Smith coughed and slumped down beside me. He pulled out his smokes, tossed one in his mouth and offered me the pack. I took a cigarette and we lit them up with Smith’s lighter. We sat in silence, smoking and gazing down the hillside with the sea breeze blowing in our faces.
“You think we can make it down there, Smith?” I asked, breaking the quietness. “I mean seriously, man. Are we going to kill ourselves trying to get down there?” I glanced down the rocky slope once again and it seemed steeper every time I looked at it. “I mean, it’s got to be at least forty-five degrees as an angle. Fuck, no maybe more.” I was having serious doubts about my plan and a little feeling of vertigo made me slightly lightheaded.
Smith tossed his cigarette butt into the wind and watched it being swept away onto the rocks below.
“Do you know what, kid?” he rasped. “I’m real tired of all this shit. I’m real tired of running around every place we go, trying to make a better life for ourselves. Nothing really works out for us. Not really. We get the odd moment when we think it’s all hunky dunky but it never lasts.”
Christ! I thought I was the morbid one.
I spat out a laugh. “It’s me who’s fucked up this time. Big style,” I said.
“Nah, shit like that happens, man,” Smith snorted. “We got this mob of islanders all riled up now over that kid getting killed but something like this was going to happen sooner or later. People don’t want to live with other people no more. The world just got too crowded and something had to give. Shit, I never had much time for damn people anyhow.”
I laughed again. “Fuck, man. What’s kicked you in the nuts?”
“Ah, just annoyed with myself at letting that pedo jerk-off getting the jump on me last night is all,” Smith huffed. He hauled himself up on his feet. “To answer your question, can we get down that fucking hill in one piece? Who really gives a shit? We do or we don’t. We’re shit out of choices, kid. So let’s fucking go for it, huh?”
I knew he was right. There were no other routes we could take and staying put on the hillside wasn’t an option. This was the only way we could perceivably get out of our shitty situation.
I tossed away my cigarette butt and rose from the ground, standing shoulder to shoulder with Smith and gazing down the seeming chasm that had once seemed like a gentle slope down to the sea. I breathed in gulps of air.
Smith glanced at me. His face was as hard as the stones amongst the hillside. He was calm and ready to go.
“Just take it nice and steady,” he said. “Don’t start running if you lose momentum and use the rocks that are sticking up as a handhold to keep you from moving too quickly.”
“I’ll try,” I stammered.
“Okay, let’s go before you shit your pants, kid.”
“Who says I haven’t already,” I said.
Smith grinned and shrugged then pointed down the slope. I waited for him to lead the way. Small stones rolled down the hillside when I moved forward. I felt as though my stomach was going to erupt from my mouth at any moment. Smith descended slowly downwards, turning his feet sideways on against the slope. I tried to copy his movements and trailed behind him. I figured at least if I fell, I’d bump into him first and hoped he’d stop us both tumbling down the rocks.
Our progress was slow and sweat ran down my back and dripped from my face, despite the cool air. I made sure I followed Smith’s advice and clung on to any protruding rocks to stop me from gaining too much speed. Smith turned back and gave me an encouraging nod from time to time, which I found slightly reassuring.
The sea drew closer with every agonizing step. I figured I could run down the slope and leap into drink if the panic and vertigo overwhelmed me. Large rocks slightly visible below the shimmering water’s surface soon put me off that crazy idea.
I tried to calculate how far we had to go and came to the conclusion we were around one hundred feet from the beach when I heard a zipping sound from slightly behind me. I turned but couldn’t see anything or anybody. Something pinged off a rock a few feet in front of me, sending a few stone chips into the air.
Smith suddenly turned his head towards me. An expression of concern was etched on his face.
“We got to hurry now, Wilde Man,” he said, pointing to our left. “We’ve been spotted and they’re shooting at us.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“Where are they?” I squawked.
I turned my head to look where Smith was indicating. I saw two figures standing on a ridge where the road hair-pinned towards the port town. They both held rifles of some kind and were pointed down the hillside on our position. The black smoke from the burning shack plumed behind them. Damn it, another few feet and they would have missed spotting us. The two men shouted something I couldn’t hear but they half turned and gestured behind them, waving their arms in a forward motion. My guess was they were calling more of their gang over to join them.
“Shit! What do we do, Smith?” I barked, turning back towards my only companion.
“We keep fucking going, kid,” Smith growled.
It was a dumb question. I knew that. What else could we do?
I swiveled my head back up to the ridge above us. More islanders carrying firearms crowded beside the first two guys. They hollered and chanted and aimed their weapons down the slope.
“Shit and hellfire,” I shouted, feeling an extremely uncomfortable rising sense of panic.
“Yep, that’s what’s going to rain down on us,” Smith said, rather too calmly for my liking. “No time for pussy footing around now, kid. We have to make it down to that beach and across to those large rocks to the left.”
I was already moving before Smith finished his last words. I heard the popping of gunfire from up on the ridge and saw the hard ground puffing up in small explosions as the rounds hit the ground around me.
I gathered momentum and bypassed Smith, hurtling down the slope so fast my legs had trouble keeping pace. A voice in my head told me to slow down. “Screw that,” I yelled, telling my inner self to shut the fuck up. “Just don’t fall down,” I told myself.
The popping sound increased, as did my speed. I couldn’t keep up with the momentum and lost my footing. I tumbled and rolled and kept rolling, my sides slamming against the hard surface with each rotation and seemingly sucking the breath from my body. The land and sky became a spiral, swirling in a blur in front of my eyes.
The ground seemed to level out for about a second before a splashing sound then cold water engulfed me. I tried to breathe but sucked in around a gallon of sea water. I coughed and retched while I tried to stand. My head spun and I fell back into the water again. The receding tide tried to suck me out to sea but I somehow managed to stay close to the swirling beach.
Zipping sounds pinged all around me and sent up splashes against the small, incoming waves. I knew gunfire was coming my way but I’d lost my sense of direction. My head still spun and I didn’t know which way was up, down, left or right. I staggered against the waves and tried to get my bearings.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” I heard Smith grunt, before he grabbed my arm in a rough grip. “Let’s get to those fucking rocks.”
I let Smith drag me forward and stumbled in the shallow water. He kept me upright and I tried to move in some kind of coordinated state.
“Keep moving, Wilde Man,” Smith yelled. “But keep your head down as you go.”
I did what I was told without question. My lungs burned and I felt my stomach churn. All I could taste was the remnants of salt water in my mouth. My stomach convulsed and I heaved but managed to keep on half running, half lolloping.
We reached the wall of large rocks and I felt the cooler air in the shadows of the huge, standing structures. Smith shoved me through the split between the boulders and bundled along behind me.
“Okay, kid,” Smith gasped. “You can stop now. Let’s take a minute.”
I was glad of Smith’s command and duly obliged, collapsing in a heap with my back against the big stone
slab to the right. I sat gasping, coughing and trying not to throw up. Smith flopped down against the rock wall lining the opposite side of the narrow pathway.
“You okay, Wilde Man?” Smith asked, between deep breaths.
“Uh,” I grunted, nodding for clarity’s sake. My ribs and my shoulders ached like I’d been punched several times by a heavyweight boxer.
“Fuck, man, that was some motherfucking cartwheel you performed out there,” Smith said, grinning broadly. “I thought you were going way out to sea when I saw that, Wilde Man. I mean, it was fucking epic.”
“Glad you liked it,” I rasped, not particularly seeing the funny side of our situation.
I glanced around. The rocks had formed a zigzagging, open air pathway through them; I guessed where the water ran in a narrow stream once upon a time. We couldn’t see up the hill or through to the town. But the good point was the gunmen couldn’t see us from their position on the ridge. But there was nothing to stop them coming down the hillside after us. They were in that crazy frame of mind they might do just that. I sincerely hoped the pathway didn’t lead to a dead end.
“All right, we’ll take a breather before we get going,” Smith said, the smile dropping instantly from his face. “We don’t know what we’re going to face on the other side of these rocks so we better get our shit together.”
Another horrible thought crossed my mind. “My weapons, Smith. I got them all wet when I fell in the sea.”
“Pass them over here, kid,” he said.
I took out my handgun and pulled the rifle off from my shoulders and handed him both weapons. Smith took out a rag and a cleaning kit from his backpack then unloaded and stripped the firearms down to pieces. He rapidly cleaned the working parts, oiled up the barrels and reassembled them in less than five minutes.
“We’ll just have to hope they work okay when it comes right down to it,” he muttered, passing me back both weapons.
Smith waited until both his and my breathing returned to normal. I didn’t hear my lungs rasping so I figured nothing was broken and I hadn’t sustained any serious damage. Only more cuts and bruises to go with the rest of them.
“Okay, let’s go,” Smith muttered.
He held out an open hand and I reached up. Smith hauled me to my feet. I took a few deep breaths, feeling a little shaky but I knew the drill. I knew what came next. There was no time for loitering.
“Ready,” I said.
Smith slapped me gently round the face and tipped me a wink.
“Let’s see what we can do in this goddamn town.”
I forced a smile and we turned on the stony ground and trudged into the zigzagging pathway between the giant rocks.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Smith and I trod cautiously along the narrow pathway, trying not to make too much noise as our feet crunched on the bed of stones. The trail doglegged left and right before we saw a six foot wide gap between the rocky walls. We crouched down at either side of the opening and peered around to take a look through to the other side.
A few undead clumped aimlessly around a small open air courtyard, with boarded up stores forming a square around a red paved patio area, partially covered with sand. A small kid’s play pen with a few basic swings and a seesaw stood in front of a former ice cream parlor, to the left of the of the courtyard. The red paved patio narrowed to a pathway leading between two small stores and beyond, into another part of the town.
“We need some silent weapons,” I whispered. “Using any kind of firearms will only draw more undead out to our position.”
“You don’t say,” Smith replied, with a large slice of sarcasm.
I flicked my eyes to the heavens. Then a thought crossed my mind. “You still got that knife in your boot?”
Smith nodded. “Always.”
I rummaged around in the pockets of my jacket and retrieved the knife I’d found in the dead guy’s pack back in the woods.
“What the fuck you going to do with that?” Smith snorted. “Cut the zombie’s dinner up for them?”
I felt a little deflated. “I thought I could kind of stab them in the eye or something.” I made jabbing motions in the air with the blade.
“That shit will only work once if you’re right up real close,” Smith said, shaking his head. “I got a better idea.”
“Ah, God, here we go,” I sighed. “Okay, go on. Let’s hear it.”
“See that store right next to the ice cream parlor?” Smith nodded across the courtyard.
I glanced over to where he indicated and screwed up my face incredulously. “A fruit and grocery store, seriously? What are we going to do, fight off the zombies with a rotten pineapple?”
Smith groaned. “No, the store on the other side, dumbass.”
I turned my gaze to the property to the left of the ice cream parlor and read the faded blue lettering on the sign above a closed front door.
“Oily’s Boat Shop,” I read aloud.
“I think it was supposed to be Olly’s Boat Shop but a bit of the paint got flaked away,” Smith said. “But that’s beside the point.”
“What do you have in mind?” I asked, dreading the forthcoming explanation.
“We break into the boat store and pick up some silent weapons,” Smith said. “There has to be some boat hooks or just some lengths of lumber we can use.”
“Not wanting to piss on your idea, Smith but what about these dead pieces of shit wandering around the courtyard?”
Smith shrugged. “We can dodge them, no sweat.”
I sighed. “Okay, so then we make our way to the harbor after that?”
“You got it, kid,” Smith said with a smirk. “Remember you said we’d swim out to our boat if we had to?”
“I did, didn’t I?” I groaned. “That was before I nose dived down a cliff.”
“Get out of here, Wilde Man,” Smith scoffed. “That weren’t no motherfucking cliff, man.”
“Whatever,” I sighed. “Are we going to break into this boat store or what?”
Chattering gunfire from somewhere in the distance seemed to alert the undead lurking around the courtyard into an increasingly aroused state. A few zombies plodded down the paved pathway leading into town, making our life temporarily easier. I assumed either the remaining militia guys were fighting their way through town in an attempt to retreat from the island mob, or the island gangs were hunting down both zombies and militia.
I glanced behind me, still aware the islanders who fired at us from the ridge could pop up along the stone trail to our rear at any moment. They wouldn’t worry about silent weapons and would simply open fire on us. We had no choice but to press on.
“All right,” Smith said, nodding firmly. “Nice and stealthy. Let’s go.”
Smith moved from around the rock he leant against and padded through the opening between the giant stones. I followed closely behind. We trod slowly across the stone path until we reached the red paved area and then quickened our pace slightly. The undead still plodded around aimlessly but I knew it wouldn’t be too long before one of them noticed us.
Sure enough, within a few seconds and thirty feet from the front door of old Oily Olly’s Boat Store, a female with wild, frizzy black hair and clad in a tattered red jacket and the remains of a black skirt turned her head, hissing in our direction.
“We’ve been spotted,” I whispered.
“Keep going,” Smith sung in a low tone.
The frizzy haired female ghoul lumbered in our direction in weird, jerky movements on unsteady legs. More undead were alerted by the rasping, hissing noises she made as she approached us. At least a half dozen more dried out, shambling husks of former human beings followed her lead.
I tried to stifle the impending sense of dread rising within me. I decided I should be used to these kinds of situations by now and to stop being such a pussy. Smith was with me and we had loaded firearms on us to defend ourselves with if the worst happened.
We reached the front door of the boat store. T
he structure was built of wooden slatted walls with thin pieces of ply nailed roughly over the windows on either side of the front door. An open porch cast a shadow over a narrow, wooden veranda at the front of the store. Smith and I hopped up the wooden step and the soles of our boots clunked against the boards.
I glanced around. At least ten grunting and hissing ghouls made their way unsteadily towards us. Smith tried the front door of the boat store and rattled it in its frame. Predictably, the damn door was locked.
“Those zombies are going to come right in that store after us if we bust the door open, Smith,” I said. The sense of panic in my guts reared its ugly head once again. “Why don’t we try and see if there’s a side door into the place?” I pointed to a narrow side gate between the boat store and the ice cream parlor, slightly to the right of the open porch.
Smith nodded in agreement and we both turned simultaneously to glance at how much ground we had between us and the approaching undead.
“We can’t afford to get trapped here, Smith,” I said. “We have to get in and out of that store real quick or we have nowhere left to go.”
Smith rumbled and rattled the locked door again. I wasn’t fully confident we were going to achieve our plan without things going horribly wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“That door won’t open unless you bust it open, Smith, no matter how many fucking times you rattle it,” I said, with a stern tone to my voice. “We need to get over that side gate and we need to move now.”
“Okay, kid,” Smith groaned. “Have it your own way.” He gave the door a final, defiant and petulant kick. “Lead the fucking way.”
The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses Page 22