The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

The yacht drifted around the jetty, colliding with other moored boats and pieces of floating debris. Occasionally, the hull bumped over a zombie’s skull protruding from the surface. We stood in silence in the control cabin trying to work out what to do. Smith drummed his fingers on the control panel staring out of the front window. It was unlike him to be so bereft of ideas.

The swell took the vessel around in circles for a few minutes and we heard the throaty, roars of the gathering undead horde
s
along the shoreline and the jetty.

“I’ll go and get the key from Bathtub,” I volunteered. We were sitting ducks drifting around the canal. I was worried the yacht would eventually beach itself on the shore under the swell. Then we’d be stuck and easy pickings for the crowd of ghouls.

“I wish you’d stop calling him that,” the woman wailed.

Smith ignored her protests. “It’s a suicide mission, kid.”

“We can’t just stand around here, Smith. What about opening the sails?”

Smith shook his head. “It takes more than the three of us to sail a yacht this size.” He turned to the woman. “When was the last time you opened up the sails?”

“I can’t remember,” she croaked. “Simey sometimes used the sails in open water.”

“There you go.” Smith nodded.

“What’s your name?” I asked the woman.

“Simey always called me Tippy,” she sniffed.

I didn’t dispute the love the woman showed her husband but now she was alone and had to come to terms with that fact, and quickly if we wanted to get out of this mess.

“Have you got a dinghy or an inflatable raft onboard, Tippy?”

She nodded. “There’s a dinghy in one of the lockers on the upper deck.”

“Okay, I’ll row over to the jetty and get the key from Bathtub’s…sorry, Simon’s pocket then row back and we’ll be out of here.” My plan was simple but flawed. The canal and jetty were teeming with hungry undead, baying for our flesh.

“Oh, the dinghy needs to be pumped with air,” Tippy sniffed. “Simey used it to row ashore sometimes when we needed food from the store in town.”

“Do you have a pump?” Smith groaned.

“Yeah, there’s a foot pump in the same locker.”

“How long does it take to inflate the dinghy?” I asked.

“It used to take Simey around thirty minutes if he pumped hard.”

A horrible image of Simey sexually pumping his fat wife flashed into my mind. Smith sighed and dropped his head forward onto the control unit in despair. The sound made a clump that reverberated around the cabin.

“Well, Smith. What do you think?” I tried to sound chirpy.

“It still sounds like a suicide mission to me,” he groaned.

“Come on, Smith. Be a bit more positive.”

“What’s the point? I’m so tired of this shit.”

I didn’t know whether Smith was simply hung-over or had generally given up on life.

“Come on, man. It’s got to be worth a try.”

“Do what you want, kid. I’m through with this crap.”

I sighed and shook my head. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Smith didn’t reply. He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of smokes. A waft of smoke drifted across the cabin after he lit the cigarette.

For the first time since we’d met, I decided to take the lead. Smith was starting to piss me off with his apathetic attitude. I marched towards him and slapped the cigarette out of his hand. He looked up at me with a look of shock and disbelief.

“What did you do?”

“Smith, we’re getting the fuck out of here and we’re going to get Batfish back. Had you forgotten about her? What she might be going through while we’re just goofing around in this place?” I spoke sternly and stared straight into Smith’s eyes.

Smith gazed at me incredulously for a few seconds. Then he smirked and laughed.

“Well, fuck me! Brett Wilde has actually grown a pair,” he cried. “About time too.”

I didn’t know if he was mocking or supporting me. For about a millisecond I felt like punching Smith on his granite like jaw but knew the consequences would probably be worse than facing the bunch of zombies surrounding the yacht.

“What do you mean?” I barked.

“Well, it’s normally me who has to sort everything out. So you taking the lead is a little quirky.”

“Quirky?”

“Yes, quirky.”

“Okay, it’s quirky,” I repeated. “But can you give me a hand to pump up the dinghy?”

“All right,” Smith sighed.

“Where is the locker?” I asked Tippy.

“I’ll show you,” she said. Tippy turned to Smith. “Have you still got the gun?”

Smith nodded and took out the revolver from the back of his waistband. He flicked open the chamber.

“Do you have any more rounds?”

“Excuse me?” Tippy looked confused.

“Do you have any more bullets for this gun?” Smith spoke slowly like he was talking to an idiot.

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. I don’t like guns. I always let Simey take care of that department.”

“Great,” Smith sighed. He looked at me. “We have two rounds left in this thing.”

“Better than none at all.” I tried to sound optimistic.

Smith muttered something I didn’t catch and shook his head. We followed Tippy out of the cabin onto the upper deck. I left Spot tied up inside as I didn’t want him racing around the deck and trying to jump overboard. An early morning breeze blew across the canal and we drifted slowly around in circles, thirty feet from the jetty. More zombies surrounded us in the water but couldn’t get a hand hold on the smooth, fiberglass hull to crawl up the side of the yacht. I wanted to get out of this place as quickly as possible. The canal and marina somehow had a depressive, demoralizing vibe to it, as though it belonged to another time and era.

Tippy glanced around nervously and showed us the locker that was about the size of a refrigerator tipped on its side. Smith opened the locker and we saw the blue and yellow colored rubber dinghy, rolled neatly the width of the interior space. I hauled it onto the deck and Smith reached inside and retrieved the foot pump.

“You sure you want to do this, kid?”

I nodded. “I don’t see that we have any other options.”

Smith shrugged and inserted the foot pump hose into dinghy’s inflation point. He vigorously started pumping air into the raft. We swapped after around five minutes of quick foot work that even Muhammad Ali would have been proud of and alternated until the damn dinghy was firm and ready for launching. Tippy stood watching, nervously wringing her hands together.

I felt like I had a swarm of butterflies in my stomach and couldn’t remember being as nervous in some time. We were confronted with life threatening situations most days but this was going to be like swimming around with sharks.

“Ready for this?” Smith asked.

I nodded.

“Do you want me to ride shotgun to cover your ass?”

“No, I’ll be okay.” Smith was right in what he said back in the cabin. All of us had relied heavily on the guy to save us from many scrapes in the past. I felt I had to do this mission alone.

Smith pulled the two small oars from the locker and studied them.

“Not much of a weapon,” he said, swinging one of the oars like a baseball bat. He put the oars inside the dinghy and handed me the revolver. “Snub nose 38,” he said. “Point and shoot but it’s only good for close range so hopefully you won’t need it.”

“Don’t you want to keep it onboard?” I asked.

Smith shook his head. “We can always find something to batter those fucks with if they manage to climb up the side.”

I took the weapon and felt the weight in my hand. Two shots were all I had. Maybe one for my own head if I got bitten. I stuffed the revolver into the side pocket of the camp sailor cargo pants and turned to look at my intended destination. The prone body of Slimy Simey on the jetty seemed further away than ever. I took a deep breath, hoping to expel some of the butterflies in my guts.

“Good luck, kid.” Smith gave me a clap on the shoulder and a wink.

“Listen, Smith,” I stuttered. “I’m sorry for what I said back there in the cabin, it was uncalled for and…”

“Forget about it.” Smith cut me short. “You just make sure you get those God damn keys and come back over here so we can get back on track. You hear me?”

I nodded and gulped away an emotional lump from my throat.

“Come on, let’s get you in the water,” he said.

I looked down over the side and saw arms and heads surfacing, sinking and resurfacing. A flailing zombie arm would easily capsize the fragile dinghy. Shit! What the hell was I thinking? The butterflies turned into eels wriggling around the center of my guts.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The distance from the yacht’s deck to the water was around ten feet. I was going to have to somehow leap from the side while lying on top of the raft. Tippy explained that Simey used to don a wetsuit and go into the water when he used to row ashore. We didn’t have the luxury of having zombie free waters. 

The undead thrashed around in the water slightly below the murky surface. Their gnarled, ugly rotten faces occasionally honed into view, like some nightmarish species of fish created in a secret warfare laboratory.

“You can put on the wetsuit and chain mail Simey used to keep safe from gators and sharks,” Tippy suggested.

I gave Smith a quizzical glance. The thought of sinking to the bottom of the canal in chain mail didn’t feel comfortable.

“It’ll be some protection from bites,” Smith approved. “Just make sure you don’t go overboard.”

I shrugged. “Okay, if it will help.”

I strapped the revolver to my leg with a loose piece of Velcro we found inside the locker, after Smith and Tippy dressed me in the wetsuit and slightly protective chain mail covering my arms and legs. The rubber hood rubbed against my scalp and generally felt uncomfortable. I felt unnaturally heavy, like I couldn’t move properly. 

“Okay, I’ll grab the dinghy handles and jump from the side,” I said.

“All right. It’s your call,” Smith shouted. “Go for it, kid.”

I made sure the oars were onboard before I gripped the handles at the side of the dinghy and my heart rose to my mouth as I threw myself off the side of the yacht.

The spray from the impact hit me in the face as I landed on the canal surface. I rolled onto my back and grabbed the oars, paddling as quickly as my arms would pump in the water, towards the jetty where sweaty, dead Simey lay. And then he appeared again. My rotten, mean, lame brained other self, who I hadn’t seen in a while. I’d had these kinds of weird hallucinations of another version of me since I’d been injected with a large shot of mescaline by a crazed doctor at Newark Airport. Whether the visions were caused by drug flash backs or partial insanity, I wasn’t sure. I would have been a psychotherapist’s case for a long time back in the real world.

He looked dead, his face gray and huge dark rings under his eyes. He sat comfortably laying back against the dinghy walls, casually smoking a cigarette and drinking a Bud.

“What the double fuck do you want now?” I shrieked.

Zombies thrashed around in the water all around us. My other self seemed unperturbed. He sat there with a smug grin on his face, looking younger and probably healthier than I did, wearing a denim jacket and jeans with his hair slicked back like James Fucking Dean.

“You look like shit!” I poked.

“Love you too.” He blew me a mock kiss.

I rowed towards the jetty ignoring the thrashing, snarling undead threatening to capsize the dinghy at any moment.

“Ooh! They’re getting bitey,” my other self teased. He dipped his hand in the water and then quickly withdrew, shaking his fingers with a look of mock pain. “Better row harder and faster, Brett.”

“Screw you, I’m doing my best,” I grunted.

Smith yelled something inaudible from the deck of the yacht. I ignored him and carried on rowing, glaring at my other self at the bow of the dinghy. A gray faced, male zombie surfaced at the left side of the raft and tried to launch himself onboard. I momentarily stopped rowing and smashed the oar across his head. The blow didn’t kill the ghoul but sent him sliding back into the drink.

“That was close,” my other self sang in a child-like voice.

A female zombie with long brown hair, spread out like a fan on the canal surface, splashed through the water towards me baring battered, pointed teeth. Her eyes looked at me blankly but her grimace said she was on the attack. I punted the flat, bottom side of the oar at her head. The blow caught her in the forehead, leaving a wide cut in the rotten skin.

More ghouls were visible around the dinghy, slightly submerged under the surface. I couldn’t risk poking them with the oars as they might grab the poles and either pull me in or capsize the raft.

Smith continued to yell from the yacht. I carried on rowing towards the jetty. Hands and heads surfaced. Fingers clawed at me and slid across the rubber sides. Roars of frustration and hunger rang in my ears. Some of the undead gurgled as they surfaced then disappeared again under the murky water.

The oar on the right of the dinghy was ripped from my grasp as it cut through the water. I let it go and carried on paddling with just one oar, rowing on alternate sides with the wooden jetty in my sights.

“You better hurry,” my other self sang. “They’re coming to get you.” He cackled in a voice that I didn’t even know I was capable of.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” I spat. “Why don’t you just fuck off and leave me alone?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s quite intimate out here on the water, just the two of us.”

I felt the bottom of the dinghy bump and tilt from side to side. A zombie must have surfaced right beneath us. A head shaped lump bulged through the bottom of the raft. I leaned back and stamped down the heel of my foot on top of the head shaped hump. I felt my heel hit bone through the inflated rubber and hoped I hadn’t punctured the bottom. The head shape sunk back somewhere under the dinghy.