The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone

by Christian Fletcher

  The boat engine whined in a high pitch trill for a few seconds and then cut out completely. The silence on the water was only broken by the chirping crickets amongst the reeds on the river banks. I shot Smith a worried glance.

  “What just happened?”

  Smith didn’t reply and tried to restart the engine. The motor whined but didn’t fire.

  “We out of gas?”

  Smith shook his head as we drifted through the murky water. He turned toward the outboard motor and fiddled around with it, cussing under his breath.

  “The fucking motor is shot. We’re going to have to moor up for a while.”

  I used the boat hook to punt us through the water towards the nearest bank on our right. The hook didn’t touch the river bed for a while but helped guide the boat to the bank as I used it as a makeshift oar, although our movement was painfully slow. Sweat trickled down my back and forehead with the excursion. The Louisiana humidity was stifling and strength sapping. I splashed the boat hook through the reeds and hauled us towards the bank. We pulled ourselves through the tree roots closer to dry land. Smith tied the boat to a thick root underneath a low hanging tree. We clambered out of the boat onto the steep, muddy bank. We stood in the shade in silence for a few moments looking up the incline.

  “What do we do now?” I had no clue in which direction we should go. “There’s a highway on the other side of the river. Maybe we could get over there and find a vehicle?” I suggested.

  Smith shrugged. “I don’t know, kid. I’m all out of ideas. Let’s climb the bank and take a look on higher ground for a boat or vehicle we can use nearby. Crossing the river is going to be a bitch. We’ll more than likely just drift further back down river.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. “Hang on, I better get Spot. I don’t want to leave him here alone.”

  I reached back inside the boat and lifted the small dog onto the bank. He stood shivering with a confused look on his face. I searched the boat locker and found a thin piece of rope. I knotted the rope into a loop at one end and slipped it over Spot’s head as a makeshift dog leash. The last thing I wanted was him running off into the trees.

  We scrambled up the river bank and through the trees. Birds squawked and chirped above our heads, seemingly untouched by the virtual extinction of the human race.

  Smith lit a cigarette at the top of the incline and we looked around for a clearing in the trees. Bright sunshine flooded a gap between the branches further inland and slightly to our right. We headed for the clearing but the thicker vegetation on the ground hampered our progress. Spot leapt between the undergrowth, sniffing the air when he surfaced.

  Blue sky peeked through the gap between the trees and we felt the sun on our faces once more. My throat was dry and a layer of sweat formed on my face. I wanted a drink of water but we had no supplies of any kind. Spot panted with his pink tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

  I noticed movement between the trees out of the corner of my left eye. I quickly turned to face whatever was rushing through the undergrowth. The movement was too quick to be a zombie. The figure was human and quickly vanished between the low hanging branches.

  “Did you see that?” I hissed to Smith.

  Spot stood rigid, staring at the quivering undergrowth that the figure had brushed through. His hackles rose on his back and he growled low and long.

  Smith shook his head. “What?”

  “A guy just ran through the trees, twenty yards to our left,” I whispered.

  “You sure?”

  I nodded and lit a cigarette. Something didn’t feel right. We both turned around in a 360, scanning the thick foliage for any sign of movement.

  “Hello?” I called.

  No reply. Only the sound of chirping crickets, buzzing flies and tweeting birds came back at me. Even through the humid heat, a chill ran up and down my spine.

  Chapter Nine

  “Let’s keep moving,” Smith muttered. “This place is giving me the shits.”

  Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who was slightly spooked. Spot sniffed the air and whined in disapproval. He was obviously spooked too.

  Smith led the way through the remaining trees and we emerged from the woods facing around one hundred square feet of flat grassland. A dilapidated, old brick and concrete structure stood on the opposite side of the grassland. From what I could make out, the construction consisted of several one storey buildings spread around a central courtyard. The buildings themselves were old but the roofs looked like they had been recently covered with a mish-mash of evergreen tree branches and black tarpaulin sheets. A thin wire fence marked the boundary of the buildings a few yards from the crumbling brick walls.

  “What the hell is that place?” I hissed.

  “Let’s take a look,” Smith said.

  Smith drew his Desert Eagle as we apprehensively crossed the grassland. I pulled Spot close and wrapped the rope around my hand, keeping him on a short leash. Smith stopped when he reached the wire fence.

  “Hear that?”

  I listened but couldn’t hear anything and shook my head.

  “That slight hum. This fence is electrified. Keep the dog away from it.”

  I pulled Spot closer and my hearing attuned to Smith’s wavelength. A faint humming sound emanated from the wire fence.

  “How can they do that without power and out here, in the middle of nowhere?”

  Smith shrugged. “A car battery maybe. Whatever’s powering this fence means there’s signs of human life.”

  We slowly followed the wire fence perimeter until we came to some kind of entrance at the front of the buildings. Several human bodies in various stages of decay lay on the ground beside two wrought iron gates, standing around ten feet high. The gates were positioned between the wire fences, thirty feet from the front of the buildings. Spot whined and growled at the same time, straining on his leash. I didn’t know if he was scared or excited.

  I peered between the rungs in the gates and saw several human skulls skewered on top of wooden stakes driven into the ground. A number of still functioning but decapitated zombie heads hung from low hanging tree branches inside the perimeter. The heads were suspended by wires secured to ring-bolts driven into the tops of their skulls. The zombies’ eyes focused on us and their mouths opened and closed in mute groans.

  “What the fuck is this place?” I hissed.

  Smith peered through the gates and swatted a buzzing fly away from his face. “I don’t know. It looks like some weird shit kind of place. Maybe we should skirt around it.”

  He turned towards me and removed his shades. I was surprised at the look of shock on his face. He wasn’t looking at me but something over my left shoulder. I turned and immediately shared the same horrified expression.

  Chapter Ten

  Two black guys faced us, ten feet apart from each other and both holding shotguns pointed at our chests. Spot growled and shunted backwards and forwards with his hackles raised. One of the black guys had his face painted like a skull and the other had half his face covered in a white chalky substance. They both wore ripped shirts and khaki shorts.

  The thing that shocked me most was the zombie they dragged on the ground behind them with no legs below the knees and a rope around its neck. The undead guy thrashed around on his back trying to twist himself around. I noticed a leather strap tightened around his jaws to stop him gnashing at his captors.

  “Put gun down,” Skull Face barked at Smith, in what I guessed was a Creole or Cajun accent. The dialect sounded a little like Caribbean patois mixed with French.

  I knew Smith usually carried a small back-up piece in his left boot and a razor sharp hunting knife in his right. Losing his beloved Desert Eagle would upset him but he could defend himself with his alternative weapons if the shit hit the fan.

  Smith complied, slowly crouching and gently laying his hand gun on the ground. Half Face waved his shotgun at my shoulder holster and then at the grass below my feet. I slowly took out my Glock b
y the hand grip with my thumb and forefinger and lowered it to the earth.

  “What you doing at the front of my house?” Skull Face grunted. “We only have dead around here. No living left.”

  “We’re looking for someone who was kidnapped, taken from us back down the river,” Smith said. “A girl, she was taken by some men in a Navy boat.”

  Skull Face looked confused for a moment. “White girl?”

  Smith nodded.

  “No white girl here. I seen men in a gray boat. They stay away from my house.”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “Remy? Who are those men you talking to?” A deep voice boomed from behind us inside the perimeter.

  We turned our heads and saw a tall, black guy dressed in a long, black coat, military fatigue pants and a black top hat with a huge white feather tucked into the band. He strode towards the gates flanked by half a dozen black guys carrying an assortment of hand guns and semi automatic machine guns. I recognized a couple of Uzis and M-16s and gulped as I realized we were in some kind of deep shit.

  The tall guy muttered something to the man standing next to him. The second guy waved back to the building and the electric hum cut off. He ran to the gates and opened them up, pointing his Uzi at as all the while.

  “Allons! Go on inside,” Skull Face ordered us inside the perimeter.

  The guy who opened the gates waved his Uzi at us then towards the buildings. Smith raised his hands above his head and I kept hold of Spot’s leash and raised my other hand next to my face. We trod slowly through the open gates and Skull Face collected up our weapons behind us. Half Face dragged the thrashing zombie through the entrance into the compound.

  The tall guy in the top hat watched us as we trudged through the gates. If looks could kill, then Smith and I would be stone dead by now. His dark eyes burned with a hatred I hadn’t seen in a living human for a long time. I flashed Smith a nervous glance and he gave me a slight shrug as if to say ‘what can we do?’

  The guy holding the Uzi slammed the gates shut and waved back towards the building. The buzz of the electrified fortifications hummed in the air again. These guys had certainly got their shit together with their anti-zombie barricades. I didn’t quite get what all the skulls and zombie dead heads were about though. Maybe it was a ritual thing, trying to ward off evil spirits or some such shit.

  The guy’s weapons were trained on us and we were ushered towards the decrepit buildings. A tarpaulin sheet covered wooden boards like a make-shift porch outside the first stone building. Our feet clanked on the boards and the guys holding the weapons followed us inside.

  The expansive room was dim inside, sheltered from the sunlight with no windows. Candles burned on tall, cast iron holders in each corner of the room, providing just enough light to see what we were doing.

  The room was cluttered with strange paraphernalia running the length of the four walls. Human and animal skulls were stacked onto the branches of a thick, dead tree. The branches poked through the empty eye sockets making the tree look like a macabre configuration of death. Framed photographs of people were propped against wooden statuettes and African style, waist–high drums. Multi colored bead necklaces were draped across strange, wooden carved masks hanging from the walls.

  Top Hat strolled into the room behind the others and gestured for Smith and me to sit down on the wooden packing crates surrounding a round wooden table that looked as old as the buildings, in the center of the room.

  Smith flashed me a confused glance as we parked our butts on the packing crates. The guys with the guns surrounded us then backed away when Top Hat sat down on a chair opposite us. Spot whimpered and sat between my feet. The poor dog was probably as confused as we were.

  “You get bit?” Top Hat growled.

  “No, we’re not bit,” Smith said. “Hey, do you mind if we smoke in here?”

  Top Hat waved his hand in a gesture that Smith took as a go ahead movement. Smith handed me a cigarette, put one in his mouth and offered the pack to Top Hat. Smith flicked open his Zippo and lit our cigarettes.

  Top Hat blew smoke across the table and stared intently at us.

  “What’s the deal here then, fella?” Smith asked. “We don’t mean you or your people any harm.”

  “They’re looking for boat men,” Skull Face interrupted.

  Top Hat gave Skull Face a brief glance then turned his attention back to us.

  “Boat men are bad men,” he said.

  Smith nodded. “Very bad men. Those bastards took one of our crew, a girl. They robbed us and shot and killed our other dog.” He pointed to Spot sitting on the floor. “We want our girl back and make those bad men pay for what they did.”

  Top Hat shook his head and I spotted a mournful look in his eyes.

  “You won’t have no luck trying to get your property back from the boat men. We had women here once, not so long ago but the boat men came and took all of them. That’s why we put up the fence and armed ourselves, to stop boat men coming here again. We all came here when the dead began to rise up and walk. We came out here to get away from society but bad men still around, even when most folk are dead.”

  “Where can we find these men?” Smith asked.

  Top Hat sighed and stubbed out his cigarette on the floor with his foot.

  “How can we be sure you’re not with the boat men?”

  “We’re not, I assure you,” I said. “We shot two of them back at the Marina a few miles downriver.”

  “You killed boat men?”

  “We shot one of them dead,” I lied, omitting the fact we left him to be eaten alive by the zombies. “The other one got away on the Navy boat with our friend and all our weapons and supplies. They sunk our boat and we got away from the marina in a shitty, small speed boat that broke down on the river. We moored it on the bank. We’ve got jack shit left apart from the hand guns we carried and two bottles of booze.”

  Top Hat’s gaze flicked between Smith and me. I guessed he was weighing up whether we were telling the truth or not. We sure as shit were heading for a rough time if he thought we were telling lies.

  Chapter Eleven

  Top Hat leaned back in his chair and rocked the two front legs slightly off the floor. He tilted his head back and to one side, studying us.

  “How come you survived all this time?”

  “We escaped from New York City in an old coastguard boat,” I explained. “We’ve been sailing around the coast, heading south for the last few months. We’ve been looking for a safe place to hole up for a while.”

  “You avoided the zombie in New York?”

  “It was rough but we managed somehow. We lost a few of our party along the way,” Smith said.

  Top Hat nodded.

  “I can’t decide to believe your story or not. But I’m a reasonable man so I’ll let you on your way. You’ll find boat men along the river, further up.”

  “Okay, we appreciate that,” Smith said. “Can you fix us up with some spare weapons and ammo?”

  Top Hat laughed and shook his head. “We let you on your way on one condition. You leave the guns you carried here with us.” He prodded the table with his index finger, as if to reiterate his command.

  Smith sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair.

  “So you’re turning us free without any weapons, with zombies and bad guys running amok out there?”

  “That’s the deal. You bring our women back here and we’ll return your guns,” Top Hat confirmed.

  I didn’t think a bad situation could get any worse, but it just had.

  “Where did you get all your weapons from?” I asked.

  “Used to be an army base up the river.” Top Hat waved his right arm. “We took all the guns and ammo that was left after boat men took our women. We patrol the area for zombies and boat men at least every hour. We’ll make sure you get down to the river.”

  At least Top Hat and his crew gave us a meal of sorts before we left their camp. A chubby guy appear
ed through the doorway, carrying two bowls containing a fishy soup- like substance. He plunked the bowls on the table in front of us and handed Smith and I a tarnished spoon each.

  Top Hat grinned and gestured for us to eat. I didn’t like the look or smell of the gruel but didn’t know if and when we were going to eat again, so I had no choice but to tuck in. Smith pulled a resigned face and also slurped away.

  “Good luck to you,” Top Hat said after we’d finished our soup.

  I didn’t know if he was being genuine or discarding us like irritating insects. Skull Face and Half Face held their shot guns and waited for us by the doorway. I noticed they carried hand axes looped into their belts. They motioned towards the daylight streaming through the open threshold.

  The dazzling sun caused us to squint and I was momentarily blinded by the brightness as we moved out of the building. My vision returned as we trudged towards the perimeter gates. They buzzed open and I noticed the no-legged zombie that Half Face was dragging around, was now chained by its arms to the outside of the gate.

  I glanced at Smith as we passed by the snarling jaws of the restrained member of the undead. What the hell was the point of that?

  Half Face and Skull Face carried shot guns at the ready as we made our way through the woods back to the river bank. Spot strained on his leash as though he was desperate to get back to the boat. How the hell we were going to steer the boat was another mystery we’d have to solve somehow when we got there.

  We showed them the speed boat hidden away under the tree branches and Smith explained how the engine had cut out and wouldn’t restart.

  “We have a boat you can use,” Skull Face barked.

  I retrieved the bag of booze and cigarettes from the deck of the worthless speed boat and we followed the two guys through the trees alongside the river bank.