He took out the letter and put it on top of the sack, then ran as fast as he could down the street, heading back to the Meriva. He jumped into the vehicle and did a U turn in the road, looking in the rear view mirror.
No one was following him, and a smile stretched across the features of Graham. He had achieved the difficult part, now he had to get back to Gnosall unscathed. And with the dead and other desperate survivors out there, this wasn’t always a certainty.
For reasons he was unsure of, Graham put on the radio and was greeted by the noise of crackling. He skipped channels and eventually gave up, turning it off. He remembered the weekend it started and even then most stations were defunct. He had come across one channel that was playing an album of various artists on a loop, which told Graham that maybe the DJ wasn’t there anymore, and another channel that was informing survivors what to do in this crisis to enhance their survival.
Graham sighed with sadness. Those days seemed a thousand years ago, let alone the days when the world was normal, and dropped a gear when he reached a hill. Over the hill was Milford, and he began to sing a tune called Get Miles by a British band called Gomez. He had no radio, but he still had a catalogue of music in his head he listened to over the years.
Graham Fellows sang for the rest of the journey and had made it back to Gnosall with little fuss.
He had delivered, and Marsden was going to be happy with him.
Graham never asked what was in the sack.
He never dared to.
Chapter Fifty
Findlay was daydreaming, thinking about his girlfriend. She was a student at Keele University, studying law, and had been in contact with her for the first few days of the apocalypse and then, on the Monday, he tried dozens of times, but there was no answer. He hoped she’d be like him now: Alive, and in some kind of camp. Maybe the students had taken over a part of the university and were doing what they were at Stafford Hospital.
He could only hope.
Findlay’s ears twitched as his senses picked up a sound. He was facing away from the gate, staring into space before he heard the sound, and could now hear that it was footsteps.
He turned to see a man running towards him, holding a sack. He grabbed his radio and said, “All units, I think we may have a problem at the gate.” He then elaborated what was going on.
The man dropped the sack, ten yards from the gate, pulled out a letter, placed it on the sack and ran away. A silver Meriva was seen pulling out of the street in the distance minutes later, and a voice from behind startled Findlay. It was Drake.
“What the fuck is going on?” Drake snapped. “You said a man was running to the gate. Where the fuck is he?”
“Gone,” was Findlay’s short answer.
Vince and Karen turned up, as well as the guards from outside, and Drake asked Peter and Roger’s replacements if they had seen anything. Their answer was no.
“What’s that?” Vince pointed at the sack, yards from the gate.
“That’s what he left,” Findlay answered.
“What?” Vince and Karen asked in unison, equally confused with the story.
“Explain, Finners,” Drake said. “Because none of us have a clue what the cunt you’re talking about.”
“Okay.” Findlay groaned and put his hands in his pockets. “I saw a man running towards the gate. He was holding that sack. He then put it down and ran away.”
“So he was on foot?” Karen asked.
“He got into a car that was parked halfway down the road and fucked off.”
“Right.” Drake thought for a moment and looked at the sack. He turned to Findlay and told him to open the gate, go out, and open it.
“No way,” Findlay shrieked. “I don’t know what’s in there. It could be snakes.”
“Don’t be a cunt,” Drake huffed, and stepped over to the gate and slid it back. “I’ll do it, for fuck’s sake. There’s a letter on top of it, so it must be a message of some kind.”
He took a step out of the hospital grounds and hesitated for a moment. He gulped, took in a breath, and walked over to the sack. He bent down, grabbed the letter and stuffed it into his pocket, then took a hold of the sack and went back onto the hospital grounds, with Findlay sliding the gate shut as Drake returned.
Drake said, “As soon as Pickle and the rest return, we’re definitely parking that van in front of that gate from now on.”
“Never mind that,” Karen spoke up, riddled with intrigue. “Open up that sack, for God’s sake.”
Drake looked reluctant. They could all see it, but he was the leader and couldn’t back down now. He opened up the sack slowly and kept his eyes narrow, unsure he wanted to see what was in there.
“What’s in there?” Vince was the first to ask.
Drake could see towels individually wrapped around something, the same shape as a football, and was in two minds whether to put his hands in and take out the four circular shapes that were wrapped in the towels, or to just turn the sack upside down and empty it out.
“Hold the bag ... sack ... whatever it is,” he instructed Findlay, his nose wincing with a pungent smell escaping from inside the sack.
Findlay held the sack and Drake placed his two arms in and picked out the first circular shape that was wrapped in a thin brown towel. Findlay remained holding the sack open as Drake placed the object wrapped up on the ground.
Drake puffed out a breath and looked at the three guards, including Findlay, Karen and Vince. Vince nodded at Drake to get a move on, and the thirty-seven-year-old man slowly unravelled the towel. He took a step back as the others gasped and tears filled Karen’s eyes. It was a head. The thing wrapped in the towel was a severed head.
There was no blood on the face, as if it had been washed, drained, or hosed down before being wrapped up, and Vince could feel his throat harden when his brain realised that his eyes were looking at the severed head of young David MacDonald.
“Shit,” Drake sighed.
He liked young David and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Drake had done some despicable things in the recent past, but decapitating a fourteen-year-old kid was the work of sick bastards.
Drake shook his head and moaned under his breath, “What have you Colwyn lot dragged us in to now?”
“Drake?” Findlay was still holding the bag.
Drake looked up and nodded.
He knew that what Findlay meant was that he needed to hurry up. The suspense was torturing everybody.
Drake picked out another object, which they all now presumed to be another head, and placed it on the ground. He rubbed his face and looked up to Vince who was biting his nails, and then Karen who had her hand over her mouth, fearing the worst.
Drake carefully grabbed the end part of the material and slowly unravelled it. It was Richard. Drake looked up at Karen, who had tears in her eyes, and gulped, “Two left.”
“Just do it,” Vince snapped. He could feel his pulse at the side of his neck slamming underneath the skin. He feared for Pickle, but Stephanie had also gone out there and he feared for her safety more than anything else.
Drake placed his hands in the sack once more and pulled out another wrapped head, they all presumed now.
He placed it on the floor and Vince’s eyes filled as he saw part of a blonde ponytail revealed before the towel had been unwrapped.
Karen started crying and held Vince’s hand. Drake began to carefully ‘unwrap’ the towel and even though they all knew it was Stephanie, it was confirmed when the material had been removed and her lifeless eyes looked up at Vincent Kindl.
Karen moved in and wrapped her arms around Kindl.
“Marsden,” Vince spat. “Fucking Marsden.”
Stephanie’s face was pale as ivory and Vince gazed at her lifeless eyes, tears streaming down his face.
“I’m gonna kill ‘em all,” he snapped. “They’re all fucking dead.”
Drake had never seen such butchery and was finding it difficult himself to keep his emotion
s intact.
“Last one,” he said, and cleared his throat.
Drake reached in and picked up the last head.
“What did they do with the rest of their bodies?” Karen sobbed. Nobody could give her an answer.
Drake placed the wrapped up head on the ground and looked up at a broken Vince and Karen. He felt for them, he really did, but he was also annoyed that they had brought this here. The only people Drake had warmed to were Karen and Pickle, and now it appeared that Pickle was dead.
“Do you want to look?” Drake asked Karen, knowing that her and Pickle were close.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes.
“Close your eyes,” Vince told her, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll look.”
Drake shrugged his shoulders, began unwrapping the towel, and said, “Only one way to confirm it.”
Once the head was revealed, Karen turned and looked. She then gasped and placed her hand over her mouth.
Chapter Fifty-One
Dickson still hadn’t touched the beans that were in his bag and was trying to wait until the next morning, but his stomach had other ideas.
He decided to treat himself and have his first tin warm, but that would consist of making a fire, which had to be done anyway. Dickson needed to get more water from the nearby stream and boil what he collected, so he was killing two birds with one stone.
He left the cabin, with his rucksack over his shoulder, and headed for the stream. Once he reached the place, he drank what was left in his jar and then dipped it into the ice cold water and filled it up. He splashed his face a couple of times, and then moved away and progressed through the woods to try and find a place to build a fire. He dropped his bag on the floor and gathered a bundle of sticks.
He placed a flat piece of wood from his bag on the ground and grabbed a branch and put the end of it on the flat wood and began twisting it, using both hands. It took a while, but the friction eventually created hot ember, which he put into the bundle of sticks and gently blew it, igniting the bundle. He added more dry sticks and had a decent fire going after a few minutes. He balanced the jar of stream water on top of the fire and then opened up a tin of beans with the knife that he kept down his sock. The tin was sharp and jaggy once it was off, and he put it into his pocket.
He used a Y shaped stick from his bag to hover the tin over the flames.
The tin was over the flames for a few minutes and a ravenous Paul Dickson felt that that was long enough. He pulled out a plastic spoon from his bag and began to dig in whilst his jar of water continued to boil.
It took just seconds for him to get through the tin. The last spoonful of beans went into Dickson’s mouth and he felt a prick on the back of his neck. He froze and could see two men walk from the side of him and were now in front of his eyes. It was the men from the farmhouse. He knew it was them.
The men he could see were bearded, in their late thirties/early forties, and were all wearing trench coats that hung just a few inches from the ground.
The man with the grey beard was the guy that decided to speak up. Dickson guessed correctly that he was the leader. The third man was obviously the guy that had the tip of a blade to the back of Paul Dickson’s neck.
“A tin of beans?” the man with the grey beard spoke up. “How were they?”
Dickson continued to chew his last mouthful and never answered. He winced slightly when he could feel the blade going into his neck by millimetres.
“He’s talking to you, arsehole,” the voice said from behind.
He still never answered and the leader nodded at the man beside him to take a look in Dickson’s rucksack. He stepped over to the bag and he looked inside.
“A few things in here, Malky,” he said. “Including five tins of beans.”
“Five tins.” the Malky character made a facial expression to Dickson, asking him to explain himself, but he remained tight-lipped.
“So that’s six tins, including the empty one by his feet,” said the man from behind.
“Well done,” Malky snickered.
The guy that had gone through Dickson’s bag looked angry and pulled out a knife from his leather holster. “So you’re the guy that robbed us and killed Billy.”
He took a step forward, but Malky placed his arm out, stopping the man from progressing any further. “Let’s do him slowly, Dave,” said Malky.
Dave nodded and was told to go over to their captor and take his machete away. He did just that and stood next to Malky, holding Dickson’s machete in his right hand.
“Can’t we just do him now?” the man behind said, his knife still on the back of Dickson’s neck. “All I need to do is push this knife in and we’re done.”
“Not yet.” Malky eyed Dickson who stared into space. “I wanna fuck him before we finish him off.”
“Can I fuck him as well?” Dave asked.
Malky nodded. “Yeah, but I’m doing him first.”
Dickson remained calm and placed his hand in his right pocket. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Were they seriously having a discussion who was going to have sex with him first?
The three men continued to converse and Dickson could feel the tip of the blade easing off.
“What’s shall we do with him first?” the Dave character asked.
“I reckon we should stab him in the legs for a starter,” the man from behind said.
Dickson continued to stare out and could feel the blade resting on his shoulder as the man behind continued to talk.
“Sounds like a plan,” the Malky character said.
“Then maybe we should take his eyes out.”
Paul lifted his hand up to his forehead and began scratching it. He took in a deep breath and mentally counted to three. Once he reached three, he then grabbed the man’s wrist and pulled him over his shoulder, hitting the ground. Dickson had the lid from the beans in his right hand and slashed at the man’s throat before the other two knew what was going on. Dave was the first to react.
He raised the machete and ran towards Dickson, but Paul had already pulled out his knife, held the tip of the blade with his fingers and threw it at Dave, who was only yards from him.
The man fell back as the blade hit and buried into his stomach, dropping the machete, and Dickson quickly picked up his machete and stood up straight. Malky sighed and was standing with his knife in his hand and knew he couldn’t compete with a blade the one Dickson was holding. He threw his knife to the floor and held up his hands in surrender. He looked over at Dave and could hear he was in some discomfort, groaning, and writhing around the floor. His other companion was already dead, still bleeding out.
Malky looked behind him, in two minds whether to try and make a run for it or not.
“Run, if you want to,” Paul spoke with a monotone voice. “But I’ll catch you up. Trust me.”
“Spare me,” he begged. “I’ll just leave and you’ll never see me again.”
“Funny,” Paul said with a smile. “Minutes ago I was gonna be gang raped by you bunch of pricks.”
“I just—”
Paul shushed the man and told him to sit down against one of the trees. Malky did as he was told and Paul walked over to him. He raised the machete and rested the tip on Malky’s shoulder, wondering what to do with the man.
“Look, let me go,” Malky continued to beg.
“And why would I do that?”
“We were just annoyed that you stole from us and killed our friend. You have to understand that.”
“Do I?” Paul groaned and took the blade off the man’s shoulder.
“We’re all in the same boat. We—”
Dickson slowly drove the blade into the man’s stomach and Malky’s eyes widened in horror. Paul showed no emotion as he continued pushing the blade in and Malky now tried to grab Dickson by the sleeve, but by the time the blade came out through his back, Malky was losing consciousness.
Malky’s eyes remained open, but his hands dropped and h
is head drooped to the side. Dickson pulled out the blade and turned his attention to the Dave character who was still groaning with the knife still buried in his belly.
He casually walked over to the fire and kicked dirt over it to put it out, then picked up his rucksack and picked up the jar and put it inside. His adrenaline was pumping through him and he decided to walk it off, but he didn’t want to go too far. He went over to Dave and pulled the knife out of his belly.
“I need this back,” he said, wiping both sides of the blade on the man’s sweater.
He place the knife back into his sock, the machete back in his belt, and made his way through the wooded area, leaving carnage behind him.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“Where the fuck is he?” Karen cried. She was surprised, confused and relieved.
Drake and Vince looked baffled.
Drake pointed at the male’s head and asked out loud, “Who’s that cunt?”
“I dunno,” Vince responded. “But it’s not Pickle, thank Christ.”
“So where is he?”
A lot of confused faces looked at one another and then Findlay spoke. “Drake,” he said. “The letter.”
“Shit. You’re right.”
Drake pulled out the envelope and tore it open like an excited child opening a present on Christmas Day. He opened out the A4 page and read it to himself quietly.
Karen’s patience was tested enough and asked, “What does it say?”
Drake never read the letter again; he passed it onto Karen.
“Basically,” Drake began. “We need to surrender all our vehicles, apart from the mopeds, and they’ll give Pickle up. Marsden wants the vehicles all topped up with petrol. That means we’ll have to go out on a run to get enough fuel for them.”
“And what if we don’t?” Vince asked, still waiting for Karen to finish reading the letter.
“If we don’t,” Karen said, passing the letter to Vince. “Then we’re going to receive another sack on Sunday evening.” She nodded at the letter. “He’s given us till midday, Sunday, to turn up with the goods. What day is it today?”
Snatchers Box Set | Vol. 5 | Books 13-15 Page 43