The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink (17 page)

Smith leaned closer, trying to hear the radio chatter. “Anything we can do to help, Chief?”

Cole held up a finger, telling us to wait while he listened to the communication coming through his headset.

“Okay, enter the building but stay cautious and keep communicating every step of the way,” Cole said into his microphone.
He glanced back at Smith and I. “The guys are going to have to go into the airport to try and find the pump generator and see if they can fire the damn thing up. I just hope they can make it, otherwise we’re stuck here.”

“I’m sure they’ll be okay,” Smith said, clapping Cole on the shoulder.

Smith flashed me a concerned glance. We had assumed a great deal before we took off from the temperate climate of Louisiana. We couldn’t even be sure there would be enough aviation fuel left in the airport tanks to get us to Scotland. That unwelcome sensation of impending doom threatened to flood my mind once again. Batfish approached, still cradling Spot and Smith quietly explained to her what was going on outside. 

I smelled the aroma of cigarette smoke and turned to see the
wiry military guy we’d hitched a ride with in the Humvee at the Airbase, sitting with a female, both puffing away. I didn’t know if we were permitted to smoke onboard the aircraft but I thought if those two were indulging, then it wouldn’t matter if we lit up. I reached for my smokes, offered Smith, Batfish and Chief Cole the pack. Smith and Batfish gratefully took one each but Cole shook his head. We lit up and puffed away, awaiting more news from the outside world.

We stood around for maybe fifteen minutes. Cole continuously kept asking Milner and the guys how they were doing. The stress of the situation was evident by the expression on his face. I took a look around at the rest of the military guys
sitting around the interior. They didn’t seem unduly concerned about what was going on in the snowy terrain outside the aircraft. I assumed military personnel were used to waiting around while operations were carried out, remaining calm until they were called into action.

Cole burst my inner musings by yelling into his microphone.

“Milner…Milner…come in, Milner? Payne…Richards…Kauffmann…do you hear me? Anyone on the ground, do you copy me?”

Smith took a step towards Cole with an expression of apprehension on his face.

“What’s happened, Chief?”

Cole held his hand to his forehead.
The worried look on his face and anxious body language caused me to feel uneasy.

“We’ve lost communications,” he sighed. “The last thing they reported was encountering a bunch of undead. Man, I hope the whole lot of them hasn’t been wiped out.”

Cole tried his radio again, calling Milner and the aircrew but received no response. Smith, Batfish and I exchanged nervous glances. Cole kept trying to communicate for another few minutes then tore off his headset in frustration.

“Godammit!” he yelled, hurling the headset to the floor. He held his hand over his mouth, staring into space, deep in thought.

“You could send in a small team to see what’s going on out there,” Smith said.

Cole didn’t reply, just continued staring at nothing.

“Me and Wilde, here could go ahead to take a look how the land lies.”

I felt my stomach jolt. What the hell was Smith suggesting? He was volunteering us for a suicide mission without even consulting me.

Cole snapped out of his trance and flapped his hand. “Hell, Smith, I don’t know. We’ve got a whole bunch of military guys here. I couldn’t endanger the life of two civilians.”

I hoped Smith would listen to the voice of reason.

Smith cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Chief, me and Wilde have been avoiding, battling and winning against these undead fucks for over six months now. We know the pitfalls but we know how to get away and use our wits. Your guys have been holed up on that base for the duration of this whole, turd on a plate situation.”

With a blank expression, Cole turned to face Smith and stared at him eyeball to eyeball. I thought for one moment that the Navy Chief was going to lash out and start throwing punches.

“All right, you got it,” Cole mumbled, nodding once. “But at least let a couple of my guys tag along for some extra firepower.”

My stomach somersaulted. Why hadn’t Smith let the military guys handle this? I didn’t want to go out there in the freezing cold and encounter a
ferocious bunch of zombies who may have killed at least a dozen military guys in the last hour.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cole turned to look around the aircraft interior. “Johnson, Cordoba…get
yourselves over here,” he barked.

I recognized the two military personnel as the Humvee driver and the pretty Hispanic girl we’d met earlier at the Airbase in New Orleans. The two of them sauntered over and listened to Cole as he explained the situation.
Johnson and Cordoba both looked Smith and I up and down with blatant disdain. I knew they were wondering why Cole was sending us out to try and retrieve the situation. Maybe Smith was right. He and I were more like urban guerillas than your average soppy civilian. We didn’t play by the rules of engagement and had fought tooth and nail to stay alive this long.

Anyhow, maybe I could get to know Cordoba a little better during the mission as an added bonus.

I was surprised Batfish hadn’t protested or insisted on coming out there with us. She seemed content to sit this one out, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. It was going to be another one of those ‘
brown pants
’ situations that Smith and I seemed to get ourselves regularly tangled up in.

Johnson handed out some cold weather gear and we pulled on the garments while Chief Cole prepared us some radios.
I was sweltering underneath the jacket, pants and hood but I knew I wouldn’t be overly hot for long. We put on the radio headsets and tested the communications between us.

“Do you want to use some of our weapons or do you want to use your own?” Cole asked.

Smith looked at the weapon rack. “We’ll take some of yours. There’re probably more reliable than the ones we had.”

Johnson nodded and passed us an M-16
rifle each along with some spare magazines. I was proficient with a handgun but a military assault rifle was a different ball game all together. I hoped I would be capable of using the weapon when the time came. Smith held my rifle while I slipped on the goggles, the tactical gloves and pulled the jacket hood over my head.

“You okay with this?” Smith asked me, his voice hushed.

“Yeah, why not?” I lied. It was pointless starting any kind of disagreement whilst in our current predicament. If we pulled the mission off, we were heroes, if it failed, then what the hell? At least we died trying.

I held mine and Smith’s rifles whilst he geared up and the four of
us were ready to go. I carefully studied the rifle’s mechanism to familiarize myself with the workings. Cole gave us a nod before he began to lower the ramp once again.

Blustering
snowflakes, propelled by a howling wind blew inside the aircraft interior. The remaining passengers retreated to the front of the compartment or sheltered behind the cargo containers.

“Okay, let’s make this trip a success this time,” Cole roared above the ripping wind.

Johnson stepped down the ramp first, followed by Cordoba and Smith. I pursued at the rear of our quartet. The wind tore into me and nearly knocked me off my feet. I braced myself and followed the others down the ramp.

Visibility was no more than thirty feet in each direction and the ground was carpeted in a few inches of soft snow.
A jumbled myriad of footprints indented in the snow headed towards the front of the aircraft. I turned my head and saw the cargo ramp raising back into a closed position and wondered if I’d ever see the aircraft interior again.  

Johnson led the way
, following the footprints. We kept close to the aircraft, not losing sight of our only haven of sanctuary. I heard Johnson through the radio headset, constantly talking to Cole and the rest of us. Large snowflakes pattered into my goggles, hampering my vision and I felt the extreme coldness, even through the padded gear.

Smith turned every few seconds to make sure I was still with the party. I kept circling around, keeping an eye out for any zombies approaching from our rear. The noise of the aircraft engines when we landed would have alerted them to our sudden appearance.

Johnson stopped by a waist-high, rectangular shaped compartment, covered with snow. We crowded around and saw the compartment contained a thick refueling hose, partly reeled on a circular hub. The end probe lay on the ground by the compartment. Several more pump housings stood in a row next to where we stood.

I looked upwards and noticed the silhouette of the
tall airport terminal building beyond the refueling pump compartments.

I depressed my radio talk button. “We need to find a way into the terminal.” I heard my own voice crackle through the headset.

“Yeah, I just wanted to see for myself what kind of state the refueling hoses were in,” Johnson’s replied.

He moved slowly away from the row of pump compartments and we followed him to the side of the terminal building.
We crept slowly forward with our M-16 rifles at the ready.

“Don’t fire unless we know one-hundred percent we’re encountering zombies,” Johnson said through the headset. “Milner and his crew may be in the vicinity.”

The airport terminal building became more visible as we slowly approached. Big, square glass windows looked out from the structure onto the runways that lay somewhere behind us. I peered inside and couldn’t see any signs of movement. The once bustling terminal now seemed as quiet as a graveyard.

Johnson stopped by a fire exit door that stood only partially closed.
He slid the barrel of his rifle into the crack and nudged the door open. Beyond the doorway, a narrow corridor led to a concrete staircase ascending into darkness on the upper level. Wet boot prints marked the concrete corridor floor and on the stairs.  

Johnson turned to glance at the rest of us for approval. “It looks like they went in this way, judging by the footprints on the ground.”

Smith nodded. “Definitely looks like their entry point,” he agreed.

“Okay, let’s go in,” Cordoba said.

Johnson relayed the message and location of the entry point to Chief Cole back inside the C-17 then led the way inside the building. Smith went in next, followed by Cordoba and as usual, I was last in line. I felt a bit of the odd man out, trying to pretend I was skilled in the arts of military precision.

We moved slowly up the staircase. Johnson crouched low as he led the way and stopped when the staircase leveled out and an open door gave us a view of the gloomy terminal interior. We moved through the doorway into the vast expanse of the terminal floor space.
Checked gray and white tiles covered the floor and various stores stood still and silent with closed shutters covering the door fronts. A range of signs pointed to the directions of the departure and arrivals gates and other assorted locations. A glance at a large map hanging overhead, told me we were in the main lobby area. Some unoccupied information desks and nonfunctioning escalators stood towards the rear of the terminal.

We edged cautiously forward, sweeping all directions with our weapons.
Johnson gave Cole a brief situation report on our position. Some skeletal remains lay on the floor and huddled on a number of bench seats dotted around the lobby floor space. I didn’t see any fresh corpses, dead zombies, bullet casings or any signs of a struggle in the lobby.

“Where do you think Milner and his crew headed?” I asked through the microphone.

“My guess is, they came right up here to look for a way down into the service area,” Johnson answered.

I became too hot beneath the cold weather gear and took off my goggles and hood. I was surprised when Johnson, Cordoba and Smith followed my lead.

“That’s better,” Johnson muttered. “At least I can damn well breathe now.”

We moved into the center of the lobby, unsure which way to go.

“Christ! It’s like looking for a needle in a junk stack,” Smith sighed. “This place is so damn big.”

“That’s a haystack,” I corrected him.

Smith ignored me and read the overhead signs. “Trouble is, the service exits and walkways won’t be signposted for the public to see. Where do we begin to look?”

Johnson looked frustrated and tried to contact Milner on the radio again. We heard static for a brief moment but no coherent speech.

“Look, what’s that?” Cordoba said.

We turned and saw she pointed toward the escalators. A hunched figure sat moving around on the motionless metallic staircase. We hadn’t seen whoever it was before as the escalator sides had hidden them from view. The area where the figure sat was covered in blood.