I sighed. I didn’t have time for Smith’s grouchy bullshit.
“All right, come on,” I muttered, jerking my head towards the side gate.
I vaulted the low standing, wooden balustrade marking the boat store porch boundary. Smith followed behind. The dozen or so undead made progress across the red paved area and I noticed two of them had somehow managed to tangle themselves in the kid’s swings. No matter, there were still more of them than I felt comfortable with coming at us.
I reached up and gripped the top edge of the narrow gate. I hauled myself up and took a peak over the top of the wooden barrier. An alley ran the length of the side of the boat store beyond the gate. The cramped space was littered with rusting oil drums, pieces of frayed rope, full trash bags and empty plastic containers splayed all over a concrete based floor.
Importantly, no undead seemed to be lurking in the alley.
“It looks all clear,” I said, turning back to Smith.
“Well, go on then,” Smith growled, waving me on. “Get the fuck over the damn gate, kid.”
I scrabbled my feet against the gate’s front surface and pulled myself up. I sat astride the top of the gate for a second, viewing the side yard. The stench of the rotting trash attacked my senses but the stink of the undead behind us was also growing stronger. I lifted my left leg over the top of the gate and let myself drop down into the alley. The rancid stink seemed to intensify and I tried unsuccessfully to hold my breath. Smith almost landed on top of me as he clambered over the top of the gate.
I stumbled to my right and banged into the wooden boundary fence as Smith’s bulk glanced heavily against my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you doing, Wilde Man?” Smith rasped, as he struggled to gain his balance.
“Ah, it’s that fucking stink, man,” I groaned, holding my hand over my nose and mouth. “What the fuck is in those trash bags?”
Smith moved further forward into the alley and gave one of the garbage sacks a light kick. The black plastic material split and the gnawed remnants of a human arm spilled out. The blackened nails of three remaining fingers scratched against the concrete floor. The little finger and thumb were missing on the hand and the whole limb was a dull gray color.
“What the fuck is this?” I said in gasped breaths. My gag reflex seemed to be working overtime. “Chopped up and half eaten bodies in trash sacks. This is insane.”
The wooden gate rattled against its frame and several loud bangs of hands clumping against the wooden slats, along with shrill shrieks and low moans reverberated around the side alley.
“I have no clue and I don’t give a fuck,” Smith rasped. “But what I do know is that gate behind us won’t hold out much longer. Come on, kid, let’s try and get inside this shit hole.”
Smith kind of jumped over the trash bags, using a plastic container in the center of the mess as a spring board. I tried to bypass the rancid bags but didn’t quite make it. My left foot didn’t reach far enough beyond one of the trash sacks and pressed down against something squelchy. A loud, farting noise rippled through the bag and it seemed to release one of the vilest stenches I ever had the misfortune to experience.
The disgusting odor felt as though I’d been punched in the face. Several times. I reeled against the fence again and gagged for clean air. Smith waved me forward and pointed to a door, partially covered with flaking, light blue paint. The doorway was situated to the rear of the boat store’s side wall. I staggered towards Smith, pinching my nostrils firmly together.
“Get your shit together, kid,” Smith barked. “Be prepared, anything could pop out from inside this damn building.”
The rotten wooden door snapped to pieces under the force of Smith’s boot. Only a length of wood beside the hinges remained after Smith had finished kicking the door in. A stench of oil and dampness wafted from the boat store’s interior. It wasn’t a pleasant smell but it was preferable to the reeking trash sacks in the side alley.
Smith leaned inside the semi dark room beyond the battered door. He turned his head left and right, scanning the space inside the store.
“It looks all clear,” he said, turning his head towards me.
“Let’s get inside,” I spluttered, eager to get away from the rotten stench of the garbage bags.
Smith drew his handgun from his holster and stepped cautiously through the doorway. I glanced back down the alley at the gate. The damn thing was still holding out under the number of bodies pressing against it from the opposite side but I knew the old wooden panels wouldn’t hold out for much longer. I hurriedly followed Smith inside the gloomy boat store.
The smell of oil, gas fuel and dampness was stronger inside the building. Daylight leaked through the cracks in the wooden frontage and between the small gaps between the boards covering the windows facing the courtyard. A rough wooden counter top stood at the front of the store, around ten feet behind the locked entrance door. The floor space behind the counter was filled by lines of racking containing machinery parts and containers of all shapes and sizes. Coils of rope hung from the walls surrounding the racks and shelving. A row of wooden oars were clipped between the coiled ropes to the wall on the right.
Smith mooched around at the front of the store, checking the drawers beneath the cash register. I moved closer to the paddling implements and pulled one free from the clips holding it in place on the wall.
“Hey, Smith,” I whispered, feeling the weight of the oar in my hands. “This thing will make a good silent weapon.”
“Huh?” Smith muttered. I knew he wasn’t listening to me.
“These oars, they make good weapons.”
“Yeah, whatever, kid,” Smith nonchalantly responded.
“What are you looking for back there?” I asked, a little frustrated with Smith’s lack of interest.
Smith didn’t reply.
A throaty, rasping noise came close to my right ear. I swiveled around. From between the shelving racks, a figure lurched out of the shadows with arms outspread, as if to wrap me in a bear hug. I lunged backwards, away from the grasping figure. We moved into a shard of daylight shining through the gap between the boarded windows. The figure was a thin, bald guy, dressed in the remains of a torn blue and black checked shirt. Crusted blood surrounded a huge wound on his right cheek and excess skin hung down below his chin. The cataract covered eyes focused on me as the ghoul stumbled forward.
I instinctively raised the wooden oar. The undead guy tried to bat the paddle out of the way to get to me. I held the handle firmly and rammed the flat end of the oar at the ghoul’s face. The edge of the paddle blade dug into the zombie’s open mouth. I growled and kept pushing forwards. The undead guy’s hands thrashed around at my shoulders but I kept moving towards the wall. The zombie’s back collided against an upright wooden support post and I drove the oar further into the gaping mouth. I shoved harder and heard a crack of bone, followed by an unpleasant squelching sound.
I grunted as I pulled the oar out of the ghoul’s face and his limp body slumped to the ground.
“Hey, way to go,” Smith cheered. “Wilde Man is a mean motherfucker.”
“Yeah, thanks for all your help,” I groaned.
Smith shrugged. “I was fully confident in your abilities to deal with the situation. But you’re right and proved so by your capability of dispatching said piece of shit on the ground.”
“What are you talking about?” I hissed. “You sound like some kind of corporate lawyer or something with bullshit talk like that.”
Smith lowered his head and flashed me a grin. “Never underestimate a guy from the streets.”
I figured Smith must have been trained in how to speak in court when he was a beat cop back in New York City. He was by no means a dumb, gangster thug I sometimes stereotyped him to be. But we didn’t have time for proverbial slaps on the back. I breathed heavily and felt the adrenalin still rushing through my veins. An unexpected attack was still a shock to the senses.
“Grab one of
those oars and let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said, nodding to the wall where the array of paddles was mounted.
Smith nodded and moved towards the wall. He took down a large oar with blue rope spliced tightly around the long handle. “This bad boy looks like it’ll do the business.”
We both spun around when erratic gunfire rattled from somewhere close outside the boat store.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Smith and I both instinctively crouched down and took shelter behind the shelving racks. I heard bodies fall onto the wooden veranda and onto the ground by the gate at the side alley. No bullets flew into the boat store though. Perhaps somebody was coming to save us from our predicament.
No such luck. It was all bad.
“Hey, you people in that building,” called a voice from outside. “Come out of there with your hands raised right up to the sky. You hear me, you people in there?” The accent was definitely of Caribbean island dialect.
Shit! The islanders were coming after us. Armed and dangerous. I figured these were the guys who were shooting at us from the ridge on the hillside. They had followed us down the slope and the undead clustering around the boat store entrance had given our position away.
I glanced at Smith as we hunkered down behind the shelving racks.
“What the hell do we do now?” I whispered.
Smith laid down the oar on the wooden floor and pulled his Armalite rifle off his shoulder. “We don’t surrender to these pricks,” he rasped. “They don’t take us alive.”
“They’ll burn us out of here if we don’t go out,” I said, thinking of the militia guys in the shack on the edge of town.
“So we shoot them before they get the chance,” Smith growled. He moved in hunched stances towards the front of the boat store.
“Shit,” I hissed and followed Smith to the front of the store counter.
Smith edged his way to the window to the left of the front door. I placed my oar on top of the counter and tried to see what was going on outside the store through the narrow gaps between the boarded windows. Smith rose up a few inches from his crouching position and peered through the small, horizontal line of light at the bottom of the window. He ducked back down again below the window frame and turned his head towards me.
“There are five of them of out there,” he whispered. “We can take them out if we’re on top of our game. You up for this, Wilde?”
I sensed tenseness in Smith’s tone but he seemed to be lapping up the opportunity for a gun fight. We were outnumbered and out gunned but for some reason I didn’t feel scared. I felt confident we could successfully pull off this latest ordeal.
“Okay, I’m good with this,” I whispered. “What’s the plan?”
“Those guys are anticipating we’re going to come out of the front door,” Smith said. “As far as I can see we have only two exits. The front way, which is going to be suicide or back around the side alley.”
“You have until I count to ten to come out of there,” boomed the voice from outside. “Otherwise we will start filling the building with bullets and you will suffer the consequences.”
“We need to move now,” Smith whispered.
“One…” the guy started his countdown. “Two…”
Smith waved me towards the side door leading to the alley.
“We have to hit them real hard and real quick,” he whispered to me.
I nodded, slipping the rifle from my shoulder. I hoped the damn thing still fired after dousing it in the sea. Smith stepped through the doorway first with his rifle held vertically against his body. I followed his lead and tried to ignore the stench of the trash and rotting body parts in the alley. Smith hopped over the sacks and general shit littering the concrete floor. I followed his route, carefully avoiding treading on anything that might cause me to slip over or puke.
The guy outside counted five. We’d missed three and four.
Smith moved into position, crouching in front of the gate. He pointed to the latch.
“You open it and I’ll open fire,” he whispered. “Then you back me up when I advance forward. Got that, kid?”
I nodded, gritting my teeth and ready to go.
“Six…” the guy counted.
I stood by the gate with one hand grasping the latch and the other gripping my rifle. I stared intently at Smith waiting for his signal.
“Seven…”
“Now,” Smith barked.
I flicked the latch up and pulled the gate inward. Several zombie corpses littered the ground directly in front of the alleyway. Smith aimed for around a second before he opened up with controlled bursts of fire. Smith changed his aim slightly and fired again, never using up more than three rounds per burst. I couldn’t see the islanders as my line of sight was blocked by the boat store’s side wall and the gate but I heard a series of pained yelps above the sound of Smith’s gunfire.
Smith rose up and fired off another burst in a standing stance. Spent shell casings rattled on the alley’s concrete floor. Smith briefly glanced in my direction.
“Come on, Wilde Man, let’s move,” he grunted.
I swung my rifle barrel upwards and took hold of the weapon in a firing position. Smith stepped over the prone bodies in front of the alley and advanced forward, still holding the rifle butt into his shoulder in an aiming posture. I moved around the side of the gate and followed him out of the alley, carefully treading between the outstretched limbs of the dead zombies.
Three guys lay on their backs across the red paving slabs. Two of them were still and one thrashed around, wailing uncontrollably. Blood poured from gunshot wounds to the tops of his legs and his abdomen. His hands rolled over his body in attempt to stem the bleeding.
“You said there were five of them,” I said, aiming my rifle around the courtyard. “Three of them are down. Where are the other two?”
Smith fired another three round burst and I heard a grunt followed by something falling onto the ground in the shadows along the storefronts opposite.
“Make that four down,” Smith said. “The other guy retreated back to the path between the rocks, the way we came in. Cover me while I change mags.”
I nodded, aiming at the gap between the two giant boulders to our right. Smith clicked a fresh magazine into place and we slowly moved forward towards the pathway.
“Help me, you got to help me,” the grounded and wounded guy croaked.
Smith kicked the guy’s Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle away and the weapon scuttled across the paving slabs. The guy’s eyes were wide and a spittle of blood formed on his lips as he tried to speak. He held up his blood spattered hands as if to plead for mercy. Smith glared down at the man, aiming his rifle at the guy’s throat.
“Why have you guys all gone ape shit and shooting everybody you see?” Smith demanded.
I kept aiming at the pathway opening between the rocks, occasionally glancing at Smith and the wounded islander.
“We were ordered to,” the guy spluttered. “The Boss say he don’t want any more refugees on this island. He said we should not keep getting killed by outsiders in our homeland. He gave the order for us to go out and kill everybody we find on St. Miep that don’t belong here. That also means the risen dead. The Boss says all must go. All of them must be wiped out.”
“This boss of yours, is his name Moses…something?”
The guy struggled but replied with a nod. “Yeah, that’s him. His name is Samuel B. Moses.” His voice trailed off, sounding weak. “You have to help me and I’ll tell the Boss you saved me. He might spare your lives if you do this thing for me.”
Smith dipped his head. “Sorry, pal. You must have mistaken me for somebody who gives a shit if you live or die.” He fired his rifle once and islander’s head burst over the red paving slabs, sending a blend of blood, brains and shattered skull splattering across the surface.
“Shit, did you seriously have to do that, Smith?” I gasped.
“There wouldn’t be any deal, Wilde Man,” Smith sigh
ed. “They would have just executed us as soon as we handed him over. We’ve gotten ourselves mixed up with a damn riot here. And I’m not sure how we’re going to fight against it.”
Smith’s words seemed chilling but true. The islanders would hunt us down and slaughter us like animals once they got wind of our location. I’d been the catalyst to starting this whole thing. Maybe I could think of a solution to the problem I’d created. Perhaps it was down to me to halt the islanders purge before we all died in horrible ways.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
“You caught sight of that last guy yet?” Smith asked me.
“No,” I replied, still aiming my rifle at the gap between the rocks that led to the pathway between them. “I haven’t seen any kind of movement.”
“Ah, he’s long gone. Probably scrabbled back up that hill,” Smith said. “You can lower your rifle now, Wilde Man. We should move on out of here. That guy who got away might be telling his buddies exactly where we are.”
I lowered the Armalite barrel and let the weapon sit against the crook of my arm. “I still think we should take those oars from the boat store with us,” I said. “We can’t use the firearms all the time while we move through town.”
Another burst of gunfire rattled in the distance, echoing across the rising hills above the port town.
“That shooting is getting closer, Smith,” I said.
Smith nodded. “You got that right. Okay, Wilde, you go get those fucking oars from inside the store and I’ll keep a watch out here. But be quick, kid. No dawdling, you hear?”
“Sure,” I said, slinging my rifle over my shoulder.
I hustled back over the paved area, hopped over the bunch of corpses lying in front of the boat store’s side alley. I hurried by the stinking trash bags and through the open side door. I pulled another oar from the rack on the wall and retrieved the one Smith had placed on top of the counter at the front of the store.
I reversed my route, holding an oar under each arm. The burden of all the gear I carried started weighing me down. Fatigue, lack of sleep and the bruising around my head and body didn’t help my cause.
The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses Page 23