he could see that these people had turned and were killed by humans. The blood on the floor was dark, almost black, and both had received trauma to the head.

Pickle sighed, turned on his heels and walked back to his two colleagues. The things were finished, and weren't a threat to the group. "Next aisle."

Chapter Twenty Four

Already the boredom was killing Jason Murphy. He was feeling down, and could have murdered a beer and sex with one of his ladies, but they lived too far away and he felt that they were probably dead now anyway. He strolled around the ground floor of the house, and even the weeks' supply of food in the bathroom cupboard didn't do anything to bring him out of his depressed state.

He missed his family, his brothers especially. He couldn't believe he was the last one standing—he wasn't sure if Gary was alive or not—and kicked the wall in frustration. For many years his family had been in and out of jail and now, in week six, most had been killed. Not one of his family members had been killed by the dead, it had been human savagery.

He knew he was vulnerable, being alone, and had decided to potter around the house for another day or so, eat as much as he could, then put what he could in a bag and leave Little Haywood. He needed to go somewhere where nobody knew who he was.

A camp would be perfect, he thought.

He sat down on the floor and began to stare at the walls. His minutes of silence was interrupted by a noise coming from the toilet on the ground floor. He quickly stood up and saw a black cat, not even a year old, walk into the living room.

It must have climbed through the bathroom, through the slightly-opened top window
.

It suddenly stopped when it'd clocked Jason's presence. It cried a long cry and Jason assumed it was hungry. He had no idea if it belonged to the old couple, it had chanced its luck by trying the house, or the couple had only just recently began to feed it, as it was a stray.

Jason sat back down and beckoned the animal to come to him. It cried again, another long one, and took two slow steps towards Jason and began sniffing the air.

Jason continued to beckon the cat, and said in a soft voice, "You hungry, mate?"

The black cat cried again, as if it understood what Jason was asking him, and was responding by saying,
Yes, I am
.

"Come here, boy." Jason assumed it was a boy, and clicked his fingers.

The famished animal took more steps forwards, and eventually stood next to Jason and began rubbing its body against his thigh, purring. Jason gave the hungry thing a stroke, then noticed it had a flea-collar. He took a look at the collar and noticed that it was a boy and was called Max. "Well, hello Max."

The cat made another noise.

Jason Murphy was unsure whether it was a cry or a meow. Maybe a bit of both.

He stroked the cat and felt the vibrations off of it as it purred and rubbed itself against his leg. It seemed to have relaxed a little in his company, and he continued to stroke it, starting from the head, right up to its tail.

He took a hold of the animal with his right hand, and with his fingers around its neck he picked up the light thing off of the floor. The cat never panicked, in fact its two soft paws placed themselves on his hand.

Jason's calm, trusting face had turned into a snarl. "You're a whiny prick, aren't you?"

It glared at him with its reptilian-like eyes, and never tried to move once when Jason squeezed it and gave its neck a sharp twist.

He released his tight grip and placed the limp animal next to him. That had only been the second cat he had ever killed. The first time was when he and Gary were teenagers. They were in the woods and building a camp. They had practically spent the whole day up there, building the thing, and suddenly came across a stray cat. They beckoned it, fed it, then popped it into a carrier bag and smacked it off a tree as the frightened animal was trying to claw its way out. It stopped moving after just the second smack against the tree.

He shook his head and sighed, "God, I'm bored."

Chapter Twenty Five

It appeared that the stuff that they wanted was at the last two aisles.

Shaz, Vince and Pickle had reached
Aisle Nineteen
and finally came across garden utensils.
Aisle Twenty
provided barbecues and bags of coal, as well as gas canisters. Apart from the two bodies that were in
Aisle Two
the place was barren.

"Aisle nineteen and twenty it is then." Vince scratched at his head and spat on the floor, clearing his throat. "At least that makes things easier."

Twenty minutes had passed; the truck had been filled with two barbecues, bags of charcoal, gas canisters, as well as an assortment of garden tools. Pickle carried a petrol chainsaw to the van. Vince told Pickle that they'd never use it because of the noise, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Finally, Pickle, Shaz and Vince put their machetes back into their belts and carried two gas canisters each, one in each hand. Seeing the truck was getting full, Pickle said, "We can maybe squeeze two in the front next to our feet."

Once they had put the canisters away, Vince said, "That'll do for now. We'll get bags of seeds and then we'll fuck off."

"Vince." Pickle pointed behind him to see four Rotters, as Vince called them, stumbling into the entrance of the garden centre. In the distance the three of them could also hear the sound of an engine, and the more they listened the louder the engine became. Whatever was happening, the vehicle was getting nearer.

Torn between removing the ghouls and hiding from the vehicle, they stood motionless, looking at one another, not knowing what to do for the best.

Before any of the three managed to speak, a white transit van entered the car park at a high speed and took out all four of the dead, all four were pushed forwards and tumbled along the floor like thrown dice. The van stopped, and while Pickle, Shaz and Vince watched in shock, two men jumped out of the van and could see that three of the things were trying to get to their feet.

Armed with knives, the ghouls' heads were stabbed. The two men looked up at the three individuals, and remained motionless, wondering what to do next. They were obviously here for supplies of some sort.

After a few seconds of silence, one of them shouted over, "I hope you've left plenty of stuff in there for us."

"There's plenty," said Pickle, his hand not far away from the handle of his weapon.

The two men approached the group, making Shaz, Pickle and Vince tetchy. They both put their arms up as they made baby steps towards the group, telling them that they come in peace. One of the men looked over his shoulder. "Come on, Lee. Hurry the fuck up!"

Another man got out of the front of the van and exclaimed, "Jesus Christ!"

Vince screwed his face, narrowed his eyes, and stared at the man that had shouted.
Jesus Christ indeed.

"What is it, Lee?" one of the men asked.

The man known as Lee said to the two men, "I know that man." He pointed over at Vince.

Pickle and Shaz looked at Vince and could see a smile stretch over his face; he then began to laugh stridently. He placed his hands on his head and shouted, "Well, fuck me with a cheese grater. Lee." Vince held out his hand. "Lee James."

"Fuck the handshake." Lee held out his arms. "Come here, you ugly bastard."

Both men hugged and patted one another on the backs, baffling Pickle, Shaz, and Lee's two friends.

"Why the fuck didn't you come to me when this kicked off?" asked Vince.

Lee coyly shrugged his shoulders. "I just barricaded myself in for the first week. Then they came crashing through..."

Lee stopped talking and Vince could see his friend was beginning to choke up.

Asked Vince, "What about Denise and the kids?"

Lee glared at Vince, stroked his dark beard and shook his head.

"Shit." Vince lowered his head. "I thought about you every day. You only lived two miles away, I should have—"

"Don't worry about it. After the first week, I left the house. We went to the woods. That's when Denise and the kids..."

"You don't need to talk about it." The elation of both men had soon evaporated.

"I was picked up by a couple of guys and taken to a place. They saved my life."

"That's good."

"Remember that guy we saw?" Lee queried with a grin. "The guy that we thought had passed out on the road?"

"I remember you feeling for a pulse, and getting blood on your hands."

"He'd been bit." Lee shook his head, thinking back to that Thursday on the seventh day of June. "That fucker had been taken to Stafford Hospital."

Vince said, "We didn't know at the time that the man was infected. Nobody did."

"I wonder how many it had bit when it finally reanimated in the hospital?"

"It wasn't our fault. It wasn't announced on TV until two days after, about what was happening."

Vince, temporarily forgetting that Shaz and Pickle were standing behind him, apologised to the pair of them and introduced Lee James to them. Lee did the same with his two friends. Lee and Vince explained, collectively, that they had been friends for years, and worked together. They explained that they had been out drinking at the Ash Tree pub on one Thursday night, walked to the caravan park where Vince stayed, and saw a man lying on the floor. They didn't know at the time that the man had been munched on by a Snatcher, nobody had this information yet, and assumed he had been attacked or something.

As soon as the announcement was made on the Saturday, the incident made sense to both men whenever they looked back, but there was no sign of a ghoul anywhere at the time. Vince assumed later on that the man had been attacked by one of the dead and he ran, possibly for miles, until he collapsed near the caravan park. These things don't just bite you and walk away. They don't stop, unless somebody stops them or the victim manages to flee.

"So where're you staying? And what're you doing
here
?" asked Vince.

"Getting stuff. Just like you guys."

"You have a camp?"

Lee looked around and said to the two men, before giving Vince an answer, "It's okay. I know and trust this guy." He turned back round to Vince and nodded. "I have. You?"

Vince also nodded, considering his friend was being honest with him. "I'm at the Spode Cottage."

"You never left the caravan park?"

"Nope," laughed Vince. "We blocked the roads off."

"When I was picked up," Lee began to explain. "I was taken to a part in Rugeley. We then decided to block the main road off, just like you, and we're trying to make something out of it, but it's early days yet."

"Sure is. We got some local farmers with us."

"Excellent. We have to rely on a lot of runs, but we're doing okay ourselves."

Aware that Pickle and Shaz were behind him, and were probably itching to leave, Vince was trying to wrap the conversation up. "Where're you at?"

"Sandy Lane."

"The Sandy Lane Camp?" Vince turned around to see Shaz and Pickle unmoved, Pickle was even yawning.

"Yeah."

"Shit," laughed Vince, turning back round to face his old friend. "I thought you were the bad guys."

"Just survivors."

Before Vince could fire another question at his friend, Pickle joked, "Are yer two gonna hurry up and nosh each other off? Because I wanna get back and ge' ma head down." All individuals released laughter, except Pickle, and both Vince and Lee hugged and said their farewells.

Vince glared at his friend. Apart from the thin beard, he looked well. "I'm glad you made it."

"Don't be a stranger now," Lee said.

"I won't." Joked Vince, "I'll pop over to your barrier next week and ask for a cup of sugar."

"I'm serious. You can visit anytime." Lee looked at Pickle and Shaz and acknowledged them with a nod. "You can
join us
anytime."

"Thanks."