“I wonder where Milner is,” Cordoba said. “What happens if we can’t get to him?”
“Let’s find out exactly where he is,” Smith said and clicked the radio talk button. “Milner, we’re going to have some trouble reaching you without getting noticed. Where exactly are you? It’s a big old space in there.”
We waited a few seconds in silence before Milner finally answered.
“Ah, we’re in some sort of transport office up a stairwell overlooking the whole area but we’re opposite the entrance right at the far side. We found our way here using our flashlights and didn’t have much of a clue where we were headed. We can’t move now without being spotted.”
Smith slumped against the wall. “We can’t get in and they can’t get out.”
“There’s no way we can get those fuel pumps going ourselves?” Cordoba asked.
Smith sighed. “Even if we could get them going, we can’t just leave Milner and his guys in there. We’ve got to figure out some way of getting them out of there.”
I rubbed my face, feeling fatigued once again. I tried to think of some method we could use to get to Milner. “Haven’t we got enough fire power to take out those zombies in there?”
“It’s nine guys firing in opposite directions against like a hundred undead,” Smith muttered. “And we don’t know how much ammo Milner and his crew have left.”
“We don’t have enough ammo either,” Cordoba chipped in. “We used a couple of mags back there near the generator room.”
My exasperation boiled over. “We can’t just stand here for the rest of time.”
“Amen to that, kid. If you’ve got any ideas, I’m all ears,” Smith muttered.
I took a hard look around the long corridor. Wooden pallets were stacked high in a corner and more freight containers were piled next to them. I glanced at the forklift truck and back at the containers, then at a cage type crate that I guessed was used for transferring baggage.
“What about using that forklift?”
“For what, stacking up zombies?” Smith snorted.
“No, I mean we could use the forklift to get across the ground between us and Milner.”
“Forget it, man. The battery is probably long dead.”
“Yeah, but they have a second back up battery that they leave on charge,” I said. I remembered Pete Cousins telling me all about forklifts, some time ago. Pete was a good friend of mine back in Brynston and drove forklifts for a living. “With any luck, the spare battery will still be useable.”
“All right, it’s worth a try I suppose,” Smith admitted. “But we’ll have to be damn quiet. Those things in there will be out here like a shot if they hear us.”
We moved back up the corridor, towards the forklift.
“I thought you and Cordoba could maybe ride in that cage,” I pointed to the baggage crate. “I could raise you up on the forks out of harm’s way. Then we could get Milner and his crew in the cage and maybe get back to this point. It may bide us a bit of time to get away from the motor pool. We could easily lose those zombies in the corridors.”
“What makes you think you’re going to drive?” Smith sounded shocked. “You know how to handle one of these things?” Smith slapped the yellow and black frame of the driver’s cab.
“Sure I do,” I lied. How hard could it be? I felt I’d been a bit of a passenger on this mission and wanted to do something to get involved.
“Let’s see if we can get it going first,” Smith said, opening a flap in the back of the forklift.
“The starter key or whatever you call it is still in place,” Cordoba said, looking through the cab’s side door.
The replacement battery stood by a charging station against the wall. I unplugged the leads and wheeled the battery over to the forklift. Smith and Cordoba pulled out the old battery and I plugged in the replacement then closed the compartment flap.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Smith asked me.
I peered through the side window at the controls. “It’s been a while but I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Listen, Wilde. We don’t have a lot of time for fucking around here,” Smith growled. “As soon as we fire that engine up, those fucking zombies are going to come flooding out here. We need to be on the money from the start.”
I thought about it. I knew it seemed stupid but I couldn’t back out, I’d already said I could drive a forklift and didn’t want to look an idiot now saying I couldn’t. I was sure I could work out how to drive one in quick time; after all, I wasn’t taking any sort of test.
“Sure, don’t worry about me, Smith. I’m at the races,” I said, trying to sound convincing.
Smith gave me a reproachful stare as though he could see right through me. Maybe I wasn’t a very good liar. I suddenly got the feeling the whole idea was a little half assed and was doomed to failure.
“We’ll get in the cage so we’re ready,” Smith said. “Remember, you’ll have to be quick and get us up in the air on those forks. We’ll do our best to keep them from opening up the cab from above you. Don’t freak out if you hear any shooting.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said, opening the forklift cab and hauling myself inside.
The cab was enclosed on all sides with glass panels and stunk of oil, old stale sweat and sooty dust. I waited until Smith and Cordoba clambered inside the baggage cage before I turned the ignition key.
Chapter Thirty-One
To my surprise, some lights on the control panel lit up when I turned the key. I really thought the battery wouldn’t work or some other problem would prevent the forklift from starting. I turned the key hard to the right and the engine roared into life. I glanced at the control panel and saw a wheel and several levers.
“Shit! What the fuck am I doing?” I bleated.
I tried the gas pedal. The engine roared louder but the damn forklift didn’t move. I studied the control but couldn’t work out how to move the thing. Smith was yelling something at me from inside the cage but I couldn’t hear what he was saying above the engine noise. I glanced up and saw several zombies negotiating their way through the vinyl flaps across the entranceway to the motor pool and heading our way. I had to get my act together and quickly.
I tried the two levers beside the driver’s chair but they only tilted the forks or moved them up and down. At least I knew what those controls did. A loud bang on the left side window caused me to recoil to the right of the cab. I turned and saw Smith standing by the window with an angry scowl on his face.
“Take the fucking park brake off, you numb nuts!”
I felt sheepish and all I could muster in reply was a confused shrug.
“By the fucking steering wheel,” Smith yelled, jabbing his finger against the glass and pointing to a lever to the left of the wheel. “Hurry it up, dick head!”
I pushed the lever forward and felt the whole truck jolt. Smith clambered back into the cage but the zombies shuffled along the corridor, nearer to our position. I tried the gas pedal again with a little too much pressure. The forklift shot forward and crashed into the freight containers next to the cage. I heard Smith roaring obscenities above the engine noise. He was calling me all the names under the sun.
I silently prayed as I pulled another lever on the steering wheel column towards me. To my relief, the truck moved backwards, away from the dented freight containers. I slowly maneuvered the forklift back and forward until the forks slid beneath the cage container. Smith glared at me through the windshield and Cordoba had a worried expression on her face. I felt a little more confident now as I knew how to operate the controls and what their functions were.
I slowly raised the cage and tilted the forks towards the cab so Smith and Cordoba wouldn’t fall out and the metal container wouldn’t slide off the steel fork blades. Smith and Cordoba took out a few of the leading zombies in our path with single shots to the head when I slowly turned the forklift on a vertical axis to the corridor and raised the cage to a safe height of aro
und eight feet off the ground. I rolled the truck forward, heading towards the motor pool entranceway.
Smith’s voice crackled in my earpiece, informing Milner of what we were doing. I hoped this operation was going to work. If I was hauled from the cab, Smith and Cordoba would be stranded inside the elevated cage.
A long haired, male zombie, wearing a set of filthy blue coveralls banged furiously at my left side window. He snaffled at the glass panel, leaving a sliver of brown blood and what looked like saliva, level with the side of my head. His gnarled finger nails scraped over the glass surface and I heard his roars reverberate around the cab.
Smith and Cordoba continued to eliminate some of the zombies heading towards us but the number of ghouls collecting around my side windows was causing me concern. I steered close to the stacked freight crates near the motor pool entranceway and crushed a few attackers against the containers. They dropped to the ground but I wasn’t convinced I’d totally put them out of action. Even a crawling, crippled zombie was still a lethal threat.
I turned slowly towards the vinyl strips, covering the entrance and braced myself for the inevitable undead onslaught.
“Get ready, Smith,” I said into my radio. “I’m going to have to get across that floor space as quick as I can so hang on tight.”
“Go for it, kid,” Smith replied. “We’ll try and keep them off you for as long as possible.”
The long haired zombie still banged and scratched at my side window and I wondered how long the glass panel would hold out before it shattered. I’d put the M-16 rifle behind the driver’s seat and couldn’t get to it very easily. A handgun was more effective in close proximity combat.
I hit the gas pedal and the forklift lurched forward, gathering speed. Smith and Cordoba ducked down as we flapped through the long vinyl strips and into the motor pool area. We moved across the floor at a speed I thought was similar to a normal running pace of a human. My long haired friend at the side window couldn’t keep up and eventually disappeared from view.
The zombies inside the motor pool all turned when we made our way across the main floor expanse. They began trudging in our direction and I wanted to cover as much ground as possible before they blocked our path. Smith and Cordoba continued to shoot from the cage at the nearest zombies. I noticed most of the undead wore the remains of coveralls and uniforms of some sort. They were probably maintenance workers, engineers or mechanics in their previous lives and had been stuck down here ever since the apocalypse began.
Streams of walking corpses flooded towards us from all directions as I scooted across the floor. My heart hammered inside my chest and I felt beads of nerve induced sweat form on my forehead.
“Where are we heading to, Smith?” I squawked into my headset.
I heard more gunshots and saw a few zombies drop to the deck before he answered.
“Keep heading in a straight line across the motor pool,” Smith yelled. I can see the office around one hundred yards dead ahead.”
I craned my neck, looking through the windshield and trying to ignore the swarms of zombies in our path. I saw a flight of descending steps leading to a separate, enclosed white building, constructed of sheet metal and situated roughly thirty feet from the ground.
“I see it,” I shrieked into the headset, just as the front of the forklift smashed into a zombie who wore an orange construction hat.
The truck lurched sideways as the wheels ran over the zombie’s torso. I thought for one horrible moment the whole forklift truck was going to roll over sideways. The wheels righted themselves but I heard the cage rattle violently on the forks.
“You okay, Smith?” I yelled into the microphone.
“We’re still here, kid,” came the reply. “Just keep this damn thing steady.”
I didn’t slow the speed. I couldn’t afford to. We were only slightly outpacing the undead horde and Smith and Cordoba were doing their best to take out the zombies directly in the way of our route to the motor pool office.
Milner and his crew appeared at the staircase summit and began to fire on the zombies surrounding their immediate vicinity, clearing a path for us. I started to slow the forklift around twenty yards from the staircase, releasing my foot gradually off the gas pedal but not applying the brake. A sudden stop might cause the cage to slide off the forks.
I brought the forklift to a gradual halt, then slowly maneuvered forward so the cage rested against the staircase. Smith told me when to stop moving forward and I felt the resistance as the metal cage met the staircase frame.
Milner and his crew of five began climbing into the cage from the stairway but I was quickly surrounded by snarling, desperate ghouls. They beat and hammered against the glass with their fists and a large crack appeared in the left side window. Two zombies crawled across the back windshield and pulled at the metal frame. The whole truck rocked from side to side and I was worried we’d be turned over any second.
“Get them off me, Smith,” I shrieked into my headset.
Smith said something in reply but his words were muffled by gunfire from above me. A few zombies dropped but I was surrounded by a sea of pale, half rotten faces with bared teeth and snarling mouths. The noise built to a feral crescendo, like a pack of wild dogs closing in on an injured deer.
The window panel on the cab’s left side shattered, spraying me with chips of glass and bony, grasping hands reached inside to try and grab me. I screamed instinctively in terror and reached behind my seat for the M-16. A gnarled hand gripped around my ankle but I managed to shake it off and kick it away. I scrabbled across the small cab to the right side, trying to make myself as small as possible but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the window behind me was also breached.
I pointed the rifle barrel out of the smashed window, flicked the safety catch up two clicks and pulled the trigger. Three shots fired into the crowd of zombies, jostling to climb into the cab with me. Not enough to quell the tide of gnashing teeth and clawing finger nails.
My number was up unless I did something quickly.
The zombies to my right pushed hard on the glass panel trying to get at me. I was only a fraction of an inch, a pane of glass’s width from their grasping clutches and hungry mouths. The motion of their shoving caused the forklift to rock violently from side to side once more.
I heard the cage clattering on the forks and then a figure dressed in cold weather combat gear fell from above. I heard the screams as whoever it was hit the deck and was immediately pounced on by several flesh eaters.
“We’ve lost Clements,” somebody yelled from the cage.
Some of the zombies trying to get into the cab turned around at the smell and sense of fresh meat. Poor Clements was already being torn to pieces by around a dozen ghouls. The fall had probably broken a few bones and rendered him unable to even get to his feet. His screams were muffled under the pile of bodies on top of him and it was horribly obvious he was a goner already.
I briefly glanced upward, trying to make out the position of the cage through the cab’s smoked glass roof. A bald headed zombie reached inside with his jaws wide open, ready to bite into my arm. I pulled my arm from his grasp and the rifle twisted in my hands. I tried to reaffirm my grip but my finger accidently activated the trigger. The three shot burst fired skyward and shattered the smoked glass roof, sending chips raining down on me and the bald zombie who I grappled with.
As I shook the glass chips from my face, it suddenly occurred to me that I had just created an escape route. Somehow, I had to crawl out of that roof space.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I screamed and twisted the M-16 barrel towards the bald zombie. When the muzzle was lined up under his chin, I pulled the trigger to let off another three shot firing burst. The rounds exited through the top of his skull, sending a splattering of blood and brains out through the broken window. Another zombie had hold of my foot and gnawed at the leather toe cap of my boot. I shoved the remains of the bald zombie off me and his heavy torso sent a co
uple more undead, who were trying to climb into the cab, back outside, falling on top of those who were busy devouring Clements.
A swift kick to the face put paid to the zombie who was trying to eat my boot then I quickly slung the M-16 over my shoulder. I scrambled up the interior, leaning my back against the glass and reached for the square shaped roof frame, where the shattered smoked glass previously sat. I hauled myself skyward and felt hands grabbing at my dangling legs. Kicking the grasping hands away, I dragged myself out through the gap and onto the forklift roof.
I hung on to the frame sides as the truck rocked violently. The surrounding zombies reached up and tried to pull me off the roof.
“Wilde!” I heard a shout from the staircase.
I swiftly turned my head and saw Smith hanging on to the sides of the cage, staring at me intensely. Cordoba, Milner and the rest of his crew had got back out of the cage and stood on the staircase taking shots at the zombies below.
“Get your ass over here, now,” Smith bellowed.
I held onto the forklift frame with my hands and clambered across the roof then onto the top of the fork casing. Smith held his arms out towards me and I leapt up towards the cage. Smith caught hold of my wrists and hauled me over the side of the cage. We steadied ourselves from the rocking motion then climbed out of the opposite side, onto the staircase to join Milner and Cordoba.
“I thought you were a goner for a while there, Wilde,” Smith shouted in my ear then slapping me on the back.
My legs felt like jelly and I could hardly stand upright as I turned to survey the scene of carnage below. The whole horde of zombies surrounded the forklift and some still feasted frenziedly on Clements’s corpse. Our escape route was cut off but at least the cage prevented the zombies from gaining access up the staircase, although it wouldn’t hold out forever. The undead still furiously rocked the forklift and crawled underneath the cage, spurred on by the taste and smell of fresh blood.
The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink Page 16