Paul's eyes then looked up as he felt a presence and could see John Lincoln towering over him, wearing a big smile.
Paul continued to gaze up at John and waited for him to say something.
At last John Lincoln spoke. "You look ... subdued."
"I think the word you're looking for is ... bored," Paul responded.
"I hope you're not thinking about going for another walk." John began to laugh.
Paul looked up with widened eyes and raised eyebrows. He was unsure whether John knew that he had been over twice.
Paul shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "Maybe if you stuck me out on a run, I wouldn't get cabin fever. Then maybe I wouldn't feel the need to escape this place once in a while."
"You lived at Vince's camp and Sandy Lane." John was baffled by Paul's statement and couldn't understand what was wrong with him. Maybe he was mentally deteriorating. "So what's the problem with this place?"
"It's a lot smaller. It's quite claustrophobic."
"I know your problem." John pushed his spectacles up and added further.
"Oh, you do, do you? And what's that?"
"You don't have enough jobs to do."
"So send me out on a run once in a while." Paul stood up and brushed his backside with his hands.
"I tell you what you can do."
Paul raised his hand and said, "No more water filtering, please."
"You can go and see if Terry's in. He was supposed to have been on the gate five minutes ago." John pointed over at the gate where James Thomson stood. "I want James to get a well-earned rest."
"What's wrong with your legs?" Paul stared at John, making him feel uncomfortable, knowing that he wasn't joking.
"Look, if you don't want to be a part of this community—"
"Fine. I'll go."
Paul walked over the road to 1 Colwyn Place and knocked on Terry's door. He turned around and briefly looked at John Lincoln and shook his head. Paul muttered, "Lazy bastard."
He waited a few more seconds. There was no movement from the main door, so he was about to try again, then hunched his shoulders and said, "Fuck it."
He tried the handle and the door opened. He stepped inside into the deathly silence and headed for the kitchen.
He decided to call out. "Terry. It's Paul."
Nothing.
The kitchen was bare; he decided to go to the bottom of the stairs and called on Terry again. There was no response.
Maybe he was elsewhere. Maybe he had gone for a nap and overslept.
Paul walked out of the kitchen and saw a door to his right that he hadn't seen before. He knew it was a door to the basement as every house had one. Only this one had a bolt across it.
Paul placed his hand on the bolt, unsure whether to pull it back and try the door, and hesitated. What could be down there? He then jumped when he heard movement behind the door and immediately slid the bolt back. He looked to the side and saw Terry had come from upstairs and was running towards him. His face was full of rage and grabbed Paul with both hands and threw him into the kitchen, making him fall to the floor.
"What the fuck are you doing?" snarled Terry.
As Paul slowly got to his feet, Terry went over to the basement door and bolted it. He then returned to the kitchen, his body language suggesting that he was about to assault Paul Dickson further.
Paul took a step back and side-kicked Terry Braithwaite in his left knee, making the man collapse in pain to the ground.
"What the hell is going on?" a voice bellowed from behind the two men. Stephen Bonser had entered the house and stood in Terry's hallway, baffled at what he was witnessing.
Wincing in discomfort, Terry pointed at Paul and said to Stephen, "He was trying to rob the place. And then he attacked me for no reason."
"Don't be ridiculous." Paul laughed at Terry's lies. "If I wanted to rob anywhere I'd go to number seventeen."
"Explain yourself," demanded Bonser.
It was no secret that Bonser didn't like Dickson, and Paul thought that this could be the chance to get him thrown out. The only problem with this was that Bonser liked the rest of them that had turned up days ago. He liked Karen, Pickle and especially, The Murphy slayer himself, Vincent Kindl. He wasn't sure if kicking Paul out would make the others leave. Paul Dickson didn't seem too close to Vince and Pickle, but Karen adored the man. And if Karen went, Vince and Pickle would surely follow.
"John Lincoln sent me here," Paul tried to explain to Stephen Bonser. "Terry is late for his shift and Lincoln told me to go and get him. I came in and heard a noise from the cellar, so I unbolted it."
"Just leave me alone!" Terry yelled and hobbled over to the cellar door and leaned against it.
Paul was suspicious of Terry's behaviour. His manic reaction was all because Paul had unbolted the cellar door. It didn't make sense.
"What have you got down there?" Paul queried with suspicion.
"Nothing!" Terry snapped. "It's private, sentimental stuff. Things belonging to my family."
Bonser asked Paul to step outside.
Once the door was shut and both men were outside, Stephen said to Paul, "Are you doing this on purpose?"
Paul had no idea what Stephen Bonser was talking about. "What?"
"Are you trying to piss everybody off in one week?"
Paul was unsure whether John had said something to Stephen. He hunched his shoulders and asked Stephen to explain himself.
Said Stephen, "There's a lot of dislike for you here, and most people want you gone." Stephen wasn't sure if this was entirely true, but he couldn't stop the hurtful words from leaving his mouth. "If it wasn't for Vince and the others..."
"I'd be out on my arse." Paul smiled. "I know."
"Yes, you fucking would." Stephen was becoming irate with Paul's not-giving-a-shit attitude and added, "I certainly want you gone."
"That hardly comes as a surprise."
"Terry has lost his family and buried them himself in his back garden. You have to respect his privacy."
"How the fuck was I supposed to know that he kept memorabilia, or whatever it is, of his family in the cellar? I heard a noise. I decided that I should go down. As for robbing the place..."
"Okay," Stephen nodded. "That was bullshit, I accept that. I think Terry was just upset."
"You accept that the robbing theory is bullshit?" Paul sighed, "You sound disappointed."
Stephen released a breath out and scratched his grey hair. He was exasperated with this man and wanted to punch his lights out. "Your cold attitude isn't winning you any friends. And now you've gone and assaulted a fellow resident."
"He went for me first."
"I don't wanna hear it." Stephen walked away and headed back over to his digs. "Just keep away from me in future. Got it?"
"Aye, aye captain," Paul guffawed falsely to wind Stephen up further.
"Prick."
Chapter Twenty Six
Craig Burns had to walk half a mile into the woods before he came across bushes of blackberries, and began to pick them, putting most of them straight into his mouth and not in the bag. He had never been in this deep before. Mushrooms from the ground were also picked, but there was no sign of anything else.
He now came across a place he had heard of.
In the woods was a Gruffalo Trail, something that was designed for children, as well as a large park. Most of the apparatus in the park—swings, roundabouts and climbing frames—were made from wood and the whole area on the ground was covered in wood-chipped bark.
He wondered how many people were here on that weekend when the announcement was made. Not a sign of a single dead body could be seen. It appeared that there had been no fatalities in this area, and people must have fled because the car park was empty.
He took a stroll into the park that was surrounded by trees, and scanned the floor. No blood. He placed the carrier bag and hockey stick on the floor, sat on one of the swings and lost himself for a few minutes, thinking about his last three months.
When Craig Burns lost his family, he had lost his mind for a few weeks. In the third week he had made his first human kill. It wasn't something he wanted to do, but he was in a kill or be killed situation.
He was staying in an abandoned house, in a street called Plovers Rise, and saw a pickup pull up. Two big men, sitting in the back were the first to get out. A guy with slick black hair stepped out of the driver's side. He was wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt that had tour dates on the back, and his passenger got out the other side. This individual was female, ugly-looking with ginger hair, and looked a right vicious cunt. It looked like that the four of them were going into people's houses and taking what they wanted, mainly food. On seeing this, he ran downstairs and bagged the little food that was left and ran back upstairs.
Eventually, they came into the house that Craig was staying in. Out of pure stubbornness he never left at first, but he did hide because there were four of them. He could handle himself, but these guys were armed with bats. He hid in a walk-in cupboard with the food and was relieved, and a little surprised, that these individuals had checked the house, yet the cupboard was never opened. Maybe they didn't think there were people inside and wanted to check solely for food and drink. And most food and drink in any house would be kept downstairs, in the kitchen. Craig had given it a few minutes, then decided it was time to leave the stuffy cupboard.
He went over to the bedroom window that looked out onto the main road and could see three of them returning to the truck empty-handed. There was one missing. He went into the other room, a girl's room once, and gasped when he saw one of them going through the drawers. He was looking in the cupboard and clocked Craig straightaway. Craig had nowhere to go. There was only one place he could flee, and that was out the main door which would lead out to the three in the truck. He never hesitated.
Although the man that was left in the house was a big fellow, almost sixteen stone, Craig began to rain blows. There was no other option. Both men grabbed one another and rolled along the bedroom floor. Craig took a few blows to his face and was losing the tussle. He fingered one of the man's eyes and had bitten into his cheek. The big man fell to the side, clutching his face, screaming. Craig panted and turned around, noticing a hockey stick in the corner of the room, next to a table that had a collection of hockey trophies. He grabbed the stick as his assailant struggled to get to his feet and brought it down on the man's head, killing him instantly. Craig never hung about.
He opened the bedroom window and went down the drainpipe, taking the stick with him, and ran across a series of back gardens before the other three found the body of their friend with his head bashed in. He then headed for Slitting Mill and stayed at an abandoned house.
He had killed three others after that. All self-defence.
Only a week later, he killed an aggressive individual who ambushed him as he walked along a main road. The man looked desperate, and to a certain degree Craig felt for the man, but he wasn't going to give up his bag that he had worked for.
The knife-wielding ambusher had been given countless opportunities by Craig to flee, but he made one lunge at Craig too many and was beaten to death.
The other two that he had killed were on the same day.
Two weeks ago, Craig came under attack again, after a month of no incidents, and nearly lost his life this time. He had managed to come across a car with the keys already in the ignition. He was excited to finally have a set of wheels. Not only could he travel, but a sheet of metal around him made him safe from those freaks. He didn't realise at the time that being in a vehicle would attract attention from other survivors. Looking back, he had been naive.
He was driving along Power Station Road, looking for petrol. Suddenly, his windscreen was smashed by a thrown rock. He lost control and crashed the car into a building, then was pulled out of the vehicle by two men and beaten. They jumped into the vehicle, ready to make off with it, when Craig pulled out a knife, something he had taken from his last accommodation, and plunged the blade into the passenger's throat. On seeing this, the driver left the vehicle and began to run away whilst his passenger sat with his throat emptying out on his shirt.
Adrenaline and rage took over, and Craig grabbed his hockey stick from the back seat and ran after the man. The man tired quickly and Craig hit him twice across the back of the head, killing him. He decided to leave the car where it was and went back to his house in Slitting Mill on foot.
A few birds tweeted their merry tune, forcing him to snap out of his daydreaming and could see them gliding over him with little effort. He then looked to his left and saw a wooden building, like a shack. He had never noticed this before.
He got off the swing, picked his stick and bag up with his left hand, then took a stroll over to the shack that was now looking like a kiosk for visitors. He could see a visitor centre behind the wooden hut, but knew there'd be nothing of value in there, and went round the back of the kiosk to try and find a door. The front part had metal shutters that had been pulled down, so going that way was a no-no. He found a door at the back of the small establishment and gave it a try. It was predictably locked. He dropped the hockey stick and the bag of blackberries and mushrooms to the floor, and looked around before charging at it. It gave way, flying open on Craig's second run at it.
He rubbed his sore right shoulder and had a quick look around. The freezer had leaked and had defrosted, but there was chocolate confectionary available, and he quickly began to fill his bag with an assortment of Cadbury's bars such as Twirls, Wispas and Dairy Milk. He could see in the now defunct fridge that there were many sodas to choose from and helped himself to some Irn-Bru and Tango.
Once his bag was bursting, crushing the berries and mushrooms underneath, he took a can of lemonade from the fridge and cracked it open. He took the delicious fizzy liquid down in one and belched softly after finishing the can. He dropped the can to the floor and looked round for anything else. There was still a few chocolate bars that had been left, that he couldn't fit into the bag, so grabbed two and devoured them both in seconds. Satisfied that he had enough supplies to keep him going for a few days, he decided to leave. He stepped back outside, now thinking of the poor family that had been brutally killed in that house in Slitting Mill, and took in a deep breath.
He had a quick scan around and decided to head back, but he was stopped in his tracks when a voice called out, "Hey, you! Stop!"
Craig Burns turned around and saw four men, dressed in jackets, about thirty yards away, walking briskly through the woods, over to him. He knew they were the same group of men that had butchered that family and wondered where they had parked up their bikes. He then saw two bikes, to his left, by a tree.
Craig put his arms behind his back, hiding the carrier bag and hockey stick, and asked innocently, "Anything wrong, guys?"
They never answered. Craig was a stranger. They probably just wanted to know who he was, but he wasn't going to take the risk. If these four could murder an innocent family, what would they do to him? A part of him wanted to stay put. Maybe they would have a chat and be on their way. He had already made a decision when the first man, sporting a grey beard, pulled out a trench knife from his jacket. Craig didn't know these woods, but he had to risk fleeing. And so he did.
"Get him!" a man yelled as Craig headed out of the park area and for the trees.
He avoided the dirt path and went straight into the condensed part of the woods. He panted and could hear the sound of the men following him. He hoped to God that there was no animal traps hidden anywhere.
He had a quick look behind him and could see that the nearest man was gaining on him. He was clearly the fittest of the four, as his three other pals were lagging behind.
With the added weight of the bag and stick in his left hand, Craig wasn't sure if he could outrun his nearest pursuer. The men had left their bikes behind, so surely they weren't going to stray too far away from them, he thought.
He glanced over his shoulder to see they w
ere still running after him, and faced forwards once more.
"Shit. "
He felt the ground beneath his feet give way and dropped the bag and stick as he tumbled down into a large ditch. As he reached the bottom, he picked himself up and could hear feet above him getting louder. The ditch was almost ten feet in depth and even though the hole could be climbed up because of the angle of the decline, Craig knew that he didn't have time to flee these guys. He hoped for a miracle. He hoped that the four men would run by the ditch.
They didn't.
Unlike Craig, they had noticed the ditch and he could hear their running turn into a walk. Chatter and laughter began amongst the men as they approached the hole. Their chatter suggested to Craig that they were relaxed. The four men peered over and looked down on Craig, all wearing smiles, except for the young man.
The guy with the beard turned to the youngest looking of the four and told him, "Initiation time, Jez."
Jez was a teenager, had blonde hair and looked nervous. He had been picked up by this mob a few days ago, and now it was time to prove if he could be a viable member for the future. He took no part in the killing of the innocent family. He didn't have the stomach for it. This was his last chance.
Jez took a breath out and slowly descended down the ditch, whilst Craig waited at the other end, unsure what to do and what this young Jez kid had planned.
Initiation time?
Craig still had his arms behind his back, hiding the bag and hockey stick. He didn't want his weapon and supplies being taken off him, but he didn't want to lose his life either. If he sorted out Jez, what would the other three do? Were they armed with guns? If they were, then Craig knew he was fucked.
Jez was now at the bottom of the ditch and looked over at Craig. He revealed a nervous thin smile, put his hand in the back of his trousers and pulled out a six inch blade.
Snatchers (Book 10): The Dead Don't Care Page 10