The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses

by Christian Fletcher

  “Put down all your firearms and your packs on the deck,” the guy boomed through the bullhorn. “Do not try and resist or you will be wiped out.”

  “Oh, shit,” Ronda stammered. “That guy with the megaphone is Samuel B. Moses.”

  “We get to meet him at last,” Smith muttered. “Do as he says, you guys. We have no choice here.”

  We shed our backpacks and removed our handguns from the holsters, placing them alongside the rifles on the jetty’s wooden boards. The crowd of gunmen closed in, aiming their weapons at us with mean expressions on their faces.

  Dante gibbered in Spanish and Mia and Ronda wailed tearfully. My guts churned again and I wondered if this was the last landscape I was ever going to see. Butchered by an island mob in a dilapidated harbor town on a Caribbean island that nobody had ever heard of. Not a very cool way to end a life. I’d never get to see my unborn kid. I’d never get to apologize to Batfish for my crazy behavior or tell her how much I respected and admired her. I’d never get to tell Smith how much I loved the guy, despite of our frequent ups and downs. I’d never get to grow old and think I’d lived a long and if not happy but eventful life. Christ! This was going to be a shitty way to bow out of the human race. But at least we weren’t going to join the undead brigade, which was a little bit of consolation amongst a total shit pile.

  The gunmen surrounded us, shouting all kinds of obscenities. Only McElroy replied, firing back with all the swear words known in the English language and a few fucks from Northern Ireland thrown in. Smith remained tight lipped with an indignant expression on his face. Wingate, Dante, Mia and Ronda looked terrified and I probably shared their wide eyed, pale faced expressions. It took all the effort I had left in me to stop myself from pissing down my leg. I didn’t want to give the mob that kind of satisfaction.

  A tall, skinny guy dressed in a red t-shirt, green combat fatigues and wearing a navy blue beret on his head roughly searched through our pockets and patted down the rest of our clothes. He took everything out of our pockets and tossed any items he found onto the jetty.

  McElroy continued with his objections and received a blow from a rifle butt in his guts for his troubles. He doubled up and went down on all fours on the jetty. The guy with the bullhorn squawked a response to the mob’s actions.

  “Not yet,” Moses yelled through the megaphone. “Bring them back unharmed.”

  Smith flashed me a glance and a slight smile crossed his lips.

  “See, I told you we’ll be okay, kid.”

  He gave me that wink again and I wondered what plan of action he had up his sleeve. Maybe he had nothing planned at all but it made me feel slightly better.

  The gunmen shoved and jostled us into a huddle then gestured for us to move back towards the buildings surrounding the harbor. A few of the islanders stayed on the jetty, poking through our backpacks and collecting up our weapons.

  Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, they always had a habit of nose diving lower than you ever thought possible. Our fate was now in the hands of a drug dealing, gun smuggling, murdering psychopath, whose organized gang were wiping out everything in sight.

  I dreaded to think what horrors were in store for us over the next few minutes but I doubted very much it was going to be a pleasurable experience.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  The armed mod herded us towards the building standing to the left of the partially destroyed seafood restaurant. The big, squat guy we now knew was the infamous Samuel B. Moses stood outside the building. He still held the bullhorn, lowered at his side in his right hand. The guy who had fired the SMAW stood to the left of Moses, he still held the rocket launcher in his hands. Another two mean looking guys wearing dark blue baseball caps standing guard behind Moses moved in front of their boss as we were shoved along the street.

  The insults and cussing stopped as we approached Moses. The entire mob suddenly became silent as though they were in total awe of their leader and waiting for him to speak.

  Samuel B. Moses shuffled in front of his two baseball cap wearing henchmen and stood directly in front of us. He fixed his gaze on us with piercing, dark eyes, which projected menace and hostility. The guy was big and muscular and he reminded me of a shaven headed Mike Tyson in his meanest boxing days, when he was knocking out the opposition within a few seconds of the first bell. He must have weighed upwards of two hundred pounds and his heavily tattooed biceps were as big as my neck. Moses was spectacularly intimidating.

  “Are you the people from the ship stuck out on the reef on the other side of the island?” Moses growled. His natural talking voice was deep and guttural. If a pit-bull dog could talk, it would sound like Moses.

  All the words in my head had evaporated. I was so scared of this guy, I’d lost the ability to even speak.

  “Yeah, that’s us,” Smith replied.

  Moses nodded then turned his gaze to the ground. I had the feeling he was going to draw out the ordeal before he finally revealed what horrors he had in store for us. People like him always seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in making their victims squirm for a while.

  “You know, we decided to leave you alone,” Moses said calmly. He glanced us all up and down with his menacing stare. “We felt you posed no threat to us when we were living in the hills and the forests. Hell, you even beat the South American militia up in the castle. Those guys had plagued our shores for way too long. We’d had beef with the militia before and we were going to take the battle to those guys but you beat us to it. And fair play to you because you whipped their asses real good.”

  Moses stopped talking for a few seconds and smiled at us. I felt it was a staged act. Now the crux of his little speech was coming and it wouldn’t be good news.

  “But then you guys started killing our people and that was your big mistake. One of you murdered my nephew down on the riverbank and I couldn’t stand around and let that happen.” He spread his huge arms out wide. “What kind of a leader would I be if I let that shit go down?”

  I felt myself choking up and had to restrain the noises threatening to babble from my body. Shit! It was only Samuel B. Moses’ nephew I’d inadvertently killed. Why him of all people?

  “Wait a minute there,” McElroy protested again. “Your guys fired your weapons on us first back there at the airport. We didn’t even know you existed until that point.”

  McElroy was shoved in the chest for speaking up. He was right of course. Only Smith and I knew the truth. The others hadn’t known what had happened on that riverbank or why they’d come under such ferocious attacks from the islanders. The kid that ran from the scene was the key. He’d told the story in the way he saw it. Now it was too late to rectify the situation. Lots of people were now dead because of what happened.

  I glanced over at Smith but he remained outwardly calm and silent. He didn’t even glance in my direction in a kind of tell tale way. I was sure he wouldn’t let on to the islanders or anybody else what he knew. I had to do something. I had to say something. But Moses spoke again before I had the chance. And when Moses spoke his people were silent and expected everybody else in the vicinity be the same.

  “One of you white people from the ship killed my nephew,” Moses snapped, pointing at us with a meaty finger. “One of you did it. I have a description of the man who did it from a reliable witness who saw the whole thing. He was there when it happened. He was there. So don’t anybody dare lie to me.”

  Moses took a few deep breaths then glared at McElroy.

  “Yeah, we came after you at the airport. And we saw you were after those weapons. We saw what they did. You blew up a whole load of our soldiers on the hillside and again here in the town. But we’ve got them now.” Moses pointed to the guy holding the SMAW launcher. “We found them where you left them. You were going to use those rocket launchers to wipe us all out but we got to them first.”

  McElroy shook his head. “That was never our intention,” he shouted.

  One of the henchm
en punched McElroy in the side of the head. I winced, the blow sounded hard, a noise like a headache inducing dull thud and McElroy staggered to his side but was immediately shoved upright again by the mob closely surrounding us.

  “Keep your fucking mouth shut, you piece of shit,” the henchmen yelled, close to McElroy’s ear.

  McElroy shook his head and opened his eyes wide; obviously to clear the fuzziness he suffered due to the punch.

  “The tables have turned on you folk,” Moses continued. The bridge of his nose wrinkled in rage and he almost snorted the words as he jabbed his forefinger at us. “We are in control now. We have won back our island and we’ll wipe out all the aggressors and we’ll wipe out all the dead who have come back to try and haunt us and we’ll send them all to the graveyard for good.”

  Mia and Ronda sniveled next to me and it was all I could do to prevent myself joining in with them. I found it difficult to breathe. I had to admit what had happened and hopefully we could work something out. Maybe if I just told Moses it was one big misunderstanding, he’d see sense and call a halt to hostilities. I swallowed hard, aware my mouth and throat were extremely dry. Who was I trying to kid? I knew this guy was going to kill us and make us suffer in the most horrible way possible beforehand.

  Moses held the bullhorn to his lips and punched the air. He aimed the horn at us and yelled into the speaker.

  “You people will regret ever setting foot on the island of St. Miep.”

  I for one regretted it deeply.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Moses instructed around a dozen of his troops to check the harbor buildings and clear out any undead left around the part of town around the waterfront. Our small group were led away through the town streets, chaperoned and jostled by the rest of the island mob.

  “Where the hell are we going?” Wingate yelled above the chattering and jeering henchmen surrounding us.

  “Don’t speak, bitch,” a guy in a blue cap spat, glaring at Wingate and aiming a handgun barrel close to her head.

  Wingate looked as scared as I’d ever seen her. We exchanged a concerned glance as if to say to each other ‘how the fuck are we going to get out of this?’ Smith still remained outwardly calm as he was manhandled through the town. Dante’s face was creased with emotion and tears rolled down his cheeks. McElroy looked as though he was in a state of shock. Probably seeing his three closest buddies, Dunne, Duffy and McDonnell, along with Hannigen being blown to smithereens and being whacked hard on the side of the head didn’t help. Mia and Ronda also looked terrified and resigned to their fate.

  Moses led the bizarre procession, with his two big bodyguards and the guy holding the SMAW launcher alongside him. Vast numbers of slain undead lined the streets and amongst them were the occasional slaughtered militia guys, still wearing with the remains of their blood soaked, green combat fatigues.

  A few corpses stepped out of wrecked buildings and attempted to stumble towards us but were quickly decapitated with machetes or gunned down by several of the island mobsters. They were an army of killers and were going to eradicate anyone or anything that got in their way. Their tails were up; I could sense the euphoria amongst that baying crowd. It was almost like their revolution and we were the ones being overthrown and made an example of.

  We walked across the town and towards a line of pickup trucks where the roads widened. Moses stopped beside a black colored truck at the front of the line and turned back to address the mob.

  “We take these prisoners back to our camp and they will stand trial for the murder of Lucas Winfield, my nephew. We will get to the truth of this matter. But they are not to be harmed intentionally or for pleasure. Everybody understand me?”

  A collective cheer of comprehension sounded from the mob around us. Moses nodded and climbed into the cab of his big black truck. We were roughly bundled into the back of beaten up and mud splattered pickups in two separate groups, along with around half a dozen gunmen in each vehicle. Smith, Ronda and I were shoved into one truck, while McElroy, Wingate, Dante and Mia were loaded into the vehicle behind ours.

  Black smoke belched into the air as the truck’s engines roared into life and we drove in a convoy out of La Bahia Soleado. I turned back as much as I could in the open top truck bed and wondered if I’d ever witness the sea’s waves and salty smell ever again.

  The bumpy roads and potholes caused us to jolt around and the three of us captives were frequently shoved backwards as we slumped into the gunmen. I glanced up into Smith’s eyes with what I can only describe as a look of terror. Smith remained calm, almost smiling and flashed me another wink. I wondered what was whirling around in that twisted brain of his. How was he going to pull another rabbit out of the hat and get us out of this shitty mess this time? I shook my head slightly. This was one scrape too far for even the mighty Smith to save us from. My guts felt as though they were sinking into my pelvis and the feeling of impending doom was completely overwhelming.

  We drove past the boarded up church where I’d met Jericho Kline. A couple of ragged undead chewed on the bodies of the militia at the edge of the woods, across the road from the church. I somehow felt those guys had the better deal. Shot in the head and death with immediate effect.

  I didn’t know how long we traveled in the trucks along the bumpy tracks but it felt like hours. The heat was stifling amongst the sweaty bodies and the stench of body odor and engine fumes was overpowering my senses. I felt nauseous and weak and wished they’d throw me out of the truck to die on the side of the road.

  The line of vehicles slowed their speed and we turned off the road, heading across country over some grass land for around ten minutes. The vehicles headed for a densely wooded area with a wide trail between the trees. I guessed we were somewhere in the center of the island, maybe a few miles due west of the airport and slightly south of the coastal reef where our ship was located. The islanders almost certainly had been observing our maneuvers from a distance ever since we sailed over the horizon. Watching and waiting and biding their time.

  We drove through the woodland trail with the high, overhanging branches forming an overhead canopy and partially blocking out the daylight. The trucks continued deeper into the woods until the mouth of the winding trail disappeared from view behind us. It was a perfect setting to hide away from the rest of the wildness of the world. They knew the terrain; they knew where the towns and the coasts were and more importantly, the island gang knew where their enemies were.

  The trucks slowed up when we came close to rows of log cabins dotted around a clearing deep inside the forest. The cabins looked well constructed and sturdy, with thick interlocking logs forming the walls and lighter, wispy branches and tied bundles of hay assembled as roofs. Charred gray logs glowed orange amongst a huge open fire in the center of the camp. More island people strolled out from the cabins to welcome back the cheering army inside the trucks.

  The vehicles circled around one at a time so they were all facing back the way we’d come. Moses jumped out of the lead truck and the rest of the mob began leaping from the backs of the open top truck beds.

  “All right, get them out of there,” Moses barked at the gunmen surrounding us. He waved the mob over towards the fire positioned in the center of the numerous forest dwellings.

  The gunmen roughly bundled our two groups out from the back of the pickup trucks and shoved us forward, following in the path of their leader. The seven of us captives were lined up side by side, with our backs turned against the fire. I felt the heat prickle my skin and wondered if they were going to shove us all, one by one into the flames.

  Moses raised his hands and a quiet calmness drifted through the ranks of excited islanders. They wanted blood and revenge. I could see it in their eyes and sense it in their aggressive expressions.

  What we were going to have to endure was terrifyingly obvious. Humiliation, suffering, pain and torture before an agonizingly slow death.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Moses’ two ca
p wearing henchmen ushered the crowd facing us to move backwards, so they were around ten feet away. At least we had a little room but it didn’t fill me with much hope.

  “Move back, people,” Moses commanded. “Give us some room to breathe here.”

  His flock did as they were instructed, edging back a little further. Moses slowly walked in front of our line, eyeballing each one of us intently, as though he was some kind of military drill instructor inspecting his troops before a parade. One of the cap wearing henchmen removed a small video camera from the small, black bag draped over his shoulder, popped open the viewing screen from the side and waved the damn thing left and right, filming our bedraggled line of survivors.

  “When I point at you, tell us your name and where you come from,” Moses barked at us.

  Shit, the humiliation was about to start for real.

  Moses walked slowly up and down in front of us, randomly pointing at a different person. I said my bit after Wingate had stated her name and home town of Columbus, State of Ohio, in a clear and concise manner. I fumbled my words, made a hash of it and told the glaring multitude I was Breth Wilde from Brympton, Penslavia. Shit! I’d even lost the use of my mouth. Words wouldn’t form and I was spouting drivel. Get it together, Wilde, I admonished myself.

  “John Smith, New York City,” Smith barked, as though he was back in the Corps.

  Moses stopped walking and eyeballed Smith long and hard. He continued along the line until we’d all given our names and places of origin. We kind of shuffled around nervously as Moses seemed to ponder in deathly silence.

  “What are you all doing here?” he yelled. “Why come to this island? Why?”

  “We had no place else to go, sir,” Wingate spoke up. “Our ship crashed into an underground reef and we couldn’t move it, sir.”

  Moses chuckled, deep and raw. “I like this lady,” he said. “She is very pretty and shows a lot of respect. But I’ll bet she still likes to kill island folk.” He leaned closer to Wingate, the smile gone from his face. “’Aint that right, sweet girl?”