Karen smiled when she saw the room and more memories came flooding back. The place had hardly changed. Drake informed them that the room was a bloodbath when he first arrived, and the cleaning chemicals that the hospital had stored away were put to good use.
Karen and Pickle took a seat near the window, and Karen shook her head in disbelief at how weird the situation was. There was a couch and eight chairs around a table. She envisaged Dr Stellar from Orthopaedics sitting at the end of the couch, her friend Staff Nurse Katie Marley sitting at the end, munching on a red apple she always use to have before her sandwich, and Jason Bennett, one of the porters, on his phone.
This was how the staff room was the last time she sat in it, and being back brought a tear to her eye.
She felt a hand on her thigh and heard Harry Branston ask her, “Are yer okay? Yer were a bit funny during that tour.”
“I’m fine.” She nodded. “Just getting a bit emotional, that’s all.”
Drake shut the staff room door and remained standing by the door once it was closed. He stood with his arms folded, smiled, and then went over to the sink where a kettle sat.
He asked his two guests, “Tea? Coffee?”
Both Pickle and Karen shook their heads. Neither one of them spoke.
“Okay.” Drake started and added, “Now that I’ve managed to persuade you to come here, drove you here, and also gave you a tour, I was hoping that you guys would make me a happy man.”
Both Pickle and Karen glared at Drake; no words left their lips.
“This is not me showing off and bragging that we have a better set up than you,” he chuckled.
“Isn’t it?” Pickle smirked immediately after his short query.
“Well, maybe a little.” Drake opened the fridge to pull out a bottle of water. Karen’s eyes widened. She hadn’t seen a working fridge in months. Drake offered them both a bottle of water, and this time they didn’t refuse. He passed them one each and continued with his talk as they swallowed the clear liquid down.
Drake cleared his throat and sat on a chair, looking across at Pickle and Karen. “How many guys have you got left back at that street of yours?”
Pickle shrugged his shoulders. “Not many now. We lost two girls the other day from a run. Then we had that family thing that yer already know about.”
“You lost five people in one week, didn’t you?”
“It hasn’t been a good week,” admitted Pickle.
“I take it you two have heard the term cabin fever before, right?”
Both Karen and Pickle nodded the once, unsure where Drake was going with this little speech.
“Cabin fever is extreme irritability and restlessness from living in isolation or a confined indoor area for a prolonged time.” Drake leaned back and clasped his hands together, resting them on his lap. “From what you’ve told me on the way here, you two have this situation where the tough guys go out there and put their lives at risk, whereas the not so tough guys stay in the street and suffer from boredom, possibly have depression issues as well.”
“I don’t understand where yer going with this, Drake,” Pickle said, without trying to sound rude.
“Even if you manage to bolster the numbers in your street, and let’s be honest, Craig didn’t have a successful start, then the problems are still gonna be the same. Some people are going to go out and others will stay behind and go mad. That street of yours was a great idea, but even when I’m there for a few minutes I feel claustrophobic.”
“We’re still alive,” Karen decided to chip in. “We’re still better off than most people.”
“Agreed, but why stay there when you can stay somewhere that has better facilities, places to go for walks, beds, power, safe and quiet corridors that kids could run around and play out their imaginations? We have a gym here, nursery facilities, we have—”
“I know all that,” said Karen. “I used to work here, remember? That stuff was here before the apocalypse began. You never built this place, you just cleaned the place up.”
Drake smiled as Karen finished her mild rant and wagged his finger at the female. “I like you, Karen. You have balls. I wouldn’t let some of my guys talk to me like that, but—”
“We know. You kicked one to death in the middle of our street, remember?”
“In my defence, I was having a bad day.” Drake snickered and added, “I disposed of two guys that day, something I’ve never done before, but I’m trying to be a better person.”
“You wanna know what I think?” Karen snapped, making Pickle lower his head, dreading what she was going to come out with.
Drake smiled and knew he didn’t have a choice, so he groaned, “Sure. Go on.”
“I think you’re a psychopath. And whoever disagrees with you gets a kicking.”
“We all snap, Karen,” Drake said. “This dark episode in the world has turned some people into monsters. Some people have lost their minds, whilst others have only gone mad temporarily, like I did. I came back, mentally, but some people don’t.”
“I’m not sure about you,” she admitted. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“I understand that, but I’m not entirely sure of you lot either, but I’m willing to take a chance. Are you trying to tell me that you haven’t done anything mental in the last three months?”
Pickle and Karen briefly looked at one another.
There were many episodes of madness that had occurred in their time together, but the one that leaked into Karen’s head was when she blew a man away with her Browning pistol in just the second week, after finding out that the man was bad news. She was informed by Jack Slade and Paul Parker that the man and his pal had raped their friend Gary Strand in a supermarket.
The image that went into Pickle’s head was when he slit the throat of a young man when three uninvited guests entered Sandy Lane without permission. Cutting the man’s throat was Pickle’s way of telling the other two not to return. It was an incident that would plague him now and again, despite the violence he used to perform during his drug days, and wondered often if he could have handled the situation better.
Even Vince was brutal in the first weeks, when he was running his own camp. If people wanted in, they would have to perform difficult initiation tests.
As if he could read their minds, Drake laughed, breaking the minute silence, “That’s what I thought.”
“I think it’s time to go.” Pickle stood up and Karen did the same. Pickle added, “I’m glad yer brought us here. It proves that yer not the monster that we thought yer were, and I hope that this can improve our relationship with one another.” Pickle walked over to Drake and held out his hand.
“You never gave me a response,” said Drake.
“Response?”
Drake never shook Pickle’s hand and said, “Join us.”
“I gave yer an answer back at Colwyn Place.”
“No, you didn’t.” Drake shook his head. “You said that you didn’t know. Leave that stifling street and you, Karen and everybody else move in here.”
Pickle looked at Karen, but her face was expressionless.
“I told yer before, I’ve only been in charge for a week or so,” Pickle began. “And yer want me to give it up? John Lincoln had built—”
“Fuck your pride,” Drake snapped, “and fuck John Lincoln. I’m offering you a great opportunity here. Our facilities are great and it will get better. This is a good deal for us because the more people come here, the stronger we become. And it’s a good deal for you guys because the facilities, the security ... everything is better.”
“Your guys came to our street a couple of weeks ago and killed people,” Karen said.
“And you killed ours,” Drake said. “We were simply looking for Jez and the now exonerated Craig, that we kindly brought back to your camp, but you drew first blood. Anyway, I thought we weren’t going to go over old ground. If we want to be civil to one another, it’d be better to leave the past in the past. I’m sorry it turned
ugly and that a toddler died, but we can’t continue to keep harking back if we want to move forwards together.”
“My point is,” Karen huffed, “If you let me get a fucking word in edgeways, is that you have people here who probably have lost a brother or a friend on that day and we may not be made welcome.”
“Nobody knows who killed who on that day. The only person that would be in danger, if he came here, would be Paul Dickson, and he’s now gone. He killed a few that day and it was witnessed by a few of my guys. He also killed our harmless pickup driver, who wouldn’t have harmed a fly.”
“Paul was protecting the camp,” said Pickle, defending a man that wasn’t in the room.
“Maybe.” Drake nodded. “But listen to us; we’re going over old ground again. Now, we’re going to take you back to your place and you can think about it. Tell the people in the street about what we have here.”
Pickle said, “Some may think it’s some kind o’ trap.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Drake laughed. “Do you?”
“O’ course not,” Pickle shook his head. “If yer still wanted retribution, we would have been dead by now.”
“Exactly.”
“What happens if we eventually say no?” Pickle asked him. “Are yer gonna get the hump with us?”
“Of course not,” Drake laughed. “Even if you say no, I would like to work together in some capacity. Plus, we could use your street as some kind of outpost.”
“What do yer mean?”
“Well, for example, if some of my guys are out on a run in Rugeley and it’s getting dark or too dangerous to get back to Stafford, I would like to think that you could put the cunts up for the night. And the same for you if ever you’re passing Stafford.”
Pickle looked at Karen and she gently shook her head.
He turned to Drake and said, “I think it’s going to be a no.”
“Simple as that?” Drake narrowed his eyes and looked annoyed at the answer, but was trying to be calm about it. “You’re not even gonna ask the people in the street, put it to a vote?”
Pickle shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I don’t wanna give up so soon. I would rather keep the offer a secret from the rest. Don’t wanna split the camp in two. I know Terry won’t go for it.”
“Terry?” Drake screwed his face in confusion.
“One of yer guys went down his basement and killed his daughter. That’s what started this whole mess in the first place. Although some would say that taking Craig and Jez in started the ball rolling.” Pickle could see that Drake was perplexed and explained further. “Terry’s daughter had turned in the beginning and he kept her down there, tied up. Nobody knew. Until one of your guys went down and got attacked.”
Drake rubbed his chin and was baffled by the bizarre story. “Well, that’s a bit fucked up.”
“It certainly is ... was.”
“Okay,” Drake sighed, finding it difficult to hide his disappointment. “It’s an open offer. If ever you change your mind...”
“Thanks. We appreciate that.”
“Right then.” Drake opened the door and turned to look at his two guests. “We’ll take you back the same way we came. Ready?”
“Are you coming?” Karen asked as she and Pickle headed out of the staff room.
“Yes,” said Drake. “It would be impolite not to.”
Chapter Forty Eight
Stephanie Perkins had been crying for the last ten minutes.
Her thoughts to what had happened to Ophelia White and especially Elza Crowe had started her off. Her eyes were still wet and were warm, and she decided to step outside and cool herself down.
She stepped out of 2 Colwyn Place and leaned against the wall. She wiped her eyes and looked around the street. She could see Gail Smith looking out of her window, a woman she hardly knew, and could see her waving at her. Stephanie smiled and waved back.
She could see something to the left of her and turned around to see David MacDonald standing by his doorstep. He turned and walked across the front lawns to reach Stephanie.
“Hey,” she said as he approached.
“Hello.” Young David smiled. “Just seeing how you are. You still upset about losing those two women.”
“Ophelia and Elza,” Stephanie snapped. “Their names were Ophelia and Elza. And yes, of course I’m upset that they’re dead. You didn’t see the mess they were in. I did.”
“Sorry. Stupid question.” David cleared his throat and looked awkward. He was thinking about leaving Stephanie in peace, but she spoke up.
“I’m sorry, David.” Stephanie stood up straight and sat down on her doorstep. “I’m not having a good day, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Please.” She patted part of the doorstep that she wasn’t sitting on. “Sit down.”
David did as he was instructed.
“This place is so empty, creepy,” said David, trying to muster up some kind of conversation. “Nothing like Sandy Lane.”
“I was only there a couple of days,” Stephanie moaned. “Then it went bat shit crazy.”
“My dad was already dead when it happened. I managed to escape with Charles Pilkington and his parents, but...”
“I heard what happened,” Stephanie said.
The two sat in brief silence and stared out in the street. Stephanie looked to her right and could see a bored Paul Smith standing by the gate, scratching the back of his neck and yawning.
“I wonder what’ll happen in the future,” sighed David.
“That’s a strange comment,” Stephanie said. “Nobody knows what’s gonna happen in the future.”
“Do you ever think about...?”
David never finished his sentence. Stephanie had an idea what David was going to ask her, but she decided to allow him to do it himself.
“Think about what?” she pushed him, trying to speed him up.
“We’ve seen so many people dying.” David released a sigh and dipped his head by an inch. “It makes you wonder how and when are we gonna go. I’m only fourteen.”
“Same here.” Stephanie reminded him, a little annoyed at his self-pity. “I wouldn’t think about it if I were you. You’ll only get depressed. It’s a short life anyway, but now it could be even shorter.”
“At least Pickle seems to have ironed out the problems with that Drake guy. That’s something, isn’t it?”
Stephanie nodded. “It’s certainly a positive. But another problem will turn up. It always does.”
“That’s quite a negative attitude to have,” David began to laugh.
“True. But I’m right.”
“Open the gate!” a voice yelled, alerting both David and Stephanie.
They both knew it was Stephen Rowley’s voice and it was unlike Rowley to shout like that. The two of them gasped and could now see why.
As the gate opened, Stephanie stood up and put her hands on her head. “Oh no.”
Chapter Forty Nine
It had been twenty minutes since Rowley had yelled at Terry’s replacement, Paul Smith, to open the gate. Paul stood, gazing at the floor. The bat he had was being clasped by a very sweaty hand and he was unsure whether he had it in him to use it.
He cast his mind back twenty minutes ago and the look on Rowley’s face when he returned. He had never seen Stephen Rowley that upset, and his face was ashen, pale as ivory. He helped Stephen and Joanne carry Vince’s body to his bedroom, and then went straight to his post as a distraught Joanne said that she would take care of things from there.
Stephen had told Paul that they had to take care of six of the dead, but more were heading Colwyn’s way, and this made him nervous. He was certain that the area of Little Haywood, especially being a village in the middle of the countryside, was almost a Creeper-free zone.
Of course, that wasn’t the case in the beginning. The dead were everywhere, but as the weeks ticked by and the neighbourhood fought back and began to kill some of th
e beasts, the numbers dwindled.
Although some survivors of Colwich, Little and Great Haywood wouldn’t want to admit it, the Murphy family had helped get rid of a lot of the dead, but that wasn’t because they were helping out. They did it because they loved the violence, and removing the dead gave them better access to start stealing from others for their own survival.
Jim was miles away, mentally, thinking about the past, his old job and his colleagues. He jumped when he heard something slap against the wiry fence that was on either side of the steel-sliding gate. Paul dropped his bat in shock, and took a step backwards as he could see a small group of the dead pressing up against the fence, not against the gate, and desperately trying to get at Paul.
Jesus, he thought. They’re here already.
He then took another step backwards and looked down at the fence, to the right, and could see more coming down the lane. He then looked at the gate. It was steel, but it wasn’t a thick gate.
“Shit.” Paul shook his head and muttered under his breath. “If they all push against the fence and try and get into the street, the gate won’t hold.”
He never used his whistle. He simply ran away from the gate and yelled at the people who were out, Bonser, David and Stephanie, to get inside. They didn’t need to ask why. They could see for themselves.
They could all see for themselves.
*
Nobody spoke until the pickup reached Milford, passing the Barley Mow public house, and it was Pickle that decided to speak up. Pickle asked why they weren’t returning to Colwyn in style. Drake had no idea what Pickle was talking about, so Pickle explained and reminded Drake that on his first ever visit, when he picked Paul Dickson up, he turned up in an Audi with tinted windows.
“Oh, that,” Drake began to laugh. “That was just me trying to make an impression. Besides, I think one of the brake pads have gone, so I need to wait until it’s fixed.”
“Where on earth did yer manage to get a vehicle like that anyway?”
“When we stole the mopeds, we went by a showroom and took a few cars. We crashed one of them, but the Audi has managed to survive so far.”
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