The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink (12 page)

I gazed around the plane’s interior, which was a long,
slightly concaved, white wall paneled compartment, running close to one hundred feet in length, around twenty feet wide and twelve feet high. It wasn’t decked out like a conventional passenger aircraft and didn’t have any windows along the outer walls. The floor was a solid metal grid, packed with pallets of stores in front of the reinforced Humvee and a light green four-wheel drive jeep, all running vertically in a neat line through the center of the compartment. Individually spaced seats ran alongside the interior walls, which were packed with service personnel from various military branches. I saw from the military logos on their chests that some were Marines and others wore Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard insignia. A mish-mash of all the armed forces, who still held allegiance to their respected divisions. A few people were dressed in civilian attire but still had the look and demeanor of military personnel. I recognized Milner sitting next to and talking with the guys who’d picked us up earlier. 

Chief Cole approached us from the sealed ramp with an expression of edginess on his face. “You guys better take a seat.” He ushered us to the chairs along the interior’s sides. “We’ll be lifting off shortly.” He breathed out a relieved sigh and cracked a half grin. “I’m genuinely glad you guys made it back safely.”

Smith held out his hand and Cole took it, assuming Smith proffered a thankful shake. Instead, the big guy levered himself from his sitting position on top of the ammo box and stood to face Cole.

“Thanks for waiting for us, Chief,” Smith sighed. “It’s much appreciated.”

Cole slapped Smith on the shoulder then offered a hand to haul me up as well. I took him up on his helping hand and felt my back, arms and thighs ache as I rose.

“I better put this thing away,” Smith rumbled, slipping the M-9 from the back of his waistband. “Damn thing was sticking up my ass anyway.”

I remembered my own weapon and drew it. Chief Cole raised an eyebrow in alarm when he saw we carried loaded weapons onboard.

“Don’t worry, Chief,” Smith sighed, taking the
handgun from me. He ejected the magazines and the rounds in the chambers and showed Cole the empty breaches. Then he placed the weapons and magazines into the ammo box.

Smith gave Batfish an accusing stare and held out his hand. “Your weapon?”

“Oh…it’s okay. My gun has already been made safe by the Chief, here.” She smiled at Cole. “He’s keeping hold of it for me.”

Cole nodded towards the ammo box. “We better get that thing secured before we take off.”
He looped a strap through an eyebolt on the deck and through the box’s handles so the strap ran over the flat container’s top.

“Okay, let’s take a seat,” Cole said.

He led us to a row of five empty chairs facing the front of the aircraft, positioned in front of the stores pallets at the opposite end of the compartment. The seats were hidden from our view when we first boarded and we were nearer the front of the plane. Cole sat down amongst an unoccupied row of seats behind us. 

We slumped into the chairs and buckled up the seat belts. Batfish tucked Spot into the space between me and her, ensuring she wrapped her belt across his belly. I ruffled his head and he looked at me with a hint of excitement and confusion in his brown eyes. I’d rescued him from a car wreck when we left Brynston on our way to New York. The poor little fellow had endured his ups and downs, losing his first family somewhere in that Interstate smash up
, then seeing our other dog called Sherman, mercilessly slaughtered by Batfish’s kidnappers.

The plane jolted as we began to move. I felt a spinning sensation as the aircraft turned around.
My stomach performed a summersault when the C-17 accelerated forward at an incredible speed. Within the space of a minute, I felt my body slump and lurch and my hearing diminished. We were in the air, on our way to Halifax, Canada.

I let my head slump back against the soft cushioning of the seat and listened to the drone of the revving aircraft engines. The sound was somehow stimulating, like a welcome noise of victory. We’d finally made it. I closed my eyes and let the drowsiness of slumber wash over me. I felt as though I could sleep for a thousand years.

Chapter Fifteen

I dreamed of my mother in London. She was a striking woman, with pale skin, jet black hair and lively green eyes that didn’t miss a trick. Eileen Noonan lived in Galway, Ireland until she met my dad, Michael Wilde. Dad had wanted to visit the place where his ancestors originated from in the old country, before they immigrated to the States, sometime in the early 1800’s. Michael Wilde and Eileen Noonan had quickly fallen in love and stayed in Galway for a while, Dad worked for local building companies as a laborer until he was fired several times. They married and moved to Finsbury Park in north London, with Dad having aspirations to be a diamond merchant.

My sister, Vicky and I were born two years apart when my parents lived in the English capital
. I was the younger sibling. The marriage was strained; I guess a lot of it had to do with lack of money and my Dad’s wayward shenanigans. Sometimes he was flush following the result of a good transaction, but he’d quickly blow the cash and we’d be struggling again. Eight years later, my parents decided to make a clean break and move to the States. Why they chose a crappy little Pennsylvanian town called Brynston remained a mystery.

My first days in school in Brynston were somewhat confusing. The other kids laughed at my accent and wanted to know why I ‘
talked all funny
.’ I was in my last year at Brynston High School when my mother dropped the bombshell and said she was moving back to Ireland. Vicky had already moved out and was a student at San Francisco University. Dad moved to New York, Mum didn’t stay in Ireland, she moved back to London to an area in the north-west of the city called Kilburn. I stayed put and wasted my life in Brynston for some bizarre, unknown reason.

I’d visited my mother, Eileen a few times in London
, the last time being a year ago with Samantha, my on/off girlfriend of the time.

I hadn’t had any contact with my family since the undead apocalypse
, apart from seeing my Dad in zombie form on a yacht in Manhattan. I’d shot him in the head. A fact that haunted me ever since.

The weather was sunny in my dream. It must have been summertime and I somehow knew we were in London.
The light seemed dimmer than in the States and I vaguely recognized the small garden of the little semi-detached house. My mother was standing in the kitchen looking through an open window and watching me and my sister play in the garden. The small backyard was half grass and half moss stained concrete and a narrow gate at the far end led to an alleyway. The back door hung open and smells of cooking wafted outside. We were all younger, my sister and I were kids. Vicky wore a red and white tartan dress and wore her black hair tied back in a pony-tail. I was dressed in navy shorts and a white T-shirt with a picture of ‘
Bart Simpson
’ pulling down his shorts on the front. My dad always found that shirt amusing. Vicky held a Barbie doll and I pretended to shoot her toy with my Action Man figure.

“Brett, play nice,” my mother called from inside. “Vicky doesn’t like guns and nor do I.”

The garden gate rattled and we all looked around to the source of the noise. My dad staggered into the garden. He was a tall, skinny man with a mop of thick, black hair. His face was white and cracked and crusted blood surrounded his mouth. His eyes were milky white, like they were covered with cataracts. He opened his mouth and let out a long, monotonous moan.

My sister screamed in terror and dropped her Barbie doll before running to my mother inside the kitchen. I stayed rooted to the spot, watching my father stagger closer. More zombies clattered through the garden gate behind my dad.

I turned to look at my mother. She hugged Vicky and smoothed her hair.

“Why is this happening, Mummy?” My sister looked up to face my mother. “Why did God let this happen?”

My mother smiled weakly. “God is sleeping at the moment, honey.”

I swiveled back to face my father. Now, I was no longer a child and Action Man’s gun was real, firmly held in my grasp. I raised the gun and fired one shot. The bullet moved through the air in slow motion and stopped halfway between me and my dad.

The ground tilted, the sunlight faded. I sat in the passenger seat of the Mustang. The breeze blew in my face from the glassless windshield frame. The stars shone brightly in the night sky as the car traveled speedily through a bleak, sandy desert. The Doors played on the stereo and Jim Morrison was driving, singing along to one of his songs,
‘People Are Strange.’
His long, dark hair hung in slight curls to his shoulders and he stared at me with unblinking, piercing blue eyes. Jim wore his trademark black leather pants with a plain white T-shirt and dusty cowboy boots.

I heard singing from the back seat and twisted my head around.
Another version of myself sat in the back seat between Julia and Eazy, two of my traveling companions who had died in Manhattan. All three of them stared at me with accusing, scornful eyes. Eazy was a muscular black guy with a corn-row hairstyle. He’d shot himself in the head after being infected with a zombie bite. Julia was an English girl with long, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes and a lovely smile. She’d died when she tried to follow me jumping between building roof tops. My alternative self usually cropped up as a vision at times of extreme danger and regularly liked to gloat. I felt anxious and wanted to get out of the vehicle.  

I turned back to Jim. “Where are we
heading?”

“Ah, be cool, man. We’re just driving along, we’ve got a six pack of beer
in the back and we’re smoking a few joints. We’re headed for the roadhouse, man.” Jim spoke with a nonchalant easiness.

I turned back to the passengers
who had stopped singing and were now glaring at me. Julia and Eazy bore the horrific injuries they had suffered during their exit from life. Eazy had a huge, bloody hole in the right side of his head and Julia’s left side was a bloody mess, with a huge split running from under her armpit to the top of her hip. Her broken ribs protruded through the wound and her arm was mangled at an odd angle. Her once pretty face was masked in blood and a horrifying indent at the top left side of her skull oozed straw colored liquid. Julia had been on the verge of becoming my new girlfriend before she tragically died.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I stammered at Julia and Eazy. “I didn’t want you to die.” I felt sad and sick in a sudden wave
of emotion.

My alternative self shoved a beer bottle towards me. “Have a beer and shut the fuck up,
asshole,” he snapped. “Nobody wants to hear your pathetic excuses.”

I took the bottle but didn’t drink any of it.
My alternative self looked like me but he had a mean, almost demonic look in his eyes. A feature I hoped I didn’t project in reality.

“We’re here,” Jim sung in a slow, creepy voice.

I turned to face the front and saw we were pulling off the road into a dusty parking lot with big a wooden shack type structure standing to the right. Jim hit the brakes and the Mustang skidded to a halt amid a haze of dust. The parking lot was empty apart from our vehicle. He turned the engine off and I heard faint music pumping from the roadhouse.

“Come on, man. Let’s go grab a cold one,” Jim said, hopping out of the car.

I turned to the backseat but it was now empty, void of any more ghostly apparitions. I didn’t want to stay in the car alone so I hauled myself out of my seat and tossed the beer bottle into the dusty ground. Jim sauntered across the lot and made his way through a pair of wooden, swinging saloon doors, like in the old Western movies.

His image shimmered in the doorway and I swore he evaporated as he crossed the threshold. I hesitantly followed Jim Morrison’s ghostly image through the saloon doors. The song playing
inside the roadhouse was ‘
Sympathy For The Devil
’ by The Rolling Stones, who happened to be my all time favorite band.

I stood motionless in the doorway surveying
my surroundings, like a gunslinger when he walked into the saloon. I wasn’t Brett Wilde the soft pussy any more. I was Brett Wilde, the mean motherfucking zombie killer. To quote Smith – “
Take no shit off anybody, no matter who they are.
”

The roadhouse was decorated in
yellowish wood paneling across the walls and ceiling. The long running bar to my right was lit by various beer taps and a huge Confederate flag was pinned between the liquor bottles behind the counter. Jim Morrison sat at the bar drinking a bottle of beer. He turned slightly and raised his drink at me then patted the bar stool next to him as an encouragement for me to join him.