"It's still a lot," Pickle spoke up, who was also relieved that Simon had exaggerated massively.
"Stupid bugger." Vince placed the palms of his hands on his head, still gazing at the man in front of the crowd of the dead. "He's gonna lead these fuckers right to us."
"Maybe he had nowhere else to run to. It's not as if he's done it on purpose."
"You're too nice, Pickle," Vince snickered falsely. "You must have been the nicest drug baron in the whole of the UK. Let me ask you a question."
"What?"
"If somebody ripped you off, what would you have done? Tickled them? Maybe give them a smack on the backside."
"I had one fellow that paid me a few grand for a few bags o' coke. Found out the money was false. I suppose that's what happens when yer send a rookie to pick up the money."
"What did you do? Smack his bum?" Vince began to laugh, while looking at the horde from afar. They still had time on their side.
"Nope. We cut his ears off and stuck them up his arse. Then he was stabbed repeatedly in the legs."
Vince looked at him with surprise. "You cruel bastard."
"Not cruel, Vince. Just business. Yer probably crueller than me."
Still staring at the hungry mob, Vince sighed, "I better get those HGVs ready."
"Wait a minute." Pickle punched Vince on the arm, a little too hard. "What's that?"
Both men stared with a mixture of awe and confusion when four cars could be seen in the distance. All four cars were black in colour, but the different shapes suggested that they were different makes.
The vehicles stopped a few yards behind the advancing horde that were heading towards Vince and Pickle. Men then suddenly got out of the cars, around twenty, and all seemed to be carrying blades of some sort, possibly swords, machetes, large knives and cleavers. The men could be seen with the naked eye running behind the horde that were following the runner, and began stabbing and hacking at them from behind. It took just seconds for the dead to fall, and both Pickle and Vince were equally impressed when the men dragged the bodies to the side of the road and piled them up. The whole event lasted no longer than two minutes.
"Where the hell did they come from?" Pickle was aghast at what he had just witnessed.
Vince had no answer.
The men got back into their vehicles, except one. The person turned around, staring at Pickle and Vince from almost five hundred yards away and raised his hand in a friendly gesture. Both men raised theirs, and watched as the man jumped into the vehicle and sped off.
"That must be Lee," Vince said softly.
"So we were helped out by the Sandy Lane Camp. That's comforting." Pickle ignored the running man that was getting nearer, and watched as the cars eventually disappeared around a bend. "At least there's some good guys out there."
"How did they know? And why didn't they come up and say something?"
"Yer can ask them next time yer bump into one another."
Both men concentrated on the man that was running their way, and were a little amused that the man was unaware that there was nothing behind him, but he continued to run as if his life depended on it. He was very close and now moving up the hill towards Pickle and Vince.
The man jumped when he noticed the two men standing on the peak of the hilly road. He was in his fifties, out of breath, and looked ready to have a heart attack. He screamed out but both Vince and Pickle raised their hands, telling the man to calm down.
"Relax," said Pickle. "Look behind yer."
The man turned around and saw that nothing was there. He clocked the pile of bodies in the distance and turned to Pickle and Vince, with a confused look on his face, hoping for an explanation.
Vince laughed, "Don't look at us. We don't know what's going on either."
The dishevelled-looking man approached the two of them, still puffing and panting, and tried to explain with the little breath that he had left in his lungs, "I've been hiding in my house in Brereton, St Michaels Road, since it all started. I only left to go to the shops for food. I haven't eaten in three days. Then I ran into a load of them and just bolted down past The Castle pub and down Thompson Road. By the time I got to the Ash Tree roundabout I was knackered."
"You couldn't even outrun them?" Vince queried.
"I managed to escape from the ones by the shops, but I wasn't banking on running into another group when I got onto the Armitage Road. I was hoping to get to Hawkesyard Golf Club and lay low."
"You'll be needing a place to stay."
The man smirked, "Yes, I will."
The man smiled, and had a few relieved tears in his eyes, now that he was safe. "My name's Stuart."
Both men acknowledged the man with a nod, and Pickle told Stuart who they were.
"Well," Vince looked the man up and down, "you're not what I would call guard material, but we're short on numbers these days."
"You have a set-up?" Stuart asked.
Pickle said, "Yes."
Stuart looked delighted and hugged a clearly-embarrassed Harry Branston. The hug from the sweaty man made Pickle wince a little, and gently pushed him away before his own clothes became soaked with the man's perspiration.
"What happened to yer family?" Pickle enquired.
"My kids have grown up. One lives in Solihull, and the other lives in Sussex somewhere." He revealed a thin, sad smile. "It's just me."
"What about yer wife?"
"My Margaret died a few years ago. Cervical cancer."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Vince looked at both men with impatience in his face to see if they were both finished with their bullshit small-talk, and sighed, "Okay, before you come in. I need to do something."
Pickle shook his head at Vince. "Initiation test? Seriously?"
"No, not an initiation test. Can't be picky. We're too short on numbers." Vince then raised his hand apologetically at Stuart and said, "No offence."
"None taken."
"I just need to check you out."
"Okay." Stuart nodded in agreement. "That makes sense."
"Just stand still for a moment." Vince began checking the man, and Vince's action reminded Pickle the way an officer would search and check him when going in and out of the wings, back in his prison days.
Vince had finished with his checking and took a step backwards to glare at the man once again. He puffed out a breath as if somebody had just told him some bad news. Vince took a look at Pickle, desperately trying to catch his eye, but he seemed lost in thought. Vince turned back to Stuart and gave the man a sympathetic smile.
Asked Vince, "Could you turn around for me, please? I'll need your back facing me."
Stuart smiled warmly, Pickle was liking the man already, "Okay. Whatever you say." Stuart slowly turned with his back to the men and asked, "Now what?"
Reaching for his belt, Vince brought out the machete and put the blade through Stuart's head.
"What the fuck?" Pickle's eyes were wide, and had his hands on the top of his head. He watched in horror as Stuart fell to the ground, his head pissing out warm blood from the brutal wound, the machete still embedded into the skull. Pickle screamed at Vince, "What the fuck are yer doin'? Yer lost yer mind?"
"It's okay." Vince tried to calm Pickle down, but it sounded a little patronising. He reached for the handle and pulled it free from the now deceased Stuart. "I've got it all under control."
"I've seen some fucked up shit before—"
"Relax, Pickle." Vince smirked smugly and patted Harry Branston on the back. Now, he was definitely being patronising. "I've done this before. Stop panicking and start trusting your Uncle Vince."
"What's wrong with yer?"
"There's nothing wrong with me, and I haven't lost my mind." Vince had his tongue planted in the side of his cheek and pointed at the man's body. "Take a look at his left hand. He's been bit."
Pickle went over and crouched down to inspect the hand. He lifted it up and gave it a good hard glare, trying to avoid the pooling blood
coming from the head. He looked over to the cocky-looking Vincent Kindl, who stood with his hands on his hips, and looked back at the hand.
Vince continued with a grin, "And that sod was thinking about going into the camp with a bite. Selfish bastard."
Pickle was still crouching and finally dropped the hand. He turned around so he was looking at Vince. "It's a fuckin' birthmark."
"What?" Vince had lost his grin immediately.
"You've just killed a man because of a birthmark. He hasn't been bit at all."
Vince's face drained of all colour and placed his right hand over his chin. He stared at the man's hand and looked back at Pickle who was now on his feet, still cussing, still bewildered that he could have done such a stupid and rash thing.
The only word that Vince could come up with was, "Oops."
"Oops?" Pickle was filled of anger, and Vince thought that he was going to have his face rearranged. "Fucking oops? That poor bastard has been hiding away for six weeks, he runs his arse off from not one, but two hordes o' Snatchers, comes here, and yer put a blade through his fuckin' skull."
Vince bit the corner of his bottom lip in thought. "I suppose when you put it like that, it does sound pretty bad."
"Jesus, Vince. Yer need to start thinking a bit more."
"I could have sworn..."
"Please." Pickle held up both hands, palms showing. "Don't do anything rash like that again."
Both men stood and looked at the body of Stuart. He was still bleeding heavily, causing a large pool of crimson around the top of his body.
Vince gulped and said softly, "So what do we do now?"
"What do yer mean?"
"Well," Vince shrugged his shoulders and bashfully said, "We don't need to tell anybody about this. Not after what has just happened at the camp."
"Yer mean yer don't want me to tell anyone about this?"
"Something like that."
"Honestly, Vince," Pickle sighed and kicked at the ground in frustration. "If brains were dynamite, yer wouldn't have enough to blow yer nose. Some days I can't help feel that yer a few clowns short of a circus."
"Well that's reassuring."
"Right." Pickle went over and grabbed the man's legs. "Grab his arms and place him on the path, by the side of the road."
Vince grabbed the arms and shook his head at his stupidity. "A birthmark," he cackled.
Chapter Forty Nine
July 17th
Karen's dreams were plagued from events that had occurred in the past. Most of the nightmares she had experienced over the weeks were mainly fictional with a hint of what had happened for real, but the dream that was making her sweat and toss her head from side-to-side was almost like a replay of what happened on the day she had returned from her nightshift. Back then she had no clue what was happening, on the tenth day of June, Sunday.
In the dream she had just returned from work. She had witnessed her neighbour being attacked, and the aggressor was heading for her as she struggled to get into her house. With all the panic she threw up on her hallway floor, the vomit landing on the hallway carpet with a heavy splat. She spat out the remaining chunks that stubbornly refused to budge out from the gaps of her teeth. Her right angle position returned back to vertical as she stood up straight, and could hear the moans of the outside aggressor coming from behind her as the awful face pressed itself against the frosted glass of the front door, smearing it with blood. She tried to phone the police but they were constantly engaged.
In the dream she had suddenly found herself outside her bedroom door, although had no recollection of climbing the stairs. After the attack from outside, she needed to see Gary. She stepped carefully towards her bedroom door, and gently pushed it open with the three fingers of her left hand. The door opened soundlessly and she saw Gary in the corner of the bedroom with his back to her. She shook her head, convinced that the naked man was still drunk and had only got up for a pee.
She called out his name with a whisper and he turned around. He looked awful; his skin was ivory, his eyes looked bruised and sunken, his overall physique looked…dead, and he didn't look that much different to the crazed man out in her street. As soon as he saw her, he released a groan and quickly shuffled towards her, which forced out a gasp from Karen and a gallop in her heartbeat.
In her dream, like before, she had no recollection of using the stairs. She was now back on the ground floor. Groaning could be heard from above her, and she peered up to see her reanimated Gary stumbling down the top steps until he predictably fell down the rest. Karen let out a scream and moved out of the way of his path as his head smacked against the radiator with a hard clunk at the bottom of the stairs.
Crying, she knelt down and touched his pale face, convinced he had knocked himself out. She now began to call for an ambulance and the police. Even before the fall, it looked like that he had somehow caught a virus, a virus that her knowledge had no answer for. He looked ill.
As she patiently waited for the call to be answered, she took another look at his naked body and ran her fingers from the middle of his chest down to his stomach. His whole body was ashen, and he felt freezing. Exasperated by her phone, she hung up and said to herself that she'd try in another minute. She didn't check for breathing and for a pulse, she had to move away from the body. Her nose twitched the longer she remained by his side. The smell was disgusting.
She left his body to go into the living room. She tried to call her mum and had a very short conversation with her, which was interrupted by the sight of her fiancé, back on his feet, heading her way in the living room. She dropped the phone and called out his name constantly, hoping that something inside of him would click and he would return to his old self, but he looked dead. He grabbed her and his grip startled her. He was a strong man anyway, but his stumbling gave her a false sense that he was weak or had been weakened by the illness. As he stepped forward, his naked body forced himself on top of Karen who yelped as they both crashed to the floor.
It was obvious that the nature of his grip, and him trying to rip out her neck, confirmed that this wasn't Gary anymore.
She used her hand to push under his chin to stop the mouth from progressing any further. She noticed his chin had a scratch underneath it. His cold, heavy body writhed on top of her. She screamed at the top of her voice to increase her aggression, raised her knees up and twisted her body with one swift turn to her right.
The thing that was once Gary fell to the side of her. She got to her feet quickly and ran out of the room, grabbed her car keys and left through the front door, still wearing her nurse uniform. She jumped into her Cherokee jeep and reversed out without looking behind her. She headed out of her street and never looked back.
*
Karen Bradley had no idea how long she had slept. She could see that it was daylight outside through the curtains, but was unaware how early the day was. She looked to her left and saw that the next bed was empty. Pickle had offered to sleep with her, to keep her company, but she refused and stated that his snoring, whatever room he chose to sleep in, would keep her awake.
Karen remained on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Tears ran down the side of her face, and a little anger boiled within her at Shaz's death. It was so avoidable and such a weak way to go. It seemed that all the stuff they had gone through in such a short space of time, Shaz's death seemed unjust and she had been attacked because she wasn't paying attention what was around her.
Karen had been told by Pickle that the tragedy was down to David Watkins, and told her the story about looking for Kyle Dickson and patching up the hedge. She was told that David's obsession with a revolver had forced him to go back, but unfortunately he brought a load of Snatchers with him from the hut, near the farmhouse. The disaster was avoidable, but it had happened. It was done.
Karen blamed a few people for Sharon Bailey's demise. She blamed Vince for not spotting the weakness in the camp earlier. She blamed Waite, as him refusing to come out of his caravan toilet was the
reason why the girls were hanging around for so long. She blamed Shaz for not paying attention, and she blamed herself that she was there for so long, trying to entice John out.
Ten people had died the morning before. David Watkins, Gina Harrison, May Worthington, Gail Kelly, Henry Bowes, Trevor Barkley, Robin Barton, Gareth Mason, David Chatting and Sharon Bailey had all perished in one morning. Out of the ten, three of them did not die at the hands of the dead. Gina Harrison and May Worthington had been tragically burned alive in their own caravan due to extreme bad luck, and David Chatting had had enough, and decided to blow his brains out.
She remembered the first time she met Shaz. Karen and Pickle had managed to escape the clutches of a malicious horde of Snatchers and were in a street, trying to escape back to Wolf's cabin. They were struggling, but Shaz came out of nowhere and helped them out with the aid of a meat cleaver.
Pickle quickly introduced the pair of them, as Shaz and Pickle had already met, and invited her up to the cabin on Cardboard Hill. Later, Karen and Shaz went down for clothes and were both struggling with the arrival of the dead, until they were helped out by a man called Tommy Burns, who she had briefly met. She didn't like him and her and Pickle had met him on Cardboard Hill while he was heading for the woods. Pickle had told Karen that when they split up, he bumped into Tommy and the man actually saved him, and that, unfortunately, he had been killed while both men were attempting to leave a house and head to Vince's camp.
She reminisced about the shit they had gone through, and the near misses. She thought about the time they were escaping from a large group of the dead from the woods after their pick-up truck had hit a red Alpha Romeo. The driver's neck had been broken, but the horn was blaring and inviting the dead to that area.
Jack and Wolf had been in the back of the truck and Wolf had been thrown out. At this point they thought wrongly that Pickle had been killed. Then Shaz and Karen, after putting down some of the dead, had to flee the horde, but before they and Vince and Jack went their separate ways, Karen made the tough decision of killing a seriously injured Wolf, rather than leaving him to have an excruciating death.
Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) Page 73