“Never been here before,” Pickle spoke up, breaking the ice and hoping to get some chat out of Kindl.
“It’s a place that Lee used to take his kids to now and again,” Vince mumbled.
“Lee?”
“Lee James,” Vince sighed. “Forgot about him already?”
“O’ course not.”
“It has animals, but in the large barn there’s a play area for kids and a cafe. Or there used to be.”
“I better let out Stephanie and Mildred in the back,” said Pickle. “Give them some air and let them know what’s happening.”
Vince shook his head. “I completely forgot about them.”
“Back in a bit.”
Vince looked over at Drake and could see the man climbing over the gate and heading for the farmhouse. He heard the van doors open and Pickle speaking to the females. Vince yawned and could see Drake peering into the living room window. He went round the back and disappeared from Vince’s view.
Vince leaned his head back and thought about events from the past. He thought about his childhood and the way he was treated by his father, Wolfgang Kindl. His mother Grace was a loving mother, but not quite strong enough to stand up to her husband when he had a drink inside of him.
How they still remained together into their twilight years he’d never know. A smile stretched over Vince’s face as he thought about his parents and then Karen Bradley. She had killed the both of them. Technically, Grace was already dead when Karen and Pickle arrived at the cabin at the top of the hill on the common.
Her husband had had to tie the woman to a chair.
She had been bitten, turned, and he couldn’t bring himself to kill her. Karen eventually did, with a sharpened handle from a wooden spoon, and her and Pickle had buried the woman on the common. Karen then shot Wolfgang Kindl, Vince’s father, when he was seconds away from being ripped apart after an automobile accident.
“I love the shit out of that woman, yet she killed both my parents,” Vince chuckled to himself, almost in disbelief. “What a fucked up world we’re all living in.”
Vince snapped out of his daydreaming when Pickle, Mildred and Stephanie appeared round the front of the vehicle.
He got out of the van and Pickle asked Vince what was taking Drake so long.
“I think he’s talking to the couple who own the farm,” said Vince.
“But he’s been gone nearly ten minutes,” Pickle groaned, looking at his Omega watch.
“Shall I go and see what’s happening?” Vince asked him. “He might have ran into some trouble.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Pickle spoke, and then pointed up ahead, adding, “Oh, there he is.”
They watched as a flustered-looking Drake returned from the back of the house and had his machete still tucked under his belt.
“Everything okay?” Mildred was the first to ask. “Where’re the owners?”
“They’re dead,” Drake said abruptly. “The door was open round the back.”
“Dead?” Pickle rubbed his chin. “Are yer sure?”
Drake nodded. “Thugs must have gotten in. Shame. My guys were speaking to them a few days back, about coming here, and this happens.”
“That is rotten luck,” said Pickle.
“Had a quick look round the back and the idiots that came here never took the chickens. They’re round the back and all caged up, which will make transporting them easier for us.”
“Caged up?” Stephanie queried.
“Don’t worry,” Drake laughed. “They’ll roam in a pen once we get back to the hospital. Don’t want you lefties peeing your knickers over the treatment of our feathered friends.”
“Why didn’t they steal the chickens?” Mildred narrowed her eyes in confusion. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“No idea.” Drake hunched his shoulders. “Looks like they were just after what was in the house. Maybe they were on foot. What are you gonna do with a bunch of birds if you don’t have a vehicle?”
“Stay at the farmhouse,” was Mildred’s reply.
“Anyway,” Drake looked annoyed with Mildred’s response and added, “We’ll take a look around, see if there’s anything else, and then grab the birds. No need to check out the farmhouse. Follow me.”
Drake walked away and everyone followed but Vince. He decided that it would be foolish to leave the vehicle unattended and told them so.
Pickle, Stephanie and Mildred were yards behind Drake and could see he was heading for a barn that was past the house, to the left of it. Pickle asked where Mildred was going as she began to veer to the right and was heading to the farmhouse.
“I’ll catch you up,” she told him. “I really need to go and pee.”
Her walk turned into a gentle jog and slowed down once she was at the side of the house.
Mildred reached the back of the house, and looked to the side of her before pulling down her pants and squatting. Once she was finished, she had a quick look round and then peered into the living room. The curtains were open. She could see two bodies lying in the living room.
Both of them were face down and Mildred felt for them.
To come this far and be killed by vagrants was terrible luck.
She was seconds from moving away and joining the rest, but suddenly gasped when she saw movement. The female of the two moved her arm and looked to be making a desperate attempt to crawl along the carpet, but was making little progress, and then turned over onto her back.
Mildred opened the back door and stepped inside. The male was motionless, but the female was breathing shallow and gurgling.
Mildred bent down and knelt next to the woman. Their eyes met and Mildred asked her what happened.
The woman was barely conscious and Mildred noticed that the woman was bleeding from her stomach. She said something, but Mildred couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.
Mildred turned her head and put her ear near the woman’s lips and the woman spoke once again.
Mildred’s eyes widened in shock and asked the woman, “Are you sure about this?”
The elderly woman never answered and had taken her last breath.
Chapter Five
David MacDonald had passed by the doorway of the clinic and had a peep in. Karen looked up and could see the fourteen-year-old.
She told Dave the guard that it was okay and to let him in. Karen was about to leave the area, but the presence of David had halted that temporarily.
“You lost?” Karen questioned the youngster.
“Bored, to be honest,” was his response.
“Missing Stephanie then.”
Karen told the youngster to sit down and sat opposite him, at the other side of the table, and asked how he was getting on.
“Better than last week,” he said with a smile.
Karen had noticed an improvement in David’s mood and had put this down to the removal of Ronnie Price, who had made his life a misery for the first week.
“How are you getting on with the locals?” she asked.
“It gets better day by day,” David replied. “Starting to get to know more people, which is good.”
“There’re a lot of people here. And I think Drake wants to increase the numbers, providing they’re decent people.
“I wonder where Ronnie is now?” David rubbed his face and added, “Despite what he did, I wouldn’t want him to die out there.”
Karen leaned back in her chair and looked over to the guard and asked David if he wanted to know a secret.
“A secret?”
Karen smiled and spoke with a hushed tone. “Pickle told him to go to Colwyn Place.”
“Colwyn?”
“Whether he made the trip or not is another thing,” she moaned. “But if he’s alive, then that’s where he is. Unless Terry decided to act like an arse.”
“What do you think of Drake?” David asked in a husky voice.
“He’s a tough one,” Karen admitted. “I don’t agree with a lot of his meth
ods, but overall I think he wants what’s best for the camp. He kind of reminds me of Vince when we first met him.”
“I reckon he’s capable of hurting others to make this place stronger,” David said quietly.
“You reckon?”
“Yeah.” David nodded. “Not too sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“Pickle will keep him in line. He can be Drake’s moral compass if he steps out of line.”
“Pickle couldn’t stop Ronnie from being thrown out, though, could he?”
Karen didn’t have an answer for the teenager, and instead called over to Dave the guard and asked him what he thought about Drake.
Dave turned to face Karen and hunched his shoulders. “He’s firm but fair. A bit unpredictable.”
“How do you mean?” Karen asked.
“Well...” Dave paused, then added a few seconds later, “You obviously saw him kick a man to death in Colwyn Place, and then there was a time when a guy called Alec was beaten. He had interrupted Drake three times while he was giving a speech to us all once the hospital was up and running. Drake doesn’t like being interrupted, so he went over to Alec and punched him until he was unconscious in front of everybody. Alec left the place a few days later.”
“How?” Karen asked. “Was he just allowed to leave?”
“No,” Dave said. “Alec went out on a run with two other guys, Brian McIntyre and Craig Ralston, now both deceased.” Dave never went into detail that Brian and Craig’s deaths were the result of the attack on Colwyn Place. “They were in the pickup and Alec asked them to stop so he could go for a piss. They stopped and Alec went into the woods and never came back out.”
“He did a runner?”
Dave nodded. “I think he had had enough of Drake. He’s not to everybody’s liking.”
Karen brushed her hair behind her ears and asked, “And you?”
Dave stroked his beard and released a satirical laugh. “I love him like a brother.”
“Of course you do.” Karen looked with suspicion. “In a Liam and Noel kind of way?”
Dave never answered.
“And I suppose that walk back here didn’t increase your love for the bloke, eh?”
Again, Dave never answered.
Karen could see young David was confused and decided to tell him what happened to Dave a couple of weeks back.
“Pickle and I went to visit this place with Drake,” Karen began to explain. “Dave was driving, and Pickle, myself and Drake began to talk about ourselves, as part of the whole ... I don’t know ... fixing the wounds between both camps. Dave wasn’t in the mood for talking, so Drake kicked him out of the vehicle for being disrespectful, or something like that, and Dave had to walk home.”
“Luckily the roads were quiet that day.” Dave decided to finish the story. ”Otherwise I would have been killed. Only had to kill two of the dead before I made it back.”
“What did Drake do when you turned up?”
“He just asked if I had had a nice walk.” Dave then laughed and shook his head. “Prick.”
Footsteps could be heard down the hall, and Darren appeared to pop his head round the door and asked Karen if he could have a word.
“Of course,” she said.
“Alone.”
David MacDonald excused himself and Dave the guard shut the clinic door and gave Karen and Darren some privacy.
Karen told Darren to sit down and sat opposite him. “So what is it? Is it medically related?”
Darren nodded.
“Okay.” Karen was intrigued. “What’s the problem, Darren?”
He bit his bottom lip and lowered his head slightly with embarrassment.
“Darren?” Karen persisted.
He finally spoke. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
Karen smiled thinly and said, “Why would I?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing.”
“Darren,” Karen began. “I’ve had guys coming into A and E with bottles stuck up their arses and hoover nozzles attached to their cocks, all claiming that what had happened was an accident. I even had a young man in, just after Christmas, in tears because he was about to masturbate and he put calamine lotion on his penis instead off lubricant.”
“Okay.” Darren took in a large intake of breath and looked mortified. “Here goes.”
Chapter Six
It had taken over an hour to transport the individually caged chickens into the back of the prison van. There were fifty-two altogether, and had to be put in the holding cells and stacked on top of each other. Drake was expecting more, but overall the trip had still been worthwhile. Vince had found bags of pellets for the birds. These pellets provided them with the right amount of protein and minerals to keep them laying eggs. Drake was delighted that they had been found, but knew if push came to shove they’d be able to munch on potato skins or bits of veg or fruit.
Once everything was put away, the five of them hung around the van.
“One last look around before we go?” Pickle asked.
“No point,” said Drake, and seemed agitated. “Let’s just go. I’ve had enough of this place.”
“What about the house?” Mildred stared at Drake for a reaction, but didn’t get one.
“What do you mean?”
“You said that the couple in there were dead, but did you check the entire house?”
“Look,” Drake huffed. “We’re wasting time. Let’s just go.”
Pickle could feel an unusual tension between Mildred and Drake, but chose not to bombard them with uncomfortable queries. It could wait.
“We’ve come for what we had planned,” Pickle began. “Shame about the old couple, but there’s nothing we can do for them now.”
“Can we go then?” Vince groaned. “I need a nap when I get back.”
“Are yer alright, ma friend?” Pickle placed his arm around Vince’s shoulder. “Yer have been very quiet today. It’s not like yer.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Okay.” Pickle nodded. “I’ll drive back.”
The arrangement for the return to the hospital was the same as before. Stephanie and Mildred were going to travel in the back, this time with dozens of noisy caged up chickens, and the guys were in the front.
Once the doors to the back of the van were shut, Pickle fired the engine and they moved away.
A quiet Vince had his head leaning against the window and Drake was in the middle, staring out, yawning.
Pickle knew Vince was exhausted, but something was bugging Drake.
He turned the van around and took a right at the defunct traffic lights. There had still been no word from either men.
“I was thinking,” Pickle began. Only Drake was listening. “Maybe we could drop ten o’ those birds off at Colwyn Place.”
Drake took an intake of breath, annoyed already, and said, “And why the cunt would we do such a silly thing like that? Chickens can lay up to five eggs a week, that’s over fifty eggs I’d be denying the people of our camp.”
“I just thought it’d be a nice gesture, that’s all.”
Drake took a while to respond to Pickle’s idea. He tried to hold back a little so that the pair of them wouldn’t fall out on the way back to the hospital.
“Are you kidding me?” was Drake’s short response.
Pickle hunched his shoulders and asked, “Why not?”
“Pickle, you’re gonna have to sever ties with these Colwyn lot.”
“Why?”
“I want you to concentrate on supplying for the camp you’re in now, not the one you used to stay at. They made their choice.”
“I can’t just sever ties with these guys, neither can Karen.”
“You’re gonna have to. I like and admire you, Pickle, but this Colwyn obsession has to stop.”
“It’s only been two weeks since we left. We’re just concerned about the people we left behind. Think about it. There are very few o’ them left. They’re more vulnerable than ever and I’m partly to blame for t
hat.”
“You thinking about going back?”
It took a while for Pickle to respond. “I don’t know.”
“They had a choice.”
“I know they did, but we still left them.”
Pickle kept the vehicle at thirty and could sense that Drake was annoyed and had more to say. He slowed and dropped the van into third as they approached a bend, and Drake came out with a question Pickle wasn’t expecting.
“You sent Ronnie there, didn’t you?”
“Aye,” I did.” Pickle never hesitated. He didn’t see the point in lying. “I couldn’t let him die.”
“I fucking knew it,” Drake groaned. “You say you couldn’t let him die, but you don’t know for sure if he’s made it or not.”
“I will find that out if we pop in to Colwyn.”
“You know what,” Drake sighed. “We’ll just fucking go. I suppose when you’re out here with Karen I can’t stop you from visiting.”
“And the chickens?”
“Do what the fuck you want,” Drake huffed. He folded his arms and leaned his head back.
“We won’t stay long,” said Pickle. “Probably be best if you stay in the van. If Terry sees yer...”
“Well, fucking hurry up then,” Drake groaned.
Pickle slowed the vehicle and took a left down a country lane. Six minutes later they were in Little Haywood.
Chapter Seven
Karen sat back and listened to Darren talk about what he had on his mind. He was nervous, but Karen told him to take his time. She had no idea what it could be, and braced herself for some sinister news.
“I’ve had it a while now,” he began awkwardly and shifted in his seat. “I tried to keep on top of it with my diet, but that’s easier said than done when you live in this new world where you eat whatever you can get your hands on, and the water is hardly perfect.”
Karen allowed the man to speak, but she had no idea where he was going with his ramblings.
“The guys at work used to mock me when I was diagnosed with this condition.”
“Condition?” Karen tried to extract some information from the young man, but his vague ramblings continued.
Snatchers (Book 14): The Dead Don't Hate Page 2