“But with that gang around...”
“At one point, last week, they did seem to be everywhere, but we haven't seen any since Monday. Five days ago.”
Karen sighed and combed her dark hair behind her ears with her fingers. “I know Pickle can handle himself, but he's not indestructible.”
“Is it Pickle you're really worried for?” Vince queried with a cheeky grin. “Or is it that fine-looking man Craig Burns that you're concerned about?”
“What're you talking about?” she huffed. It looked like Vince had touched a nerve.
Vince snickered, “I've seen the way you two have been flirting with each other over the past couple of days.”
“My fiancé is dead, I've recently had a miscarriage—”
“And you've never once imagined noshing him off?”
“Fuck off,” she laughed and snorted whilst doing this.
“Not once? You've never imagined what it'd be like if he was balls-deep in you?”
“Vince, you are disgusting.” Karen gave Vince a hard look, and for a second he thought she was going to assault him.
A clunk sound made both individuals turn to the side and they could see the group had returned.
Karen smiled. “They're back.”
“Yep. Looks like your boyfriend's back.” Vince pointed up at the gate. Both he and Karen stood to their feet and could see Pickle, Craig, Danny and Jez being let in.
“Everything okay?” Karen asked as she approached the group.
“Everything's fine.” Pickle gave off a wide smile.
Karen and Vince watched as Danny and Jez walked away. Jez looked crestfallen and noticing Karen and Vince's stares, Craig tried to explain what had happened.
He said, “Jez is beating himself up because he struggled a little.”
“Oh.” Karen cleared her throat.
“He'll be fine,” said Pickle. “At least the young lad's giving it a go, unlike some folk.”
Craig nodded and asked Pickle, “Do you wanna give it another go tomorrow?”
“Why not?” Pickle nodded. “At least it breaks up the day.” Pickle then looked at Karen, Vince and Craig and told them that he was going to go for a lie down.
*
Paul Dickson had walked a further mile, with no hassle, and reached the fence that belonged to his new home that he had climbed over earlier when he was in his back garden.
He stopped walking, looked to his left and right, then faced forwards and assessed the fence. It seemed higher from the main road than what it did in the back garden. He released a sigh, took three large steps backwards and got into a position, the way sprinters do, and ran at it.
For seconds he struggled, and once he managed to get one leg over, the rest was plain sailing. Paul threw himself over and let go of the fence, dropping onto the other side, landing in the back garden.
“That was pretty straightforward,” he mumbled, then looked up.
He could see movement in the bedroom window from the next house on the left. It was coming from number fourteen. Paul lived at 13 Colwyn Place.
There were only two people present in number fourteen, and Paul Dickson could see the pair of them. Beverley was staring out with the toddler in her arms. Paul smiled and waved, but she never waved back. The toddler did. Paul then lost his smile and put his fingers to his lips, telling Beverley to keep quiet about his latest venture.
She walked away from the window, out of sight. He had no idea if she was going to tell or not.
Paul had seen the toddler and Beverley on many occasions. It was good to see that some youngsters had made it, and couldn't help but stare when he saw the little fellow out in the street. If Kyle was still around, Paul thought that they would have made good friends, despite the age difference.
He sighed and walked through the long grass to get to the back door of the house where he was staying. He needed a drink.
Chapter Nine
After lunch, Vince and Stephen took the pickup and headed towards the garden centre, travelling on the Wolseley Road. It was a short journey, and they entered the car park, stopping the vehicle outside the entrance of the building.
“Been a few weeks since I've been here,” Vince announced.
The last time Vince was at the garden centre, he was with Pickle and Shaz, on a supply run, when Lee James had turned up with a couple of other guys. It had been the first time he had seen him in six weeks.
“We stripped the place bare,” said Stephen. “Well ... others came as well. Didn't you visit here once, in the early days?”
“Sure did. I wonder if there's going to be anything here?”
“No idea, chap.” Stephen grunted, cleared his throat and twisted his neck. “When we did come here, some people had already taken the gas and garden utensils. I suppose the utensils like forks and pick axes were taken to be used as weapons.”
“No shit.”
“There were hundreds of packets of seeds. This is where we came when we wanted to set up patches in some of the back gardens. Because it's so late in the summer, some of the produce—”
“Look,” Vince interrupted, “spare me the lecture, Alan Titchmarsh. Let's just go, shall we?”
“Just trying to educate you, Vince.”
“I'm good at runs and killing the dead. I'll leave the garden duties to the rest back at Colwyn Place.”
“It'll be handy if you knew these things. No point shirking some responsibilities.”
“Shirking?” Vince threw Stephen a filthy look and added, “How many of your lot came to the wall to help get rid of those Rotters a few days ago?”
“Erm...”
“How many?”
“I'm not sure,” Stephen admitted.
“There was about twelve of us. I was there, Karen was there, Pickle, the three girls... Most of your lot shat themselves and stayed indoors.”
“Twelve was enough.”
“That's not the point. They never even volunteered. It's the same with Lincoln. He just stood there, on his doorstep, arms folded, standing by like some general whilst his team went to battle.”
Stephen felt a little insulted that Vince was having a go at the Colwyn residents. It seemed that this was something he had been bottling up for a while.
Stephen responded, “We managed before your lot came along.”
“I've no idea how.”
“Not every one has it in them to fight, Vince.”
“Well, they're gonna have to learn, because if that flimsy gate is breached by a horde, it's gonna be the usual mob that'll have to sort it out, whilst the rest hide behind their sofas.”
“A horde will never come here, chap,” Stephen said, shaking his head. “Why would they? We're in the country, the middle of nowhere.”
“You see, that right there,” Vince pointed at Stephen. “That attitude you have; that arrogance is gonna get people killed. Just because nothing has happened yet, doesn't mean it never will.”
“You finished?” Stephen looked annoyed from his lecture.
“Yeah.” Vince opened the passenger door and stepped out. “Let's go in and see if we can grab a couple of mowers. But first, I'm gonna take a piss outside the building.”
Once Vince was finished, both men entered with machetes drawn. Vince told Stephen to stay near him, no matter what, and knew which aisle the mowers should be in.
They crept in front of the checkouts and noticed that most aisles were bare. Most of the apparatus had been taken: gas, barbecues, tools and garden furniture.
“Why didn't you lot do this before?” Vince asked Stephen in a whisper.
“Are you serious?” Stephen cleared his throat before adding, “When people are fearing for their lives, dying of thirst and hiding from the Murphys, until you came along, cutting the grass wasn't high on the agenda. You came to us at a good time.”
“We came to you at a good time? Explain?” Vince urged whilst scratching his groin area.
“Er ... you mind not doing that when I'm around?�
� Stephen turned away in disgust.
“Why? What's up?”
“It's disgusting.”
“It's just an itch.”
“There's a time and a place for that, chap.”
“If my Jurassic Park area is itchy, then I need to scratch it.”
“Jurassic Park area?”
“I call it that because it hides a monster.”
“Anyway,” ignoring Vince's comment, Stephen tried to answer Vince's query from before, “the reason why you came at such a good time was because everything was set up by the time you lot arrived. The vegetable patches, solar panels ... everything.”
“It's not as if we timed it,” Vince laughed. “We came to Colwyn because we were attacked. And before then, after I killed a couple of the Murphys, John Lincoln had told me that me and my friends would be welcomed anytime. If I had a choice, I'd still be at Sandy Lane. In fact, I still preferred it at the caravan park at the Spode Cottage, but you have to go where it's safe, don't you?”
Stephen nodded.
“There.” Vince pointed down Aisle 6 and both could see three hand mowers.
“Three,” Stephen said with delight.
“Yeah, but we're still taking two,” Vince huffed. “It's not gonna take much to cut those gardens. Leave the other one. Let someone else have it. Someone will take it eventually.”
They grabbed a hand mower each and pushed them towards the automatic doors that were already open. The mowers were making too much noise for the men's liking, but there was nothing else they could do. They were too heavy to carry.
It took both men to lift one mower into the back of the pickup, and once both were in, Vince asked Stephen if he wanted to go back in and have a 'nosey' inside.
“I'd rather just go back, if it's alright with you, chap.”
“Come on. Just a quick look around. Do you really want to go back now and be bored out of your mind in that street?”
“Of course not, but...”
Vince sighed and could see Stephen lowering his head.
Kindl asked, “What is it?”
Without any hesitation, Stephen explained, “I've killed dozens of those Creepers, Vince.”
“I know you have.”
“And I've been on countless runs, mainly with Nick Gregory.”
“I don't understand where you're going with this, Stephen.” Vince stared at the man with sympathy. Rowley seemed upset and embarrassed at what he was telling Vince.
Stephen said, “I'm not as confident as you lot. Before you lot came along, I was kind of the main man, along with a few others. But you guys, you, Pickle and Karen are fearless. You guys take it to a new level.”
“Fearless? I wouldn't go that far.”
“Everyone else thinks you are.”
“Isn't that a good thing? Good for the camp?”
“I suppose.”
“Anyway, Pickle told me you jumped out of the RV to distract a horde of Rotters, you know, just before Freddie left you in the shit. That's a pretty brave thing to do.”
“Brave ... maybe, but I was shitting myself.” A tear formed at the bottom of each eye belonging to Stephen, and Vince asked him what was wrong.
“It's okay, chap.” He wiped his eyes and stood up straight, clearing his throat. “I get bad days like this, now and again. Don't you?”
“Occasionally. Usually when I think about my sister, Rosemary, my son and my mum and dad.”
“Your mum and dad? You hardly mention them. What happened to them, chap?”
“My mum had turned and my dad had kept her tied up to a chair. Karen had killed her with a sharpened wooden spoon handle.”
“Karen?” Rowley looked confused.
Vince smiled and tried to explain, “Karen and Pickle had come across my old man’s cabin when they had nowhere else to go, and me and a guy called Jack went there when we were stuck in the woods after a disastrous hospital run. That's how I met Karen and Pickle. A week or so later, my dad was thrown from a pickup and surrounded by a shit load of the dead. He was badly injured, and Karen killed him before the dead could rip him apart.”
“Let me get this straight.” Stephen scrunched his eyes in thought and was trying to digest what had just been said to him. He couldn't believe what he had just been told. “Karen killed both of your parents?”
Vince nodded the once. “Yep.”
“But that's ... fucked up, chap. And you're still friends?”
“To be fair, my mum was technically already dead when Karen killed her. And my dad's killing was a mercy one. So ... yeah, we're still friends.”
Stephen shook his head and put the palms of his hand on his head, now looking to the heavens. “Wow.”
“What's up?” Vince asked him.
Stephen removed his hands and looked at Vince. “The more stories I hear about you guys, the more I realise how easy some of us have had it. This is what I mean about you guys taking it to a new level.”
“It's not a competition, Stephen.”
“But what you've done has been incredible. You travelled, on your own, to Little Haywood from Rugeley—”
“Brereton,” Vince corrected. “Well, technically it was Armitage.”
“Brereton?”
“It's a tiny town that's next to Rugeley,” said Vince.
“Anyway,” Stephen tried to start again. “You travelled all the way to Little Haywood to get revenge on the Murphys, after finding out that they never became victims of the apocalypse, you've been in two camps and each one has been attacked twice...”
“What's your point, Stephen?”
“It's a hell of a story, chap.”
There was a silence between them for over ten seconds, and Vince broke the silence and tried to joke, “Come on. Let's go home before you start blubbing again.”
“You can be a right tosser, Vince,” Rowley said with a small smirk. “You know that, don't you?”
“Yeah, but you still fucking love me.”
Vince headed for the passenger side of the pickup and went inside. Stephen got into the driver's side and started the engine. The short journey to Little Haywood was made in silence.
Chapter Ten
It had been a quiet and mundane four hours for Paul Dickson. He was supposed to have gone out with Pickle, to pick up a family at a cafe in Colwich, but it had been called off by Lincoln for reasons that weren’t explained to him.
On five occasions, he had thought of yesteryear and reduced himself to tears, but he had put it down to boredom. He was sitting on his doorstep, his head was down and his eyes were closed.
“You look in a worse state than I am,” Paul heard a voice say above him.
Paul smiled, but never looked up. He didn't need to. He knew it was Joanne.
He did the polite thing and eventually looked up, making Joanne tilt her head to one side when she clocked his glassy eyes.
“I think the beard makes me look ill,” he said, stroking the hair on his face.
“I like it.” Joanne smiled.
“Haven't really spoken to you since yesterday,” Paul began. “What have you been up to?”
“Just the usual bullshit,” she giggled and gave off that wonderful smile. “John had me on stock check duty this morning. I've got to give the panels a clean later. It wouldn't surprise me if he got me to cut the lawns with the hand mowers that Stephen and Vince brought back.”
“Keeping you busy then, huh?”
“I'm not complaining,” she said, her fingers nervously playing with her blonde hair. “It's the way I like it.”
Paul stood up on his feet and leaned against the doorframe, facing Joanne. He stared at the twenty-one-year old. She was only five-three, but a stunner. The law student's blonde hair and blue eyes would melt most men, but Paul never saw her in that way.
Paul glared across the road once John Lincoln stepped out of his house. Noticing Paul's stare, Joanne asked the man, “What is it?”
“Why do people look up to him?” He shook his head, still
baffled why a man like John was running the street. “He does nothing but order people about.”
Joanne hunched her shoulders, “We need a leader, Paul.”
“Pickle's a leader.”
“True,” she nodded, “but Pickle is new, and goes out on almost every run.”
“So, what's your point?”
“He could die any day,” she said bluntly. “We need someone that'll be around for a while.”
“Around for a while?” Paul scoffed and pointed over at Lincoln. “Look at him. He's a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“That's not nice.”
“It's true, though.”
“Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what Pickle does for us, what you all do, but Pickle puts himself on the firing line every other day. He can't keep that up in the long run. Nick Gregory couldn't.”
“You can't compare Nick Gregory to Pickle,” Paul laughed and scratched his dark hair. It was in need of a wash.
“You never knew Nick.”
“No, but I've heard about him. Comparing Nick Gregory to Pickle is like comparing Bananarama to The Beatles.”
“Anyway,” Joanne groaned, not wanting to start an argument, “just thought I'd come over and invite you in for supper.”
“That's very kind, but I'm not hungry.” Paul placed his right hand comfortingly on Joanne's shoulder. He was glad they were friends again. “Tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Sure. Tomorrow. Why not?”
“I think I might turn in anyway.”
“It's only eight.”
“I know, but I'm tired. At least I'll be fresh for the morning, eh?”
Joanne smiled and turned on her heels, ready to walk back over to her house.
“Joanne,” Paul called out.
She turned around to face Paul. “What?”
“Thanks for the invite. I appreciate it.”
She smiled and began to walk away. “Good night, Paul Dickson.”
He watched as she entered the house and was about to enter his own when he heard Karen calling his name. She jogged her way over and was greeted with a small smile by Dickson. He looked tired.
Snatchers 11: The Dead Don't Knock Page 4