“What the hell…?” I muttered.
“Are you injured or bitten?” a voice asked from somewhere.
I twisted around the ground and saw Dr. Soames standing in the grass with his small pistol, still smoking, pointed at my head.
“No…no, it didn’t get me in the end,” I stammered, clutching Spot close to my chest. “You got here just in time. You saved me…us.”
“Stay where you are,” Soames ordered, still leveling the gun at me. He walked over to the prone zombie and briefly made certain he was dead then came slowly closer, looking me up and down as I lay on the ground.
Soames slowly checked my legs, arms and face, then checked Spot for bites or scratches. When he was satisfied he replaced his pistol in a shoulder holster.
“The dog didn’t bite the infected person, did he?”
“He bit the guy’s shirt but didn’t draw blood,” I explained.
“Okay,” Soames said, seeming satisfied. He offered me a hand and hauled me to my feet. We stood silently watching the pale sun rise for a few moments.
“Thanks for coming to our rescue,” I sighed, hearing the emotion in my own voice.
“I didn’t sleep very well in the car and heard the dog barking,” he said.
We started to walk slowly back towards the RV. I kept Spot tightly clutched in my arms as I didn’t want him running away again.
“Can we keep this incident to ourselves?” I mumbled. “I shouldn’t have come out here on my own.”
The doctor nodded. “Okay, it’s your call,” he said. “I’m only a passenger on this journey. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I get somewhere I’m needed and somewhere safe.” He turned and walked back to his Lexus.
I felt a little sorry for Doctor Soames and a bit guilty at how we’d all shunned him. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
Nobody had stirred inside the RV which gave me the opportunity to use the shower first. The water was hot and felt good as I rinsed away the days of stale sweat and grime from my skin. The earlier events with the big zombie replayed in my mind. I decided to compartmentalize that situation, put it in a box and store it away in a vault in a dark, faraway place in my mind. So many situations over the past few days were stored in that vault. I knew the time would come when the vault would be full and the boxes would all tumble out and spill the contents, flooding my brain with horrific images.
Eazy and Rosenberg were up and around when I came out of the bathroom. Julia yawned and stretched, awoken by us trudging around the RV. Eazy and Rosenberg took turns in the shower and Julia used the contents of the kitchenette cupboards to make breakfast. She glanced me that smile again as I shuffled passed. Batfish woke and crawled out of the bunk. Smith stirred and sat up and asked for a cigarette. Rosenberg checked Smith’s wounds and the dressing. I dressed in some clean clothes, ready for the day.
After eating Julia’s excellent pancakes, we decided to have a look around the Auto Pound for some gas. Batfish and Julia wanted to take some time to shower in peace and Smith was still healing so Eazy, Rosenberg and I would go into the pound. Hopefully, we wouldn’t be long and get back onto the Interstate and finally rendezvous with dad at Battery Park later in the day.
Eazy turned the RV around in the two lane and parked length ways, horizontal to the gates at the pound entrance. Doctor Soames followed and tucked in behind the RV. I walked over to his window and explained what we were doing. His face was sullen through the windshield, behind the wheel of his car. He nodded once without saying a word.
Eazy and I armed ourselves with Smith’s handguns and Rosenberg carried his baseball bat. We opened the pound gates and walked into the vast uncovered ground. Weeds sprouted here and there between cracks in the blacktop surface. Cars of all makes and colors were parked in uneven rows. The office and security hut stood to our left, looking dark and deserted, no movement or light behind the glass windows.
“Where do we look first?” Rosenberg asked.
“They must have some gas cans laying around here somewhere,” Eazy said.
“Maybe someone already took them,” I said. “After all, that chain on the gate was cut. Maybe someone was thinking the same as us.”
“Let’s take a look around,” Eazy said and led the way through the huge parking lot.
Some of the vehicles had obviously been in the pound for a long while. An old 1980’s truck sat on flat, perished tires, sagging into the ground. The body work was covered in big rusting holes. The gas tank had an old style screw cap on top.
“What about that one?” I pointed at the truck.
Eazy smirked. “Forget that, numb nuts. The gas in that will be well beyond use.” He spun around in a circle, looking all around the lot. “We need a can of some sort.”
We looked around, 360 degrees spinning in a circle. No obvious solutions. Nothing jumped out at us and said “here I am.” So near yet so far. We were within twenty miles of our destination but it seemed a million continents, oceans and universes away. No gas, no guarantees we were going to get where we were heading.
“Do you both think this is such a good idea?” I said to Eazy and Rosenberg.
They looked at me quizzically.
“Say what?” Eazy said.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Do you think we should carry on?”
Eazy and Rosenberg looked at me like I needed urgent medical help.
“I don’t even know if dad’s ship, yacht or whatever it is will still be there. I can’t call him now because Podolski took all our cell phones.” I thought of the words of my other self. “I’m not sure we’re going to get through the city. Certainly not in the RV. Look at the problems we’ve had so far on relatively straight forward open roads. How difficult is it going to be in one of the biggest cities in the world? Maybe we should just find somewhere to hole up.” I blurted the words, close to tears. I felt like I couldn’t go on. I didn’t want to face any more life threatening situations and I didn’t want to look at any more of those awful, dead cracked, rotting faces. Shells of once good and bad people reduced to rotting husks. The vision of those two kids in the back of the SUV on the bridge kept showing a repeat in my mind. Maybe the image vault in my brain was full up and straining to spill out.
Eazy sighed. I sensed the weariness and tension in his body language. He had adopted the leadership since Smith had been injured. Every group needs a leader. In every shitty situation in history, no matter what the consequence, someone always stood up and said “we can overcome.” Churchill did it for the Brits in 1940 against the Nazis, Ho Chi Minh, Caesar and Gandhi did it.
All Eazy had to say was, “What the fuck else are we going to do?”
Chapter Forty-Eight
“What else are we going to do?” Eazy said like he was rapping the words to a tune. “Give up and go home?” He moved closer with an aggressive expression. I thought he was going to head but me. “Get this straight, motherfucker, there aint no home no more.”
He grabbed the side of my head with both hands and shook me into submission.
“Come on, man. You got to focus,” he said, shaking my head between his hands. “We need something to focus on. We need some kind of destination. If we die on the way then so be it. But at least we died trying.”
I looked into his eyes and the emotion gushed out of me in waves. In between sobs I told Eazy and Rosenberg about my dreams, fears, hallucinations, inner doubts and everything that was bad about my life. I noticed they gave each other a nervous glance as Eazy let my head loose and took a step back.
“It has been tough on us all, Brett,” Rosenberg said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “We have to keep going though. That’s one thing I’ve learnt since meeting up with you guys. You all have kept me alive and hopefully vice versa. We all have our part to play in this episode of our lives.”
I sniffed, wiping tears and snot away and attempted to eliminate the depressive expression from my face. “Okay,” I muttered unconvincingly. “Let’s find some fucki
ng gas.”
Things went slightly weird again. Sound became distorted like a bad TV signal.
Eazy said in a London cockney accent, “All right, we’ll have a butchers in that hut for a gallon of the smelly stuff.”
“Okay, you geezers with the shooters go in first and I’ll cover ya with Babe Ruth’s best mate,” Rosenberg said in an equal colloquial London accent.
“Are you two okay?”
They gave each other an edgy glance again.
“Yeah, we’re top dog, man,” Eazy said, back in an east coast American accent.
I shook my head and drew the hand gun from the back of my waistband. What the fuck was going on in my head?
“You okay with that shooter?” Eazy asked. He gave me a quizzical look before glancing nervously at Rosenberg.
I nodded. “Let’s do it,” I said as convincingly as I could. “Let’s get the gas and get the fuck out of here.”
We trudged closer to the office with our weapons at the ready. I wasn’t sure what the fuck I was doing and wondered if I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I felt like stripping off all my clothes and running through Liberty Park, stark naked, then plunging into the Hudson River on the other side, never to surface again. Game over. No more traveling, no more Eazy, no more Smith, Rosenberg, Spot, Batfish, Dad, Soames, even Julia, and definitely no more fucking zombies. Easy. Let the world carry on and go fuck itself without me polluting its air, because it seemed to want to wipe out our species anyhow. Why not give Mother Nature a helping hand?
“Acid, I’m going to give you acid,” the tune pumped in my head. Who the fuck did that tune?
We approached the office, dark and unassuming. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be anywhere. I looked at the shiny chrome pistol in my hand. Maybe I should have pointed it at my own head and pulled the trigger. Game over. Easy.
Eazy led the way, holding his hand gun outstretched in front of him. Rosenberg followed with his bat at the ready and I was positioned at the rear. Eazy banged on the office door with his free hand. No answer. He tried the handle but the door was locked from the inside.
“Okay, stand back,” Eazy said, herding us away from the door. “I’m going to shoot this damn lock off.”
He aimed at the handle and fired two accurate rounds into the door, blowing the lock and jamb to pieces. The door jolted inwards. Swarms of big, overfed flies lazily buzzed out of the office. A foul stench of rotting meat wafted from the open door.
“Something is very dead in there,” I said, holding my hand over my nose.
“Jesus, that is definitely some unholy stink,” Eazy said, pulling his jacket over his face.
“I can’t go in there,” Rosenberg croaked, turning away. “I think I’m going to hurl.”
I followed Eazy as he crept to the open door. We peeked inside and saw a mish mash of guts, remains of severed limbs and entrails strewn over the once white vinyl office floor. The structure was a long, narrow trailer, converted into a work area and secretarial pool. An overturned desk, blood soaked paperwork, filing cabinets on their sides, vehicle keys and a few landline phones lay amongst the mutilated body parts. Blood smears and bloody hand prints covered the brown wooden paneled walls.
“What the fuck went on in here?” I gasped.
“Looks like a serial killers convention went down,” Eazy said.
He slowly moved up the two steps into the office. I followed and was careful not to tread on any of the heavily messed up areas. I didn’t want that shit on the bottom of my shoes and stinking out the RV. We looked around, searching for a can or something we could hold gas in.
A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Hey, Eazy? What gas does the RV take, regular or diesel?” I asked in a whisper.
Eazy looked blank. It was clearly not something he’d thought of. He shrugged. “Good point. I don’t know,” he whispered back. “Hey, Rosenberg?”
We heard a wail from outside which constituted an acknowledgement.
“What kind of gas does the RV take?” Eazy had to repeat the question before Rosenberg answered.
“Most RV’s take diesel and why are you whispering?”
Eazy looked at me and shrugged again. “Why are we whispering?”
“It seems a bit spooky in here,” I said.
“What is this, the fucking Marx Brothers?” Eazy groaned. “Hey, what’s that?” He pointed to the floor somewhere in the middle of a pile of guts to the right of my feet.
“It’s a rotting piece of meat, Eazy,” I sighed. I thought I was the one who was losing it. “It was probably once human, just like you and I.”
“No, dumb ass, that thing just next to that shit. It looks like a gas can.”
I reluctantly stepped a little closer and looked down. It was hard to tell what the object was, covered in blood and gore with little light shining in from the grilled windows.
“Pick it up so I can see it,” Eazy said.
“I’m not picking it up. It’s covered in someone’s guts,” I spat.
“For fuck’s sake,” Eazy sighed. “I’ll find a cloth or towel or something.” He looked around the floor but everything was covered in blood or body parts.
“Is that a closet behind you?” I asked, pointing to a door I hadn’t noticed when we first entered.
Eazy turned and tried the door. He opened the door outward and stepped into whatever was beyond and out of my vision.
“It’s some kind of locker room in here…” Eazy said before the door swung gently shut on spring hinges and his voice became an inaudible mumble.
“Eazy?” I called. I didn’t like us splitting up.
I slowly moved to the door, avoiding treading on the mess on the floor. I put my hand on the handle and stopped when I heard a series of clangs from the room beyond.
“Eazy?” I hissed.
I held the hand gun out in front of me with my right hand and jerked open the door with my left. The room beyond was in semi darkness. One small, caged window was situated high in the wall opposite, around ten feet away. To the right lay a bank of gray metal lockers running the height of the room. Brown stains I guessed from dry blood coated the locker fronts. I stepped closer and saw a space between the lockers with another row behind.
“Eazy? Come on, let’s just get the hell out of here,” I called. I began to feel edgy. Where the hell was Eazy?
My question was immediately answered. Eazy sprang from behind the second row of lockers with a look of shock on his face. He barged past me.
“Come on, Wilde, run,” he garbled.
I didn’t hesitate and turned and followed. We bundled through the door and Eazy closed it behind us.
“What the hell is going on?” I hissed.
“Two huge...”Eazy’s words cut short as the door banged open.
‘Two huge’ was right. Two tall, naked men tried to bundle through the doorway at the same time, wedging each other between the door jambs. Both were around three hundred pounds, with shaven heads and colossal bellies, covered head to foot in congealed blood. They growled and grasped trying to get through the doorway. I remembered watching amateurish, obviously staged wrestling bouts on TV as a kid with my Dad in England. These two hefty zombies reminded me of a tag team who used to frequent the wrestling rings every Saturday afternoon.
“Shoot them!” Eazy urged. “Shoot them both in the head.”
I raised the pistol, took aim at one of the zombie tag team and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened except for a metallic “click.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Take the safety off, Wilde,” Eazy screamed, backing away to the open door behind us.“Shoot the bastards, now.”
I struggled with the pistol, I couldn’t find the safety catch and to be honest, I didn’t even know what I was looking for. The Beretta from the gun shop back in Brynston seemed a hell of a lot easier to use than the six shooter thing I held now. I even pointed at myself for a brief moment of panic.
“What are you doing?” Eazy s
creamed as the zombie tag team freed themselves from each other’s belly compression and bundled into the office. “Quick, toss me the gun,” Eazy hissed, realizing I was no good at all with the pistol.
I flipped the weapon up in the air to Eazy, a distance of around five feet. I was so conscious of getting the throw right that I didn’t look where I planted my feet when positioning myself. My left foot skidded on some entrails and I went down flat on my back. I felt the pungent, sticky mess of blood and guts ooze through the back of my shirt.
Eazy flicked off the safety and fired two rounds in quick succession. He didn’t have much time to aim properly. The first shot took off the leading tag zombie’s ear and the second round hit the other guy square in the chest.
Luckily for me, the zombie tag team seemed to both be focusing their attention on Eazy. I squirmed around in the goo trying to get up, feeling like an upended tortoise.
“Eat this, you ugly motherfucker,” Eazy spat and inserted the gun barrel into the gaping jaws of the lead zombie. He fired once and the back of the zombie’s head blew out, showering the following guy with scattered brain and skull fragments.
The remaining tag member must have been temporarily blinded by the sudden shower of shit or the flash of the gun. He staggered into the pile of rotting guts, slipped and fell to the floor right next to me. I flapped around whimpering, my feet slipping in congealed blood. The tag zombie must have smelt me as he slithered through the disemboweled body parts and grabbed my shoulder with a meaty arm.
“Hang on, Wilde,” Eazy shouted. “I’ve just got to get a clear head shot.” He took a couple of steps forward, aiming the pistol at the zombie’s head.
The tag zombie slid me across the floor so he could get a decent bite of my flesh. I thrashed around and found a severed hand amongst the gore. I picked it up, twisted and rammed it into the zombie’s open mouth, fingers first.
“Shoot it, Eazy,” I squealed. Rolling around the floor with zombies was becoming an unwelcome habit.
Eazy jigged from side to side trying to get his shot. The gun finally fired but the round didn’t enter the zombie’s head as I’d hoped. Instead the bullet made a perfect round hole in the office ceiling as Eazy lost his footing in the bloody mess and ended up on his backside amongst the dead meat. The pistol flew from his hand after he pulled the trigger and clattered into the back wall and fell out of sight behind the upturned desk.
The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers Page 24