Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) Read online

  Looking down again, Tommy sniffed, "Well, going out the front is a no-no." My drunken shooting probably didn't help. "And there're dozens around the back of the fence."

  "Relax. I can create a noise at the side o' the fence, let them all follow the noise, then we can escape through the gate. Sure, they'll be loads following us, but we should outrun them. They'll disappear from sight after five minutes."

  "And what happens if there're more further up, deeper into the woods?"

  "Then we're fucked," joked Pickle.

  Both men burst into hysterics, then Tommy looked down and noticed for the first time that this man had a finger missing. He had already noticed the damage to his nose, but never queried him about it.

  Knowing that Tommy had noticed his missing finger, Pickle smiled and said, "It's a story I can't be bothered to tell." He then slapped Tommy on the shoulder playfully. "Come on. Let's have another brew before naptime."

  "Sure thing."

  Chapter Forty Three

  The two females had now entered the small town of Brereton, and the first thing that greeted them as they entered a side street was two ghouls stumbling around in their dead world. Unaware of their presence, Karen and Shaz crept past the street and came to a main road, to their left was a few factories.

  Conscious that the group of the dead could still be not far behind, Karen pointed over to the factories. "It's gonna be dark soon, and we're exhausted."

  "You want to stay there the night?"

  "It's more have to than want to, but yes. I don't have the energy to walk to the camp from here, and if more of those things turn up, I fear the worst." Karen added, "Remember we struggled with just the five of them back at the estate when we were knackered."

  "That was your fault," joked Shaz. "Wanting to get some clothes."

  "I was arrogant and cocksure of myself," Karen Bradley admitted. "I don't wanna make the same mistake."

  Shaz dipped her head in agreement and noticed that the metal shutters were down on the large building. It seemed that there were four businesses within the big building, but they were unsure what they were. They jogged across and could see that a few cars were still present. Shaz went round the back of the factory, machete drawn, and noticed a fire escape. She called Karen, and the pair of them climbed the metal stairs and reached the roof. Karen bent over once they were both at the top; she was out of breath and exhausted.

  "You wanna rest?" asked Shaz.

  Karen was in no mood to stop. "Once we're inside, then I'll rest." There were four skylights and both women were undecided what to do next.

  Shaz stood straight and looked up to the dark blue sky. She gazed for a minute until Karen asked what was wrong.

  "Nothing," Shaz replied. "I was just wondering if I'm ever going to look up one day and see a jumbo jet in the sky."

  "It'll be a while before that happens." Karen walked across the roof and peered into the first skylight. It was a room, but there were two ghouls sitting down, almost as if they were asleep. She knew that if her and Shaz broke in, they'd soon perk up. They could take them, but it wasn't worth the risk.

  Karen looked up at Shaz and shook her head. "Next one."

  She peeped into the second skylight and could see not a soul in the room, but what worried her was the blood smeared along the walls as if something macabre had taken place. She checked the third and the fourth one, then said, "Looks like number three is our best bet."

  Shaz strolled over and took a look inside. It looked like some kind of room for staff members. There were chairs and a table, a sink with cups and a kettle. The room looked spotless, and it appeared that nobody had been in this room since the beginning of the outbreak.

  Shaz bent down and forced open the skylight with her weapon. It opened with ease. Both girls looked in and double-checked before going in. There were no ladders, so Shaz told Karen that she'd jump in first, then move the table below the skylight to make Karen's jump a little easier.

  Once the girls were inside, they decided to keep the window above them open, in case they needed an emergency escape. Shaz tried the door of the staff room and it opened with ease. The door led out into a white hallway where they could see another door. Both females stared at one another.

  "Shall we check it out?" asked Shaz.

  "May as well." Karen raised her shoulders.

  "We don't know what's behind that door." Shaz was beginning to have second thoughts. "We could just stay the night in the staff room, and be on our way to the camp the next morning."

  "True." Karen agreed. "But what if there's food behind that door? We don't even know what kind of business this is. What if it's a biscuit factory, and we're hiding in the staff room, starving, with all those biscuits going to waste?"

  "Wouldn't they be a bit stale by now?"

  "Not if they've been wrapped." Karen was getting tired of the pointless conversation that she and Shaz were having. "I don't know about you, but at this moment in time I could eat my own face."

  Shaz sighed in defeat, "Okay."

  Both women took the short walk and Shaz reached for the door and slowly pulled down the handle, both girls wincing when it gave off a small squeak. She opened it at a snail's pace and peered inside.

  Shaz's eyes widened, and Karen knew immediately that her facial expression wasn't a good sign.

  Asked Karen, "Well?"

  "Come and have a look." Shaz beckoned Karen over.

  Karen walked over and took a peep into the room. She saw a large sign with the words, Play Planet emblazoned on the back wall. The place was dark because of the shutters being down and the place having no power, but she could see in the modest area about eight adult-Snatchers stumbling around the place. About ten dead children were also staggering on the floor, occasionally bumping into the chairs and tables where food and drinks would be served. To the side was a soft play area where four of the dead, all children, were in there and unable to figure out how to get out of the ball-pit. The most disturbing scene for Karen was the dead toddler, crawling around on the trampoline, unable to get off.

  "I've seen it all now." Karen shook her head at the sad scene. She had little experience of children being affected by this disease. Jack Slade's Thomas came to mind, but on the whole, she had been lucky to a certain degree.

  Karen thought that the spectacle was sad more than horrific, and she could hear Shaz trying to control herself behind her.

  Karen could see a vending machine at the end of the room, but knew that putting their lives in jeopardy and trying to hack their way through nearly two dozen Snatchers to get to the machine wouldn't be worth the risk. Even if they were fully fit, the task was too much to ask for.

  Karen closed the door. "We stay in the staff room and go at first light. These things can't open doors, but I'll stick a chair against the handle anyway. Probably barricade the staff room as well."

  Shaz agreed; there didn't seem to be another option. "Where's the staff?"

  Karen was perplexed by Shaz's question. "What?"

  "I used to take Spencer to these places and there were always staff, mainly young, underpaid girls waiting on people, cleaning up vomit—that kind of stuff. Where are they? Someone must have pulled the shutters down. Someone must have persuaded the parents to stay behind."

  "I've no idea. I've got a feeling that this situation either happened on the Saturday daytime where no one knew about it. Or, it could have happened on the Sunday morning, when only some knew about it. People read and listen to the news, but sometimes people don't. I didn't know what the hell was going on until the Sunday morning when I finished my nightshift. Some people probably thought the Saturday evening announcement was the usual media scare-mongering, like what happened with SARS and stuff like that."

  The girls headed for the staff room and stopped walking when they came to a door neither had noticed the first time round. On the door it had: Party Room. Both Karen and Shaz placed their ears against the door. They could hear movement, and they were both certai
n it was movement from the dead, possibly the staff of Play Planet.

  So what happened? Did someone get attacked, and the frightened staff locked themselves in one of the rooms and left the adults to it?

  Karen looked confused at the signage on the door and asked Shaz why there was a party room in the first place.

  Shaz explained to Karen in a whisper that people could hire the soft play area for kid's parties. The kids would go out and play, then be invited into the party room to have something to eat and drink. Then a staff member dressed up in a Peppa Pig or a Sonic the Hedgehog costume would show up. Pictures would be taken by parents with their mobiles, which would then be possibly uploaded onto Facebook to brag about what a wonderful time they were having. Then a game of pass the parcel and a dance-off would occur, leaving an eventual winner with a prize and the rest of the children in tears because they didn't win the prize that was probably shit anyway.

  "That sounds like fun," said Karen sarcastically. "Well, at least that's one good positive out of the apocalypse. No more soft play."

  Shaz smiled, reminiscing when she used to take Spencer to the one on the other side of town. The one where they were at now was small, and she didn't even know it existed until now.

  She remembered those days fondly and looked down on her rainbow bracelet that Spencer had made for her. She could feel her eyes welling when she reminisced the last time she took her son to soft play. It was six weeks ago.

  It was the same as any day when she took him.

  She would pay to get in, then Spencer would excitedly take his shoes and coat off and run onto the soft play area, always for the ball-pit first. Shaz would then get herself a cappuccino with a sweetner, a blackcurrant fruit-shoot for Spencer, then sit down and do what most of the adults were doing: playing with their phone or iPad. She'd go on Facebook, check in, message her friends and relatives, and then tap her kindle app and begin reading an ebook. She tried to remember the book she was reading before the world fell into shit. It was Creed by James Herbert, and she only managed to get to chapter thirteen.

  Her daydreaming had come to an abrupt end when Karen nudged her with her elbow.

  "Come on."

  Chapter Forty Four

  Unable to sleep the two men gawped outside once more, and Tommy snapped, "Why don't they just fuck off?"

  "They know something's in here." Pickle spoke up and rubbed his stubbly face. "Unlike us humans, they don't really know when to give up. The only thing that could pull them away would be some kind o' distraction, like a passing car, another person, or even a kill from yards away."

  "I've just taken another look out the back. It hasn't grown much in numbers. I think we should take our chances now before they're in their hundreds the next morning."

  "If we go out there now, it'd be like running with a blindfold on."

  "It would probably be hard-going," Tommy admitted.

  "It'd be so dark in the woods we wouldn't know where any o' those things were. We'd be constantly bumping into trees; there're animal traps out there, and we'd be too scared to move from paranoia. It'd be pointless, trust me."

  "If you're sure."

  Pickle nodded confidently. "I got yer into this mess; I'm gonna get yer out o' it. As soon as we get to tha' camp, yer will look back in relief that it turned out for the best. But I'll tell yer something: I'd rather be out there in the daylight being followed by hundreds o' the things, than out in the dark with just a dozen. The morning is our only option. Agreed?"

  "Agreed."

  *

  "They'll be okay, don't worry about it." Vince was doing his best to keep up Jack's spirits.

  Said Jack, "I still think we should be going out there, looking for them."

  "They'll be well-hidden by now. Probably got their heads down for the night. We're not gonna be driving out there in the dark, putting our lives in danger and wasting fuel. So you're gonna have to have faith." Vince stood to his feet, indicating that he was about to leave Jack's caravan, and wandered over to the door.

  "You going already?" asked Jack, rubbing his head. He had only received mild concussion from the crash, but all his thoughts went to Wolf.

  When they got back to the camp, Vince had told Jack that there wasn't a chance in hell that Karen and Shaz could have got Wolf out of there with the amount of dead that were around, and he saw Karen herself shake her head at Vince before leaving when the subject of his father came up. He knew his dad was dead. And he felt nothing.

  "Don't you want me to go?" Vince began to snicker and added, "Once upon a time you never used to like me."

  "You're growing on me." Jack smiled and peered over to him. "Besides, you're the man to see for booze. I hear you got some alcohol stocked up in the Spode Cottage on these runs you do."

  "We were keeping them for medical purposes."

  "Bullshit," Jack laughed.

  Vince held his hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay. What's your poison?"

  "Anything that'll make me sleep. Jack Daniels, if you've got it."

  "You're a pisshead, Slade," Vince laughed and sat back down next to a man he admired.

  All that Jack had gone through had impressed Vince, but what was more impressive was that Jack hadn't turned into a basket case. Jack admitted to Vince that he was close to insanity before and during his stay with Johnny Jefferson at the factory, but he somehow managed to hold on.

  Jack ran his fingers through his dark hair and protested, "You just don't know which day's gonna be your last."

  "Well, that's a cheery way of looking at things."

  "I'm thankful for you bringing me in, and for...you know, saving me at the crossroads. You and Claire." A tinge of sadness touched Jack as soon as he mentioned her name. He added, "You've done a good job here, you really have..."

  "I feel a but coming." Vince smiled, awaiting Jack's response.

  "I've been in places where I've been cooped up in a house, in a sports centre, and neither have been safe enough to stop those things."

  Vince had no idea where Jack was going with this, and tried to hurry things along. "So what are you trying to say?"

  "I'm just saying that if a hundred of those things come towards the camp, at the barrier, we could be in trouble, especially at night. How many have you got on watch for the nightshift? Two? Three men?"

  "It's all we have." Vince clasped his hands behind the back of his head and leaned back. "The dead are not going to be able to move a HGV, whatever their numbers. And the rest of the camp is surrounded by eight-foot hedges."

  "True, but they'll be stopping us from going out on runs if the camp is surrounded, and the people in here won't be able to settle either."

  "Stop worrying," snickered Vince. "The men are not just for those freaks. The men on guard are for outsiders as well. People may think twice attacking us if they see that we have guns."

  "We've seen how bad the town centre can be. One minute it's bare, the next...they're everywhere. We're only two miles from the town centre. What's stopping them from coming here in their droves?"

  "Nothing," Vince said bluntly. "But that's why I'm so desperate for more people—people who can fight. I mean look at Karen. That crazy bitch's a warrior."

  "She's pregnant."

  "Doesn't matter. And Shaz can handle herself as well. Just a shame we lost Pickle."

  "And your dad."

  Vince laughed, "He reached the age of sixty-nine. Do you think we'll reach that age with those things out there, as well as desperate people who will do anything to feed themselves and their family? Medicines are dwindling out there, no hospitals. People could start dying slowly from stuff that was easily preventable last month. And what happens if Karen loses a lot of blood when she gives birth? She'll die, that's what. Or what happens if the baby is breached? It doesn't bear thinking about. Not only would be losing a warrior, but we'd be losing a nurse. I've come to realise that I need her."

  Jack asked, "So are we gonna be looking for them tomorrow?"

  "Yes an
d no. I'm not going into town again. Every time we travel, something happens. We'll make runs every half an hour to the Ash Tree pub. They should make it that far. They're tough girls."

  "I hope they make it."

  "I bet you do." Vince sniggered and winked at Jack, trying to lighten his sullen mood. "You were nearly balls-deep in that Shaz when I walked in."

  "You're a fucking disgrace. Anyway, that was a mistake. I mean, I like her, but she only lost her husband under a month ago. It's a bit fucked up."

  Vince released his hands from behind his head and leaned forward. "Everything's fucked up. Don't worry about it. Like you said: You just don't know which day's gonna be your last."

  "I don't need sex. I've got two perfectly working hands. I won't say no to that drink, though." Jack checked his watch, dropping a massive hint. "It's nearly time to turn in."

  "I'll get that Jack Daniels."

  Chapter Forty Five

  After Karen had placed one of the wooden chairs against the handle of the door in the hallway, she grabbed a second chair and placed it against the staff room door once both women were inside.

  They were left with four chairs and a table, and Shaz walked over to the kettle and noticed the three glass jars. One had tea bags in it, one had sugar, and the final one was filled full of coffee. Shaz opened the lid off the coffee jar and took a deep inhale. "Ah, that's just a big tease."

  "Stop sniffing then." Karen sat down and slammed her blood-stained machete on the table. In the old world it would have been considered unhygienic, but things were different now.

  Shaz walked over to the chairs and tables and began sniffing the air. "You smell that?"

  "Kind of." Karen was exhausted and ready for sleep, but Shaz was strutting around the room as if she had taken speed. She couldn't settle, and she was beginning to get on Karen's nerves.

  "Why don't you sit down?" an exhausted Karen spoke with calm, but her frustration was growing.