Mildred looked across the river and could see the back of the Wolseley Arms pub, and past that was a cluster of trees on the hills that were situated on the left of Stafford Road.
“We’ll fill the jars and then have a sit and a chat,” said Mildred. “Alright with that, aren’t you?”
Joanne smiled and scanned around the country area, pleased that the region was clear of the dead.
Noticing her looking, Mildred giggled and said, “That training may have to wait.”
“I’m kind of disappointed and relieved at the same time,” Joanne said honestly.
The two women spent a few minutes filling the jars and carefully put them in the bags once the lids were fastened.
Mildred sat at the edge of the bank, in the long grass, and Joanne did the same, but looked at the ground first, paranoid it was littered with insects.
“It’s been a hell of a journey, ain’t it?” Mildred spoke out.
Joanne nodded. “So many people have died in the last four months.”
“And many more will follow,” said Mildred. “Sorry, but it’s true.”
“I hope I’m not one of them.” Joanne went red and turned to Mildred. “Sorry. That sounds really selfish, doesn’t it?”
“Nothing wrong with that.” Mildred hunched her shoulders. “I don’t wanna die either. If you can get some confidence killing these things, it’d be an advantage for you if ever you were out alone.”
Joanne nodded. Mildred was correct. She should have learned to do this months ago.
Joanne opened her mouth to speak, but a deep noise could be heard in the distance.
“Did you hear that?” she asked Mildred.
“I think so.” Mildred nodded. “With the flow of the river, it’s hard to tell, but it sounded like a cow.”
The sound occurred once more.
“There it goes again.”
Mildred stood up and looked past the river and pub. “It sounded like it was coming from the trees.”
The two women stood and stared, more in fascination and intrigue, and could see a calf hobbling out of the wooded area and onto the Stafford Road.
It collapsed, moaned, and then got back to its feet and began to hobble.
It was going left and heading for the pub, and both females guessed that it had been attacked by the dead, but neither one said a word to another.
If it turned left at the pub, the calf would be on the Wolseley Road and heading their way, into Little Haywood. If it continued straight on, it would be on the Rugeley Road, heading into the town and away from them.
“Where do you think it came from?” Mildred spoke at last.
“A farm, maybe.” Joanne shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t sure herself.
“It must have received quite a few bites to be limping like that.”
“I’m not sure it’s limping because of damage to its legs, or it’s actually dying.”
Then a sight that made their hearts gallop occurred. Mildred gulped and Joanne’s mouth opened like a drawbridge.
At first it was just four, but more behind followed, and by the time the last Snatcher staggered out of the woods, there were nearly fifty on the road.
The two women hoped that the limping calf didn’t turn left, and Joanne even looked up and quietly prayed.
But it did, and the two females knew that the horde was going to follow it.
“We better get back,” said Mildred, “and warn the others.”
Joanne nodded gently but never moved.
“Joanne!” Mildred yelled. “Let’s get the piss out of here.”
“Wait.” Joanne continued to look in fascination.
“What do you mean wait?”
“If they catch up with the calf, if it doesn’t get to Colwyn Place, they won’t be a threat.”
“If they attack that calf, they’ll continue to go forwards. That’s what they do, unless some kind of noise distracts them, then they’ll turn and head for it.”
“Then can’t we get someone to drive out the back way of the village and creep behind them and sound a horn or something? Try and drive them away from Little Haywood.”
“Nice thought,” Mildred huffed. “But by the time we get to Colwyn and tell someone, they’ll be nearly at the gate, even before someone has a chance to drive out of the village and distract them from behind. We don’t have time.”
“Okay.” Joanne threw her rucksack on her back and could now see the calf and the dead crossing the Wolseley Bridge.
“Better hurry up.” Mildred grabbed Joanne by the sleeve. “Otherwise we won’t have time to escape ourselves.”
The two females jogged along the riverbank with their heavy bags and ran up the steep dirt path. Joanne was already out of breath once her feet touched the Wolseley Road and put it down to the cigarettes.
“Come on,” Mildred urged her.
The two of them ran, panting hard. They slapped the pickup where Frank and Patricia were sitting, and told them to get into the street, but neither one moved and had no clue what was going on. The moment they reached the gate, Vince Kindl spotted them and knew something was wrong.
He opened the gate and looked at the two of them.
Neither one of them could speak, and now Terry stepped out of his place.
“What is it?” Terry asked Mildred.
She finally spoke and could see Karen a few yards away.
“Where’s Pickle?” Mildred asked nobody in particular.
“He, Drake and that Gail woman are in my house, having a meeting,” Karen answered. “Why?”
“Tell everyone to stay indoors,” Mildred said whilst panting.
“Why? What’s happening?” Karen said.
“We don’t want to give them any excuse to try the gate. If one tries to push it open, they all will, and we know what will happen next.”
“There’s a horde coming!” Joanne cried.
“Right.” Terry clapped his hands together. “Everybody inside. I’ll go and tell the rest to stay indoors.”
“Hurry,” Mildred snapped. “If just one spots you...”
“Just get in your homes,” Terry snapped, and Mildred, Joanne, Vince and Karen did as they were told.
Karen began to jog away, and went back to 10 Colwyn Place and told the guys in the meeting to stay where they were.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Frank and Patricia pulled the pickup into the street and went into 14 Colwyn Place with Mildred. All three went upstairs to take a peek out of the bedroom window, to get a better look, and saw that Terry was running towards his place. Tracy turned up in the room and asked what was going on. Mildred could see that the teenager had just woken up.
“Horde coming this way,” Mildred told her.
“How many?” Tracy asked.
“A lot. Don’t worry. Hopefully they’ll just go by.”
All four peered out of the window and could see that Terry Braithwaite was seconds from entering his own home.
“Why didn’t he just stay at the Smiths’ house?” Mildred moaned, referring to Terry. “The last place where he went to warn?”
“If I thought there was a small chance of dying,” Frank spoke up. “I’d rather die in my own house, wouldn’t you?”
Mildred shook her head. “What does it matter?”
“I just hope they go away, far from here,” Patricia cried with panic in her voice. “We’ve only been here an hour and this is happening already. I don’t know why Pickle and the rest would want to come back here.”
“It’s just bad luck,” said Tracy, and hoped that she was right. She trusted Pickle.
“We’ve had a few moments at the hospital as well,” said Frank, surprising Patricia.
“Have we?”
Frank nodded. “We took care of it, and Drake never broadcasted it. He wanted to protect the people and make sure they didn’t live in fear, especially the children.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s why he started putting guards ou
tside to walk the perimeter.”
There was no more talking and the four watched in aghast as the calf appeared and was seen, limping by the gate, and the dead appeared some seconds later. There were over fifty of them, but it looked like more as they went by.
“That calf is gonna lead them into Gnosall,” said Mildred.
“I think that calf is lucky to live for another few minutes,” said Frank. “It looks exhausted.”
“Poor thing,” Tracy said.
There was one last straggler and was a few yards behind the horde. It stopped walking and slowly turned its dead face towards the gate.
“Shit.” Patricia cried. “Why has it stopped? What is it looking at?”
Then they saw Terry leaving his house, running for the gate, knife in hand.
“Jesus.” Frank looked at Mildred and then back out of the window. “What’s that prick up to?”
Mildred shook her head and had no answer.
*
Vince and Joanne held hands as they peered out of the main bedroom window that looked out on the street. The two of them were so close to the pane of glass that a small area steamed up every time they exhaled. Because of the angle of the house, this was the best place to get a decent view. Unlike 11 Colwyn Place, peering out of the living room window was pointless with the bush on Old Tom’s garden blotting out most of the view of the gate.
“That was the calf I was talking about.” She pointed, and they both watched as the dead appeared moments later. “Me and Mildred saw it limping out of the woods. I got the fright of my life when I saw those dead bastards coming out.”
“I bet you did,” said Vince.
Vince could see that Joanne was shaking and her hand was becoming clammy. He slowly unclenched and they released their hands from their sweaty hold.
“I don’t think that calf is gonna last long, I’m afraid,” Vince muttered. “Where’s the next place after Little Haywood?”
“Gnosall,” Joanne replied.
“We’re gonna have to do something.” Vince looked at Joanne and could see it was a response she didn’t like. He explained further, “They’ll get in to that village, no bother. There’s a car across the entrance, but there’re too many gaps. The Rotters will get in.”
“What do you suggest?”
Vince hunched his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter what I come up with. The people running the camps are over there.” He pointed at 11 Colwyn Place.
“Vincent,” Joanne cried, shaking his shoulder.
“What is it?” He looked back over to the gate.
“One of them has stopped.”
Vince could see the lone ghoul looking into the street. “Oh, shit. What has he seen?”
*
“If that cocksucker stays there too long,” Karen snapped, “then the rest might follow him, and then we’re in big trouble if that gate topples over.”
Karen, Pickle, Drake and Gail were peering out of the living room window and could see the reason why the Snatcher had stopped. A grey squirrel scampered across the road and disappeared down the drive of 14 Colwyn Place.
“Are we just going to stand around like a couple of cunts, or what?” said Drake.
“What else can we do?”
Drake had no answer and Pickle decided to calm things. It was just the one, but he knew that these dead pricks were easily distracted. If one turned around and spotted their companion standing by the gate of Colwyn Place, then most, if not all, might follow suit.
“Let’s just see what happens,” Pickle said. “No point getting our knickers in a twist. We’ve dealt with hordes before.” He turned to Karen and said, “Remember that time they came from the back and we put dozens o’ them down?”
“Yeah, but that was by the wall, Pickle,” Karen responded. “The wall protected us from being grabbed. All we had to do was stab heads. That was it.”
“Okay. Fair point.”
A petrified Gail Spot spoke up and asked, “What’s that crazy fucker doing?”
They could all see Terry Braithwaite running out of his house with a large knife in his right hand.
He ran up to the dead thing and drove the knife into the centre of its forehead, then ran back in.
“Risky,” Pickle said. “But well done, Terry.”
“Now what?” Gail asked them as they began to move away from the window.
“What do you mean?” Drake asked.
“They’re heading for Gnosall.”
“And?” Drake shrugged.
“If you want us to work together, this is the time to start. We need to sort them out before they reach the village. All we have for a barrier is some vehicles and two guys that are wet behind the ears.”
Pickle could feel the eyes on him and said, “Okay.” He nodded. “But we don’t have to kill them. Too dangerous. I can distract them, lead them away.”
“So you’re gonna drive up behind them,” said Karen, “blare the horn, then drive away slowly so they can follow?”
“That’s right.” Pickle nodded. “I’ll take them onto the Rugeley Road. That should do it.”
“Take a car full, just in case you need to fight and kill a few.”
“We’ll all go,” Drake said, making Gail gasp. They knew straightaway from her reaction that Gail, despite being the leader of Gnosall, had little experience of killing the dead.
“Four of us will go,” Drake spoke up and turned to Gail. “You stay here. We’ll take Vince.”
“Maybe we can thrash out a trade deal when we get back,” said Pickle.
“We will.” Gail nodded. “Drake has many vegetable supplies we could do with, you have many blades and other weapons in 2 Colwyn Place’s basement, and we have a garage full of fuel, as well as other items that might be of use.”
Pickle and Drake looked at one another. “Well, I didn’t know that,” said Pickle. “Fuel, eh?”
“Right,” Drake stood inbetween Pickle and Karen and placed his hands on their shoulder. “We better go and get Vinnie Boy.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The bearded man had stayed in a derelict house for the last few days, and hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. Apart from half a jar of water in his rucksack and a pack of four solar star rocket fireworks he had found in a wholesalers, he checked out a week ago, the bag was empty.
The man was weak and sat down against a tree. The last four days had been monotonous. He had only come across three of the dead on his travels and no human life. He had been telling himself for weeks that he was going to move on, and a couple of weeks back he nearly did, but he was still in the area of Wolseley, only a couple of miles from his original home of Little Haywood, and didn’t feel ready to move on. He didn’t know why.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He sometimes questioned why he still wanted to live. Sometimes he didn’t know why himself.
He fell asleep. He didn’t know how long for, but when he woke up, he could hear a groaning coming from behind him. It sounded like an animal. At first he thought he was still dreaming, but when he stood up he could still hear the sound.
The exhausted man could hear rustling to his left and tried to peer through the condensed trees, from behind the tree. He couldn’t see a thing and continued to look. The sound was getting closer and trees began to get disturbed as branches were now waving from side to side.
Through a small gap in the woodland, the man spotted an animal moving gingerly and when he looked further to his right, he could see more waving branches and the unmistakable sound of deep groaning from the dead that was a trait of theirs. In other incidents, he had come across some dead that almost growled and others were silent.
He continued looking through the gap where he had spotted the animal, and could see the first few feet of the dead going by, heading downwards and onto the main road. The feet continued to go by and seemed never ending.
He had no idea how many dead had gone by him, but he guessed between forty to sixty.
Fascinated,
and a little bored anyway, he carefully followed the horde, making sure he didn’t get too close.
Eventually the woods started to thin and he was at the roadside.
The horde could be seen going by the Wolseley Arms pub, heading along the Wolseley Road, and the calf was in front, but not far away from them. The man became nervous and was helpless to see around fifty of the dead heading by a place where he stayed for a few weeks.
He watched in awe and hoped they would go by and not disturb the residents of Colwyn Place.
His senses then alerted him and could hear more disturbed woodland from a distance.
He crept ten yards along the bank and then went back into the woods, stood up, and hid behind a tree.
The noise was growing louder and the man remained where he was until the sound started to pass. He stayed still for almost five minutes and eventually the noise died down. He crept back down the hill and stepped back out onto the road, and he could see another twenty or so Snatchers making their way.
He had to do something.
But what?
He then remembered something.
He ran up to where he had fallen asleep, grabbed his bag, and made his way back down and onto the road. He patted his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He opened his rucksack and pulled out the packet of fireworks.
He had to act quickly.
Over seventy of the dead was something that couldn’t be dealt with by using a blade. It was in his hands.
He opened the packet and pulled out the rockets and stuck them in the ground, one by one.
He tilted three rockets slightly, so they would explode not too far away from the horde, and was going to use the last one to move them even further away. And with this one he put in straight so it would explode above him.
He tried the lighter and only sparks were produced.
“Shit. Don’t fail me now.”
He frantically tried the lighter, but was struggling to get a flame. He decided to give it a few seconds, and then tried again.
He flicked the lighter and a flame was produced, revealing a small smile on Paul Dickson’s face.
Snatchers Box Set | Vol. 5 | Books 13-15 Page 61