Left In The Dust

by Christian Fletcher

  I glanced to the roadway on my left and saw the remaining undead approaching. I looked right and saw the ragtag band of zombies who’d tumbled down the hillside rounding the bend at the corner of the road in the opposite direction. Voices barked from inside the RV and it sounded as though Smith and McElroy were engaging in a heated altercation of some kind. I didn’t know for certain what the argument was about but I knew we couldn’t stay put. I had to get inside that damn vehicle before Smith decided to take off again.

  A searing pain ripped through my head as I hauled myself to my feet. I felt light headed and slightly nauseous and knew I’d been out in the heat too long. Dehydration was kicking in.

  I staggered over to the RV and thumped the body panels as I made my way to the side door.

  “It’s me,” I croaked. “It’s me, Brett Wilde. Don’t shoot and let me in.” I recognized a desperate tone in my own hoarse voice. I hammered on the side door with my fist and the raised voices ceased.

  The panel door flung open, nearly knocking me off my feet. Brooksey stood in the doorway, aiming a handgun at me with a fierce expression on his face.

  “Brooksey, it’s me,” I wailed, raising my arms above my head. “It’s me, Wilde Man.”

  For a split second that seemed to go on for ages, I thought Brooksey was going to pull the trigger. Instead, he sighed and thankfully for me, lowered the firearm.

  “Come on, Wilde Man,” Brooksey said, taking a backward step. “Get in here before those shuffling shit sacks get too close.” He jabbed the barrel of his handgun as though he was pointing to somewhere behind me.

  I took a glance over my shoulder and saw the undead closing in on the RV’s position at a distance of around twenty-five yards. It was time to get out of the sun and find out what the hell Smith and McElroy were at odds over. I climbed aboard the vehicle and Brooksey closed the door then locking it behind me.

  I flopped onto one of the bench seats facing the back of the cab, wrenched off my backpack and rummaged through the contents, pulling out a couple of bottles of water. My throat was incredibly dry and my head felt as though it contained a small man playing a drum kit. I glugged down mouthfuls of water before worrying about what was going on inside the RV.

  McElroy and Smith both turned their heads from the cab seats and glanced at me.

  “All right, kiddo?” McElroy asked.

  I nodded.

  “He’s okay,” Smith muttered, nonchalantly waving his hand. His attention turned back to McElroy. “We need to find Wingate. She’s out there someplace, I know it.”

  “I know we need to find her, Smudger but McGuiness also needs medical attention and quickly,” McElroy argued. “We need to get him back to the plane.”

  “We find Wingate and we get him the meds he needs,” Smith growled. “She’s the best field medic we have and you know that, Mac. I’m not just turning tail and leaving her out here.”

  I had to concur with Smith on his argument. I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned until we knew for sure that Sarah Wingate wasn’t in the land of the living any more. We owed her that much. While I sympathized with McGuiness and I knew he was in terrible pain, Anderson had done a fairly good job of patching him up so he wasn’t going to bleed to death. The guy understandably felt shitty but while he was inside the RV, he was temporarily out of harm’s way.

  I put my water bottle down on the table in front of me. “We have to find her, Mac,” I said. “I don’t know where the hell Chivers and Froggie are either. They weren’t around when I woke up that son of a bitch.” I pointed at Smith as I spoke.

  “Uh, yeah, sorry for that, Wilde Man,” Smith muttered, shaking his head. “All I could think about was finding Wingate and I knew I had to get these guys onboard before we did shit. I know you can handle yourself out there.”

  “Yeah, thanks, buddy for leaving me with my ass hanging in the wind,” I sighed. I decided to quickly change tact. It wasn’t the time for a finger pointing inquest. “Did you see the other two guys when you were on top of the roof, Smith?”

  Smith shook his head. “First I knew was when you came along, kid. I battered my way through the dead assholes and couldn’t see nobody else so I hopped up on top of this crate and waited. I must have zonked out while I was waiting for you guys to show up.”

  “No shit,” I sighed. I inwardly admonished myself for my negative attitude after I spoke. Think positive, I told myself. “Okay, did anybody see Wingate disappear?”

  “Not being funny, guys,” Anderson said, pointing at the undead approaching from outside the vehicle. “But I think we should get moving, one way or another.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Hordes of undead shuffled closer to the RV from both the left and right. The engine had stalled and we sat at an angle, almost broadsided and facing the side of the road. Anderson was right, we had to move. Anywhere but where we were.

  “We need to take a look around for the others, Mac,” Smith reiterated. “They could be stuck out here and they could be in real trouble. We should take a look further down the road towards Lajitas to check if they tried to make it there. They knew that’s where we were headed.”

  McElroy sighed and took a glance at McGuiness. Although he was evidently in pain, the injured man seemed stable enough and the bullet had obviously passed right through his shoulder without hitting any major arteries.

  “We need to get going someplace,” Anderson said, pointing out the side window. “Those damn freaks are getting closer.”

  “Are you good with that, if we carry on, McGuiness?” McElroy asked him.

  McGuiness nodded. “I’ll be all right, Mac. If our guys are still alive out there, we need to find them.” His voice sounded strained and weak but he was putting on a brave face.

  McElroy nodded and turned to face the dash. “Okay, Smith,” he said. “Get us out of here.”

  Smith fired up the RV and rolled the big vehicle back squarely on the road. We gathered speed as the undead surrounded the outside of the RV. Smith weaved a path through the groaning figures, bumping them out of our way. The undead clawed and grabbed at whatever handhold they could muster on the RV exterior. One male ghoul clung to the side mirror outside McElroy’s passenger window but fell away from view when the whole bracket bent downwards under his weight and he lost his grip.

  Smith rolled the big vehicle through the undead crowd and we’d soon left them behind as we drove by the rest of the low standing buildings on the right side of the roadway. We kept a lookout for any stray figures wandering through the desert beyond the highway. There was still no sign of our missing associates anywhere. Smith slowed the speed once we were free from the undead crowd and we all peered through the side windows, looking for any signs of any living humans.

  “Where the hell can they have got to?” McElroy sighed, shaking his head. “They can’t possibly have gotten so far on foot.” He glanced at Smith. “How much further is it to this next town?”

  “Lajitas is not far,” Smith replied. “Only a couple of miles.”

  “I still don’t think they’d have enough time to get there,” McElroy said. “I don’t know where the hell Chivers and Froggie have got to. They were only a few minutes ahead of us. Where the hell did they go?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t see any sign of them, Mac. It’s like they just disappeared into thin fucking air.”

  I started to wonder if the two guys hadn’t headed back into the Ghost Town and decided to hide out for a while. It seemed the only logical scenario but everything about our new surroundings seemed illogical somehow. We stared out the windows, scanning the dusty landscape for any sign of movement. I sat in silence and couldn’t help but worry for Wingate.

  The forward motion of the RV kicked up a wave of billowing sand from the road’s surface. I felt hope for Wingate’s safety draining away with every dusty mile. The faces of everybody else inside the vehicle remained grim.

  A faded and partially dust covered signpost pointed the way to
Lajitas, indicating the town was only two miles away. I continued to gaze out of the side window, thinking it was impossible Wingate or any of the others could have made it out into the desert this far. The thought turned over in my mind but I was suddenly rocked from my musings when the RV skidded to a very sudden halt. I would’ve been thrown from my seat if I hadn’t slammed into the table in front of me.

  “What the hell?” I heard Smith gasp.

  “Shit and hellfire,” McElroy hissed.

  Everybody in the RV’s rear compartment turned to look out of the front windshield. Smith and McElroy stared out directly along the stretch of road in front of us. Two dead bodies, one on either side of the road were tied up with their arms above their heads. The rope restraints secured the dead men to old, wooden telegraph poles. I recognized the guys, even though they were coated with blood oozing from huge slits across their throats. Their heads sat at odd angles, with their blood stained and frozen, grimacing faces pointing towards the sky. Their mouths hung open and their eyes were partially closed. We’d found Chivers and Froggie and they’d been slaughtered. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. The situation grew worse by the minute.

  “What in god’s name is going on?” Brooksey whispered, echoing my own thoughts.

  Movement caught my attention beyond the mutilated corpses. Several vehicles approached us at speed, sending up plumes of sand and dust in their wake. They ranged from SUV trucks to four wheeled buggies, spread out in a horizontal line and tearing towards our RV. Answers to my questions were falling into place. I knew the guy with the sniper scope wasn’t just a lone wolf. The full wrath of the guy’s crew was about to engulf us.

  “Shit! What are we going to do?” Anderson wailed.

  Smith drew his handgun from his shoulder holster. “We’re going to do what we always do, buddy. We’re going to stand and fight.”

  “Are you nuts, Smith?” McElroy screeched. “We need to turn this shit heap around and get the fuck out of here and damn quick about it, man.”

  Smith sneered.

  “Come on, Smith,” McElroy yelled. “Get going. We can’t fight off all these guys no matter how tough we are.”

  “Yeah, but we can take a few of them out, Mac. We ‘aint going to outrun them in this crate.”

  The vehicles drew closer and I estimated they were around half a mile away from our position. I felt the water I’d gulped down threaten to resurface as my stomach knotted up.

  “Smith, we need to get going,” I yelled.

  Smith swiveled in his seat, glaring at me. “What about Wingate, Wilde Man? Have you just forgotten about her now the going’s got a little tough?”

  I felt exasperated, a little angry and increasingly scared.

  “No, of course I haven’t forgotten her,” I shouted. “But we’ll never find her if we’re fucking dead.” I pointed to the windshield at the rapidly approaching vehicles. “And we’re wasting time sitting here fucking yelling at one another.”

  Smith thumped the dash with his free hand. “Ah, fuck!” he screamed. He tucked the handgun beneath his left thigh then slammed the transmission into reverse. The RV whined as we moved backward at speed. “Hold onto your balls, guys,” he hollered. “This shit is about to get heavy.”

  I had no clue what Smith had in mind but I knew he didn’t like running away from anything. He spun the steering wheel and clunked the transmission into drive while the RV spun in a one-eighty turn. We rocked around in the rear compartment and I heard McGuiness cry out in pain when his injured shoulder slammed against the inner paneling. Pots and pans, cups and plates, blankets and cardboard boxes tumbled from the lockers around the RV interior, crashing to the floor in a crescendo of noise.

  Smith dumped his boot on the gas pedal and our vehicle snaked along the road, the wheels spinning in the sand. I regained my upright sitting position and turned to glance out of the side window to see what was going on behind us. The pursuing vehicles gained ground on us. Smith was probably right, we wouldn’t outrun them but staying put seemed to be a suicidal tactic, even with my limited knowledge of battle.

  “Get your guns at the ready, boys,” McElroy roared. “These bastards are coming for us.”

  The RV roared across the road, back along the route we’d come. I knew it wouldn’t be long before we encountered the zombie horde plodding in our direction. Maybe Smith had some kind of diversion plan whirring around in his brain. Or perhaps he was so consumed with rage and guilt about Wingate he had no rational thoughts in his mind at all.

  A terrible realization crossed my mind as I watched the vehicles closing in on us. Where could we actually run to? If we reached the plane, the mob would simply pepper the aircraft with gunfire until we surrendered or were all dead. The desert provided very few hiding places and they were right on our tail.

  Fate seemed to be rolling the dice once again and I hated to admit the odds didn’t look to be in our favor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  One of the four wheeled sand buggies drew alongside the rear left side of the RV. Two guys were crammed into the interior, one drove and one sat pillion. Both wore black leather jackets and black helmets with big goggles covering their eyes. The guy at the rear of the buggy grinned then leveled a long barreled shotgun and aimed it at the back tire of the RV.

  “Evasive action needed left side, Smith,” I instinctively yelled.

  Smith reacted without hesitation. He steered the RV in a swift, swerving motion, looping left then righting the traction. The motion was enough to bump the buggy off track and send it off the road into the sand. The pillion guy fumbled with the shotgun and lost his aim as they skidded into a dust pile.

  Sweat rolled down my face as I stood to take a look out of the back window. A dark colored SUV almost covered with dust raced directly at our rear end. The front bull bars briefly glinted in the sun before the vehicle smashed against the back of the RV. I toppled backward under the motion but Anderson caught hold of me before I fell onto the floor.

  Everything seemed to run in slow motion and turned black and white for a few moments. Time seems to stop when you live in the moment and forget all the shitty weight of the world that normality taught you to carry. You rely heavily on instinct and the natural survival mode stored away in the primeval part of your brain kicks in.

  Time and colors returned to normal when the back window of the RV shattered under a boom of shotgun fire. We all instinctively ducked down when small chips of glass rained around the vehicle interior and shotgun pellets peppered the roof and the tops of the closets.

  The roar of the vehicle engines grew louder and the rush of the hot desert air gusted in through the demolished window. I tasted grit in my mouth and I heard somebody make a kind of whooping, rebel yell noise from the SUV close behind us. Whoever was attacking us was evidently enjoying the thrill of the chase.

  We had to try and fight back a little and put them on the back foot.

  “Where’s your rifle, Mac?” I screamed above the noise.

  McElroy turned in his seat. His face was contorted in anxiety. He reached down beside him and lifted his Armalite rifle, passing it butt first over the back of the bench seat. I moved forward through the RV interior and ducked down when another blast of shotgun fire ripped through the air. I grabbed the weapon from McElroy and checked the mechanism. It was cocked and ready to fire.

  I moved back along the RV interior in a hunched stance, silently praying I wouldn’t be picked off by an eagle eyed sniper in the pursuing SUV. Brooksey, Anderson and McGuiness all crouched down, huddled beneath the table between the rear seats. I hunkered down and shimmied alongside them, still in the center aisle but leaning against the side of the seat. I kept my head low but peered out of the broken back window.

  The black colored SUV followed closely behind the RV by a matter of a few feet. A darkened windshield obscured who drove the vehicle but I saw the silhouette of two bodies inside the cab. Two guys leaned against the cab roof, standing upright in the truck bed and
each man held a pump action shotgun in their hands. The guy to the left wore a sleeveless black vest and various tattoos coated his thin arms. His head was shaved, showing signs of dark stubble and his face was thin and heavily lined. The guy on the right was thicker set, with a greasy black Mohawk hairstyle and a black beard partially covering his chubby face. He wore a sweat stained white t-shirt with a Nazi swastika logo emblazoned on the front.

  I wasn’t sure if the guys in the SUV could see me from my position. The skinny guy whooped again and raised his shotgun as if he was about to fire on us once more. I dug my shoulder harder against the side of the seat and raised the Armalite, aiming for the skinny guy’s head. Both vehicles ran consecutively over the same pot hole in the road, which jogged my aim and caused the skinny guy to fire high over the top of the RV roof.

  The skinny guy went to re-cock his shotgun but I was quicker to regain my aim with the rifle. I squeezed the trigger. I wasn’t the best rifleman in the world but my aim was good enough. The round struck the skinny guy in the base of his chin, rocking his head back in a spray of blood. The shotgun fell from his hands and clattered onto the roadside. He disappeared from view beyond the SUV cab. The thick set, Mohawk guy glanced down to his right with an expression of shock on his face. I re-aimed and fired at him. The side of his head exploded in a red mist and he dropped out of sight.

  I quickly lowered the rifle barrel and opened up at the SUV windshield, indiscriminately firing at the silhouetted figures inside the cab. Rounds peppered the windshield, leaving round holes surrounded by cracked glass. The SUV veered to the right and ran broadside into one of the pursuing sand buggies, sending both vehicles off the road and crashing front first into a shallow ditch.