The Dead Don't Yell

by Shaun Whittington

  She shook her head, releasing no words.

  Vince took a step forwards and crouched down so he was eye level with Jim.

  “Jim,” said Vince. “What did you do?”

  Still clutching onto the knife, Jim sobbed, “I had no choice.”

  Vince turned to look at Karen. She hunched her shoulders. Both persons didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “What happened, Jim?” Now it was Karen’s turn to query the man.

  “It was for the best,” Jim continued to sob. “We can’t go on like this.”

  Vince twisted his neck; staring at Karen with large eyes and said, “Check upstairs. I’ll stay here with him.”

  Karen left the living room and hesitantly took the stairs, dreading what she was going to see. She reached the landing and could see that all bedroom doors were open. She approached the first bedroom door and stepped inside little Zac Danson’s room. She placed her hand over her mouth and began to cry.

  The boy was in his pyjamas, under the duvet, and had clearly been stabbed to death. He looked like he was asleep from the neck up, but the duvet was down to his stomach, revealing his blood soaked Spider-Man pyjama top. Karen wiped her eyes and cried for the boy she hardly knew. Her sobbing ceased when she realised that the wife and daughter still hadn’t been accounted for.

  She wiped her eyes, and then went over and kissed the boy on the head. She left the room and went into the next one, but it appeared to be empty.

  She went into the main bedroom and could see Mrs Danson. She was naked, face down on the floor, and had been stabbed in the back. She was dead, but Karen guessed that she hadn’t died straightaway. Where was the little girl? Her grief turned into anger and stormed across the landing, galloping down the stairs with angry steps.

  She went into the kitchen and screamed at Jim, “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  “What’s he done?” Vince stood up, polluted with confusion, and stood next to Karen.

  “He’s killed his son and wife, but I can’t find the little girl.”

  “Oh fuck.” Vince placed his hands on his head in disbelief. With his anger snowballing, he took a step forwards, but Karen pulled him back.

  “Don’t,” she snapped.

  “I’m gonna kill the bastard,” he snarled, shrugging Karen off.

  “He’s still got a knife.”

  Still slumped in the corner of the kitchen, a now calmer Jim Danson gazed into nothingness whilst Karen and Vince had their short tussle. They both stopped and glared at the man in disbelief. He looked up at the two standing individuals and a small smile emerged on his features, both angering and confusing Vince and Karen.

  Jim Danson’s smile slowly evaporated; he raised the knife with his two hands and turned the blade around so that it was facing him, the point of the blade two inches from the middle of his throat.

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Karen, raising her hand at Jim, urging him not to go through with what looked like a self-sacrifice.

  “You have to believe me,” Jim cried, “that this is the best thing for my family. We’ve been cooped up for over three months, engulfed in fear every minute of every day. What kind of life is that for a child, for anyone?”

  “Just tell me where your little girl is?” Karen asked the man. “Where’s Kelly? Did you kill her?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t find her. She must be hiding somewhere.”

  “Just ... don’t do anything silly.”

  “It’s for the best.”

  Karen screamed out no as Jim rammed the blade into the middle of his throat. Both Vince and Karen took a step back as blood pissed out of the wound, and neither one of them went to his aid.

  What was the point?

  As soon as the knife had gone into that particular part of the body, they both knew he was beyond help. All they could do was watch in horror as Jim bled to death in his own kitchen. The gurgling sounds and the shallow breathing eventually stopped once the floor was covered, and Jim Danson’s head dropped, his eyes still open once he had passed away.

  Vince and Karen stood in shock and simultaneously gazed at one another, both shaking their heads at what they had just witnessed.

  “I’ve seen some fucked up shit in the last three months....” Vince never finished his sentence, but he didn’t need to. Karen knew where he was coming from and agreed.

  She had seen a lot of horrific scenes over the last eleven to twelve weeks, but this had to have been the worst. She remembered the first time she came across a dead family. She and Pickle had gone to Heath Hayes after escaping from Stile Cop, and found a dead family in the attic. But this was different. Jim had butchered his family in the most gruesome and cruel way.

  Maybe if he had access to pills, such as anti-depressants, it would have been a different story. She couldn’t understand it. Wouldn’t it have been less painful and barbaric to have smothered them?

  Karen had assumed that Jim had simply snapped, had lost his mind, and his family had paid the price. Maybe he did genuinely think that being away from this world was the best thing for his family, she thought, but why kill them in such a cruel manner? It didn’t make sense.

  “Now what?” Vince asked a shocked Karen Bradley.

  “Clean up and get them buried.” She turned and looked at Vince, his face was ashen. “Nothing more we can do. I better tell Pickle.”

  “Isn’t there still a girl missing?”

  “Shit.” Karen’s eyes widened. “There is. You’re right.”

  “I’ll check upstairs,” said Vince, and left the ground floor, running to the landing.

  Karen stepped away from the kitchen, making sure the blood never touched her boots, and sat on the sofa in the living room. She dropped her head in her hands, trying to come to terms with what she had just witnessed.

  She looked up and could see something behind the armchair that was in the corner of the living room, near the window. She stood up and crept over to the chair and gently pulled it back. Little Kelly was curled in a ball, her body shivering with fear, and her nightie was drenched at the front where she had wet herself.

  “It’s okay,” Karen said. “You’re safe now.”

  Karen held out her hand and the girl sat up and took it.

  Ignoring the urine stain, Karen picked up the frightened girl and headed for the main door. She yelled upstairs and said, “Vince, come down!”

  “Come down?” His voice was coming from one of the bedrooms. “Why?”

  “I’ve got her.”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Only minutes had passed, and news of what had happened in the Danson house was quickly known by everyone present in Colwyn Place. Karen was consoling the daughter, and all agreed that it would be for the best if she stayed with her and Pickle for a while.

  Pickle had taken a shovel from the Danson’s shed and told people he was going to bury them in their own back garden. Vince offered to help and Pickle accepted.

  As the remaining people of Colwyn Place were coming to terms with the large loss of five people, including the demise of Elza and Ophelia, Pickle was in the Danson’s back garden, digging a large grave in the corner of the place. Vince was inside, wrapping the bodies up in sheets, whilst Karen was doing her best to comfort a very frightened and confused little girl.

  She told Pickle that her and Joanne would clean up the ‘mess’ in the house once Pickle and Vince had finished with the burying of the three individuals. At first, Harry Branston wasn’t sure about placing Jim with his wife and son; after all, it was him that had murdered them.

  Pickle could feel a presence coming from behind and turned around to see Vince approaching.

  “All done,” Vince said. “Bodies wrapped up and ready to go.”

  “Ready to go?” Pickle looked at Vince with annoyance. “How can yer be so cold, Vince?”

  Vince struggled for an answer. It was rare that he and Pickle had crossed words.

  “Are yer sure yer used to be a fork lift drive
r?” Pickle continued with his rant. “Because sometimes yer can come across as a bit o’ a psycho. And then there were those ridiculous and cruel initiation tests yer used to do back at the Spode Cottage...”

  “That was months ago, Pickle.” Vince had finally managed to find his voice. “Why are we going over old ground? And as for the way I’m behaving now … that’s my way of coping with shit. You should know me well enough by now.”

  “When me and Karen were at yer camp, we spoke to Jack. He told me about turning up to yer place with another guy, I think Jack told me his name was Johnny Jefferson, and yer did an initiation test with them, making them kill some Snatchers before they were allowed in. What was that all about?”

  “I was trying to make the place stronger,” Vince said. “Rather than just letting in any waif or stray in. It was my camp, my rules.”

  “I’ve known yer for a while now and everything’s a joke to yer, isn’t it?”

  Vince was bemused by Pickle’s rant, even more so when he brought up something that happened many moons ago, and was a little hurt by Pickle’s out of character sharpness toward him.

  “I do care, Pickle,” Vince began.

  “Do yer? Do yer really?”

  “What do you want me to do every time somebody dies? Break down? Every night, before I go to sleep, I think about people I’ve known and lost. I think about Jack, Shaz, Rosemary, Lisa, my Mum, dad ... I think about them all. I’m not a heartless bastard, Pickle. I just don’t cry about it in public, you know what I mean? I deal with it in my own way. That’s the way I’ve always done it.”

  Vince looked at Pickle after his little rant and waited for a response from the former inmate.

  Pickle cleared his throat and was about to say something to Vince. “Look … I…”

  “Forget it,” said Vince. “Once you’ve finished that hole you can give me a hand bringing down the bodies from upstairs.”

  “All wrapped up, did yer say?”

  Vince nodded. “The boy was the hardest thing to do.”

  “I could imagine.” Pickle sighed and shook his head.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m sick o’ doing this,” Pickle moaned.

  “Sick of doing what?”

  “Burying people.” He looked up to the heavens and stretched his back. “Been doing it since the first week. I buried a guy called Laz, and then some poor woman who was with her husband and daughter. Davina, I think her name was. Davina’s husband and his daughter drove away, claiming it wasn’t safe where we were at Stile Cop, and in the end he was correct.”

  “Never saw the father and daughter again?” Vince asked.

  Pickle shook his head. “They’re probably both dead.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “No,” he groaned, “but they probably are.”

  Pickle dug for a further few minutes and then told Vince he was ready to put the bodies to rest.

  The two men carried Jim out first.

  Vince had wrapped him up in sheets and placed him in the living room, but even then they could see the blood seeping through the material.

  They both struggled as they carried the body down the garden and almost threw him into the hole. His wife was next. After she had been placed on top of Jim, her very own killer, the two tired men trudged through the house and went upstairs to get the boy. Pickle looked tired after all the digging as well as carrying two bodies, and Vince told him that he’d carry the boy by himself.

  Once young Zac was placed on top of his parents, Pickle picked up the shovel and began moving the soil over the bodies until the hole was filled. He patted the earth with the other side of the shovel and then put the garden utensil to the side of him.

  Covered in sweat, Pickle turned to Vince. “I’m gonna say a prayer. Yer can go if yer want. I know yer not really into that kind o’ stuff.”

  “What about the girl?” Vince asked.

  “What about her?”

  “Don’t you think she should be here, to say goodbye?”

  “No, I don’t.” Pickle shook his head. “Her parents and brother have only been dead just under an hour.”

  “They’re still her family.”

  “True, but I think it’s too soon for her to be here. In a normal situation, it’d be a week, maybe even two, before these guys would be dealt with at a funeral home.”

  Vince hunched his shoulders and didn’t really know what to do for the best. “Do what you think. I don’t know.”

  “This isn’t a normal situation. Besides, she can come here whenever she wants, in her own time.”

  “I suppose.” Vince agreed and nodded. “I mean, it’s not as if they’re going anywhere, is it?”

  Pickle flashed Vince a hard glare, his eyebrows knitting together almost because of Vince’s poor joke at such a delicate situation.

  “Sorry,” said Vince.

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “Like I said before: That’s just the way I deal with things.”

  Pickle stood with his hands in front of him and lowered his head. Vince decided to stay with him. It didn’t seem right that Pickle was doing this all by himself, even though he never complained.

  “I’ll stay,” said Vince. “If you want me to.”

  There was hardly a response from Harry Branston, apart from a faint nod, and then the former inmate began to say The Lord’s Prayer.

  Once he was finished, Pickle patted Vince’s shoulder and told him that he was leaving the street to go over to the field and get some time to himself. He wanted to be alone for a while.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Pickle looked jittery once he returned from the field. He rubbed his chin, looked over his shoulder, and then cleared his throat. Vince was out in the street, standing by the kerb, and noticed Pickle looking uncomfortable. Vince knew something was up, and wondered why Pickle looked so awkward.

  Pickle dipped his head and went over to Vince and gave him a big smile.

  “You okay?” Vince asked him.

  “About before.”

  “Before?”

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at yer the way I did.”

  Vince nodded once and stared at Pickle, knowing that he had more to say.

  “It’s the way yer are, I should know that by now. I’ve known yer for nearly three months, for God’s sake.” Pickle chewed his top lip with nerves and was clearly uncomfortable. He wasn’t the kind of man that apologised often, even if he was in the wrong. This was a rare thing for him, but felt that Vince was owed it.

  “Basically...” Pickle continued. “What I’m trying to do is apologise. I’m sorry for talking to yer like a dick.”

  “A cunt,” Vince corrected, and the corner of each side of his mouth elevated slightly.

  “Okay. I’m sorry for speaking to yer like a cunt.” He blew a large breath out, relieved that the apology was out of the way and held out his right hand. “Friends?”

  “You know,” Vince began. “Where I come from, an apology isn’t a proper apology if the individuals don’t hug it out at the end.”

  Pickle and looked at Vince with a suspicious eye. “Yer taking the piss, right?”

  “Nope.” Vince kept a straight face.

  Pickle peered over Vince’s shoulder and then over his own. “I’m not hugging you in the middle of the street.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  Pickle lowered his chin and began to scratch at his head in thought. “Okay,” he sighed. He looked up and opened out his arms and the two men embraced. Four seconds later, Pickle tried to break away, but Vince wouldn’t let him go.

  “Not long enough,” Vince chuckled and added, “It’s supposed to be a thirty second hug.”

  Pickle broke away and smirked. “Now I know yer taking the piss.”

  “I could have sworn you was getting erect while we were hugging, Pickle. I did feel something.”

  “Fuck off,” laughed Pickle. “As if I’d go with a guy that has a face like a buck
et o’ worms.”

  “Charming.” Vince feigned hurt on his face and placed his left hand on his heart. The laughter died down and Pickle lost his smile.

  He asked Vince, “So, are we cool now?”

  “Yeah, we’re cool.”

  “Good.” Pickle smiled. “I’m just gonna go back to the Danson’s back garden again. Make sure it looks presentable for when Kelly visits.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  *

  Pickle and Vince were in the Danson’s back garden once more and inspected their handy work, making sure it looked presentable in case Kelly wanted to visit her resting family.

  Pickle and Vince could hear feet from behind them and turned around to see Stephen Bonser approaching them.

  “Guys!” Bonser beckoned the two of them. “We’ve got a bit of a problem at the gate.”

  Pickle said, “A problem. What kind o’ a problem?”

  “Come and take a look.”

  Pickle rubbed his clammy head, looked at Vince, and sighed, “Now what?”

  The three went down the side of the house, onto the Danson’s drive, and were out in the street. Bonser pointed over at the gate. Terry stood at the side with his bat, and behind the gate were three men, one of them giving Terry some verbal abuse.

  Pickle approached the gate, with Vince by his side, and held both of his hands up to calm the irate man who was verbally abusing Terry. It was clear that the men were desperate and wanted in.

  Pickle inspected the three men with a vulture’s eye and could see all three were average in height. The man on the left had ginger hair and a beard, like Terry, but looked terribly thin. His two pals were built the same, but were both dark with long dark beards that could have done with a trim. The man in the middle, who was shouting at Terry, was shaking and had thick eyebrows that were knitted together as he snarled. The ginger guy was also carrying a bag over his shoulder and had a canister in his hand.

  “Problem, guys?” Pickle spoke up.

  “It’s dangerous out there and we’re fucking starving!” Eyebrows yelled. “And this prick won’t let us in!”

  Pickle folded his arms and gazed at the men, nodded at the ginger guy with the rucksack and canister, and asked Eyebrows calmly. “What’s in the bag and canister?”