Snatchers (Book 8): The Dead Don't Pray (17 page)

Just to make sure they were the dead, the dark-haired woman with the baseball bat whistled sharply, and all turned around and glared at them with their dead faces.

Both women entered the room with zero hesitation and began using their bats. The little heads of the boys cracked open with ease, and Sheryl grabbed Karen and both took a step back. Blood flew everywhere, and these two women seemed to be enjoying themselves and weren't even bothered that there was danger that their eyes could get blood in them. They looked on from a few yards, and Karen winced at the bloody scene. There was two left. The girl with the short blonde hair smacked one of the children so many times that its head was obliterated to mush. The remaining one had his legs swiped by the older-looking female, and she brought her bat down, using a stabbing motion, crushing its head and exposing a fraction of the black diseased brain.

The strangers took a look at one another, no expression on their faces, and walked out. Their clothes had additional blood on them, to go with the old stains, but it wasn't a concern for these two women.

The ponytail woman said to her friend, "We need to check out the next door, and make this place home for as long as we can."

The woman with the short blonde hair nodded and they both left, leaving Karen and Sheryl staring at the eleven little bodies that used to have their whole lives ahead of them. The floor was awash with brain matter and blood, and Sheryl reached for the door, closed it, and went with Karen to leave the room and get back into the main church area.

The woman with the dark hair went to the other door at the side of the stage, and before unlocking the door she turned around and said to the girls, "You hanging around for a reason?"

Both Karen and Sheryl shook their heads. It was time to go. They had seen enough.

Chapter Thirty Four

After leaving the church, Karen and Sheryl went down Hislop Road and turned left onto Queensway. Karen looked at the defunct streetlight that she had just passed under, and sighed, "It's amazing the stuff you used to take for granted in the old world." Karen could see the evening was close and knew things would look a lot different if the streetlights were on.

Sheryl didn't respond to Karen's banal chatter, and was too busy thinking about the girls from the church.

"Not speaking?" Karen brushed her dark hair behind her ears and clocked the tattoo on Sheryl's wrist. "Is your silence anything to do with ... Buddy? You thinking about him?"

Sheryl flashed Karen an evil glare.
How the fuck did she know?

"I'm sorry." Karen held up her hands. "A little bird told me."

Fucking Lee!
Sheryl lied, "I'm just tired."

"Any runs planned for the next couple of days?" It was obvious Karen was desperate for some kind of conversation, but Sheryl clearly wasn't in the mood.

Sheryl remarked, "If there are, I want to be on one."

They were now descending down Queensway, and passed a small cul-de-sac to their right called Ashleigh Road. They passed the road, and then heard the noise of an engine.

"Down!" Sheryl instructed, and both girls hid behind a garden wall, on the corner of Ashleigh Road.

They peeped over the wall and could see a black Ford coming up. They both glared at one another, then ducked down.

"Over the wall," said Karen, "and wait for it to pass."

Together, they climbed the four-foot wall as the sound of the engine got nearer, crouched down behind it, and were both mortified when the car pulled up near them.

"Shit." Karen pulled out her machete and Sheryl did the same with her ten-inch blade. They heard the car doors open and heard steps and voices. It sounded like two males, and the girls listened in on their conversation.

"Now where?" A man with a gruff voice asked. "We're running short on petrol."

"We'll stay in one of these houses," a man with a high voice spoke.

"And what if they're not vacant?" Gruff asked.

"Then we threaten to kick them out like the last lot," High Voice said with a snicker.

"You know this place better than me," Gruff said aloud, and seemed unbothered about the volume of his voice. "Where's the safest place to go for the night?"

"We're alright for food for a few days..."

"So?"

High Voice said, "There's a church up a road to the right, further up. We can stay there."

"Let's hope we don't have any bother like the last time."

"I can't believe you killed that kid. What was he? Thirteen?"

Gruff replied, "He was running his mouth off, so I stabbed him in the gut. Problem solved."

"Killing his parents was a bit of a cunt though."

"Never thought she'd stop screaming."

"Yeah, until you rammed the knife in her throat, you sick fuck."

Both men burst into laughter and the girls could hear the men getting back into the vehicle; the doors slammed shut and the vehicle moved away.

As the sound of the engine faded, Karen quipped, "Well they seemed like nice chaps."

"They sounded adorable, didn't they?" responded Sheryl, with a heavy dosage of sarcasm.

Karen asked, in a more serious tone, "What the fuck is wrong with people? Why can't some people just get along?"

"Unlike me, you've been out there," Sheryl spoke up. "So why are you being so naive and asking stupid questions?"

"Fuck off," snapped Karen, and stood to her feet. Sheryl did the same.

Karen climbed over the wall, machete still in her right hand.

"Let's go." Sheryl began walking.

"You heard those men." Karen remained standing, watching Sheryl walk away. "They're going to that church where those girls are."

"And?" Sheryl called back, still walking away from Karen, and now passing Hardie Avenue on her right. "They can look after themselves, and you're pregnant."

"Is that it?"

"Yep," Sheryl said in voice that Karen could barely hear. "I'm going back for no one. We've got a quarter of a mile walk back to the camp, and I'm dying for a piss."

*

The man with the long beard sat up, grabbed the bottle that was only half-full, and unscrewed it. He got on his knees, pulled down his trousers and shit-stained pants, and then pulled out his penis. He pulled his foreskin back, and winced at the sight of his bell-end covered in, what looked like, scrambled egg. His nose twitched once the smell of his dick hit him.

He peed into the bottle, and thankfully stopped when it was getting full. He put the full bottle in the corner and reached for an old one that still had a quarter of a litre of urine,
his
urine, left.

He wondered what day it was. He had no idea.

Living on his own was bad enough in the old world, but at least back then he could go for a walk to the town centre, go to the library, take a walk up to Etching Hill, and nip in for a crafty pint or three in The Albion or The Crown once his dole money came through. Those luxuries had been taken away from him.

He hadn't left the house at all since he put on his television, on that Sunday morning, to be greeted by the awful news. It had been announced the evening before, but he had spent all his evening on porn sites and drinking white wine, so he never heard anything about it until he woke up the next morning with a hangover.

He listened to what the news was telling the country. He barricaded his doors, filled pots and pans and his bath with water, and rationed his food. The first week he was too scared to look outside as screams filled his street. In a strange kind of way, especially from what he had seen on the TV coverage, it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be, but still frightening all the same.

After a few mundane weeks passed, he began to check out the windows, constantly. With no television and power anymore, looking out the window was the only source of entertainment he had. He even removed the barricading as the weeks passed, because he thought it was pointless.

He remembered the third or fourth week; a vehicle pulling up in his street and screams filling the area. He peeped from behind the curtains to see four individuals beating a man for putting up a fight. The individuals were obviously robbing places for supplies, and whoever got in their way was going to get hurt. The man in charge seemed to be wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt with tour dates on the back, and he had slicked black hair. With him was two men and a woman. The woman was ugly-looking, ginger hair, and she looked a right vicious cunt. Thankfully, they never stopped by his house, and it appeared they were picking random ones.

He took a hold of the bottle and took a quick swig of the orange liquid. He leaned his head back, startled to hear the sound of an engine, and quickly got to his feet and approached his window.

A black car pulled up by The Church of the Good Shepherd, and two men got out. He had no idea the make of the car, as he was no good with that kind of thing. He never drove.

He saw the men scan the street and approach the main doors of the church. He remembered telling his recent two female visitors about the church, but had no idea if they were still in there. The men went in, and a few long minutes passed before they exited the place in a hurry. What was going on?

Two women came out of the church, holding baseball bats, but they weren't the same women that had visited his house, looking for their friend. It was two different females, and an argument took place between the two men and the dark-haired woman of the two.

The men appeared aggressive and pulled out knives, but the bat-wielding females seemed unruffled by this, especially the one with the short blonde hair.

What followed next shocked the man, but it was compelling viewing.

A scuffle broke out and the men lunged at the girls with their knives, but received strikes to their heads for their troubles. The first man went down immediately, but the second took two blows before hitting the floor.

Just when the bearded man thought that the show was over, the female with the dark hair and the ponytail picked up one of the knives, that the men had both dropped, and stuck it into the chest of one of them. The woman with the short blonde hair went for a more brutal method with the remaining male, who was half-conscious and trying to helplessly crawl away.

The girl with the short blonde hair walked over to the man with calm, and smashed his brains in with the bat. The bearded man, watching from his bedroom window, had counted six strikes. The bodies were then dragged to the side of the grounds, and the women casually went back inside as if what they had done was the norm.

Once he witnessed this, he moved away from his bedroom window, sat back down, and shook his head. That was quicker, the way those men died, but it wasn't the way
he
wanted to die. He already knew what his death was going to be.

It was going to be starvation.

Chapter Thirty Five

"Regrets?"

Bentley sat in thought about Rick Morgan's question whilst the three of them, Bentley, Pickle and Rick, were standing by the barrier, in front of the articulated lorry.

Pickle and Bentley had returned a few minutes ago, and Pickle had told Lee James that he wanted to wait by the barrier until Karen came back, even if he had to wait all night. He couldn't hide his concern, but the fact she was with Sheryl was some kind of comfort.

Bentley finally answered Rick's question. "One of my main regrets, apart from not being there for Laura, was that I didn't tell enough people to fuck off."

"Good one," Rick giggled. Vince always thought that Rick was boring and nicknamed him Father Stone, but he seemed to be opening up to Bentley and Pickle. Thirty-five-year-old Rick asked another query. It was his way of breaking up the monotony. "Who do you miss the most? You know, since..?"

Bentley sighed, "Well, that's an easy one. Laura."

Rick looked at Pickle for his response, who was staring into space, leaning against the back tyres of the huge vehicle. Pickle was in no mood to answer these dumb questions, but knew that Rick's heart was in the right place. "Too many to name," he said.

"You know what I always hated?" Rick spoke up, making Pickle shake his head with impatience. "I always hated it when you used to get those automated calls from companies, trying to sell some shit."

"I always hated Russian dolls." Bentley smiled. "Always full of themselves."

Pickle snickered and raised his head. "That's a Vince joke."

All three men fell silent once Pickle mentioned Vince's name, but the silence didn't last long when Rick Morgan pointed up ahead. "Look!"

Bentley and Pickle looked ahead to see two figures.

"Do you think it's those freaks?" asked Rick.

Pickle laughed, and Bentley shook his head at Rick's daft query.

"Really?" Bentley pointed at the two figures walking towards them. "And how many of the dead walk
that
sexy?"

With the darkness growing, it was hard to tell who it was from that distance, but Pickle was certain that it was Karen and Sheryl.

And he was right.