Snatchers Box Set | Vol. 5 | Books 13-15

by Whittington, Shaun

“His name is Findlay,” Pickle began. “He’s been out on runs and used to be the main guard back at the hospital, so he can handle himself.”

  The two men nodded at Findlay, and he responded with a thin smile.

  Findlay turned to Pickle and said, “Look, about what happened?”

  “Just go, Findlay. What’s done is done.”

  Findlay nodded and walked by the two Gnosall guards and was told by the man on the right to wait outside the community hall.

  “One more thing before we go,” said Pickle.

  “Oh?” was the intrigued response from the man on the left.

  “The guy that was a part of Marsden’s crew—”

  “—Dead?” The man seemed excited and his eyes widened.

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “Look, Pickle, we’re really sorry for what happened, and—”

  “No point looking back. Now, let me finish.” Pickle groaned. “As I mentioned when I was here before, three o’ them were killed and Manson escaped. He’s still out there.”

  “Are you suggesting he could come back?”

  “Maybe.” Pickle hunched his shoulders. “Unless he’s found somewhere else. But if he does turn up, like I mentioned before, don’t hesitate to kill him, because he won’t.”

  “We know, we know.” The man gulped and nodded.

  Pickle made his way back to the vehicle, turned and watched Findlay go by the barrier, and then got into the jeep and pulled away.

  “It’s amazing how an incident can put you off someone,” Karen blurted out.

  “What are you on about?” Vince asked.

  “Well…” Karen shrugged her shoulders. “Findlay is a good looking guy, and quite the charmer.”

  The jeep went along the curly main road, passing by bodies at each side of them, the remains of a dog, and, bizarrely, an overturned tractor could be seen.

  “We should have a look at that,” said Vince.

  “The tractor?” Karen was the first to respond.

  Vince nodded.

  “And how do yer suggest we pull a twenty two thousand pound tractor back on its wheels?” Pickle asked his passenger.

  Vince looked bemused and Pickle, “How do you know that tractor weighs twenty two thousand pounds?”

  “I just do. It’d be around ten tons.”

  “It can’t weigh that much,” Karen decided to join in.

  “The tyres alone are around six hundred pounds each. It’d be like liftin’ twelve o’ me with the tyres alone.” No one responded, so Pickle continued, “Nice idea, but we’ll keep on driving.”

  Just four more minutes had been achieved on the road, and a figure could be seen up ahead. The man had long hair and had his back to them, and as the vehicle approached and was only thirty yards from the lone man, the man turned around and Pickle gasped.

  “What the...?”

  Pickle slammed on the brakes, throwing Vince and Karen forward. Both were not wearing a seatbelt and the two passengers blurted out surprised and angry obscenities at the driver.

  Pickle exited the vehicle quickly, and started running before anyone knew what was happening.

  Vince and Karen looked at one another and said at the same time, “Manson.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  His feet stomped on the hard ground and he took a quick peep over his shoulder to see his pursuer. Even with his bare hands, Manson knew that he would be killed if ever he was caught.

  A branch hit the man in the face, but it never stopped him from increasing his momentum.

  He ran by the side of a large ditch and knew that if he had fallen down it, he would either have been trapped or would have to have climbed out. Either way, his pursuer would have caught up with him. He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight, but knew that hand-to-hand combat with Harry Branston would only end in one result.

  He ran by the hole and focused ahead, hoping that the man behind would eventually give up. Another thing that plagued his thoughts was running into Snatchers, but he fancied his chances more with the dead than he did with Pickle.

  He smacked and brushed branches away as he began to descend. Up ahead, he could see that the woods were thinning and was pulled back as a branch became entwined in his rucksack. He managed to free himself, and looked around to see if there was any sign of Harry Branston.

  For some bizarre reason, he was nowhere to be seen and he couldn’t fathom what happened. Had he just given up?

  *

  With rage running through his veins, Harry Branston ran through the woodland, branches occasionally scraping and poking his face. The irate man could just about see the legs of the individual he was after up ahead, and the obstacles of hanging branches gave him warning that scrapes and cuts could happen if he didn’t brush the obstacles out of the way, in which he did.

  With his vision concentrating on the obstacles at head height, he wasn’t aware of the ones that were on the ground, and, to his frustration, his right boot struck a log and then he fell over. He immediately got up and continued to run, but cussed out loud that the man ahead had been given some valuable seconds and was further away from his pursuer.

  Pickle was now running blind. He could see no individual up ahead, but continued to run and winced as his lungs started to burn. Aerobic exercise was something his body wasn’t used to.

  As he continued with his hopeless pursuit, his feet became clumsier, his body slouched, and his speed reduced. His pursuit came to an abrupt halt when he fell down an unexpected hill.

  His body rolled for seconds until the bottom of the hill stopped his body’s momentum.

  Covered in leaves and dirt, a confused Harry Branston lay on his back, gasping for air. His breathing was heavy, sweat glistened like diamonds sprinkled on his forehead, and his carotid pulse hammered the inside of his neck with vociferous eagerness.

  “Bastard,” was the only word that managed to tumble out of his lips inbetween his heavy breathing.

  Once his breathing returned back to normal, he sat up and started to brush himself down. The sound of rustling could be heard, but he was unsure if it was Karen and Vince, or something more sinister. He looked around at where he was and could see the ground was uneven and had tree stumps and rocks half buried in the ground.

  He looked up to the top of the small hill and could slowly see a Snatcher emerging into his vision. A bloated, naked male member of the dead reached the top of the hill and predictably fell down, heading towards Harry Branston who did something similar only minutes ago.

  He stood to his feet as the creature also did.

  His right hand went across his body, to his belt, but there was no handle. In all his rage, he had forgotten to grab his machete when he gave chase.

  The Snatcher staggered over towards him and Pickle decided that climbing up the hill on all fours, as it was too steep to run up, was the option he preferred, rather than trying to put this thing down with his bare hands.

  He scrambled up the hill, but his leg was grabbed by the ravenous ghoul. Pickle turned and could see the rotten jaws, inches from his ankle, and kicked the Snatcher in the head. His body started to slowly slide back down the hill and he dug his nails into the dirt to stop himself from getting closer to the creature.

  He tried to make his way up the hill again, now thinking that things would have been simpler if he had simply stood his ground and killed it with his bare hands, and was nearly at the top. He could hear a moan behind him, almost underneath him from his dead assailant, and could feel a hand on his ankle once more. He was pulled a little, but it was enough for him to lose momentum again, and he turned as he slid down a few yards and kicked the dead being with the sole of his boot once more.

  He allowed himself to slide to the bottom and decided to remove the naked fat pest, so he could climb out of the awkward hole in peace.

  He brushed himself down as the Snatcher staggered over to him on the uneven ground, and Pickle reacted by pushing the creature back a few yards. He didn’t want to get too
close to the creature. He had a few scratches on his hands from runs he had done in the past. One run, especially, involved Pickle scraping by a brick wall and grazing his left forearm. He didn’t want to be in blood contact with the creature, but he would put his fingers into the eye sockets if he had to.

  Pushing back the creature, allowed Pickle seconds of time to scan around the ground and try and prise out one of the boulders that was buried in it. He bent down and grabbed one, but even the strength of Branston wasn’t enough to remove it. The Snatcher approached, and Pickle gave it a front kick, sending it back a few yards and falling to the ground.

  He quickly had a look round and spotted another rock in the ground. He bent down and tried to get it out, but to no avail, so he began to dig it out by hitting the dirt around it with the heel of his right boot.

  The Snatcher struggled to get to its feet, and Pickle could see that the ‘heel-digging’ was achieving some success, but he needed more time to get the boulder out so he could pick it up and cave the creature’s head in with it, allowing him to climb out of the hole in peace.

  Pickle turned and stood up straight as the creature approached him once more, and thought that he just needed a few seconds more to get the boulder out of the ground. He prepared to kick the dead assailant once more, but the creature tripped over a stump, only two yards from Pickle, knocking the man to the ground.

  Branston fell over with the Snatcher on top of him and struck the back of his head on a smooth rock that was almost hidden. Pickle groaned and began to lose consciousness, and was out when his aggressor grabbed his thigh with both of his rotten hands and opened its jaws wide.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “This makes a nice change,” Drake sighed.

  He sat on the grass bank and stared into the glistening River Trent.

  Drake wanted some time away from the hospital, which was a rarity, and had asked Frank to go with him. They told the guard they were out on a short run to check something out, but that was all that was said. In truth, Drake needed to escape from the place he hardly left, and asked his good friend to tag along with him. The two of them took out mopeds and made the short journey to a riverbank that was a mile from the hospital.

  Frank sat next to him on the bank and pulled out a half bottle of Glenfiddich from his bag and two cigars.

  “May as well enjoy your few hours off.” Frank passed his friend one of the cigars and then pulled out a lighter from his pocket.

  Both of them were lit up and Drake developed a small smile on his features.

  “It’s good to get out,” he purred.

  “You should do it more often,” said Frank. “Running that place and having no break is going to put you in an early grave.”

  Drake took a suck on the cigar and blew out the blue smoke that snaked out of his mouth and nose. “We should get the guys out here and get the fishing rods out.”

  “No fish in this river, Drake,” Frank snickered. “The current’s far too quick for that.”

  “You’ve always been a glass half empty kind of cunt, haven’t you, Frankie boy, eh?”

  “Just like to be realistic.”

  Drake picked the bottle up with his left hand, as he held the cigar with his right, and took a generous swig. He released a satisfied groan and Frank asked him how the whisky was.

  “Great,” Drake responded. “But you can’t beat drinking from a whisky glass with a couple of ice cubes tinkling.”

  Drake took another suck from the cigar and gazed into nothingness, as the smoke trickled out of his nose and mouth.

  Frank turned his head to the side and could see that his friend was in a different world, staring into the river with almost a smile on his face.

  “Penny for them,” Frank said.

  Drake smiled and slightly shook his head. “Just a bit disappointed how it worked out with the Colwyn lot. I liked them, especially Pickle and Karen.”

  “What is there not to like about Karen,” Frank tittered to himself. “I’ll tell you what, give me twenty minutes with her and—”

  “She’s far too young for you, Frank,” Drake laughed for a moment and then his facial expression changed and he added, “Can’t tell you how angry I am with Alan for fucking things up. And I’m surprised about Findlay.”

  “I know.” Frank sighed. “If anything, those Colwyn lot should be angry with us the way we attacked them.”

  “We thought they were bad ‘uns.” Drake shrugged his shoulders. “So we decided to attack them and take what they had.”

  “We were ambitious,” Frank said. “We wanted to survive long term, and take whatever we could get our hands on, no matter what.”

  “Yeah, well, we were wrong. Or I was. If only some of the guys got to know them when they were at the hospital…”

  “Don’t beat yourself about it. You tried it. It didn’t work.”

  “Findlay got to know some of them, especially Karen, so finding out about him was a shocker.”

  “I didn’t mind them,” Frank admitted. “Never really spoke to the Pickle guy, but I’ve heard all about him, and the Vince guy never sat right with me. Came across as a bit of a pervert.”

  Drake smiled and nodded. “I said something similar to Karen a few days ago, but she stuck up for him. She said that was just the way he was.”

  “Can’t be too bad if that blonde hooked up with him.” Frank blew out his cheeks and shook his head.

  “Joanne,” said Drake. “Yes, that took me by surprise as well.”

  “I know you miss some of them,” Frank began. “But at least we’re now allies, not enemies.”

  “That’s something, I suppose.”

  “I was thinking about our trip to Wales this morning,” Frank began with a small chuckle.

  “Jesus.” Drake dropped his head and shook it. “There were ten of us.”

  “Remember that hen party?”

  “Remember?” Drake snickered. “I copped off with the bride to be. Jesus, if Coral had found out we’d be finished.”

  Drake suddenly stopped talking and dropped his head, and took in a big sniff. Frank could see his friend’s guilt. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  “I treated her like shit.”

  “She didn’t know.”

  “I was still a crap husband.”

  Both men looked out into the river and simultaneously took a puff of their cigars. Frank took a swig from the bottle and passed it to his friend. Drake took it and had three greedy gulps of the whisky, warming the inside of his body temporarily.

  “We’ll go back in ten minutes,” a now solemn Drake remarked.

  Frank nodded.

  *

  Vince leaned over and turned the engine off. He then put the keys into his pocket and looked at Karen.

  “He’s been out there long enough,” he said.

  Karen agreed and both stepped out, and pulled out their machetes before entering the woodland.

  “What was he thinking?” she moaned.

  “A rush of blood to the head,” said Vince. “I’m more concerned that he hasn’t returned.”

  “That guy wouldn’t have got the better of him,” Karen said with confidence. “Not Pickle. That Manson guy is tall and skinny. Pickle could snap him in half.”

  “Then where the fuck is he?”

  Karen had no answer.

  The two of them stepped through the bracken and had no idea where their friend had gone and which direction. They said nothing to one another and continued straight, dreading what they could possibly find.

  They had been in the woods for over ten minutes and came to an area of the place that made the two of them stop. Vince was the first to stand near the edge of the crater-like-hole and Karen stood next to him.

  “It’s a big hole,” Vince said.

  Karen was reluctant to look down, she had no idea why, but when she did, it was with thin eyes. All they could see was a dead body, lying at the bottom of the ditch. It was a male, obese, and completely naked, but th
ere was no sign of Pickle.

  “Well, he’s not there,” she said, now opening her eyes wider.

  “Shall we carry on?” Vince asked.

  “I don’t know.” She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t want to go too far, Vince. I don’t want to get lost.”

  “Where the fuck could he be?”

  Karen moaned and had no answer for Kindl.

  “Your friend is with us,” a female voice came from behind the two of them. It was a voice that made the pair of them jump and quickly turn round.

  A woman with short hair and a camouflage poncho stood ten yards from Vince and Karen. It took a while, but the two of them recognised the woman.

  “You’re...?” Karen was the first to respond, but couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “Wait a minute.” Vince clicked his fingers and said, “You’re the religious nut that runs a camp in the woods with a load of others.”

  The woman smiled. “I see your charm hasn’t escaped you since we last saw each other five weeks ago, Vince.”

  “You remembered my name.” Vince seemed quite pleased that she still remembered him and then questioned, “Was that five weeks ago you snuck behind me while I was having a pee?”

  The woman that was called Sapphire smiled and nodded.

  “Is Pickle okay?” Karen asked.

  Sapphire nodded. “He was seconds away from being attacked by one of the Devil’s soldiers, but two of my girls managed to save him.”

  “Thank you.” Karen was relieved that Pickle was okay, but couldn’t understand why he was struggling with one Snatcher, even bare handed.

  “He’s a little dazed, I’m afraid,” Sapphire continued. “He hit the back of his head when he fell.”

  “Well, thanks.” Vince clapped his hands and said, “Lead the way, because we’re wasting daylight and we have a run to go on.”

  Sapphire smiled thinly and turned on her heels, her back now to Karen and Vince. “Follow me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Vince had a feeling of de-javu when he sat down, near a fire, and had Karen and Pickle at either side of him. Soup of some sort was bubbling away over the fire and a female, wearing a long grey raincoat, asked if they wanted some. Vince replied yes, but Karen and Pickle faintly shook their heads. She had her arm around the man and he was still a bit concussed.