The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone

by Christian Fletcher

  “No problem,” Smith replied.

  Cole swung the machine gun around the turret and fired off a few well aimed shots. Milner brought the vehicle to a slow crawl and Hernandez leapt out of the vehicle. I heard him let fly with a burst of fire of his own.

  “I’m going to swing around and back us in,” Milner yelled.

  I twisted in my seat, trying to get some kind of view of what was going on outside the Humvee. Milner swung the steering wheel left and right and then I felt us moving backwards. Chief Cole fired off another couple of short bursts then stuck his head through the turret.

  “Okay, we’re good to go! Everybody out,” he yelled.

  Milner kept the Humvee engine running and jumped out of the cab. He ran around to the back doors and opened them up.

  “Go, go!” he screamed at us.

  I felt the adrenalin rush as I scrambled out the back of the vehicle. The situation seemed very much like a military operation, something I’d never experienced before. I glanced around, attempting to familiarize myself with our surroundings and get some sort of clear picture in my mind of the lay of the land and what we were supposed to do. The Humvee was backed into the fuel dump, which looked very much like a normal gas station on first glimpse. Hernandez was unlocking and lifting a metal roller door to a storage building a few yards to the right of the gas pumps. Several more closed roller doors ran to the left of the open one, incorporated at the front of a row of brown brick buildings.

  The rasp of Cole’s machine gun caused me to spin around to face the road. More than two dozen dead zombies lay scattered on the blacktop and sidewalk, stale brown blood oozed from their wounds. The bulky caliber bullets had torn away parts or most of their skulls.

  “Hurry it up,” Cole barked at me from the turret.

  Hernandez waved us over to the storage unit, yelling something inaudible that was drowned out by the boom of heavy gunfire. Milner stood to the left of the Humvee, covering our position with his assault rifle. We hurried over to the storage unit with Smith leading.

  “The diesel is already in the Jerry cans, haul them onto the truck,” Hernandez yelled, pointing to a stack of five gallon, metal containers.

  Smith grabbed the handles and carried one can in each hand. I tried to do the same but had to set them back down for a moment. The cans were heavier than I thought. Brady also struggled but carried on dragging the Jerry cans to the Humvee. I had to silently applaud the old guy; he was willing to give his all by helping us. Hernandez lifted two cans with ease as though they were bags of sugar at the supermarket.

  I wasn’t sure how much diesel we’d need to get the boat going and continue our journey so I kept loading the containers into the back of the vehicle. Cole and Milner kept firing with an increasing length of bursts, which told me we were drawing more unwanted attention. I took a quick glance at the road and audibly gasped in shock at the large number of undead that had massed in front of us. They relentlessly kept coming forward into the hail of Cole and Milner’s bullets. Copious amounts of brass shell casings rattled over the blacktop and rolled into the curb. Ragged, emaciated bodies fell in large numbers, exploding like bags of rotten gravy.

  We’d loaded around twenty Jerry cans when Milner yelled he was out of ammo clips. Cole ceased firing and swung around in the turret.

  “Okay, time’s up, people, let’s go,” he yelled down to us.

  Luckily for me, I had just loaded my final pair of containers and was next to the rear of the Humvee. I didn’t need to be told twice and clambered onboard immediately. Milner rushed towards the cab and jumped inside, ready to drive us the hell out of the danger zone. Smith leapt inside the interior behind me and Hernandez and Brady followed carrying another canister each.

  “Hurry it up!” Cole roared. “I can’t keep them off much longer.”

  The crowd of zombies spread across the road and flanked us from both sides. Cole kept firing but the rounds were relatively ineffectual against the mounting tide of undead. Hernandez recognized the danger and flung down his Jerry can. He swung a well aimed punch at a zombie wearing the remains of a suit, knocking the ghoul out of his path to the Humvee interior.

  “Come on, Hernandez,” Cole screamed.

  Hernandez was a few seconds from being swamped when Milner backed up the vehicle at speed. Smith and I grabbed Hernandez’s arms and hauled him inside. He drew his side arm and started popping rounds into the gathering swarm surrounding the back doors.

  “Where the fuck is Brady?” Cole screamed above the moans of the undead.

  “He’s back there by the storage unit,” Hernandez shouted. “I lost him among the crowd.”

  “Milner, see if you can loop around through the gas station,” Cole ordered.

  Milner hit the gas, smashing the armored front of the vehicle through the line of undead hordes. Hernandez fired his Colt rounds at a couple of zombies clinging to the back doors. The bodies fell and Smith leaned out and slammed the rear doors shut. Boney arms, hands and skulls bashed into the sides of the Humvee as Milner tried to gather pace against the tide of bodies attempting to block our path. Cole kept firing into the crowd trying to clear a route.

  The interior of the Humvee reeked with the overpowering aroma of diesel. The sickly stench was making me gag. I looked forward through the windshield and saw that Milner had U-turned in the road and we were now facing the gas pumps. The storage unit roller door was still open but there was no sign of Brady.

  An emaciated ghoul, wearing what was left of a khaki military uniform, leapt in front of the Humvee, baring black teeth in a scowl. For some reason the vision of that near skeletal face and hollow eye sockets made me recoil in horror. Most of the zombies didn’t look like freshly dead humans anymore, as their flesh had rotted away months after initial death.

  Milner was unaffected by the sight of the military zombie and didn’t slow the vehicle. He carried on our path, the crash bars hitting the undead guy with a solid impact, full in his boney face.

  “Oh, Christ! There he is, there’s Brady,” Cole wailed.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I craned my neck, peering through the windshield to try and see where Cole had spotted the Chaplain.

  “I see him,” Milner yelled. “Oh, shit, Chief, it don’t look good.”

  I flashed Smith a concerned glance. I hoped Brady wasn’t going to be another victim added to our tally of helpers meeting their doom.

  Milner swung the Humvee around the back of the gas pumps towards the rear wall of the fuel dump. That was when I saw Brady. He was cowering against the back wall, bleeding from a neck wound and confronted by around half a dozen attacking ghouls. It made my heart sink at the way he was trying to ward off the zombies with a silver crucifix, like he was Van Helsing in one of those old, British horror movies. His face was screwed up in pain as he tried to stem the bleeding with his other hand.

  “We can’t risk taking a shot,” Cole shouted. “The charge might ignite the gas.”

  “We can’t just leave him here, Chief,” I yelled at Cole. “The poor bastard is going to be ripped apart.”

  Milner tried to get as close as he could to the Chaplain but more of the undead were surging forward. They smelled blood and would swamp the Humvee and hem us against the back wall if we stayed where we were. Smith gripped my shoulder, attempting to calm me down. Brady had saved our lives when he could have just stood by and watched us die. I felt we owed him at least some kind of dignified death. He was bitten and his situation was irretrievable, I understood that but I couldn’t sit there and watch him die in agony.

  “Smith, you have to take the shot,” I pleaded.

  Smith glanced out of the windshield and nodded. He knew what I meant.

  “Chief, let Smith have one shot with a side arm and then we’re out of here,” I called out up the turret. “He’s an ex-military sharp shooter.” I wasn’t sure if Smith had been a marksman but he didn’t argue. I knew he’d hit the target.

  Cole sighed and swore under hi
s breath. He climbed down from the turret and handed Smith his Colt 45 from a holster strapped on his thigh.

  “One shot. Make it count and don’t blow us up,” he said to Smith.

  The zombies started to rock the Humvee from side to side, desperate to get inside. Dead hands slapped the windshield as Milner recoiled in his seat. I watched more of them surround Brady while Smith climbed into the turret.

  “We have to go, Chief,” Milner yelled from the cab. “These fuckers are going to bust through the windshield any minute.”

  I looked up at the back of Smith’s legs, still and steady on the turret steps, then turned my gaze back to the Chaplain outside. More of the undead were biting chunks from his shoulders and upper arms. His face was still visible and contorted in pain. The crucifix was gone from his grasp and I briefly wondered if he still held on to his religious faith, even in the throes of an agonizing death.

  A single gunshot echoed around the gas station wall and Brady’s head jolted backward before he disappeared amongst the snarling zombie horde. The Chaplain was gone, hopefully to a better place.

  Chief Cole leaned across the back of the front seats, watching Smith take the shot.

  “Okay, Milner, get us the fuck out of here,” he ordered.

  Smith clambered down from the turret and handed Cole back his side arm.

  “Good shot,” Cole muttered, as Milner lurched the Humvee forward and to the right.

  Smith gave a slight nod and bumped into Cole with the swift forward motion of the truck. Cole climbed back up the turret and yelled obscenities at the mass of zombies obstructing the route. Smith sighed and sat back down on the bench seat. He looked pissed off and dejected. I would have put the Chaplain out of his misery myself but I knew there was no way I would have hit the target with one clean shot. Knowing my luck, I would have simply prolonged his agony by shooting him in the arm or shoulder or missing totally.

  “It’s a shitty thing but we’ve all had to do it, man.” Hernandez clapped Smith’s shoulder in a kind of consoling manner.

  “Poor bastard got himself killed trying to help us,” Smith groaned.

  “We have to get out of this shitty mess before we start feeling sorry for ourselves,” Milner barked from the cab. “There’s a whole swarm of the fuckers trying to block the road.”

  The clattering noise of hands banging on the sides of the truck became almost deafening. A couple of zombies crawled onto the Humvee’s hood, scowling at Milner on the other side of the glass. Cole let fly with the machine gun again, knocking out a few undead in our path as we slowly pulled away from the fuel dump. Milner gunned the engine and we finally gathered some speed. Cole took out his Colt and fired at the two zombies trying to slither up the windshield. The bodies jerked backward and rolled off the vehicle.

  “Keep going,” Cole barked. “We need to outrun them.”

  “I’m trying,” Milner screeched, turning the steering wheel left and right.

  The Jerry cans clanged around in the back and threatened to crush our legs under their weight. Diesel slopped from some of the cans and coated the floor. Hernandez, Smith and I did our best to hold the containers steady while Milner pushed the vehicle forward against the weight of the undead.

  “Will someone tell me where the hell we are going?” Milner bawled as he turned back onto the main road.

  Smith clambered over the Jerry cans and slid over the seats into the passenger chair.

  “Keep heading on the main route out of the base and take a right turn on the Highway.”

  The Humvee gained pace but still a few of the undead clung to the front crash bars and the armor plating on the sides.

  “We’ll wait until we get to a quiet spot and clear the vehicle,” Cole instructed.

  I was happy to hear the engine roar at a faster pace and felt the sensation of us gathering speed. I stretched upward and took a peek out of the windshield. We were coasting down the main street avoiding the debris and abandoned cars in the road. I felt relieved but also kind of numb. Brady was dead and we still had to contend with Headlong back at the boat. Those problems aside, we eventually had to try and rescue Batfish from New Orleans.

  I didn’t have any clue what time of day it was and wondered if Headlong had even bothered waiting for us. He could simply have carried on his journey until the diesel ran out and then used another, smaller boat to complete his journey. The Navy boat was a heavily armed and useful vessel to transport cargo along the river but not a life saving deal breaker. I prayed Tippy and Spot were still okay and Headlong hadn’t decided to amuse himself by torturing them in some cruel way.

  My train of thought was shattered when Milner stamped on the brakes, causing us to lurch forward into the Jerry cans.

  “Whoa! What the fuck is going on, friend?” Hernandez squawked.

  “Just trying to get rid of a few hangers on,” Milner shouted as a few zombies tumbled from the vehicle, losing their grip on the sides and rolling onto the road.

  We carried on our journey, driving under the overhanging sign above the main gate of the airbase. Smith pointed the way and Milner hung a right turn onto the Highway, avoiding the line of vehicles.

  “I must warn you, there’s a guy onboard our boat who is armed and dangerous,” Smith said to the military guys. “He’s got a hostage onboard but we need him alive to show us to our destination.”

  “Sounds like a real motherfucker,” Milner snorted.

  “Oh, he is and he’ll pay for what he’s put us through but not yet,” Smith growled. “You better get down from that turret when we get close, Chief. He’s got a loaded 20mm cannon onboard and we don’t want him using it if he feels threatened.”

  “Okay, but if he fires one shot in anger, he’ll wish he hadn’t.”

  I didn’t realize we’d run such a long way down the Highway before we reached the airbase. I kept thinking we’d missed the spot where we crawled up the river bank until Smith pointed out the small pumping station we’d seen earlier.

  Milner pulled over and slowed the Humvee to a stop. Cole clambered out from the turret and waited for Milner to open the back doors. We heard a single gunshot ring out before Milner pulled open the doors.

  “One hanger on the back taken care of, Chief.” Milner said, replacing his side arm.

  I was grateful to get out of the claustrophobic, diesel stinking interior of the Humvee. A skinny, naked body of a female with long, matted hair lay on the roadside by the truck with brown colored blood pooling around her head. At least that was another soul released from the genetic fuck up that had caused this disease.

  Cole gave the Humvee the once over check to make sure no more members of the undead were clinging on somewhere.

  “These motherfuckers are devious bastards,” he grunted while crouching and checking underneath the vehicle. “Worse than those crazy suicide bombers back in Iraq.”

  My legs felt shaky and the debilitating sensation of fatigue hit me as I stood in the humid air. I’d hardly eaten and hardly slept in the last forty-eight hours but we had to carry on, no rest for the wicked.

  Smith looked up and down the Highway, surveying our clearance levels of undead. A single female zombie staggered on the opposite side of the road around one hundred yards away. She wore the remains of a flowery party dress and stumbled on one high heeled shoe.

  “I guess she went to a party she’ll never forget,” Smith muttered.

  Milner took aim with his M-16 and fired a single shot. The party girl dropped to the roadside. Party permanently over.

  I briefly wondered about that girl. Where she’d come from and who she was in her former life. Maybe she’d had a boyfriend and was meeting him for a hot date the night she was infected. Who knew? And frankly who cared anymore? Genealogy would now lead you to a whole host of family relatives wiped out in the zombie plague. I remembered my mother’s tales of her family’s shenanigans in Ireland. The story of her uncle Brian and Clive, two brothers who as kids, sneaked out at night to go apple picking on
a farmer’s orchard, sprung to my mind. No more sneaking out for kids in this day and age. “I sneaked out last night, mom and got bitten by a nasty man! I’m gonna change and attack you and kill everyone in my family!”

  “We’ll unload the diesel here, Chief, if that’s okay with you?” Smith’s words broke my trip down memory lane. “It’s probably best if that jerk on the boat doesn’t see you.”

  “All right, it’s your call,” Cole answered.

  Smith and I removed our flak jackets and tossed them across the front seats.

  “Hey, Wilde Man, go check if the boat is still moored up down there, will you? I don’t want to unload all these canisters for nothing.”

  “Okay.” I nodded and set off through the trees, heading down the river bank.

  The dipping sun shone through the branches as I batted my way through the trees. My mind was focused on Brady and my family. The image of Brady trying to stop the undead attacking him with nothing more than a crucifix and his pathetic faith in a God that had long since given up on our species, floated around my head. I missed my mom and my sister and dwelled on their dubious existence. I hadn’t heard from either of them since the outbreak but my dad had told me my sister, Vicky had escaped her ravaged city of San Francisco and got to Alcatraz Island, home of the infamous jail. I had terminated my own father’s existence on a yacht in Battery Park Harbor. He had turned but I knew that memory of shooting him in the head would haunt me for the rest of my living days.

  The shards of sunlight between the branches dazzled me for a moment. The air seemed hotter and more humid all of a sudden. Beads of sweat turned to drips, then to trickles running down my face and back. I stopped walking, bent down and threw up into the long grass. The taste of Brady’s whiskey filled my mouth along with the unpleasant tang of stomach bile. I felt sick and tired of my existence. Maybe I’d be better off dead. No more fatigue, no more fear, no more feeling sick to my stomach every minute of the day and night. But I knew I had to try and stay alive and not for myself. I knew my role. I was Smith’s right hand man and Batfish’s friend and confident. I had to stay alive for those two people. They relied on me; we were a family of sorts.