Snatchers (A Zombie Novel)

by Shaun Whittington

  SNATCHERS

  By

  Shaun Whittington

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  The author uses UK English

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  The Woods of Red Hill

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  The Monkey Wing

  Clan

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  SNATCHERS

  Zechariah 14:12

  Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will shrivel in their sockets, and their tongues will decay in their mouths

  Albert Einstein

  The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil,

  but by those who watch them without doing anything.

  Isaiah 26: 19-20

  Go, my people, enter your rooms

  and shut the doors behind you;

  hide yourselves for a little while

  until his wrath has passed by.

  Chapter One

  June 9th

  The evening was dragging gloriously to the twenty-three-year-old woman's delight, as another shift at the hospital was something she wasn't looking forward to at all. Karen Bradley's eyes reluctantly glared at the clock on the kitchen wall once again, as she supped on a cup of tepid tea. She had four hours to go. Great!

  What could she do in four hours?

  She could sit and watch a film, then have a long hot soak in the new bath that was fitted in five weeks ago. Then sit back on the leather couch to count down the remainder of the minutes, before having to go through the same rigmarole of putting on her uniform, styling her hair, applying her light make-up, and mentally bracing herself for another arduous shift in the accident and emergency department.

  The early evening was quiet, as her partner had gone on his usual night out on a Saturday. Despite that he had been working all week, she couldn't help but feel a little unhappy with his social expedition. Most people were going out, and she was about to endure another long shift. She admitted that her disdain toward her boyfriend was plain old jealousy, as it had been a while since she had been out with the girls or with her boyfriend, and she was looking forward to her next set of days off.

  Karen poured more scolding water into her cup to freshen it up, grabbed a chocolate bar from the cupboard and walked into the living room. She then threw her legs to her side and put the TV on.

  The first channel to come on was the twenty-four hour BBC news. She was about to put her romantic comedy TV programme on, which came with the package of the cable deal she had received, but her fingers remained still. The remote remained untouched, as her tired eyes continued to look at the TV.

  The anchorman was called Ben Foster, and the individual he was interviewing was a woman called Helen Reading, who was an author of a book about the breakdown of society. Karen Bradley brushed her short brown hair behind her ears and listened to the interview, but it all seemed very bizarre. Ben Foster was in his late forties and she had always despised him, as she thought he was a bit of a letch that leered at his big-breasted guests, as well as Alison Jones, the weather girl.

  The author was a doctor—a doctor of what, Karen didn't know—and although sitting, she seemed tall, gangly and wore thick brown-rimmed spectacles that matched her hair colour that sat in an old-fashioned bob style.

  Over the last week or so, Karen had noticed that the news, as well as the local news, had been reporting an alarming increase of missing persons, attacks, murders and cases of insanity, amongst people across the country. People had been attacked by their own family and violence in hospitals had increased, especially when it came to bites. She was more than aware of this, as she had three cases of bitten victims in her hospital the night before.

  The night before, she saw on SKY news that passengers on a plane from London to New York had been evacuated at JFK airport, after a series of bites had taken place while over the Atlantic. The six attackers had been restrained by other passengers and were arrested, but had to be rushed to hospital under police guard, due to the severity of their wounds. These kinds of incidents were becoming more frequent as the days went by, and it unnerved her.

  Karen turned her attention back to the TV and saw the two individuals on the screen had began to discuss press blackout, and that it was extremely rare. On the TV, Helen Reading informed the smug Ben Foster that the occurrence of just one blackout should be regarded as an immediate red flag.

  Foster argued that the violence was due to the world economy crash, but Reading seemed to already know what it was and disagreed wholeheartedly, as there were no other reports of violence in most other European countries. She was certain that any event causing the powers that be to clamp down, merited attention. Reading argued that the government knew what had been happening but didn't want a panic-stricken nation on their hands. She also claimed how unusual it was for a media-conscious government to cause a media blackout that had affected some channels, which she named, and said that the BBC would be next.

  Still gazing at the TV, the off duty nurse took a sip from her tea and left her unopened chocolate bar sitting on the arm of her chair. Karen then closed her heavy brown eyes, sat back and rested her head, still listening to Ben and Helen from the TV, but a blanket of tiredness had already covered her.

  She began to think about the man who was brought into casualty the night before, minutes before she left for home. Apparently, he had been attacked in a gang fight, and received bite wounds to his neck. She wondered how he was doing, as his wounds were so severe that he was airlifted to another hospital. She closed her eyes and continued to listen to the TV.

  Maybe just a ten-minute dose, she thought.

  On the TV, the debate continued.

  Anchorman, Ben Foster argued: "So if this sudden unrest that is occurring in the UK, and in some reports across Europe, is not from welfare cuts, job losses and spending cuts, what is actually causing it?"

  Reading: "We're not sure exactly—"

  Foster: "You're not sure? People are getting attacked now, this is no laughing matter."

  Reading: "It never has been."

  Foster: "So is there anything relevant you can tell the UK before we're...shut down, as you say." There was huge sarcasm in Ben Foster's voice.

  Reading: "We don't want to panic people, but my colleagues and I have heard that there has been a Rabies-like infection that has occurred in recent weeks." Reading sighed and reluctantly continued. "It's not actually rabies per se, but it’s similar in the way it can be passed on by bites. We recently had reports of a low-level outbreak in the city of Derby, in the West Midlands. We don't know why it's happened or where it came from. We had forty-seven reported cases, whic
h ranged over a two-week period. The infested area was small over a twenty-mile radius but had spread into rural villages and towns, and we fear it is now a wide epidemic, soon to be pandemic."

  Foster: "Pandemic?" Foster shifted in his seat uncomfortably. This was news he wasn't expecting. Was she joking? But why would she?

  Reading: "Yes. We believe the incident that had happened in Paris, the pockets of incidents in Murcia, and the biting epidemic that happened on the New York flight is related to what is happening here. As far as the UK is concerned, we're at a class two stage now."

  Foster: "Class two? What's—"

  Reading: "Class two is when urban or rural areas are infected, and we could have at least a couple of hundred of infected people, soon to be thousands. Class two outbreaks would most definitely attract media attention, hence the reason why we may be minutes—hours away from getting the plug pulled, but maybe they won't. The class one situation has been happening over the last two weeks without our knowing."

  Foster: "Why didn't they inform the public straight away? And why didn't they do something sooner?"

  Reading: "Because they didn't want mass hysteria. And to answer your other question, the incidents that have occurred over the last few weeks were blamed on people letting off steam, due to poverty and social deprivation. When really, it was pockets of infected people, but not all stories were reported, some had been blocked. For example, in the first week in June there were eleven people bitten in Hexham in a Pizza Hut restaurant. The following day, four were taken to hospital with bites after a fight occurred in a pub in Hartlepool. These incidents were never reported."

  Foster: "Is there such thing as a class three situation?"

  Reading: "Yes. Class three is when the infected are in their thousands. The mop-up process could take months. The government have already issued the military in the cities across the UK. Our army is pretty low in numbers, as we all know, with the cuts over the years. Expect riots, looters and widespread panic in the city of London."

  Foster: "Just London?" Foster half-laughed. "Typical. There are other places in the UK, aside from London! You do know that? And what about the people who live in cities in the north or rural towns and villages, miles away from the south?"

  Reading: "There may be pockets of armed police, but they're just humans who would want to be with their families. They will only have themselves to depend on. Governments of any type are nothing more than a collection of human beings that are fearful, arrogant and incompetent as the rest of us. Even in perfect conditions, containing anything larger than a class two outbreak is extremely difficult. Imagine trying to quarantine a city like London or Birmingham."

  Foster: "A lot of people watching this will be very sceptical. We have two other experts on after you concerning this, all with different theories."

  Reading: "There will be a lot of scepticism, and many other people coming on TV, if the channels are still on, will be putting across their own theories. But whatever the real reason, this—whatever it is—whether you believe it's a science made virus or an act of God, it's happening right now."

  Foster: "Is there a class four situation?"

  Reading: "Yes. But you don't wanna know."

  Although it was unplanned, Karen had fallen asleep. The last minute of the conversation that had occurred from the television hadn't been taken in, and she was oblivious that the world, as she knew it, was about to change for the worse.

  Then suddenly her eyes opened and she could see a passionate preacher on the TV, his passion was for all to see. She caught some of his words, but not all of it.

  "My fellow Christians, we shall suffer in life, but Heaven will be our eternal life, so fear not! For everyone else, all you sinners, you asked for this! Instead of leading a long life reeked with sin, Hell is coming to you now! It's coming to Earth. You have been ignoring the word of the Lord for too long, and now it's time to pay the price."

  Karen turned down the volume of the TV and closed her eyes once more. Her body rested for a full hour and when she woke, she opened her eyes to see a blank screen in front of her. She never fretted why this was so and switched the TV off to go upstairs, read her book, then got ready for work. She had a tough night ahead of her, but what Karen Bradley didn't know, was that life from now on was going to be one constant struggle.

  Chapter Two

  June 10th

  Morning had arrived, and the sky was slowly prised open to allow the sun's rays to spill out onto the area through the gaping gap of the clouds. His head smarted and awoke to see his old foe, darkness, had finally disappeared. His window was shut, but he could hear the faint sound of a dog crying outside like a broken hearted man, as he lay on his bed. He suddenly remembered where he was, and why he was there.

  It was his birthday.

  Life begins at forty. What a myth!

  Surely the fourth decade heralds the beginning of the end? Jack Slade thought, and had a slight chuckle to himself when he deliberated about that quote, despite his fragile condition. He thought about how many people he knew in their twenties or thirties who had had heart attacks or contracted cancer. There were none! Because most of the people that he had known had passed away through the years had all been over the age of forty, and Jack was certain that he was now at a more dangerous stage in his life.

  He opened his sticky, sappy eyes. He was relieved to be still alive.

  It was his birthday the day before, and it had to have been the saddest fortieth party a Friday night had ever witnessed in the city. To call it a party probably was an insult to the word itself. It was more a self-indulgence night of alcohol and substances, which some members of society wouldn't approve of. Jack was alone, and had originally planned on hitting the clubs with a friend, but he had let him down at the last minute, leaving Jack to crawl the Glasgow bars alone.

  Jack sat up from his bed and moaned as soon as his body went into a right angle shape.

  His back was hunched over like a ninety-year-old man, and he placed both hands on his throbbing head. He felt under the weather and he knew it was self-inflicted, as his head smarted. This had been his worst ever hangover; even more atrocious than when he took a trip to Bournemouth to visit his friend who was attending the university there ten years ago. That had been another weekend drenched in alcohol.

  Jack was originally from Rugeley, in Staffordshire, and he and his friend, James, had arranged one weekend to see their old friend, and took the three hour drive to the south of England, spending their time driving extremely fast, listening to dance music and smoking far too many cigarettes.

  When they arrived at Bournemouth, they had spent a few hours in the campus and then proceeded to go to some of the nightclubs that Bournemouth had to offer. After spending most of the night drinking brandy and cokes, some of the boys had made the sensible decision to escort Jack home, as he was paralytic with alcohol and was bouncing off the walls. If they hadn't escorted him home, he was going to be escorted off the premises anyway, as the bouncers at the time were looking somewhat concerned.

  Once he got back to the campus, Jack collapsed onto the floor where he slept for most of the night. When he awoke, and still drunk from the night before, he went to make himself a cup of tea and poured orange juice into his cup instead of milk—a story his friends still talked and laughed about many years after.

  That was then, but now he was forty and should have known better.

  He finally mustered the strength to place his feet onto the carpet of the room, and dressed in his jeans only, he stood to his feet. He was expecting the room to spin, but it never happened to his delight. He shuffled over to the bathroom and went in to deplete his bladder.

  When he walked into the room, his attention was distracted. He approached the sink in the average sized bathroom and looked in the large mirror. His short brown hair was sticking up like a toilet brush. He looked to be carrying a bit of weight, his chest and shoulders were in need of a wax, and he turned around to see that his back had t
oo much hair on for his liking. He wasn't impressed with his Teen Wolf look, and knew that sometime in the near future he was going to have to book himself another wax session in the salon that was only streets away from his work. It wasn't something he wanted to do, but it was a necessity if he wanted to remain attractive to the opposite sex—not that he was beating them off with a stick.

  It would only be his third time visiting the salon, and although a requirement, he wasn't looking forward to it. The main experience that forced him to re-think his look was a year ago where he went over to a woman in a bar and spent three hours chatting to her. They exchanged numbers and saw one another the next night, this time meeting up in a restaurant. It was the second night he had seen her and she invited him back to her house. One thing led to another, they kissed furiously and began to undress one another and as soon as she took his top off, she stared and placed her hand over her mouth.

  This was never a good sign.

  She made her excuses about a migraine and politely asked him to leave. Jack couldn't believe it; he was a bit hairy, that's all. It wasn't as if he had four nipples!

  Jack was reasonably attractive, he had put on a little weight since his twenties, and his cheekbones had slowly disappeared. The side of his hair had begun to materialise grey hairs and at first he started to pluck them out, but he had succumbed to defeat after five years of plucking. The army of grey had still managed to multiply, despite the fact some of their early subordinates had been eliminated. They had started at the side of his hair, and it looked like their plan was to grow further up and multiply till they reached the top of the scalp.