Snatchers Read online

  SNATCHERS

  Strange and Complicated

  Let’s Grow Old Together

  It’s a Cruel World

  Out of the Darkness

  The Snatchers

  In or Out?

  Revenge

  The Conversion

  Plan of Attack

  Snatching the Monster

  Prologue

  Sitting there on the end of his bed in the grubby little upstairs bedroom, he smiled to himself.

  On the floor in front of him was a small duffle bag, the one he bought discreetly and would provide no trace back to him. The one that held his raincoat, his glasses case and his sandwiches. It looked similar to the duffle bag he took to work every day, but this bag was special, it contained his ‘tools’.

  Carefully took the zip locked plastic bag from the wooden box under the bed and placed it in a metal biscuit tin and pushed that to the bottom of his bag. Inside the zip lock bag was a large wad of cotton wool and cloth all ready for the events that would unfold later that day.

  For many months now he had been dreaming excitedly about this day for so long, he had planned it all and now he was finally ready to carry it out.

  She had been selected, and he had spent months getting as much information as he could, the routes home, the calling places, the safe spots, the dangerous spots and now he felt in total control. He knew what to do and when to do it.

  Getting dressed in his work clothes, he opened the curtains to a dark and cold morning in the bleak hills that surrounded his house. Nothing new here as far as the weather was concerned.

  Closing the door behind him he began to walk down the small hill , memorising the plan in his head, over and over and over. His features changed, from one of concentration to a grin, not a broad happy grin, but a sinister dangerous one.

  Once he reached the station at the end of his street he boarded his train and sat back on the rigid seat and went over it all in his head. Once again the excitement grew and his heart started to beat faster. The animal inside was on the verge of escaping when the train pulled into its destination.

  The train hit the buffers gently and he was shaken back to reality as the train stopped and he bottled up all those intense feelings ready for later when he would unleash them in full.

  Calmly he stepped off the train and with the hundreds of other commuters he strolled off into the city just like everyone else, blending in and appearing to all and sundry like a normal city worker.

  By the end of the day, all that would change …

  Chapter 1

  Strange and Complicated

  Kris Kelley was a very strange and complicated young man. To the people he worked with he was seen as extremely strange and extremely complicated. But what they didn’t know was that behind the strangeness and complicated persona, there was a very dangerous young man.

  To anyone who didn’t know him, and that would be most of the people he ever came into contact with, he was quite unremarkable, an incredibly quiet and average person. He was always the awkward one in a group, the one most difficult to talk to, the one you didn’t really want to get to know.

  The fact that no-one cared to know more about him was one of the things that hurt the most. All his life he was the one overlooked, from the playground days when he was one of the last to be picked for the football team, right up to now when his colleagues hardly ever bothered to even engage in conversation with him. He was just given jobs and problems to solve and he just got on with it.

  Don’t be fooled though, Kris was an incredibly intelligent individual, very methodical and analytic, he studied things intently , he liked to understand every angle and he liked to feel that he controlled it. He never wanted to feel like he was backed into a corner, for Kris, control was everything.

  Kris worked in the same firm as Zoe, based in the modern offices in Manchester. He worked in the specialist project team, not connected directly with the main team, but called in every so often for an acute piece of problem solving. He was a loner and quite intense in everything he did. He was the quiet man in the corner, the one who got on with his job, the one that no-one knew much about.

  To the outside world he looked like the archetypal IT geek, with long, often unkempt blond hair and clothes that any 1980’s geography teacher would have been proud of. Brown corduroy trousers and a light blue, almost denim type shirt completed his office wear. On top of that in the winter time to guard against the cold, his heavy duffle type coat completed the image.

  For most of his adult life he had been on his own. That was no real surprise to anyone, he just was not able to form any kind of meaningful friendship with anyone, whether that was male or female.

  Throughout his life, Kris had struggled with relationships and with the normal things in society. He just did not fit in, he was always the square peg in a round hole. He had now accepted that role, he had grown more and more in his shell, into his secret world.

  His childhood was hard. He was a clever boy but had major issues of behavior and that caused him lots of strife at school, both with teachers and pupils around him.

  “Oi, weirdo, kick our ball back” the other kids would say in the playground and he was always the first point of any jokes that the cruel kids would make. His usual reaction to this was to lash out, not in a direct way to the bullies, but in a disruptive way in the class. He hated being told what to do, and he would often ignore teachers and generally cause problems in the class.

  When he was thrown into detention, he would scheme and plan revenge attacks on the bullies, but they always remained just that - schemes and plans, he never had the physical attributes or confidence to carry them out and that only strengthened the bullies attacks against him.

  The incidents throughout his childhood had led him to lead a reclusive and obsessive life, no one knew the dark secrets he kept buried deep in his head. All those fantasies, all those hours spent watching people, the few photographs he had dared to take, those were the foundations of his relationships, not with people, but with his ideas and his little world.

  Kris had grown up in a small village to the north of Manchester in the shadow of the Pennine hills, where the city starts to fade into the rural farming lands of the lower moorland . It was a close community where everyone seemed to know each other’s business, but despite all that Kris remained unknown to most.

  He had lived with his parents until he went to Sheffield University to study forensic computer science, he would become one of the best in his field, but all this came at a cost. The long hours, his compulsive approach lead to a search for perfection and he became more and more immersed in the world of screens and mother boards. Interactions with people in the real world were often short and uncomfortable.

  Kris had lived a secret life, one kept away from his family and from the authorities, he was a well-planned and dangerous predator and a clever one at that.

  His lack of human empathy had driven his mind into the world of fantasy. He often sat there in some café in Manchester watching people walk by. His eye was always drawn to the ladies in the smart suits or towards the short skirts, to him they were potential targets.

  Occasionally he finished his drink as they walked by and then got up and followed them. It was easy for him, just put the coffee cup down and stroll behind, always with his head down looking in shop windows.

  He noticed how they never spotted him or realized that they were being tracked, he could blend into street life so easily. He loved to follow them for as long as he could, always staying that safe distance away, never daring to get close or to speak with them.

  For now they were his training modules.

  He got to know the city on these walks, he paid attention to the places he could potentially use for cover, working o
ut if there was cctv coverage and imagining what those places would be like at night.

  For months he fantasized about these women, for months he schemed and planned his idea, all he needed now was some final planning and of course, a victim.

  Zoe was very much part of that planning. She didn’t know that, no one knew that, but she was the complete focus of Kris right now.

  Chapter 2

  Let’s Grow Old Together

  It was a Sunday morning and David and Zoe were making the most of the unseasonal weather. The sun shone brightly through the trees casting small shards of light though the twisted branches, eventually falling onto the neatly mown lawn.

  They were having breakfast on the decking as the birds chirped around them in the bushes and the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the air.

  Zoe leaned over to her husband and smiled. “What a fantastic way to start the day”

  David and Zoe had been married for about two months and were living together in a small but comfortable house on the outskirts of Manchester in the north west of England.

  Their red brick semi-detached house was on a quiet street near the city centre, just a short commute into work, either by tram or if the weather allowed, which is not always a given in Manchester, they could walk.

  The area was originally a hive of activity many years ago during the industrial revolution. The workers buzzed around the cotton mills and the factories churned out their products to be shipped around the world via the network of canals and railway lines that ran through the city. However as time went by all that changed and the industry fell away.

  The area became one of the city's grot-spots. Green mold had covered the red bricks, broken downspouts rained water all over the streets below. Most of the old industrial properties were boarded up and it was a very unsafe place to be once the darkness came each night.

  However, major investment had flooded into the city over the last few decades and that had seen most of that industrial grimness wiped away and now in its place, there were nicely kept streets with rows of low-level houses often bordering small green spaces of inner-city parkland.

  David and Zoe had both fallen in love with the area and the house, it was perfect for them, convenient for work, but also a nice place to start their married life together. Getting on to the property ladder is a tough ask at the best of times, but the tragic loss of David’s parents meant that horrible cloud did have a silver lining and as a result the couple had quite a substantial sum of money to put down as security.

  David and Zoe had both been born in the city, they both grew up there and loved the place. After they had both graduated, they had travelled but always knew they would return one day to set up home. Manchester, like many of the northern cities, always generates an enormous sense of being and purpose. No matter where you go, it has a hold over you and pulls you back to it..

  Zoe Turner was the only daughter of John and Eva Turner, who were unremarkable people leading unremarkable lives, nothing that would have set them apart from the average Mancunians. John worked on the railway first as a guard and then later in life as a train driver whilst Eva worked as a packer in one of the warehousing businesses on the ring road around Manchester. Zoe was their only daughter and they adored her.

  Zoe was of average height with short dark brown hair and like lots of girls from Manchester she had a pale complexion but was always very focused with an infectious smile. Zoe in contrast to her working-class parents was making her way in life. She was already a highly regarded financial project leader, working for one of the best firms in the city. She worked very hard and was very well thought of.

  David Taylor was also an only child born to Richard and Marlene Taylor who by chance, lived close to the Turners, although the two families had never met. Richard Taylor worked as a builder throughout his life, he was a skilled craftsman and eventually had his own small business, basically a man with a van working on small projects.

  It was a real shock to David when his father died. He passed away following a short illness leaving Marlene to guide their son through his formative years. Marlene never really recovered from the death of her husband and in equally tragic circumstances she too died quite young from a heart attack.

  David had grown up a strong man, emotionally, he handled his parents’ deaths well, although at the time both had affected him. David had vowed to make them proud. He was always trying that little bit more than everyone else, he wanted to make sure he left his mark.

  He was of average height, a typical Mancunian with short dark hair and inspired by his father’s occupation he too had ventured into the world of construction. He was now a highly qualified engineer, working in offices very close to Zoe, but also spending time out on site working on the new construction and infrastructure that was springing up all over the city.

  David and Zoe’s backgrounds were quite normal, both from normal working-class families, both their lives were quite straightforward just like thousands of other people their age. What would happen next however, would change all that forever.

  For now on that lovely warm, Sunday morning they were sitting together both relaxed and very happy, enjoying their breakfast and looking forward to the good times ahead. The warm sunshine was now extending from the lawn over the decking and all was calm, and tranquil.

  Zoe welcomed the oasis of calm. She had been working extremely hard recently, working on a major contract that was on the edge of completion and the pressure was on. A calm and quiet start to the day was just what she needed to prepare for the week ahead.

  She sat there as David brought over the cups of coffee and sat down. Zoe took the cup from him and leant over towards him, planting a soft kiss on his cheek.

  “You are my absolute everything you know?” Zoe whispered to David, “all that I do at work, all those long hours, all that stress, I do it for you and for our future together” She wanted David to know that she appreciated all his support and the way that he had been there for her.

  Of course he had been there for her, he was her husband and he was totally devoted to her. He would always be there for her, whenever she needed him. David knew that Zoe felt exactly the same and would always be there for him.

  David smiled and whispered back “I love you too Zoe” and he kissed her tenderly on her cheek. It was the perfect relationship with so much to look forward to. Their lives stretched out in front of them.

  They both sipped slowly on their cups of coffee looking out serenely over the garden and both inhaled deeply. The sheer calmness of their surroundings was perfection personified. There was a pause in the conversation, a natural break as both of them took it all in.

  “Let’s grow old together,” said David, “and in 50 years’ time we can still be sat here in the sunshine eating croissants and drinking coffee”

  David smiled contently at Zoe and she smiled back at him.

  Chapter 3

  It’s a Cruel World

  Zoe left work that night after a long and pressured day, she was tired but elated, the project that she had been working on for the last couple of months was completed and delivered.

  As is the custom with such things, most of the team were heading to the Northern Quarter for a few beers and she decided to go with them.

  They all walked along the small cobbled path that led from the office building into town, people all around them, it was busy, and the team were all chatting with each other.

  She rang David on her mobile as she walked along.

  “Hi love, how’s things?” David replied “all good here, hopefully good news?”

  “Yes! it is darling, we did it! It’s all finished and complete and I can relax” the joy in Zoe’s voice was plain to hear.

  “The whole team are going over to the Hop House to celebrate, so it would be rude not to join them”. she paused and then said “I will see you a little later. I am only going to stay for a couple and so I will probably see you around 11” … “ Yessss, we got the job finis
hed – it’s a great day for us”

  “Well done! “said David “That must be such a relief, have a great time tonight and make sure you grab something to eat, I’ll see you later”

  “I will do, don’t worry about that” said Zoe, “Speak to you later darling” and with that Zoe hung up.

  Moments later Zoe and all the rest of the team were settled in the Hop House, all sat in small booths or propped up against the bar, chatting and smiling enjoying their success.

  Kris was, as usual, on his own leaning up against a small post, almost half peering around it across the bar to the table where Zoe sat with her management team. She looked amazing in the half light that came in through the windows near the table and at the angle he was sat at he kept getting glimpses of her smiling face and it excited him.