The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run (19 page)

“Okay, man. Whatever,” I agreed.

Smith glanced from left to right to check no more zombies roamed around in the near vicinity before he stepped forward to meet the coverall clad ghoul head on. I tucked my hurley stick under my arm and rubbed my hands together to try and keep the cold from seeping into my fingers. Smith flicked the hem of his jacket to one side and drew the machete from his belt. He held the weapon at his side as he walked towards the ghoul. I imagined he looked like some ancient Highland warrior striding through the mist to confront his foe.

The zombie dressed in the blue coveralls groaned, seemingly in surprise that a potential meal was closing towards him. Smith’s boots crunched in the hardening snow. He took another quick look on each of his flanks before he raised the machete at a wide angle. The undead didn’t have any sense of self preservation and never tried to duck out of a blow or attempt to defend themselves. Their greatest strength was in numbers, cornering their prey. The element of shock, at its highest when the epidemic had first hit the world was long since beyond us. People couldn’t quite believe the dead were reanimating and attacking them in those early days and they would simply stand still, rigid with fear and disbelief when the bodies of their friends, families and associates began biting lumps out of them.

Smith made a kind of grunting sound as he swung the machete one handed in a sideways swipe. The blade sliced through rotten flesh, sinew and bone with ease. The ghoul made a croaking noise before the head tumbled from the body and thumped into the snow. The body stood for a brief moment before crumpling into a heap beside the head. I had to hand it to Smith. He had certainly mastered the art of decapitation. Something told me he’d had some experience of the action in his sordid and violent past.

Smith speared the separated head with the tip of the machete blade, to ensure the brain was totally non-functioning before he wiped the excess blood in the snow. He strolled back towards me as if he had just stepped off a bus. Killing zombies to him was no different to anybody else squashing a cockroach.

“Ready to go, kid?” he asked.

“A-ha,” I muttered.

“Okay, keep close to the walls and don’t make any unnecessary sound.”

“Gotcha,” I said.

Smith motioned sideways with his head. “Come on then, tough guy. Let’s get hiking.”

Chapter Thirty

One thing worried me about our little outdoor excursion. No, that wasn’t strictly true. Many things worried me about our little outdoor excursion but one detail in particular. We skirted around the outside of the vast building, stopping at every corner and angle to check the coast was clear around the sides of the walls. We’d been moving along beside the outer walls for a few minutes before I decided to air my concerns.

“Smith, how are we going to manage to carry all those packs between the two of us?”

“We’ll figure something out, kid,” Smith grunted. “Anyhow, didn’t I say not to make any unnecessary noise?”

“Ah, right,” I muttered. I worried what Smith was going to
figure out
once we were confronted by a horde of hungry zombies, while struggling with a bunch of heavy rucksacks.

The ten minutes Smith had predicted soon expired and the Range Rover was still nowhere in sight. We crept by several snow laden, immobile vehicles and a few gangs of undead, huddling together amongst the freezing mist in the hospital grounds, at around twenty five yards from the outer walls. Smith put his finger to his lips and we silently slinked by unseen.

I started to think we were totally in the wrong location when we rounded a corner and I recognized the overhanging canopy above the reception entrance. The Range Rover still sat in the spot we’d left it but was almost unrecognizable under a covering of thick snow. Several zombies still wandered around the area, trudging around in slow circles in front of the reception area and beneath the canopy. Some of the undead moved in and out of the building where we’d first entered the hospital.

Smith and I ducked back around the corner and peeked around the side of the wall, surveying the location.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Maybe we could get in the car and drive it back around to the fire door.”

Smith shook his head. “The battery will probably be flat by now. The cold weather saps the shit out of them and I don’t want to risk getting caught out there and surrounded if the car won’t start.” He nodded to the reception doorway. “We could use one of those wheelchairs to carry the packs.”

“You think?” I sighed. “Won’t they tip out?”

“Not if you keep it tilted back with the back wheels towards you and the front wheels off the ground.”

I didn’t like the way Smith said ‘
you
’ in his explanation. It sounded as though I was going to be pushing the wheelchair through the snow on our return trip.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” I dared to ask.

“I’ll go and unlock the car while you go grab a wheelchair from inside the foyer. We’ll unload the backpacks and then hot foot it back to the fire door. We’ll be enjoying a smoke and a shot of the good stuff in no time, right kid?” Smith rabbit punched me on the shoulder.

I swore he only did these crazy things at times because he was bored and wanted some kind of excitement to liven up our dreary existence.

“Sounds peachy,” I sighed.

Smith seemed oblivious to my sarcasm and slapped me on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s go.”

Before I had time to voice my opinion, Smith rushed from the corner of the building, wielding the machete and heading towards the snow covered vehicle.

“Ah, crap,” I groaned. “Here we go again.”

Smith had nearly reached the Range Rover by the time I bolted from the corner and headed for the hospital foyer. The groans and cries from the undead grew in volume as they spotted two live bodies for probably the first time in a long while. I tightly gripped my Hurley stick, holding the flat bladed end out in front of me as I ran. A male ghoul, with wispy gray hair and a decaying gray face turned from the hospital doorway and lumbered towards me.

Smith reached the Range Rover and sliced through the heads of a couple of undead loitering around the side of the car. The gray faced zombie opened his mouth wide and made a loud lowing sound, not dissimilar to a grazing cow. He raised his arms as if he was about to grab me in a bear hug. I jabbed the hurley blade sharply into his gaping mouth, expecting to ram him backwards and knock him off his feet. The hurley stick butted hard into the front of the gray ghoul’s face, shattering brown stained teeth and splitting the flesh at either side of his jaw. I heard a cracking sound and felt a little shocked when the ghoul’s lower jaw became totally detached from the head and tumbled into the snow between us. Shooting the undead in the head with a firearm was one thing but willful mutilation still felt slightly wrong.

I shoved the Hurley stick forward and the gray ghoul indeed did go over on its back. I made to retrieve my weapon but the damn thing had made a bloody groove and was lodged in the lower part of the zombie’s face. I wiggled the shaft backwards and forwards, producing a sickening squelching sound while trying to pull my stick free. The gray ghoul writhed around on the ground, attempting to claw at my legs. I took a quick glance at the Range Rover and saw Smith fumbling in his pocket for the keys while slicing the air with his machete.

Zombies seemed to emerging through the mist from all directions and I knew we didn’t have much time if we wanted to get away in one piece.

“Damn it,” I spat, wrenching the hurley stick.

I heard a sucking noise and felt slightly nauseous when the remainder of the gray ghoul’s head gave way and slid through the snow, disconnected from the body in a pulpy mess.

“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” I gasped, trying not to gag against the stench of rotten flesh.

I quickly wiped the soupy concoction of thickened brown blood and gore off the stick in the snow and rushed towards the main reception doors. A female zombie with long, matted red hair and old blood smears across her face stepped out of the doorway, directly in front of me. The red head ghoul immediately caught sight of me and growled like a dog guarding its territory.

I seriously wanted to avoid another time consuming encounter so I swung the stick in a sweeping forward motion, so the blade smacked width ways into Red Head’s face. The blow was sufficient enough to knock her off balance and the back of her head cracked against the wall beside the reception doorway.

Another male zombie, wearing the grubby remains of a green and white striped soccer shirt lunged at me from my left. I back swung the hurley stick and the edge of the blade sliced into the side of the guy’s head. The ghoul sunk to his knees before toppling face first onto the ground.

I took another glance over to the car and saw the top of Smith’s head over the roof. He swore in muttered breaths as he tried to open the rear compartment. The Range Rover rocked on its suspension and Smith roared something inaudible but I knew by his tone he was growing frustrated. I noticed more zombies lurching closer, materializing out of the mist and closing all around us.

“What’s the problem?” I hissed.

“The fucking problem is the god damn lock is frozen up,” Smith roared back.

Chapter Thirty-One

Smith frantically tugged at the rear compartment hatch but it wouldn’t budge.

“Do you want me to still go fetch the wheelchair?” I asked, nervously glancing at the approaching herd of undead.

“Yeah, hurry up and get the fucking chair,” Smith yelled.

His frustration was boiling over and all the unnecessary hollering drew the zombies to us like moths around a light bulb. Smith took huge swipes with the machete at any undead who stumbled too close but I knew we’d have to retreat before we were surrounded by the swelling number of ghouls.

Red Head came at me again and I thrust the hurley blade at her head. This time I jabbed the stick with the blade edge pointed at her forehead. The jab left a horizontal gash in her head and I heard a rumble before she staggered backward then slithered down the wall. The hurley stick was a useful killing weapon I had to keep hold of.

Smith slashed at the undead slowly encircling him and I worried he was too focused on trying to retrieve the packs to know when to quit. I was torn between fetching the wheelchair from the reception foyer and helping Smith with the trunk compartment hatch. The craving for nicotine was forcing Smith to become slightly reckless in his modus operandi.

I decided to try and get the wheelchair for fear of falling foul of Smith’s wrath if I didn’t. He’d have to fend for himself for the moment.

I moved so I stood directly in front of the reception doors. Remembering what happened with the ghoulish doctor last time I opened the double doors, I grabbed the handle, yanked hard and took a couple of backward paces. The door swung open but no undead stood on guard directly inside the building. A bunch of zombies milled around inside the foyer and stopped to stare as the sunlight lit up the gloomy reception area. I knew I’d have to move quickly to retrieve one of the wheelchairs, before the undead came at me in numbers.

Taking in a few deep breaths, I rushed through the double doors and into the foyer. I slid on the glass chips on the reception floor and nearly lost my footing. The undead stopped whatever they were previously occupied with and headed in my direction.

“Ah, shit,” I gasped, struggling to regain my balance. “Why did I let Smith talk me into this?”

The cluster of wheelchairs still stood by the reception desk and I never thought I’d be returning back to the place where I’d grabbed the gurney trolley for Cordoba. I mentally pushed away a sudden pang of sadness threatening to enter my mind. I had to keep focused and concentrate on what I was doing. This was no time for sentiment or pining for the past.

I took a big, upward swing with the hurley stick at a rotund, bald headed male zombie in a crumpled brown suit. The flat of the blade smacked home against the bottom of the guy’s chin, lifting him off his feet and sending him crashing backward into a female ghoul following in his path. The undead couple collapsed onto the floor a few feet from where I stood. I didn’t have time to finish them off, as the zombie horde gradually loomed closer.

I took a quick glance behind me to check no undead had come through the doors to my rear. The entrance was clear but I knew it wouldn’t remain unguarded for long. I hurried to the half dozen or so wheelchairs bunched in front of the reception desk. A female ghoul in a white hospital gown lurched over one of the wheelchairs on the far side of the cluster. She screeched, reaching out and clawing the air with blackened fingernails, a few feet from my face.

“Fuck off,” I spat, gripping hold of the handles at the back of the nearest chair in front of me.

I had to tuck the hurley stick under my right arm to maneuver the wheelchair with any control. The woman in the white gown stumbled but managed to move around the chairs towards me. My chair wouldn’t budge and I felt a flutter of panic until I realized the brake was still applied. I flicked off the brake lever but the white gowned ghoul trudged closer towards me, holding out her arms with talon fingers. Her face was screwed up in a sneering mask of hatred with her lips curled back over her teeth.