Snatchers (Book 8): The Dead Don't Pray

by Shaun Whittington

  "I would like to say a little prayer," Pickle said, and tried to recite the prayer with a clear voice and with little slur. "God of all mystery, whose ways are beyond understanding, lead us, who grieve at this untimely death, to a new and deeper faith in your love, which brought your only son, Jesus, through death into resurrection of life. We make our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen."

  The crowd mumbled Amen, and Pickle added, "Lord, our God, you give and you take away. You blessed us through the gift of Kyle, who is now taken from us and whose loss we mourn. Help us, through our tears and pain, to glimpse your hand at work to bring blessing out of grief. To you be glory for ever. Amen."

  After the prayer, Pickle had a few words of his own. He put the piece of paper into his pocket and said with a gruff voice, "I know that we are new to a lot o' yer people, but I'd like to think that we have now been accepted. As for the burial, and the fact that the rest o' our dead remain on top o' a car park, there are a few that have complaints about what is happening today. But this is a child. His father, who has also lost his daughter and wife, stand next to me. Amazingly, a lot o' people here have never had to experience losing a child on this camp, so to those who are unsure about this but are here today, please find it in yer heart to make an exception for seven-year-old Kyle Dickson. It would mean a lot to me, and it would especially mean a lot to his father. Now, does anybody have anything to say before we close this procession?"

  Rosemary cleared her throat and put her hand up.

  "Yes, Rosemary," said Pickle.

  Rosemary looked agitated, clearly nervous with all the people around her. "I think Lisa wants to say something. Well, she wants to sing something."

  "Ladies and gentleman. For those who don't know," Pickle began to explain. "Lisa was Kyle's next door neighbour. They were separated, then, thanks to ... Vince, they'd found each other again."

  Pickle beckoned Lisa to stand in front of him. She did as she was told, and stood with the smartest clothes Rosemary could get for her, her dark hair held back with hair-slides. She was told to sing in her own time. Pickle placed his hand on her shoulder to settle her nerves. He could see she was shaking.

  Lisa began to sing the opening lines to Stevie Wonder's You are the Sunshine of My Life, a song that Paul and Julie used to sing to Kyle, especially when he was a baby.

  After Lisa faultlessly sang the opening two lines of the song, Paul broke down, the memories flooding back all at once.

  His mind went to the past and remembered a moment a few weeks ago, after discovering that Julie and Bell were dead. It pained him that he had to sit and tell his little boy that he would never see his mummy and his little sister again. What devastated Paul more, was that he promised his wife that he would look after Kyle when he was in Bentley's short-lived camp. He remembered the words that he promised his dead wife.

  You know I've never been a big believer; and you know that I've always thought that when someone dies, then that's it. But if you can hear me, Julie, I promise I won't let anything happen to our boy, our little prince. I love you. I wish I could have seen Bell grow into a young lady. I wish I could have walked her down the aisle. Give Bell a kiss for me, and tell her that daddy and Kyle will see you all again ... one day, but not for a while. Keep safe, my girls. I love you more than words can say. You are the sunshine of my life. The pair of you.

  His pain was more unbearable because of the way—the appalling way that his son had died. Of all the people it had to happen to on the camp, it had to happen to his seven-year-old.

  In the space of three weeks he had to leave his house—thanks to the Murphy family, Vince's camp, and now this camp had proved to have its faults. He never heard the rest of the lyrics from his son's favourite song that was sung by Lisa, because his mind had wandered, but as soon as she was finished, Pickle asked if anyone else had something to say. The crowd remained silent, and Pickle smiled thinly. "Okay."

  He nodded over to the two men with shovels, and they began to slowly put the dug-up soil on top of Kyle Dickson's wrapped-up body. Paul watched as the soil piled onto his baby boy, and wished he had his favourite cuddly toys, Dino and Monkey, to accompany him. The thought of his boy alone, down there, broke his heart. He knew he was dead. He wasn't stupid. It was just the thought of it.

  Pickle said, "We'll finish with The Lord's Prayer."

  *

  Minutes had passed, and the people made their way back to their homes. Some had jobs, some didn't, but the whole sombre affair had numbed them. Whatever they were going to do for the rest of the day, their mind was occasionally going to think about poor Kyle Dickson.

  Pickle had his arm around Karen and nodded at Paul who was in front of them. "Are yer gonna stay with him for a bit?"

  She nodded. "Maybe for a while."

  "Good. Yer know what us men are like. We're hopeless at this sort o' thing. He'll need a woman around him."

  Karen looked to the side of her and saw Jimmy Mac, standing at the side of the road as the crowd was dispersing to go to their homes.

  James McDonald—Jimmy Mac—glared at every single mourner, almost disgusted at them for turning up.

  "You should be ashamed of yourselves!" he yelled at no one in particular. Not many eyeballed him, and some thought that he could have been drunk, but couldn't be sure. "Especially you lot that were here before those other Spode Cottage cunts!"

  Daniel Badcock and a couple of others told him to shut up, but he continued with his ranting.

  Karen turned to the side to see that Pickle was fuming. His face was scarlet; he was biting his lower lip so hard that she thought it was going to bleed, and his eyes were as wide as saucers. Scared what he could do, she said, with nervousness in her voice, "Ignore him."

  "I'm trying, Bradley." Pickle gulped. "I'm trying."

  Chapter Forty One

  Vince returned from spying on the dead and went back to the bridge, under the arch, where Stephanie was. He never said a word, but she knew it was time. It was time to go.

  Vince Kindl nodded to Stephanie to see if she was ready, and she gave him the nod back, clasping onto the crowbar. "Clear?" she asked with a whisper. "It's been hours."

  He nodded. "Clear enough."

  They walked from under the arch of the bridge and ran up the grass, with the river by their left side. They quickly veered left onto the road. And they ran. Their feet smacked the tarmac of the Wolseley Road, and they could see there was three of the dead up ahead, something they could handle between them. They both took a quick glance over their shoulders and could see the dead behind them, but not as many as there was when they first left the pub. They guessed that some had dispersed after devouring the deer and the driver, and some were probably inside the Wolseley Arms pub.

  They ran for a further twenty yards and now had woodland at either side of them, a horde behind them, and three Rotters—as Vince called them—in front.

  Vince clasped his knife, and was thankful that the three dead were spread out. He took out the first male ghoul with a stab to the side of the head, the blade going in four inches, but he couldn't get the knife out. Once the beast fell to the floor, Vince tried again, but was still struggling. The second, a female teenager in her human life, staggered over and snatched at an exhausted Vince. He could feel the nails in his shoulder, and the persistent man finally pulled out the knife and turned around to face his attacker. Its rotten mouth opened and released a growl. He head-butted the thing and front-kicked it in the stomach.

  He was more tired than he thought, and could see the creature only stumble a few yards back. It came for him once again, and he could see in the corner of his eye that his female companion was pulverising the head of the third one with her crowbar. Vince's female attacker lunged at him, quicker than he thought was possible, and wrestled with the thing, hoping Stephanie hurried up, because he was struggling.

  He fell to the floor, dropping the knife, with the beast on top of him, and grabbed at its cheeks to get some kind of grip, but he was losin
g his grip, and bits of flesh was coming away in his hands. The mouth of the beast got nearer to Vince as his fingers were slipping, and his hands eventually came free, to his horror, with a fistful of rotten flesh.

  The beast buried its head into Vince's neck and Kindl screamed out, waiting for the first bite, but two young hands grabbed the hair of the thing, and Vince rolled away as Stephanie had the creature under control. Still clutching its hair, she slammed it off the road, caving in its face. It took four slams until it stopped moving.

  She released the hair and fell onto her backside, exhausted and out of breath. Vince sat up and looked in aghast at what was approaching him, at what was approaching the pair of them.

  The melee had attracted the horde from the Wolseley Arms area and were now advancing in a line, like a dead army, heading towards the man and girl in a speed that seemed quicker that what they were known for.

  "So much for being clear," Stephanie sniped at Kindl.

  "Time to move," said Vince, picking up his blade.

  "We should have stayed where we were, by the river."

  Vince ignored Stephanie's moaning. It wasn't the time or the place. If the dead had made their way down the grassy bank to the bridge, both he and Stephanie would have been trapped, and another stint in the river was something he wanted to avoid.

  "Damn," Stephanie sighed. "If that car hadn't have hit that deer..."

  "It's called rotten luck." Vince glanced back at the advancing horde. "No pun intended."

  Now on their feet, the two of them began to jog away from the dead, in the direction of Little Haywood.

  "We're gonna have to pick our speed up." Vince's thighs were like lead, and was struggling to move despite the words he had just spoken.

  "There's no point going to Little Haywood if we're gonna bring a load of infected with us," said Stephanie. "Maybe we should go into the woods."

  Vince thought for a moment. He nodded his head in agreement with her remark about bringing the dead back to the small village of Little Haywood.

  He hobbled over to the woodland to his right and looked through the trees. There were many in there, heading towards them. They were reasonably far away. He couldn't count how many were in there, but they were scattered along in a line, like something out of a Zulu film.

  Maybe there was twenty.

  Maybe more.

  Maybe there was more behind the ones his eyes could see.

  What he did know was that going in there would be certain death for the pair of them, especially in his exhausted state.

  "Check the woods on that side." He pointed to the woodland, urging Stephanie to take a gander. She did as she was told, aware that the dead were getting near from behind, and gasped, "There's a few in there, heading our way."

  "Could we take them?"

  She shook her head. "When I mean a few, I mean ten or so."

  The girl looked behind her, noticing that the dead on the main road were gaining on them whilst they were dithering, and said, "I think we better hurry up."

  "Straight on." Vince did his best to jog away from the Rotters behind him, and Stephanie jogged by the side of him with little effort needed, to Vince's annoyance.

  The road bent round to the right. Vince and Stephanie followed it and suddenly stopped running, looked at one another, then looked ahead once more. Vince gulped and took Stephanie's hand. He took a peep at her once more, but this time she didn't look at him. She stared ahead and was becoming teary.

  Ahead of them was seventeen Rotters. Most were initially standing around in their dead world, oblivious to anything. But now human presence had been spotted, and they were shambling in the direction of Vince Kindl and his female companion.

  "What do we do?" Stephanie asked Vince. "We're surrounded."

  Vince assessed the situation they were in. There were seventeen Rotters in front of them, dozens behind, and many more coming from either side of them from the woods. "To get to Little Haywood, we'll have to go through them." He pointed ahead at the seventeen infected beings.

  "We'll never make it," Stephanie cried in defeat.

  "Probably not." He sighed and looked at a young, crestfallen Stephanie. "But I'm not going down without a fight. No chance."

  She nodded her head, but a tear fell from each eye. They moved towards the dead that were up ahead, and braced themselves for their inevitable death.

  "Don't worry, Brian," Vince whispered under his breath. "Daddy's gonna be with you real soon."

  Chapter Forty Two

  Her dreams had been plagued by the dead, being chased by them, but now she was awake and her sticky eyes opened. At first she had no idea where she was, and looked at the ceiling in confusion.

  She remembered now.

  She had ran from her home in Rawnsley, had reached the caravan site and had met another male survivor. A smile emerged on her face as she realised she was in the caravan that she went in for a nap, her brother's caravan. She yawned and tried to stretch out her arms. Her arms were hardly moving. And what was on her wrists?

  Her eyes narrowed in confusion, and she tried to move her arms, but her wrists had been tied to the bed by some blue rope. Panic began to shoot through her frame, and she manically tried to free herself by tugging at the rope, but all it did was burn her wrists. She screamed out and yelled, "Ted!" over and over again.

  She stopped trying to free herself, now that her wrists felt like they were on fire, and started to cry. What was happening?

  She could hear the door to the caravan opening, and immediately went to wipe her blurry eyes, forgetting for one second that her limbs were tied. Her eyesight was now reduced to a blur because of the tears, so she tried to sit up to allow them to fall and restore some of the eyesight back. It was a fruitless task, and because her wrists had been tied so tight to the bed, it was impossible to sit up. Her head had lifted a foot off the bed, but that was all she could manage.

  A large figure approached the bedroom door that was already opened, and she screamed out, thinking it was one of the dead. As soon as she saw that the presence was Theodore, she relaxed a little, now that she wasn't going to witness her own insides being pulled out of her middle. The reason why she was tied to the bed, however, did concern her a great deal.

  "What's happening?" she cried. "Untie me."

  He walked over and sat at the side of the bed. He pulled out a tissue and began to dab around her eyes. "Better?"

  She shrieked, "What're you doing? Let me go!"

  "Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that," he spoke with a smile.

  "What-what are you talking about?"

  "Nearly two months ago, when this whole terrible disaster kicked off, I was in Stafford jail. Thanks to the kindness of two prison officers, we were released and told to jump the wall. Four hundred of us did just that, although some stayed behind. The other house block wasn't so lucky. The officers had already fled from the other one, leaving four hundred inmates to starve to death. It was early morning, you see. The nightshift staff had fled, and the dayshift staff never turned up."

  "What are you talking about?" she screamed.

  "My point is..." Theodore Davidson—or Bear—turned away and thought for a second. "My point ... is that I've been given a second chance. Instead of starving to death like my former inmates, I'm free, to do what I want, any old time. Great song," he laughed, then his face turned into a more serious one. He then narrowed his eyes and snarled, "Basically I'm going to have as much fun as I can fucking get. Do you know why? Because you only live once. There is no God, no heaven or hell. You're born, you live a shit existence, then you die. I was put away for life for making a mistake, but I'm free. This apocalypse is the best thing to happen in my life, and I'm going to grasp the chance with both hands. I'm not gonna live forever. I might not even make a year, a month even. I'm aware that the bottom line is that we're all fucked. A few days or so, or even next week, I'm gonna drive north, because I don't want my last days on this earth to be stuck on a caravan site. I'm not just goi
ng to survive. I'm going to live. I'm going to enjoy the highlights of life before my inevitable demise."

  "But what do you want with me?" She already knew the answer to the question, but she needed to hear it.

  Bear smiled and stroked her wet cheek with the back of his forefinger. "You, my dear, are one of the highlights that I'm talking about."

  He pulled out a sock from his pocket and stuffed it into her mouth, then with zero hesitation he unbuttoned her shirt, making her moan in terror. If she could, she would have screamed, but the sock in her mouth was making her gag and she knew that if she was sick, she'd choke and die.

  She shut her eyes tightly and waited for the ordeal to be over. Why is this happening? Surely the last thing on a man's mind in this world was to abuse someone. But what was happening to her was nothing out of the ordinary. From Biblical times, to Medieval times and through WWII, women had been beaten, raped, and sometimes murdered throughout history. Russian soldiers, after invading Germany, were reported to have raped the locals.

  Maybe if she kept quiet, he'd keep her alive.

  Just let the sick fucker get on with it. But is that what he wants? Does he want me to writhe around? If I lay here like a sack of shit and I'm boring to the man, will he end my life after he's finished? Would he end it anyway? She had no idea.

  She kept her eyes shut and sang a random song in her head.

  She winced when she felt his lips and tongue exploring her breasts. His tongue flicked the nipple of her left breast, and she just knew that with his other hand he was playing with himself.

  She cringed when his hand explored further. He squeezed her left breast, too hard, and finally moved away from her. She kept her eyes shut, and could feel him unbuttoning her jeans. He pulled them off with little retaliation and kept on her knickers. She could hear him grunting and assumed he was playing with himself again. She could feel his presence, knowing he was standing at the side of her, and prayed it'd be over soon.