Chapter Nineteen
Their journey was wordless as they left the town of Stafford; there was a cloud of nervousness above them, as they didn't know what would greet them as they headed toward Cannock Chase. They didn't want to take the scenic route to get to the town of Rugeley, but they knew that there was a petrol station not so far away. They had also agreed that getting food in a populated area could be counterproductive because of the amount of things that could be strolling about, and also there was more of a chance that the kiosks had been already looted in the more populated areas.
The van pulled up at the station. Apart from a blue abandoned Mazda snoozing on the forecourt, the area was barren. Jamie pulled up the parking brake and looked around, he then heard banging to the back of him, the prisoners were hinting to be let out and he assumed the hammering mainly came from Pickle.
Jamie jumped out of the van and opened up the back. All four prisoners jumped out and Laz headed toward the kiosk, followed by Pickle and Grass. As the three inmates began to loot the kiosk with no hesitation, Jamie asked Grass to find the authorisation switch in the kiosk, and once he flicked the switch, Jamie tried to top up the van with more fuel. It had only been running for a minute before the fuel began to spill out. The tank was already full.
Janine cocked her head out of the passenger window. "I thought you had a full tank, and jerry cans?"
"We have," Jamie called back. "Just topping up, just dunno when the power will go down."
KP walked to the passenger side and gave Janine a smile. She smiled back disquietly and said, "I know your face, but I don't think I ever worked on your wing."
"Oh, I certainly know you." KP grinned. "You're the prison pin up."
Janine assumed that this was supposed to be a compliment, but with most of the prisoners being incarcerated for so long, it was understandable that their chatting up techniques had deteriorated over the years, due to lack of practice.
"Really." Janine sounded unimpressed. "I'm about fourteen pounds overweight with a fat rear, and I'm the pin up?"
She used her fingers to comb back her short blonde hair over her ears; her body language made KP aware that although his patter was substandard, she seemed flattered by the male attention.
Two minutes later, the inmates came back from the kiosk with bags of food, pre-packed sandwiches, crisps and chocolate.
"Not the healthiest o' food," Pickle admitted. "But it's food all the same. Once we get to ma place, we can stop off at the supermarket and get some real stuff."
"Thanks for the help, KP!" Laz spoke with sarcasm.
KP held up his hand apologetically.
"There's plenty more water in there if yer not too busy," Pickle moaned as he struggled with the four bags of food, two bags in each hand.
"I'm on it," KP said, and blew Pickle a kiss.
KP jogged toward the kiosk and was followed in by Jamie; they grabbed carrier bags and put the two litre bottles of water in them. They had managed to get three in each bag, which meant they were now leaving the establishment with twelve bottles—twenty-four litres of water. They placed the water in the back where Pickle seemed to be the organised one, by using three of the seven cells of the van as a store cupboard for the food.
"Need water?" KP asked Pickle.
Pickle nodded. "Got another cell that I could fill. Get plenty o' water and juice, even cans."
"What about tea and coffee?" Jamie queried, but nobody had time to answer him.
"Guys!" Janine called out from the van. "I think it's time to go."
Jamie, Laz and Grass turned to their right to look at Janine peering her head out of the passenger window. Pickle looked out also and saw Janine pointing toward the farmer's field, next to the garage.
There were seven of them; all stumbling around as if they had just escaped from a psychiatric ward. They were spread out; the two at the front were reasonably close at about fifty yards away, and the others were further behind. The furthest away was about five hundred yard away. This was the group's first experience with the beings.
"Where did they come from?" Jamie asked.
"Must be the wee village about half a mile away from here," Pickle responded.
"Better get outta here," Jamie spoke, and began clapping his hands to hurry everybody up, forgetting he wasn't in the prison anymore.
KP tittered, "No way, this is an opportunity not to be missed."
Pickle agreed and patted Jamie on the chest. "This is legal killing; us inmates have got some tension to get rid off. Remember what the radio said, KP. Damage the brain."
Jamie shook his head as the two men began to trot toward the field; Jamie looked at Grass, who cowered and went back into the van. Jamie knew that Grass would probably come unstuck against one of those things one on one, and although it may have looked cowardly, he picked the correct option in retreating to the van. Laz was the same; he was middle-aged and shook his head in exasperation at the two fools who were treating it like a big joke.
"It's ridiculous if you asked me," Laz blabbed to Jamie, he looked about sixty probably due to his excessive drug taking on the wings, but Jamie was sure he was only in his forties. "All they're gonna do is get exhausted and possibly get blood over the only set of clothes they've got. Fuckin' idiots. What happens if one of them gets bit? We'd have to leave them. We heard about this virus on the radio and TV in our cells before you let us out."
Jamie and Laz couldn't do anything now, but to watch as the two inmates let loose their fury and frustration on the first two beings. It was a fair distance away, and Jamie, although keeping his eyes on the 'fight,' walked around to see Janine.
"Don't ask," Jamie said before Janine had the chance to demand what on earth the muttonheads were up to.
Janine looked tetchy as the inmates struck the lifeless figures; the five others that sauntered behind them had managed to find an extra release of energy, and were gaining on them. Pickle and KP were now seen stamping on the head of one of them. As the other struggled to get to its feet, Pickle booted it in the face and stamped on its head three times. Noticing that the other five were half-galloping their way toward potential food, the prisoners retreated, which forced Jamie and Janine to breathe a blow of abatement as they began to run back toward the van.
Pickle looked out of breath when he returned, and spoke between breathing once he got back to the van. "T'was harder than I thought, we're gonna definitely need those guns," he laughed, almost out of breath then pointed to Jamie. "Little Haywood first, then Rugeley."
"What's in Rugeley again?"
"The highest point, and possibly the safest place to go."
"If you mean Stile Cop, it's not technically in Rugeley."
"Just go," Pickle half-laughed, who was in no mood for a geography lesson, and got into the front of the van. Jamie and Janine looked at one another, wondering what he was doing. "We may be out in the open at Stile Cop, but we'd be out o' the way o' the carnage and it'd be easier for us to escape with a truck and the open roads in the countryside."
"Err," Jamie began, "are you sitting in the front with us?"
"Well, I need to show yer where to go, don't I?" Pickle jokingly protested.
KP arrived a second later. Also out of breath, and waved his hand in defeat. "Let's go." He took a look over at the abandoned Mazda and decided against it; it was tempting, but being in a secure van was probably the safest way to travel at the moment, even though he wasn't driving it.
He jumped into the back, and Janine got out to shut the back of the door. Jamie looked behind to see that the bodies of the dead were fifty yards away.
"Wait a second." Pickle raised his hand, and Jamie, although he had taken off the parking brake, kept the van stationary using clutch control. The five remaining creatures shambled onto the forecourt, behind the van, and could be seen in the side mirror.
As soon as Janine returned to the van, Pickle ordered, "Slip it into reverse, and hit the gas hard."
Jamie did what he was told and
hit the gas pedal, feeling the thuds hitting the back of the van.
"Ooh, that's gotta hurt," Pickle cackled, and clapped his hands in delight.
Jamie wasn't moved by Pickle's little plan, but was surprised to see Janine smiling to herself—she obviously found the incident funny.
Jamie was hoping that Pickle was going to be a bit more responsible once they were all carrying guns. The last thing they needed was a psycho with a gun and began using these things as some sort of duck shoot.
For the first time, Jamie began to have doubts about picking up the inmates. He hoped that he would be proved wrong.
Jamie looked over to Pickle, who gave the officer a cheeky wink.
The officer drove the van out of the forecourt and took a look at Janine, who gazed at him with a smile so small and thin, it looked like a stitch sitting under her nose. Her eyes looked glassy and her face was soaked in concern for the future. Jamie could understand how she felt. The inmates seemed pleased just to be free, and the whole enormity of what was happening to the country hadn't hit them yet, especially KP and Pickle.
Jamie blew air out of his mouth and gazed at the road ahead, wondering where it was going to take them. The future didn't look bright, but for now, he was still alive, and had to be thankful for that.
Chapter Twenty
According to her watch, it had been twenty minutes since the incident at the cemetery, and Karen Bradley had now finally calmed down. Her heart had stopped jabbing the inside of her chest, her breathing was now similar to a normal human being, rather than a person who sounded like that their face had been temporarily covered with a polythene bag, and her perspiring had subsided, as before, her forehead was reminiscent of a dripping shower head that hadn't been turned off properly.
She looked at her undecorated fingers and thought of Gary. When he had proposed he gave her a ring, but she always refused to wear it for work, as she was paranoid in case she lost it. It was still in her dresser drawer, but she was never going to get it back now. She had stopped walking for the last ten minutes, and as soon as she sat down, a heavy duvet of tiredness had covered her and despite the horrendous situation the country was in, her body was aching for sleep.
Her head fell forward an inch, and she bolted up as her sleep deprivation gave her a fright. She rubbed her hands over her face and playfully slapped herself. Her nightshift at the hospital was catching up with her, and now the adrenaline was wearing off and she was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open. She looked at her watch and knew that normally she would have been in bed for at least an hour by now, after a ten-minute foot massage from Gary.
*
She shot up, her body was in a right angle shape and her back was now straight with tension. Karen placed the palm of her hands on the grass to compose herself and took a look at the time, she had been out for an hour.
She couldn't believe it.
She couldn't believe how stupid she had been.
It was an hour her body needed, but she was exposed out in the woods, and the cemetery incident happened only five hundred yards away. There was no guarantee that those things wouldn't follow her into the woods.
She brushed the grass and twigs out of her dark brown shoulder length hair, and mustered up the energy to get to her feet. As soon as she did this, she heard a crack, and wasn't sure if it was her knee or a twig being stepped on in the distance—she was hoping it was her knee.
She heard another crack that confirmed that her knee wasn't the original culprit. And although she was certain she could outrun one of those things now her body was refreshed a little, she still shook with trepidation.
It came from her right, deeper into the woods. She glared at the full bloomed, condensed, suffocating trees, and could see nothing but outstretched branches. She took a paranoid look around her before glaring back in the same direction, in case she was surprised by one of them from behind. The more she stared, the more she wanted something to be there, so at least then she would know which way to run. It was the waiting that was killing her.
She looked around to see if there was anything she could use for a weapon; she moved five yards to her left and found a branch the same weight and length as a club.
She ripped off the smaller branches that were attached to the broken branch and kept it in her right hand. Now that the smaller twigs had been removed, it now resembled something that could damage an individual if need be.
She took a practise swing as if she was playing softball, and was appeased that it wasn't too heavy to use if the moment of desperation arrived. She continued to gander into the crowded wood and thought that she saw a flash of a garment. Whoever was in there, they were wearing a red top. She was seriously thinking about running, but needed to see for definite that it was one of those things first.
Although she appreciated that it was a wacky thing she was executing, her mind was focused on following the figure that seemed to be twenty yards in front of her. Now she was walking deeper into the woods, and even though her own walk created the sound of rustling and the snapping of defunct twigs beneath her feet, she continued to pursue the figure that looked to be on its own.
The figure had stopped moving and as she crept closer, she was appreciative that her breathing was becoming clamorous as the agitation intensified within her.
She wasn't unequivocal that whatever she could see, had not seen her. As she was now only ten yards away from the motionless figure that remained on its feet, she dropped gently to her knees to get a better look, and grabbed the thick branch tightly now with both hands wrapped around it. She waited for it to make a move. Despite only being ten yards away, the condensed area still hid most of the figure and the only thing she could make out, was that it was wearing a red top and combat trousers. She was beginning to feel pain in her left calf and moved off her knees to a squatting position, which created a light rustle.
"Who's there?" a male voice quizzed in a threatening whisper.
Her eyes widened once the person spoke. It was human, a male human. She wasn't on her own. He asked the question again.
Karen stood to her feet. "Hello," came her short salutation.
His hands grabbed some of the branches that were disguising the female he could only half-see, and once he released the last branch, he walked into a spatial part of the woods where she was now standing. He was tall, had blonde short hair, had a prominent chin and was carrying a sports bag on his back.
"Thank God." He placed the palm of his hand on his chest. "I thought I was all alone. My name is Oliver. Oliver Bellshaw."
Karen lowered the club, and never realised it was possible to release a half-laugh and a half-cry simultaneously, but she somehow managed it, and the relief she felt was immense.
"Karen," she began and held out her hand. "Karen Bradley."
As soon as she shook his hand, Karen sat down on the grass and put her head in her hands, she waved her dukes at Oliver apologetically. "I'm sorry, I'm just off nightshift and I'm knackered."
"Ah, I noticed the uniform. How did you get here?"
Oliver decided to sit next to Karen, and let out a lengthy emphasised sigh.
"It's crazy what's happening," Karen said, oblivious that she had just ignored Oliver's question. The tiredness was mashing with her head.
Oliver nodded. "I woke up and went down to my local shop for a newspaper. Got attacked on the way there by two drunks, at least at first I thought they were drunks. I ran off, but they followed me back home. I tried to call the police, couldn't get an answer. Then I made myself a cup of tea to calm myself down and I put the TV on. The only channel I could get was the foreign channels. I couldn't believe what was happening. Then I left again to see if my mother was okay, this time in my car, but I got stuck in a ditch."
Karen felt her nose all blocked up and unashamedly turned away from Oliver and emptied each individual nostril, by blowing out and pressing the other with her thumb. "What about your family?"
Unbothered by Karen's action, Ol
iver answered her question. “Well I don't have kids, if that's what you mean. Me and the wife tried for years, but it never happened. Should be thankful now, I suppose. I only have my mum left."
She wiped her nose on her forearm once. She never made eye contact when she asked him the next question, as if she wasn't really that interested. "Where's your wife?"
Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "We separated two years ago; I tried to ring her, but she has a new guy now. I suppose she's not my problem anymore, and I'm not hers either. She never tried to call me."
"Maybe there was a good reason for that." Karen pulled an awkward face once she said what she had said; it wasn't something that she could take back. She probably thought that Oliver had thought about this as well, but to hear from someone else that maybe your wife was dead, probably wasn't the easiest thing to hear.
Clearly upset by Karen's remark, Oliver cleared his throat and asked with a shudder in his voice. "What about you?"
"I had a boyfriend." Karen felt a dull ache in her stomach; a mixture of emotions and the beating she had received from her carjacking experience was the cause of this. She knew that she was seconds away from bursting into tears. "He turned into one of them."
"Bitten?"
Karen shook her head and screwed her face, creating wrinkles. "I don't know. I didn't see a bite. I think he was scratched, and then went to bed unaware he was infected."
Oliver shuffled his backside to get comfortable. "According to the TV, before I lost the picture, there has been some kind of rabies outbreak in the north. It seems that they're passing on the virus through the mouth."
Karen placed her hand over her mouth, and gulped to prevent her sobbing, forcing some contents to escape from her nose. She sniffed hard immediately, trying to hide her embarrassment and said, "I just can't believe it."
"They reckon if one of them bites you, you're screwed. If you get ambushed by a gang of them, then prepare for a fate worse than death. Being eaten alive isn't my way of going, I can tell you that. Crazy isn't it?"
Snatchers (A Zombie Novel) Page 11