The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses

by Christian Fletcher

  “Let’s get rocking and rolling then, guys,” Wingate said, waving her arms in a forward motion.

  McElroy crouched and flung the roller door upwards. Smith held his rifle into his shoulder in a firing position, scanning the hangar for any hidden attackers. Nothing jumped out at us, only a couple of brown rats scuttled out into the daylight. The hangar interior was dim so I moved closer for a look inside.

  Stacks of wooden, rectangular shaped packing crates nearly covered the entire floor space. The words ‘Air Freight’ was stamped in black lettering on the sides of the crates, with smaller lines of Spanish lettering below. One box at the top of the pile to the right had the lid open. I guessed the crate in question was the one Smith had opened a few months previously.

  Smith seemed satisfied no dangers lurked inside the gloomy interior and slung his rifle around his back. McElroy, Wingate and I followed suit.

  “Get the back doors of the truck open, Wilde Man,” McElroy commanded. “And make sure you get all that other shite out of the way.”

  I nodded and rushed to the rear end of the truck. I slid the handle and pulled open the right side door first and moved across to open the left. Something moved above me. I only slightly caught whatever it was in my peripheral vision. I stopped and stared up at the hill sloping above the hangars.

  I didn’t see any further movement but my inner danger radar was blasting out red hot signals that something was very wrong.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Come on, Wilde, get those feckin’ doors open, will you?” McElroy yelled behind me. “This ‘aint no time for head staggers.”

  I turned and saw McElroy and Smith lugging a crate they held at each end by a loop of rope. I pulled the left side door and took another quick glance up at the hill while I jammed the metal hatch open.

  “Move all that friggin’ crap on the truck bed, man,” McElroy barked, nodding at the farm tools scattered over the vehicle’s load space. An unpleasant and mean looking scowl spread across his face.

  I hopped up into the truck and moved the battery jumper and the collection of oddities we’d acquired from the barn to the front and stacked them in a pile behind the cab.

  “Right, move your ass,” McElroy continued his rant at me. “Slide these crates back as far as you can onto the truck bed and we’ll give you a hand stacking them when you’ve done with the first layer.”

  “Sure, Mac,” I muttered, not wanting to piss the big Northern Irish guy off any longer. An inner voice told me I should mention the movement I’d spotted on the hill but my outer self told me McElroy would probably chew my ass off if I did. My outer self won the argument and I kept quiet.

  Smith and McElroy hauled the crate up onto the dull green metal floor and I slid it up alongside the farm tools and battery jumper.

  “Hey, kid,” Smith called out. “Make sure you don’t block out that battery jumper. We may need it later and I don’t want to be crawling on my ass all over these damn crates to get it.”

  I quietly growled in frustration. McElroy just told me to put all this shit at the front of the truck bed and now Smith was telling me to move some of it back again. I wished the pair of them would make up their fucking minds. If I was a mentally stronger person I would have told them so. But again, I kept silent.

  I picked up the battery charger, moved the damn thing closer to the rear and dumped it on the floor just inside the door on the left side.

  Dante and Wingate staggered from the hangar with another crate of rocket launchers in between them. They raised the box and I caught hold of the rope loop at Wingate’s end. I pulled the crate onto the truck bed and slid it across the surface so it was alongside the first one. Smith and McElroy were already waiting with another crate at the truck’s rear doors. I hauled up the box and took a quick peek outside. The hill was still quiet but the crowd of zombies still approached from the opposite side of the runway.

  “Come on, Wilde Man,” Smith growled. “Take the fucking crate.”

  “Okay,” I snapped, starting to get a little pissed at being their treated like their lackey.

  I loaded the third crate and returned to the edge of the floor space, standing between the open doors. Wingate and Dante were taking a little more time with their loads than Smith and McElroy. It didn’t seem a fair match up. Two hulking, six foot plus, muscle bound, tough guys teamed up together, while Dante looked like he had trouble lifting his own body was paired with Wingate, who was a tough cookie but no way as strong as McElroy or Smith.

  Dante gritted his teeth and lifted the box. I grabbed the rope loop at his end and pulled the crate onboard. They turned to the hangar and I heard something hit the outside of the door on the right side. It sounded like a stone chip clanging against the metal.

  I stopped and listened. Nothing more happened so I slid the crate forward and moved back to the open doors. Smith and McElroy came forward with another box. I heard the clunking sound again, this time like a stone hitting the side of the truck high on the right side. A second later a whole torrent of those similar sounds rattled against the vehicle. It was a noise like extremely heavy rain.

  “What the fuck is that?” I spat.

  McElroy and Smith both ducked. They turned back to the aircraft hangar. Smith held up his hand in a ‘stop moving’ gesture.

  “Stay back in there,” Smith yelled at Wingate and Dante, who already had lifted a crate between them.

  “Some fuckers are shooting at us,” McElroy screamed, pulling the Armalite rifle from his shoulder. He returned a blast of fire back up the hill.

  Shit! I knew the movement up there was something on the sinister side and I’d kept quiet. I knew somebody was watching us. I had that feeling. Now we were under attack and I could have alerted the other guys to the danger. I crouched down, pulling my own rifle from my shoulder and switching the catch from ‘safety’ to ‘single fire’.

  “Where the hell are they?” Smith shouted, scanning the hill and readying his rifle.

  “Fuck only knows,” McElroy said. “They’ve got the high ground and the sun behind them. The bastards have been up there waiting for the right moment to strike. We’ve walked right on into an ambush.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  More heavy rain in the form of gunfire rattled against the left side of the truck. My heart banged like a sledgehammer in my chest. I felt my veins pulse in an adrenalin rush. Smith and McElroy huddled against the back of the truck and returned the gunfire, shooting blindly up at the hill.

  “Who the hell is firing at us?” Wingate yelled from the hangar.

  “No clue,” Smith shouted back. “But there are a lot of shooters up on that ridge.”

  I tried to quell the rising feeling of panic. This wasn’t the first time I’d come under an attack of a barrage of bullets. No matter how many times it happened, it was never a good feeling. My old self, before the apocalypse would have melted, withered and bombed shit all over the place. Now I was up and ready. These bastards weren’t going to take us out without a fight.

  I crouched down beside the open truck doors with my bulky Armalite rifle tucked between my thighs.

  “What are we going to do?” I barked.

  “They’ve got us pinned down,” Smith shouted. “We don’t know who the fuck these guys are and what they want.”

  A few of the rounds pinged against the front of the truck and I heard an angry hiss spit from somewhere at the front of the vehicle. The truck’s engine revved uncontrollably for a couple of seconds then spluttered out.

  “They’ve shot the truck all to fuck,” McElroy yelled.

  “Who the hell are these guys?” I screamed.

  Nobody answered because nobody knew. Was it the last of the renegade militia who had been exorcised from the castle who were attacking us? Who the hell were these crazy bastards?

  “We sure as shit can’t stay here,” Smith bellowed.

  I quickly glanced out of the doors to the left. The herd of undead still approached, moaning and shufflin
g across the runway. They were closing in on our position. Smith was right, we couldn’t stay put but our options were limited.

  “What’s the plan?” I yelled, probably knowing there wasn’t one. I needed either Smith or McElroy to make a decision. My gut feeling was to simply fuck off a long way from the goddamn airport and never come back. Fuck the rocket launchers and fuck this place.

  McElroy glanced across the runway. “The goons are coming our way. We’re fucked if we stay here.”

  Smith grimaced. “Okay, fuck this,” he barked. “Now, I’m kind of pissed off.”

  He shouldered his Armalite rifle and hopped up into the back of the truck. I huddled by the doors and knew by Smith’s stride and mean mannerism he was going to do something to get us out of this mess. Once again, I knew I was lucky to have this psycho guy by my side. He’d got us out of more scrapes than I could ever believe. We’d had our run ins and I didn’t wholly trust him but you could guarantee Smith would always come out on top when faced with a sticky situation.

  Smith kicked the lid off one of the crates I’d carefully laid in the truck bed. He seemed oblivious to the gunfire rattling around the outside of the truck as he loaded up one of the SMAWs.

  “Motherfuckers better get ready to run,” he growled, adjusting the rocket launcher. “Give me some more ammo, Wilde.” He moved to the rear doors and jumped down onto the ground, grabbing an angle on our attackers.

  I nodded and scurried to the front of the truck bed. I slid a crate with some large looking tubular shaped missiles inside towards the open doors.

  A loud whooshing sound echoed through the back of the truck as Smith fired the rocket launcher into the hill. Mud, shredded weeds and loose stones billowed up in an orange flame and a cloud of smoke. The SMAW was fucking awesome.

  “Come on, Wilde Man, reload me,” Smith yelled.

  I fumbled around inside the wooden crate and handed Smith another green colored missile that was around two feet long.

  “Keep ‘em coming, Wilde,” Smith growled. He pumped the trigger and another big round exploded on the hill.

  I fed Smith another couple of the tubes and watched how he quickly reloaded the weapon and fired blindly up the hill. Something moving caught my attention from the opposite side of the open truck doors. The zombie crowd lurched ever closer and spreading across the blacktop, virtually cutting off our route out of the airport. I glanced back to the hangar. Wingate and Dante still stood huddled inside. Wingate aimed her rifle at an angle towards the hill and Dante simply looked terrified.

  “Smith!” I yelled, but hardly heard myself due to the ringing in my ears. He must have heard me and turned his head away from the rocket launcher sights to look at me. I merely pointed to the direction behind him. He half swiveled and McElroy also followed his gaze. The undead masses were dangerously close and I heard their low groans and moaning as my hearing returned to normal.

  “We have to make a move out of here,” I shouted, jabbing my finger at the undead horde. “They’re getting too close.” I figured either Smith had wiped out the shooters on the hill or had sufficiently succeeded in scaring them off.

  Smith lowered the SMAW rocket launcher and scanned the hill for movement.

  McElroy pointed down the left side of the truck. “I’ll go and check out the damage.” He shouldered his rifle, shuffled onto all fours and out of my line of sight, crawling beneath the truck bed.

  “Wingate, Dante, get over here real quick,” Smith commanded, waving them forward out from the hangar.

  Wingate nodded. She grabbed Dante’s jacket by the shoulder and dragged him across the space between the hangar and the back of the truck. Dante jabbered, his head swiveling between the zombie crowd on one side and the chewed up hill on the other.

  “Any clue who those guys up there are?” Wingate asked, crouching beside Smith and pulling Dante down with her.

  Smith shook his head. “No clue. I didn’t even see them. They’ve either high tailed it amongst the flak or they’re bird food right now.”

  “How’s it looking with the truck situation?” Wingate quizzed.

  Smith shook his head again. “Mac has gone up the front end to take a peek but it ‘aint looking good.”

  Wingate turned to glance behind her. “It ‘aint looking good that way either.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  Smith shuffled around so he faced the army of zombies, watching them approach. He glanced at Wingate. “You and laughing boy better hop up there in the back of the truck alongside Wilde Man.”

  “What are you going to do?” Wingate asked, grabbing Dante’s shoulder firmly.

  “Clear us a path through that shower of shit is what,” Smith growled.

  Wingate nodded and hauled Dante to his feet. I grabbed each of their hands in turn and helped them up onto the truck bed.

  I heard a shuffling sound and saw McElroy reappear from beneath the vehicle. He glanced around and I noticed the look of exasperation on his face.

  “The truck engine is all shot to fuck,” he groaned. “Leads and wires all over the damn place and there’s water and oil pissing out every fucking where. It’d take a whole crack team of mechanics about a fucking week to fix it. Basically, we’re fucked.”

  I sighed deeply, lowering my chin to my chest. I wondered at what point in the recent past I’d thought this was going to a worthwhile trip coming out here. Another one of my usual big mistakes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The undead mass slowly plodded forward and each staggering step reduced our chances of a route out of the landing strip.

  “Is there another vehicle around here we can use?” Wingate screeched. “This is a fucking airport after all.”

  McElroy glanced around, scanning the distance beyond the zombie army. “I can’t see nothing. There’s some old shuttle bus type thing by the terminal on the far side but it’ll probably take a while to get it going. All these vehicles have been lying around for a long time now.”

  “We can try and get over there,” Smith barked. “Mac, you go close down that hangar door. We don’t want any of those dead motherfuckers or anybody else getting inside there. Wilde, you hand me some more rockets and keep them coming.”

  McElroy nodded and scurried to the hangar’s roller door then pulled it down shut. I handed Smith another green colored missile and he reloaded the SMAW. McElroy rushed back to the rear of the truck and crouched down to Smith’s right.

  “We still can’t guarantee nobody will go in there,” McElroy said, nodding to the hangar. “If there are any of those shooters left alive to tell the tale, they’ll be rummaging their dirty little mitts all over those rocket launchers the moment we’re gone.”

  “It’s a chance we have to take, Mac,” Smith grunted and fired the first of the rockets at the looming undead.

  He fired the rocket low, knocking crusty old bodies down like pins before they disintegrated in the explosion that formed a cloud of dust and detached body parts. Of course, the blast didn’t cause the zombies to retreat. Quite the opposite, the remaining undead came forward in a whirling tide of gnashing teeth and gaping mouths.

  Smith fired again and again as I kept passing him the rockets. The stock of ammo in the crate was depleting rapidly while disemboweled arms, legs, torsos and heads flew up in exploding orange flashes.

  The numbers of walking corpses became less and less and finally I could see across the runway once again. I tried to quickly count the number of stragglers but gave up at thirty.

  “How many rockets do we have left?”

  “What?” My ears rang loud as though I’d been standing right by one of the main amps at an ACDC rock concert.

  Smith repeated the question.

  I looked in the crate. “Two,” I replied, holding up the same number of fingers in case Smith couldn’t hear either. “Do you want me to open another box?”

  Smith shook his head. “Save the ammo. Can you carry them in your pack?”

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly
. It was going to be more weight to lug around but I guessed Smith had plans to take the one SMAW launcher he was using along with us and could very much come in handy. I scooped up the rockets and Wingate helped me put them in my backpack.

  Smith attached the SMAW to a spare sling from his backpack and swung the rocket launcher around his back. He swung his Armalite rifle around and pulled it off his shoulder.

  “I think there are few enough of them out there that we can get through to the other side of the airstrip and see if that bus of yours in any fit state to run,” Smith said, pointing the route through a large gap in the undead ranks. “If we get into any difficulties we’ll use the SMAW again. Everybody cool with that?”

  We looked around at each other and nodded. Except for Dante, who simply shook with fear.

  “What about the battery jumper?” I asked.

  “What about it?” Smith barked.

  “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to take it along with us in case we need to jump start that bus?”

  I knew by Smith’s momentary blank expression he hadn’t considered the option.

  “Yeah, give it to laughing boy back there,” he said, nodding at Dante. “We’ve already got enough shit to carry.”

  I lowered the battery jumper to McElroy and clambered out the back of the truck down onto the ground. Wingate grabbed Dante and shoved him forward. McElroy waved him down and he half jumped, half fell from the truck bed. McElroy caught hold of him before he tumbled face first onto the dusty blacktop. Wingate hopped down alongside us and I closed up the truck’s rear doors. McElroy handed the battery jumper to a puzzled looking Dante.

  “Keep hold of that,” McElroy said slowly, pointing at the charger.

  “Everybody ready to move?” Smith barked.

  We mumbled some kind of response and Smith took the lead, moving away from the truck across the airstrip. Battered and broken body parts, clumps of brown colored gore and pools of stale blood littered the near ground space. We had to step over and between puddles of horrific, messy, once human remains as we negotiated our way across the runway and towards the dilapidated old shuttle bus near the airport terminal. The coppery stench of stale blood and rotting flesh made me gag a couple of times before I forced down the stomach bile that threatened to expel from my mouth.