I leaned forward to try and see where we were going. The mist was a little less dense away from the river and I could see old colonial style buildings with wooden shutters and cast iron railings surrounding balconies facing the street. Sammy drove by a crisscrossed white sign that had ‘RAILROAD CROSSING’ etched in black across it.
“We’re in the French Quarter,” Smith said, staring through the windshield. “I came here once before, some years back. It don’t look too much different.”
Sammy swiveled around slightly in the driver’s seat. “We got the whole area sealed off so it’s a zombie free zone. No one gets in and no one gets out without having to go through an armed checkpoint. So don’t have no ideas about sneaking off out of here.”
I watched a few people, seemingly free from the zombie disease, stroll around the sidewalk. It was something I hadn’t seen for a while and came as a bit of a shock. On closer inspection, the people looked dirty and malnourished though. Their faces were pale and their eyes narrow and sunken. I wondered then what the price was for a zombie free, little piece of paradise.
Less than five minutes later, Sammy pulled the truck over and came to a stop on a main street lined with palm trees, running along a raised, grassy bank in the center of the lanes.
“There you go, Headlong. Bourbon Street is to your right. I assume that’s where you’re going?”
“You bet. It’s my kind of place,” Headlong whooped, before hauling himself out of the truck. “Thanks Sammy, may catch you in one of the bars tonight.”
Sammy shrugged and got out the truck. He unlocked the back doors and Headlong motioned with the M-16 for us to exit the vehicle.
I wondered what kind of weird, hybrid world we were stepping into when my feet hit the blacktop. A few emaciated folk trudged up and down the main street, flashing us reproachful glares. Most of the inhabitants carried hand guns strapped in holsters around their waists or shoulders or had various kinds of rifles slung across their backs.
The early morning mist had not totally cleared but visibility was much better. A blue sign that read ‘Canal,’ hung over the road opposite where we stood. I’d never been to New Orleans before and didn’t have any clue where we were heading.
Sammy jumped back in the VW and did a U-turn before heading back the way we’d come. Headlong slipped the hunting rifle over his shoulder but kept the M-16 trained on Smith and me.
“Okay, let’s get moving, shall we?”
“Where we going?” Smith asked flatly.
“Right up this street here.” Headlong pointed down a narrow road to our right. “That there is Bourbon Street, surely you’ve heard of it?”
Smith nodded but I remained blank. My world before the zombie epidemic consisted of London, UK when I was a kid and Brynston, a shitty little town in Pennsylvania, where I’d spent the last twenty-something years doing fiddly-shit with my life.
“It spreads for thirteen whole blocks,” Headlong cheered like he was a travel guide.
We started off down the street with Headlong walking a couple of paces behind us. I held Spot’s leash tightly as he trotted along beside me. The narrow street was flanked with empty fast food joints and bars that showed no signs of life through the grimy windows. The cast iron balconies hung overhead, propped up with decorative poles on nearly every building.
“Doesn’t look like there’s much sign of life down here,” Smith snorted.
“Oh, don’t worry your ass. It gets a whole lot better,” Headlong chortled.
I flashed Smith a worried glance. If things were getting better for Headlong that meant the situation would get worse for us.
Chapter Fifty-Two
We’d walked for maybe ten or fifteen minutes before Bourbon Street showed any signs of life. Some of the bar doors were open and the sounds of someone strumming a guitar drifted across the street. The bars had unlit neon signs over the doors with names like “Mango,” “Jesters” and “Howl At the Moon.” A scattering of bleary eyed people watched us warily, like birds of prey from the above balconies. Drying clothes hung from makeshift washing lines along the length of the verandas.
“Do they have any power here?” Smith asked.
Headlong sniffed. “Some of the joints have backup generators and only use ‘em at night. It’s all down to basics here but there’s still a lot of activity.”
An elderly, black guy perched on a stool on a balcony to our right, sung an old Blues song, while strumming an acoustic guitar. I recognized the tune as one of the great Blues players, Carey Bell. The melancholy lyrics of ‘Brought Up the Hard Way,’ reverberated around the narrow street.
“He has a good voice,” Smith commented.
“Yeah, you can hear a lot of these guys play in the bars after sundown,” Headlong said, in an almost sociable manner.
The volume of people increased the further we walked along Bourbon Street. Some traded food, weapons, ammunition and other mostly useless household items from makeshift stalls like some kind of crude market place. Headlong nodded at a few people he recognized and they gave us an unfriendly once over as we walked by.
“How much further?” I asked.
“What’s the matter, boy, getting tired?”
“I’ve been constantly tired for the last six months,” I sighed.
Headlong made a noise behind me and that was somewhere between a cough and a laugh. He told us to stop walking so he could take another dose of his self medication. Smith lit a smoke and offered me one.
“You got a cigarette?” A tall, thin black guy asked Smith.
“No, he hasn’t,” Headlong snapped. “Now, go on get away from us, ya fucking vermin.” He spun the M-16 barrel a few inches from the guy’s face.
The guy looked alarmed and scuttled off down the street like a scolded dog.
“That was a bit harsh,” Smith said, exhaling smoke.
“You don’t give people nothing around here. You start dishing out freebies and you’ll be surrounded by them. Everything has a price.”
“You still use money here?”
Headlong grunted. “You can still use greenbacks in some places, like the clubs and bars. It’s all about credit and trading stuff on the streets. Now, come on, the place we’re going to is just up ahead.”
We carried on walking through the street, Smith and I taking in our surroundings. It seemed the French Quarter had reverted back to colonial times when bartering for goods and food in the street was the norm.
Smith and I instinctively ducked down when the crack of a single a gun shot rang out along the street. Everyone else lining the road and sidewalk seemed to do the same thing. A young kid of about fifteen years old, sprinted down the street coming from the opposite direction, chased by a big, burly guy with a shaved head and a bushy, goatee beard. The big guy brandished a huge hand gun like a Magnum or a Desert Eagle. He yelled at the kid to stop then took aim and fired again. The kid let out a gurgled scream and fell face first to the blacktop with a huge, bloody hole in his back.
“I told the stupid motherfucker to stop,” the big guy growled. “He shouldn’t have stolen from me.”
A woman wailed from somewhere up ahead and a few people crowded around the boy’s prone body. The big guy turned and pushed his way through the crowd back the way he had come.
“What the fuck was that all about?” I whispered, in a state of total shock.
Headlong shrugged. “Like I said, everything has a price. You steal from folk around here and they shoot you dead if they catch you. It’s just the way it is.”
New Orleans was obviously a very different place from the islands in the Florida Keys, where the survivors had banded together to try and help each other. It was dog eat dog here, with a basic form of law and order.
“Here we are,” Headlong chirped behind us. “This is the place.”
Smith and I stopped and glanced around. Headlong stood in front of a three storey, pink fronted building, framed with dark green, cast iron railings and balustrade around the ed
ges and along the two balconies on the upper levels. The front double doors and bay window were loosely decorated with flaking brown paint. Faded photos of semi naked girls from all corners of the globe hung inside the window glass. A red, unlit sign over the door read ‘The Eye of the Storm.’
I somehow thought we were walking into a shit storm of our own.
Headlong bundled us through the double doors into the dim, bar interior. I blinked my eyes, desperately trying to force my vision to accustom to the gloom. The first thing I focused on was the dark brown, wooden floor. The bar counter ran in a semi circle, covering most of the back wall. A few people were huddled on wooden chairs, surrounding rectangular shaped chunky tables at each edge of the long room. The tables had lit candles at their center, providing limited illumination. A waft of damp mold was slightly masked by the smell of cigarette smoke and stale beer. A few old, black and white photographs and colorful flyers of a bygone era hung inside frames along the dark wood paneled walls.
Headlong hobbled on his bad leg towards the bar but still managed a swagger and eyed up anyone who stared at him, as though he owned the place. He ushered us forward with a wave of his rifle. A thick-set, black guy stood behind the bar rearranging liquor bottles on the shelves on the back wall. He turned as Headlong approached, offering no welcome smile. Instead, half of a thin, unlit cigar was centered between his lips.
“Hey, Peaches,” Headlong grunted at the barman. “Is the Trading Dog around?”
The barman, who was apparently and bizarrely called Peaches, removed the cheroot from his mouth.
“He’s tied up with some business, right now. He said he wasn’t to be disturbed until said business meeting is concluded.” Peaches spoke with an abnormally high-pitched voice for such a big guy. “If you and your friends ‘aint drinking then you have to wait outside.”
“Hey, come on, Peaches. You know me,” Headlong protested, leaning on the thick, wooden countertop. “I’m in here a lot of the time.”
“Maybe so but you still have to pay for the luxury of occupying the premises.”
I wondered how the guy had managed to unite the word ‘luxury’ and the dreary bar. Headlong sighed and looked around at the patrons inside the saloon, presumably to check on their drink situation. The people at the tables were mostly guys who looked like they had given up on life. None were bright eyed and clean shaven and they all looked in need of a good wash and a decent meal. Their hollow gazes returned to each other, talking quietly in their separate huddles.
“Okay, give me three straight shots of whiskey,” Headlong demanded. “And put the check on my account, will you?”
Peaches reached on the shelf behind the bar for a bottle of J&B but stopped when Headlong asked for credit.
“No more credit facilities here, I’m afraid. Trading Dog’s orders. Too many people have been running up high accounts they can’t pay back.”
“What the fuck is the world coming to when a hard working man can’t have a little drink on tick?” Headlong complained.
He put the M-16 down on the countertop and rifled through his pockets. Peaches sighed impatiently as Headlong produced a wad of pieces of paper, the plastic bag with white powder and some crumpled dollar bills from his pockets. He tossed a greasy ten note onto the counter.
“That better cover it, cos that’s all you’re getting,” he growled.
“Just about,” Peaches said, tentatively picking up the note between his thumb and forefinger at one corner, like he was handling a piece of dog shit.
The barman flicked the note into a metal cash box behind the bar and continued to pour us each a shot of whiskey in very small sized glasses.
“Don’t get much for your money in this place, no more,” Headlong protested, studying the contents of his glass. He took a small sip and sighed in satisfaction. “Make it last, boys. At these prices, you won’t be getting another shot.”
Peaches responded with a raised eyebrow and went on with rearranging his liquor bottles.
Smith lifted his glass and raised it momentarily at me. I picked up my shot and took a small sip, welcoming the burn down to my guts. Spot whimpered and gazed up at me like he was missing out on something.
“Have you got a bowl of water for my dog?” I asked Peaches.
“It’ll cost,” Peaches said nonchalantly, without turning around from the shelves. “This place isn’t a charity.”
“Like I told you, everything has a price,” Headlong butted in. “The damn dog can drink from a puddle. I ‘aint paying for no more drinks.”
I huffed and shook my head in disapproval. The city’s charitable side had obviously run dry a long time ago.
The noise of a scuffle from behind a door to the left of the counter caused everyone inside the bar to swing their heads in that direction. The door swung open and two big, beefy guys, one with long dreadlocked hair and the other with a Mohawk, dragged a thin, middle aged man dressed in ragged clothes into the bar.
“We told you what would happen if you gave us anymore bullshit excuses,” the guy with the Mohawk yelled at the bedraggled man.
The poor guy was held in an arm lock on either side and his feet flapped at the floor trying to find some kind of purchase. Both his eyes were purple and swollen and his mouth hung open with clots of blood dangling from his chin. He looked in bad shape and barely conscious.
Mohawk and Dreadlocks frog marched the guy towards the door and threw him face first out onto the street.
“You don’t fuck with these guys,” Headlong said quietly.
Mohawk and Dreadlocks returned and strolled through the open door, giving a nod to Peaches as they moved by the bar.
“Okay, Headlong, the Trading Dog has concluded his business meeting and will see you now.”
Headlong nodded, smiled then downed the remainder of his whiskey. He picked up the M-16 from the countertop and waved us towards the door. Smith and I downed our shots and placed the empty glasses on the bar.
“Come on, boys. We got to do some business of our own.”
We walked towards the open door and even the whiskey shot couldn’t prevent the nervous, gut wrenching feeling pulsing through my body.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The doorway to the left of the bar led to a crisscrossing stairway, made from the same flowery patterned, cast iron as the front balconies and balustrades. The walls around the stairway were painted pale blue with flecks of pink plaster showing where the décor had flaked and crumbled.
“Go on up,” Headlong ordered us.
I climbed the stairway with increasing apprehension on every step. Mohawk and Dreadlocks stood either side of a door directly ahead of us when we reached the stairway summit. Mohawk wore loose fitting, denim dungarees and his upper arms, shoulders and neck were swathed in tattoos. Dreadlocks was dressed in a black t-shirt emblazoned with a Jamaican flag and combat fatigues. They both looked grim and focused, like they were ready to kill on the command of a finger snap. I noticed the butt of a big hand gun protruding from the front of Dreadlocks waistband and assumed Mohawk was similarly armed.
I gulped away fear as we moved closer towards the two menacing figures flanking the door. Headlong shuffled along behind us, breathing heavily from the exertion of climbing the stairs.
“Good day, boys,” he said cheerfully to Mohawk and Dreadlocks.
“Hand over your weapons,” Dreadlocks commanded in a deep, booming voice. “You know the routine. No loaded weapons in the office.”
“Yeah, I kind of forgot,” Headlong said, handing over the M-16 and removing the slung hunting rifle from his shoulder.
Dreadlocks took the weapons while Mohawk gave all three of us a thorough frisk down. He found the knife in Headlong’s boot and tossed it across the floor with a scowl on his face.
“Don’t try and jerk me off, asshole,” he threatened.
Headlong looked sheepish and shrugged. “Guess I forgot about that shank,” he offered, as some kind of nervous apology.
Mohawk le
aned closer to Headlong so his face was only a few inches away. “You seem to be forgetting a lot of things. Maybe I’ll forget to let you out of here alive.”
Headlong emitted a nervous laugh and Dreadlocks was busy eyeballing Smith. I briefly wondered if we were all going to be killed before we even got inside the room beyond.
Mohawk rapped softly on the door and we heard a gruff, muffled voice, presumably allowing us to enter. The door was opened from the inside by a tall, thin black guy, who wore shades, a trilby hat and an immaculate, dark blue suit. He looked like one of the old, Blues singers from the 1960’s.
“Who is it, Willy?” A deep voice boomed from somewhere behind the old blues guy.
The Blues guy lowered his shades down the bridge of his nose and studied us in the doorway.
“It’s one of those river snakes, boss with a couple of military looking dudes.” His voice was hoarse and whispery.
We heard the voice inside the room exhale a deep sigh. “Show them in, Willy.”
The old Blues guy stood aside and gave us a slow wave to come inside. We entered the room and two huge sash windows, which overlooked Bourbon Street, sat in the wall opposite the door. The walls had been whitewashed some time ago and mold and water stains mottled the corners and ceiling. An overweight, shaven headed black guy dressed in a light green suit and black shirt, sat behind a desk to the right of the room. He stared intently at us as we tentatively approached. Another guy in a bright orange suit and trilby hat sat to the left of the desk. He was holding a small pistol aimed at us and stared with the same intensity as his associate.
“What can I do for you?” the guy behind the desk barked, as though our presence was an annoyance.
I guessed the big guy behind the desk was the Big Boss – The mysterious Trading Dog. He seemed to run the city with an iron fist.
“Ah…I got some more merchandise for you, Mr. Lazaru,” Headlong stammered, gesturing towards Smith and I. “If we can just agree on a price, I’ll be on my way and not take up any more of your valuable time, as I can see you’re a busy man.”
The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone Page 25