Joanne Hammett could be seen heading her way; the pair of them smiled and acknowledged their presence, but Karen had no intention of stopping.
She needed an hour.
*
Darren was in the reception building and went by the desk and headed for the staff room where Drake stayed a lot of the time. He hated bothering Drake. He never knew what kind of mood he’d be in, but he was only there to pass a message on. He looked down the corridor and couldn’t see a soul. Sometimes Drake would have a guard nearby, but other times, like on this particular day, there’d be no one around.
Darren knocked the door gently. He wasn’t sure if Drake had company or was having a nap. He received no response and tried again. He waited a few seconds and tried the door.
Drake would sometimes have something up against it, but not this time.
Darren opened the door and peered in. Drake was slumped in his seat with his head bowed.
Darren wasn’t sure if he should wake the man or not, so he decided to try and find a pencil and a piece of paper and inform him that Karen needed to go for a rest.
Darren stepped by the table where Drake was sleeping and went over the drawers to look for a pencil and paper. His eyes clocked an empty bottle of whisky in the sink.
Darren winced when the drawer squeaked opened and Drake was alerted straightaway.
“What the fuck?”
Darren turned around and apologised to Drake for disturbing him. “I was looking for...”
Drake stood up and threw a punch at Darren, catching him on the jaw. Darren fell to the ground and held his face.
“What the fuck are you doing, sneaking around in here?”
Darren held up his hand as he tried to get back to his feet. “Leave off, man.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“I just came to tell you that Karen has left the clinic for a while and has gone for a lie down.”
Drake had his hands on his throbbing, hungover head, and snarled, “Is that it?”
Darren nodded. Tears had formed in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have snuck in like that,” Drake barked, now feeling guilty for striking Darren.
“I’m sorry.”
“Now, get the fuck out.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pickle pulled up the van and was the first to get out. Vince and Stephanie followed, as Pickle opened the back and let out Mildred, Richard and young David.
“Right, guys,” Pickle began. “Gather round.”
The five circled in front of Harry Branston and the ex-inmate said, “There’s no actual plan in place. Nobody knows what the layout o’ this place is like, so just stick together and see what there is.”
“Will anyone stand guard by the van?” Richard asked.
“I’ve got the keys to the van.” Pickle rattled the keys and added, “There’s no point.”
Pickle told them all to expect the unexpected and pull out their weapons. Pickle and Vince had out their machetes, Mildred was holding her bat, and Richard and David had pulled out knives. Stephanie had her bow over her shoulder and a bag of arrows over her other shoulder. She was the only one out of the six that didn’t have her weapon prepared.
The building was the size of a three bedroomed house and Pickle told the rest that he was going to check out the back of the place before going inside. The place looked untouched and although the main door looked like that it would need a sledgehammer to get it open, there was a large window at the right side of the door that probably needed smashed in order for them to get inside.
Pickle seemed to be away for ages and eventually returned, announcing that the back was clear and that there was a door round the back that would probably be easier and safer to try than the main door.
They followed him round the back and Pickle told them to stand back. He was going to charge the door.
“Do you think you can manage that?” Stephanie asked.
“Aye,” Pickle replied. “The door doesn’t seem that thick.”
“A bit dangerous, don’t you think?” Vince spoke up. “What happens if there’s a bunch of Rotters behind that door and you crash your way right into them?”
Pickle paused for thought. Maybe Vince had a point, he thought. He stroked his chin in deliberation and approached the door. He put his ear against it, but couldn’t hear a sound.
“It certainly sounds empty in there,” he said.
He knocked on the door for a few seconds and then placed his ear back against it once more. Nothing.
“I think it’ll be okay.” Pickle took a few steps back, ready to charge at the back door.
“Have you actually tried the door?” Richard asked the man.
“What?”
Richard repeated his question. “Sorry, Pickle. I’m not saying you’re daft or anything, but—”
“Okay,” the ex-inmate huffed. “I’ll try the door and then I’ll smash it down.” He went over and pulled the handle. The door moved, Pickle gulped and his face flushed.
“I hope you were a better drug baron than you are at breaking into buildings,” Vince laughed.
“Shut it.”
Pickle was the first to enter and the group went in single file. Pickle was followed by Vince, Richard, Mildred, and a petrified David MacDonald was inbetween Mildred and a confident Stephanie Perkins behind him.
There wasn’t much light inside, but there was enough for the team to make their way around the establishment.
Pickle pulled out a dynamo torch that he had taken before they left, and began squeezing the trigger repeatedly to produce light from the torch that was shaped like a gun. It made a racket, but Pickle was confident there were no dead around, especially on the first floor.
It was an archaic establishment and the occasional floorboard creaked as they carefully walked through the building.
The ground floor seemed clear and the shelves were full of products. Pickle told Richard to go back to the van, to the front, and get the empty bags that were brought along. Richard quickly returned with twelve bags, two each. Pickle told them to bag whatever they could.
“Clear the shelves and then we’ll check the next floor,” he said.
Tubs of protein powder, vitamins and MRPs were grabbed and taken outside. The bags were put in the back of the van that had been left unlocked, and once all the bags had been filled and dumped, they returned and took what was left, including clothing, and carried them to the van.
They were both standing outside the van, some exhausted from carrying the stock, “We probably don’t need to go to the other floor,” said Pickle. “I think we have enough here.”
“You can never have enough, Pickle,” said Vince. “Especially when there are hundreds of people to feed.”
Pickle took a look in the back of the van and scratched his head. “I suppose there’s a little room in there for something else. We could always put David, Mildred and Richard in the front with us.”
“Let’s just go back to the hospital, Pickle,” Stephanie moaned and started to yawn. “I’m tired.”
“Me too,” David groaned.
“Give me the dynamo torch,” Vince said to Pickle.
Pickle handed him the torch without firing any questions.
“I’ll take a quick look on the first floor,” said Vince. “I’ll be out in two minutes. I’ll let you know what’s in there, if anything.”
“I’ll come with you,” Mildred spoke up.
“For goodness sake,” Pickle sighed. “Don’t be long. We’ll wait out here for yer, okay?”
Vince looked at Mildred and asked if she was ready.
She placed her bat on her shoulder and said, “Does a rocking horse have a wooden dick?”
“Don’t really get that.” Vince narrowed his eyes in confusion and added, “But I’ll take that as a yes.”
The two of them stepped inside and went through the ground floor, quicker than last time, knowing that the floor was clear. Vince went behind the counter an
d jogged up the stairs, with Mildred following. He could see the landing was darker than the ground floor, but light still spilled in from a window.
Vince kept the torch in his pocket and could see three doors. He knocked each one and was happy that there was no sound coming from behind any of them.
“We’ll try this one first.” Vince pointed at the door to the right. “Then we’ll make our way to the last one.”
He opened the door and could barely see. It was a small room and they could both see that it was just a room that was used as storage. There were many boxes piled up on top of one another.
He closed the door. “Nothing in there.”
“This is a bit of a kick in the flaps,” Mildred snapped. “Let’s just go back if there’s fuck all here.”
“We’re here now.”
Vince tried the middle door and it wasn’t budging. He turned to Mildred. “Locked.”
The final door opened and this room was as black as coal. They couldn’t see a thing.
Vince took out the dynamo torch and began to squeeze it a few times.
The light wasn’t great, but he could see another door in the room, on the left, and wondered where it led. He walked over to the door and placed his hand on the handle, but Mildred tapped him on his shoulder, which stopped him from opening it.
“What is it?” Vince asked her.
“I can hear a noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
She took the torch off him and squeezed it hard half a dozen times and the torch revealed six dead faces, near the door where they had entered. Mildred released a shriek and Vince pulled down the handle and they both entered, the door being slammed behind them, and the sound of hands slapping it could be heard by Vince and Mildred. They were now sitting with their backs against the door.
Mildred used the torch, and the light that lasted literally seconds told the pair of them that they were in a large cupboard and it was clear of danger.
“What do we do now?” Mildred asked him.
Vince shrugged his shoulders. “I spy?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pickle sat on the grass bank, whilst Richard was sitting against the front tyre of the vehicle, and Stephanie and David were standing up, talking about their school days.
Vince and Mildred had been away for just two minutes and Pickle looked at his Omega Speedmaster and decided to give them ten minutes before making any hasty decisions.
“So what was it like?” Pickle called over to Richard.
“I’m sorry?” Richard stood up and walked over to the grassy part, at the side of the road, and sat next to Pickle.
“Gnosall. What was it like when yer were there?”
“It was okay at first,” Richard’s answer surprised Pickle.
“It was okay?” he said, eyebrows elevated.
“At first.” Richard cleared his throat and continued, “They were nice in the beginning, Marsden’s lot. The people in the village seemed on edge when Tracy and I first arrived, but we put that down to the apocalypse itself and not the way Marsden and his lot were treating some of them.”
“And after that?” Pickle pushed.
“After the first day things started to get a bit weird.”
Pickle never queried why things got weird in Gnosall. He allowed Richard to tell his story without interrupting him.
“Tracy started to get a bad feeling about the place,” Richard continued. “And then we met a girl called Erica. She told us that she and her friend were trying to escape and that we should leave as well. That’s when the alarm bells started ringing. If the place was perfect, why would you want to leave? She told us stories about Marsden’s men killing anyone that tried to escape. And that some women had been raped by the guy they call Manson. Then the next day I was told I was going out on a run, and that’s where we met you guys.”
“Well, they used to be in the same prison as me,” Pickle said. “I can tell yer they are bad ‘uns.”
Richard nodded. He had heard that Harry Branston used to be an inmate and Pickle must have assumed that Richard already knew, the way he was talking.
Pickle continued, “They were bastards even inside. And that Manson guy, Freddie Newton, ... well, I’ve heard rumours about that prick. I think he raped a couple o’ the young remands when he was there.”
Richard blew out his cheeks and realised he and Tracy had had a lucky escape. He always thought that the Manson character was untrustworthy and leered at Tracy now and again. If they had stayed, things could have become ugly for the pair of them, especially Tracy.
“Snatcher!” Stephanie called out.
They all looked down the road, to their left, and could see one of the dead straggling towards them. Stephanie grabbed her bow, but Pickle told her not to bother.
“What?” She looked at the ex-con with confusion.
Pickle nodded at David MacDonald and said, “Let David get it.”
David smiled, but was nervous at the same time. He was nervous for obvious reasons, but with Pickle trusting the youngster to deal with the dead alone, gave him a good feeling.
David pulled out his blade and slowly made the thirty-yard walk to the dead female.
As he got closer, he could see that the female had on a dress that was hard to fathom what colour it had been when it was first purchased. It had been stained with blood on the people she had possibly feasted on, the dirt and mud she fell in whilst making her clumsy steps, and from the weather that had more than likely burned her over the last few weeks, or maybe months.
She looked rotten, cheekbones literally protruding through skin, and her stomach was bloated, but David didn’t know if it was with gas or the flesh she had eaten that had nowhere else to go. His nose picked up the ghastly smell of death once he was five yards away, and retched once before telling himself to breathe in and out through his mouth.
The Snatcher snarled as its dilated eyes looked up and clocked his frame. Her arms were raised and hands went into the shape of claws as she prepared to rip him to shreds, oblivious of any danger that could come her way.
David allowed the creature to grab him by the shoulders and he rammed his blade under the chin, the whole blade going in a lot easier than he thought, and a satisfying smile emerged on his face.
The Snatcher was still moving and the smile soon evaporated off his face when the dead thing leaned in to bite the boy, but the knife through the chin prevented the mouth from opening. It took a few seconds for David to realise that the knife may have gone straight through, but it hadn’t been long enough to penetrate the brain.
He pushed the creature back and she stumbled back only a yard. It quickly went for him again, but MacDonald moved out of the way and pushed her again, this time making her fall over. He ran over to her and kicked her in the head, again and again. Five times she had been kicked, but she was still moving and it looked like she was trying to get back to her feet.
He took a run and kicked her again, like a football. She collapsed and never moved after that.
David could feel smarting in his right foot. He left the knife in the woman and headed back over to a baffled Pickle, Richard and Stephanie. He was limping, but he hoped the pain was temporary and nothing was broken.
“What’s up?” David asked, knowing that they were looking at him funny.
“That was probably the weirdest kill I’ve ever seen,” Richard commented.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Stephanie remarked. “Quint used a combine harvester on a horde when Vince and David came out looking for me.”
“A what?”
“True story.”
“Why didn’t yer just stab her in the ‘ead?” Pickle asked him.
“I thought under the chin would be softer.” David hunched his shoulders.
“On top or the side o’ the skull,” Pickle told him. “No messin’ about.”
David nodded and told them he was going in the back. Stephanie did the same, seeing how David was and making sure he was not to
o despondent from his comedic way of putting down a single Snatcher.
Richard and Pickle were left alone, and Pickle looked over to the Workout World establishment, wondering how long Vince and Mildred were going to be.
He looked at his watch and Richard asked how long the pair of them had been away.
“Six minutes,” Pickle sighed. “Another four and I’m going in.”
*
Drake walked through the outpatients building and reached the ward at the end of the building that had been turned into a small crèche.
The woman that mainly ran the crèche was called Beverley and immediately went over to Drake as he entered the area.
“Everything okay?” she asked him.
“Just having a nosey,” he said. He looked around and could see seven children and a couple of teenagers who were under the age of sixteen, who were helping out but also there to keep out of trouble.
“The teenagers doing okay?” Drake asked.
“I don’t think they wanna be here, to be honest.”
“They’re not old enough to go out on runs and stuff, and even then they’d need sufficient training. I don’t think these youngsters know how to do a basic leg sweep.”
Realising he was waffling, Drake looked at Beverley and apologised and noticed she was looking at him strangely.
“It’s been a few weeks,” she said.
“What has?”
“You know.”
“Oh.”
“I feel a bit...” She never finished her sentence and blushed.
“A bit what?” Drake wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
She was still blushing and said quietly, “You know.”
“Oh, right,” Drake laughed. “Fancy a walk to my office?”
She nodded and called over to her young helper that she’d be back in half an hour.
The two of them walked away and headed outside. They walked over to the reception building in silence, and Drake was the first to speak.
“Take a break, Mick,” he said to the guard outside his office, the old staff room. Mick left and he and Beverley both entered.
Snatchers (Book 14): The Dead Don't Hate Page 11