I took a sip of bourbon and rolled it around my mouth like a mouthwash. Neat liquor wasn’t my favorite thing but I savored taste and the burn down my throat.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we got to lift and shift,” Smith said. “It’ll be dark in around fifteen minutes and we either need to find a boat or somewhere to hole up for the night.”
I was totally exhausted but knew we had to press on. The few zombies bumbling around the marina hadn’t noticed us yet but soon would. They would never stop hunting us. I was sick and tired of living like this. We existed like the last few scared rabbits in a world full of hungry hounds. If I’d been on my own, I probably would have fallen asleep there and then on that wooden jetty, leaving myself as a kind of zombie picnic.
Smith flicked his cigarette butt into the canal and I handed him back the bourbon bottle. He screwed the top back in place and put it back in the knapsack.
“I can see you’re beat so I was thinking maybe we’ll break into the marina building and spend the night in there. It’ll give us a chance to dry off and cop some Z’s.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “Help me up.”
Smith grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. He took a length of rope from the row boat and made Spot another make-shift leash. The last thing we wanted would be chasing the dog around in the dark.
We slowly trudged towards the marina building, ducking behind the boats when the occasional zombie came near. Smith held Spot on a short tethered leash and held his muzzle to stop him from barking when we ducked down. My body weight, wet clothes and the gator bag felt heavy every time we crouched. I could hardly stand when we moved on and shivered in the dwindling light.
Smith led the way around the outskirts of the marina building. The once neatly trimmed lawns and concrete paths were now overgrown with bushy grass and weeds. Rotting, wooden picnic tables lay amongst the grass outside the veranda overlooking the canal. Flies buzzed around the remains of some poor fucker’s entrails strewn over the white plastic seats under an overhanging canopy.
“Jesus, that stinks,” Smith muttered, as we slowly trod by.
Spot sniffed the air around the spewed guts and I’m sure he would have tucked in if Smith didn’t have him on a short leash. The gore looked fairly fresh and I wondered who had survived nearly as long as us. Poor bastard, whoever it was, must have been ripped relentlessly apart. They must have thought they’d survived the worst of the nightmare scenario only to end their worldly existence as a pile of putrid meat.
A sign saying ‘Marina Clubhouse’ hung over the white, UPVC conservatory entrance under the canopy. Smith tried the door handle but it was predictably locked.
“Let’s try around the back,” he muttered.
We followed the overgrown concrete pathway that snaked around the building perimeter. I kept glancing into the dark windows expecting to see a ghoulish face pop up on the other side of the glass panes.
Smith stopped outside a padlocked, whitewashed wooden paneled door at the left side of the building. He took the hatchet from his belt and gave the padlock a hefty smack. The bolt gave way and fell to the ground.
“Our door key,” he whispered, raising the hatchet.
The door creaked open and we moved into the darkness inside the building.
Chapter Eighteen
Smith flicked his Zippo lighter a few times before the flame ignited. I was surprised the damn thing still worked after our swim across the canal. He held the flame out in front of us, providing a little light and clutched the hatchet at the ready with his other hand. The marina building was a kind of club house-come-locker room. I closed the door behind us and wedged a tilted chair against the wooden cross frame. The chair wouldn’t hold the door forever but be sufficient enough to stop a lone ghoul from sneaking inside the building behind us.
We moved through a dark corridor into what was once the restaurant and bar area, roughly fifty square feet in floor space. White plastic chairs and tables still stood, dotted around the room. The counter itself was closed off with a white, chain link shutter pulled down over the width of the serving area. The dwindling light shone through the large bay windows, providing us with enough light to navigate our way around the room.
Smith moved straight to the counter. I followed behind, squelching in my wet boots, my clothes hung wet and tight. Smith tried the door to the left of the counter and found it was locked.
I took a look through the windows out across the marina. The view must have been a wonderful sight in the days of normality. The setting sun projected fiery orange and red hues across the sky. I watched the bobbing boats and yachts moored to the jetty and imagined people dressed in white caps and short pants taking an early evening stroll around the marina before dinner. The boats would have smelled of fresh fish and anglers would be discussing the day’s catch. I missed simple things in life, which I took for granted when living was normal. Trips to the mall, a baseball game, Saturday nights in the bar, a night at the movies, the internet, music on the radio, vacations with friends.
My mental trip down memory lane was shattered when something creaked and smashed behind me. I turned and saw Smith had battered the door open beside the counter. Spot stood beside him wagging his tail. The dog seemed pleased to witness some mindless violence from time to time.
Smith held the hatchet at the ready in case any undead streamed out of the open doorway. Spot sniffed the ground and edged closer to the dark opening. Nothing came out of the darkness except for the waft of stale food and old beer.
“Anything in there?” I muttered.
“Let’s take a look.” Smith stepped through the doorway and turned right behind the bar. He moved behind the white shutter and studied the area behind the counter. “Ah! What have we here?”
“A gun?”
“No, some vintage rum,” he chimed, holding up a bottle to the light. Smith opened the bottle and took a long swig.
“Anything else of any use?” I sighed.
Smith turned and waved the bottle at me from behind the shutter. I shook my head, my guts still turned around like a washing machine.
I sighed and followed Smith and Spot through the doorway behind the counter. The serving area was assembled to look like the interior cabin of some old galleon or whatever they were called, with varnished wooden panels running the length of the walls and ceilings. Framed pictures of old sailing ships adorned the walls and plastic fish and crabs hung inside nets fixed to the ceiling. Various bottles of liquor and small seafaring and nautical figurines lined the wooden shelves at the rear of the counter.
“Looks like this was a nice place to come for a vacation,” I muttered mournfully.
Smith took another gulp of rum and sighed in approval. “Good stuff that.”
He banged the bottle down on the counter and turned back to study the area that lay on the opposite side of the doorway.
“I wonder if there’s anything good in the kitchen.”
I fiddled with a barrel shaped lamp on one of the shelves behind the bar and was amazed when the bulb flicked into life. I picked up the barrel and studied the underside.
“Must be battery powered,” I said.
“Keep the light down,” Smith hissed. “We don’t want those fucking zombies to see it shining in here.”
I held the light low in front of my crotch and shone the beam beyond the door. The light revealed the small kitchen area with a stainless steel industrial cooker below a canopy and two large, white fridges between a vertical row of wooden covered closets. We moved slowly into the kitchen area. I placed the barrel lamp onto the work surface in the center of the room. No windows looked onto the outside world so we were relatively safe.
Smith opened the fridges and turned up his nose at the stench of rotten food.
“Nothing in there worth touching,” he grunted.
I opened the wooden fronted closets and found several dozen cans of soup, beans and fruit. I turned to Smith with a smug smile on my face.
; “This lot will keep us going for a few days.”
We searched around and found some big, sharp knives, a meat cleaver, spoons, forks and a can opener - all items we could use. I opened a can of peaches and tucked in, savoring the juicy syrup as it replaced the lasting taste of stomach bile. Smith ate from a can of pork and beans after tipping the contents of a can of stewing steak in a small dish for Spot. We all ate noisily, slurping the juices around our mouths. Table manners and etiquette was a forgotten custom.
Smith and I ate two cans each before piling the rest of the preserved food into a plastic carrier bag we found behind the bar. Smith put his bottle of rum in the bag and I chose an expensive looking bottle of red wine.
We moved out of the kitchen area. Smith carried the bag and held the hatchet at the ready. I held onto Spot’s leash and the barrel lamp in the other hand, switching it off when we moved through dining the area. The sun’s final rays of the day peeked over the horizon throwing dark shadows across the dining area floor.
We were nearly in complete darkness as we crossed the floor to a central staircase leading to the upper floor. I followed Smith up the wide stairway and turned on the lamp when we made out the shadowy shapes on the upper level.
The silhouettes revealed themselves as large, leather bound bulky armchairs and couches facing the tall windows so the former occupants could look out across the once scenic marina. The upper floor was a spacious lounge area, obviously for upper crust patrons to spend their not so easily earned money on the same products but at increased prices. Maybe that was me being cynical to an age that was now forgotten. Money, status, upbringing and all that shit had now reverted to basic caveman type existence.
The lounge walls and ceilings were painted white with a brown, varnished wooden floor running out to an observation deck beyond the windows. White stools surrounded circular shaped tables that were fixed around the cylindrical, vertical building supports, which disappeared into the roof. The dim lamp light projected our shadows onto the whitewashed walls, making us look like stick thin cartoon creatures.
My sodden feet squelched on the wooden deck and I shivered inside my wet clothes. Smith trod warily forward, slightly in front of me, with Spot sniffing new scents and straining at the end of his leash.
The upper deck was circular shaped with the bar and restaurant serving area situated in the center with the lounge running around the outside like Saturn’s ring. Smith followed the ring route beyond the bar and stopped outside the glass fronted marina gift shop. We studied the wares on offer inside the darkened window. Faded towels and bland souvenirs were displayed across the length of the bay window.
“Fancy buying a plastic lobster?” I asked.
Smith snorted. “I was thinking more of decking ourselves out in some free, dry clothes.”
“Good call.”
Smith swung the hatchet blade and hit the door between the jamb and the handle. The thin metal fixing in the jamb buckled under the blow and glass door swung inward. Breaking and entering was obviously one of Smith’s former life skills.
“The shop’s open for business.” Smith gestured for me to lead the way with the barrel lamp.
I stepped through the doorway, holding the lamp in front of me like it was some kind of protective laser beam. The shop interior was decked out like you were aboard some old pirate ship, with Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flags covering the varnished wooden walls. I wondered why anything to do with the sea had to have this tacky, maritime décor. The display cabinets by the cash register held lighters and finger rings proclaiming to love the Empire Marina. I took a couple of the lighters but left the rings alone.
Racks of peaked caps and sun shades stood to the left and center of the cash register. I spotted some clothing hangers beyond the racks and trudged towards them. Smith grabbed a towel from the display and rubbed his hair.
I slipped off the cartoon gator knapsack and tore off my wet clothes. Smith threw me a towel and I dried off my naked body.
“Well, we can either dress as a camp sailor or a comedy pirate,” I said, studying the clothing on the hangers.
“I’ll take camp sailor,” Smith mumbled, stripping off his wet clothes.
“Me too.” I pulled a black and white striped top from a hanger.
“Try and choose dark clothes,” Smith said. “The zombies don’t pick up on them so easy.”
I nodded. In all the time we’d been together he hadn’t told me that little gold nugget of information before. But that was Smith. He normally let you work things out for yourself and guided you if needed.
I picked out a black top with horizontal white stripes and some black cargo pants. Smith chose similar attire and we looked like a pair of gay sailors ready to go out on the lash. We both tried on a pair of blue deck shoes to replace our walking boots and I rubbed Spot dry with the towel.
“Do you want to grab any souvenirs whilst we’re here?”
Smith raised an eyebrow before placing a string of purple colored beads around my neck.
“All yours, Wilde Man.”
I picked up a folding pocket knife from the shelves and slid it into my pocket. Not much of a weapon but it may have come in handy for close quarters combat. I picked up the cartoon gator knapsack and swapped the contents into a black, day sack with larger, more solid shoulder straps. I discarded the soaked maps and useless shot gun shells.
We walked out of the store in our dry, clean clothes and stopped in the doorway when we heard a voice calling from the lower level.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hello?” the voice called from the bottom of the stairway.
Smith gave me a quizzical glance as we moved to the top of the staircase. He’d transferred the hatchet from his old pants to the new ones but now pulled it out of his belt and held it at the ready. Spot gave one shrill bark in response to the caller, his hackles raised on the back of his neck and he strained against the leash in Smith’s hand.
“Easy boy,” Smith cooed to the dog. “Hello,” he called back in a louder voice.
“Are you infected?” The voice was English, clipped and posh like the Queen.
“No, we’re not bit, are you?” I responded.
“Thank goodness for that,” the voice called back. “Me and my wife have been holed up here in the marina for God knows how long. Have you got any food?”
Smith and I trudged down the staircase. I shone the lamp into the guy’s face as soon as we saw him at the bottom of the staircase. He was a middle aged, overweight bald guy, wearing a pair of glasses, the lenses reflecting in the lamp light.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Smith asked the question to what I was exactly thinking.
Smith didn’t fuck about and I was sure he’d stick the hatchet blade into the guy’s skull if he thought he posed us any threat.
The guy looked timid and shuffled on his heels and I noticed he was dressed in some light blue coveralls. He held a Colt revolver in his right hand, not knowing whether to point it at as or not.
“Drop the weapon, friend,” Smith barked like a bone fide New York cop that he once was.
The fat guy complied and the hand gun clattered to the floor.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Smith demanded.
“Err…my name is Simon Bathgate,” the guy stammered. “I mean you no harm. Me and my wife have been on our boat for months now, waiting for the authorities to show up. We saw you walking across the harbor. My wife thought you were infected and sent me to investigate…”
“There are no authorities, pal,” Smith cut him short. “There isn’t anything no more.”
“Is the infection everywhere?” Bathgate asked, in a hushed voice.
“It sure is,” I said. “How many have you got in your party?”
“Just me and my wife. We rented the boat for a fishing vacation in the summer but we ran into trouble and stayed on our boat, only going to the store in town when we needed food.”
“Have you been attacked b
y the zombies?”
“Zombies? Is that what you call them?” Bathgate’s eyebrows rose high above the lenses of his glasses. “Yes, a few times but I managed to shoot them with the revolver. There isn’t so many of them on this side of the canal but loads on the other bank.”
“Tell me about it,” Smith grunted. “We had to swim across that damn canal and nearly drowned halfway over.”
“They keep trying to get across the water and sometimes succeed. They walk along the bottom of the canal and come onto the harbor.”
“How many weapons have you got?” Smith asked.
“Only that one, I’m afraid,” Bathgate said, pointing to the gun on the floor.
Smith walked over to the revolver, bent down and picked it up. He rolled it over in his hand then gave it back to Bathgate.
“Just keep the pointy end away from us,” he muttered.
Bathgate slid the revolver into his coverall pocket.
“Are you planning on staying here long?” he asked.
“No,” Smith snapped. “We’re going to sleep here the night and we’ll be on our way tomorrow morning. We have to be someplace.”
“Anywhere special?”
“Not for the people who are there.”
“Do you mind if my wife and I tag along?”
“Yes, I do mind and no, you and your wife can’t tag along.”
I gave Smith a glance. I didn’t know why he was being so harsh on this guy.
Bathgate nodded with a look of disappointment on his ruddy face.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Good luck.” Bathgate turned and headed towards the door.
I followed him. I wanted to make sure that the door was barricaded. The chair I’d placed in front of it was obviously an inadequate defense.
Bathgate took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone the beam down the corridor. I followed in his wake. He turned to me as he reached the door.
“I expect you two have seen some horrible things over the last few months but I would have thought you’d want to stick together with the remaining survivors.”
The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone Page 9
