The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink (34 page)

Chapter Fifty-Two

The ringleader’s head jerked backwards in a spray of blood through the back of his sack hood.
The M-9 flew from his hand as he toppled backwards. Time seemed to run in slow motion while I watched his emaciated body tumble rearward through the morning air. My head spun and I wondered what the fuck had just happened.

The ringleader lay on his back with blood pooling in the grass around his hooded head.
A spiral of smoke drifted into the air around a hole between and slightly above the eye slits. Rogers wailed and held his hands to his face. Arleta’s head turned from the dead body to the aircraft and back again, several times in quick succession. Wingate gasped and crouched down amongst the long grass. Smith and Cole remained stock still.

I wobbled on unsteady legs, trying to remain upright although all my senses told me to collapse to the ground. One of the hooded freaks went to grab the
handgun lying amongst the grass. Smith rushed forward and stomped his boot on the guy’s hand. The hooded freak screamed in agony as his finger bones broke with a cringing snapping sound. Smith delivered a right handed punch that thudded into the guy’s hooded head. It was a blow that any pro boxer would have been proud of. The guy was lifted off his feet and sprawled on his back amongst the grass. Smith scooped up the M-9 and in a crouching position, waved the weapon left and right in a steady arc at the rest of the freaky bunch of guys.

Rogers screamed and held his hands on the top of his head. His cohorts howled in fright, turned and fled across the field.
Cole turned towards the aircraft and waved his arm above his head. Smith bent down and retrieved the radio from the ringleader’s prone corpse. He continued to cover the fleeing freaks as they hobbled away up the hill and depressed the talk button on the handset.

“Good shooting, Cordoba. You got him.”

He flashed me an upward glance.

“Cordoba?” I muttered.

“Yeah, she took the shot from the cockpit. It was her idea, kid. She’s some shot, huh?”

“Yeah, some shot,” I muttered, studying the ringleader’s dead body.

The tension which had gradually escalated to breaking point now ebbed quickly away. My head throbbed as though hornet’s had nested inside my skull, my vision blurred and my body went limp. The real world spun away from me as I lost consciousness. And I bid reality good riddance, hoping my last moments as a living, human being were upon me.

My eyes opened and the pain in my head had evaporated.
I was back home in my messy apartment in Brynston, Pennsylvania. Shit! The whole experience had been some awful nightmare. I laughed. How could I have really believed that the dead would rise and walk the Earth? I’d watched too many horror movies during my late night stupors. And what about that Smith dude? My mind had done some extraordinary overtime conjuring up that guy.

Today felt like a weekend, I didn’t know why. Saturday, yes. Today was Saturday
, a day off from boring work. Today was the best day of the week. I wondered what kinds of shenanigans Pete Cousins, Marlon and I would get up to today. A ball game and a few beers was the norm, all accompanied by plenty of laughs along the way. I’d tell them all about my prolonged dream of zombies and how they both somehow died when the world went to shit. This story would blow their minds! We’d have a good laugh in the bar while I recounted my fairytale exploits as a failed hero. The Manhattan story would have them in stitches.

I breathed a sigh of relief
, tossed my bedding aside and crawled off my cot. The apartment was a state with dirty laundry, CDs and music magazines all over the floor. I’d spend Sunday clearing the place up while nursing a hangover, no doubt. I smiled to myself. I couldn’t remember what I’d done the previous night but geez...that was some dream. Maybe I’d call Samantha, my on/off girlfriend and see if she wanted to come over later. I had the feeling today was going to be a belter. 

I flicked on the TV
, opened the curtains and looked out onto the view from my window. Somebody talked on the TV but I wasn’t listening. Something wasn’t right with the outside world, things were too quiet. No cars drove around the streets and no people strolled along the sidewalks. The silence seemed eerie. I caught sight of a lone, hunched figure shuffling down the sidewalk with a bent golf club over his shoulder. The guy looked a bit like me.

Carson Daly’s voice boomed from the TV and echoed around the room. Why the hell was his show on TV on a Saturday morning
and what the hell was he talking about?

“…hit them in the head and kill the brain…”
   

“Hit who in the head?” I spoke out loud
and moved to watch the TV screen.

Carson looked immaculate as usual but his face held a worried expression and he looked genuinely scared.

“…the dead have risen and began to attack and eat the living, this is no prank…I only wish it was…hope you all stay safe.”

“No, no, no, this can’t be happening again!” I howled. My hands shook and I turned back to the window.

The guy holding the golf club stood on the sidewalk below my apartment window, looking up at me. It was me. He had a big grin on his face and began to belly laugh when he saw me watching at him. I felt panicked and trembled.

“Somebody walk on your grave?”
Carson asked from the TV.

I glanced back at the
TV for a brief moment then slipped the window open.

“What do you want, you bastard?” I yelled at my laughing other self on the sidewalk. “Leave me alone.”

The guy, who looked like me, prodded the golf club in the air, pointing it at me from five storeys below.

“Good luck, buddy,” he chimed, in an all too friendly manner. “I’m off to Pete Cousins’ place but he won’t be there. In fact, I know damn well I’ll never see him again.”

“Shut up and go away,” I screeched. “This is not happening.”

“Well, maybe it is, maybe it ‘aint. But I’m going there anyway. I might kill a zombie on the sidewalk in a minute with this golf club or watch some pudgy faced guy do it. I haven’t quite decided yet. Then I’m going to meet up with a guy called Smith, that’s not his real name
by the way, and we’re going to go off on an adventure together. We meet a whole bunch of people on the way and it all ends in tragedy but I’ll survive, don’t worry about that. We try all kinds of crazy stuff and go to New Orleans but…”

I’d had enough of the guy’s ranting and shut the window then turned the TV to a music channel.
An old video of the rock band
Black Sabbath
flashed across the screen. Ozzy sung about paranoia. Shit! I knew how he felt.

My cell phone rang from somewhere under a pile of dirty laundry. My ringtone of
The Rolling Stones
song,
Satisfaction
conflicted with
Black Sabbath
on the TV. I grabbed the controller and muted the TV then fished through my unclean pants for the phone. The caller I.D. on my cell was Pete Cousins.

“Pete, you bastard,” I growled, answering the call. “I’m never drinking with you again. Well, not on a school night anyway.”
I heard myself talking as though I hadn’t said the words.

“This
‘ain’t Pete Cousins, you asshole.” I recognized the voice immediately. It was that Smith guy. “Time to wake up and get with the program, kid.”

“Fuck off,” I spat down the phone. “You’re not real. I don’t know you.”

I heard a groaning sigh of exasperation before I terminated the call. I closed the cell phone and hurled it against the wall. The plastic shell shattered against my
“Combat Rock”
poster of the band,
“The Clash.”

The silence in my apartment was forbidding. Voices in my head began whispering.
“Illness, terminal illness, cancer, heart disease, Ebola, typhoid, malaria, gonorrhea, diarrhea, fucking bubonic plague. Who’s going to treat you if you catch any of those?”

“Shut up!” I screamed.

The image on the TV had changed from
Black Sabbath
to
Katy Perry
spraying white foam from her bra. I remembered Pete had a fixation with Katy and said he was going to date her one day. I recognized the music video but couldn’t remember which song it belonged to.

The fucker inside my head whispered one word in a low, slow gravelly tone.

“Z-o-m-b-i-e.”

My head span and my stomach convulsed. I felt the overwhelming urge to throw up. The bathroom door to my right seemed a million miles away but I rushed towards it, all the same.
I held my hand to my mouth, attempting to stifle the puke while I bundled through the door.

The windowless bathroom was dark so I flicked on the light above the sink. The dim light blinked on but I didn’t recognize the small, cramped bathroom. Shower water splattered inside the cubicle
, I saw the silhouette of somebody standing in there through the white curtain.

I breathed heavily, gulping down the vomit and tentatively stepp
ed towards the shower cubicle. I raised my hand to the curtain and my skin seemed to shimmer between black and white in the dim light. I felt the dampness and heat of the water running from the shower as my hand gripped the material. Who the hell was it in my bathroom? I flung the curtain back and a naked female gasped as she turned to face me. Briefly, I admired her body and glanced up to her face. I immediately recognized Julia’s stunning blue eyes. Her expression of shock soon changed to a sexy, inviting smile.

I relaxed…everything seemed okay.

Julia beckoned me into the shower cubicle and I complied, oblivious of the hot water soaking my T-shirt and boxer shorts. She embraced me and I responded, relishing the feeling of her soapy, smooth skin.

“Who’s a naughty boy, Brett,” she giggled and touched my lips with her finger.

This was the way things were supposed to be. I’d obviously met her recently and we were in the start of our relationship. The sweet beginnings of a beautiful future together. She drew her head closer and I took in the scent of the soap in her hair. I closed my eyes and let the water cascade off my face. Julia gently kissed my lips and it felt perfect. I ran my hands down the side of her torso and felt something rigid, like a stick.

I opened my eyes and looked down; shock and panic flooded my mind. Julia’s ribs protruded from a huge
, gory split in the side of her body.

“What the fuck?” I wailed.

I glanced at her face. That once beautiful appearance had been reduced to a mush of bloody, red pulp. Her eyes were swollen almost shut and her mouth was a mess of blood and broken teeth.

“Oh, sorry, Brett,” she whispered. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Ah, no,” I yelled, backing out of the shower.

Nausea engulfed me once again and I stumbled towards the toilet. I lifted the lid, opening my mouth wide in anticipation of emptying the contents of my stomach. A severed
head stared back at me from the lavatory pan. The eyes blinked open and I recognized the face.

“Hello, Brett. I’m glad you shot me,” my dad’s severed head said.

The image was too much for me and my stomach to bear. I turned away and violently vomited over the bathroom floor. Julia spoke to me from the shower but her words were distorted and inaudible. I felt dizzy and my consciousness was slipping away. I threw up again, then saw the floor rapidly approaching as my awareness completely diminished.

Chapter Fifty-Three

I sat bolt upright, awake and spewing vomit from deep within my stomach. Smith and Batfish stood next to my makeshift bed back onboard the interior of the C-17 aircraft. They both had a look of concern on their faces and Wingate, the pretty blonde medic held a plastic bucket between my knees, catching the puke. Cordoba stood near the bed to my right and I briefly glimpsed Landri and Mignon watching me retch.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid,” Smith said, slapping my shoulder. “You took a bit of a beating there.”

I vomited into the bucket again until nothing else would surface. The stench of my own stomach bile was overwhelming and I was drenched in my own sweat.

“You’ve taken a nasty head wound, Brett,” Wingate said. “I’ve put some stitches in but you’re suffering with concussion at the moment. I’ve examined your head and there’s no serious damage.”

“I seriously doubt that fact,” I spat, recollecting my weird nightmares come hallucinations.

“Glad to see you’ve still got your sense of humor, kid,” Smith said, laughing. He gave me a hearty slap on the back, which made me feel even worse.

“What were you thinking, Brett?” Batfish scolded. “Walking off in the middle of the night, like that.”

I couldn’t believe I was back to this reality. My stomach ached from heaving and my head felt like somebody had used it for a bowling ball.

“I wasn’t thinking,” I mumbled. “My other self led me to Stonehenge. It was beautiful for around two minutes.”

“He’s still delirious,” Smith told everybody around the bed. “He’ll be okay.”

He talked as though he was covering for me. Did he know about my problems with hallucinations and my encounters with my alternative self? I couldn’t remember telling him anything about it but Smith was quite perceptive and good at reading people’s body language. It was a trait that had kept us alive much of the time over the last six months. I realized I was lucky to have met him when I did.

“I’m sorry I told you to fuck off on the phone, Smith,” I mumbled. “I’m glad you’re real.”

Smith belly laughed and rubbed the back of my head, avoiding the stitches above my right eye.

“This kid kills me, you know that?
I love this guy,” he hollered to those around the bed.

I supposed in different circumstances, I would have been Smith’s bitch, running his errands and delivering threats. He wasn’t a particularly nice guy but he was my best friend and I loved him for his loyalty to me. Throughout all this shit, he hadn’t dumped me and had saved my ass more times than I cared to think of. I saved his ass once back in Brynston and I knew he had never forgotten that.

“Let him get some rest,” Wingate said. “He’ll be okay again in a while.”

“No, I’ve had all the rest I need,” I sighed, not wanting to withstand any more demonic images whilst unconscious. “I need some fresh air.” I clambered woozily off the cot and stumbled into Smith’s arms.

“Easy there, tiger,” he said, grabbing hold of my shoulders. “You sure this is a good idea?”

I stared him squarely in the face and giggled. “You know me, Smith. We’re both full of good ideas.”

“Brett, I’ve given you a pain relief shot,” Wingate whined behind me. “It’s not good for you to be up on your feet at the moment.”

I flapped my hand at the pretty blonde medic and felt like I was drunk. “Ah, fuck it! I’ll be okay. Come on, Smith. Let’s go outdoors for a cigarette.”

Smith shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Okay,” he muttered.

He grabbed my arm and led me
across the sloping floor to the paratroop door, amid Wingate’s protests for me to rest.

“Are you okay, Brett?” Batfish asked. I turned and her face was a mask of concern. I realized she was like a big sister to me.
She handed me a bottle of water and I took a long gulp to wash the taste of stale puke away.

“Never better,” I replied and gave her a wink. “I just need a cigarette and some fresh air and I’ll be fine.”

“He’ll be okay,” Smith said, embracing my shoulders. “He just needs a little down time.”

I wanted a shower and change of clothes but first I needed a bit of time to clear my head.
Smith led me out of the aircraft into the winter sunshine and we stood amongst the long grass by the freshly dug graves. The smell of earthy soil was prevalent as Smith handed me a cigarette. I took it and lit up, enjoying the aroma and burn down my throat.

“We buried that other guy with the sack over his head,” Smith said, exhaling tobacco smoke.
“It was a good sniper shot from your girlfriend, Cordoba, from that cockpit window, I have to admit.”

I breathed out smoke, leaning against the gray metal aircraft tail and giggled. “She ‘aint my girlfriend, Smith. You know that.”

Smith ducked his head and raised his eyebrows. “She was quite keen on helping you out, buddy,” he said with a smirk. “And I know you are sweet on her.”

“Ah, come on,” I laughed.

“Yeah, it’s true. I’ve seen the way you look at her. I used to be a cop, don’t forget. We’re trained to notice things like that.”

“Okay, I think she’s nice but she wouldn’t see anything about me. I’m not a military guy and besides, I bet every one of those guys in that plane have tried to hit on her at one time or another.”

Smith went to speak but his words were cut short.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Cordoba said. She stood at the top of the
ladder by the paratroop door, with an expression of sarcastic mirth over her face. “Nobody hits on me and I haven’t had a boyfriend since this whole end of the world thing started.” She climbed down the steps and took my cigarette from me.

Smith chuckled and glanced to the ground. Cordoba inhaled a puff and blew the smoke in my face, then placed the cigarette back in my mouth.
Her dark brown eyes glinted in the sunlight and she flashed me a flirty glance that made my heart flutter. Only girls had the ability to flash that look. I’d only experienced the glance a few times, with Samantha, with Julia. Oh, Shit! There she was again, invading my thoughts.

Cordoba must have seen my face drop and probably took it as a sign that I wasn’t interested in her. She turned and climbed back into the aircraft on the rope ladder spilling from the paratroop door.

“Well, there you go, kid,” Smith chortled. “She definitely likes you.”

“Yeah,” I grunted and threw my cigarette butt into the grass. “But I seem to put the curse of death on every woman I like.”

The mood changed and the cheerful moment evaporated. That was one thing I was always good at, creating miserable situations.

Chapter Fifty-Four

“I guess I’ve blown my chances, there,” I sighed.

“What are you talking about?” Smith flicked his cigarette butt into the grass.

“I was thinking of Julia when Cordoba was talking to me,” I admitted.

Smith sighed and looked to the sky. “Come on, man. You got to put all that shit that happened in the past behind you.” He looked to the ground and rubbed his forehead. “Listen, man, I’ve done plenty of things I ‘aint proud of but you have to keep going. You have to keep functioning and live every day like it’s your last. Hell, it’s been you, me, Batfish and that little dog against the world for the last six months, man.” Smith’s voice quivered and I knew he spoke from the heart. “The chances of us surviving all this time have been like backing a three legged horse in the Kentucky Derby, but we’re still here, kicking and screaming, on God’s green fucking Earth.”

I smiled but a sorrowful tear rolled down my cheek. I thought about all the people who weren’t still here. The numerous friends and associates we’d lost along the way.

“Everything just seems so shit, Smith,” I sniffed. “Every fucking situation we get into seems so bad. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.” Tears streamed down my face and I convulsed in sorrow.

Smith allowed me to sob for a few seconds then slapped me hard around the face.

“Get a fucking grip on yourself, Wilde Man,” he growled. “I rely on you to watch my ass. And if you can’t do that, then you’re better off dead. You’re not the only one going through a hard time. I’ve had to carry our sorry asses all the way through this shit. I know it stinks. The fucking world stinks, it always has and it always will. This situation is slightly different but we have to live with it. Understand, huh?” He slapped me again, although not quite as hard this time.

I wiped away the tears and looked him straight in the eye. Maybe I needed to be calmed down by Smith’s rough means.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I sniveled. “What’s the plan, now?”

Smith bent forward and stared into my eyes. He nodded when he was satisfied I was coherent and had rejuvenated myself from my depressive frame of mind.

“We’re still going to Scotland, okay?” His ice chipped, gray eyes burned into mine as he spoke. “Everything is going to be A-okay. Cole and his guys are trying to figure out a way of taking off that aircraft ramp and extracting the Humvee. That Rogers guy is still here with us and he’s going to show us the way to the military camp in Porton Down, or wherever the fuck it is, where we can get hold of some more vehicles and drive our way up to Scotland.”

I took in the information and nodded.

“See? I told you everything would work out okay, didn’t I?” Smith slapped my face once again, this time in a friendly way.

“Have they figured out why the plane came down yet?” I asked.

Smith sighed, shrugged then took out his cigarette pack. He offered me one and we both lit up another smoke.

“Still no conclusions and they haven’t found the body of that other guy from the cockpit yet.”

“You think they ran out of gas?” I drew a long puff on my cigarette. “I can’t understand why we were so far off course. I mean, shit, we’re south of London. That’s a pretty long way off Scotland and these were trained pilots, for Christ’s sake.”

“Ah, I don’t know,” Smith sighed. “We
’re shit out of crash investigators at the moment and we don’t have the technology to plug into the flight recorder. Could be any number of reasons why we came down where we did. It looks like we’re a long way from anywhere, by the looks of it.” He scanned the horizon with his hand shielding his eyes. “At least those guys didn’t bring us down in the middle of a town or city. Then we would have been toast, for sure.”

I took a wash from a water container, outdoors in the chilly air. The freshness invigorated me. I took a few more painkillers and changed my clothes
into fresh, khaki combat fatigues and felt a whole lot more like a member of the human race.

Several military and aircrew engineers worked around the ramp, lowering it as far as they could and trying to figure out a way of somehow extracting the Humvee from the interior.

Smith suggested we take a short walk so he could observe our surroundings. Batfish wanted to tag along with Spot on his leash. They seemed a little bit bored hanging around the C-17 without much to do. We armed ourselves and told Cole we were going for a stroll. He nodded and flashed me an admonishing glance.

“Don’t do nothing stupid this time, Wilde,” he growled, pointing a
n accusing finger.

Most of the military personnel milled around outside the aircraft. Cole had placed sentries at the front, back, left and right sides. An armed sentry and Wingate sat near Rogers. Wingate kept a distance and Rogers talked continuously. The sentry nodded and although I couldn’t hear what Rogers was saying, I guessed he was recounting his version of events when the outbreak began and his subsequent journey through the hell of the last six months. Everyone who’d survived had a story to tell and Rogers seemed pleased to relay his own. Maybe it was some kind of therapy for him. The ringleader, who Rogers told us his name was
Banner, had been affected by the apocalypse in an altogether different way. He’d become defensive and aggressive towards everybody, living or dead.

We’d walked a few yards through the field when we heard somebody wading through the grass in a hurry behind us. We turned and I was pleasantly surprised and delighted when I saw Cordoba catching us up.

“Hey, guys, mind if I tag along? It’s getting dull hanging around,” she called.

“Sure, no problem,” Smith replied.

He flashed me a glance but I ignored it.

“Chief Cole said you were going to take a look at some old stone monument. Sounds interesting,” she said.

“We weren’t actually heading that way but I’m sure Wilde Man can show us the way,” Smith said, nodding at me.

“Yeah, we can go that way, if you want,” I muttered. “We head through those woods over to the east.” I pointed the way as though I was some kind of native trapper. We changed direction towards the clump of trees. “I hope we don’t run into the rest of those hooded goons.”

“They took you by surprise last time,” Smith said. “We’re all armed this time. They wouldn’t get near us without somebody spotting them.”  

“So,
how far are we from Scotland, Brett?” Cordoba asked.  

I sighed. “We’re still a long way off. I can’t remember exactly where we are but we’re in the south of England someplace.”

“Is it always this mild in winter in England?” Batfish asked.

What was this, a million questions time? Smith laughed and shook his head.

“Definitely not,” I said. “This must be some kind of mild weather snap.” I recalled winters in London consisting of icy roads and snow laden streets but more than anything, lashings of down pouring rain.