Left In The Dust

by Christian Fletcher

  “Come on, let’s move,” McElroy shouted, waving his handgun to his right. “Let’s get back to the vehicle.”

  Anderson fired at another couple of undead who rose from the dust across the roadway. McElroy, McGuiness and I edged along the blacktop and formed up with Brooksey and Anderson a few yards further down the road.

  Anderson led the way at a gentle jogging pace. McGuiness struggled to keep up and immediately started falling behind. I glanced back and saw the undead still tumbling down the hillside behind us. The number rising onto their feet on the roadside was growing. They stumbled after us but we were quicker and gained ground with every pace.

  McGuiness winced as he tried to run. He looked as though he was on the verge of collapse. I hung back from the others and waited for him to catch me up. If I were in his position, I wouldn’t want to be left behind either.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  McGuiness nodded and grunted something I didn’t catch. I slid my arm around his uninjured shoulder and let him lean on me a little. I was far from the fittest guy around but I felt if I helped we could make progress back to the RV then take a rest from there.

  We jogged by the Ghost Town signpost that we’d stopped at earlier and I knew we weren’t too far away. I tried not to think about the heat and the burn in my lungs due to my lack of condition. I thought about the others who were missing. I had no clue where Smith had gone or if he was even still alive. No doubt he’d be holed up someplace with a bottle of bourbon close by. My main worry was Wingate’s whereabouts. It was as if she’d simply vanished unless the undead had dragged her inside the saloon amongst the confusion.

  I figured we’d come into the small town with a bit of a blasé attitude and it had cost us. Just because the undead weren’t roaming around in the open, it didn’t mean they weren’t around, locked behind closed doors. If Brooksey was right, somebody had let the ghouls loose from the saloon but they would’ve had to open the doors from the inside, which would put them right in the building among the undead. It seemed an impossible scenario.

  I decided to put my analysis about the saloon situation on the back-burner for a while. Right now, I had to concentrate on getting McGuiness safely back to the RV. McElroy, Brooksey and Anderson were way up ahead along the road. I saw them stop running slightly before the bend in the road and they seemed to be pointing at something in the distance, which I couldn’t see. The three guys moved back into the shadows and turned in our direction. McElroy waved at us and looked as though he was indicating for us to move to the side of the road. I complied, nudging McGuiness to the right and keeping within the shadows cast by the ground rising at the edge of the road.

  As we struggled to approach McElroy’s position, I wondered what the hell we were going to face around the corner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  McGuiness weighed me down badly when we neared the corner of the road where McElroy, Anderson and Brooksey crouched, seemingly waiting for us to join them. I felt the onset of fatigue as we jogged to the bend in the road. McGuiness grunted in pain with every step but we had to keep going. I took a quick look over my shoulder at the road behind us. The undead still plodded forward in pursuit so we couldn’t let up in McElroy’s covered position for long or we’d be trekking across the rough desert with no designated route to follow.

  McElroy looked concerned as we approached but I was glad we’d caught them up. One of the other guys was going to have to provide the human crutch for McGuiness. I was pooped and couldn’t do it anymore. If I carried on, we were both going to end up biting the roadway dust.

  McGuiness and I both slumped down beside the other three guys. Our backs leaned against the rocky wall of the roadway boundary. Sand and grit swirled in the air in front of me and my throat was as dry as the desert out in front of us. I reached into my pack and took out two bottles of water. I gave one to McGuiness and glugged down the lukewarm liquid from my own plastic container.

  McElroy didn’t need me to ask what was going on around the corner of the road.

  “The RV is surrounded by the fucking undead,” he said. “We need to move as a team and clear the way.”

  A sense of dread engulfed me. A bad situation suddenly got a whole lot worse.

  “What happened to the other two you sent up ahead?” I asked, with water dribbling down my chin. “I thought those guys were supposed to make sure we had a clear path?”

  McElroy shook his head. “I don’t know where the hell Chivers and Froggie have gone but we can’t hang around here too much longer.”

  “Chivers and Froggie, huh?” I asked, confirming the two guy’s names. I knew my tone suggested I didn’t rate them as worthwhile and fellow combatants.

  McElroy nodded, seemingly not to pick up on my condemnation and then he looked back at the road behind us. “Our undead friends are coming. We’re going to have to make a move.”

  Brooksey and Anderson nodded in agreement. McGuiness groaned in disapproval between sips of water. McElroy peered around the corner once again to take another look at the RV. He turned back to me with a screwed up expression on his face.

  “Have you still got that scope on you, Wilde Man?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

  I felt the top of my jacket pocket and the solid cylindrical object was still in place. I took out the scope and handed it to McElroy. He leaned around the corner again and put the sight glass to his eye.

  “It looks like there’s a dead body on top of the RV,” he said. His tone sounded a little flabbergasted. “I can see the top of some guy’s head who’s just laying there on the roof.”

  I frowned. The situation seemed a little bizarre. Even in these strange circumstances, who would bother to kill somebody and then launch them onto the roof of a ten foot high camper vehicle?

  “Let me take a look,” I said, moving alongside McElroy. He handed me the scope and I surveyed the scene in the distance.

  Around twenty undead surrounded the decrepit RV, banging on the side panels and reaching up to claw the edges of the roof. I couldn’t see any sight of the other two guys who I now knew were called Chivers and Froggie. Two useless bastards whose current whereabouts were also unknown. I recognized the figure on the roof of the RV though; I knew that spiky, unkempt black and graying hairstyle any day of the week. He lay on his back on top of the RV with a wooden pole at his side. I swore that was Smith on the roof and the motherfucker wasn’t dead, the bastard was asleep.

  I couldn’t help giggling a little as I handed the scope back to McElroy. He looked at me incredulously.

  “Something amusing you, friend?” he asked aggressively.

  I pointed to the RV and shook my head, unable to prevent a wide smile spreading across my face. “That guy ‘aint dead on the top of the vehicle. That’s Smith taking an afternoon nap.”

  McElroy pulled a confused expression at me and then looked back at the RV through the scope again.

  “Fuck me, you’re right, so you are,” McElroy gasped. “Why the fuck is he asleep on there when there are all those dead fuckers around him?”

  I sighed. “That’s Smith for you, Mac. You’ve known him long enough by now. He’s one hell of a crazy bastard.”

  “You’re not wrong there, Wilde Man,” McElroy muttered, removing the scope from his eye and slipping it into his jacket pocket. “He may have just made our job a little bit easier, so he has.”

  “What do you have in mind, Mac?” I asked.

  “We can get Smith to slip in through the sun roof or whatever you call them in the States. He can fire up the RV and move it towards us while we take out the undead who get too close,” he explained. “Then we can get on our merry way, wherever the hell direction that may be.”

  He didn’t sound too convinced but it seemed a little better plan than trying to storm through a whole gang of zombies with a limited amount of ammunition and an injured man.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, trying to be positive.

  McElroy
sighed. “We need somebody to go on over there and cause a little diversion. We need to get those dead heads away from the RV and we need somebody to pass the plan on to Smith.”

  His gaze didn’t leave my eyes. I knew he was asking me to go forward on my own and relay the plan to Smith, while causing a distraction to the zombies. Why me? McElroy seemed to pick up on my thoughts or gauged my expression of skepticism.

  “You know Smith best,” McElroy said. “He listens to you and he trusts you. I can see that.”

  “He trusts you too, Mac,” I said.

  “I know he does,” McElroy grunted, gazing at the ground. “But these guys are my crew. McGuiness is injured and it should be me that takes care of him. That shouldn’t be down to you.”

  I didn’t totally get McElroy’s point but I wondered if the guilt was kicking in to his system about having to shoot three of his guys before they turned into undead. Maybe he just wanted a breather from the horrors we were going through and thought I was the guy to help him out. He glanced back at me and I saw an expression of sadness in his eyes I hadn’t witnessed before.

  “Sure, Mac,” I said, nodding once. “I’ll go over there and be the decoy. I’ll tell that big klutz, Smith to get his ass in gear and start up the RV. I’m your guy, man.”

  McElroy smirked and nodded. “You’re a good man, Brett Wilde.”

  I smiled back and shook my head. “I thought you knew me well, Mac. Nobody has ever said I’m a good man.” I was kidding but McElroy showed no expression of mirth.

  He fixed me with that steely glare of his. “I need you to do this, Wilde Man. I need you to help us get the hell out of this situation so we can figure out what the hell is going on around us.”

  I breathed out heavily. McElroy was obviously concerned. I had a mission to complete and I hoped I was up to the task ahead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I took a quick glance back down the road as I rose to my feet. The bunch of undead who’d fallen from the hillside were slowly plodding their way towards us. They were around one hundred and fifty yards from our position and closing, probably the length of a soccer pitch, which didn’t give me much time. I knew I had to hurry. McGuiness was in no fit state for a long, drawn out trek and he certainly couldn’t battle his way through a crowd of undead. Our numbers were rapidly dwindling and we were in danger of being totally wiped out as a crew.

  McElroy and the other three guys gave me a nod of approval before I set off. I moved around the corner and began to jog along the road. I didn’t really know what I was going to do until I reached the RV. It was going to be another case of making shit up as I went along and hope Smith would respond.

  The undead surrounding the RV didn’t notice me as I approached. They banged the panels and scraped the paintwork with their fingernails. I stopped running and stood still at around twenty feet from the vehicle, drawing out my handgun as a safety precaution. I hoped I wasn’t wrong and Smith actually wasn’t dead on the roof. Doubt suddenly nibbled at my mind. I gulped and wiped sweat from my forehead. Whether Smith was alive or dead, I still had to try and herd the undead away from the RV.

  Two or three zombies finally noticed me standing in the middle of the road and began plodding towards me. I knew it was time to make my move and hope Smith was compos mentis in some kind of way. I glanced at the prone figure on the RV roof and cleared my throat.

  “Hey, Smith,” I called out. “Planet Earth to Smith, are you receiving me?”

  The figure on the vehicle roof stirred and rolled onto his side. More undead left the sides of the RV and staggered towards me, alerted by my hollering. I bounced on the balls of my feet, preparing to perform some nifty dodging.

  Smith looked at me with an expression of confusion for a couple of seconds, blinking with blurry eyes. I wondered if he was okay or if he was hurt in some way. He rubbed his face and sat upright. The undead moved closer towards me and I took a few sideways steps to my right.

  “Hey, Smith,” I called out. “Are you okay?”

  Smith frowned at me. “Yeah,” he said, in a croaky tone.

  “Can you bust your way inside the RV going through the sunroof panels?”

  Smith glanced around the roof. I noticed splashes of blood all over his jacket. The zombies moaned and drew closer to me. They weren’t in a huddle and were fairly spread out so I’d be able to dodge around them for a short while.

  “I see the vent,” Smith shouted. He shimmied towards a slightly raised square shaped panel on the roof and crouched over it.

  A couple of undead moved back towards the RV, alerted by Smith’s voice. They reached upward and clawed at the sides of the vehicle. Smith still held the blood stained table leg he’d battered countless zombies with earlier. He lifted the wooden pole above his head and drove it downwards in a stabbing, vertical motion. I heard a metallic clattering sound and Smith turned to me with a smile on his face.

  “We’re in business, Wilde Man,” he yelled. “Fuck, if I’d known it was that easy I’d have busted my way inside this crate a long while ago.”

  I simply gave him a thumbs up sign. Clusters of undead got too close to me to be comfortable with. I feigned moving to the right and then quickly dodged to left and took a few running paces.

  “Mac and what’s left of the crew are waiting by that bend in the road back there,” I shouted, pointing behind me. “One guy, McGuiness is injured and he needs medical attention. So we have to hurry.” I knew I shouldn’t have said my last as soon as the words left my mouth.

  Smith nodded and was about to lower himself inside the RV through the open vent when he stopped and flashed me a confused expression. The cogs in his brain had obviously whirred through the scenario.

  “Why isn’t Wingate treating McGuiness?” he barked.

  I ducked a swipe from a zombie rapidly approaching me from my left. I lurched back and sidestepped right. I couldn’t continue much longer.

  “I don’t know,” I yelled. “She’s gone missing somehow.”

  “Missing?” Smith roared with a grimace. “We have to find her.”

  “I know,” I bawled. “But we can’t do shit stuck out here like this.”

  I jumped backward and raised my handgun. If Smith didn’t get the vehicle rolling in the next few seconds, I was going to have to start shooting. I ran to the right and glanced back up at the RV roof. Smith was gone. I heard the starter whine and the engine spluttered into life, sending an unhealthy plume of black smoke belching out from the underneath of the vehicle.

  The undead crowd stopped moving after me and turned, obviously intrigued by the sudden heavy rumble of the engine. With their interest temporarily diverted, I hopped backwards and sidestepped in a kind of ungainly gallop, like young kids do in a playground. I moved a little further back down the road the way I’d come, just to give myself some breathing space and room to maneuver.

  Smith performed a clumsy three point turn in the RV, knocking into the front steps of the saloon with the rear fender as he did so. He also managed to bowl over a couple of undead as well, which wasn’t a bad thing from my point of view.

  The engine belched as Smith dumped his foot on the gas pedal and the vehicle slowly increased in speed. More zombies collided with the hard surface of the RV’s front panel and were knocked down before being crushed beneath the wheels. I ran back down the road to give Smith a little time to stop and let me onboard. I saw Smith through the windshield glass, sitting behind the steering wheel and grimacing like some demented lunatic. His eyes were wide and his lips moved over his clenched teeth, as though he were talking to himself.

  I holstered my firearm and gauged my movement so I’d be closest to the right side of the RV when Smith drew level. That way I could either jump into the passenger seat beside him or climb into the rear compartment through the side door.

  My shock and surprise sunk to new depths when Smith drove the RV right on past me and continued on, going down the road without even a hint of braking.

  “Shit!�
� I huffed. “Smith…Smith, wait. What are you doing? Where are you going?” I yelled.

  Unfortunately, my shouted questions remained unheard and definitely unanswered. Not for the first time, I had to wonder to myself what the hell Smith was doing. Surely, he wouldn’t leave me out in the desert alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sweat rolled down my face as I chased after the RV that was rolling further away into the distance. I finally saw the faint, red glow of brake lights at the rear of the vehicle slightly before Smith turned around the bend in the road. Then the RV was gone. The roadway hugged the edge of the hillside and was masked from my view. I stopped running and stood with my hands at my sides, breathing heavily and sweat dripping off my face and soaking my clothes.

  I was alone. The sensation rocked my senses.

  I turned my head and glanced over my shoulder. Predictably, the remaining undead shuffled after me. I had no place to go except out into the desert. The undead were approaching from each side of the roadway.

  I kept walking in the direction I was facing, back towards the bend in the road. The intense heat and fatigue almost brought me to my knees but I knew I had to keep going. If Smith had really driven away on some crazy escapade then I’d have to try and at least make it back to the motel on foot.

  The sun glinted against a metallic object near the curve in the road. I squinted and saw the object moving at speed towards me. It grew in size and shape as it hurtled along the road and I knew it was the RV heading towards me.

  “Ah, thank god,” I sighed.

  I stopped walking and waited for the vehicle to approach. The undead were far enough behind me not to cause an immediate threat. I wasn’t sure Smith had seen me as the RV showed no signs of slowing down so I waved my arms above my head.

  “Shit! He’s not going to stop,” I muttered and moved quickly to the side of the road.

  I caught a glimpse of Smith in the driver’s seat and half turned to his left. He was in a deep and heated conversation with McElroy, who sat in the passenger seat. They both glanced forward and saw me at the roadside. Smith immediately hit the brakes and the vehicle skidded in the sand partially covering the road. The rear compartment swung around as the RV broadsided. I jumped backwards out of the way of the slewing vehicle. I stumbled over the rock and sand behind me and ended up on my ass in the dust. I sat and watched the RV come to a halt at an angle so the rear window was directly in front of me. I heard raised voices booming from the vehicle interior.