The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone (5 page)

“What do you want from me, man?” Long Hair wailed.

I moved to one of the upper deck lockers and pulled out a tarpaulin sheet. Long Hair kept wailing and rolling on the deck. Whatever answers Smith needed, he was going to have to hurry. The guy would either bleed to death or the zombies would soon smell the fresh blood and come sniffing around. I covered Sherman with the tarpaulin sheet and wrapped it under his body. We didn’t have time to give him a decent burial and I’d have to dispose of his body in the river. I slid some weighted blocks inside the tarpaulin sheet, enough to sink the body to the bottom of the river.

The boat lurched to the side facing the river, where the bullet holes had pierced the hull. Our boat was rapidly sinking and we didn’t have much time left onboard. I lifted the tarpaulin by the corners and struggled with the weight of Sherman’s body and the heavy blocks. Smith came forward to help but must have realized I wanted to do this on my own. I lowered the tarpaulin over the side and released it into the water. I watched the blue tarp sink and disappear from view.

“Goodbye Sherman, good luck in the afterlife, boy,” I whispered.

Low moans and screeching from the shore caused me to spin around from the river. Several zombies approached the jetty, shuffling along in groups of twos and threes.

“Smith, they’re coming,” I said.

Smith twisted his head and looked at the advancing undead. He turned back to Long Hair. 

“Better get talking, laughing boy.”

Chapter Six

I rushed into the control cabin to see if we could salvage anything from the sinking boat. All the weapons and ammunition were gone along with Smith’s money stash and maps.

“Shit,” I spat and moved quickly back out onto the upper deck. “Everything’s gone, Smith,” I said.

“Try below deck, see if there’s anything left down there.”

I nodded and opened the lower deck cabin door. The cabin was already under a few feet of water. All our personal belongings were gone along with the whole supply of canned food. I reached under the water to the booze locker and fished out two bottles of bourbon and a sealed pack of 200 cigarettes. Nothing was left inside our cabin. Six months worth of accumulation had been snatched away in a couple of minutes. I dumped the smokes and booze into an old, ripped cloth bag that Batfish was going to throw out and moved quickly back to the upper deck.

“It’s all gone, Smith,” I moaned. “Our clothes, food, everything’s gone. I managed to salvage some smokes and two bottles of bourbon.”

Smith nodded. He stood with his foot on Long Hair’s chest.

“Toss me a pack of smokes, will you?”

I opened the carton and tossed a pack to Smith. I opened a packet myself and fished one out. Smith lit his up and I realized I’d lost my lighter too. I moved closer to Smith to light my cigarette.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

I turned back to the shore to check how close the gathering crowd of zombies was and saw they were negotiating the bank down to the marina jetty.

“We should get going, Smith. We’ll have to take another boat or something.”

“Okay, soon. I’m still getting info from this prick.” He pushed down hard with his foot on Long Hair’s chest.

Long Hair whined and tears welled in his eyes.

“Better tell me what I want to know otherwise you’ll be zombie food.” Smith pointed to the shore.

“I told you…we’re just a band of guys trying to stay alive,” Long Hair wailed.

“Why did you rob us, kill our dogs and take one of us?” Smith screamed.

“We saw you turn into the marina. We’ve got small base camps along the river,” Long Hair gabbled. His eyes flicked between the approaching zombies and Smith. “We took the guns, the money and the food because that’s what everyone needs, right? You’d have done the same, right?” Long Hair was trying to reason with us.

“No, buddy. We wouldn’t have robbed you.” Smith shook his head. “There’s room left on this planet for everyone. It’s hard enough to stay alive with what you’ve got. But when some asshole robs you and takes everything you got, well…some kind of retribution is justified in my book.”

“If you let me live, I’ll see if I can get some of your guns back,” Long Hair stammered.

“I couldn’t give a rat’s fuck about the guns,” Smith laughed. “There are thousands of guns out there that you don’t have to pay for. We can always get more guns but we can’t get one of our crew back. Where have you taken her?”

Long Hair was gasping for air and nearly hyperventilating. I was worried the zombies were getting too close for comfort. Roughly a dozen shuffled onto the wooden jetty, around thirty yards from our boat.

“Talk, motherfucker! We don’t have much time,” Smith hissed and ground the toe of his boot into Long Hair’s knee wound.

Long Hair wailed in pain. “Okay…well, everything has a saleable value, right? Women are no different. There’s a lack of young women still left alive and there’s a market for them.”

“Forced prostitution,” Smith growled. “You really are a piece of shit. Now, for the last time, where is she?”

“They probably took her up to Port Sulphur or Pointe a La Hache, further up the river.”

“How many guys in your crew?”

“I don’t know, man. People come and go. Twenty, maybe thirty?”

I glanced nervously towards the staggering zombies, drawing ever closer.

“Smith, we really ought to be going.”

“Okay, let’s go,” he said.

“What about him?” I asked, pointing to Long Hair.

“Fuck him,” Smith growled.

“Hey, you can’t just leave me here to die,” Long Hair wailed. “You have to help me. We’re all survivors, right? We have to stick together.”

We turned and left Long Hair lying on the sinking boat deck. His wailing receded into the distance as we jogged along the jetty. We moved in the opposite direction to the approaching zombies and looped around back to the shore on the far side of the bay.

“What now?” I asked.

“We find another boat and try and get Batfish back.”

I nodded but a shrill barking in the distance caused me to spin back the way we had come across the jetty. I knew it was Spot’s bark.

“Spot! He’s still alive,” I shrieked.

A few zombies clambered onboard our old, sinking boat and we heard Long Hair screaming and swearing as the undead closed in on him.

“We should have just shot him,” I mumbled. “I’m going back to get Spot.”

Smith nodded. “Come on then, tough guy,” he sighed.

We drew our guns and jogged back across the jetty. The zombies surrounded Long Hair and were too busy feasting and gorging on fresh meat to notice us as we quickly moved by our old boat. The upper deck was only slightly above the waterline and soon the whole boat would be totally flooded.

I waited until we were back on the opposite side of the bank before I called the little Jack Russell.

“Spot? Here boy, where are you?”

I heard a muffled yelp and a shrill bark from somewhere near the building we’d previously been inside. A disheveled body lay beside an upturned canoe some twenty yards from where we stood. I didn’t remember seeing the body before. The body twitched and I saw it was trying to grab something underneath the canoe.

“There.” I pointed to the canoe.

I rushed forward towards the canoe with my Glock at the ready. The big, male zombie lay on his side reaching under the narrow boat with his right hand. The ghoul turned his head and growled at me as I approached. One eye was missing and a stream of congealed blood was plastered across his face. An array of bite marks peppered the neck and cheeks. The ghoul tried to crawl to his feet but I was in no mood to fuck around. I pointed the Glock muzzle at the zombie’s head and fired once. Stale blood and brain matter splattered across the hull of the upturned canoe and the undead guy keeled over backwards.

Smith tipped the canoe over and Spot lay trembling underneath. He was cowering, soaking wet and shivering. My heart sank at the sight of the poor little fellow but at least he was still alive. I bent down and scooped him up. His tail wagged slightly but he looked confused and slightly wary. I gave him a quick once over to check he wasn’t bitten or shot. No apparent injuries were visible but he seemed pretty shaken up.

Smith stroked the little dog’s head as he sat in my arms. Even a tough guy like Smith was glad to see Spot was still alive and kicking.

I looked at the boats moored around the marina and didn’t hold out much hope of a quick getaway. Most of the vessels were wrecked and halfway under the water.  

“How the hell are we going to get away from here?” 

Smith’s steely gray eyes scanned the marina.

“We need something light and fast,” he mumbled. “How about that?” He pointed to an old style, speed boat that looked like it hadn’t been used since the 1960’s.

“You serious?”

“Let’s see if we can get the bastard working.”

I hoped Smith was right about the boat. The zombies on the jetty had finished their feeding frenzy and the undead we’d left in the attic room were slowly filtering out of the workshop. Both groups of ghouls were taking an interest in us and heading our way.

Chapter Seven

Smith and I hurried over to the old fashioned speed boat. I held Spot in my arms and hoped he was going to be okay. The hefty kick he’d received might have inflicted some internal damage to his body.

We climbed aboard the fiber glass vessel and I placed Spot down in the corner of the interior compartment. The boat bobbed from side to side as we clambered to the control panel. I hoped Smith didn’t think the boat was going to be a long term solution to our future plans. The compartment stunk of stale fish and a few inches of water covered the interior deck. I guessed the boat had been stored in a shed for a considerable number of years and someone had renovated it before the zombie epidemic had taken hold of the world.

Smith primed the engine and tried the key that was luckily still in the ignition. The engine whined and turned over but didn’t start. Smith moved to the back of the boat and fiddled with the engine.

I glanced along the jetty and saw several zombies shambling along the wooden planks towards us. I looked to the opposite side of the landing stage and noticed a few zombies gathering on the shore. If we didn’t get going soon, we were going to be cut off from the shore and have to take our chances swimming or drifting on the river.

“Is this piece of shit going to start, Smith?”

“I fucking hope so. You better slip that rope from the jetty.”

I clambered back onto the white, wooden planks and unhooked the rope from the bollard securing the speed boat to the jetty. The leading zombie, with a gray face and chunks missing from his neck, shuffled along the quayside. He wailed and held his arms out in anticipation of grabbing me, roughly twenty feet to my left. The gathering mass of undead on the shore slowly plodded onto the jetty. I caught sight of a long boat hook lying on the wooden planks. I picked it up and held it out in front of me like a knight’s lance. The lead zombie scowled and hissed his objection at my attempts at self preservation.

“How are we doing, Smith?” I called to the boat. “I don’t know how long I can keep these things off us.”

The leading zombie advanced forward so I prodded his chest with the boat hook. He opened his mouth wide and growled like a sick dog. I swung the boat hook from left to right in an arc that caught the leading zombie around the neck. He lurched sideways and toppled from the jetty into the river.

The speed boat engine roared into life a few seconds after the zombie splashed into the water.

“Got it!” Smith yelled. “Come on, Wilde. Hop onboard.”

The speed boat had drifted slightly from the jetty since I slipped the rope. I couldn’t reach the boat’s side to climb aboard. The zombies drew closer, ten feet away. I swiped the boat hook from side to side, hoping to stop their advance. Smith steered the boat forward and bumped into the jetty. I quickly clambered onboard still clutching onto the boat hook. Smith turned the wheel hard to starboard and gunned the engine. The boat swerved away from the jetty and towards the center of the marina. Several zombies tumbled from the jetty into the river in a vain attempt to give chase.

I breathed a sigh of relief and reached for my pack of smokes. I offered Smith one and he lit both our cigarettes. He steered the boat out of the marina and back onto the main river route. What a fuck up today had been. We’d lost two of our party, one permanently and one MIA. I just hoped we could get Batfish back and she hadn’t come to any harm. Long Hair and his gang of desperados didn’t look like the types to respect women, or anyone for that matter.

We’d moored up in our old boat with practically everything we needed. Now, we were without our boat, without two of our party, without food or ammunition and stuck in a shitty little speed boat.

I took out my Glock and ejected the magazine. Some rounds were still visible but I reckoned I had about ten shots left, maximum, maybe less.

“Where are we going now?” I asked.

“We’re going to hunt for the bastards who took Batfish. We’re going to get her back before we do anything else,” Smith rumbled.

I pitied the guys who took her if Smith got hold of them. I’d witnessed Smith’s remorseless redemption at first hand when he was pissed off. He’d do his best to rescue Batfish by whatever means necessary. I just hoped we were going to live through yet another monumental mission, with the odds heavily stacked against us.

Chapter Eight

Smith steered the speed boat back out onto the main expanse of the Mississippi River. He gunned the engine and the water foamed in our wake. He was in a hurry and I could tell by his face he meant business.

“You like Johnny Cash, Wilde Man?”