The Dead Don't Fear

by Shaun Whittington

  Vince went round the front of the van to meet up with his two companions and said, with a rare seriousness in his voice, “These are the kind of scenes that break my fucking heart.”

  Stephen looked to Vince and could see the sombreness on his face and was touched by this. There was a serious side to Vince, and Rowley never got to see it a lot of the time.

  “What are we gonna do, chap?” Stephen asked.

  Vince gently shook his head. “I’m not a religious man, but it doesn’t seem right that we leave them in there.”

  “You’re suggesting that...” Craig couldn’t bring himself to finish.

  “It’s for the best.” Vince ran his hand over his scarred face and added, “I’ll check if the door’s open.”

  He turned to his left and right, making sure the long road was clear, which it was, and reached for the door handle. It clicked open and Vince asked the guys if they were ready. They both nodded, reluctantly, and Vince opened the driver’s door and took four steps back. Craig opened the passenger door and he and Stephen also moved back.

  The dead boys were struggling to climb over the seats to get to the front, so Vince tried the large side door. He slid it back and two fell out. The remaining four headed towards the opened door and Stephen and Craig quickly ran to the other side of the van and stood next to Vince.

  “Right,” Vince spoke with sadness in his tone. “Let’s get this over with. Then we head. We’re two miles from the hospital.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Drake took the pan off the boil and poured the hot water into the mug. He grabbed a teaspoon and took a jar of coffee out and gave himself a heaped teaspoon full of coffee, no milk. He stirred the cup and walked away from the sink, sitting down at the table. He slurped the hot beverage and tilted his head back, releasing a groan.

  The door to the staff room was knocked raucously, forcing Drake to get a small fright, nearly spilling his coffee, and released a profanity under his breath. “For cunt’s sake.”

  He sat up straight and this time there was a gentler knock made and a male voice spoke, “Drake, are you in there?”

  “Of course I’m in here!” he yelled. “I sent for you, didn’t I?”

  “Do you want us to open the door, Drake?”

  “Well, unless you’ve developed powers overnight that can cause you to walk through fucking wood, then that’s probably the best idea if you wanna come inside.”

  The door opened slowly and in walked the two teenagers.

  Both eighteen years old, John and Ronnie slowly made their way to the table.

  “You two born in a barn?” Drake asked them.

  They stopped moving and took a perplexed look at one another.

  “Probably a saying you’ve never heard of.” Drake sighed and said, “Shut the fucking door.”

  Ronnie turned and closed the door and went over to his friend John and both were about to sit down, facing Drake opposite the table.

  “This won’t take long,” Drake said. He stood up straight. “There’s no point sitting down.”

  Ronnie and John stood straight with their hands behind their backs, waiting for Drake’s reprimand. They knew what this was going to be about.

  “I hear you guys have taken a dislike to one of the new members of our community.” Drake glared at the two young men. Their heads were lowered, eye contact was still being made, but they looked nervous and were like schoolboys being told off by their teacher. “Care to explain why?”

  It took a while, but Ronnie was the first to open his mouth. “I just don’t get it why they’re here,” he said nervously. “These people killed ours. I don’t understand why we invited them in to live like kings.”

  “We didn’t invite them here,” Drake snapped. “I did. I’m the one in charge here, you little spunk stain. Don’t you forget that. And yes, they did kill some of ours, but they weren’t given a choice. Don’t forget, I also lost my cousin. When my stupid little brother decided to grab a vehicle and go out there alone, what happened?”

  Ronnie gulped. “They caught him.”

  “And Pickle didn’t kill him, did he? He let him go and told him to give me a message about meeting up for a truce.”

  Drake ran his hand over his mouth and began to explain to the two teenagers, “As you may have heard, I called a truce in exchange for the man who killed many of ours, but he got away.”

  “We just feel uncomfortable with them here,” John spoke up. “Ronnie didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  “Well, get fucking used to it, because they’re not going anywhere. It took a while for my little brother to come around, so I suggest you two twats do the same, quickly.”

  “We’re just angry, Drake. That’s all. Barry McIntire was like an uncle to me and he was stabbed in the throat.”

  “The only person I wanted, and still want, to kill is Paul Dickson,” Drake explained. “He did Barry to take the pickup, and then this Dickson guy drove the pickup into the street, knocking men down and then stepped out blasting.”

  “It’s just frustrating that he’s still out there.”

  “I understand.” Drake nodded and took a drink of his coffee. “But he’s well gone now. If you’re so annoyed with the new people, why didn’t you attack the person they look up to?”

  “Pickle?” John’s eyes widened. “Um...”

  “I’ll tell you why?” Drake released a devilish snicker. “Because he’d rip your balls off and stuff them down your cunty throat?”

  John nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Look,” Drake rested his hands on the table and looked at the two men. “We all need to live together. There’re over a hundred people here now, and I don’t want any trouble. Winter will be here in no time, and we all need to pull together, do runs, and other stuff, and make sure we’re prepared for whatever hits us. This ... drama that you two have created doesn’t help anybody.”

  “I just look at the kid, Drake,” Ronnie spoke up, “and I just hate him.”

  “And why not hate Vince, Pickle, Craig or Karen?” Drake didn’t mention Stephanie, Joanne or Stephen on purpose. Despite surviving for three months, Stephen Rowley and Joanne Hammett especially didn’t look like they could handle themselves.

  “Because...” John started but never finished.

  “Because you’d rather pick on a fourteen-year-old boy, that’s why. Pair of cowards. Two eighteen-year-olds against one boy.”

  “But Drake—”

  “You two cunts should hang your heads in shame. Bullying is bad enough, but this kid?”

  The two young men sheepishly looked at one another and couldn’t give Drake a response.

  “Right, you two cunts, get out of my sight. And if I hear any more stories about young David MacDonald being bothered by you two cockwombles, then I’ll be kicking you out of this place. Compronde?”

  “Um...” John raised his hand, like a pupil answering a question for his teacher.

  Drake rubbed his face and said, “What is it?”

  “You said compronde. I think you mean comprende, Drake,” John corrected.

  “Just get the fuck out,” Drake groaned.

  He watched as the two young men left the staff room and sat back down to finish his coffee.

  “Pair of twats.”

  *

  The two young men strolled through the corridor of the old reception area and walked through the doors of what used to be the main entrance.

  They looked up to the dull sky and were thankful not to see the sun for a couple of days.

  “He ain’t gonna get away with this,” Ronnie said to his friend John with his teeth clenched. “Fuckin’ grass.”

  “You heard Drake,” John sighed. “I don’t want to be out there. We’ve got it good in here.”

  “We can’t just let it be.”

  “Yes, we can. We don’t have a choice.”

  “I’ll get to the little shit somehow?”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah.”<
br />
  “Well, leave me out of it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was time to leave Colwyn Place, and Pickle waited patiently as Karen and Kelly said their goodbyes. Karen kissed the girl on her head and watched as she went back over to Paul and Gail Smith who were standing in the middle of the road.

  Pickle was standing by the gate that was now open and had Terry Braithwaite standing next to them. Karen turned and waved at the little girl and then had a quick look around.

  “Yer not gettin’ all sentimental, are yer, Bradley?” Pickle spoke with a chuckle. “We were only here for a short while.”

  “We had some decent times here,” she said.

  Pickle stood and thought for a moment. “Yer mean when we had to kill a load o’ Snatchers by the wall, getting attacked by Drake’s mob, and yer having a miscarriage?”

  Karen smiled and said, “I suppose when you put it like that...”

  Karen stepped into the pickup and Pickle shook Terry’s hand.

  “Thanks for finally allowing us in,” he said with a pinch of sarcasm.

  “Make this a one time visit.” Terry managed a chuckle.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Seriously, though.” Terry cleared his throat and said, “Despite our differences...” Terry paused. He took an intake of breath and added, “If it goes badly at that place, then you’re all welcome back here. To be honest, the place is dead with eight less people.”

  “I know.” Pickle nodded. “I must be cursed. I don’t think I’m cut out for this leader role. I did it here for a week or so when John Lincoln passed away, but it went belly up. I’m better off just bein’ a part o’ a team. Vince was in charge at Spode Cottage, Lee James at Sandy Lane, And now this Drake guy at the hospital.”

  “You’re not cursed, Pickle. It’s called bad luck.”

  “Anyway...” Pickle cheekily saluted Terry and continued, “We better be offski. Laters.”

  “All the best, Pickle.”

  Pickle opened the driver’s door and winked at Terry. “We won’t be strangers.”

  “Don’t be.”

  The engine was started and the vehicle moved away at a snail’s pace and turned right once Terry opened the gate.

  Pickle did a steady thirty as the pickup moved along the Wolseley Road, and eased his foot off the accelerator when they reached the hump bridge that stretched over the River Trent. They reached the double mini roundabouts, with the garden centre to their left and The Wolseley Arms pub to their right, and Pickle turned by the pub and they were both now on Stafford Road.

  Karen finally broke the silence and said, “You and Terry were a bit frosty in the beginning.”

  “I can understand where he’s comin’ from, to be fair,” Pickle sighed. “Think about it. We come along, the place goes tits up, people die, and then we leave and take people with us.”

  “In our defence, the only original resident we took was Joanne. And it was her choice.” Karen tucked her dark hair behind her ears and looked out through the window.

  “He seemed to be okay as we left.”

  “I know.” Karen began to snicker and said, “I thought at one point you two were going to tongue one another.”

  “For goodness sake,” Pickle groaned. “What are yer like?”

  “You love it.”

  The male driver eased off the accelerator once a deer and two fawns behind it scampered across the road and disappeared into the woods.

  “Oh, wow,” Karen shrieked and watched the family through her wing mirror. “I haven’t seen anything like that since I was a kid. Have you?”

  “Not recently,” said Pickle. “Although I have spent a few years in prison.”

  They sat in silence for a couple of minutes and both witnessed something else that they hadn’t seen in a while: Snatchers.

  “Never saw a single one on the way here,” Karen said. “Must be going elsewhere, or literally falling to pieces.”

  “Nope,” he said. “They’re still around.”

  Pickle slowed the vehicle further and could count seven of them.

  Karen looked at him and said, “We can take them.”

  “I know we can. But if I can avoid conflict, I will.”

  The seven dead were in the middle of the road and walking towards them.

  “They’re not gonna move,” Karen stated the obvious.

  “I know.” Pickle stopped, switched the engine off and rubbed his hands over his face. “Wanna try a different route? I really can’t be arsed with this.”

  “What’s up, old man?” Karen teased. “Haven’t you got the energy for it anymore?”

  “Old? I’m forty-three, ya cheeky wench.” Pickle yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I just can’t be bothered.

  “I’ll do whatever you want to do.” Karen hunched her shoulders and waited for Pickle to make a decision.

  He performed the ‘turn in the road’ manoeuvre and decided to go back onto the Wolseley Road and through the narrow country roads to get to Stafford.

  He drove the pickup down Stafford Road and took a right. He went by the pub, the garage, and Colwyn Place in two minutes, and made a sharp left down a road that was so narrow that the grass on either side was touching the vehicle.

  Pickle had no idea what the course of action would be if another vehicle came the opposite way.

  “Slow down, please,” Karen said to the driver.

  He was only doing twenty, but the roads were so tight and bendy it made Karen a nervous passenger.

  “Sorry.” Pickle did as he was told and reduced his speed by five miles per hour.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t worry yerself. I’ll get us there in one piece, Bradley.”

  As soon as those words were spoken Pickle took a sharp bend and had to slam on the brakes. Karen released a profanity and the truck came to a sudden stop. A half eaten cow lay across the road and it was apparent by the wounds that the dead had attacked it. Its body was littered with flies and Pickle was in two minds whether to go back and risk facing the dead, or try and drive over the corpse.

  “What do yer reckon?” he asked Karen.

  “Just drive over it.”

  “Aye?”

  “What’s the worst could happen?”

  “Well, we could drive o’er the rotten thing and the weight o’ the vehicle could sink into the body and we could get stuck.”

  Karen crinkled her forehead and asked, “Can that happen?”

  “No idea. Never drove o’er a rotten cow before.”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t be such a drama queen.” Karen sighed and slapped the driver on the arm, then pointed over to the cow. “Just drive over the cunt.”

  Pickle sighed, shook his head, and said, “Beautifully put.”

  The pickup went over the cow with little fuss, and they were back at the hospital seventeen minutes later.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Okay, we’ve been told that there’s some large medical room where the drugs are kept, where the A and E department is, and that’s all we know.”

  Vince switched the engine off and exited the van. Rowley and Craig Burns did the same out of the other door, and all three had empty rucksacks on their backs. They all stood still and looked around and could see the devastation on the car park.

  “I’ve been to Stafford in just the third week,” Vince said to the two men. “It was never this bad.”

  There were little cars left on the car park of The Good Hope Hospital, but there were bodies and body parts everywhere. The buzzing of flies could be heard, and dozens of crows pecked at the rotten meat that was available. It was a scene of horror to the three men, but to the winged scavengers it was like Christmas. Vince’s nose twitched as the stink assaulted his senses, and he could feel his stomach turning.

  They were twenty yards from the entrance of the place and all marched towards it with their weapons drawn.

  Vince was the first to enter the dusky area, and the horrendous smell of death inside
the place was much worse than outside.

  The place was dark and Rowley nervously asked Vince why such a place didn’t have back up generators.

  “They probably did,” said Vince. “But don’t forget we’re nearly into the fourth month of this thing. The generators in Stafford were powered by natural gas. It is very easy to maintain, however, a full tank of diesel fuel can only maintain power for an entire hospital for about eight hours. We lost power in the second week, and by the third week every place that had generators probably lost complete power by the end of that third week.”

  They approached a set of swing double doors and Vince pushed one open and peered his head through, expecting the worst-case scenario. There was a long dark corridor and he told Stephen to hand him the torch.

  “I left it in the van, chap,” he said. “In the glove compartment.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to grab it before we pulled up?”

  Stephen nodded.

  Angry, Vince tossed Rowley the keys and told him to go and fetch it and meet them back here. He was given the torch before they left and he had put it away and had forgotten all about it.

  Stephen returned a few minutes later and gave Vince the torch. He turned it on and all three shuffled down the corridor in a tight formation. They stopped once they reached the drugs room and could see that there were double swing doors to their right, behind them, and, of course, down the corridor they had just walked down on their left.

  Craig took off his rucksack in preparation of filling it with every drug possible. The door was secure and didn’t budge when Vince tried to open it. He passed the torch to Stephen to hold and tried again.

  “We’re gonna have to smash it open,” Vince told them. “I know it’s going to make a racket, but I can’t see any other way.”

  “Let’s check behind the other two sets of doors before we do anything,” Craig said with a soft tone.

  Vince nodded and remained where he was as the other two checked behind the swing doors. They returned to Vince’s side and claimed that it was ‘kind of’ clear. There were no dead behind the doors, but they couldn’t see down the corridor, as it was too dark.