“Aye, he should be.” Pickle smiled and blew a raging Manson a kiss.
Pickle rubbed the side of his face and released a gentle laugh. “Yer gonna have to hit me harder than that, son.”
“Probably used to hitting girls,” Drake mocked the Manson character. He was seething, saliva running out of the corner of his mouth.
Marsden held his hands up and told everyone to calm down. He turned to his own crew and gave them a hard stare, then turned around and looked at Drake and Pickle.
“Last chance, Pickle,” Marsden said. “I don’t wanna hurt you and your posse.”
Manson took a step towards Pickle and pulled out his knife. Marsden told him to back off, but Manson wasn’t listening. He had always wanted to do Harry Branston when they were inside.
“Now, that’s not fair,” said Pickle. “We only came out here for a discussion and left our weapons in the van.”
“Manson!” Marsden yelled. “I swear, if you don’t back off, you’re out. Got it?”
Manson placed his knife in his leather pouch and took a couple of steps back.
“Discuss it with your people.” Marsden pointed over at the others by the van.
“There’s no need,” Drake piped up.
“Please, just do it anyway. We have all the time in the world.”
Pickle walked back to the van with Drake and Vince, and Mildred was the first to ask them what was happening.
“So?” she began. “Are these twats letting us by or not?”
“They’re annoyed that we’re using these roads,” Drake began to explain.
“They don’t own the roads, do they?” Quint scoffed.
“Of course not.”
“Just turn around and go another way,” Stephanie said.
“Nah, they’d catch us up,” said Drake. “And I don’t want these cunts knowing where we stay.”
“We can ram them,” Pickle began, “but there’s a chance we could get by, but their own vehicles are still operational, plus we could damage the engine in our van.”
“So what then?” Stephanie asked.
“They want us to join them at Gnosall,” Pickle responded, “which is obviously not happening.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Then they want the van and whatever’s in the back. He’s convinced something is in there.”
“I don’t care about the chickens,” said Drake. “It’s the van I don’t wanna lose.”
“Same here.”
“I say we ram them,” Drake snarled.
“Easy for you to say,” Stephanie spoke up. “I don’t wanna be in the back of that van if you’re going to try and go through them. If they catch us, or if the van topples over—”
“Okay, okay.” Pickle nodded and thought for a moment. “I’ll go and talk to them.”
“And say what?” Drake queried.
“Well, I’ll just be honest. What he wants isn’t going to happen.”
“Pickle?”
“It’s okay.” Pickle turned and winked at the group. “It’ll be fine.”
Pickle made the twenty-yard walk back over to the two jeeps. Marsden stood inbetween the front of the two jeeps and had his arms folded. The rest of his crew, apart from Manson and Richard, who was still at the side of the jeep on the left, were back in the vehicles.
“So what’s the verdict?” Marsden smiled, but he was certain that the response wasn’t going to be what he wanted to hear.
“I’ll keep it quick,” said Pickle. “We’re going to decline yer offer and yer won’t be getting anything off us.”
“Is that right?” Marsden couldn’t hide his anger and his bottom lip began to wobble.
“Aye, that’s right, and if we see one another on our travels, we either be civil to one another or we ignore one another.”
“I need to be selfish to allow our community to feed.”
“Then start growing shit and get a water system put in place, because one day winter will be here and we all might be out o’ petrol to make any more long distance runs.”
“You’re a patronising cunt, Harry. You know that?”
Pickle smiled thinly and said, “Now move yer jeeps, otherwise there’s going to be a bloodbath.”
There was a silence and even Manson had managed to hold his tongue. Pickle looked over to young Richard and gave him a thin smile. Richard and Tracy had found sanctuary, but were unaware at the time that it was ran by a dictator. Pickle was dying to ask Richard if he and his girlfriend were being treated okay at Gnosall, but he was hardly going to tell the truth if they weren’t.
Marsden gulped and tried to swallow his anger. He forced a smile on his face and offered his hand to Harry Branston.
”No hard feelings,” Marsden said.
Pickle gazed at the hand and hesitated before shaking it. He eventually did, and once he was finished and released Marsden’s hand, he asked him if he was going to move his jeeps.
“Absolutely.” Marsden turned to his guys in the jeeps and instructed them to start the engines.
Pickle thanked Marsden, turned on his heels and walked away with his back to him. Marsden then narrowed his eyes at Manson and gave him a short nod. Manson quickly went into the boot of the car on the left and pulled out a shotgun, handing it to Marsden.
Marsden took aim at Harry Branston, who was less than ten yards away, and fired before the rest of his crew by the prison van could process what was happening and warn him.
Chapter Seventeen
Karen had returned to the clinic and was desperately missing Pickle. They had only been out for a couple of hours and she wondered what she’d be like if anything happened to him.
She sat down behind the desk and logged her recent visits, and then asked the guard at the door, of name she didn’t know, if he had any issues he would like to speak to her about, seem as though things were quiet.
“I’m fine,” he said with a smile.
“You sure?” Karen held up a stethoscope and added, “I could give you a once over.”
“Honestly. I’m fine.” The guard laughed and said, “Are you that bored?”
Karen smiled. “That obvious, huh?”
The guard began to relax and Karen could see that he was probably a handsome man many years ago, but time hadn’t been kind to him. The man was only in his forties, had a thick grey beard, straggly hair, and was of average height. He was also carrying a bit of weight and Karen guessed that he was probably a lot heavier pre June, before the apocalypse began.
“You don’t have to stand guard and be all serious around me,” said Karen.
“I know,” the man began to chuckle. “It’s not as if I’m getting paid for this.”
“And Drake is out as well.”
“True.” He nodded.
Karen reached out her foot under the table and pushed the chair out at the other side, signalling to the man to take a seat.
He sat down opposite her and folded his arms. “So what now?”
“Tell me about yourself,” she said. “And by the way, I’m bored, so don’t think this is me being all flirty and stuff. It’s bad enough Drake and Findlay trying to fire into me and—”
“Let me stop you there,” the guard spoke with a chuckle. “First of all, my name is Derek. Secondly, you’re old enough to be my daughter, so you don’t have to worry, love. I’m not interested in women full stop.”
“You’re gay?”
He nodded. “Married many moons ago, had a family, then we broke up when I told the wife.”
“How’d she take it?”
“Very well,” Derek said. “We remained friends and it was the most amicable divorce ever.”
“Where are they now?”
His face developed into a sad one and Karen regretted her question. She told Derek that it didn’t matter and that he didn’t need to say anything, but he spoke.
“I was out drinking with the lads and got home just before midnight on the Saturday.”
“The day it was annou
nced?”
He nodded. “I woke up Sunday morning around ten, still hungover, and put the TV on and checked my phone. It took me about an hour to get my head together.”
“I’ve been there. I suppose we all have.”
“I opened my curtains and it just looked like a normal day. And then I jumped on my bike and headed for my ex’s house. I got there and could see no car on the drive. She had left to go north.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I received a text when I returned to my flat, telling me not to go looking for her as she had taken the kids on the M6 and were heading for Scotland.”
“And you never heard from her again?”
He shook his head and sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
Karen leaned back in her chair and looked at the crestfallen man with sympathy. Everybody had a tragic story, but it didn’t make it any easier on hearing people’s tales about the first days of the apocalypse.
“Let’s change the subject,” Karen suggested.
“Okay.”
“There’s a pack of cards in the drawer. Fancy a game?”
Derek smiled. “Sure.”
Chapter Eighteen
The gun was pointing upwards as it went off, forcing Pickle to duck. He turned around and could see Marsden wrestling with young Richard who had knocked the gun upwards a second before it was fired and now another shot rang out.
Pickle was ten yards from the van, and Vince and Drake were telling him to run back, but Pickle couldn’t just leave Richard. The young boy had saved his life and Marsden was going to kill him for sure.
An unarmed Pickle ran over to the two wrestling with the gun and could see Manson backing away, but two of Marsden’s men, Hutty and Jamo, had left their vehicles and ran at Pickle, holding a cosh each.
Hutty was the first to strike and caught Branston on the shoulder, but received a left hook into the side of his face for his troubles, the cosh quickly being taken off him, and another punch to the chin put the man down. Jamo hesitated striking Pickle, and his hesitation cost him as Pickle struck the cosh at the side of Jamo’s head, putting him down, and then Pickle made the short five-yard journey to where Marsden and young Richard were, still wrestling with the empty gun, but could still be used as a weapon of some sorts. Pickle could see the teenager losing the battle with Marsden. He raised the cosh and went over to the two of them.
Richard let the gun go once he saw Pickle running over and watched the ex-inmate strike Marsden at the side of his skull, making him release the gun and stagger backwards. Richard saw Manson from the front of one of the jeeps, holding a knife.
A shocked Richard opened his mouth to warn Pickle as Manson raised the knife above his head, but an arrow went through his hand.
The steel tip had entered through the back of Manson’s hand, now sticking out of his palm.
He dropped the knife, inspected his right hand, and could see that three quarters of the pine arrow had gone through, with just a few inches sticking out of the back of his hand. It took seconds for his brain to register what had happened, and then the white-hot pain made the man scream and drop to his knees.
Pickle turned around and could see Stephanie putting her bow back over her shoulder and Drake and Vince calling over to him, telling him to hurry up. Branston dropped the cosh and picked up the knife that Manson had earlier dropped and looked around to see Hutty and Jamo still lying on the floor, groaning, and Marsden with his hands on his throbbing head, kneeling on the ground.
“Stay inside!” Pickle called out to the remaining gang members in the vehicle. “Or I’ll start stabbing folk.”
Pickle went to the vehicle on the left and slashed the front tyres and did the same to the other vehicle. He then stood up straight and told young Richard that he was coming back to the hospital with him.
“I can’t,” Richard cried. “What about Tracy?”
“Where is she?”
“She’s at the village. At Gnosall. We have to go back for her.”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t leave her. They’ll kill her when they eventually get back.”
“True.” Pickle had his head in his hands and couldn’t abandon the young girl. Her boyfriend had just saved his life.
Pickle pointed over to the prison van where they were all out, standing by the front, waiting for him to get a move on. “Go and join them. I’ll be over in a second.”
Pickle turned around, as Richard walked away, and looked at the carnage he had created. Hutty and Jamo were still on the floor, Manson was still moaning and writhing around in pain, and Marsden had got to his feet, but looked unsteady. Pickle went over to Marsden and as soon as he clocked Pickle with a knife, he held his hands up and said the word, “No.”
“Don’t worry, Marsden,” Pickle said. “I’m not gonna kill yer. Just letting yer know that I’m taking Richard back with us, but first I’ll be picking up his girlfriend from Gnosall and then we’re gonna head back to where we stay. I don’t want any reprisal from this, even though yer did try and kill me. Yer started it.”
“Okay.” Marsden lowered his head and could feel his head spinning as if he was drunk.
“Right.” Pickle smiled and winked at Marsden. “I’m gonna give Manson his knife back.”
Pickle walked over to Manson, as Marsden began throwing up on the road, and bent down and gazed at Freddie Newton.
“Here’s your knife back.” Pickle grabbed Manson’s left hand and rammed the blade through his palm, coming out three inches at the other side.
Manson screamed out and began to curl up on the ground, his eyes streaming from the excruciating pain.
Pickle, still bent down, patted him on the head and added, “Maybe that’ll keep yer hands from wandering for a few weeks, yer rapist cunt.”
He then grabbed the arrow, that was in Manson’s right hand, at the tail end, put his boot on his right arm and grabbed the arrow and pulled it as hard as he could, pulling it out, mutilating the hand even more, especially when the tip travelled through the flesh. The screams were hysterical and Pickle coldly wiped the arrow on Manson’s clothes and stood up.
He walked away from the jeep, back to his crew.
“Fuck me,” Drake laughed, and was the first to speak. “You put them all down with no fuss.
“Yeah, well. I had a bit o’ help.” Pickle handed Stephanie the arrow. “Here’s yer arrow back. Thanks for what yer did.”
Stephanie smiled and placed the arrow in her bag. Pickle looked at Drake and then asked if he was ready to go to Gnosall.
“Gnosall?” Drake had no idea what Pickle was talking about and rubbed his forehead. “What are you on about?”
“I’m sorry, Pickle,” young Richard said. “I haven’t said anything yet.”
“Said anything?” Drake said with a baffled smile. “What’s he talking about? What the cunt is going on?”
“We have to go to Gnosall.” Pickle’s comment immediately wiped the smile off Drake’s face.
“What?” he exclaimed. “When?”
“Now, I’m afraid.”
“No way.”
“Come on, Drake,” Pickle almost begged. “I can’t leave his girlfriend there. They’ll kill her and he just saved ma life.”
“And so did Stephanie,” said Vince.
“True.” Pickle nodded. “Ma life has been saved by a seventeen-year-old and then a fourteen-year-old. What a weird world we live in.”
“Is this really necessary?” Drake moaned.
“I have to do this.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Drake ran his fingers over his hairless head. “We’ll do it, but I’m not going out on another run with you Colwyn lot. You lot a fucking nightmare.”
Chapter Nineteen
The game of cards had killed forty or so minutes and Karen was now becoming bored. Karen and Derek talked and she found out that he was an old acquaintance of Drake and was a part of the Wrath of Evil b
iker group that used to congregate every other weekend for country rides and days out. Derek chose, like Drake, not to wear the attire anymore. He didn’t see the point.
Karen did some digging and asked about Derek’s family, but she was more interested in Drake, who was a bit of an enigma.
“He had a wife and a son,” Derek explained in short, “but they died.”
“No other family members?”
“Apart from his younger brother, Alan, no.”
“And how are you coping with all this?” Karen probed further.
Derek shook his head. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” he said with a smile.
“What?” Karen didn’t understand his comment and added, “Pickle told me when we first met, only a couple of days into this, that the lucky ones were already dead.”
“I can see his point,” Derek said with a snigger. “I suppose that made sense in the first couple of weeks, when there was so much devastation and death, but it’s calmed down now. It’s still a dangerous world, but I’m glad things have worked out ... so far.”
“Worked out?”
“My family are still alive,” he said. “I reckon they made it to Scotland, I really do.”
“Good.” Karen smiled. “Maybe you’re right. We could all do with a bit of hope.”
“Drake and the guys met up when it all kicked off, but I refused to move and stayed in our house for a couple of weeks. I went out one day, on a run, and was attacked by some thugs called the Murphys when I was driving through Little Haywood, on the way to the supermarket.”
“I know of them.”
“Horrible family. I heard Vince killed a few of them.”
Karen nodded. “There’s a story behind that, but go on.”
“Anyway, I managed to escape the attack and ran into a couple of my guys on the road. As soon as I saw two mopeds heading towards me, I knew it was them. They told us about where they were all staying, and then weeks later we decided to try out the hospital.”
Karen sat back in her seat and revealed a smirk, making Derek uncomfortable. He asked her what the problem was.
Snatchers Box Set | Vol. 5 | Books 13-15 Page 30