The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers (21 page)

“Tell you what, honey, you come see me after the examination and I might just let that damn creature live.”

“That’s enough, soldier” the lead guy ordered. “Back in line please, mam.”

Batfish retreated, never taking her eyes of the baton wielding soldier.

“You think about touching her, asshole and you’re as dead as this jerk,” Smith said, still staring at the lead soldier.

“Oh yeah?” the piss stained soldier took a step forward. “You’re no better than those lousy, dead sacks of shit running around out there. I’m now going to make it my business to fuck your girlfriend.”

“That’s enough, Earkhart,” the lead soldier shouted. “Get back in line.”

“Earkhart?” Smith snorted. “Sounds like a shitty name, in fact it sounds like a faggot name.” Smith was doing his best to wind these guys up. “She’s not my girlfriend, anyhow.”

“You better watch your mouth, friend,” Earkhart moved forward with his baton raised again. “I’m looking forward to nailing your ass when you become a dead walker.”

“Earkhart! Shut the fuck up and get back in line,” the lead soldier shouted.

Earkhart did as he was told and lowered his baton. Smith hadn’t flinched throughout the confrontation. He was obviously testing which buttons to press with these guys and singled Earkhart out as the weak link in the chain. What worried me was the way the lead soldier had told Earkhart to be quiet about nailing Smith when he became a dead walker. What did these turncoat soldiers have in store for us? Rising panic and fear of the unknown rushed to the forefront of my mind.

Chapter Thirty-One

“I told you, I wouldn’t be available until after six pm,” barked the tall, thin, bald guy as he strode into the room. A chubby, orderly with a red face and receding brown hair followed in his wake.

“Sorry, doctor, but Colonel Podolski said we had to examine the patients now,” the orderly whined with a flustered look on his face.

I wondered why these guys weren’t wearing any protective masks. They both dressed in soft paper coveralls.

“This looks like Doctor Doom,” Smith sneered.

“Hello, doctor…?” Rosenberg said holding out a hand that didn’t get a return shake. “I’m junior doctor Denzel Rosenberg from Brynston, Pennsylvania. Me and my colleagues are traveling to…”

“This is a military matter now,” Doctor Doom barked. His spindly glasses reflected in the gloomy light. “I’m simply here to examine you all for bites or any signs of infection.”

The good doctor produced a pen torch from his pocket and shone the light over Batfish’s body. He flashed the beam in her eyes and mouth and told her to get dressed when he was satisfied. He continued down the line examining the rest of us, paying particular attention to Eazy and Smith’s gunshot wounds, and finally a quick check on Spot.

“None of these patients are currently infected with the H5N1H1N1virus,” he said to the lead soldier. “You may carry on.”

“I said that all along,” Smith growled, pulling up his pants.“Can we go now?”

“I told you that’s what it was,” Rosenberg chirped. “Bird flu and swine flu combined, right doctor?”

The doctor and the orderly either didn’t hear Rosenberg or ignored him completely as they left the room talking to each other in medical babble. I wondered what was next on the agenda.

We dressed and stood in a line waiting to hear what these goons had next in store for us. I thought we were roughly fifteen miles from where we needed to be, at the harbor. So near yet so far. We could have been a million miles away.

“Will you let us go, now?” I chimed with some conviction. I needed a piss and was totally pissed off with being held against our will. People rising from the dead was bad enough but being held captive by a band of renegades for their own personal entertainment was too much to bear, especially after surviving this far.

My question received no response from the soldiers.

“Okay, I need to piss and I’m going to go on your boot, like the dog,” I pointed to Earkhart. I thought I’d help stir things up a bit.

“Stay in line, please, sir,” the lead soldier blurted, aiming his rifle at me.

The door opened again and a thick set man dressed in military combat greens marched into the room. He had the air and authority of a leader. The soldiers braced slightly as he entered the room.

“Okay, people? I’m Colonel Podolski of the U.S. Army 42
Infantry Division.” He pointed to a name badge sewed over the left side of his shirt as if to confirm who he was.“The situation is critical on the outside, you must obviously know that.”

“Of course,” Smith sighed.

Podolski’s steely blue eyes darted in Smith’s direction for a second. Wrinkles appeared briefly in his forehead below the graying buzz cut. I knew Smith would do his best to get under the guy’s skin.

Podolski carried on unperturbed. “In order to attempt to rectify the situation, we need to carry out some tests on the H5N1H1N1virus with living humans.”

I didn’t like where Podolski was going with this. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead. My bladder felt like it was going to burst.

“Unfortunately for you guys, we’re going to have to perform some tests on you,” Podolski carried on. “Be rest assured though, the tests will be carried out by qualified physicians. The tests may not result in the way you hoped but will protect the future of mankind.”

“Colonel, sir?” I piped up. “I really have to use the bathroom.”

“Oh…err…okay, take him to the bathroom,” Podolski waved nonchalantly at one of the soldiers.

“Yes, sir,” the soldier barked and moved towards me.

He guided me out of the room, through the corridor and into a bathroom. My stomach ache receded instantly when I relieved myself. I washed my face and hands at the sink with the soldier standing over me the whole time. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and saw a shadow of my former self, a broken and emaciated man. Dry swollen lips, red puffy eyes, noticeable weight loss. I looked gaunt and skinny, like one of the dead. I’d aged ten years in the last few days. Maybe I was a dead man walking. Maybe these were my last few hours left living and breathing as a human being. I had a feeling what was left of the army was going to use us as guinea pigs in some bizarre experiment to preserve their own skins. Would being a zombie be so bad? At least you were sort of alive. Rosenberg didn’t hold out much hope for a cure for the disease that had taken hold of the world.

“Time is up sir,” the soldier said behind me. “We need to go back to the interview room.”

Interview room? I always associated interviews with job applications and talking nicely to future employers. This “interview room” was more like a death sentence area. I wished I had some sort of weapon on me to fight this guy. I would rather go out fighting and be shot than expose myself to Frankenstein type experiments that were almost certainly going to end badly.

“Two million dollars is yours if you let me go,” I squealed. I didn’t know if the soldiers had confiscated Smith’s loot or left it in the RV. “Two million dollars in cash is in our vehicle. It’s yours if you let me go.”

I felt like a snake shedding its skin, ratting out on the others just to save my scrawny neck. I couldn’t believe the words came out of my mouth. I looked in the bathroom mirror at the soldier’s reflection. I knew he was thinking about it by the expression in his eyes, behind the gas mask. Trickles of sweat ran down my forehead.

“Come on, you bastard. We can both disappear out of here and get somewhere safe with two million bucks.”

Gunfire echoed through the corridor and the opportunity was lost.

“Quick, finish up, sir. We need to get back to the interview room,” the soldier yelled through his mike.

Static, screams and yells came through his mike all at once. I knew something was going on, maybe in the interview room or zombies had broken through the soldier’s defense. I thought for a brief moment of rushing the soldier as he bent over to talk into his mike. The moment passed when he stood up straight and aimed his rifle at me. More screams came through his mike and I recognized Batfish’s voice shouting, “Oh my fucking God, he’s dead.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

I didn’t need any guidance by the soldier as we rushed back through the corridor to the interview room. I bundled through the door and faced a scene of carnage.

Smith lay prone on his back in the middle of the room with blood pooling on the floor around him. Two vertical spaced gunshot wounds pierced high on the right side of his chest. Rosenberg knelt by Smith shouting at the soldiers for medical supplies. Batfish, Julia and Eazy stood ashen faced in the far corner of the room. Four soldiers stood with their rifles aimed at them and yelling to keep back. The soldier called Earkhart lay prone and still on the ground with bullet holes through the blood stained eye lenses of his gas mask.

“What the fuck happened, Denny?” I whispered, kneeling next to Rosenberg.

“Smith said something about that guy’s mother and he went to batter him. Smith grabbed his rifle and shot him in the face. Then Podolsk shot Smith,” he sighed.

“Is he alive?” I stammered.

“Okay, you go over there with the others,” the soldier who accompanied me to the bathroom grabbed me by the arm and shoved towards the corner of the room.

I was glad to see Batfish had hold of Spot in her arms. At least he hadn’t been hurt in the commotion.

Podolski paced up and down the length of the two way mirror holding a service pistol with a look of rage on his face.

“This is what happens when we don’t conform, people,” he shouted. “This is why the world is so fucked up.”

Doctor Doom and the chubby orderly burst through the door with a look of frustration etched on their faces. They marched into the center of the room and took a look at the two prone figures.

“What the hell is going on here, Colonel?” the doctor snapped. “Why are these people shot?”

“There was an incident with one of the detainees,” Podolski hissed through clenched teeth.

Now we were classed as detainees, which in reality sounded something like prisoners. Not for the first time, our situation was rapidly going to rat shit.

The orderly knelt down over Earkhart’s body and tested for a pulse on his neck and wrist. “This one is dead, sir,” he said.

Rosenberg did his best to stem the flow of blood from Smith’s wounds with his bare hands until the orderly brushed him aside. He checked Smith’s pulse and heart beat.

“This one is still alive, sir although his pulse is weak and he may not make it. He’ll need immediate medical attention.”

“Okay, take him to the medical center,” Doctor Doom ordered two of the soldiers standing behind Rosenberg. “That dead body will come in useful for further tests,” he said to Podolski.

Podolski nodded. “Take Earkhart’s body to the lab,” he ordered to two soldiers standing each side of the doorway.

The soldiers slung their rifles around their backs and lifted the two bodies, carrying them around the shoulders and legs.

“Be careful,” Rosenberg stammered rather pathetically as they lifted Smith.

Doctor Doom and the orderly shuffled after the soldiers into the corridor outside the interview room.

“Get that mess cleaned up,” Podolski pointed to the pools and foot prints of smeared blood on the floor where the bodies had laid.

I hoped Smith would make it. He was more or less like our unelected leader. I know I looked to him for inspiration and protection sometimes. Smith was a loose cannon all right, but even by his standards, he was crazy to have tried to take on a room full of armed soldiers with his bare hands. It was in his nature to live and die by the sword. Maybe he’d rather be shot trying to escape than succumb to whatever these impending experiments were.

Batfish and Julia sniffed back the tears either side of me. Spot shook uncontrollably in Batfish’s arms. Eazy looked shocked, nervously glancing around the room. Rosenberg, his face pale and sweaty, was shoved into our midst by one of the soldiers. We stood like a pathetic flock of sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

“Okay, let’s move them down to the holding pen,” Podolski ordered.

“Holding pen?” I queried. Now we were really being treated like animals.

“Let’s go,” barked one of the soldiers gesturing to the doorway with his rifle. “And do not try to escape as the use of lethal force will be applied.”

We shuffled to the door in single file with rifles trained on us from all sides. Podolski followed behind with his pistol still drawn. The soldiers led us through the corridor and down some gray concrete steps. I heard the drone of the backup generators as we descended deeper into the bowels of the building. We exchanged tense glances in total silence.

The lower level spanned out into a large floor space with several closed, plain white doors uniformly spaced on either side. Small rectangular windows with embedded wire mesh were positioned at head height in the center of the doors.

Podolski moved towards a keypad on the wall to our right and typed in a code. The keypad bleeped and three LED lights flashed green before the doors swung open inwards.

“Okay, one person per room, please,” Podolski barked. “The dog can stay with you, missy,” he said nodding, at Batfish.

The soldiers herded us into our respective cells. Eazy tried to protest but was shoved in the chest by one soldier and had a rifle barrel shoved in his face by another.

“May God have mercy on your souls,” I heard Podolski say before the cell doors swung shut.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The holding pen, as Podolski had called it, was nothing more than an eight by six foot box. A dim light embedded in the ceiling, buzzed irritatingly overhead. The only item the cell contained was a narrow metal bed, bolted firmly to the wall with a thin, vinyl covered mattress perched on top and a small, stinking stainless steel toilet clamped to the back wall.

I took a peek through the small window at the room beyond the door. I couldn’t see any of the soldiers standing on guard out there. Foolishly, I tried to push open the door to no avail. Somehow I doubted whether Podolski and his men would be stupid enough to leave the cells unlocked.