“Their presence?” Vince looked agitated and began to rub his hands over his scarred face. “I knew this wasn't finished. That Drake character can't be trusted.”
“Relax,” said Pickle.
“How can you say that? You saw what they did yesterday. They attacked us out of the blue.”
“I know they did. I was there, Vince.” Pickle smiled.
“You can't trust them.”
“I don't.”
Vince sighed and said, “So why are you not bothered that their presence is going to be around for a week or so?”
“They're not going to be hanging by the gate or the camp. They're gonna be riding around the area, that's all. And at least they've warned us beforehand that they're going to be about.”
“So what's the reason why they're doing this, chap?” asked Rowley. “Intimidation? Do they think we're up to something?”
“An incident occurred on the way back to Stafford. Drake isn't blaming us in anyway, but they want to hang around this area in case a certain somebody returns.”
“What are you on about?” Vince scratched his head. “You're not making any sense.”
Pickle laughed and winked at Karen, “Paul's escaped.”
*
His feet dragged through the bracken and despite the evening getting closer and the weather not being at its best, Paul Dickson could feel that his shirt was damp with perspiration. The heat in the woods was stifling, but he knew that by the time the evening was in full bloom, the temperature would have dropped and he'd be freezing. Staying in the woods wasn't an option for Paul.
He wanted out of the woods and hoped to find some kind of roof over his head. Even if it was a shed or a barn, he didn't care. At least after a decent night's sleep he would have a whole day to find a better place to stay. Then there was finding supplies. His throat was dry already, and wasn't sure he could last a whole night without putting any kind of liquid in his body.
He scanned the floor for any kind of branch that could be used as a weapon. He spent many minutes scanning the ground and finally found something that was adequate.
It was a thick branch, over three feet in length, and Paul bent over and picked it up. It was a decent weight, not too heavy to hold, and was certain that it would be good enough to put down one of those freaks, if need be.
Paul took a few practice swings and then carried on through the heavy plantation. With the experience that he had, he was sure that if he did come across the dead in the woods it'd be a few strays here and there he would have to put down. It wasn't common to find a large herd, as there was nothing in the woods for the dead as far as food was concerned. He wasn't bothered about bumping into the dead; he was more stressed about finding a place to stay for the night.
He continued north for another twenty minutes and could see that the trees up ahead were beginning to thin out, which was usually a sign of a road up ahead.
There was.
He eventually stepped out onto the road and walked fifty yards to the left where there was a crossroad. He decided to go right, and was now entering a village of name he didn't know. He didn't want to enter a place where there used to be people; he preferred to have come across a small cabin or farm, but the clock was ticking, it was getting dark, and he couldn't afford to be choosy.
He walked the full length of the village and clocked a house with an opened garage to his right. He decided that this was the place where he was going to stay the night. He walked along the side of the house and checked the back. He was pleased that it had a small fence that led out into a field. If he needed a quick escape, for whatever reason, that was it.
Despite being exhausted, Paul was certain that he'd be sleeping with one eye open. He checked out the back door and smiled as it opened with ease. It wasn't locked.
With his thick branch raised, he checked out the ground floor of the place and then reached the bottom of the stairs. He guessed that with the door being open and there being no car on the drive, the family must have fled. He knew it was a family home because school photos of a pretty blonde girl, no older than ten, were everywhere he looked in the living room.
When he reached the landing, his heart elevated. All bedroom doors were closed and the light outside was growing dimmer, so he was practically in the dark when he reached the first floor. He opened each bedroom, there were three in all, and was relieved that there were no surprises waiting for him.
There was only one room left to try. He guessed it was the bathroom. He guessed right.
He opened the door and could see that the bath was filled with water. It appeared that the people of the house had done what the government asked when the crisis was being announced, but must have left in the first few weeks as the water was filled right up to the rim. It had hardly been touched.
Paul dropped the branch, fell to his knees and cupped his hands, dipping them into the water and slurping the liquid down. He couldn't believe his luck. There was a long hair in his mouth that must have been in the water, but he didn't care, he simply pulled out the hair and carried on drinking from the bath.
He stopped drinking and remained on his knees, now panting. He stood to his feet and went back into the bedrooms again, trying to decide which one to use for the night.
The master bedroom looked like it had already been slept in, probably months ago now, and he walked out to go back into the bedroom that obviously the schoolgirl slept in. It seemed wrong to stay in this one. He shook his head and tried the other room, which looked like a guest room.
Like the other rooms, it smelt fusty because of the lack of air it had been getting for many weeks, so the first thing Paul did was open the window and had a look out onto the back garden. The garden was nothing special. It had an overgrown lawn, a shed that had already been opened at the left side, and a few small trees to the right at the end of the garden.
Paul turned around and could see that the bed had been made and smiled at how lucky he was.
Lucky?
He lost his smile.
He wasn't sure if he was lucky or not. Vince had once told Paul that he had no idea why he was trying to stay alive and that the lucky ones were already dead. Vince told Paul that it was something that a guy called Jack Slade had said to him, a man Paul had never met. A man called Gary Jenson had told Jack this. It was a quote that stayed with Vince. The luck ones are already dead.
Paul sighed.
So many people had died.
He shook his head to stop himself from becoming emotional and went back downstairs to see if the doors, front and back, were shut, then used a small barricade to secure them both. He then went back to the first floor, into the guest bedroom. He grabbed the dressing table and dragged it across the carpet, so that it was against the door. He threw the heavy branch on the bed, then climbed onto the windowsill, pushed the window open further and relieved himself.
Once he was finished, he jumped down, shut the window and lay on the bed with his boots on, just in case a quick escape was needed.
He released a heavy breath out and put his hands behind his head with the branch lying by his side. He closed his eyes, tiredness creeping up on him quickly, and hoped he would dream of his family.
He didn't.
Chapter Fifty One
Elza Crowe lay in bed with her hands behind her head, and began to think about how different her life was over three months ago when she worked in a shop. Her friend Ophelia could speak back then, and she smiled as she remembered the clubs they used to go to at the weekend. They went out on Saturday nights, as they usually worked Saturday daytime and had no work the following day.
She looked to her left to see Ophelia sleeping. They would sometimes share a bed, depending on what mood either one of them would be in. It was getting dark outside, but Elza was wide-awake.
Elza smiled at Ophelia and stroked her head. Elza's finger then gently ran down the scar on her friend's face and Elza remembered something from a few years back.
Elza, Oph
elia and a few other girls were working one Wednesday. It seemed like a normal day, up until two in the afternoon, then some guy walked into the shop. He was caught shoplifting, stealing a few dresses and putting them under his coat, and was confronted by the shop's security guard once Elza had notified him.
The thief pulled out a knife, making the girls scream and the security guard to beg the man not to touch him. For his interference, the guard was slashed across the forehead and the shoplifter then panicked and ran away. Elza was so scared that day that she nearly quit her job.
Her and Ophelia were so different now.
The new world had changed them, not necessarily for the better, but they had to be who they are now in order to survive. The dead and the living had caused them numerous problems over the months, but anything that was a danger to them had been dealt with. It was the way of the world now, and all Elza cared about was Ophelia and Stephanie. She didn't care about anyone else.
She made a sigh and stared at the ceiling, pleased that she had survived another day.
*
Stephen Bonser looked around the living room and took another swig from the Jim Beam bottle. It was the last one left.
Three weeks ago, Stephen and James Thomson had been out on a run and had come across a newsagents. They came back with confectionery, some medical gear and cigarettes. Most of the cigarettes had been given to Joanne and Nick Gregory, the only smokers in the street, and everything else was shared.
What James and Stephen didn't tell the rest was that they also had come back with twelve bottles of booze. They would have taken more if there was any room left in the car.
They had taken a bottle of brandy, Southern Comfort, a large bottle of Jack Daniels, three bottles of red wine and six Jim Beams, James' favourite tipple. It was wrong of the pair of them to do this, but neither one knew what was around the corner. They had no idea how long they had left on this earth.
James used to go round to Stephen's, where the booze was hidden, and they used to drink and reminisce about the world when it was normal. One night they eventually became lovers, and staying at Stephen's ended up becoming a permanent thing.
Stephen stroked the bottle that was being held in his other hand, and rested it on his lap. He brought the rim up to his nose and sniffed. He wasn't going to get drunk tonight. He just wanted to drink to James. And so he did.
He looked up to the ceiling, raised the bottle and winked, then took a generous gulp of the liquid. He screwed the lid back on the bottle and placed it by the side of the armchair. It was time for bed.
*
Craig paced up and down the musty-smelling living room and knew that he needed to relax, otherwise he was never going to get to sleep. He couldn't stop thinking about Jez and the way he died.
He looked over in the corner of the living room where he had stood up the hockey stick. It had been wiped on the grass after killing that thing on the way back, but stains were still present on the wood.
Craig raised a smile and thought about their short relationship and some of the daft queries Jez would ask him to break up the boredom.
Would you rather die from drowning or burn to death?
For a two-litre bottle of water would you kill a dog?
There were many others that Craig couldn't recall, but his mind then wandered again and thought about other things. He thought about his wife and kids and the scenes that he witnessed when the outbreak hit where they stayed at Alton Towers. He then tried to imagine what it was like for other people at other theme parks like Drayton Manor, Flamingoland and Thorpe Park. Some of these places had zoos and there were also safari parks where non-dangerous animals roamed free.
When people turned and began to attack one another, did they also turn on the animals? Did the dead try and eat a zebra? If they tried but the animal escaped, did the zebra then turn? Was that actually possible?
He shook his head and laughed at himself. All these questions were driving him crazy and were never going to help him sleep.
He sat down in the armchair, closed his eyes and tried some breathing exercises.
*
She missed everyone. She missed her family, her old way of life, and her school friends. But Stephanie Perkins was alive, unlike most of the people she was thinking about, and she had to be grateful for that.
The young girl lay on her bed as the evening grew older and closed her eyes, forcing herself to fall asleep, but every time she did this a flash from the past would torment her and create water in her eyes.
She wiped them for the third time since she had retired to the bedroom half an hour ago, and tried to go to sleep again.
She was tired and her eyes were stinging, but her mind was refusing to slow down.
She thought about seeing Karen the following morning and asking her if she could try sleeping pills, or even just one, but she was unsure that they had any, and if they did she would probably be told that she was too young to be taking those kind of pharmaceutical drugs.
She stubbornly stayed where she was, eyes closed, and knew that tiredness would eventually win in the end.
*
It was nearly ten in the evening and Terry Braithwaite was the unfortunate person to be doing nightshift on the gate. Vince was with him, but Kindl roamed around the street, showing signs of boredom already.
Jim Danson had been told to do a stint and was at the opposite end of the street, by the wall, and looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Terry had never seen a man so scared before, but was kind of glad that Danson was present. If the street was attacked again on this night, which everybody agreed was highly unlikely, Danson would be as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. However, Terry thought it was about time that Danson did some work, rather spending his time hiding in the house like he used to when Lincoln was around.
Danson and many others used to get away with murder when John Lincoln was alive, but things had changed. Although it wasn't official that Pickle was in charge, Branston had told Danson he was on nightshift duty. Pickle reassured Jim that everything would be okay, and if something did happen, Vince and Terry were present and Pickle said that he'd also be out in the street within seconds.
Danson wasn't comfortable by the wall, holding a bat, but the numbers in the street had been depleted and there was no hiding place for any shirkers now.
Terry turned away from Danson and leaned his baseball bat against the fence. He sat down on the kerb, near the entrance, and slowly dropped his head in his hands.
Like most days, especially when he had nothing to do, Terry thought about that day; the day he lost his family.
He thought he was the unluckiest guy in the world and had slowly realised that he wasn't on his own. Not only were there many thousands of people that were probably on their own after losing some family members or even their entire family, but some of those people were, or had been, living in Colwyn Place.
Vince had lost his parents, Wolfgang and Grace Kindl, although admitted that they were never that close. Pickle had lost his partner, but had never revealed about any other family that he had. Karen had lost her fiancé and had no idea if her mother was alive, or her father and stepsister that lived in Glasgow. Craig had lost his wife and two children and so had Paul Dickson.
Even if the country, possibly the world, managed to get on its feet and restore some kind of order, there was going to be a lot of people with mental health issues due to the trauma and horror that they had experienced.
Terry laughed to himself and began to shake his head in defeat. “We're all fucked.”
Chapter Fifty Two
August 21st
The shunned Wrath of Evil gang member—or ex-gang member—yawned before he opened his eyes and could feel the pain in his left thigh. He was surprised that he had managed to go to sleep at all. He had hobbled his way to a field the evening before, and eventually collapsed with exhaustion.
John sat up and looked around where he was. It was a new day; dawn was breaking, and h
e knew it was the pain that had pulled him out of his sleep.
He looked down at the top of his left leg, and could see that the sleeve off his shirt that had been ripped off and tied around his leg had stopped the bleeding, but the agony was still there. It had been nearly twelve hours since Drake made him stab himself in the thigh, and he wondered how long it would be before the pain became tolerable. He prayed that his wound wouldn't get infected and hoped any other complications didn't occur, but now he had to focus on food and water and how to obtain them.
He licked his wrinkly lips and rubbed his throat. He needed a drink. If only he could find a brook to drink from, or better.
John attempted to get on his feet and cried out when he stood up, as he accidentally placed his injured leg on the floor. He struggled across the field and hoped he could find a large stick or branch of some kind to give him support. He winced in pain with every hobble he made and eventually made it to the side of the road.
He looked to the left and right and had no idea where to go. Drake didn't want him anymore and his family were dead, so where the fuck was he going to go?
He tried left, knowing that right would eventually lead to Stafford, and he knew that if his face was seen anywhere near Drake's place, he'd be killed for his cheek of returning. Left would take him to Great Haywood and Little Haywood. There was a danger of bumping into some of the residents from Colwyn Place, especially if the locals were out on a run or checking the roads. But he had come to the conclusion that they were decent people and that Drake tried to take advantage of their good nature, but had underestimated the Colwyn residents and had come off second best when they launched the surprise attack.
The journey along the road was a long, painful and frustrating one. He had managed a smile and could now see the Wolseley Arms pub in the distance. Turning left at the pub would take him to that place where those people stayed. He had to go ahead and try and get into Rugeley, but that was another two or three miles. He was never going to make that. The dehydration was making his head pound and he needed some kind of liquid, even if it meant going on the pub's premises and going down the bank and drinking from the Trent.
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