The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone (16 page)

“You better show me where to put the keys, Tippy,” he called from the doorway.

Tippy shuffled after him with her hands raised by her sides and her considerable backside quivering from side to side.

“Thanks guys,” I sighed. “Yes, I’m good. Don’t worry about me.”

I lay on the deck on my back staring into the clear, blue sky, watching the occasional gull swoop overhead for a few seconds before I heard the engines whine into life and the motor chug from the stern. The yacht lurched forward and creaked against the floating dock as we pulled forward.

I closed my eyes and tried to forget about my dry, parched throat for a minute. We were back on track but had taken a fuck of a long time doing it. Batfish could be miles away by now, or worse…she could be dead.

Sitting forward, I tried to shake that last thought from my mind. I stood up and joined Tippy and Smith in the control room. They both stared out of the windshield, Tippy pointing the route we needed to follow to get out of the canal and back onto the Mississippi river. I grabbed a bottle of water from the countertop and glugged the whole contents.  

“You got a shower onboard, Tippy?” I bleated, looking like a drowned rat.

Tippy nodded and led me to the washroom below deck. I thanked her and took a long shower, enjoying the refreshing sensation of clean, warm water on my skin and the cleansing scent of the shower gel.

I dressed back into my camp sailor’s outfit and bundled Simey’s sweaty clothes into a ball. I tossed the sweat soiled shorts and T-shirt over the side when I crossed the deck to the control room.

“You’re looking a bit more chipper,” Smith said, as I entered the cabin.

“I feel a lot better now,” I sighed. “At least I can feel my arms again. How far are we from the river?” I picked up another bottle of water and took a few sips.

“We’ve got to take a few more bends then we should be back on the old Miss P herself.” Smith nodded towards the windshield.

“Where’s Tippy?”

“She went to fix us something to eat.”

I stood next to Smith and recounted the exploits of my dinghy expedition, omitting the parts about the conversations I had with my other self. He nodded and grinned throughout my slightly exaggerated tale.

“I know,” he said. “I was watching you the whole time.”

Tippy came into the cabin carrying a big plate piled high with different varieties of sandwiches. Her eyes were red and puffy and it was obvious she had been crying over the death of her beloved Simey, once again.

The situation would take her some time to get used to. I knew that overwhelming feeling of despair and inner loneliness. At least I still had Spot and Smith for company, even though we’d had our ups and downs.

We thanked her and tucked into the sandwiches. Most of the fillings had come from the inside of a can. No more fresh produce in this new day and age.

“I make my own bread,” she sniffed. “Hope you like it.”

I nodded and mumbled a little too enthusiastically to be credible. I was trying to cheer her up a bit and take her mind off the loss of her husband for a while. She wasn’t as emotionally numb as we were. Not yet anyway. Smith had probably always felt that way but it had taken me some time to acclimatize.

“Did you ever happen to come across a small, Navy boat when you were moored up in the marina, Tippy?” Smith asked.

Tippy munched on a tuna sandwich and thought for a second. “Oh, yes,” she said, after swallowing her mouthful. “We saw them a couple of weeks ago, up river somewhere. They were unloading some cargo onto a jetty by the old slaughterhouse. Rough looking guys, gave us the evils when we went by. I didn’t like the look of them and Simey told me to hide below deck until we were out of sight.”

Smith flashed me a quick glance and I noticed his eyes turn into a steely glare.

“Can you remember where you saw the boat?”

“Ah, yeah, it’s only a few miles up river near the town where we used to get our supplies. Why? Are they friends of yours?”

I laughed, Smith nodded and audibly ground his teeth. I knew the rage was filling within him like red water. No guesses for where we were headed next. I didn’t like the mention of a slaughterhouse. The word conjured images of carnage, slayings, massacres and butchery in my mind.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tippy asked us several questions as the yacht motored towards the river. Who were we? Who were the men on the Navy boat? Where we’d come from and was the rest of the world in as bad state? I answered her queries and asked a few of my own, trying to keep the conversation flowing. I told Tippy the guys on the Navy boat hadn’t paid us for some supplies and didn’t know whether she believed me or not by her bemused expression. Smith remained silent throughout our Q and A session. He gripped the wheel and stared out the windshield with a look of grim determination on his face.

The yacht cut through the waterway beneath a viaduct, where the road had come to a dead end while we were riding the scooter. The canal lock gates stood a few hundred yards further to the east. Thankfully, the gates were open allowing us access onto the river.

Smith steered to port, heading north once we were through the lock gates and back onto the river expanse. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad to leave the marina behind us.

We munched on the sandwiches while the yacht chugged up river. We drifted by the north side of the town on the bank to our left. The town was small but the sparse streets were cluttered with old, abandoned cars and gangs of zombies lurching around the roads and front gardens of the small houses.

“Looks rough out there,” I murmured. “Have you seen anymore non infected people other than those guys in the Navy boat?”

“A few,” Tippy answered. “Not so many lately but in the early days, people would come and go. They stopped by the marina when there wasn’t so many of those horrible things hanging around the canal.”

Tippy began rattling off all the names of people her and Simey had met at the marina. She went into detail about where they were from and where they were headed. ‘
I’ll bet most of the poor bastards are dead or walking corpses by now,’
I heard the cynical part of me say inside my head.

She talked constantly for around twenty minutes, hardly pausing for breath. I didn’t know if it was nervous tension, her way of grieving or Tippy always suffered from verbal diarrhea.

Smith remained silent throughout Tippy’s in depth characterizing and tales of where she and Simey spent their vacations. I grinned inanely and nodded between the rare interludes during her one way conversation.

Tippy and I suddenly staggered to our left as Smith turned the yacht hard to starboard. Tippy grabbed my arm to stop her from falling over. Her considerable weight caused me to stumble back into the cabin wall.

“What’s going on?” I called to Smith. “Why are we turning around?”

“Just copped that fucking Navy boat, moored up around a half mile up river,” he growled, spinning the wheel.

“Which side?” I asked, craning my neck around and looking out the back window.

“Left side as you go up river.”

“I didn’t see it.”

“You weren’t looking.”

“Yeah, I think it was around here we saw them last time,” Tippy said, gazing out the side window.

“Is that big, ugly metal shack up on the bank the slaughterhouse?” Smith asked Tippy.

“I think that’s what Simey told me,” she bleated.

We followed a slight bend and Smith swung the yacht around in a sweeping arc so we were heading up river once again.

“Okay, Wilde, we’ll get this tub as close as we can to the river bank and then we’ll carry out a covert op on that fucking slaughterhouse,” Smith hissed.

“What will I be doing?” Tippy asked.

“You’ll be staying right here to keep an eye on the yacht.”

“Oh…okay,” Tippy stammered.

Smith had a mean look on his face and a malevolent glint in his eyes. I wondered what underhanded plans were entailed in his ‘
covert op
.’

“Have you got any more weapons of any kind onboard?” I asked Tippy.

She looked blank as her mind fogged with a question she had probably never been asked.

“We didn’t have much in the way of weapons, only Simey’s gun.”

“You said earlier he was always tinkering with the engine?” Smith asked, lowering the speed and guiding the yacht towards the river bank.

“That’s right.” Tippy nodded, her double chin quivering.

“So he had a tool box, right?”

She nodded again. “It’s in the locker next to where we kept the dinghy.”

“Cool,” Smith murmured.

I wondered what the hell Smith wanted with a tool box and then realized most implements used for mechanical maintenance tended to be heavy or sharp. Many killings were carried out with tool box items, when the world was normal.

Smith dropped the anchor around twenty yards from the bank, under the shadow of a clump of tall trees. The yacht was positioned behind the crook of the river bend, out of sight of the Navy boat.

“They won’t see us unless they take off before we get there,” Smith said, turning off the engine. “We’ll use that dinghy to get to the river bank.”

I nodded and followed him out onto the deck.

Smith handed Tippy the revolver. “You better keep this.”

“Don’t you need it? Those men might be dangerous.” Her eyes were wide with concern.

“I’m sure they are but we’ll be fine. Fire one shot into the air if you have any trouble and we’ll be right back.”

I knew by Tippy’s nervous expression that she didn’t want to be left alone. I hadn’t told her about the guys on the boat kidnapping Batfish, as I didn’t want to scare her even more. The poor woman was an emotional train wreck and I didn’t want to tip her over the edge.

“Which locker is the tool kit in, again?” Smith asked.

Tippy pointed to the metal box to the left of where the dinghy was stowed. Smith opened the locker and took out a tool belt. He rifled through Simey tools and slipped a claw hammer, a box cutter knife, a big chisel and a pry bar into the loops in the tool belt.

“Silent weapons,” he whispered to himself.

“Anything I can use?” I asked.

Smith handed me the hatchet then pointed to the locker. “Help yourself.”

Nothing of any weaponry use jumped out at me from the tool box. I took a long screwdriver and a pair of long nose pliers but fuck knew what I was going to do with those damn things.

Smith slung the dinghy over the side and it flopped on its bottom onto the river surface. I slid the hatchet handle down my belt and put the screwdriver and pliers in my cargo pants side pockets.

“Let’s go,” Smith said.

“Please, don’t be too long,” Tippy pleaded, holding back more tears.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Smith said, trying his best to sound comforting.

Smith lowered himself down the side of the yacht, hung for a moment on the edge then dropped into the dinghy. I tossed him the remaining oar when he was in a sitting position. I flashed Tippy a smile before I followed Smith over the side and into the dinghy.

I untied the thin rope around the handle and Smith began to paddle the raft between the tall, sprouting reeds by the river bank. I hoped Tippy would be safe while we were away. She seemed a nice, genuine lady. Then the thought hit me like a boxer’s upper cut. What would she do if we didn’t come back? Smith and I might be fast approaching our own mortality.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Some kind of exotic, green colored bird cawed at Smith and me as I secured the dinghy to a tree trunk on the river bank. The bird bobbed up and down on its branch, its beak wide open and emitting a shrill, almost barking noise as if it was warning us to keep away. I pushed thoughts of foreboding omens out of my mind as I watched the creature shit down the side of the tree bark.

The reeds and long grass were alive with chirping insects and flies buzzed intently around us. I followed Smith up the sloping bank onto a narrow mud path between overgrown crab grass and white flowering weeds.

“Let’s keep out of sight of those goons,” Smith murmured. “They’ve probably posted sentries all around the slaughterhouse but they’ll only be looking out for zombies.”

I nodded and wondered what the hell we were getting ourselves into. It was two relatively unarmed guys against a well fortified army. Surprise was our best weapon but if we were discovered, we’d be either shot on sight or maybe forced into prostitution ourselves. Obviously there was still a market for the age old profession, no matter what gender you were.

Smith trod carefully and slowly up the bank. I followed a couple of paces behind and to his right. We didn’t move all the way up to the top of the river bank, instead using the clusters of trees as cover. The midday air was humid and sweat trickled down my forehead even though we walked under the shade of the trees.

We’d walked for around twenty minutes when Smith flapped his hand up and down and crouched into the long grass. I followed suit, if not knowing exactly why. Smith forked the fingers of his right hand to his eyes then pointed to a spot further down the slope.

I scanned the area where Smith pointed and noticed a scruffy guy taking a piss against a tree trunk. He wore a cut off, sleeveless denim jacket and ripped denim pants and a semi-automatic rifle was slung over his right shoulder. I didn’t recognize the guy as one of the boat men we’d seen further down river but he had that similar look of a shit kicker about him.

The guy finished his piss, zipped up and lit a cigarette. He looked bored and uninterested and probably hadn’t had to shoot any undead for a while. Smith slowly shimmied a little closer to me through the long grass. The guy leaned his back against the tree trunk and blew out smoke as he stared up into the tree tops.

“We must be close to the slaughterhouse,” Smith whispered. “We’ll take this jerk out and move a little closer.”