“Kind of? What do yer mean ... kind of?”
Vince pointed over at 13 Colwyn Place. The bearded Paul Dickson sat on his doorstep and was the only individual, apart from Karen, Pickle and Vince, that wasn't inside.
“What the fuck is he playing at?” Pickle gritted his teeth.
“It's Paul Dickson,” said Vince. “So who the fuck knows?”
“You want me to have a word with him?” asked Karen, but Pickle ignored her and took a step forward.
“Paul!” Pickle called over. “Get yer arse in the ‘ouse!”
Paul looked over and stared, then stood to his feet and began to head over to the three of them.
Vince shook his head and moaned, “What is this cockwomble up to?”
Once Paul had reached the three of them, Pickle could see that the man was clasping a knife in his right hand and his eyes looked distant.
Pickle moaned, “What is it, Paul?”
“Why don't I stay here with you guys?” he suggested.
“Not a good idea,” Pickle spoke up.
“Why? Four people is better than three.”
“This could be a delicate situation, Paul,” Pickle began to explain, “and your presence would not be welcomed.”
“Why, because you think I'm unstable?”
Before Pickle could answer, Karen tried a softer approach and placed her hand on Paul's shoulder. “Remember when you turned up in that pickup and you pulled out a shotgun?” She pointed over at the red pickup that was parked with the other vehicles. “Some of those guys that fled and jumped over the wall may turn up today. If they see you it might raise temperatures. Also, didn't you tell me that you had a run-in with two of them last week? What happens if they also turn up with the others?”
Paul smiled. “Nice try, Karen.”
“Just get inside.” Pickle was becoming impatient with Dickson. “And watch from yer window like everybody else is doin'.”
“Now there's gratitude for you.” Paul stared at Pickle coldly, forcing a shiver down Pickle's back. It wasn't often Pickle would get that feeling, but Paul was changing, and the former drug baron was certain that it was for the worse.
Pickle said, “Look, we appreciate what yer did yesterday, but this situation needs to be handled with care.”
“And if they come here to butcher everybody?” queried Paul.
“I don't think that's their intention. They might not even turn up.”
“But if they do?”
“Then, like I mentioned before, I want people to run and jump the fences o' their back gardens and run like hell. Only me, Karen and Vince will perish if that's what they plan.” Pickle looked at a concerned-looking Vince and gave him a reassuring wink, telling him that it'd be fine.
“You're such a fucking hero,” Paul laughed manically. “Aren't you, Pickle?”
“Paul, what's wrong with you?” Karen was taken aback by Paul's extreme behaviour. “Go back to the house, please, before you say or do anything else.”
“Do as she says,” said Vince. “This isn't the time to be picking fights with your friends.”
“When I was at school,” Paul began, his right hand still holding the knife tightly. “There was this guy called Simon Kempshaw. He was a nasty bastard and had three pals that used to knock about with him. I was about fourteen at the time.”
“Is there a point to this?” Pickle sighed. “The clock is ticking.”
“One day, Simon Kempshaw and his three pals cornered me in the drama room. Kempshaw told me to hand over my dinner money or he was going to beat me to a pulp. I'd had enough, so I nutted the bastard. He went down, clutching his face, screaming, and his three pals backed off.”
“So what are yer saying?” Pickle said. “Take Drake out, then the rest should fold?”
Paul nodded. “Why not?”
“Too much of a risk,” Vince intervened.
“Let's see what he has to say first.” Pickle tried to settle Paul.
Paul snickered, “If he has anything to say.”
“But I'll need yer inside.”
“Why?”
Pickle didn't want to tell Paul the other reason why he wanted him out of the way. There was a good chance that Paul could be recognised by some of the gang, and like Karen had already stated this could raise temperatures. But there was another reason why Pickle wanted Dickson out of the way. He was unpredictable, unreliable, a loose cannon, and totally different to the cowardly man he had met nearly six weeks ago.
Instead, Pickle told Paul politely to go inside and that he would speak to him later. Paul smiled, nodded, and walked back to his house, to Pickle’s relief.
Dickson looked over at Joanne's place. He could see that she was in her living room, peering out from the curtains, and gave her a wave. She waved at him, and with her hand she beckoned him over to her place.
He strolled over and chapped her door. She opened it, but no words fell out of her mouth as she could hear the same noise Paul could now hear, as well as the three at the gate.
They could all hear the faint noises of engines.
They were coming.
Chapter Forty
Vince gulped as the engines grew louder, and he took in a deep breath when a black Audi turned up. The vehicle wasn't alone. The car had tinted windows, looked spotless and gave off one flash of its headlights.
Vince turned to Pickle and Karen. The pair of them were ten yards from the main gate and Pickle nodded at Vince to let the vehicle in. Behind the black Audi were four pickup trucks, all black in colour, and ten bikes with a man on each. There were four men in the back of each truck, and Vince guessed that there could be at least over thirty people present.
Vince glared at the windscreen of the Audi as he slid open the steel gate. He stood to the side and was surprised that only the Audi drove in. The four trucks and the ten other individuals that were on mopeds that faced the entrance never entered. Driving one of the trucks was a guy with a grey moustache. This same guy leaned out of his vehicle and said to Vince that he should close the steel gate.
Confused, Vince did as he was told. The gate was locked and the Audi parked up in the middle of the road, yards from the presence of Karen and Pickle. Vince was unsure whether he should move or not, but Pickle politely called him over. Vince walked over and stood next to Pickle and Karen. The three of them looked unusually nervous, and the doors of the blacked out vehicle seemed to be taking forever to open.
Eventually the driver's door opened.
A man that Pickle recognised straight away stepped out. He had a grey beard and shoulder length hair that looked like it needed a good wash. It was the same guy that was present when Pickle had accidentally knocked down that woman in the red pickup. The man had ordered a teenager to shoot one of them with an old-looking shotgun, and it was Sheryl that was killed. All three of them recognised the man, but his name escaped them.
The driver smiled thinly at Pickle, Karen and Vince, then walked around the front of the car and opened the front passenger door.
Out stepped a man, wearing black combats, a white T-shirt and a black nylon jacket. There was no WOE letters stitched on his clothing like the other men; his attire was slightly different to the guys and girls he arrived with. He had dark features, brown eyes and brown hair that had been recently shaven. He was thin, stood at six-four, and was clean-shaven. He seemed more presentable than the rest of his crew.
Like the driver, he looked to be unarmed, and two more men stepped out from the back passenger side, and stood at either side of the passenger door. Both men were dressed like the other guys with untidy facial hair.
“You must be Drake.” Pickle decided to be the first person to speak up.
The tall, clean-shaven man responded by saying, “And you must be...?”
“Harry Branston, but most people call me Pickle.”
Drake nodded and said, “Harry will do.” He then turned to his right and pointed at the driver. “This is Mac, and the two behind me are John and B
ill. Bill is my second in command.”
Pickle nodded at the other men and thought that the Bill fellow was an unusual choice for a second in command. He was average in every way and just looked like the rest of the crew ... nothing special.
“Yer come in here with just the four o' yer,” said Pickle, “and unarmed, or at least yer look unarmed. Why is that?”
“I'm unarmed because I'm here to talk,” said Drake. “I appreciate you letting my brother go. Stupid shit.”
“I’m glad he passed on the message.”
“Stupid cunt took the vehicle without my knowledge and drove here all by himself, just to make a point. Can you believe that?”
Pickle looked confused. “He told me he volunteered, and said something about a sign if I didn’t let him go.”
“Lying bastard,” Drake laughed. “He’s my kid brother, but I wouldn’t trust him with a brush. Originally the van and the dead inside it were going to be driven by someone else, with a few guys on mopeds to accompany it. The stupid bastard just took off, trying to prove that he could do it on his own.”
“Feel free to bring more men in here, if yer want,” said Pickle. “I want this to be as friendly as possible.”
Drake sighed and said in his husky voice, “I don't need thirty cunts in here if all we're going to do is talk, do I? There's only you three here, so I take it you asked the rest to go inside. No point a load of people talking over each other. That cunty shit ends up in arguments, leading to violence, and then an unnecessary massacre.”
“So why bring these men with yer in the first place?” Pickle pointed over at the gate.
“I'm unarmed, Harry.” Drake stared at Pickle with his dark eyes and added, “They are my insurance. If any attempt on my life, or any other of my guys here are harmed, then that gate will be knocked down and those lot will come in and kill every single one of you cunts. But that's not going to happen, is it?”
Pickle gulped. “O' course not.”
Drake nodded the once. “Of course not.”
There was a silence between the men, and Drake stood straight and folded his arms, almost as if he was waiting on Pickle to say something next.
“Look,” Pickle began. “What happened o'er the last few days ... it could have been avoided. There ain't many people left on this earth as it is, without turning on one another. The dead are our enemy.”
“Don't be a cunt, Harry.” Drake smiled, arms still folded. “The dead aren't our enemy. They were in the beginning, but now the dead are just obstacles that get in the way now and again. It's humans that are the enemy now.”
“That's not entirely true.”
“Are you telling me you've never had a run-in with another fellow human being since this shit started? Of course you have. That's why you're still here.”
“Aye, I admit. I've had to kill people, but it was something I had to do and didn't take pleasure from doing it.”
“Let's start from the beginning, shall we?” Drake unfolded his arms and put them in his pockets. “A couple of weeks back, you hit Ina with your pickup. She was killed, and I was told by Mac,” Drake pointed to the driver at his right side, “that she died slowly. Then Mac set two guys on you, and I heard you put them down with ease. He told you all to hit the floor; then he got a young kid, now deceased, to shoot one of you guys. I heard he shot a woman.”
“Sheryl,” Pickle nodded. “That's right.”
“But remember, you drew first blood.”
“It was an accident. I didn't mean to hit that woman.”
“Ina,” said Drake. “Her name was Ina.”
“Ina.” Pickle nodded.
“Anyway,” continued Drake, “a week later I get the news that one of my men was killed by some guy that ran off with one of our new recruits, Jez. This guy now lives here, and apparently carries a hockey stick. He also took out one of my men and stole one of their mopeds and had Jez on the back.”
“That's not a story I'm familiar with,” said Pickle.
Drake added, “Two other of my guys were out last week and bumped into some mad guy that attacked them. He also lives here as well, and I know that because the same two guys that were attacked were involved in the attack on your street. They saw him with their own eyes arrive in that red pickup,” Drake pointed at the parked vehicle, “you know, the same one you hit Ina with and the same one we took off you. Then he left the vehicle and unloaded a shotgun on my men. They recognised that it was the same man that had attacked them, and he also killed Brian.”
“Who's Brian?”
Drake smiled. “He was driving the vehicle, before your mental friend killed him and took the vehicle for himself.”
“He was just protecting the camp. Yer have to understand that.”
“I understand perfectly, but let's go back. Before your place was attacked, I sent men over to pick up Jez, the traitor.”
“I know,” Pickle sighed.
“And what happened, huh?”
Pickle glared at Drake and refused to answer him.
Said Drake, “You killed two of them, after lying to them and telling them that Jez and his buddy had left.”
“It wasn't like that,” Pickle tried to explain. “Terry had a daughter down in the cellar and she attacked one o’ yer men, then one o' yer guys killed her, so Terry killed him.”
“Then we send men over to get vengeance and we lose a shit load.” Drake could see that Pickle was about to speak, but held his hand up to stop him. “Granted, the loss of life during the attack was my fault. You had no choice but to fight back, and I underestimated you as a camp. But you've got to admit, killing those two cunts that just wanted to pick Jez up was cruel and plain stupid.”
“And I've already explained why that happened. We never meant for those men to die. The whole thing’s a mess, I admit that.”
Drake nodded and revealed a small smile. He turned around and looked at the two WOE men behind him and then turned to his right to look at Mac. “I don't want a massacre. But I can't look weak either. As for my brother … I’m thankful that you spared him. And we’re not gonna attack your street ... if you give me something.”
“So what do yer want?” Pickle gulped, dreading the answer he was going to get.
“Initially, I wanted all of you cunts to die.”
“Yer didn’t answer ma question,” Pickle sniffed. “What do yer want?”
“I want you to give us someone, then the bloodshed stops right here.”
“Look,” Pickle began, “we can't give you Jez. He took off, and Craig is a good guy, deep down—”
“Who's Craig?” Drake narrowed his eyes, and asked a further question. “Is that the hockey stick guy?”
Pickle nodded.
“I don't want either of them now. And Jez is dead anyway.”
“What?” Vince spoke up.
“Two of my best men caught up with him about twenty minutes ago.”
Vince looked confused and looked at Pickle. Pickle hunched his shoulders and shook his head.
“He must have left the camp,” Pickle said to Vince, trying to make sense of why Jez was out of Colwyn in the first place.
Drake continued, “Anyway, your other friend, the madman, the cunt...”
“What friend?”
“The one that hit two of our guys with the truck and shot another one. He probably killed a lot more. I know he killed the pickup driver, but the guy he shot had a kid and a partner that are back at our base. Telling you that they're distressed would be an understatement.”
Pickle shrugged his shoulders. “If you send men out to war, some may never return.”
Drake produced a wide smile, but Pickle could see anger behind it. “True, but the guy he shot was also my cousin Gerry. Now, I told Gerry's partner and twelve-year-old son, that are also back at the base, distraught, that I would take vengeance on this killer.”
“Vengeance?”
Drake smiled and nodded. “That's right.”
“So ... what are yer as
king?”
“I think you know. I’m glad you spared my brother, but I need to do this.”
Pickle gulped and said, “I want you to say it.”
“Fine,” Drake sighed. “Give me the madman, and you all live your lives without any threat from me from now on. Deal?”
Pickle stared at Drake, unsure what answer to give him.
There could be only one.
Chapter Forty One
“No way.” Karen repeatedly shook her head. “No fucking way. You're not having Paul.”
“Oh, is that his name? Paul.” Drake rubbed his chin. “Not a scary name, is it? I was expecting him to be called Butch or some other hard cunt of a name.” Drake turned to Mac and asked, “What's the name of that character that Kurt Russell played in Escape from New York?”
“Snake Plisken,” Mac replied.
“That's right.” Drake nodded. “Snake. Now that's a cool cunty name, don't yer think?”
“Look,” Pickle began. “Surely we can come to some kind of humane arrangement.”
“No. I want Paul.” Drake pointed at Karen Bradley and added, “And I take it by her reaction that he's here.”
Karen said with gritted teeth, “The person you're talking about has gone through hell over the last few weeks.”
“Haven't we all?”
“Paul Dickson has gone through more. He—”
“Paul Dickson?” Drake interrupted Karen and released a short laugh. “Oh God, it gets worse. I can't have my cunt of a nemesis called Paul Dickson, that's just fucking embarrassing. You can't get any more ordinary than Paul Dickson.”
Karen continued, “Paul is a good man. He's had a rough ride.”
“So you keep saying?”
“He lost his wife and daughter, and me and him witnessed his son being eaten by one of those dead cocksuckers.”
“Well, that's a tragedy,” Drake said sarcastically. “It sounds like the cunt needs putting down. But don't worry about that, he will, but the family of the people he's killed wants to witness it.”
“He's not going anywhere,” Karen snarled. She took a step forward, but Pickle held her back. “Don't mollycoddle me, Pickle. I'm not pregnant anymore.”
Snatchers (Book 11): The Dead Don't Knock Page 20