Snatchers (Book 9): The Dead Don't Scream

Snatchers 9: The Dead Don't Scream

By

Shaun Whittington

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The author uses UK English

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"The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them."

Ezekiel 37: 7-8

Snatchers 9: The Dead Don't Scream

Chapter One

August 4th

As he rubbed his hands over his scarred face, Vince Kindl released a heavy sigh. With narrow eyes, he looked up to the fiery ball in the cloud-free sky and then took a look to his left where Rick Morgan stood. He had been on the barrier with Rick for the last sixty minutes and was praying for the end of his shift to speed up. It felt like the drums of time had ceased for a while, and Vince widened his eyes like saucers in order to stop himself from falling into a mild coma.

It had been a mundane watch, and with the other guard, Robert Newman, sitting in the cab, Rick was all that Vince had for company. The boredom continued to machete its way into Vince's psyche and he released another yawn, making his eyes water.

"How long we got left before we can leave?" Rick asked. He felt his shaved head with his fingertips and released a soft belch.

Both Vince and Rick were outside the camp and leaning up against the truck, their shotguns standing up against the front tyre of the articulated lorry.

"About a couple of hours," Vince moaned, and looked over the road, Horsefair. The jeep that he and Stephanie had been in, the same one that had crashed into the Indian takeaway shop, was still there. Lee and the others had checked the vehicle out after clearing the dead from the road, but it was deemed as defunct, was siphoned, then left abandoned.

Rick shifted uncomfortably and took a quick peep at Vince, which he noticed, and Vince knew that Rick Morgan had something on his mind.

"Come on then," sighed Vince. "Out with it."

"What?" Rick tried to act dumb.

"You've obviously got something on your mind. What is it?"

Rick scratched his head and cleared his throat. "You know..." He paused and wondered how to word his query to a man—in Rick's eyes—that had lived a little. "When you play with your
thing
..."

"Oh Jesus." Vince shook his head.
Me and my big mouth
. He turned to Rick and said, "Er ... Yes?"

"How much stuff comes out?"

"How old are you?" Vince didn't know if Rick was playing with him or not.

"I'm thirty-five," said Rick with a straight face.

"Are you taking the piss out of me?"

Rick stared at Vince blankly and shook his head. "Er ... no. What do you mean?"

Vince glared at him for a few seconds, now convinced that Rick was being genuine, and released a breath out. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Rick nodded. "I just wondered, that's all. Compared to other men."

Vince tried to hide a smirk and replied, tongue planted firmly in his cheek, "Well, when I get chance to do it, I manage to produce just under a pint. On a good day I can do just over a pint. And you?"

"Erm..." The worry on Rick's face made Vince feel a little guilty, but decided to continue with his teasing in order to kill a few minutes.

Vince urged, "Well?"

Rick finally answered, with a stammer, "I-I do about half a pint. Sometimes more." He was a terrible liar.

"Really?" Vince thinned his lips and smirked, knowing that Rick was an individual that had very little sexual experience. He had heard stories, and he kind of pitied the man. He was a big man, and someone who he didn't like at first, but Rick Morgan seemed to have a kind heart.

Vince felt bad and decided to speak up. "Look," said Vince. "Let me come clean, no pun intended, about this pint story of mine..."

"It's okay." Rick nodded, and added with a smile, "I think you were exaggerating anyway. So was I, to be honest."

"I don't get it. I don't get how it's possible." Vince found it unusual for a person to go through life without experiencing a relationship—even sex. "Wasn't there one special girl in your life, apart from your mum?"

"No. Life seemed to have passed me by," Rick said with seriousness, knowing that Vince wasn't mocking him in any way. He was genuinely interested. "I don't know what happened. I looked after my gran for a few years, before she died. My dad then became ill. By the time I had some free time my friends had all got girlfriends. So I used to sit in the house all by myself and watch films. The longer it went on without having anyone, the harder it was to approach a girl."

"I wouldn't worry about women." Vince began to yawn and began to pick at the inside of his left nostril. "They're more trouble than they're worth."

"What's your ideal woman?" Rick looked down to the side of him, making sure his shotgun was still standing up against the lorry's tyres and then clocked Vince, waiting for an answer.

"Well, I suppose you can't be too picky these days. I suppose these days as long as they're not dead, then that's a plus." Vince stroked his chin in thought. "My ideal woman, back in the old world, would be someone who's a chef in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom."

Rick began to laugh. He was beginning to warm to Vince, and it had finally clicked that some of the words that came out of Kindl's mouth were tongue-in-cheek. "Really?"

"But then again, back in the old world I was a bit of a prick," confessed Vince.

Rick Morgan began to snigger, "Sheryl thinks you still are."

"Does she? I don't think she has a nice thing to say about anyone." Vince began to laugh and scratched at his grey hair. "You have a thing for Sheryl, don't you?"

Rick looked uncomfortable and didn't answer at first. Finally, he said, "I do like her. There's something about her. I know she's not the prettiest woman in the world..."

"You don't always look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire, Rick." Vince then laughed when a thought came into his head. "You know what would improve Sheryl's looks?"

Rick never answered. He stared at Vince with a blank expression on his face.

Vince added, "My balls resting on her chin."

"I don't get it."

"Forget it."

"Okay."

Vince gawped at Rick with sympathy. What a waste, he thought. "So you've really never been with anyone?"

Rick shook his head with sadness.

"No women? Not even a goat?"

Rick seemed annoyed and embarrassed. He wasn't sure if Vince was making fun of him now.

Rick began, "I came close a few times."

"Oh?"

"Not with goats." Rick held his hands up.

"I gathered that," sighed Vince.

Rick continued, "When I was twenty, I was at a house party. My cousin's friend and her other pal offered to have a threesome with me in one of the bedrooms. I nearly shat my pants."

"Ah, man." Vince dropped his head in his hands. He knew what was coming. "You turned them down, didn't you?"

"I was scared." Rick gulped. "Plus, I didn't see the point in disappointing
two
women at the same time."

Vince doubled over and released a raucous laugh. He stood straight back up, still giggling. "I'm beginning to like you."

"I'm glad you find it funny," Rick spoke with sadness.

"But surely you must have had some chat-up lines?"

Rick shook his head. "I used to steal some of my pal's lines when we were out at pubs and stuff, before they buggered off with their girlfriends."

"What happened?"

"They never worked."

"Give me a few examples."

Rick pondered for a minute, unsure whether to say anything more. "Well, my favourite is: If you were a dinosaur you'd be a Gorgeousaurus."

"Crap." Vince shook his head. "That's the kind of thing a ten-year-old would say. Any others?"

"Erm..." Rick scratched at his head in thought. "I wish you was a door so I could bang you all day long."

"You can't say that!" Vince rubbed at his scarred face. "I think your pals have been taking the piss out of you. Even
I
wouldn't come out with a line like that. What else?"

"One more. It's pretty rubbish." Rick hunched his shoulders and said the line anyway. "I'm hung like a tic-tac. Wanna freshen your breath?"

"They're pretty bad, Rick." Vince felt sorry for the big man with the large heart and patted him on the shoulder. "It's too late now, but the best thing you should have done was to be yourself."

"That's what
I
wanted to do. But my friends told me if I was to be myself ... then the only way I could get laid was if I crawled up a chicken's arse and wait."

Vince tried to stifle a laugh, but failed miserably. "Shit. I'm beginning to like your pals."

Chapter Two

On the other barrier, by the railway bridge, was Paul Dickson, Daniel Badcock and Jasmine Kelly. Paul felt nervous holding a shotgun, and even though there was little chance he would need to use it, it still unnerved him.

It had only been days since he put his boy to rest, but Paul Dickson needed to be doing something. He had spent the last few days walking, spending time with Karen Bradley, and moping about the house that he had been given when he arrived.

Lisa still stayed with Rosemary and Vince, and was reluctant to leave to go back to Paul, especially now that Stephanie Perkins was staying with them.

Paul didn't mind.

He leaned against the back wheels of the articulated lorry, holding the shotgun, and began daydreaming. Jasmine point-blank refused to hold a gun. She had a knife on her, but had never killed one of the dead in the two months since it had started. Daniel thought it was a waste of time her being on the barrier, but never protested because he had a massive crush on the good-looking girl that was a few years younger than him.

Paul Dickson looked up the road that went past the entrance of the Pear Tree Estate and went through Draycott Park. It was bare. He couldn't imagine what this street was like in the first days. It must have been sheer hell.

Suffocated with melancholy, he wondered what kind of carnage took place on Sandy Lane. He already knew the story that, like most streets in the UK, the place was awash with the dead, and a lot of people died in their own homes.

Daniel told Paul that when he and some others went in to check, when people were brave enough and decided to 'clean' the place up, he saw terrible things. In some houses he saw whole families had killed themselves. There were other houses that had the infected in there.

On one occasion, in the first week, there was a man that had tied his bitten wife up to a chair whilst she fell into a coma, during the reanimation phase, but she remained in the chair for days because he couldn't bear to kill her. He even tried to feed her with some cold meat that was left in the fridge, and it took hours of persuasion to convince the man that his wife was already dead.

Paul had spent the first month hiding in his house with Kyle and was worried for his missing wife and daughter. Despite hiding in his home for most of the time, Paul had gone through a lot. In week five he had contacted his neighbours, only to find that the man of the house and his youngest daughter, Jody, had already turned, whilst Lisa and her mother, Daisy, were starving and hiding in their attic. They soon moved in with Paul.

Paul had travelled to a sports centre to get some water and killed two of the dead; it was his first experience with these things. Following that, there was the arrival of the Murphys, accidentally killing one of them with a hammer after the youngster had broken into the house. Then he had to hide in the cupboard with Kyle, whilst the Murphy clan rampaged through his house and found Lisa and Daisy hiding and took them outside.

He remembered running to his daughter's bedroom and peering out to see what was happening. The image of Lisa being thrown into the back of a van, and Daisy getting her head smashed in with the butt of a shotgun by the father of the family, would never leave his mind.

He shook off the images and brought himself back to reality.

He stood up with his head down, cleared his throat and heard Daniel call over to him. Paul turned around and said in a daze, "What?"

Daniel sighed, "I said: Shall I get that, or do
you
want to?"

Paul rubbed his head and looked puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

Daniel pointed up ahead. Paul could see a lone creature stumbling down the road towards them. It wasn't far away, and Paul reprimanded himself for drifting away like that.

Paul asked, "Don't you wait till it gets nearer the HGV?"

"You lot always call them HGVs," Daniel laughed. "It's an
L
GV. They changed the name back in 1992. And no, we kill them pretty much as soon as we spot them, if it's safe enough."

"Okay," Paul sighed. "I'll get it then."

As soon as those words left Paul's mouth, he realised that his experience with killing these things was very limited. He didn't know if he had it in him.

"Are you sure?" asked Daniel. "I don't mind taking care of it."

"If they're gonna take me out on jaunts eventually, I'm not gonna be much use if I can't put one of these things down."

Daniel nodded in agreement. Paul had made a valid point. "Okay."

Clutching onto the gun with both hands, Paul Dickson marched towards the ghoul and could see that it was a male. He could see that this one was so rotten that the skin was peeling off of its face, and its nose looked to have been bitten off.

Maybe that's how it got infected. Bitten on the nose.

Paul was nervous, but his nervousness was turning into anger as thoughts of his son's demise began to infect his mind. He'd spent many hours thinking of what Kyle had gone through, and this was going through his mind once again as he continued with his now angry strides towards the creature.

He turned the gun around and, with the butt, he slammed it into the face of the creature, making it drop to the floor. But he wasn't finished there. Possessed with rage for these dirty things, Paul slammed the gun into its face once more, and again.

The head had opened and the diseased brain was being mashed as Paul continued with his pounding, now yelling and screaming out, and only stopping when Daniel slapped him on the shoulder. Paul dropped the gun and turned around. Daniel took a step back when he could see the grieving man was in tears, saliva running down his mouth and rage in his eyes.

"I think it's dead," Daniel tried to joke. "Well, it's dead anyway, but you know what I mean. Let's go back to the barrier."

Paul never responded to Daniel and just glared through him.

Daniel asked if he was okay, then looked down to the pulverised head of the beast. Paul never answered and pulled out his penis, to Daniel's astonishment, and began peeing on the body. This was also witnessed, from afar, by Jasmine Kelly.

Once he was finished, Paul grabbed a hold of one of the legs and dragged it to the side, then walked back to the HGV—or LVG.

Daniel was baffled at this odd behaviour, and watched as Paul sat down on the road and crossed his legs.

Daniel knew that Paul was going through hell. He bent down to pick up Paul's gun and sighed under his breath, "Maybe it's too early for you to be doing this."