Gera studied the map again. “The only problem I can see is the River Clyde, here.” He pointed to a streak of blue north and west of the city. “Crossing the river is going to be difficult if we want to stay away from main highways. There’s a few spurs off the river as well that we should be wary of.”
“Copy that,” Smith grunted. “We can still make our approach from the east and hope we find someplace on route.”
Batfish and Cordoba joined us in the hallway and pulled on their backpacks. We told them our plan for our intended route and they both agreed.
“Let’s not leave it too long before we find someplace,” Batfish sighed. “I’ve had enough of hiking for one day.”
“We’ll stop at the first decent place we find,” Smith said.
We left the house and the wind immediately whipped around us. The steely coldness bit into my face as we headed east.
We made slow progress for the next couple of hours, passing through wooded glens and across barren, open fields before we stopped to study the map again. I felt a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, as though we were completely alone and wouldn’t find any shelter before nightfall. The sun was already dipping and we didn’t have much daylight left.
“There’s a golf course with accommodation somewhere up ahead,” Gera said, pointing at the map. “My guess is, it’s located just over that ridge.” He pointed slightly left of our position, over a snow covered hill.
Climbing up the steep, icy slope filled me with dread but if there was going to be a nice warm room at the end of the trek, then it was a sacrifice worth making. My breathing became labored as we trudged up the hill. The wind blew chunks of snow and ice hard at me, I felt as though I was being sandblasted. I’d never felt so cold and tired in my whole life. Had I been on my own, I probably would have simply collapsed in the snow and welcomed the onset of hypothermia to put me out of my misery.
Eventually, after a few slips and slides and much exertion, we reached the summit of the hill. We stood for a few seconds to gather our breath and take in the scene across the valley below us.
The remains of a vast, flat expanse of the golf course was indeed situated at the foot of the valley and a desolate looking, gray stone castle shrouded in white swirling mist, stood in the distance beyond. The dipping sun’s rays reflected an orange glow off the thick snow covering the castle’s peaks and towers. Even through the bleakness, the castle was a welcome sight.
The problem we had was the numerous amounts of zombies milling around the area between the golf course and the castle.
Chapter Twelve
That depressive sinking feeling inside me returned, as we stood on the hilltop surveying the valley crawling with undead below us. The cold felt as though it was seeping through my bones and wrapping itself around my whole body.
“What are we going to do?” Batfish sighed. “It’s going to be dark soon and we don’t have time to find any place else.”
“Roger that,” Smith grunted. “We have to find a way into that castle or we’re going to freeze to death out here.”
“Can anybody see a route where we can bypass those zombies?” Cordoba asked. “We can’t afford to get into a battle with them.”
“We could wait until darkness then try and sneak around them,” Gera suggested.
“Too risky,” Smith sniffed. “If we get separated in the dark, we’re dead. Besides, we need to find a way inside and quickly.”
Even Smith, the usual rough and tough character sounded as though he was desperate to get out of the cold. Everybody else seemed fatigued and shivered in the wind. We were all desperate for some food, rest and shelter.
“I know it’s going to be tough, but I think we should move real quick across the flat ground, reach the castle walls and try and find an entry point,” Smith said. “If we move fast, we can outrun those undead bastards before they swarm on us in numbers.”
The last thing I wanted to do was run across fields covered with deep snow. It was going to be like running through maple syrup and we’d be even more weighed down with the packs on our backs. Then, we’d have to outrun and dodge scores of hungry flesh eaters and try and find a way into a building that had withstood sieges by invading armies for centuries. The task sounded almost impossible.
“Everybody ready?” Smith asked, slipping his M-16 off his shoulder sling.
“Not really,” I muttered. “But I just want to get out of this fucking cold weather.” My teeth chattered as I spoke.
“Ditto that,” Cordoba agreed.
“Anybody who gets left behind, holler like crazy until somebody hears you,” Smith said.
“And pick your shots if you have to use your weapon,” Gera chipped in. “Try and conserve the ammo.”
“Holler if I get left behind; shoot if they get close, right. I got it,” I sighed. “Come on then, let’s get this over and done with.”
“Okay, people, let’s go,” Smith said with gusto. He led the charge down the hill. It wasn’t so much of a charge really, more like a momentum induced stumble.
I continuously concentrated to try and stay on my feet through the snow. Batfish started to lag behind so I waited for her to catch up. Smith, Gera and Cordoba streaked ahead with Wingate somewhere between us. I thought we’d maybe regroup once we reached the foot of the hill.
“It’s difficult to run with Spot strapped around my waist,” Batfish huffed. “And this damn backpack is pulling me all over the place.”
I glanced down the hill towards the level golf course ground and noticed a flagless pole still poking out of one of the holes beneath the snow. A wooded area stood to our left and a frozen over pond lay to our right. I guessed the rest of the golf holes lay somewhere around the castle grounds. The roaming clusters of zombies still hadn’t noticed us approaching but they would surely soon be aware of our presence.
Flurries of snow billowed above the ground in front of Batfish and I as the others made better headway than the two of us. I thought we could head towards the woods for some sort of cover as a last resort, if we got separated from the rest of the group.
Smith glanced around at us and waved us forward. My legs became heavy and I felt like I couldn’t run another step, let alone battle scores of zombies amongst the heavy snow. Batfish stumbled and cried out as she fell on her side. I retreated a few paces and pulled her to her feet.
“Are you okay?” I panted.
“Yeah,” she groaned. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on, though.”
“Me neither,” I sighed. “This is killing me.”
We carried on at a slow, almost walking pace. The others had reached the foot of the hill and fanned out slightly, moving cautiously forwards towards the castle across the golf course green. Wingate looked back up the hill and furiously waved us on.
“Come on, Batfish,” I puffed, linking arms with her. “We have to try and keep going.”
“That castle better have hot water inside because I’m going to need a long soak in the tub after this,” she groaned.
“We need to get there before we start thinking of comforts,” I muttered.
A few zombies had noticed us and started to trudge through the snow in our direction. The rest of the group was around fifty yards ahead of Batfish and I when we reached the level ground. The castle stood around another two hundred yards in front of them, with dozens of zombies in between.
“Why do you think all those zombies are around here?” Batfish asked me.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Maybe they were guests staying here when the outbreak started or maybe they just wanted a round of golf.”
“Very funny, Brett,” Batfish moaned, as we staggered across the golf course fairway.
Gera and Cordoba rattled off a few single shots with their rifles, dropping a couple of zombies who stood in their path. Batfish and I had our Beretta M-9 pistols drawn and ready to use if we had to. I was worried the distance between us and the rest of the group was growing too wide. We�
�d be cut off if the zombies swarmed between us.
Smith turned back and yelled something at us that I didn’t hear. The moans of the zombies increased in volume and the whole herd staggered in our direction. I aimed my handgun and fired a shot at a short haired male zombie, who probably was only a teenager when he succumbed to the disease. The nine millimeter round sliced through his ear and took a chunk out of the side of his head but the shot wasn’t enough to terminate his undead existence. His head jolted sideways but he plodded on through the snow, decreasing the distance between us.
“They’re going to surround us if we’re not careful,” Batfish wailed.
“I know,” I grunted and fired a second shot at the pimply faced, teenage zombie. This time the round slammed home as a kill shot, hitting him between his nose and his top lip. Blood sprayed from the gunshot wound, across the surface of the snow as he thudded over backwards.
Smith, Gera, Cordoba and Wingate veered right, heading towards the front of the castle. They moved at a considerably quicker pace than Batfish and I could muster. They were all serving or ex-military and had been trained for maneuvering at speeds in all terrains. Batfish and I had been civilians all our lives, performing sedentary tasks in our working environments. We couldn’t physically compete with those guys.
Wingate turned and waved us forward but we were still falling behind. I saw her yell something to the others in the forward positioned group and they slowed their pace slightly, but I knew they could afford to stop and wait for us.
A sea of gray, partially rotten faces flanked us from all sides. A cluster of zombies staggered after Smith and the others but some of them broke away and approached Batfish and I when they noticed us following behind.
I glanced left and right. More undead crossed the golf course away to our right but the numbers of zombies on the left was fewer. We couldn’t follow Smith and the others for the moment. If we carried on our route, we’d run into a brick wall of gnashing teeth and clawing fingers.
“There’s too many of them, Brett,” Batfish shrieked and stumbled in the snow.
“We’ll have to go left,” I screeched above the looming, moaning crowd of zombies. “We’ll try and skirt around the back of the castle and meet up with those guys later.” It wasn’t much of a plan but it was all we had for the time being.
I barged Batfish around a couple of zombies who opened their arms to grab us and we swerved to change our intended direction. The zombies in front of us also followed in our wake. I fired a couple more rounds at two zombies directly in front of us, dropping the gray haired, old couple with separate head shots. I realized I had to start counting the rounds. An empty magazine was no good in this kind of situation.
The route ahead of us was littered with undead, staggering towards us in one’s and two’s. I figured we could easily dodge around them but we’d have to keep our hurried pace to outrun the bunched number of zombies following behind. The castle wall was around twenty yards away on our right. I took a glance and saw the rough façade of the gray stones standing at least forty feet high. The castle was a fantastic bastion against any invading army and a perfect defense against the mass of undead. Maybe the medieval guys had got it right with their architecture and foresaw what was coming years into the future.
I clumped a small, old female zombie around the head with the barrel of my pistol as we evaded her outstretched hands and snarling teeth. Smith and the others had completely vanished from our direct sight and I hoped they weren’t waiting for us. There was no way we could have followed them to the castle’s main entrance.
The castle walls ran several hundred yards in length and we rounded the corner towards the rear of the structure. A clump of snow laden trees and a small, circular frozen pond honed into view to our left, as we rounded the castle’s right angled stone wall. More bunches of undead lurked between the trees and the castle’s rear wall. The ground rose in an upward sloping gradient away from the castle perimeter, limiting our route to a narrow pathway.
“Oh, shit, what are we going to do, Brett?” Batfish screeched.
We stopped dead in our tracks. We couldn’t go forward and we couldn’t go back. We were surrounded.
Chapter Thirteen
I looked at the high rising bank to our left and the frozen pond and woods a little behind us, trying to judge which terrain would prove to be the best escape route. The pluses and minuses of each path whirred around my head. Crossing the pond was a non-starter. The ice would be slippery and may not be solid enough. The woods would be dangerous as we wouldn’t be able to see too far ahead of us but it did provide some cover. The hill to our left would restrict our speed and if we fell, we were dead.
Batfish interrupted my mind calculations.
“There’s a door,” she yelled into my ear.
“What fucking door?” I screamed back.
The disruption in my thoughts had totally scrambled my brain. I didn’t have a clue what to do. Ice, woods, hill, or zombies - eh? I didn’t know if it was the coldness freezing up my mind or I had totally choked out.
“A door in the castle wall,” Batfish shouted at me.
I watched, perplexed as she shrugged off my arm embrace, fired on the nearest couple of advancing zombies then ran to an arched shaped, wooden doorway, recessed in the rear castle wall, a few feet to our left. Batfish hammered her fist against the door panels, roaring for somebody to open up.
My frozen brain managed to calculate we had around thirty seconds before the hordes of undead would pounce on us from each side. The situation seemed hopeless. My time had come and I wasn’t going to be a zombie. It seemed a fitting pathetic, whimpering end for a useless individual like me. I raised the M-9 to my temple, feeling the cold metal against the side of my head.
“Brett, what are you doing?” Batfish screeched.
“It’s time to say goodbye,” I wailed, feeling tears well in my eyes. Maybe it was time to finally bow out of this hopeless scenario.
Batfish leaned into my face, gritting her teeth. “Not fucking yet,” she hissed.
Her words seemed to pull me out of my desperate state. I lowered the handgun from my head as Batfish battered the door with her shoulder.
“Give me a hand here, will you?” she shrieked at me.
“Yeah, of course,” I muttered, unable to comprehend that I’d almost given up the constant struggle and shot myself in the head. What was I thinking?
I ran at the wooden door and launched myself in my best attempt at a Bruce Lee style Kung Fu kick. The door juddered but didn’t budge and I fell back on my ass into the snow. So much for my macho heroics.
Batfish hauled me up then fired a couple of shots at the encroaching bunch of zombies. The woods and the frozen pond were now out of the escape route equation. The only thing we could do was to try and barge the surrounding zombies out of the way and make a run for it up the hill to our right.
A bald headed, male zombie, with his face half covered in snow, made a lunge for me. I backed up against the door and fired a shot into the roof of his snarling, open mouth. The bald bastard’s head shattered at the rear of his skull and he toppled backwards into the snow.
“The hill,” I shrieked. “We’ll have to climb that damn hill.” I pointed directly opposite me towards the snowy summit.
We were in the deep shade from the sun, setting on the opposite side of the castle walls. Our only possible escape route would lead us back into the bleak, cold wilderness and impending darkness. We would have to climb the slope and outrun at least fifty zombies before we could even begin to believe we’d reached relative safety.
Batfish fired off round after round at the enclosing horde. Heads shattered and zombies dropped to the frozen ground but still they relentlessly advanced on us. We stood back to back and I blazed away with my M-9, shooting at the snarling, ugly faces threatening to rip me to pieces.
My Beretta clicked with an empty magazine a few seconds after Batfish ran out of ammunition. We hurriedly searched our par
ker pockets for a spare, full reload. The zombies trundled over their counterparts’ dead bodies closer towards us. Expending all our ammunition had only bought us around ten more seconds before being torn apart and eaten alive. I fumbled with the M-9 magazines, desperately trying to reload with shaking, gloved hands. It was now even too late to try and make a dash for the slope of the hill.
“Oh, shit, Brett,” Batfish screamed. “I can’t even load this fucking gun.”
“Ah, fuck!” I yelled in frustration. I slammed the magazine into the housing, cocked the slide and started blatting away. Three or four zombies fell before I realized our defense was futile. No amount of ammunition was going to blast away the closing undead crowd in time, unless we had a bomb of some kind. Rosenberg’s demise flashed briefly through my mind, blowing himself up on the zombie infested streets of Manhattan.
Batfish screamed and I spun around. A male zombie with wisps of gingery hair and dressed in a torn blue and black checked jacket had hold of her arms, attempting to bite her face. I raised my handgun and fired a single shot through the ghoul’s temple. We were prolonging the inevitable and couldn’t hold out much longer.
“I’m sorry I brought us around this way,” I wailed, in a pitiable attempt at an apology.
Maybe Batfish and I weren’t meant to survive. We’d had a good run for our money, when most of the world’s population had succumbed to the undead disease. It really was the survival of the fittest and no surprise that the most able-bodied in our party had managed to escape as a unit.
Batfish somehow managed to reload her handgun and fired off a few shots at the closest zombies closing in. I just hoped Spot would somehow escape from under her jacket when we were finally brought down and devoured by the mob of hungry flesh eaters. The little fellow would have to find his way through the snow and hopefully, he’d link up with Smith and the others.
I fired one shot into the face of an ugly son of a bitch, with a round, bald head and half his throat already chewed away. Baldy fell backwards into his counterparts behind him but the crowd still surged forward, gradually drawing ever closer.
The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold Page 6