The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone

by Christian Fletcher

  A beefy guy with short, cropped hair and wearing a sleeveless denim jacket sauntered along the walkway towards the staircase. He breezed by Smith’s door without giving the small opening a second glance. Smith slowly and soundlessly slipped both rifles off his shoulders and leaned them against the wall behind the door. He figured the noise of the grinders would drown out any sound of a brief scuffle. He waited a beat until the guy was a few paces beyond the doorway then stepped out behind him. The guy carried on walking. Smith could have easily slit his throat with the box cutter but he wanted to find out where Wilde was before he began dispatching these guys.

  The beefy guy turned his head slightly, sensing movement behind him. Smith quickly sprung forward and grabbed the guy across his face, covering his mouth with his left hand. The guy struggled briefly until he saw the box cutter knife flash before his eyes and the blade moved dangerously close to his wind pipe.

  Smith shuffled backwards, dragging the guy into the room and kicking the door shut with his left foot. The guy struggled again and Smith pressed the blade tightly to his neck, causing an indent in the skin and a tiny speck of blood.

  “Try to move and I’ll fucking kill you,” Smith hissed, sending a volley of spittle into the guy’s face. “Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions and I want you to give me quick, honest answers. You got that?”

  Sweat ran down the guy’s temples as he nodded behind Smith’s hand clamped to his face.

  “Where’s the kid you brought in around thirty minutes ago?” Smith growled. He watched the guy’s brown eyes flicker in thought then slowly slid his hand down to clamp the underneath of the man’s chin.

  “You motherfucker! You’ll end up sawn in half for this, you fuck!” The guy blurted in rasps.

  Smith pressed his fingers hard into the hollows of the guy’s cheeks forcing his mouth wide open. A muffled screeching sound emanated from the guy’s mouth and his eyes widened under the pain. Smith pressed the box cutter blade deeper onto the man’s skin.

  “I asked you a question. Now, I really don’t give a flying fuck if you live or die right here, right now so cut the macho bullshit and just give me the answers I need.”

  The guy gurgled and thought he’d hear his jaw snap under the intense pressure across his face. He made a whimpering noise that Smith took as a submission.

  “Okay, when I let go, I want a positive answer,” Smith growled. He released his grip on the guy’s face but still pressed the blade into his neck.

  “He’s in the holding cell, at the end of the walkway,” the guy gurgled.

  “That’s real good, man,” Smith hissed, attempting a sarcastic smile. “Next question. How many of you bastards are defending this shit hole?”

  The guy attempted a shrug. “I can’t say for sure. People come and go all the time. They take cargo on the boat up to New Orleans. Some stay up there for a time.”

  “Mmm…” Smith muttered. “Best guess on numbers?”

  “Twenty…thirty, maybe.”

  Smith weighed up the opposition. So far he’d been somewhat less than impressed by these guys’ ability but a shit kicker with a gun was still an unpredictable enemy.

  “What happened to the women you’ve kidnapped from along the river?” He fired the next question.

  Smith recognized an expression of guilt spread across the man’s sweaty face.

  “I want you to know, I had nothing to do with that,” he whined.

  “ATFQ,” Smith growled.

  The man looked puzzled.

  “Answer the fucking question.”

  “Like I said, they took them on the boat up to Lazaru’s place in New Orleans. He’s the trading guy in the city.”

  “Fuck!” Smith spat. He didn’t like venturing into zombie infested cities after the debacle in Manhattan but knew he was going to have to make the trip if he wanted to get Batfish back.

  “What are you going to do with me?” the guy croaked.

  Smith remained silent for a few seconds. The easy option would have been to slit the guy’s throat and toss his carcass out the open window. Some small emotion of compassion stopped Smith slaughtering the guy. He shuffled to the wall next to the door and reached for the assault rifle with his left hand. Smith pushed the guy to the center of the room and flicked up the rifle, pointing the barrel at his prisoner’s chest.

  “If you try to make a break for it, I’ll shoot you dead,” he murmured.

  The guy was on his knees, holding his aching face and sore neck.

  “Put your fucking hands on your head,” Smith commanded.

  The guy reluctantly did as he was told. Smith mused on what to do with him for a few moments. He turned sideways on, still keeping the rifle barrel trained on the guy. Smith rummaged through the desk drawers and found what he was looking for. He picked up a big roll of masking tape from the desk drawer and gripped the loose end tag between his teeth. Smith moved towards the guy and pulled down the roll of tape leaving a long strip. He wound the tape around the guy’s wrists behind his back and coiled the strip around his ankles, finally covering his mouth with a short piece he tore from the roll.

  “That ought to keep you out of trouble for a while, friend,” Smith whispered in the guy’s ear.

  Smith slung the rifle over his shoulder and dragged the guy to the open window, ignoring the muffled, pleading whimpers. He hauled the guy’s upper body over the sill, leaving his head and shoulders out in the open air.

  “Okay, let’s get down to it, boppers,” Smith muttered to himself.

  He leant the rifle back down on the floor behind the door, took a quick glance at the guy hanging out the window and hoped he wouldn’t free himself for another few minutes. It seemed guys came and went in this place so no one would suspect him if he simply sauntered around the building with an air of arrogance.

  Smith opened the door a crack and saw the walkway was empty. The two guys continued to grind up the carcasses below on the ground level. Smith retrieved the box cutter from his pocket and slid his hand up his sleeve. He walked out of the room onto the walkway and headed towards the far wall, where the guy said the holding cell was located.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Hey, kid, are you in there?” called a hushed voice from outside the door.

  I recognized the voice and nearly cheered out loud. “Smith! Where have you been?” I hissed.

  “Never mind that, let’s just get you out of there.”

  I heard the bolts clank back and the door swung open. The halogen lighting felt like bright laser beams shining into my eyes. I squinted and shuffled out of the cell onto the walkway.

  “Walk behind me and don’t do shit unless I do it first,” Smith ordered.

  I was happy to comply, just getting out of that shitty little cell felt like I’d been blessed by the Pope. I blinked rapidly, attempting to regain my vision with disturbing thoughts of the ghosts I’d encountered replaying in my mind. Smith closed the door and replaced the bolts then led the way across the metal walkway. The horrendous noise of the grinders still wailed down on the ground floor. I didn’t know how Smith had infiltrated the building but I was keen to follow him and get the hell out of the dismal place, full of the stench of death.

  The words of my former, now dead companions still rang in my ears. Their condemning, harsh words had rocked me and brought back all the emotions I’d managed to bottle up and keep at bay since those few, terrible hours in Manhattan. Were they real or an illusion my damaged mind had conjured up just to spook me?

  My train of thought lost momentum when I spotted the heavily tattooed guy I’d seen earlier, trudging up the staircase.

  “Shit,” I whispered and tried to hide my face behind Smith’s shoulders.

  “Just stay cool,” Smith mumbled as he noticed the guy approaching us.

  Smith nodded at Tattoos when he reached the staircase summit. “Howdy.”

  Tattoos grunted an inaudible reply and I thought for one second we were going to pass him on the walkway wi
thout any trouble. Smith turned his shoulder sideways to let Tattoos pass. I turned my face to the wall hoping he wouldn’t notice me but I guess our matching camp sailor attire gave us away. Tattoos did a double take and stopped dead in his tracks.

  “How come you’re moving him?” Tattoos pointed at me. “Does Larry know about this? Come to think of it, who are you anyway, mister?” He frowned at Smith and his voice grew louder with every word. “I haven’t seen you around here before and you’re dressed the same as him.” He nodded over Smith’s shoulder at me. “Something stinks.”

  “Yeah, your breath,” Smith growled.

  Tattoos turned and opened his mouth wide, taking in a deep inward breath like he was about to yell down to the guys milling around the ground level. Smith bent down and grabbed the guy’s legs slightly above his ankles. Tattoos screeched in shock as Smith lifted him off his feet and over the top of the hand rail running the length of the walkway. His fingers clawed the air in a futile attempt the grab the rail.

  Smith flipped the guy’s legs upwards as he tossed him forward over the hand rail. Tattoos screamed in mid-air while he nose-dived headfirst to the concrete floor below. The plunging body alerted the carcass grinders on the ground level. They stopped their noisy machines, removed their bloody goggles and looked up, pointing to us on the walkway.

  “Hey!” One of the grinders yelled.

  They threw down the cutting implements and grabbed big knives and meat cleavers from a bench behind them. A few other guys appeared on the floor, staring at Tattoo’s corpse and then up at the walkway.

  “Time to get the fuck out of here,” Smith rasped. “Follow me.”

  Smith darted along the walkway and ducked through a door to our right. I was close behind him but caught sight of the two grinders charging up the staircase with the sharp blades of their knives and meat cleavers glinting in the halogen fuelled lighting. Smith slammed the door and picked up two rifles. He tossed me an assault rifle, which I instinctively checked. Smith held a scoped rifle, pointing it towards the door. We took a few steps back into the center of the room.

  I noticed a guy bound in duck tape hanging halfway out of the open window.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Ah, forget about him, he’s out the game,” Smith answered.

  The door burst open and the two knife and meat cleaver wielding guys rushed through the opening. Smith fired off a round, catching the first guy squarely in the chest. The impact of the bullet caused him to recoil backwards, the knife and meat cleaver flew from each of his hands as he landed on his back on the deck.

  I aimed and fired a few shots at the second guy in the doorway. The rounds went higher than I’d anticipated but one shot caught him in the forehead and tore the top of his skull away from his the rest of his head. Blood and brain matter sprayed into the walkway and across the door frame. The guy fell back into the hand rail and slid down onto the walkway in a bloody heap.

  An eerie few seconds of silence followed. The stench of cordite wafted in the air. We heard the frantic shouts of the rest of the guys on the ground level and from the adjacent rooms. The meat grinders hadn’t expected us to be armed and we’d caught them by surprise but now our location and presence was known to the remaining crowd of shit kickers.

  “What do we do now?” I whispered.

  Smith moved closer to the door in a crouching position and kicked it shut.

  “Let’s barricade this fucking doorway,” he said.

  We slung our rifles and quickly shunted the two desks in front of the door.

  “That should hold them for a few seconds. Let’s go,” Smith whispered.

  I guessed Smith’s intended exit route was through the open window. I pointed my rifle at the door and listened for any sounds of movement on the walkway outside the room.

  “What are we going to do with him?” I said and nodded to the guy hanging over the window frame.

  “He’s coming with us,” Smith replied.

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when we get out of here,” Smith said, moving towards the window.

  I shrugged and shuffled backwards, keeping my weapon trained on the doorway.

  Smith hauled the guy to his feet and pointed at the tree outside.

  “Aim for that,” Smith commanded and shoved the guy out of the window.

  I heard a muffled cry followed by the branches rustling and snapping.

  “Do you think he survived the fall?” I asked.

  Smith looked out the window and down to the ground. He turned his head and nodded to me. “He’s okay.”

  A booming noise half deafened me and wood splinters exploded into the room. When the shot gun smoke cleared, I noticed a large hole had appeared in the center of the door. Smith leapt from the window into the tree. I scuffled onto the frame and took a look at the ground below. The height made me feel slightly giddy. I took a deep breath, slung the rifle over my shoulder and jumped towards the branches.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Every tree branch I made a grab for slipped through my fingers. I felt the assault rifle slip from my shoulder, brushed away from my body by the foliage. Twigs snapped under my weight and I saw the ground coming at me with rapid speed.

  All the breath in my body was forced out in a millisecond when I hit the earth. I lay on my back rasping for air while a voice screamed in my head, telling me to get on my feet and move. The assault rifle clattered onto the ground a few feet from me but I couldn’t move to retrieve it. The duck taped guy rolled around next to the tree trunk, desperately trying to free his bounded hands.

  The sun shone directly in my face. I glanced skywards and saw a big guy hanging one handed from a branch, dangling like a monkey around ten feet above me. He dropped and landed on his feet, only inches from my head.

  “Get up, Wilde,” Smith growled, hauling me to my feet.

  He picked up the assault rifle and thrust it into my hands.

  “You looked good falling out of that window. Ever thought about becoming a movie stuntman?”

  I grunted a reply, not in the mood for Smith’s baiting. He grabbed the duck taped guy and hauled him up. One of the shit kickers fired a couple of rounds at us from the window above. The bullets thudded into the earth, only a few inches from our feet.

  We sprinted to the slaughterhouse wall, Smith dragging the duck tape guy alongside him. We shuffled along the wall towards the rear of the building. A guy dressed in gray coveralls, brandishing a big hand gun leaned out the window and took aim. I was already pointing the assault rifle up at the window and fired off a short burst. One of the rounds ripped through the guy’s forearm. He squealed, dropped his gun and fell back inside the room.

  Smith cut the duct tape around the guy’s ankles so he could move him around quicker. We rounded the corner and ran through the woods along the back wall of the slaughterhouse.

  “They’ll come out of the front door,” Smith said. “There’s only one way in and out of the building.”

  “I knew that already,” I hissed. “Don’t forget I was the sucker who was locked up in there.”

  “Head for the jetty,” Smith barked. “We have to get to that Navy patrol boat before they do or they’ll slaughter us with that heavy machine gun.”

  I followed behind Smith as he ran while dragging the duct tape guy through the trees. We headed downhill from the bank to the river, leaving the claustrophobic slaughterhouse behind us. For all we knew, the shit kickers could be on the boat already, just waiting for us to hone into sight before they let fly with a hail storm of bullets. I hoped this wasn’t another one of Smith’s hair brained schemes that was going to lead us into even more danger than when we started. I knew he desperately wanted to find out where Batfish was but surely we could have found a less precarious method? That was Smith – Gung Ho Forever!

  We ran through the trees like GI’s fleeing from the onslaught of the Viet Cong in the 1960’s. Sunlight flitted through the overhead foliage, temporary blinding
us with bright rays. Sweat soaked through my shirt at the front and back and my hair was wringing wet with my own perspiration.

  Smith looked in his element, racing through the woods dragging his prisoner beside him. I was no military man. I could hold my own against a few shuffling zombies but to be honest, against an army of armed tough guys, I was way out of my depth. Every twig and dead branch cracking underfoot caused me to twist and turn in all directions, pointing my rifle in all positions the compass could accommodate.

  Smith stopped behind a tree and took cover when the river was in sight. The late afternoon sun glinted on the top of the brown, muddy flowing water. I slumped against the tree trunk next to Smith’s with my back against the solid bark, gasping for air.

  My throat felt and tasted like a dry, unclean stove and my guts churned like a washer dryer set on maximum heat. The duct tape guy sweated and gasped in air noisily through his nose as he sat slumped against the tree trunk between Smith’s knees.

  “The boat is over there,” Smith whispered, pointing to our left.

  I craned my neck beyond the tree and saw the gray patrol boat moored against a small wooden jetty beyond the tree line. A couple of guys trundled around on the upper deck oblivious to the chaos ensuing inside the slaughterhouse. I guessed they would soon be alerted when the rest of the shit kickers tumbled down the riverbank in their search for us.

  “We need to move real quick,” Smith said. “We’re going to take that boat up to New Orleans.”

  I nodded without asking why. Smith had hinted about the route we needed to take.

  “We’ll need to head back down river for Spot and Tippy,” I said.

  Smith squinted like he’d forgotten about our comrades but nodded in agreement.

  “How many guys are on the boat?” I asked.

  Smith shouldered his rifle and looked down the scope sight. “I can see two on the upper deck, don’t know if there’s any more down below. We’ll have to cross that hurdle when we come to it.”