The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone

by Christian Fletcher

  “Okay, Wilde, we’ll get this tub as close as we can to the river bank and then we’ll carry out a covert op on that fucking slaughterhouse,” Smith hissed.

  “What will I be doing?” Tippy asked.

  “You’ll be staying right here to keep an eye on the yacht.”

  “Oh…okay,” Tippy stammered.

  Smith had a mean look on his face and a malevolent glint in his eyes. I wondered what underhanded plans were entailed in his ‘covert op.’

  “Have you got any more weapons of any kind onboard?” I asked Tippy.

  She looked blank as her mind fogged with a question she had probably never been asked.

  “We didn’t have much in the way of weapons, only Simey’s gun.”

  “You said earlier he was always tinkering with the engine?” Smith asked, lowering the speed and guiding the yacht towards the river bank.

  “That’s right.” Tippy nodded, her double chin quivering.

  “So he had a tool box, right?”

  She nodded again. “It’s in the locker next to where we kept the dinghy.”

  “Cool,” Smith murmured.

  I wondered what the hell Smith wanted with a tool box and then realized most implements used for mechanical maintenance tended to be heavy or sharp. Many killings were carried out with tool box items, when the world was normal.

  Smith dropped the anchor around twenty yards from the bank, under the shadow of a clump of tall trees. The yacht was positioned behind the crook of the river bend, out of sight of the Navy boat.

  “They won’t see us unless they take off before we get there,” Smith said, turning off the engine. “We’ll use that dinghy to get to the river bank.”

  I nodded and followed him out onto the deck.

  Smith handed Tippy the revolver. “You better keep this.”

  “Don’t you need it? Those men might be dangerous.” Her eyes were wide with concern.

  “I’m sure they are but we’ll be fine. Fire one shot into the air if you have any trouble and we’ll be right back.”

  I knew by Tippy’s nervous expression that she didn’t want to be left alone. I hadn’t told her about the guys on the boat kidnapping Batfish, as I didn’t want to scare her even more. The poor woman was an emotional train wreck and I didn’t want to tip her over the edge.

  “Which locker is the tool kit in, again?” Smith asked.

  Tippy pointed to the metal box to the left of where the dinghy was stowed. Smith opened the locker and took out a tool belt. He rifled through Simey tools and slipped a claw hammer, a box cutter knife, a big chisel and a pry bar into the loops in the tool belt.

  “Silent weapons,” he whispered to himself.

  “Anything I can use?” I asked.

  Smith handed me the hatchet then pointed to the locker. “Help yourself.”

  Nothing of any weaponry use jumped out at me from the tool box. I took a long screwdriver and a pair of long nose pliers but fuck knew what I was going to do with those damn things.

  Smith slung the dinghy over the side and it flopped on its bottom onto the river surface. I slid the hatchet handle down my belt and put the screwdriver and pliers in my cargo pants side pockets.

  “Let’s go,” Smith said.

  “Please, don’t be too long,” Tippy pleaded, holding back more tears.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Smith said, trying his best to sound comforting.

  Smith lowered himself down the side of the yacht, hung for a moment on the edge then dropped into the dinghy. I tossed him the remaining oar when he was in a sitting position. I flashed Tippy a smile before I followed Smith over the side and into the dinghy.

  I untied the thin rope around the handle and Smith began to paddle the raft between the tall, sprouting reeds by the river bank. I hoped Tippy would be safe while we were away. She seemed a nice, genuine lady. Then the thought hit me like a boxer’s upper cut. What would she do if we didn’t come back? Smith and I might be fast approaching our own mortality.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Some kind of exotic, green colored bird cawed at Smith and me as I secured the dinghy to a tree trunk on the river bank. The bird bobbed up and down on its branch, its beak wide open and emitting a shrill, almost barking noise as if it was warning us to keep away. I pushed thoughts of foreboding omens out of my mind as I watched the creature shit down the side of the tree bark.

  The reeds and long grass were alive with chirping insects and flies buzzed intently around us. I followed Smith up the sloping bank onto a narrow mud path between overgrown crab grass and white flowering weeds.

  “Let’s keep out of sight of those goons,” Smith murmured. “They’ve probably posted sentries all around the slaughterhouse but they’ll only be looking out for zombies.”

  I nodded and wondered what the hell we were getting ourselves into. It was two relatively unarmed guys against a well fortified army. Surprise was our best weapon but if we were discovered, we’d be either shot on sight or maybe forced into prostitution ourselves. Obviously there was still a market for the age old profession, no matter what gender you were.

  Smith trod carefully and slowly up the bank. I followed a couple of paces behind and to his right. We didn’t move all the way up to the top of the river bank, instead using the clusters of trees as cover. The midday air was humid and sweat trickled down my forehead even though we walked under the shade of the trees.

  We’d walked for around twenty minutes when Smith flapped his hand up and down and crouched into the long grass. I followed suit, if not knowing exactly why. Smith forked the fingers of his right hand to his eyes then pointed to a spot further down the slope.

  I scanned the area where Smith pointed and noticed a scruffy guy taking a piss against a tree trunk. He wore a cut off, sleeveless denim jacket and ripped denim pants and a semi-automatic rifle was slung over his right shoulder. I didn’t recognize the guy as one of the boat men we’d seen further down river but he had that similar look of a shit kicker about him.

  The guy finished his piss, zipped up and lit a cigarette. He looked bored and uninterested and probably hadn’t had to shoot any undead for a while. Smith slowly shimmied a little closer to me through the long grass. The guy leaned his back against the tree trunk and blew out smoke as he stared up into the tree tops.

  “We must be close to the slaughterhouse,” Smith whispered. “We’ll take this jerk out and move a little closer.”

  I nodded but was unsure how we were going to eliminate the armed sentry without any firearms. Smith had his methods and I was about to witness just how brutal he could be.

  “Stay here,” he whispered.

  The grass rustled slightly as he disappeared from my sight. I remained in a crouch and turned back to keep an eye on the shit kicker leaning against the tree. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do if he spotted me. Maybe I could pull out his nose hairs with the pliers!

  I nearly laughed out loud with that daft image in my head when a giant hand emerged from behind the tree trunk and clasped around the shit kicker’s mouth. Another hand holding an implement, darted out from the other side of the tree trunk. I knew it was Smith when the box cutter knife slashed across the shit kicker’s throat. His eyes bulged in shock; his rifle slid from his arm and fell into the long grass as his hands moved up to the throat wound, which gushed with crimson down the front of his denim jacket. I winced as blood sprayed in a jet from his arteries, showering the nearest tree with claret.

  The shit kicker struggled, his feet kicked against the tree bark as he tried to stem the flow of blood and prize Smith’s hand off his face in one final, futile attempt to save his life. The slice in his throat opened like a hideous grimace from a second mouth. I watched in car wreck style amazement as the shit kicker’s face drained of color and his body went limp against the trunk. Smith let go of the guy’s face and his body slumped between the clumps of long grass.

  I stayed crouching in the grass, my jaw hanging low in shock. Smith
stepped out from behind the tree and picked up the discarded rifle. He waved me forward and bent over the corpse, retrieving two spare magazines from the top pockets in his jacket. I looked at the guy’s face, which was deathly white, his eyelids were half closed and his mouth hung open. Hungry flies immediately busily buzzed around the fresh corpse and spattered blood across the grass.

  “We better move, quickly,” Smith hissed. “The guy maybe missed and any zombies around will smell that fresh blood.”

  Smith shouldered the rifle and put the spare clips in his cargo pants side pockets. We moved further into the woodland and stopped in our tracks when the apex of the slaughterhouse building was visible through the low hanging branches. We saw the left side of the tall rusting, corrugated metal structure, situated at the top of the river bank slope. A thin, wire fence marked the boundary, around ten feet from the building.

  Smith put his index finger to his lips and moved slowly up the slope. We kept low, crouching slightly above the grass while shuffling up the bank. The sun peaked through the trees as we reached the summit of the bank. The wire fence ran from the side and around the back of the slaughterhouse. We stopped behind a thick, tree trunk and studied the area between us and the building. No more sentries were visible under the canopy of the trees.

  A lone, grimy window was positioned high in the center of the back wall of the slaughterhouse. The window was dark and covered in green mold, which would have hampered any kind of view from inside. We crept along the fence line, listening for any sounds of movement. A low hum emitted from somewhere inside the building. It sounded like a generator so I assumed the guys had electrical power within the slaughterhouse confines.

  “Do you think Batfish is inside here?” I hissed.

  Smith only shrugged and kept on plodding forward.

  The slaughterhouse was rectangular shaped, roughly one hundred yards long, fifty yards wide and maybe topping fifty feet high. The wire fence ended around ten yards from the front wall. We stopped and crouched at the corner of the building. Smith took a peek around the corner.

  “Take a look,” he whispered.

  We exchanged places, shuffling around each other. I craned my neck around the corner of the building and saw a small, weed infested parking lot with a couple of battered, flat bed trucks standing motionless in front of a wide roller door in the center of the wall. A small entrance door stood to the right of the rusting, metallic shutter roller door. I ducked my head back around the corner when I saw a guy, dressed in a filthy, black T-shirt and blue jog pants, slowly stroll from between the trucks towards the doors. I slowly craned my neck forward just enough so I could see the parking lot with my left eye. The guy’s head was bent forward as he kicked small stones on the ground with the same apathetic approach the other shit kicker had shown on the opposite side of the building. He had some kind of scope sighted, hunting rifle slung over his right shoulder and a large hunting knife strapped to his thigh.

  The guy muttered to himself as he shuffled around in circles kicking a tennis ball sized stone. These guys had obviously become accustomed to their surroundings and their body language suggested a total lack of focus on their own security. A lone zombie wouldn’t pose too much of a problem for these guys and while an approaching horde of undead was unlikely, the shit kickers could simply retreat inside the relatively impregnable confines of the slaughterhouse building.

  Sentry duties were obviously the bum end of the deal.

  I slipped back from the corner into the shade of the trees, leaning my back against the corrugated wall.

  “One guy,” I whispered to Smith. “He seems preoccupied with boredom.”

  Smith nodded. “We have to get inside that door, somehow. That guy might have a key on him.”

  I wondered how we were going to get close to the guy without him raising the alarm. Smith could easily take him out with the semi automatic but the sound of gunfire would alert the rest of the shit kickers inside the building. And we didn’t know how many of them we were dealing with.

  Smith plucked a discarded, plastic shopping bag from a low hanging tree branch. He studied the bag for a few seconds and I wondered what the hell he was doing.

  “Take a walk around the corner and make sure the guy sees you,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Make sure that asshole sees you but don’t hang around. As soon as he sees you move your ass quickly back around the corner.”

  “You sure?”

  “Uhuh.” Smith nodded, still studying the bag.

  The plan seemed simple enough but I was the bait to catch the monkey and I wasn’t happy with that. The guy could start randomly firing and alert the others inside. I took a deep breath and stepped around the corner in full view of the guy in the parking lot.

  He didn’t notice me, just carried on kicking his stone around the ground. I took a few paces further forward but he still carried on his game of kick the stone. A breeze blew across the parking lot and ruffled my hair into my eyes. I brushed my fringe away, standing a few yards from the shit kicker and not knowing whether to continue on or duck back around the corner. I glanced back but Smith wasn’t in sight.

  I heard a harsh, hoarse voice shout. “Hey, you! Stop right where you are or I’ll shoot you dead as a doughnut.”

  I turned back to face the shit kicker. He stood looking down the sight of his hunting rifle, which was pointed straight at me. A bright red dot illuminated the center of my chest. The corner of the slaughterhouse was too far away to run to. Shit! The monkey had trapped the bait and he wasn’t going to let it go.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Put your fucking hands on your head or I’ll blow you away,” the shit kicker barked, with a southern drawl.

  I complied, anxiously waiting for Smith to make his move. The shit kicker marched forward towards me, still pointing his rifle at my chest.

  “You got any weapons on you?”

  I shook my head. “Only what’s in my belt.”

  He looked around my pelvis and saw the hatchet dangling on my right hip.

  “Toss that axe on the ground, real slow,” he ordered.

  I did as he said. His beady brown eyes steadily locked into mine as he kicked the hatchet across the parking lot. His mouth twisted in a mean grimace, surrounded by a few days worth of dark stubble. I replaced my hand on my head as he drew closer.

  “Where you from, boy?”

  “Err…Pennsylvania,” I muttered.

  The shit kicker lowered his rifle and in a flash rolled his hands around the stock and swung the butt hard into my stomach. The breath zipped out of my body and the blow caused me to sink to one knee. He quickly turned the rifle around and held it at the hip, pointing the muzzle at my head.

  “Got any more smart ass remarks? I asked you where you was from. Now, give me an answer or I’ll splatter what little brains you got all over this fucking lot.”

  I spluttered and tried to speak. The blow from the rifle butt was unexpected and caught me off guard, my guts felt sore as hell. I thought I was going to throw up for a second. I was sure this scenario wasn’t part of Smith’s master plan.

  “I’m originally from Pennsylvania,” I croaked, holding up a defensive hand before the guy hit me again. “I’ve been sailing around the coast for months looking for other survivors.”

  “You on your own?” The shit kicker kept his rifle trained on me but turned his head in all directions, scanning the lot for any potential invaders.

  “Yes,” I said quickly, anticipating that Smith was well hidden. “I lost the rest of my party in the Florida Keys.” I hoped my cover story sounded convincing.

  “The Florida Keys? You gotta be shittin’ me,” he barked. “That’s miles away from here, boy.”

  “I thought they’d maybe be more people alive further inland,” I said.

  “Bullshit! You came snooping around up here trying and steal from us, didn’t you, boy?”

  I shook my head and had the feeling the shit kicker wa
s enjoying tormenting me. I was fearful the taunting might escalate into something more sinister…like torture. Where the hell was Smith?

  “No, I’m no thief,” I stammered. “I’m just looking for…”

  The shit kicker released his grip on the rifle stock and smashed his left fist into my face. The blow caught me on the tip of my nose and my top lip. My head rocked back, my nose and lips stinging with the pain exploding in my head. When my senses returned, I tasted blood in my mouth. The guy was wiry but had power and strength in his quick moving hands.

  I spat a mouthful of blood on the cracked, parking lot surface and looked up at the shit kicker with a feeling of contempt burning within me. These guys were bastards all right, with no sense of humanity. I was glad we left that long haired guy to be eaten by zombies on the jetty back in Venice. I wished we’d killed more of them.

  “Okay, get the hell up,” the shit kicker commanded. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and hauled me to my feet. “Keep your fucking hands where I can see ‘em.”

  I put my hands back on the top of my head and spat another gob full of blood on the ground. I half expected Smith to leap out from around the corner and waste the guy at any second. Unfortunately for me, Smith didn’t make an appearance.

  The shit kicker frisked me down, throwing the tools from my pockets across the parking lot. Luckily, he didn’t frisk my top pockets and left my cigarettes and lighter untouched. He dragged me to the small doorway and hammered on the metallic shutter with his fist.

  “Hey, Larry. Open up in there. I got me a live one,” he hollered.

  A rectangular shaped peep hole, positioned at eye level slid open in the smaller door. A grimy face peered out to study me. The peep hole slid shut and the door clanked open. A guy I recognized as Shaved Head, who we’d had a gun battle with on the jetty in Venice stood in the doorway.

  “Who the flying fuck are you?” he asked, in a high pitched voice.

  I was slightly relieved Shaved Head and the rest of his crew hadn’t seen us in Venice, otherwise I’d surely be dead. Floppy Hat was probably somewhere inside the building as well.