The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run (20 page)

Using the hurley stick wasn’t a defensive option and my handgun was tucked away in my jacket. I swung the wheelchair around in a sideways motion so the damn thing would be positioned between me and the attacking female ghoul. I heard a crunching, snapping sound and the female sunk to her left and collapsed onto the ground.

I leaned to my right and took a brief glance to see what the heck had just happened. The female zombie lay on the floor with her leg bent out at a sideways angle, scrabbling to try and get up but the leg was obviously broken. I hadn’t noticed the chunky, metal foot rest, lowly fixed at the front of the chair. The foot rest had obviously connected with the side of the woman’s leg and thankfully put her out of action.

“All this damn hassle for a pack of smokes, a change of clothes and a slug of whiskey,” I sighed.

I pushed the wheelchair forwards, through the spread of glass chips and headed for the double doors, which luckily still hung open. A skinny, naked male zombie lurched through the doorway in front of me. The ghoul looked like he’d been dead for a long while. His skin was covered in patches of blue and purple mingled with tinges of gray. Shredded flesh surrounded heavy tear wounds in his abdomen and around his neck and shoulders. The naked zombie opened his mouth and emitted a throaty croak.

I didn’t have the time to mess around with this guy so I sped up my pace, aiming the chair directly at the hideous, unclothed figure in front of me. I heard a crunch of snapping bones and the wheelchair jolted in my hands. The naked zombie folded up in front of me and his head smashed against the seat. I carried on regardless, the ghoul’s body rocked back under the motion of the wheelchair and I heard the sound of more bones snapping as he was crushed beneath the wheels and chair frame.

The wheelchair bumped over the naked zombie’s body and I nearly tripped over on his emaciated, twisted legs. I gripped the chair handles to keep my feet and kicked out at his withered hands that tried to grab at my clothing. His snarling face was a covered with a mass of bodily liquid that no longer even resembled blood. I stomped at the disfigured head with the heel of my boot and heard a satisfying crack as his skull came apart. Sometimes my own brutality surprised me when natural survival instincts kicked in. Anything I said earlier about feeling bad about committing horrific, murderous acts was pure bullshit.

I was happy to get out of the dank smelling building and back into the open air. Smith hadn’t been overwhelmed by the undead but still struggled to open the trunk compartment. His face was a mask of seething, pissed off rage.

“Come on, you stupid motherfucking piece of shit,” he growled through gritted teeth, wrenching at the hatch handle.

I dodged the outstretched arms of a few straggling zombies making their way towards the Range Rover and ran the wheelchair towards the car’s rear compartment. The wheels skidded through the snow, making steering the damn thing with any control extremely difficult.

Every couple of seconds, Smith turned and took zigzagging swipes with the machete at any ghoul that came within striking distance. Terminated and decapitated zombies littered the ground immediately surrounding him. Pools of blood and pulpy gore seeped into the snow around the rear of the vehicle.

I tried to get nearer to Smith but he was encircled by too many undead. We were going to be forced to abandon our expedition empty handed. But Smith relentlessly jerked at the trunk compartment handle, intent on not being beaten by the hatch, frozen in place.

“We’re going to have to make a tactical retreat, Smith,” I called.

Several undead heard my voice and turned to confront me.

“No fucking way,” Smith raged. “I’m getting those packs if it kills me.”

The situation probably would end up killing him. Smith was acting like so many people we’d encountered in the past. Hell bent on achieving a task even though they were surrounded by flesh eating ghouls. I’d witnessed the same scenario so many times.

If I wasn’t so fond of Smith, I’d have turned away and left him there but like an idiot, I stayed where I was and tried to coax him away from the vehicle.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Smith, come on, forget about it,” I barked. “We have to go.”

A tall female zombie with messy, short blonde hair bared her teeth and her jaws came with a whisker of Smith’s ear before he shrugged the ghoul off and hacked its head to smithereens. I knew when Smith was in the crazed zone, when the red mist had descended and clouded his judgment. There was no telling what the guy would do when he was boiling over with rage.

Around a half dozen zombies lumbered towards me and more staggered through the mist in close proximity. All the undead in the near vicinity were probably attracted by Smith’s loud and crazed ranting. My companion should have known better. Secondly, I should have known better than to go along with this half assed idea.

“Let’s get out of here, Smith,” I tried again. “This area is too damn hot.” I gripped hold of my hurley stick, ready to start swinging at the approaching undead.

Smith sniffed and turned to look directly at me. His eyes were wide in rage and he shook his body in kind of jerked in spasms while standing his ground. He pointed the machete blade in my direction.

“You stay where the fuck you are, Wilde Man,” he growled. “We’re getting those packs out of this fucking car even if we have to kill a million of these worthless fucks.” Smith sliced the blade with a backward swing, decapitating yet another zombie who came at him from behind. Blood and gore spattered his clothing as though he’d worked a shift in a butcher’s store.

I estimated he had around six feet of clear space around him. He was good with the machete, I’d give him that but he couldn’t stand there all day while zombies piled up in a line behind him. Even the mighty Smith would be brought down under the masses sooner or later.

I grabbed hold of my stick and took a couple of backward steps, swatting at the zombies closing in on me. Smith’s fate was hanging in the balance but he was the master of his own destiny. He’d told me ‘
shit just happens and it’s how you deal with it that counts’
on that stairway down to the incinerator. Right now he had the choice to save himself but he was walking a thin line. The
shit
that was happening was of his own making.

“Forget it, Smith,” I yelled again. “Let’s get the hell away from here. Let’s get back inside.”

Smith didn’t answer me. He hacked at a couple more encroaching zombies with the machete before he reached into his jacket and pulled out his M-9 handgun.

“Fuck you, asshole,” he screeched. He aimed the firearm at the rear window and pulled the trigger several times.

The booming sound of gunshots reverberated around the area and echoed beneath the canopy. The Range Rover’s rear window disintegrated under the fired rounds, causing glass chips to spray over Smith and implode inside the interior.

“Ah, that’s just great,” I sighed. “Now the whole undead population of the UK knows where we are. Way to go, Smith.”

Smith swung around and fired at a couple of zombies trying to grab at him. Their bodies dropped to the ground at his feet, bleeding from gunshot wounds to the head. Smith laughed in a rasping chuckle and seemed to be enjoying this daft and dangerous escapade.

“I told you we’d get those packs, Wilde Man,” he shouted.

I was having difficulty in beating off the zombies around me and the wheelchair was already a few feet away. I took a quick glance to the rear and saw more undead piling out of the hospital reception area, lumbering towards us. Just because Smith had blown the Range Rover’s rear window out, it didn’t make the situation any easier. The guy was a fucking maniac.

“Roll the chair over this way,” Smith instructed.

“I can’t even reach it,” I yelled back in frustration. “Ah, fuck this.” I fumbled around inside my jacket and retrieved my own Beretta M-9. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Come on, Wilde,” Smith barked. “Hurry it up, will you.”

I gritted my teeth and really wanted to shoot Smith at that moment. Instead, I aimed my firearm at the zombies surrounding me, picking off each one with a headshot. When the last body dropped, I estimated I had around ten seconds to roll the wheelchair to the rear compartment of the Range Rover and unload the packs, before the undead crowd pouring out of the hospital reception massed on top of us. 

Smith hacked and slashed and fired his handgun at the horde surrounding him, considerably thinning their active number. I grabbed the wheelchair handles and pushed the damn thing forward. The wheels skidded and splayed to the sides and the stupid contraption seemed to want to go in every direction but the one I wanted.

Smith chopped at the glass that remained in the back window frame with the machete then tucked the blade under his arm. He turned back and shot a couple more zombies before reaching inside the compartment and pulling out one of the rucksacks.

I glanced around, taking in a 360 degree view of our surroundings. Zombies seemed to be looming out of the mist in every direction. Why the hell was I putting myself through this torture? I half stumbled, half shoved the wheelchair towards the back of the car and Smith tossed the first pack onto the seat before I was even ready. The rucksack hit the chair and nearly went over on its side and me with it. I steadied the chair and myself, resisting the urge to call Smith an asshole. Somehow, I managed to keep the wheelchair upright while juggling with the hurley and a loaded firearm in my hands, as well as gripping the wheelchair handles.

I didn’t want to run out of ammo, so I had to carefully pick my shots as I tried to keep the zombies at a far enough distance for us to manage the operation with a degree of control. Every time I fired, I knew the sound was probably attracting more undead from miles around but Smith had put us in this hazardous predicament and now there wasn’t a whole lot of choices. Again, we’d have to rely on a large slice of luck and quick thinking.   

Smith fired on three more approaching undead then pulled the remaining packs from the rear compartment. I held the chair steady and he loaded the rucksacks in a pile, wedged between the arm rests.

“Are we done?” I asked, nervously glancing around.

Smith nodded and slapped me around the face. “We’re done, kid. Let’s roll that motherfucker back to HQ.”

I tucked the hurley stick down the back of the wheelchair seat. The rucksacks kept my weapon wedged in place. I then slid the M-9 into the front pocket of my jacket and hoped I wouldn’t have any further cause to use it.

“You better keep me covered, Smith, if I’m pushing this bastard thing all the way back,” I barked, spinning the wheelchair around.

“Don’t fret, kid,” Smith said, with a broad smile. “I’ve got your back.”

“I fucking hope so,” I muttered, shoving the wheelchair forward.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I felt sweat run down my back despite the cold. Pushing the damn wheelchair through the snowy terrain was much harder and physically exerting than I’d thought. Smith was as good as his word. He protected me from attacking undead as we retraced our steps back around the perimeter walls of the hospital. He held his handgun in his right hand and the machete in his left, cutting down or shooting any zombie who got too close.

My back, wrists and thighs burned with exertion and I was more than relieved when the fire door of the incinerator compartment honed into sight. The plastic chair and shovel remained in place so I assumed no zombies had breached the sanctity of our confines.

I glanced behind me as I shoved the wheelchair forward for the final few yards. A ragged straggle of undead followed us, stumbling through the snow and moaning amongst the mist. We’d never be able to use the fire exit door again without having to fight our way out through a whole bunch of undead. They’d follow us to the entrance and scrape and claw at the fire door for as long as they knew we were inside. Some may give up and wander off but the majority would hang around in a vain attempt to burrow through the door to get inside.

“I just hope we haven’t been missed by the others,” I grunted. “Wingate and Batfish won’t leave it alone if they find out where we’ve been.”

“Let me handle them, kid,” Smith said, glancing around our surroundings. “They’ll be glad of a change of clothes when they’ve calmed down a little.”

The undead followed us to the fire door and we had to hurry unloading the backpacks, tossing them onto the incinerator floor. Smith kicked the plastic chair away and threw the shovel onto the ground beside the incinerator. We left the wheelchair where it stood outside in the snow. Smith closed up the fire door and I heard the thumps of undead hands on the outside a few seconds later.

I exhaled a long sigh of relief and collapsed onto my back on top of the pile of rucksacks. Smith turned from the doorway with a big grin on his face.