"Okay."
Pickle pointed at Karen and then pointed at the caravan. "Don't let that girl out o' yer sight. She's having a bad day today, but tomorrow will be different. I've had days like that myself, and so have you."
"I won't leave her side," Karen mockingly saluted Pickle.
"I'm being serious." He shook his head at her, annoyed at her attitude, and left to see Vince.
*
Vince was still chatting to young Kyle Dickson and could feel a presence behind him. He turned around to see his father, Paul Dickson.
Vince looked at his watch. "You've only been in the caravan for twenty minutes."
"I know," Paul Dickson said in a broken voice. His face looked thankful for what Vince had done for him. Vince liked the man already. Paul added, "I was worried about Kyle."
"He's fine."
"I..." Paul Dickson gulped and tried once again. "I need to talk to Kyle about something important, is that okay?"
"Absolutely." Vince quickly got to his feet. "I'll leave you two men to it."
Vince walked away from Jack's grave and headed for the Spode Cottage to see if the men had finished unloading the food they had brought back with them.
Kyle turned to his dad. He looked vacant, lost.
Although Kyle was only seven, he knew something was wrong, and that his daddy had something on his mind. He didn't ask his daddy what was bothering him; he patiently waited, and enjoyed the peace of the camp.
"Kyle?" his dad spoke at last and sat down next to his son.
Kyle looked at his father, and waited for him to finish off what he wanted to say.
Paul uncomfortably added, "There's something I need to tell you. About mum and Bell."
"What is it?" Kyle stood to his feet. He stood awkwardly and looked around, losing interest on what his father wanted to say.
Paul's lip quavered as he looked at his son's green eyes. "It's about these monsters; remember how you become one? Do you remember the talk we had a while back?"
Kyle shook his head. "No."
Sighed Paul, "Okay. If a monster bites you, you become unwell—"
"And you turn into one." Kyle finished his dad's sentence. "I remember now."
"Well..." Paul was struggling to find the words. He wanted to use language that made the situation lighter than it actually was, but that was near-impossible. He obviously wasn't going to use a sentence like: "Mum and Bell became monsters, and were taken out by Bentley."
He decided to bite the bullet and tell him the best he could, before he turned into a blubbering mess himself. "Mum and Bell won't be coming back."
There was a silence; Paul looked up and clocked Kyle's face. The boy's eyes were narrowed in thought for a long time. He finally asked his dad, "Ever?"
"Ever."
Kyle's eyes narrowed even more in confusion, and he slowly sat back down next to his dad on the grass. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words escaped from his orifice. He tried again. "Where...where have they gone?"
Paul tucked his lips in and could feel his throat tightening, the tears filling up, and he said with an emotional squeak in his voice, "Heaven."
"Heaven?"
Paul placed his shaking hand on the left plump cheek of his special little man, and cried, "They were bit. They turned into monsters, and now they're dead."
Kyle looked at the ground, all confused. His head remained lowered, and Paul couldn't see his son's face properly, but decided to give him a moment and allow the enormity of the terrible news to sink in.
Eventually Kyle lifted his head up; his eyes were bloodshot and the tears streamed down his cheeks. His bottom lip was puffed out and he sobbed, "Maybe if I get a branch and climb to the top of a tree, I could stick my hand out and touch the sky with the branch. I could then get mummy and Bell to grab the stick and I could pull them back down from heaven, and—"
"Kyle, you can't reach them." Paul gulped and said with a shiver in his voice. "They're gone...for good."
"For good?"
Paul nodded.
"So I'm never going to see mummy or Bell again?"
Paul shifted on his backside, and placed his hands on his boy's strawberry blonde hair. "We will see them one day, big chap. But it will be a long time before we do, because they're now in heaven, and that's too far for any of us to reach."
Kyle quickly wiped his tears from his face with the backs of his hands, almost slapping himself. "But we were supposed to be going on holiday in a few weeks."
Paul created a laugh and a sob simultaneously when his son made this statement. He still really didn't have a clue about the magnitude of the situation he was in.
Paul didn't want to sit Kyle down and tell him that the planes weren't flying anymore, and that the swimming pool he wanted lie in, on his airbed with his armbands on, would probably be mouldy and abandoned.
"We won't be going on holiday for a while, big chap," said Paul, finally.
Both of them got to their feet, and more tears trickled out of the young boy's eyes. Paul took a step forward and both of them hugged each other tightly.
"I don't want mummy and Bell to be in heaven," Kyle wailed.
"Neither do I, son. Neither do I."
Kyle managed to reel off another sentence while his head was buried into his daddy's stomach, but he was sobbing so much that it was hard for Paul to understand what he was trying to say.
Kyle broke away from Paul, and gawped at him with his face scrawled in devastation. He remembered when Kyle was first born; he told Julie that he would never let anything or anyone hurt him.
He had failed miserably.
On the day he was born, because Kyle was an IVF baby, they thought that their little prince would be the only child they would have.
Paul stroked Kyle's hair and thought back to when he was born. The midwife told Paul that he was allowed to touch the head while their son was coming out, so he did. Paul was the first person to touch his son, and because Paul and Julie had spent five years waiting for Kyle, all that anguish they had gone through, and months of disappointment, were forgotten about when his boy entered the world and released his first cry. That cry was a joyous moment, but his crying now was killing Paul, and he had no idea how to take the pain away from the only thing left in the world that he cared about.
Paul wiped the tears away from Kyle's eyes, kissed him on the forehead and walked him back to the caravan. He stayed with Kyle for half an hour, and his little boy unexpectedly fell asleep on the couch. Paul covered him in a blanket and stepped outside the caravan.
Once he took the short walk back to where they were both originally talking, Paul sobbed on his own. He didn't want his son to see this. His weeping was turning into cries of pain, and he doubled over with grief that he had been hiding.
He would do anything to just have one last sniff of Bell's head, to have her snuggle up to him while watching her favourite programme, Angelina Ballerina, and for her to stroke his arm and hear her giggle, telling him that it felt just like a cat. He would do anything to have one last morning to saviour, waking up next to Julie and cuddling her, to have an evening with cheese and crackers and a glass or two of their favourite red wine, and to sit for hours on their leather couch and spend the evening talking.
His body remained doubled over. This was something he'd been trying to bury from Kyle ever since he came back from the supermarket. His mind went back to the scene of seeing his wife and daughter in that horrific state, then having to be killed, or re-killed, by Bentley so they could rest in peace...properly. It never bothered him that they never had a proper burial; he could see when they were reanimated that their bodies had already been taken over by something more sinister. Bodies are just shells, he had always said.
It took a few minutes for Paul Dickson to compose himself, and decided to go back to the caravan in a few minutes.
Kyle needed him.
Like Paul, Kyle only had one person left in the world that he loved, and even his school friends w
ere people he was never going to see again. Paul looked up to the sky, the soft wind gliding over his features and cooling down his face.
Paul began to speak, "You know I've never been a big believer; and you know that I've always thought that when someone dies, then that's it. But if you can hear me, Julie, I promise I won't let anything happen to our boy, our little prince. I love you. I wish I could have seen Bell grow into a young lady. I wish I could have walked her down the aisle, and..." He wiped tears from his cheeks and added, "Give Bell a kiss for me, and tell her that daddy and..." Paul, angry that he'd broken down again and that his message to his wife had been interrupted, eventually continued, "And tell her that daddy and Kyle will see you all again...one day, but not for a while. Keep safe, my girls. I love you more than words can say. You are the sunshine of my life. The pair of you."
He blew out his cheeks, and for some reason this seemed to cool down his face and reduce the welling in his eyes. Paul Dickson then brushed his fingers through his dark, greasy hair and took a peek around the area he was in. He was a lucky man; he knew that. He was a lot luckier than some folk despite the trauma he was going through, and thought how different it could have turned out.
If on that day his boy had gone with them, Paul would have went looking for the three of them as soon as the broadcast was made. Maybe it would have got him killed, but if it hadn't, there was a small chance he could have found them alive. There was also the scenario of all three of them, stuck in that damn car, reanimated. If that had happened, Paul Dickson would have given up on life. No Julie, no Bell and no Kyle, would have been too much to cope with. If Paul hadn't have killed himself, he was pretty sure that his heart would have broken anyway.
He had no idea how the future was going to pan out for the pair of them, and he was uncertain if they would both live to see the winter, but Paul Dickson predicted that there would be darker days ahead of him.
Darker days for everyone.
Chapter Fifty One
Pickle was taking a stroll around the camp, and could hear the engine of the HGV that was blocking the right part of the barrier. He reached the barrier area, and took a peep in the cab to see Vince and another man he didn't recognise. Pickle placed his hands on the back of his head and yelled at Vince to get out. He knew exactly what he was planning on doing.
Vince couldn't stop thinking about the abundance of food that was left in the hangar and the house, and with Gavin and his crew gone and some of the Rotters from the shed had been destroyed, it seemed ridiculous to leave the supplies there.
"Can't you just leave it?" Pickle yelled up, as Vince was trying to hopelessly manoeuvre the truck so that it was facing the Armitage way. Pickle could now clearly see the other man that was with him, but didn't know his name.
Vince shook his head and stuck his head out of the opened window. "I can't leave it. I'll be an hour...tops. You guard the barrier for now. I'll be back in one piece. No worries."
The HGV eventually moved away, pulled itself up the hill and entered the village of Armitage, leaving Pickle and the guards on the only remaining HGV, shaking their heads at his behaviour. They knew he was doing it for the right reasons, but thought his actions was crazy.
*
"How're you feeling now?" Karen handed Shaz a cup of water.
Shaz took the cup and answered, "Okay, I guess."
"We all get bad days." Karen then winced with guilt for what she had just said. We all get bad days? She's lost her son, for Christ's sake! Karen groaned, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
As if Shaz knew why Karen was feeling bad, she smiled and kissed her friend on the cheek. "It's okay. Don't worry about it. I feel a bit daft," Shaz spoke with a quiver. "I shouldn't have said what I said before."
"You were down...and no wonder, after what you've been through."
"I just miss Spencer. And my husband, of course. But it's Spencer's death that's tearing me apart. I try and bury it sometimes, but it resurfaces."
"Bury it?" Karen shook her head. "How on earth can you do that? Your child has only passed four weeks ago or so."
"In the early days I could do it," said Shaz. "In the beginning I was running around with a cleaver, going from house to house, trying to survive. But since I got to Wolf's place, and now here at the camp, I'm not as occupied and it's given me time to think more about Spencer."
"You need to grieve."
"I know." Shaz took a slurp of her water, then placed it by her side.
"At least you've got us." Karen the began to laugh. "I know that's hardly any comfort for you."
"I probably would have gone mad if it wasn't for you guys." Shaz then thought about the incident with Gavin and the shed. She then cast her mind back to when she was struggling with a small group of the dead at the Ash Tree. If it wasn't for Jack Slade, she would have been killed right there.
She was damn lucky to be still alive.
"It's no holiday camp," Karen admitted. "But things will soon settle down. We've come this far, haven't we?"
Shaz smiled and licked her top teeth. "Ew. I haven't brushed my teeth in ages."
"You manky cow," laughed Karen. "I can't really talk. I haven't washed in a while."
"I better ask Vince for some toothpaste, if he's got it." Shaz then looked up and saw Karen staring at her sadly. "What is it?"
Karen blew breath out of her mouth. She was becoming emotional. "Sorry. Must be my hormones."
"I wonder if—"
"I love you, Shaz," Karen blurted out.
Shaz smiled; the three words that had come out of Karen's mouth had made Shaz's eyes turn watery "I love you, too."
"You and Pickle are the only friends I've got left." Karen sniggered a little, clearly embarrassed. "If anything happened to you..."
"Nothing is going to happen. We've done our bit. How many women in the camp have had to fight to survive like we have?"
"To be fair," snickered Karen. "Most of the women here are pretty old."
"Anyway," Shaz began to cough, which interrupted her sentence. "we're into week five and we are still going."
"Exactly." Karen beamed, and placed her hand comfortingly on Shaz's. "And I've also made a good friend."
Shaz leaned over and planted a miss on Karen's cheek. "You're not just my friend. You're my sister."
*
The HGV effortlessly mowed down the crowd of the dead outside the hangar. Heads splattered as the front of the powerful vehicle made impact, and wheels crushed many others.
Vince turned to his colleague and announced, "I have no idea how many more are left in the hangar." His nervous colleague acknowledged Vince and caressed his shotgun, hoping that he wouldn't have to use it.
"I'll go around again and see if it entices more of them out. Then we go and load this baby."
Vince thrashed the vehicle and took a peep in the wing mirror. There were dozens crushed all over the road. He remembered that there was about seventy being cooped up in the shed by Gavin, and guessed that there should hardly be any left in the hangar—if there were still any left.
Once the large vehicle had completed the drive around the hangar, Vince could see that just another two had stumbled out of the large square hole where the automatic shutters used to be.
He pulled up the vehicle, jumped out, and removed the two fiends with his machete. His associate was next to jump out of the articulated vehicle, and began unclipping the curtains, ready for it to be loaded.
To the left of him, Vince noticed that there was an abandoned HGV with its curtains open. It looked to have a few pallets of supplies, and he guessed correctly that the driver must have been loading it before Karen had struck him, before she entered the hangar with her machete drawn.
Wiping three spots of dark blood from his face, Vince took a bold stroll into the hangar to find that only three remained. "Piece of piss." Again, these three were destroyed with one strike to the head each. The gore was predictably messy, but was something that he had been desensitised to weeks ago.
>
Vince knew that there was a forklift truck outside, but the problem was that three Rotters were skewered to the forks, which was down to him, so he decided to look for others that had enough diesel in them. He came across three in the hangar. The first two were flat, and there was one sitting idle by the empty canteen. Vince turned the key that was already in the ignition, and saw that this truck was also in the red. He tried to pull the vehicle forwards and grinned when it began to move. He decided to use it until it eventually died on him.
The forks went into the gaps of the first pallet. He lifted the pallet a foot off the ground, and tilted the forks so that the pallet wouldn't topple over if he had to make a sudden stop or went over a bump outside. He turned the truck around and drove backwards, looking over his shoulder, so he could see where he was going.
Some twenty minutes later, the truck had conked out altogether. Vince jumped off the truck, passing by the bloody remains of Gavin's sister, and headed for the large door that used to have shutters. He stepped outside to see that he had managed to place fourteen pallets onto the HGV. There was two left inside—not worth coming back for, and Vince was pleased with himself.
"The truck's flat!" he called over to his colleague.
The man nodded and began to close the truck's curtains.
"Right." Vince clapped his hands together. "Let's go home. I was gonna try the house as well, but this is enough." He looked at the wheels and the front of the truck. He winced once he could smell death. There was body parts and blood all over the front, and the tyres were caked in guts from the early massacre when Vince had ran over the Rotters.
Vince shook his head as he climbed back into the cab. "Gonna have to give this baby a wash when we get back. It's fucking dirtier than my browser's history."
Twenty minutes later, Vince had returned to the camp safe and sound.
Chapter Fifty Two
Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) Page 51