“And we lost the Chief,” Milner groaned.
“We can get out of this,” Smith grunted. “We’ve got out of worse situations than this. This ‘aint no sweat.”
“What do you have in mind?” Milner asked.
Smith studied the dark mass of the main buildings where the hooded guys had appeared from.
“We can get into those buildings; they’re all interlinked so we can cross a big distance without needing to go back outside. We keep going to our right as far as we can, exit the building, which will bring us back out near that fork in the road.”
“Not wanting to be negative, Smith. But what the hell will that achieve?” Batfish asked.
“Well, here’s the thing. We can’t’ go around the back of the buildings because of the mine field. We go back the way we came along the road and that’ll lead us nowhere but into darkness and a long detour. We go through those buildings, the route will take us to the other side of the camp. Now, there may or may not be a motor pool of some sort there. If there is, we grab a vehicle and get the hell out of here. If not, we’re a bit closer to the parking lot where we’ll have to try and get one of those old wrecks going.”
“How are we going to do that?” I protested. “All the car batteries will be flat and we don’t have no keys.”
Smith sighed. “I was brought up in Brooklyn, kid. You don’t need no keys to start a car.”
“Yeah, but what about the flat batteries?”
“Most cars in the UK have a manual transmission. We push the damn thing down the slope,” Smith explained. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, kid. I know what I’m doing.”
“Listen up, guys,” Milner interrupted. “Whatever we’re going to do, we better do it real quick otherwise we’re going to have to shoot our way through those zombies.” He pointed to the approaching horde of undead.
They seemed to be moving more quickly than the ones we’d previously encountered. The zombies trotted, almost in a run towards us. Another mine exploded beneath a hunched male zombie, ripping off his arms and legs and sending the emaciated head and torso high into the air.
“Okay, let’s go,” Smith hissed.
Moving at a rapid pace was more difficult than I anticipated. My injured shoulder hampered my motion and the quicker I moved, the more the blood seeped from my head. Batfish and I remained locked arm in arm as we followed Cordoba, Milner and Smith towards the rear of the dark buildings. I shivered in the increasing cold. I’d forgotten how quickly the temperature dropped during British winter evenings. Cordoba glanced back at us with a concerned expression on her face.
“We’ll patch you both up a bit when we get inside that building,” she said.
We moved into the shadows at the rear of the main buildings, Smith moved towards an exit door and tried to pull it open. Predictably the door was locked from the inside. Smith took a step back and fired one shot. The door jolted in the frame and creaked open inwards. The interior beyond was dark but we could make out a crisscrossing staircase ascending in the gloom.
“Anybody got a flashlight?” Milner asked. “I left all my gear back on the Humvee.”
“I got one,” Smith said, taking the light from his side pants pocket. “Hope it still works after being caught up in that explosion.” He clicked it on and it didn’t work at first. I didn’t relish the thought of entering that building full of crazy, hooded people in the dark. Smith tapped the flashlight lens and the light beam thankfully illuminated the concrete slabs beneath our feet.
Throaty roars and high pitch screams echoed across the space between us and the pursuing band of zombies. I looked back at the expanse of grass and saw a few ghouls surrounding Cole’s charred remains. I felt sickened. There wasn’t even the slightest amount of dignity in death any more.
“We better get inside,” Milner prompted us.
Smith led the way, lighting our route with the flashlight. We climbed the staircase slowly and cautiously, anticipating an attack by the crazy gang with every turn on each level. Each step was an ordeal to climb and I wanted to lie down and for all this to go away. The stairway leveled inside a corridor on the top storey of the building. We took the door to our right and heard the zombie crowd bustling into the building through the open door below.
“Brett and Batfish need patching up with the medical kit,” Cordoba said to Smith and Milner.
“I know but we need to put some distance between us and those fucking zombies first,” Smith muttered. “Otherwise, we’re going to need more than a medical kit, if we hang around.”
The corridor walls were whitewashed but took on an eerie blue glow in Smith’s halogen flash light beam. Open doorways lined each side of the corridor walls and the whole place seemed deathly silent. Smith led the way, holding the flashlight in his left hand and resting his right over the top with the M-9 poised and at the ready. Milner followed, clutching the M16- rifle. Cordoba pushed Batfish and I forward so she could cover our rear as we moved in single file through the corridor.
I checked my own M-9 handgun was still in place in my holster but didn’t bother to draw it. We had enough fire power at present but I’d use my Beretta if the shit hit the fan.
The open doorways we passed led to abandoned offices with paperwork and discarded electrical equipment strewn over the floor space. A stench of damp, rotting carpets wafted from the rooms.
Smith stopped still when we heard an audible tapping sound coming from an office ahead of us and to our right.
“What the hell is that?” Milner hissed.
Smith shrugged. “I don’t know but we can’t go backward now. Those zombies will be climbing the staircase right now.”
We plodded slowly onwards. I hoped we were actually putting some distance between ourselves and the zombies behind. I knew we had to move cautiously but our progress was too slow for my liking.
The tapping became louder and more rapid the closer we moved to the office. It sounded like something metallic hitting a hard surface. Smith drew level with the office door and made to turn to face the room beyond.
Batfish screamed when a hooded figure loomed from the blackness into Smith’s light beam. The figure held a metal bar, raised above his head with the intention of clouting Smith around the head with the weapon.
Chapter Sixty-One
Smith didn’t flinch or lose his poise. He aimed the handgun at the sacked head and fired once. We briefly saw a smoking black hole appear in the center of the hessian hood. The iron bar flew into the darkness in the room behind and the figure shot backwards onto the floor in the doorway.
“Fuck! These guys give me the shits,” Milner hissed.
He wasn’t the only one. This situation was the stuff of nightmares. These hooded freaks were like the bogeymen, popping up when you least expected.
Smith continued on through the corridor with us following closely behind. Batfish gripped my arm with intensity. Cordoba repeatedly spun to scan the area behind us. No better tactic than to ambush an enemy from the rear, plus she had to keep an eye out for the advancing zombie army.
We’d moved another few yards when another two hooded goons leapt out from the doorways on each side. One held a bolt action rifle and the other brandished a machete. Smith took out the guy with the rifle with a single shot to the head but the mad machete wielding freak screamed and stumbled forward with the blade raised beside the right side of his hood.
Milner stepped to his right and crouched, firing one round into the machete guy’s chest. The blade glinted in the flashlight as it flew from the guy’s hand. The bullet stopped him in his tracks and sent his body the opposite way to which he moved. Machete Man went down heavily on his back and blood pumped from a large, smoking hole in his chest.
“Thanks,” Smith rasped.
Milner nodded.
“Everybody down,” Cordoba yelled from behind us.
We dropped to our knees without hesitation as she ordered. Smith swung the flashlight around to our rear and illuminated
another hooded mutant fumbling with a bolt action rifle. He’d emerged from a room somewhere behind us but he wasn’t good enough or quick enough to successfully complete his ambush. Cordoba fired once and we caught a brief glimpse of a spray of blood behind his hooded head, caused by the exit wound.
We rose up and carried on with our perilous journey along the corridor. Batfish clutched my arm, making little whimpering sounds. I wasn’t sure if it was down to her damaged nose or the grip of genuine fear.
“Warning, warning, bullshit alert…”
We heard a prerecorded voice from somewhere inside the nearest office to our left.
“That ‘aint even bullshit, that’s horseshit…” The second prerecorded voice was supposed to sound like an American hillbilly.
Smith slowed, alert and crouching, covering the doorway with his flashlight and the handgun. A flashing red light was tossed from the office and landed on the floor in front of us. Smith recoiled, obviously worried the object was a grenade of some sort. He shone the flashlight at the ground and we saw the object was a plastic, press activated, novelty office toy with the word “BULLSHIT” emblazoned in white lettering across the red button.
A gunshot fired at us from somewhere to our left. The bullet hit the wall above our heads and we dropped to a crouch. Smith swung the flashlight back around to the office doorway and we briefly caught sight of a hooded freak trying to reload his bolt action rifle. The figure tried to duck out of the way when he realized he was a lit target. Smith fired twice; we heard a yelp but no sound of a body falling. Retreating footfalls echoed from the room until we were left in silence once more.
“These damn offices obviously interlink so those goons can pretty much move around without us noticing,” Smith whispered. “We’re going to have to stay frosty. Keep your eyes peeled in all directions.”
Smith kept his M-9 trained on the office doorway as we moved by. An inner door at the end of the corridor stood facing us. Smith crept to the door and kicked it open. Another long passageway ran into the blackness beyond the flashlight beam’s limit.
“Okay, I think we’re through the first building,” Smith said quietly. “We’ve got another two to get through before we make it to the other side of the camp.”
“Geez, Smith. I don’t know if my nerves can take much more of this,” Batfish wailed.
“It is what it is, kid. I’m sorry we’re in this situation but there’s not much we can do except try and get ourselves out of Shit City.” Smith patted her on her shoulder then turned back to the next corridor.
We moved through the doorway into the next building. The layout was slightly different; the office rooms on each side were sparser, which made the hooded guys chances of attack more limited.
The next few minutes seemed like hours but ticked by without incident. Our feet made a sucking sound as we trod cautiously across the linoleum covered floor. I falsely thought we’d passed through another building but the corridor dog legged into another area. A sealed door with a key code combination prevented us from proceeding further through the building.
“Stand back,” Smith ordered.
We complied and Smith fired once at the door lock. The shot echoed around the whitewashed corridor and the door swung open. Smith reloaded his handgun before we stepped through the open doorway.
The flashlight illuminated a guy standing in front of us in the center of the corridor. His sack hood was twisted around his head but he held a bolt action rifle, pointed directly at us.
“Get down,” Smith yelled and we hit the deck as the guy fired a shot.
I heard the bullet whistle above our heads and thud into the door behind us. Milner rolled into a crouching position and let fly with a burst of fire from the M-16. The hooded guy wailed as the rounds hit home into his chest and he tumbled backwards and smashed hard into the wall before he fell on his side in an ungainly heap.
“What are these guy’s problems?” Milner hissed.
“Their problem is, they’re fucking douche bags,” Smith snorted.
“They probably think we’re invading their territory,” Cordoba surmised. “With the world gone to hell, these people have reverted to animal type instincts. Food, shelter and the domain is king.”
“Why can’t they just leave us alone and let us pass through,” Batfish groaned.
“Things don’t work like that, kid,” Smith sighed. “When I was a young kid growing up in Brooklyn, you couldn’t pass through certain areas without getting into a brawl of some kind.”
I heard a banging and rumbling noise from the corridor behind us. Then the echo of wails, screams and moans caused the hairs on the back of my neck to prick up.
“Shit, those zombies are getting closer,” I hissed.
Chapter Sixty-Two
“We better get moving,” Milner muttered. “We don’t have much time before that bunch of undead fucks catches us up.”
We hauled ourselves to our feet. Milner checked the hooded guy was actually deceased, and then smashed the bolt action rifle against the wall until it broke into pieces. We continued onward through the corridor at a quicker pace. A few gunshots echoed from somewhere behind us and I presumed the hooded guys were now battling with the horde of invading zombies.
The corridor dog legged once again and we approached another key coded door. Smith gave the lock the same treatment as the previous one and we entered the third and final building.
The next corridor was narrower and heavy, stainless steel doors blocked the entrance to the rooms each side. Yellow warning signs were plastered at waist height across the doors and a small window was positioned at head height on each one.
“What in the hell is this place?” I whispered.
“Beats me,” Batfish sighed.
The corridor continued in a similar vein as we moved further into the building. We began passing a steel door to our left that was slightly ajar but the room was dark inside. Smith drew level with the doorway and a dark, blurry figure rushed from the gloom in the room behind. Smith swung to his left and the flashlight briefly illuminated another hooded figure, also dressed in green camouflage combat fatigues and holding a metal bar of some kind. For once, Smith’s reactions weren’t as quick as the hooded guy. I caught a glimpse of the metal bar swing downwards and hit the top of Smith’s gun hand. He grunted in pain and dropped both the flashlight and his M-9.
The handgun and the flashlight clattered to the floor and the light beam lit up several pairs of scuffling feet as it rolled across the linoleum. Batfish shrieked and grabbed hold of me around my shoulders. I winced in pain and jerked backwards. We staggered into the wall behind us.
I heard grunts and a muffled groan of pain. Cordoba grabbed the flashlight and swung the beam around, trying to catch Smith and his assailant in the light. She picked them up in the light beam but they darted around the floor so quickly, she had trouble focusing on them. They jerked around; we heard grunts and groans and muffled sounds of heavy blows connecting. Milner covered them with the M-16 but couldn’t get an accurate shot away. A sickening cracking noise echoed around the corridor and I knew it was the sound of breaking bone.
Eventually, Cordoba managed to center on the scuffling pair but the brawl was over. Smith held the guy in a tight head lock and the assailant’s body hung limp and lifeless. Smith tossed the corpse to the floor and released a mouthful of spit on the body.
“Fucking guy,” he hissed. “I’ll break all these motherfuckers’ necks.”
“Are you hurt, Smith?” Cordoba asked.
“No, he’s pissed,” I whispered. “Those guys don’t know what they’ve done.”
Smith retrieved his handgun and took the flashlight from Cordoba. “Let’s get out of this fucking place,” he growled.
We moved through another dog leg inside the corridor and a dazzling bright light clicked on, shining directly into our faces. The light was blinding and we couldn’t see a damn thing in front of us. We shielded our eyes and half turned away from the light.
“Let us pass,” Milner shouted, shielding his eyes. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“A bit late for that, buddy,” Smith muttered.
“Front rank, fire!” The voice ordered.
A volley of single shots peppered the corridor, bullets whizzed all around us, pinging off the walls and floor.
“Rear rank…”
“Through here,” Smith yelled, before the guy had the chance for the next file of crazy rifleman to open fire on us. He bundled through one of the steel doors to his left and we followed him inside the room as the second burst of fire zipped all around us.
Smith slammed the door once we were all inside. He shone his flashlight at the rear of the door and saw a steel wheel that activated a chunky locking device inside the jamb. He spun it rapidly until the lock engaged.
“Everybody okay?” he asked, breathing heavily.
“I’m hit,” Milner groaned. “But I don’t think it’s too bad.”
Smith swung the flashlight in Milner’s direction. We didn’t need any more casualties. Milner slumped against the wall to the right of the door, holding his left shoulder. The M-16 was in his left hand but I knew he was desperate to put the rifle down.
“Let’s take a look, Smith said.
Milner handed the assault rifle to Cordoba, undid his jacket and slipped his undershirt down at the shoulder. We saw a nasty gash high in his bicep as though the skin had been slashed by a razor blade.
“The bullet grazed you, Milner. You are a lucky boy,” Smith said.
A furious pummeling on the outside of the door along with a chorus of muffled shouts caused us to swing back around to face the threshold and recoil from the small window. Whoever was operating the bright light out there shone the beam through the window glass and lit up the room we were stood in. We recoiled away from the dazzling light, trying to shield our eyes. Cordoba covered the door with the M-16, aiming at the small window.
The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink Page 28