The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers (2 page)

The golf club was torn from my grasp by someone behind me. It was the pudgy faced driver who liked yelling out of his window. Pudgy Face raised the club and smashed it into the crazy guy’s head. He staggered but stayed on his feet, the gash on his head had opened wider. Pudgy Face swung again. This time the crazy man fell to the ground once more. I thought that would be the end but Pudgy Face kept swinging the club until the crazy man’s skull shattered into several pieces, spraying straw colored slime and shards of bone scuttling across the sidewalk. I heard shrieks from people in the cars behind. I felt the contents of my stomach rising closer to my mouth.

“That’s how you do it,” Pudgy Face said, handing me back my bent golf club. “You’ve got to kill the head.” He casually walked to his car and sat next to his wife as if he had shown a novice how to hit a golf ball down the fairway.

I stared in amazement at the bloody end of the club for a moment and then quickly took off in the direction of Pete’s place.

Chapter Three

Pete’s apartment was over on the east side of Brynston. He had chosen the seedier, run down end of town due to cheap rent and shabby bars that offered illegal gambling sessions in the back rooms. The houses and apartment blocks were small, cramped, close together and generally unkempt with roof tiles missing and flaking paint around the windows and door frames. The small front lawns were overgrown with weeds and sprouting grass or littered with broken electrical items, discarded kids toys and general junk.

I moved around the area with increasing caution, worried about another crazy man on the attack. I still couldn’t quite believe what had happened on the street some twenty minutes earlier. The sight of the crazy guy’s head exploding replayed in my mind like a film loop.

East Brynston was normally ragged and run down at the best of times but today it looked even worse. The usual trash, broken furniture and appliances still littered the streets but every window was smashed in the small, one story houses and a few frantic people scurried around like headless animals. Acrid, choking smoke from burning cars and houses blew across the sidewalk.

I turned to the sound of someone screaming in one of the houses to my right. The noise stopped and I carried on walking, holding the golf club in both hands, ready for the next crazy person to appear. I wished I’d never told Pete I was on my way over and stuck to plan A, staying in bed for the rest of the day. I started to run when the sound of a gunshot reverberated around the street.

The front door to Pete’s apartment block hung open as I approached. At least I wouldn’t have to buzz his intercom. That thing was usually broken and I’d hung around outside waiting to be let into the building on many occasions. The top hinge hung twisted and bent, loose from the door which was ripped from the doorjamb. A circle of blood surrounded a small hole in the top panel of safety glass that was cracked like a spider web. I inspected the damage and tried to gulp away my fear.

Pete lived on the first floor at the back of the rectangular, cream stucco apartment block. I never used the elevator as it doubled as a lavatory and was rarely in working operation. I imagined some poor bastard stuck in that piss stained, shit infested little box, banging on the walls yelling and pleading for help. I shuddered climbing the rough concrete steps with the usual stink of rotting trash, blocked drains, sweat, shit and despair attacking my senses.

My pace quickened when walking by the door of the first apartment on Pete’s floor. Screaming and sounds of furniture smashing rattled through the hallway. Thumps and muffled yells rumbled from the floor above.

I stopped outside 7A, Pete’s apartment. The door was halfway open.

“Pete?” I called. No answer.

I slowly pushed the door open as wide as it would go. Pete had either been burgled or was holding wrestling matches in his apartment. Pieces of cheap wooden chairs and remnants of a table lay smashed on the floor amongst shattered plates and glasses. The sofa was on its back in front of the TV set that lay face down between scattered piles of CDs and DVDs.

“Pete?” I called again with increasing apprehension. “Marlon, are you there?”

My feet crunched on broken glass as I stepped slowly into the room. Pete’s apartment wasn’t big; consisting of the living area in front of me, a small, open plan kitchen area to the right, two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom to the left. All three doors on my left were closed. I tiptoed further into the room. Flies buzzed around a huge black stain that looked like congealed blood, covering one end of the upturned sofa.

The kitchen area was also wrecked. Broken beer bottles and packets of dry food littered the linoleum floor. I noticed blood smears on the wall surrounding a bloody hand print on the tiles at the back of the cooker. A carving knife covered in blood lay discarded in the sink.

The situation didn’t feel good.

I put the golf club on the kitchen countertop when I spied an unbroken beer bottle on the floor, which had somehow survived the carnage. I picked it up and dusted off pieces of debris, unscrewed the top and took a long drink. It still tasted good even though it was warm. Between sips, I gazed over the ruin of Pete’s apartment and remembered the good times the three of us enjoyed here. We’d watched sports, held late night parties and card games; brought girls back from bars, drunk beer and had lots of laughs.

I finished the beer, dropped the bottle in the sink and retrieved the golf club. I crept across the living area to the bedrooms. Both rooms were empty and strangely hadn’t been trashed. I remembered Pete saying he was going to take Marlon to hospital. Maybe they went out and left the door open for looters or vandals to wreak havoc in the apartment. But that particular theory didn’t explain why blood was all over the place.

I opened the bathroom door and turned on the light. Blood smears streaked the sink and spattered in crimson arcs across the ripped shower curtain. The room was empty. I shut the door and turned to leave. A huge fist connected with my nose and dumped me straight on my backside. I shook my head, trying to clear my senses. Was it another crazy guy?

The golf club was ripped from my grasp and stared down the wrong end of the barrel of a huge hand gun when my vision cleared.

“What the fuck?” I gasped, touching my battered nose. Drips of blood smeared my hand.

“Get up, Cousins,” barked the voice of my attacker. “You gotta pay what you owe.” The accent was pure New York City.

The chrome hand gun glinted in the light. I held my hands with palms outstretched to the side of my head. The guy was big and dressed in a neat, dark blue suit over a crisp, white shirt. He was around forty with black spiky hair and a huge square jaw. His gray eyes were like granite, confident and mean.

“I’m not Cousins,” I stammered, trying to sit up. The blow had knocked me senseless and my mind raced. What the hell was going on?

“What?” the gunman barked.

“I’m not Pete Cousins. I’m his friend, Brett Wilde. I’m just looking for him. Marlon, his roommate was bitten by one of these crazy people and I’m here to see if…”

“Show me some I.D.” the gunman stopped my babbling.

I slowly reached into my pocket and retrieved my wallet. I took out my driver’s license and handed it to him. He snatched it and studied the photo, keeping the gun trained on me.

“Hmm,” he growled. “So where is he and who went ape shit in here?” He gestured around the apartment with the gun.

“I don’t know. He said he was going to take Marlon to the hospital if he got any worse. What is this all about?”

The gunman lit a smoke and surprisingly offered me one. I nearly refused but took one anyhow. Smoking seemed a good idea as I didn’t know if it would be my last.

“Not that it’s any of your damn business,” he croaked through the smoke, “but your pal owes some people a lot of money.” He whistled at the thought.

“How much? I may be able to pay.” I didn’t know why I said that. I owned about fifty dollars in total.

The gunman laughed and perched himself on the edge of the upturned sofa. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who carries a spare twenty G’s in your ass pocket.”

“Twenty grand, you’re saying he owes twenty thousand dollars?” I stammered. How the hell had Pete managed to get himself in that much debt?

“No, fucking rupees. Of course it’s twenty thousand dollars plus the fucking interest that’s racking up. The guy will be lucky if he still has the God damn shirt on his back.” He flicked my driver’s license back at me. “You don’t play cards with motherfuckers who are out of your league.” He pointed the cigarette at me with every word like I was a naughty child.

“He lost it all playing cards?”

The gunman raised his eyebrows and nodded. He thought for a moment, finished his smoke and flicked the butt across the room.

“Come on, get up, Wilde guy.” He gave me a beckoning finger.

“What’s going on?”

“You and I are going to take a little ride to the hospital to see if your buddy’s there. And because I don’t know what the hell he looks like, you are going to point him out to me.”

I didn’t have much choice. I could either go with him or refuse and catch a bullet with my face. He didn’t seem the kind of guy who took much crap off anyone. At least he wouldn’t shoot Pete or anyone else in the hospital, I hoped. He somehow knew I wasn’t going to give him any trouble.

“What did you say your name was?” I asked, trying to build some kind of rapport.

“I didn’t,” he growled. “But you can call me…Mr. Smith. How about that?”

“Okay, whatever,” I mumbled as I stood up. It took me a second to regain my balance. Smith handed me a stained towel to wipe my nose.

He picked up my bent golf club from where he’d thrown it on the floor and smirked as he examined the blood spatters on the end. I was surprised when he handed it back to me.

“Right, come on, tough guy. Let’s get moving,” he slipped his gun into his jacket and followed me out of Pete’s apartment.

Chapter Four

Smith or whatever his name was, had parked his car outside the apartment block. I was impressed with the immaculately polished, black Pontiac Firebird. He strode to his vehicle like the carnage going on around us was an everyday occurrence.

“Have you seen what’s going on around this town?” I asked as we slid into the car.

“I’ve seen worse,” he replied, nonchalantly waving his hand. “I had to pop a couple of these crazy guys this morning when I was looking for your pal’s address.” He fired the engine into a rolling purr and put on some Blues style shades. “They came too close to my car. Now, which way to the hospital?”

I pointed him in the direction opposite to the one the car was facing. He spun a 180 with competent ease. This guy seemed a confident professional at everything he did.

Smith laughed as I recounted the earlier event with the chubby woman and the crazy guy as we drove to the hospital. I don’t know why I told him. I felt I had to keep talking; maybe it was a combination of the hangover and concussion.

“Did you see her titties wiggling?” Smith laughed.

“It wasn’t like that, Mr. Smith,” I protested.

“Bullshit! I bet your little pecker was as hard as wood,” he laughed. Then he became serious. “Yeah, if you’re going to whack some bastard, don’t tickle him. You got to mean it, like that guy you told me about who stepped out of his car. Don’t mess about with these fucks.”

I told Smith to avoid driving through the town center and directed him across the back streets. We witnessed more chaos along the route. People ran through the streets screaming in panic, a car burned on the outskirts of Pete’s neighborhood, shops had closed silver metal shutters over the windows. Two infected women chased a skinny guy out of a side alley. Smith laughed as he pointed at the petrified man running away down the street.

“He’s pissed his pants.”

“Doesn’t this worry you at all?” I asked.

“What?”

“All these crazy, infected people or whatever they are.”

“Nah, look how they move. They aren’t so hot.”

Smith had a point. The infected moved in slow plodding movements and only speeded up slightly when they saw a non-infected person. The shambling wrecks of infected people grew in number closer to the hospital. Some had suffered horrific injuries that defied logic in the way their bodies still moved. One woman staggered on legs that looked as though they were broken in several places and her head lolled around on a broken neck. A man with huge gouges in the side of his head sat on the curb side eating a dead cat.

“They’re like zombies from the movies,” Smith smiled. “Don’t worry kid, they aint no match for my Desert Eagle,” he patted his jacket and made a gun sign with his fingers and mimicked blowing me away.

I smiled but the word “zombies” buzzed around my brain like one of Smith’s pretend bullets. What he’d said in jest kind of summed up what was happening in this town. More of the infected or “zombies” according to Smith, lined the streets as we turned the block next to the hospital. People had probably been bitten and tried unsuccessfully to reach the hospital for some sort of treatment.

The zombies shambled around the sidewalks staring at the car as we drove by. They looked like cattle and held out their arms in a vain attempt to reach us. One stepped into the road in front of the car. The creature resembled a man but the injuries were so horrific I couldn’t help but gape. A flap of skin hung from his neck and rested on the torn remains of a shirt on his shoulder. Black goo, that had once been blood, covered his face and the front of his body. Smith braked to a stop and the battered creature lurched towards the car on unsteady legs.

“Get out of the way, you piece of shit,” Smith shouted from his open window.

The wreck of a man lurched onwards with its hand raised forward in a grabbing motion, long before it was close enough to the car. More zombies stepped off the curb and approached us. I stopped counting at fifteen.

“Mr. Smith…” I spluttered and pointed in all directions around the car at the looming mass.