The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run (36 page)

McElroy thought for a moment. “Okay, but just the four of us. No more. Too many people cause too much noise and there’s more chance of being spotted by the infected. If you follow me downstairs, I’ll get you all kitted out with some black combats and a weapon.”

“Hold your horses,” O’Neil cried out, stopping us from moving out of the apartment. “Getting the trucks mobile will be a start, but I don’t want anybody flying off on any wild, foolhardy missions until we’ve thought this thing through thoroughly.” His last five words were spoken as ‘
taught
tis
ting true turaly
.’

“Got it,” Smith said. “We won’t do shit until we’ve come up with a watertight plan.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Smith,” O’Neil crowed. “I’ve seen enough good people killed needlessly to last me a damn lifetime, so I have. I don’t want to see no more of it.”

Wingate and Batfish flashed Smith and I a guarded look. I knew them well enough to know their expressions and that look told us to be careful and not mess up, without them having to speak a word.     

The big guy introduced himself on the way down the staircase. His name was Connor Hannigen and he seemed to be slightly resentful of us and the refugees arriving at the tower block. He was tall and heavily built, with long arms and legs. His wavy brown hair was slightly graying at the temples and I’d have guessed he was somewhere around his mid forties.

McElroy led us to an apartment located on the ground floor at the far end from the entrance and exit point. I guessed they wanted to keep the ammunition and explosives as far away as possible from the living areas.

McElroy fished around in his pockets and drew a set of keys. He unlocked the door to the apartment and ushered us inside. The room was gloomy as wooden boards were nailed to the inside of the windows. Only small slats of daylight shone through into the apartment from the gaps between the boards.

“Sorry if you’re having trouble seeing your way around,” McElroy muttered. “But it goes without saying we have to keep this room secure. I use it as the armory.” He pulled out a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and switched it on. He set the flashlight down on top of the first in a row of gray, metal lockers. The light cast the room in an eerie white glow.

“All right, let’s get you guys suited and booted,” McElroy said, pulling open one of the lockers. “At a guess, I’d say you two were an extra large size.” He nodded at Smith and Hannigen. “And you’re probably a medium, Brett.”

He tossed us some sets of black combat fatigues as well as a black ski mask each.

“What’s your weapon of choice?” McElroy asked, pulling open the doors on the adjacent locker.

Smith whistled through his teeth as he studied the array of handguns and rifles in the lockers. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had plenty of artillery. Man, that must have been some battle out there on the streets.”

“It was,” Hannigen snapped, pulling on his combat clothing.

“Most of this gear came from Libya and some from, erm…other parts of the world,” McElroy explained. “They funded a whole lot of terrorism in this country during the troubles. He nodded at the lockers. “I keep all these weapons clean and well oiled.”

Smith and Hannigen chose to use an Armalite AR-18 rifle each and I plumped for a Taurus semi-automatic, 9mm handgun. I found rifles heavy and awkward to use. McElroy handed out some spare loaded magazines of ammunition.

“You not arming up?” Smith asked him.

“I keep my AK47 in a gun locker by the front door,” he said. “Just in case we have to make a speedy exit out of here or if some unwanted guests arrive. The guy who is on duty at the door is armed but I like to keep a couple of rifles at the entrance point, just as a safety precaution. You never know when you might need to defend yourself.”

“That’s certainly true,” Smith said, hanging up his Russian military uniform on a coat hook on the wall opposite the lockers.

I loaded my Taurus handgun and noticed it was US made by the stamp on the handle.

“Hey, this gun is from the States,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be so proud of that fact, if I were you,” Hannigen spat. “All that means is your country was also funding the terrorists.”

“Okay, let’s not get into a heated debate about that now, Connor,” McElroy interjected, before Hannigen’s temper rose any higher.

After we’d dressed in our black combats and locked and loaded, McElroy led the way to the exit door. Seamus Heath sat on his chair, reading through a paperback book. A pair of small glasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose.

“You on access duty
again
, Seamus?” McElroy asked.

Seamus looked up from his book. “It keeps me out of trouble so it does, Tom. I like it down here its quiet and gives me the chance to get through me
Jack Reacher
novels.” He held up the book. “I’ve nearly read the whole lot of them now, so I have. Never had time for reading before the outbreak and look at me now – a proper old bookworm.”

McElroy smiled and opened the gun locker to retrieve his rifle.

“We’re on our way out just now, Seamus,” McElroy said.

“Oh, you are, are you?” Seamus muttered, his eyes flicking back to the pages of his book. “Going anywhere nice?”

“We’re heading off to the Gaol, so we are.” McElroy loaded the AK47 and stuffed some spare magazines in his top pockets of his jacket.

“Well, give them my regards,” Seamus muttered. “I suppose you want me to let you out.”

“I’d be eternally grateful,” McElroy said.

I smiled. It was good to hear the banter between the two men. I liked the Northern Irish accent, as it had a kind of up and down, sing-song rhythm to it.

Seamus peeked through the small sliding compartment in the door before he let us out into the remains of Belfast City. We donned our ski masks and looked the part as an elite, black ops military unit. The crisp morning air helped my hangover disperse but a dull ache still throbbed between my temples. I couldn’t allow the effects of the booze to cloud my senses. I had to be on the ball as we were heading into dangerous, zombie infested territory and also, we’d possibly have to evade an armed Russian search party.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

McElroy led the way through tumbled down buildings and piles of debris at a jogging pace. Smith, Hannigen and I kept up, moving in a vertical line slightly behind McElroy. We waited inside derelict houses and small stores with empty shelves, when the streets outside were occupied by the undead. We crouched in silence, lingering inside the buildings long enough to make a clear breakaway across the streets. I concentrated hard on what I was doing. I wanted to avoid any careless fuck ups on my part. I couldn’t allow myself to undergo any more trips or falls or suffer a lack of focus.

As we hurriedly crossed some of the streets, I was amazed at the murals emblazoned on the outside walls of some of the buildings. All were hand painted and the detail was meticulous, depicting various freedom fighters, historical and political figures, beside an assortment of flags and logos, supporting a variety of organizations. Some of the dates of battles and movements alongside the wall paintings went back centuries in the past and I felt slightly ignorant I had never realized what a political hot bed Belfast had previously been. I’d visited the south of Ireland, where my parents heralded from but I hadn’t been aware life was so different in the north of the country. I’d heard of the troubles but hadn’t realized how deeply embedded the whole situation had been to the country.

Now, the city was full of walking corpses but all previous unrest was still in evidence, recorded in time by those murals. Eventually, the wall paintings would fade over time and maybe in the new world, if anybody survived, the old troubles of the past all over the world would be forgotten.

We headed north, through narrow streets and abandoned houses, through debris strewn backyards and across zombie infested waste grounds, which I guessed used to be public parks. All the while, we stayed out of the clutches of gangs of undead, who roamed the entire vicinity.

I was grateful for the occasional respite from moving at pace, once we were inside the derelict buildings and waiting for the hordes of zombies to pass by. The brief stops allowed me to catch my breath and slow the burning sensation in my thighs and calves. Even as we ducked down behind broken or mold ridden furniture and kept out of sight from the glassless window frames, I could smell the sour, rotting stench of decaying flesh, wafting from the crowds of undead.

“We’re nearly at the courthouse now, boys,” McElroy whispered, as we hunkered down in a particularly run down house.

I briefly glanced around the hovel and saw clumps of mushroom type mildew clinging to the walls. Large holes in the floorboards where the wood had rotted away lay sporadically positioned amongst the room.

“There’s an underground passage that leads from the courthouse right into the prison,” McElroy continued. “They used to use the passageway to take the prisoners directly to the Gaol after they were convicted. It runs right under the street. We’ll use the passageway so we don’t have to cross the street and try and break in through the big feckin’ gates.”

I craned my neck and peered out of the window frame. Several undead shambled through the street outside. Smith tapped my leg, telling me to keep out of sight.

“But we’ll have to watch our step in the old courthouse,” McElroy warned. “The place was derelict and damaged by fire before the outbreak began, so it might be a wee bit run down in there.”

“What happens if there’s a whole freakin’ army of dead people in the passageway?” Hannigen asked.

McElroy shook his head. “I very much doubt they’ll be down there. They feed on living flesh and are attracted to populated areas, not dim and dark passageways.”

I didn’t like the sound of a dim and dark passageway, even if it was supposedly free of zombies.

“I just hope the damn place ‘aint crawling with rats,” Smith muttered.

I’d forgotten about his phobia of furry rodents and a small, mean part of me hoped he’d see a rat or two down in the passageway.

“Okay, we’ll just wait a wee while for these last few feckers to pass and we’ll get going,” McElroy said. “Everybody stay alert and no sudden movements or loud noises. The bastards can still see and hear us, even if we are dressed like shadows.”

We waited for what seemed like ages for the undead stragglers to plod slowly far enough away from our hiding place. McElroy took a look out onto the street to satisfy himself the coast was clear.

“All right, we’re good to go but remember what I said,” McElroy whispered.

He led the way out of the dilapidated house and out onto the street. The sun seemed bright and the dazzle blinded me slightly as my eyes took a little time to focus from the dimness of the shitty hovel we’d just exited. I trod on a brick and lurched slightly to my left, trying to avoid a tumble. Luckily, Smith steadied me with a firm grip on my bicep and we continued on behind McElroy.

The narrow street led us through the cluster of houses and McElroy hurried towards a gray stone wall, running horizontally on the opposite side of a small lane. The stone wall stood in two separate heights. The section of wall to our right was around head height but the section to our left stood roughly at waist height. A tall, rusting corrugated fence stood behind the wall and a row of spiked metal railings stood atop of the lower section of the stone wall. The whole perimeter looked impenetrable and I wondered how the hell we were going to get inside the grounds. We came to a halt at the edge of the wall and I took a quick glance up and down the lane. I saw packs of undead staggering around at each end of the track and behind us, roaming amongst the small front gardens of the houses.  

McElroy reached upward and grabbed hold of the rusting metal railings. He pulled himself up so he stood on top of the lower section of wall then vaulted over the railings with the agility of a gazelle. The gap between the railings and the corrugated fence can’t have been more than twelve inches wide but McElroy slotted effortlessly between the two obstacles. He pushed on a loose section of the corrugated fence, generating a gap big enough to fit through. After poking his head around the corrugated section of fence, McElroy turned back to us and nodded.

“All clear,” he whispered, waving us forward. McElroy was obviously familiar with the route as he knew how to easily gain access to the courthouse grounds.

Hannigen and Smith shouldered their rifles and all three of us reached up for the railings. I hauled myself upwards, using the stone wall as leverage beneath my feet. Hannigen grunted as he tried to lift his heavy frame up the railings. Smith followed McElroy, easily maneuvering himself between the two barriers. I knew Smith was incredibly strong and agile for his age. My feet slipped on the remaining snow and clumps of long damp grass sprouting out from beneath the foot of the railings. I pulled myself straight upward, gripping the railings and standing on top of the lower section of wall.

“Come on, Wilde,” Smith hissed. “Get over the damn fence.”

Hannigen grunted louder and he seemed to be floundering at the first hurdle. 

I took another glance up and down the lane. Several zombies shuffled in our direction and a few others began to follow. More undead approached the lane from the housing estate. I wasn’t sure if they had seen us or were simply aimlessly ambling in different tracks. Either way, we’d have to negotiate the hurdles or we’d soon be surrounded and stuck on the wrong side of the fence.

Chapter Sixty

“Catch yourself on, Hannigen and get over this feckin’ railing, you great fat lump,” McElroy growled. “There are dead people coming out from all over the place.”

“I’m damn well trying,” Hannigen grunted.

I scrabbled over the railings and caught my jacket on one of the metal spikes. Smith dragged me over the top of the railings and I heard my jacket rip. I was never the most agile of people but I’d never been particularly heavy, a factor of genetics that on occasions had helped me survive through the apocalypse. Smith steadied me as I stumbled onto the ground between the railings and the corrugated fence. 

Hannigen managed to haul himself up the side of the wall as the undead approached from all directions. They had definitely spotted us, making excited snorting and hissing noises. The problem we now faced was our exit route would be cut off if we had to make a hasty retreat using the same path. The undead would gather around where they’d last seen living humans and wait in case we returned. They had no sense of time and would hang around in one spot until something else attracted their attention.

“Don’t use your firearms unless it’s a last resort,” McElroy said to Smith and I. “The bastards will hear us for miles around if we start shooting,. The last thing we want is a Russian patrol on our asses.”

“Got it,” Smith muttered, speaking for the both of us.

Hannigen was taking far too long maneuvering over the railings. Smith and McElroy grabbed hold of the back of his jacket and pulled him over the top of the spikes on top of the railings. Smith freed up his rifle sling that snagged around the metal spikes. Hannigen toppled head first into the gap between the fences and sprawled in an ungainly heap on the ground. Smith and McElroy hauled him upright and he stood for a few seconds, gasping heavily while holding the railing tops.

“Jesus, Hannigen,” McElroy sighed. “I think you need to lose a few pounds, man.”

“The way things are going we’ll all starve to death in a couple of week’s time anyhow,” Hannigen panted.

“That’s why we’re on this little jaunt, in case it had escaped your tiny mind,” McElroy taunted.

I got the impression that McElroy and Hannigen weren’t exactly the best of friends.

“Okay, guys, let’s just get going shall we,” Smith interrupted, pointing to the oncoming tide of undead. “I know those zombies can’t climb fences but we don’t want to be hanging around here too long or we might meet some of their pals around the courthouse, if they hear all the damn noise.”

“Aye, you’re right, Smith,” McElroy muttered, nodding his head. “Come on; let’s get going for a wee dander. Watch out for the strands of barbed wire.” He pushed on the loose corrugated panel and slipped through the gap.

We maneuvered ourselves, stepping sideways along the narrow space between the fences and followed McElroy through the opening beside the corrugated sheet. Streaks of melting snow lay across a wide area to the rear of the courthouse. The blacktop surface beneath the snow glistened wet in the sunlight. I guessed the area was used for a parking lot when the courthouse was fully operational, however long ago that was.

McElroy trod cautiously across the parking lot, hunched over his AK47 rifle towards the main building. I gazed over the courthouse as we followed in McElroy’s footsteps. The old building was huge and imposing and looked as though it had been derelict for a long time. Shrubs and grass sprouted from the guttering and patches of green algae and ivy clung to the cream colored block walls. Orange streaks from rusty water smeared the outer walls over places where the gutters leaked. The windows on both the two floors were covered with rusting, black metal boards and I noticed a balcony, surrounded by decorative stone balustrade running along the side of the upper level. Tall windows stood behind the balcony and the stone frames were blackened by fire at the top and sides. Some of the boards covering the windows on the upper level had fallen away, revealing a dark interior beyond. At some angles, I saw daylight through the upper windows where the roof had either disintegrated or been burned away by the fire.  

“How old is this place?” I asked in a whisper.

“I think it was built in about 1850, something like that,” McElroy muttered. “Hasn’t been used since the 1990’s though and some bright spark tried to burn the place to the ground a few years ago, so they did.”

“Was it somebody who was convicted here once?” I asked.

McElroy shrugged. “Who knows? It doesn’t really matter anymore. You know, it’s quite ironic really. This courthouse was derelict long before the outbreak of the disease and here it is still standing, while the rest of Ulster is in virtual tatters.”

“Zombie, nine-o’clock,” Smith hissed.

We instinctively spun to our left and saw a weasel faced, skinny guy with shoulder length hair lurking beside the fence at the side of the courthouse. He opened his mouth and growled at us before padding across the parking lot in our direction.

Smith shouldered his Armalite rifle and aimed down the barrel. “You want me to take him out?” he asked McElroy.