The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold

by Christian Fletcher

  The atmosphere amongst the residents of Connauld Castle reminded me a little of how things were at The Glenross Hotel before the rot set in. Everybody getting on fine and simply enjoying the fact they were still alive. I smiled to myself when I thought how satisfying simple pleasures, such as a good meal, a nice glass of wine and a roaring fire during a cold winter could be.

  Alex suggested we move into the lounge for a little more comfort and showed us through a set of double doors to the right of the long table. Maddie and Davie busily lit a few candles, which were dotted around the lounge at various points. The room was large with a boarded wooden floor, stone walls and a high ceiling. A circle of high backed, padded lounge chairs and two chaise longue sat in the center of the floor space. A row of church style windows with engraved stained glass overlooked the front of the castle. I stood in front of one of the central windows with a glass of wine in my hand, looking out onto the medieval ramparts illuminated by the moonlight. The silvery glow shone through the latticed grille of the portcullis gateway, eerily projecting a backlight behind the numerous zombies crowded outside, moaning incessantly while reaching through the square shaped holes.

  I felt the presence of somebody approach me from behind and stand close to my back. I presumed it was Cordoba.

  “I wonder who they all were and why they’re still out there,” I muttered, gesturing to the medieval entranceway with my wine glass.

  “Golfers, former guests, people who used to work at the castle,” came the reply in an unmistakable Scottish accent.

  I turned my head slightly and was slightly surprised to see Maddie pressed a few inches behind me. She stared into my eyes and smiled seductively. I briefly glanced around the room and picked out Cordoba, sitting on the chaise longue talking to Alex, who sat beside her.

  Maddie rested her head on the back of my shoulder and I felt a little uncomfortable. “It’s all right, she’s not looking,” Maddie whispered. “Your girlfriend, I mean.”

  I laughed nervously. “Ah, she’s not really my girlfriend. We’re just…” my words trailed off. I didn’t really know what we ‘just’ were. Maybe we were nothing more than cohabitants sharing carnal needs.

  I turned back to the window and took another long sip of wine. The situation had turned surreal. One minute I was battling for my life, the next, trying to stem the advances of a beautiful Scottish woman. Bizarre.

  To my relief, Maddie raised her head off my shoulder and moved beside me, facing the scene outside the window.

  “It took us a long time to clear the castle grounds of all the undead,” Maddie said. “We lost quite a few people during that cleanup operation. They’re probably amongst those still out there.”

  “It’s hard to see an end to all this,” I mused. “Things will never be how they were before the outbreak.”

  “It’s the dawning of a new era,” she sighed. “It’s a fresh start for the last remaining few of the human race on the planet.”

  “I can’t help thinking that it’s Mother Nature’s purge,” I said. “The world got too over populated and we destroyed too much of the landscape and used up nearly all the natural resources.”

  “That’s quite deep, Brett,” Maddie said, smirking. “You must be a sensitive kind of guy.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really think too hard about the circumstances anymore. The situation was what it was and no amount of thinking was going to make one iota of difference to the world. The only one sure outcome guaranteed in life is death. The part in between is only measured by time. We all had an expiry date looming over us as soon as we were born.

  Maddie rubbed my bicep in a kind of affectionate manner. “Hey, I promised to play a few songs for you,” she said in a child-like voice. “I’ll get my guitar.”

  I smiled and watched her saunter to a giant, light green bean-bag in the corner of the room with a wooden acoustic guitar propped against it. I really wasn’t in the mood and just wanted to go to bed but I didn’t want to appear rude by adjourning for the night.

  “No, Maddie,” Alex shouted in mock protest when he saw her picking up her guitar. “I’m sure our guests don’t want to be subjected to your terrible music.”

  “Fuck you!” she spat, with a hint of venom in her tone.

  She sat on the bean-bag and began to strum the guitar chords. “This song reached number thirteen in the indie charts,” she proudly proclaimed. “It’s called ‘Never Saw You Smile’ and it’s for our lovely new guests.”

  I inwardly groaned. I liked music a lot but wasn’t much of a fan of soppy, acoustic songs. To give Maddie her credit, she had an incredible, melancholy singing voice and her song was really good. We all clapped in a round of applause when she’d finished. She looked directly at me and broke into another song. The lyrics told a tale of a love that was secret but even more passionate because of its futility. Again, I felt uncomfortable and hoped she wasn’t singing the song directly to me.

  The room erupted with another round of applause and mock jeers from Alex, when Maddie completed her tune. Mrs McMahon stood in the lounge door and announced that our rooms were ready for us. I sighed with relief, ready to hit the sack. Another day over with and another day still breathing. Every twenty-four hours still alive and remaining uninfected was a little bonus.

  I yawned and stretched my arms before downing the remainder of the wine in my glass.

  “Lead the way,” I said to Mrs McMahon. “I’m ready for the land of nod.”

  Maddie glanced at me with a look of disappointment on her face. I couldn’t stay up any longer, though. The time had to be rapidly approaching midnight.

  “You’ll want to go and collect your baggage from the Hall?” she asked.

  We agreed and trudged back downstairs for our backpacks. Mine seemed to weigh twice as heavy as it had done previously. Alex, Maddie and Chloe carried our jackets for us as we followed Mrs McMahon up another staircase and through a series of candle lit narrow, winding corridors to the North Wing, situated in one of the castle’s towers.

  The tower’s landing area was circular shaped with a series of dark wooden doors surrounding us. An indoor flare burned from a bracket affixed to the wall, lighting the landing with an orange glow. Wax droplets buzzed as they dripped from the flare onto the stone slab floor.

  “These are your rooms,” Mrs McMahon said, pointing to the doors in turn. “They haven’t been used in a while. I’ve done my best to give them a quick clean but they might smell a bit damp inside, I’m afraid. The castle roof leaks slightly and you may get a wee whiff of mold.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine, Mrs McMahon,” Wingate said cheerily. “Thank you very much for getting the rooms ready at such short notice.”

  Mrs McMahon replied with a smile. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said and fleeted off down the corridor.

  “Who’s going where, then?” Batfish asked.

  “I really don’t care,” Wingate sighed. “I’m dead beat.”

  “The bathroom is through the door to the right of the corridor,” Alex explained. “Obviously the light doesn’t work so you might need a flashlight. Have you got one?”

  “I’ll leave mine by the door,” Wingate said and took her jacket from Chloe. She fished through the pockets and placed the flashlight on the floor next to the bathroom door. “Night all,” she chimed as she bundled through the bedroom door next to the bathroom.

  Smith took the room next to Wingate and the rest of our party accepted the accommodation in a counter-clockwise motion. Batfish took the next room, accompanied by Spot, then Cordoba, then Gera, leaving me with the final room to the left of the corridor.

  Maddie waited for Chloe and Alex to depart before she handed me my jacket.

  “Sleep well,” she whispered, then leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

  “Goodnight, Maddie,” I sighed, before turning towards my room.

  I think she was expecting me to ask her inside but I’m afraid I left her disappointed. Cordoba hadn’t spoken to me
since we’d been socializing with the castle dwellers in the lounge. I didn’t know if she’d noticed Maddie’s flirtatious behavior and was mad at me or was just plain exhausted and wanted to sleep.

  I dumped my backpack and jacket down on the floor and shut the door behind me, feeling as though I was going to fall asleep while still standing. The room did indeed smell of damp and mildew, behind the pungent stench of hastily scattered lavender scented powder. A queen sized bed, with a fluffy white duvet and a matching mound of pillows, was pressed in the corner of the small, square shaped room. The bed looked extremely inviting and I thought about unpacking my gear before I hit the sack. The room was minimally equipped with a solitary wooden closet standing in the far corner beside a narrow window, which was constructed in the shape of a cross. The room was dimly lit by a stout candle, burning on top of a small bedside table. A small sink with an oval mirror above, was mounted on the wall opposite to the bed and the whole chamber was painted a dull white.

  I felt the cold begin to creep back into my flesh and decided to jump under the duvet as quickly as possible. I stripped off my clothes, carefully placing my loaded M-9 beside the candle and shivered before sliding into the bed. I leaned over to blow out the candle but decided to leave it lit, simply so I’d have some orientation if I woke in the night.

  I made myself comfortable under the crisp duvet that smelled of clean washing soap and let my head sink into the deep pillows. It had been a long, hard day and I was ready for a lengthy, deep sleep. The night, however, proved to be anything but peaceful.

  Chapter Twenty

  My senses dulled as I lay in the bed, listening to the wind whistle through the eves in the castle’s roof tower somewhere above me. The solitude and seclusion in a relatively safe environment and the increasing weariness of the day allowed me to totally relax and let the onrush of sleep wash over me. The day’s incidents flashed through my mind like an edited sports TV show, replaying the highlights and scary moments again and again. I never thought I’d sleep ever again in those first few days of the zombie outbreak. Every time I closed my eyes in those early days, I saw horrific images that I felt had scarred my soul forever. In time, the affects wore off and I occasionally managed an eight hour, unbroken slumber.

  I heard a tap on the opposite side of the door. I ignored it, putting it down to the creaking sounds of the old building contracting in the cold of the night. The tap came again, a little more insistent the second time. It was definitely somebody on the other side, trying to grab my attention. Was it Maddie, maybe knocking on my door in the hope of some late night loving? Or Cordoba feeling a little lonely and cold? I instinctively reached for my gun.

  “Hey, Wilde Man…are you awake?” a voice whispered from the other side of the door.

  “Smith,” I groaned. What the hell did he want?

  Sighing loudly, I pulled back the duvet, threw on my underwear and the fleece top and moved to the door. I opened up and saw Smith in the corridor with a bottle of Scotch in his hand.

  “Want a nightcap?”

  “Not really but it looks as though you do,” I sighed, showing him into my room.

  “Were you awake?” Smith said, as he strolled into the bedroom.

  “I wasn’t but I am now. What do want, Smith?” I asked, closing the door. “I thought you’d be in with Wingate, if you wanted some company.”

  Smith took a slug from the whisky bottle. “Good hooch this, I swiped it from the lounge earlier.” He winced against the liquor burn as he spoke. “Nah, Wingate told me to stay the fuck away from her tonight. I gave her a knock just now and she said she wanted to be alone tonight to catch up on her sleep.”

  “I know how she feels,” I groaned, stifling a yawn.

  Smith passed me the bottle and I decided what the hell? I took a couple of small sips. The Scotch was smooth and warming on the way down. Smith leant with his backside resting against the sink and ran his hand through his hair. I perched on the edge of the bed facing him.

  “That’s an eighteen year old Malt,” he said, pointing to the green bottle. “That stuff’s worth around eighty dollars a bottle back home. Here, they drink it like water.”

  “What’s on your mind?” I knew Smith too well.

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t come into my room in the middle of the night to talk about the price of Malt Whisky,” I said. “You’ve got something crawling up your ass.”

  Smith sniggered and took the bottle back from me. I recognized an evil glint in his eyes, accentuated by the candle light. I sometimes forgot what a ruthless son of a bitch this guy used to be and still was at times. He took another swig then waved the bottle neck, pointing it around the room. In the dim light, Smith looked and sounded like a gangster in one of those old black and white movies, in which the characters were all called Frankie Knuckles or Machine Gun Joe or an equivalent moniker. His Brooklyn accent and strapping physique leant credence to his mobster facade.

  “This is all very nice and I don’t want to seem ungrateful but don’t you think these people seem a little weird?”

  The same thought had crossed my mind but I just put it down to the long duration they’d been stuck together, locked up in the castle.

  “Weird how?”

  Smith screwed up his face. “Weird as in…” He moved his head from side to side, thinking for the right word. “Weird, as in a little overfriendly.”

  I laughed out loud. “Wouldn’t you rather have them being overfriendly than overly hostile?”

  Smith pulled out a pack of smokes from his pants pocket. He took one out and tossed me the pack. He lit his with his Zippo and I used the candle flame. The small room soon filled with cigarette smoke.

  “Yeah, but everybody else we’ve encountered since this whole thing started hasn’t exactly welcomed us with open arms.” Smith spoke with the cigarette wobbling up and down in his mouth. “These guys seem like they’re desperate for us to stay, no matter what. This place is miles from anywhere. What happens when the food and supplies run dry? Will they be so eager for us to stay then?”

  I thought about Joan’s strange behavior at the dinner table and Maddie’s flirting. Alex did seem a bit overfriendly but maybe that was his nature. I mulled over Maddie’s over reactions to Alex’s jibes for a brief moment.

  “Maybe they all just got bored with each other’s company and are glad to see some new faces Remember when we were stuck on that boat for a long time?”

  Smith nodded.

  “We hardly spoke to each other when we were at sea. They’ve been cooped up inside this castle since the whole thing started, more or less.” I didn’t know why I was defending the castle’s inhabitants. Maybe I didn’t want the situation to end badly, as so often happened to us.

  “You may be right, kid,” Smith sighed. “Maybe I’m just getting too cynical in my old age.”

  “You’ve always been cynical,” I said with a laugh. “You’ve never trusted anybody as long as I’ve known you.”

  Smith grunted a laugh, removed the cigarette from his mouth and jabbed the glowing tip at me. “In my experience, it’s the best way. Don’t trust no motherfucker.”

  “Hell, Smith,” I sighed. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Hah, okay, so there maybe a few exceptions to the rule. I kind of trust you, Batfish, and Wingate but you know who I do trust, one hundred percent?” He took another swig of Scotch.

  I shook my head with a smile on my face. Smith’s logic was always an endless source of amusement for me. It was as though the rules of life had been ripped to pieces and rearranged in some bizarre fashion by somebody who didn’t understand the language it was printed in.

  “God almighty?” I guessed.

  “Uh-ah.” He shook his head and stared at me expectantly, as though I was going to carry on guessing who he meant.

  “I don’t know, Smith,” I said, laughing. “Barney, the purple fucking dinosaur?”

  “Close but wrong animal. The only living thing I trust w
ith complete certainty that is not going to fuck me over is that little dog curled up with Batfish.” He pointed towards the door with his cigarette.

  I gestured for the whisky bottle and he passed it over. “That’s a fucking wacky way to look at things.”

  “It’s the living truth, kid,” Smith groaned, flicking his cigarette ash down the sink. “The fact is, it is simple human nature to rat somebody out if your life depends on it. That dog would never do that.”

  I weighed up what Smith said as I took a sip from the bottle. It made a kind of strange sense, in a Smith type way. “I suppose you’re right,” I sighed, handing him back the Scotch.

  He took the bottle and had another swig. I leant over and stubbed my cigarette out in the candle holder. Smith unceremoniously dunked his cigarette butt in the sink. I got the impression Smith might want to add something more to this late night conversation.

  “Is that all you’ve got on your mind?” I asked.

  He looked me straight in the eye. “Just be careful with that Maddie chick. I’m not dumb and nor is Cordoba.”

  “I’m not up to anything with her, Smith,” I protested. “I swear.” I was shocked and didn’t realize her flirting had been so obvious.

  He shrugged. “Makes no odds to me, kid. I really don’t give a damn who you bump bits with but I’m telling you as a friend, we can’t afford no major bust ups in our little troop.” He tapped his temple. “Think with this.” Then he groped his crotch. “Not with this.”

  “All right,” I sighed, feeling slightly embarrassed. “I got it.”

  Smith opened his mouth to say something more but stopped short when we heard a shout from the landing outside the bedroom.

  “Zombies in the castle grounds!” the female voice screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Smith and I briefly glanced at each other then bolted for the bedroom door. I was still dressed in nothing more than my underwear and Smith was clothed in a white vest and combat fatigue pants. He wore his pistol holster around his shoulder, containing a loaded M-9 Beretta but my weapon still lay on my bedside table.