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

by Christian Fletcher

  Smith took a couple of forward paces then turned to his right so he directly faced the last zombie. I crept up behind the creature, gripping my stick, ready to thrust the sharp point into the back of the ghoul’s head.

  We edged closer to the remaining zombie from the front and rear. Either Smith or I could have made the killing thrust from around three feet from the creature. I didn’t get the chance for that final slaying. I felt something snag around the bottom of my right leg. At first, I thought it was a bunch of thick vines but when I glanced down I saw bony fingers tightly gripping my ankle.

  An instinctive sense of shock caused me to recoil and take a hurried backward step. The fingers didn’t release their grip and the momentum of a two way moving motion disrupted my balance. I fell backwards into a dense, spiky bush, losing my stick in the process. The hand still clung onto my leg. I watched in horror as a half rotten corpse, with a parched yellow face and a few tufts of black hair remaining on the scalp crawled out of the thickets beside me. The rotting ghoul still gripped my ankle and wasn’t going to let go in any hurry. I searched for my stick and saw it tangled amongst the branches of the bush a few feet to my left. My rifle and the sling were also snarled in the bush beneath me and I couldn’t move.

  “Shit,” I hissed.

  The last zombie in the line of three crumpled into a dead heap as Smith dispatched it with his sharpened tree branch. I didn’t know if he could see me with all the undergrowth sprouting around my position. The ghoul used its grip on my ankle to haul itself closer. I saw the creature had no legs below the knees, only a bloodied, tattered mess of flaps of skin, twisted bone and torn clothing remained. The zombie pulled itself closer and the jaws opened wide in anticipation of taking a bite out of my leg.

  Even if Smith did find me, he wouldn’t get to me in time. I didn’t want to have to use my firearm but it was the only option. I pulled the Russian GSh-18 handgun from my shoulder holster and aimed the barrel at the ghoul’s snapping jaws. I fired once and the ghoul’s head exploded, sending a shower of brown blood, pulp and skull fragments spraying in all directions, including a spattering in my face.

  The hand went limp around my ankle and I kicked away the bony limb. Smith appeared above me, leering down with a pissed off expression on his face.

  “What did you do? I thought we agreed on no shooting,” he said.

  “I had no choice,” I muttered. “That thing came out of the bushes and grabbed me. I lost my stick and it was going to bite me.”

  “Shit, kid, the sound of that gunshot will have alerted all the undead fuckers roaming around in this area,” Smith groaned, glancing around the forest. “We better get the fuck out of here.”

  I replaced the handgun into the holster and held out my hand. “Are you going to help me up out of this goddamn bush or what?”

  Smith muttered and gripped my hand. He pulled me straight upwards even though the prickly strands tried to tug me back down. I felt thorns rip at my clothing and I had to force myself out of the clutches of the grasping vines. I stood and moved away from the bloodied mess of the zombie’s body. Smith tossed me a pack of antiseptic wipes and I cleaned the pulp and gore off my face and clothing the best I could.

  “Right, which way are we headed?” I asked, glancing around the trees. “McElroy, Wingate and Dante should be at the rallying point by now.”

  Smith shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’ve kind of lost my sense of direction.”

  “Ah, great,” I sighed.

  “We should just keep moving out of this area,” Smith said, pointing the way in front of us. “They’ll be undead swarming all over this place like flies around dog shit in a few minutes time.”

  “Okay,” I agreed and we started moving through the bushes.

  Smith pulled the VHF radio from his utility belt and turned it on. I’d forgotten about the radios and thought we probably wouldn’t have to use them.

  “Mac, this is Smith. Do you copy me, over,” Smith grunted into the mic. He waited a few seconds before repeating the message.

  McElroy’s distorted voice crackled through the radio a few seconds later.

  “Smith, this is Mac. Where the bloody hell are you?”

  “Would you believe we’re still stuck in the forest?” Smith replied. “Got caught up with a couple of dead fuckers we had to take care of. Wilde Man is with me and we’re both okay. How’s things your end?”

  We waited for a response, which took longer than we’d anticipated.

  “Good to hear you’re both still in one piece. We’re all okay and we’re out of the forest but we can’t afford to wait around here any longer.” We heard a gunshot as McElroy spoke. “There are too many undead around us so we’re going to have to move. We’ll start heading back to La Bahia Soleado and hopefully we’ll rendezvous along the way.”

  “Roger that, Mac,” Smith said into the radio.

  “Okay, feller, make sure you stay in touch. Transmission out.”

  Smith’s radio crackled and the conversation was over. He shrugged and placed the radio back into his belt.

  “At least they’re okay,” he muttered.

  “And they’re ahead of us,” I said. “We still have to figure out a way of getting out of this fucking forest.” I gazed into the distance and saw nothing but dense, green foliage and a ton of thick tree trunks. The forest seemed to be endless.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It seemed like we’d walked through the forest for hours, dodging large numbers of undead, choosing to stay hidden until they’d stumbled by rather than trying to battle them.

  I knew I could have saved us a lot of time and effort if I’d told Smith the truth from the start. Now we were stuck in this damn forest and wandering around aimlessly, trying to find our way out. I’d lost count of the amount of times my reckless foolishness had landed us in trouble. For some unknown reason, I always seemed to attract chaos and calamities.

  “Hey, what’s that over there?” Smith said, shaking me from my inner turmoil.

  I glanced at Smith and saw he pointed at a clearing between the trees to our right. I saw a high, crisscrossed wire mesh fence beyond the clearing.

  “It’s a boundary of some kind,” I muttered.

  “Let’s go take a look,” Smith said.

  We drew our handguns and trudged through the undergrowth towards the clearing, listening and watching for any sounds or sights of any sudden movement. Thin green vines grew up and curled around the wire strands along the fence. Smith and I stopped and tested the wire. The fence was still solidly in place and stood around ten feet high, running roughly one hundred feet horizontally into the undergrowth and slightly behind a cluster of overhanging tree branches.

  A cracked and weed strewn hard surface lay on the opposite side of the fence. The remains of a tennis net sat sagging between two upright posts amongst a line of weeds directly in front of us. Two more sets of posts were positioned to the left and right of the open ground. A dilapidated viewing stand with white walls and at least half of the green corrugated tin roof missing sat to the left, recessed away from the overgrown tennis courts.

  “Anyone for tennis?” Smith said, trying to mimic an upper class English accent but failing badly. I thought he sounded more like Dick Van Dyke in the Mary Poppins movie.

  I shook my head. “The court looks in a pretty bad state. I think I’ll pass on the game today.”

  Smith smirked. “You wouldn’t catch Johnny Mac out on that court would you?”

  I assumed he was referring to the American former tennis champion John McEnroe.

  “I doubt McEnroe still knocks a ball around a court,” I said. “Let alone in some backwater Caribbean island.”

  “Maybe not but the good thing is this place looks like some kind of tennis club.”

  I sighed. “And your point is?”

  “A tennis club has to be accessible from some kind of road. A road will lead us out of the damn forest and someplace we want to be. There may even be a vehicle around
the site we can use.”

  I hung onto the wire and screwed up my face. “You think the vehicles will be in any fit state to use?”

  Smith shrugged. “Well, maybe not but like I say, there must be a road out of here on the other side.”

  “So what are you suggesting we do?” I asked, rubbing sweat away from my shaved scalp.

  “We get over this damn fence and check out the tennis club,” Smith said.

  “And perhaps take a break for a while?” I suggested, feeling the onset of fatigue and dehydration.

  “Sure,” Smith agreed, nodding his head. “With any luck, there should be a bar inside there. We can lift ourselves with a little snifter.”

  Booze was the last thing I wanted but I knew Smith functioned on a constant supply of bourbon.

  “Sounds good,” I said, simply to humor Smith. “But how the fuck are we going to get over this damn fence?” I glanced up at the ten foot wire wall.

  Smith stared at me incredulously. “You ‘aint going to start whining like a bitch about a little wire fence are you, Wilde Man? Shit, we’ve been climbing barriers ever since this whole shitty thing began. You’re not pussying out on me now are you?”

  I groaned. “No but with all this gear we’re lugging around and to be honest, Smith, I’m feeling totally fucked, man.”

  “Ah, god,” Smith sighed. He glanced up and down the fence line. “Okay, here’s what we do. We climb that tree right there.” He pointed to some low hanging branches ten feet to our left. “We climb that fucker high enough to get over the fence then we shimmy our way down the other side. Sound like a plan?”

  “All right,” I reluctantly agreed, gazing at the tree. I knew we had to follow the route. It was the only obvious and quick fix out of the forest. The alternative was to wander around until darkness came and then we’d really be in the shit. My arms and legs felt heavy and I needed to rest up for a while. I just hoped the tennis club would provide us with a little respite for a short while.

  I heard the sound of gushing liquid and looked around back at Smith. Amazingly, he was drinking from a bottle of water and taking a piss through the wire fence at the same time. Shit! The guy never failed to surprise me.

  “Right, let’s go,” Smith said, after replacing the water bottle in his jacket pocket and zipping himself up.

  I led the way along the fence line towards the chosen tree, with Smith following behind. Right on cue, we heard the unmistakable sound of ghostly, undead moans drifting through the forest.

  Zombies were tracking us through the woods so our tree climbing exercise was going to have to be a swift one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  We glanced behind us when we reached the low hanging tree branches. Shadows of stumbling bodies loomed from the undergrowth, their groans and moans grew louder. Bushes rustled and fallen branches snapped beneath plodding feet. The undead approached from all directions.

  “Better get a shake on, kid,” Smith muttered, nodding at the branches. “Those undead fuckers have been trailing us ever since you fired that gunshot. Looks like we have no place left to run but here.”

  I nodded, stuffed my handgun back in the holster and reached up to a thick branch two feet above my head. My arms felt as heavy as lead and my body felt twice the weight it was as I hauled myself up. Smith approached the tree from the opposite side and easily climbed up the branches like some kind of man-baboon hybrid, even with his rifle, backpack and rocket launcher strapped around him. Why was this guy so unbelievably agile? He was at least a decade older than me but age didn’t seem to affect him. Smith was a natural tough guy and seemed capable of overcoming any kind of obstacle put in front of him.

  I climbed painstakingly and slowly further up the tree. Smith was already in position, sitting on a branch overhanging the wire fence. The bastard calmly lit a cigarette while he waited for me to catch up. A fluttering bird fleeing its nest almost shocked me into releasing my grip as I climbed higher.

  “Give me one of those, will you?” I gasped, pointing at Smith’s smoke when I reached the thick branch adjacent to his.

  Smith tossed me the pack and his lighter. I caught them both and helped myself to a smoke before throwing back the items. We sat for a short while overlooking the unkempt tennis courts and I noticed a large, rectangular shaped, white colored building, flanked by tall palm trees standing to the rear of the fenced enclosure.

  Snorting, grunting and moaning from below caused me to look down from our lofty position. Around half a dozen zombies clustered around the base of the tree and more stumbled through the forest towards the fence line. They gazed upwards with their milky white, cataract eyes, reaching their hands skywards as if pleading for us to feed them human flesh.

  Smith tossed his cigarette butt down at the gathering undead and nodded towards the top of the fence below us.

  “Come on, kid. Let’s get moving,” he said.

  Smith shimmied along the tree branch so he was positioned over the top of the wire fence. He swung his legs around, hung briefly in the air gripping the branch and then dropped down into a crouched position onto the weed strewn, hard orange surface beyond the fence line. The undead rushed to the fence and vigorously shook the wire when their prey was in full view only a few feet away.

  “Come on, Wilde,” Smith said, waving me down.

  For some bizarre reason, I seemed to lose all sense of balance. My head spun and I felt as though I couldn’t move. Sweat rolled down my face and I felt as though I was going to puke. The air seemed too thick to breathe and my chest and stomach heaved in ailing convulsions. The undead below seemed to pick up on my hesitation and roared in anticipation of my downfall. I sat aside the branch and gripped on tightly. The light flickered and I saw darkness in brief spells. What the fuck was wrong with me?

  “You okay up there, kid?” Smith asked. His tone sounded somewhat anxious.

  He was right to be concerned. I felt as though I was going to lose consciousness. Was this fatigue and dehydration or something more serious? Either way, I couldn’t stay where I was, perched precariously in a tree with a bunch of flesh eating ghouls below me.

  I lowered my head, closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, which revitalized me slightly. When I opened my eyes I saw my alternative self sitting opposite me on the tree branch. He was dressed in a light green jacket, dark green pants and a knitted, woolen green pointed pixie hat on his head. His facial features, the chin and nose looked elongated and his eyes were dark black pools. My other self looked like some kind of scary, demented Irish Leprechaun.

  “Go for it, man,” he squawked. His voice was deep and distorted and sounded nothing like mine. What the hell was this abomination? “Bet you can’t make it to the other side. Walk the branch, motherfucker.”

  The world seemed hazy and I couldn’t focus on anything else around me but the undead moaning rung in my ears. “Go away, get the fuck out of my head,” I spat at my other self. “You want me dead, is that it? You don’t get it, do you? I die, you die. Got it?” My voice was nothing more than a blurted wheeze.

  My alternative self leaned closer to me so his face was only a few inches from mine. He stunk of stale booze and old cigarette smoke and I briefly wondered if I smelled the same. Perhaps that was my natural aroma these days.

  “We all have to die sometime, buddy,” my other self growled through clenched teeth.

  He looked truly menacing and almost demonic. My vision blurred and I felt my grip on the tree branch loosening. I heard the undead collectively howl below me. They were obviously hopeful I’d collapse into their midst.

  “Wilde!”

  The voice barked harshly and pulled me back from the brink of oblivion.

  “Wilde, get the fuck across that branch and jump down here, right now.”

  Reality seemed to fade in and out for a few seconds. I shook my head, fluttering my eyes, trying to regain some kind of focus.

  Smith stood below me on the opposite side of the fence, glancing up with an exp
ression of horror on his face.

  “What the fuck’s going on, kid?” he shouted. “You in the land of the living or what?”

  My head cleared slightly and I felt I could breathe a little better. I tried to keep my focus on Smith as I shuffled along the tree branch.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I grunted wearily, as I neared the top of the fence.

  “Well, hurry it up and quit fucking around, kid,” Smith said, waving me forward.

  The undead followed my progress, staring upwards from beside the tree trunk below and rattled the wire fence when I shimmied over the boundary. I made certain I was far enough away from the fence before deciding to drop down. Any piece of clothing or a stray strap could easily be grabbed by gnarled fingers from between the wires if I landed too near the fence.

  “Come on down, kid,” Smith said, waving his hands towards him. “You’re okay, that’s far enough.”

  I slipped my left leg over the tree branch, then half fell and half dropped down with no cohesion. Smith grabbed hold of me the moment I hit the ground.

  “You okay, kid?” he asked. “You kind of zoned out for a while up there.”

  “I’m all right,” I said. “Only a little tired is all.”

  We took a few seconds to catch our breath, staring at the twisted, gnashing undead faces on the opposite side of the wire fence. Smith finally slapped my shoulder.

  “Come on, kid, let’s go check out this fucking tennis club.”

  I gazed across the courts towards the building and sincerely hoped we wouldn’t have to face any overwhelming difficulties once we got there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  We trudged across the weed scattered, hard clay surface, making our way towards the wire fence on the far side, marking the boundary to the three court enclosure. A couple of sorry looking, light green tennis balls surrounded with grime sat beside the remains of the sagging net. Smith found a latched gate incorporated within the fence and slid back the metal catch. He pushed the gate open, untangling the vines growing through the wire. I followed Smith out of the tennis court enclosure and we made our way along a partially overgrown pathway towards the clubhouse.