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

“You sure you know where we’re going, Jimmy?” I asked as we came to a halt at the end of another road.

Jimmy glanced around. “I’m a little confused right now but if we keep heading this way, we should come to the route we want.”

“We don’t have a great deal of time to fuck around, Jimmy,” Smith said. “Those guys aren’t going to be thrown off our scent forever. They have a patrol vehicle, don’t forget. You certain we’re going the right way?”

Jimmy nodded and looked slightly offended. “Aye, I’m sure. I may not be an A-Z of Glasgow but I roughly know my way around each part of the city.”

Smith shrugged. “Okay, Jimmy. It’s your call. You’re the tour guide of this little excursion.”

“Tour guide? Is that what I am?” Jimmy smiled and seemed to be boosted by Smith’s interpretation of him.

Smith grinned. “Oh, absolutely, kid. You’re totally
Grizzly Adams
for this outing.”

Jimmy sniggered and looked to the ground, obviously embarrassed. I wasn’t sure if he’d even heard of old
Grizzly
.   

“Look, guys,” Batfish sighed. “Can we please keep moving? We’re just asking for trouble by hanging on these street corners out in the open.”

I had to agree. We had spent too much time walking around the once prestigious neighborhood of Bellahouston without gaining any real ground on the hostile residents. Jimmy waved us forward and we started to move again in a northerly direction. We stopped dead in our tracks when we heard the crack of gunfire echo between the houses along the street.

Chapter Seven

“Where the hell did that shot come from?” Wingate gasped.

Smith glanced up and down the road. “I can’t tell and I’m not sure who or what they were shooting at. It’s possible the shooter could be aiming at us or somebody else but I don’t think we should hang out to find out for sure.”

“No,” I agreed, nervously looking around the darkened windows of the surrounding houses. “That shooter could be any old place.”

We took a left turn along the adjoining side road, with Jimmy leading. I half expected a bullet to hit me in the back at any moment. The sound of a whining engine from somewhere behind the row of houses to my left caused me to stop walking. The others also stopped and turned towards me.

“Hear that?” I whispered, pointing in the direction of the mechanical noise.

“Yeah, I hear it,” Smith said.

Batfish glanced around the street. “Why don’t we hide out in one of these houses until they pass by?”

Nobody had time to answer her question. A low moaning from a front garden to our left caused all our heads to turn in the direction of the sound. Snow fell from the branches of a low growing bush that shook and rustled as a figure staggered from behind the foliage. The animated body of an elderly, gray haired man lurched through the snow, approaching the garden’s front gate. I instinctively raised my M-9 handgun and Cordoba and Jimmy also brought their firearms to the ready. The old ghoul had obviously long since departed his previous life. The skin on his face peeled away in hanging gray strips and deep red and purple rings surrounded his dark eye sockets. The remains of a beige colored suit hung from his body with rips and tears revealing a multitude of bite wounds amongst the partially rotting flesh.  

“Don’t shoot,” Smith barked. “Nothing carries down a street more than the sound of gunfire. Those goons in the vehicle will certainly hear us if we fire on this guy.”

“I thought those guys in the park said they’d cleared this area of zombies,” I whispered.

“What they probably meant was they’d cleared most of the zombies out the zone,” Smith said. “You can be sure there’s more than a few of them left rattling around inside some of these houses and properties.” He took a sideways glance at Batfish. “That’s why we can’t risk hiding out around here while these guys are looking for us.”

The old ghoul rattled the waist high garden gate, trying to break free of the grounds. He hissed and bared his brown teeth, with his murderous intent directed at me. My finger twitched on the trigger of my handgun but I restrained myself from firing a round into the revolting creature’s skull. I glanced beyond the zombie’s shoulder and saw the front door of the house standing wide open. Maybe he’d turned a while ago and only just managed to open the door by accident. Zombies weren’t capable of rational, logical thought or of operating anything basically mechanical. This old guy had probably been trying to break out of his former home for a long time and somehow engaged the door latch.

“Don’t fire, Wilde Man,” Smith reiterated. “I’ve got just the thing to silence this ugly fuck.” He slung his rifle over his shoulder and slowly drew the machete from his belt loop.

I lowered my firearm and took a couple of steps backward. Smith marched towards the garden gate, weighing up the machete in his right hand. He drew back the weapon then swung it forward in a round-house arc. The sharp machete blade sliced through rotting flesh, sinew and bone in a fraction of a second. The old zombie’s head rolled sideways and tumbled into the snow on the ground. Brown blood oozed over the standing torso from the remaining stump of the ghoul’s neck, before the body slumped in a heap, leaning forwards against the garden gate.

“Wow! See that fucking head come off, man?” Jimmy gasped. “That was fucking awesome, Smith.”

Smith shrugged and wiped the bloodied machete blade clean in the snow. “Good for a silent kill,” he muttered, replacing the machete into his belt.

The rumble of the vehicle engine seemed to grow louder and sounded as though it was heading our way. We were stuck out in the open with no cover.

“They’re coming,” Jimmy wailed, pointing down the street. “We need to hide.”

“They’re probably just randomly sweeping the streets looking for us,” Smith said. “They may not even come down this way.”

“Do you want to take that chance, Smith?” I asked, eyeing the open front door of the house in front of us. “What if we duck inside this place for a while until they pass?” I nodded towards the property. “It’s already opened up. A readymade hidey-hole.”

Smith noticed the open door. I knew by his facial expression, he was reluctant to enter the house but our options were extremely limited. “Okay, come on, let’s move real quick,” he said.

I hurried forward and unlatched the garden gate. The old guy’s headless torso sagged backwards as I shoved at the metal railings. The others followed me through the entrance. Smith dragged the zombie’s body by the ankles a few feet further into the garden and dumped it behind the unkempt hedge. He turned and unceremoniously kicked the severed head across the garden.

“Those guys in the vehicle might start asking questions if they see a freshly slain zombie,” Smith explained as he followed us up the garden path.

Cordoba entered the property first with Wingate and Batfish, then Jimmy following after her.

“Keep a watch out for any more zombies inside the house,” I whispered, as Smith and I bundled across the threshold into the small, glass covered porch.

Smith turned and pushed the front door closed. Cordoba led the way from the porch, through an internal door into a wide, shaded hallway. The growling vehicle engine grew louder. Smith and I ducked down but still kept a watch on the street, peeking through the clear glass panels in the front door.

Cordoba, Wingate, Batfish and Jimmy pressed on further into the hallway but Smith and I remained in position, keeping our vigil at the front door. A black Range Rover SUV slowly crawled along the street outside, passing the front of the house from right to left. Grim, pale faces stared out from the vehicle’s side windows, intently sweeping the streets for any signs of movement. I recognized one of the guys in the back seat. He was the hostile short, squat man with the scarred face, we’d encountered the previous day in Bellahouston Park. I thought at the time he looked like a ruthless little shit and wouldn’t bat an eyelid when shooting somebody in cold blood. These were the kind of guys who’d probably embraced the apocalyptic lifestyle and reveled in slaughtering the undead and any living person who stood in their way.

The Range Rover drove by the front of the house and carried on up the street.

“Shit, they’re going in the direction we need to follow,” I whispered to Smith.

“They won’t hang around long,” Smith said. “They’ll head on back to the park or someplace else if they didn’t see nothing.”

“Have they gone?” Wingate asked from the shadows of the hallway behind us.

“Yeah, they’ve ridden off into the sunset,” Smith confirmed. “We’ll give it a few minutes for them to make tracks and then we’ll scoot.”

“Wait, Smith,” I whispered when I heard an engine revving. “It sounds like they’re coming back this way.”

Chapter Eight

“Maybe they’re just turning around,” Smith suggested.

“Will you keep quiet,” Wingate scolded from the shadows.

I bit my bottom lip in anguish as I heard the Range Rover approaching. Tires crunched in the snow when the vehicle came into view. The brakes squealed slightly as the SUV halted directly outside the house.

“Shit, they know we’re here,” I whispered.

“Stay cool,” Smith muttered. “They can’t have seen us from way back behind those houses. Sit tight and they’ll soon drive away again.”

The Range Rover interior was filled with live bodies, all with determined, mean expressions on their faces. Two guys occupied the front seats and three sat in the back. They all had stone cold eyes of deranged and detached killers. The squat guy in the passenger seat stared intently at the front gate and I studied the area he was looking at. A wide smear of the old zombie’s diseased blood looked as though it had been brushed into the snow, in a curving sweep towards the low standing hedge.

“The blood,” I growled. “They’ve seen the fucking blood.”

A sudden rush of panic washed over me. I gripped the M-9 in my hand and watched the five men exit the Range Rover. Three of them wore thick puffer jackets and the other two wore military style combat clothing, including the scar faced squat guy. All the hostiles carried handguns and looked pretty much pissed off with the world. They stood staring at the blood smear for a few seconds then trod cautiously into the front garden.

One of the guys, wearing a thick black bobble hat and a black puffer jacket shouted to his comrades when he noticed the headless zombie lying behind the hedge. The second guy in the combats pointed to the detached head on the opposite side of the garden. They muttered amongst themselves for a few seconds then they all turned to study the front of the house.

“Oh, my god,” I whispered. “They’re going to come in here, aren’t they?”

“Relax,” Smith murmured. “We still got the element of surprise. They don’t know for sure that we’re inside here.”

“You think?” I hissed.

Scar Face muttered something to the rest of his small gang and two big guys wearing the puffer jackets nodded and moved from the front garden around the side of the house.

“They’re going to come on in around the back,” Smith whispered.

I felt my heart hammering in my chest and for one awful moment I thought Scar Face would hear my coronary pump from outside. Smith tapped my shoulder and ushered me to move backward. We slowly retreated from the front door, moving backwards but keeping Scar Face and his remaining two cronies in our sight. They fanned out across the front garden, with Scar Face in the center, slowly approaching the house.

I took a quick glance behind me and saw Batfish and Wingate huddled in the hallway. I waved them backwards, indicating for them to move further into the shadows.

Scar Face loomed closer to the front door and the other guy to his right, also dressed in combats peered through the front window to our left. The third guy in the black bobble hat drew closer to the front window to our right. He cupped his hands over the glass pane to avert the sun’s glare and studied the room inside. I sincerely hoped Jimmy or Cordoba hadn’t crept into the room to try and hide.

I gritted my teeth in frustration. We’d let ourselves become surrounded by a hostile force once again, albeit the gang was smaller in number. These guys didn’t give up easily and now they were pissed with us for injuring some of their buddies back in the Pig and Whistle bar room. They weren’t going to let us off with a few colorful insults and a slap around the face either.

Smith slowly and quietly pulled his rifle off his shoulder, aiming at the glass panels in the front door. I followed his lead, aiming my M-9 at the panel to the right. Maybe they’d only see the dark shadows and not want to venture inside the house. My hopes were dashed when Scar Face tried the door handle and I knew for a fact that Smith hadn’t bolted the front door.