Free Snatchers (Book 7): The Dead Don't Yield by Shaun Whittington Page A

where're yer goin'? Yer should be resting."
    "I need to get out and get some air, look at different surroundings, see different people."
    Pickle smiled. He was stifling her. He knew he was.
    He was concerned for her, but told himself that he needed to take a step back. She needed rest, but she also needed a change of scenery now and again, otherwise she could go mad.
    "I'm going out for a walk around the camp," she announced.
    "Okay." Pickle never asked if she wanted company. He had a feeling that his presence and his mothering was, as Karen would say, getting on her tits.
    She put her white trainers on and left the house. She left the front garden and was now on the Sandy Lane pavement. She could see Daniel Badcock about twenty yards in front of her and she called out his name. She knew he was going back to the Lea Hall building.
    He stopped walking and flashed Karen a smile. "Hey, you. What are you up to?"
    "Pickle was telling me that he'd heard whispers that I could be stocktaking in the next few days," she lied. "Thought I better take another look at the place. Get to know it."
    "How did you know I was going there?" he laughed.
    "I dunno, I just did."
    "Come on then," he sighed jokingly. "Let's make it quick."
    "I bet you say that to all the girls," she joked.
    Daniel never reacted to Karen's banter, making her feel a little silly, and went inside. "Let's hope we don't bump into James again. That guy's seriously paranoid about you new lot."
    "How did your run go?"
    "Not bad." Daniel nodded. "But the places are getting emptier as the days tick by."
    "I'd like to see that box again," Karen stated, brushed her hair behind her ears and looked at Daniel flirtatiously to try and get her own way. "I quite fancy those gloves that were in there."
    "Here." He went over and opened the box. "Help yourself. I need to take a run upstairs and get some paracetamol for..." He looked at the list. "...six people."
    "Cool."
    Daniel disappeared upstairs while Karen laughed at herself. "Cool? I never say cool ."
    She went through the box, and as soon as she found what she was looking for, as well as the gloves, she waited for Daniel to return, which he eventually did, and said goodbye to him.
    He waved her off. He stared at the back of Karen Bradley and said to himself, "Just look at that arse."
    Karen veered right and went by two guys called Kirk Sheen and Charles Washington, who were with her at the old camp at Spode Cottage, and continued with her stroll that she used to take occasionally when she lived at Draycott Park and fancied a walk down to the town centre, in the old world.
    She looked to her right to see the empty tennis courts, and behind them was a large football field that now had cattle and pens for the chickens and pigs that used to be on Vince's campsite. She crossed the road as she neared the barrier by the Globe Island, the roundabout, that sat in the middle of Horsefair, near the beginning of the town centre. She turned left and onto Burnthill Lane, where she hoped there was less people about.
    As she made her way into Burnthill Lane she heard one of the three guys from the barrier behind her give her a wolf whistle. Ignoring this she progressed another twenty yards and approached a steel drain lid. She crouched down, took a look to the side of her, and put her fingers in the gaps and lifted the heavy thing up. It was only half-out, but she had created a sufficient enough gap.
    Looking to the side of her again, she pulled out the Browning handgun that she had taken from the box in the Lea Hall building, and dropped it into the drain. She was certain it was KP's gun— almost certain, and despite her hiding possibly what really happened to him on that terrible early morning, Karen felt that she was protecting her friend. If Daniel eventually noticed that the gun had gone missing, she was going to deny that she knew anything about its disappearance.
    She needed it away from Pickle's eyes. The last thing she wanted was the man