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

by Christian Fletcher

  His accent was definitely Scottish but he had more of an urban drawl to his speech.

  “I got the job straight after coming out of a young offender’s institution,” he explained. “I got into a wee bit of trouble when I was a youngster, you know?”

  I sighed, wondering what heinous crime this young guy had committed.

  “Oh, okay,” I muttered. “You don’t look very old now.” How long had he been a criminal?

  “I’m seventeen,” he proclaimed, as though he was a veteran. “That’s old enough, isn’t it, Brett?”

  “I guess so, Jimmy,” I said.

  “I didn’t do anything that bad,” he griped. “Just a wee bit of shop lifting and got caught by the police a few times. They decided to make an example of me and put me inside for six months.” His accent was harsh and slightly hard to decipher, pronouncing ‘police’ as ‘puh-liss.’

  “Are you from around here, Jimmy?” I asked.

  “Not far,” he replied. “I’m from Glasgow, south of the river, from Govan.”

  “Govan is full of Neds,” Chloe added.

  “Is not,” Jimmy argued, seeming slightly offended.

  I had no idea what a ‘Ned’ was but assumed it wasn’t a term of endearment. The word was probably a colloquialism for ‘asshole.’

  “What about you two?” Jimmy asked. “You sound like a pair of Yankees. Have you come all the way from America?” He rather amusingly pronounced ‘America’ as ‘Amerikee.’

  “Ah, it’s a long story,” I sighed. “Yeah, we’re from the States, I’ll tell you all about it later.” I couldn’t go into our long travel account while we still had so much to do. At least Jimmy seemed to have cheered up slightly and had come out of his shell.

  Chloe led us to a spacious, dark room with a white tiled floor. I shone my flashlight through the arched entrance and saw several large, white porcelain bathtubs inside cubicles in a horizontal line along the back wall. Shower partitions stood in a line next to racks of folded white towels to the left of the wash room.

  “I’ll go and find you some clean clothes, Jimmy,” Chloe said, turning away towards the passageway.

  “Do you need a flashlight?” Batfish asked. “You can borrow mine. Brett has one we can use.”

  Chloe shook her head. “I’ll be better off in the dark. Nobody can see me coming.” Then she was swallowed up by the blackness as she moved down the corridor.

  For some reason, her words sent a shiver down my spine. It sounded like a tag line for a horror movie.

  Batfish handed her flashlight to Jimmy so he could see in the washroom. He placed it on the towel rack so the room was illuminated with a dim light. Batfish and I waited outside the washroom while Jimmy took a shower. We listened in silence to the running water for a few minutes. I thought I could do with a shower myself but we didn’t have the time.

  The water ceased running from the shower faucet and Batfish and I smoked a cigarette each while we waited for Jimmy to dry himself off. I recoiled when I saw a figure emerge from the gloom then breathed a relieved sigh when I realized it was Chloe. She’d returned quicker than I expected, carrying a fresh set of Jimmy’s clothes folded across her arms.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I didn’t run into anyone, thank god.”

  Batfish and I quashed out our cigarette butts on the tiled floor and Chloe entered the washroom carrying the fresh set of clothes.

  “I’ll put your clean gear in the first bath cubicle,” she said, heading for the row of partitioned tubs.

  “Right, you are,” Jimmy acknowledged.

  Chloe nudged open the door of the bathtub compartment then screamed hysterically a moment later, dropping Jimmy’s clothes onto the floor. Batfish and I exchanged concerned glances and rushed into the washroom, pulling out our M-9 handguns.

  “What the hell is it?” I yelled.

  Chloe backed away from the cubicle, pointing to the door. Jimmy padded over to us with a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “There’s a dead body in that bathtub,” Chloe wailed. “It looks like it’s all cut to pieces.”

  I shone my flashlight at the partition door. The light reflected against the maroon colored paint. The door wasn’t open wide enough for me to fully see inside the cubicle but I could make out splashes of blood covering the white tiles surrounding the bathtub. I held out my Beretta in front of me as I slowly approached the cubicle. I doubted the killer was still inside but didn’t know what to expect in this crazy place.

  I lifted my foot and pushed the door slowly open then shone the flashlight around the bath booth interior. The walls were awash with blood spatters and the tub contained the remains of a sliced up human body, coated in blood.

  “Fuck,” I hissed. My heart hammered against my ribcage and my breathing became a rapid wheeze.

  The body’s head was perched on top of the severed limbs and torso. Despite all the blood, I recognized the face and my stomach lurched.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I turned my head and the pie I’d eaten at lunch time resurfaced in congealed form, lurching from the pit of my stomach and splashing over the tiled floor.

  “Oh, fuck,” I croaked, spitting out the last of the stomach bile in my mouth.

  “Do you know who it is, Brett?” Batfish called from outside the cubicle.

  I let the door bang shut behind me and had to compose myself for a few seconds. I knew who the body was all right. We had inadvertently found Gera but it wasn’t quite the happy reunion we’d hoped for. How the hell was I going to tell Batfish what had happened to her boyfriend? And more importantly, who the hell had done this despicable deed? Being eaten by zombies was one thing but to die like that was simply horrendous.

  I stumbled out of the cubicle, ensuring I closed the door behind me. I scooped up Jimmy’s clothes and tossed them at him.

  “Get dressed, Jimmy,” I croaked. “Come on, guys, let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

  I caught sight of myself in one of the wall mounted mirrors opposite the row of bathtub cubicles. My eyes were red and puffy; my nose was purple and swollen, the rest of my face was ashen white and beads of cold sweat formed on my forehead. I was inadvertently doing a good impression of a zombie myself.

  “Who was it, Brett?” Batfish demanded. I think she already knew the answer, judging by my shocked appearance. Tears welled in her eyes and her face screwed up with emotion.

  “Don’t go in there, Batfish,” I spluttered. “Don’t look at him like that.”

  She held her forehead with her free hand and doubled up in gasping sobs.

  “I’m so sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t want to find him like this.” I slipped my M-9 back in the holster and wrapped my arm around Batfish.

  “Who is it?” Jimmy asked. “I didn’t kill whoever it is in there, I swear.”

  I heard Chloe mumbling quietly to him. She was obviously informing Jimmy about Gera’s disappearance and explaining his relationship to us.

  “Ah, bloody hell,” Jimmy gasped.

  “Do you want us to bury him?” I asked Batfish.

  She sighed and shook her head. “We don’t have time. The ground will be frozen and we’ll have to find some way of carrying him. Is he really in pieces?”

  I breathed outward, still feeling nauseous and nodded my head slightly. “It wasn’t zombies that tore him apart either. This was done by another living person.”

  Batfish glanced at Jimmy and Chloe. “Any idea who did this?”

  They both shook their heads with glum expressions on their faces. My number one contender was that crazy bastard, Rory.

  “There’s a covered patch of ground at the back of the castle where they bury bodies,” Chloe said softly. “They used to use it as an indoor flower garden but now they use it as a graveyard. That’s where they would have buried Shona. The ground will be hard and frosty but at least there’s no snow on the ground.”

  “I guess it would have been nice, in normal circumstances
,” Batfish sighed. “But we can’t dig in the dark and I guess we’ll be leaving at first light.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, but I’m sure the others will help bury him, if you want and we’ll have to see how well Smith is before we move out.”

  Jimmy moved into a dark recess and pulled on his clean clothes as we talked. He left his bloodied, filthy old clothes in a pile on the floor beside the shower he’d used.

  “I want to leave this room now,” Batfish groaned. “It must have been awful for Gera in here in those last few minutes of his life.” She sniffed back tears and composed herself. We’d been in some emotional situations in the past and no doubt, we’d have to endure more in the future. It was part and parcel of modern, post-apocalyptic life.

  “All right,” I agreed. “Come on, Jimmy, let’s go,” I called.

  Jimmy scurried from the dark recess, fully dressed in his fresh clothes and looking one hundred times better than when we’d first met. But he still had a gaunt, harried expression on his face that we all probably wore in these times.

  “We’ll all stay in Smith’s room tonight,” Batfish said, as we moved out of the washroom. “We can take it in turns to keep watch on the doorway and make sure none of those other fuckers tries to get in. I don’t trust any of them.”

  “Sounds good,” I agreed. “But we need to recover those stolen rifles and ammunition, otherwise we’re going to be outgunned.”

  “Let’s just get to our rooms as quick as we can, for now, Brett,” Batfish sighed.

  She obviously wanted some time to mourn and reflect on our situation. Perhaps Cordoba would accompany me in the hunt for our missing weapons later on.

  “I’ll take us through the passageways, so we don’t have to walk through the main routes,” Chloe said.

  We followed in a line behind her, through dark passageways and up and down cramped, dingy staircases. Batfish dropped her head and stifled her tears a few times, obviously battling with her emotions. I remained at the rear of the party, glancing around behind us every few steps. I felt sure we were being watched from the dark shadows or maybe my paranoia was increasing by the second.

  Chloe led the way by memory. I was amazed at how well she knew the passageways and didn’t need a flashlight to illuminate the route. Batfish and I kept our lights down by our sides, shining the beams at knee height.

  The line in front of me ground to a halt and I bumped into Batfish’s back. I heard Chloe audibly gasp and saw her retreat a couple of paces. I shone my flashlight around and reached for my Beretta, keeping my fingers ready on the holster clip. We stood on a balcony a few yards in front of a wide, flowing staircase, cascading down to a desolate, stone walled cafeteria area below.

  I shone my light beam directly in front of us, through Chloe, Jimmy and Batfish’s legs and saw another set of female’s fawn colored shoes pointing in our direction, a few feet in front of us.

  “Somebody’s there,” Chloe hissed.

  I barged to the front of the line and shone the flashlight at whoever faced us along the dark balcony. I recognized the craggy face and wrinkled eyes, blinking against the light beam.

  “Joan,” I whispered, lowering the flashlight slightly. “What are you doing creeping around?”

  “Who is that with you?” she asked in a whisper. “Is that young Jimmy?”

  I heard Jimmy groan behind me. He obviously didn’t want the other castle dwellers to know he was still around.

  “Never mind him,” I barked. “Do you know where our guns are and who killed Gera?”

  “He’s dead as well?” she gasped. “Someone also killed Trevor. Mo found him stabbed to death in his room, around thirty minutes ago.”

  “Fucking Mo took our guns and tried to kill our dog,” I spat. “We’re going to catch up with him later. Don’t worry about that.”

  “They all had a meeting about Trevor and came to the conclusion that one of your party killed him in retribution for your guns going missing,” Joan said.

  “What?” Batfish squawked behind me. “One of those murdering bastards cut up my boyfriend.”

  I hoped she wasn’t going to tell Joan it was Jimmy who stabbed Trevor. That would only further complicate matters, right now.

  “They are all out looking for you, at the moment,” Joan explained. “Alex has teamed up with Mo and Davie and Mrs McMahon has gone to fetch Rory from his room.”

  “Oh, shit,” I sighed. I didn’t want to run into that wild psycho again. I was adamant he’d killed Gera but didn’t want to mention my suspicions to Batfish, quite yet.

  “Rory liked Trevor and he will take the news badly, I’m afraid,” Joan warned.

  “That Davie guy locked us in the cellar,” Batfish shrieked.

  “Ah, yes,” Joan sighed. “He does have a thing about pretty young women, doesn’t he, Chloe?”

  I heard Chloe groan. “He locked me in the cellar before then tried to rape me. Alex came to my rescue that time but I’m sure he’s going to try and do it again. That’s why I want to get away from here.”

  “Oh my god,” Batfish wailed. “This place is full of sick fucks.”

  My stomach lurched again but this time I refrained from throwing up. The castle was a secret den of torture and abuse. Davie had obviously committed more crimes than he’d been convicted of or he’d progressed to kidnap and attempted rape since the outbreak.

  “We didn’t kill anybody, Joan,” I sighed. “We just want to get our guns back and get the hell out of here.” I was suddenly weary and felt as though I’d had a gutful of the people within the confines of the whacky castle.

  “That might be easier said than done,” she said. “Especially for you, Brett. I tried to warn you when you first came here. Maddie has singled you out and she’ll either keep you or…”

  Joan’s words cut short. She was struck on the head by a heavy implement and disappeared from the light, going down heavily under the blow amid a spray of blood. A huge, stocky figure loomed from the blackness behind her.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The four of us recoiled in shock and horror as the figure growled and lumbered towards us from the darkness. Batfish dropped her flashlight and it rolled across the balcony runner, lighting up the assailant’s feet. I had a good idea who the big, clumping figure was. The flashlight silhouetted his bulky frame and I noticed the outline of a medieval axe in his hands.

  I shone my flashlight at the figure and he groaned as the bright beam blinded him and stopped his progress. He lifted his free hand to try and block the light as he turned his head away. My guess was right. Rory, the crazy guy, had just split Joan’s skull with his long handled axe blade.

  Chloe, Batfish and Jimmy scurried back along the balcony, away from the axe wielding hulk. He took a pace forward and swung the axe in a sideways swipe at my head. I dodged to my right and heard the blade whoosh through the air. I retreated and my back pressed against the balcony banister. I was backed up with no place to go. The man in front of me was a human wrecking ball and he was going to kill me next if I didn’t act quickly.

  I reached around my torso with my right hand and popped the handgun holster clip, keeping the flashlight beam pointed in Rory’s face, dazzling the lumbering attacker.

  He roared and swung the axe again at head height. I ducked and heard the edge of the blade sail over my head. If he’d swung any lower, he’d have cut me in half. I pulled the Beretta from the holster but tumbled sideways due to the unsteady momentum. The flashlight beam skewed to one side, ceasing the blinding effect it had on Rory. He gripped the handle with both hands and raised the axe above his head, about to bring the weapon down in a chopping motion. I was leaning down with my right hand, containing the M-9, pressing against the floor. I couldn’t get an angle quickly enough to fire off a shot before Rory brought the blade down and split my head in half.

  I heard a gunshot and Rory’s head jerked to his left. He grunted and then another three or four shots ripped through the darkness. I briefly glimpsed flashes of oran
ge to my left but was aware Rory was stumbling forward. I rolled away across the carpet runner to my right and twisted to check Rory wasn’t still coming for me. Instead, he dropped the axe, lurched frontwards into the banister then toppled over the handrail. I lost sight of him as he plummeted head first to the stone floor below but heard a sickening thump as he hit the solid ground.

  A fog of cordite drifted through the flashlight beam and Batfish shuffled towards me with her M-9 held out in front of her, the barrel still smoking. She peered over the balcony and looked down below.

  “Is he dead?” I croaked.

  “I fucking hope so,” she retorted.

  “That was Rory,” I sighed.

  “No shit.” Batfish offered me her hand to help me up.

  I scooped up her flashlight and handed it to her. She shone the light over the balcony and down onto Rory’s corpse. He lay still on the ground with several gunshot wounds in his torso and a huge split across the center of his skull, obviously caused by the heavy impact of his landing. A growing pool of dark blood surrounded his hefty body.

  I turned and shone my light on Joan’s prone body. A huge, vertical split parted her skull directly down the back of her head. She lay frontwards on the balcony carpet with her head twisted to one side. Her eyes remained opened and her mouth was twisted in a grimace as though she was still trying to utter her final words. I wondered what she was going to tell me about Maddie before she was hacked to death. I guessed it was something I’d never know.

  “Let’s go,” I grunted, grabbing Batfish’s arm. “Somebody might have heard those gunshots and come to investigate. Let’s not forget, they’ve got our rifles.”

  I shone my flashlight around the balcony and picked out Chloe and Jimmy crouched down, cowering against the balustrade a few yards behind us.

  “Come on, you two,” I called. “Let’s get going.” I waved them towards us.

  They both hesitantly rose and cautiously approached, avoiding treading too near Joan’s body.