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

by Christian Fletcher

  Tall weeds and creeping vines covered the ground around the small garden areas on either side of the pathway. The huge palm trees sprouting from the centers of the plots looked dry and parched. The pathway inclined slightly and led to a sand colored, paved patio area to the rear of the clubhouse. We drew our handguns as we weaved our way between scattered mold covered, white outdoor tables and chairs.

  Streaks of rusty water and green grime had discolored the white clubhouse walls and weeds and vines partially covered the large sliding windows to the rear of the patio. The whole building stood around twenty-five feet high and roughly seventy-five feet long.

  “We need to find a way into this place,” I muttered, scanning the clubhouse back wall. Several smaller windows and a closed fire escape door were situated along the wall at various points.

  Smith pulled away a patch of weeds in front of the patio windows and cupped his hands against the glass, staring into the dark interior. “It looks clear inside. I can’t see any dead goons running around in there.”

  “Shall we try and find a way in around the front of the building?” I asked.

  Smith gripped the handle and to my surprise the patio door on the left side slid open.

  “Wow,” I gasped.

  Smith glanced at me. “Guess we don’t need a key for this place.” He waved his head sideways, beckoning me to follow him inside.

  We stepped through the open window and the sunlight immediately faded into a dim gloom. Smith slid the patio window shut behind us. The clubhouse smelled damp with a lingering stench of bleach or some kind of cleaning fluid. A long, wooden bar counter ran almost three quarters of the length of the far wall. Mounted optics and shelves full of liquor bottles lined the wall behind the counter. White metal framed chairs surrounded white circular tables dotted around the lime green floor and several trophy cabinets containing large silver cups hung on the walls to the left and right of the bar. Two closed brown doors marked Ladies and Gents stood a few feet apart along the wall to the left and a recessed doorway positioned in the far right corner led off the room to some other part of the clubhouse.

  “Just be careful until we know for sure this place is secure,” Smith whispered.

  I moved slowly to the right and Smith checked out the restrooms to the left. A ping pong table stood next to a burgundy covered pool table in the space between the right side of the bar counter and the recessed doorway. I stared into the gloom beyond the doorway but couldn’t see any signs of movement. I decided to wait for Smith to finish checking the restrooms before I continued any further.

  “All clear,” Smith said, as he bundled out of the Ladies bathroom. He checked the space between the bar counter and the back wall just in case anything or anybody crouched in the shadows. “All clear,” he repeated and moved across the floor to join me.

  I nodded to the recessed doorway. “Ready to check it out?”

  “U-huh,” Smith muttered, raising his handgun towards the gloom.

  We edged closer, I peered around the corner and Smith leaned against the wall pointing the barrel of his firearm down into a short corridor. We slowly and silently shuffled along the passageway, which fanned out into a spacious reception area. An empty office desk and chair sat opposite a large set of glass double doors overlooking the front parking lot. A few vehicles remained in marked spaces outside and I couldn’t see any undead roaming the lot. The reception area was also clear of any hostiles, living or dead.

  A sign hung lopsidedly above a wide staircase to the left of the glass double doors, pointing the way to a function room on the upper level. Another sign hung to the left of the reception desk pointing to the bar/restaurant, which we’d just come from and the squash courts in the opposite direction to the left. A signpost hanging behind the reception desk indicated the male and female locker rooms to the left and right.

  Smith and I painstakingly checked each area in turn, swiveling around corners and pointing our firearms in every shadowy recess. Surprisingly, there was a lack of undead or any signs of mutilated corpses and the whole place seemed fairly well preserved and almost as though it was still in use.

  We found another door to the rear of the male locker room that was marked ‘Staff Only.’ Smith tried the door and found it unlocked. He flashed me a sideways glance before pulling it fully open in one jerky movement. I stood back with my handgun raised at the empty space but again, there was no sign of any undead. A small, clean and brightly colored power generator sat in the centre of a room no bigger than a closet.

  I lowered my gun and Smith shuffled into the room and studied the generator. He flicked a couple of switches and a couple of green lights glowed on the control panel before a motor whined into life. The generator purred and was much quieter than the others I’d encountered on our travels.

  “It looks like this baby is juiced up by solar power,” Smith said. “It’s a beauty and will probably keep running when we’re six feet under. It automatically cuts out if no power is being used and starts again with a few flicks of a switch.”

  “And it powers everything in the building?” I asked.

  “U-huh,” Smith said, nodding. “Light, heat, wall sockets, hot water, the whole nine yards.”

  I nodded at the row of glass fronted cubicles on the far side of the locker room. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “You might want to give it five minutes for the hot water to kick in,” Smith said.

  “Not too worried about hot water,” I replied, already shrugging off my backpack and lifting the rifle strap over my head.

  I leaned my equipment against the wall beside the cubicle to the right of the row. Smith rummaged through a few open lockers and found a clean towel and the dregs of some shower gel in a plastic bottle. I peeled off my sweaty clothes and Smith tossed me the towel and shower gel.

  “Two minutes each,” Smith said.

  I nodded and took a brief, lukewarm shower while Smith stood on guard outside the cubicle. We swapped positions and I dried and reluctantly dressed myself back in the sweaty, black combat gear while Smith took his shower.

  “Let’s go get a drink,” Smith said, after he’d dressed and geared up once again.

  We moved back into the bar area, a little more relaxed and feeling a whole lot cleaner. Smith made a beeline for a near full bourbon bottle sitting on the shelf to the rear of the bar. He reached below the counter and produced two whiskey tumblers then poured a large measure in each glass. I took a few long swigs from my water bottle before I took a shot of bourbon.

  “A drop of the good stuff,” Smith said, raising his glass to the sunlight streaming through the patio doors. He proceeded to down the liquor in one furious gulp then poured himself a refill.

  I took a small sip from my glass before setting it back down on the counter. Smith was already pouring himself a third shot.

  “Don’t you think we should be taking it easy with this stuff?” I asked, nodding at the bourbon bottle. “We’ve still got to make our way through open country back to the port town.”

  Smith turned his head, glowering at me. I should have known better than try telling him what to do.

  “Don’t sweat it, kid,” he sneered. “I can handle it, okay?”

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded. I guessed we were going to be holed up in the tennis club for a while. McElroy, Wingate and Dante would be miles away from us by now. I hoped they hadn’t run into too much trouble and could find a safe passage back to the harbor in the port town. How Smith and I were going to make it back unscathed was a different conundrum altogether.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Smith poured himself another shot of bourbon and moved behind the bar counter. I picked up my glass and decided to study the photos covering the clubhouse walls. Smith dumped a huge pile of music CDs on the bar counter and started rifling through them.

  “Caribbean Reggae, Jamaican Ska, Blue Beat…ah, yes this one will do,” Smith said, selecting a Best of Blues CD.

  “Don’t play it t
oo loud, Smith,” I warned. “We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention.”

  Smith flapped his hand at me. “Of course I won’t, Wilde Man. What do you think I am, some kind of fucking idiot?”

  Smith fiddled around beneath the bar counter with what I assumed was the CD player. A Blues tune I recognized by the singer and legendary guitarist, Buddy Guy played quietly through the mounted speakers in each corner of the bar room. At least Smith was as good as his word and hadn’t boomed out the music at a ridiculously loud level. He continued to rummage around the bar counter and I turned my attention back to the photos on the wall.

  The pictures captured sweaty, grinning tennis players holding up silver trophies or action shots from the courts. Some photos dated back to the 1960’s and were developed in black and white print. Rectangular winner’s boards ran in a row above the photos and several local newspaper cuttings reporting on various tennis matches and player profiles were framed between the photos.

  I felt drawn to a series of color photos above a trophy cabinet to the right of the wall. The pictures were of an extremely attractive young blonde woman who was tall and athletic. Her blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the camera shots where she looked at the lens and she showed only a hint of a smile that still seemed radiant. I touched her face in the photo, following the contours of her cheekbones. She could have easily graced the front cover of any glossy celebrity magazine as a famous actress or fashion model. The newspaper headline above the photos read ‘Pauline Ennis wins her third St. Miep tennis title in a row.’ I glanced up at the winner’s board and saw her name etched in gold on a green background for three consecutive years. Only a blank space on the board followed after her name and I guessed she’d played the last final match before the global disaster struck. I wondered what had become of Pauline and hoped she was still living her life someplace safe.

  I sighed at the sadness of the world and took a long slug of bourbon, feeling the burn of liquor and sorrow run through me.

  “Hey, Wilde Man, check this out,” Smith barked behind me. His voice had taken on that bourbon induced drawl and I hoped he wasn’t too shit faced to move across country later on. But to be fair to Smith, he never seemed to suffer from hangovers or let booze interfere with what he had to do.

  “What’s that?” I asked, turning away from the beautiful Pauline’s photos.

  Smith raised a CD. “Somebody used to have good taste in this clubhouse.”

  I moved closer and read the cover. “Johnny Thunders, So Alone. Sorry, he must have passed me by.”

  Smith lit a cigarette and tossed me his pack. “Shit, kid. You never heard of Johnny Thunders? How about the New York Dolls?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “Maybe, I don’t know. What songs did they play?”

  “Johnny Thunders was originally in the band, The New York Dolls but he left sometime in the 70s. I saw him play at Zappa’s Rock Club when I was a kid back in Brooklyn before I joined the Corps. Must have been sometime in ‘82 or ’83. Man, I used to love this guy, he totally fucking rocked. They said the motherfucker died of a drug overdose in New Orleans in 1991 but I heard different. Word on the street was some badass drug dealers murdered him over a methadone supply. Too bad for Johnny, he should have come to us for protection. We’d have taken care of him”

  Smith proceeded to mess with the CD player, changing the discs. He cussed until he found the track he wanted and played a song called ‘Subway Train’ that I knew from somewhere in my distant past. It sounded totally 1970s New York punk and Smith moved from around the bar counter and barked out the lyrics word for word. He looked like an old punk rocker with his black spiky hair, black combat gear and a glass of bourbon in his hand. I smiled and sung the words I knew. It was always good to see somebody all too briefly enjoying themselves.

  These were the moments I had to cherish. I knew it wasn’t going to last forever. This was the world of weird. My smile dipped when I caught sight of somebody dancing in the shadows behind the pool table. I recognized my alternative self rocking out with a jet black quaff hairstyle, black leather jacket and tight fitting zip covered pants. At first, I resented his presence but after a few seconds, I decided to let him have his moment of dance floor glory. I raised my bourbon glass when Smith didn’t notice and drunk a toast to his attendance.

  “Fuck it, good luck to you,” I said. Smith raised his glass, thinking the toast was intended for him.

  “Have another, Wilde,” Smith said, nodding at his glass. “Fuck it, we got all day, man.”

  I smiled and nodded then stupidly drained my glass. I felt Smith was getting too much in a party mood when we shouldn’t be. I held out my glass and Smith half filled it a large measure of bourbon.

  I took a small sip and hated to sound like the sensible guy for once. I knew Smith was in the mood for some kind of rest and relaxation without Wingate gnawing at his ass.

  “Hey, Smith,” I frowned, waved at the bourbon and then around the room. “You think we should be getting going sometime, yeah?”

  The music moved on to a track called ‘Downtown’ that I vaguely remembered hearing on the radio when the world was normal.

  Smith nodded, waving his glass around. “Yeah, let’s just take a well earned break for a couple of hours, hey, Wilde?”

  I sighed and shrugged, I was no saint. “Whatever you want to do, man.” The tennis clubhouse seemed a safe haven for a while. McElroy and Wingate were capable of looking after Dante and finding their way back to the boat in the harbor. Fuck it! Smith and I hadn’t had a blast out for a while now. It seemed one of those moments when you knew you were going to have a good time. Smith and I seemed to both pick up on the situation. We slipped off our rifles and backpacks against the bar counter and poured ourselves another drink.

  We listened to the Johnny Thunders album a second time, singing along like the world around us didn’t matter. The music was all 1970s, but regurgitated from the 1950s in New York punk theme.

  Smith and I raised a glass to all the people we’d lost along the way. Some of them we’d each forgotten and felt bad we hadn’t remembered them. We laughed at some of their antics and anecdotes and almost shed a tear at their loss. It was a fantastic few drunken hours, even though in the back of my mind I knew we should be moving on.

  “Whatever happened to normal life?” I asked, gazing at Pauline’s photo on the wall.

  “It couldn’t carry on like it was,” Smith sighed. “Something had to give. It always does.”

  The clubhouse grew darker by the minute and I glanced out of the patio doors to see the sun on its daily descent. Shit! Darkness was coming and we were half drunk and miles from our destination.

  “You think we better contact Mac on the radio?” I said. “He’ll be waiting for us.” I felt a little guilty sitting in a bar drinking while McElroy, Wingate and Dante were out in the open somewhere. “I assume we’re stopping here for the night now.”

  Smith groaned and reached for his radio. “Hey, Mac, this is Smith. Do you copy?”

  We waited a few seconds and Smith waved in the direction of the CD player behind the bar.

  “Better turn that down a little, Wilde,” he instructed.

  I moved around the counter and hit the pause button on the music player.

  The radio crackled and McElroy’s voice sounded through the speaker. “Yup, go ahead.”

  “Mac, we’re in a bit of a tight spot so we’re going to hole up for the night. We’re secure at the moment but we don’t think we’ll make it back to the boat before nightfall.” Smith grimaced at his own lies.

  The radio crackled again. “All right, Smith. We’re on the edge of the town and we’ll get back on the boat before sundown if all goes well. Don’t fucking hang about tomorrow and get back here as soon as you can at first light. We don’t want to be hanging around the harbor with our asses hanging out. Understand me, Big Man?”

  “Copy that. Will do,” Smith said and dumped the radio on the bar counter.

 
“I feel bad,” I said, before unpausing the CD player. Johnny Thunders sung from the speakers once again.

  “Here’s to failure,” Smith huffed, raising his bourbon glass. “Some you win, some you lose. Today we lost but it don’t mean we have to like it.”

  “Good point,” I sighed, reaching for my glass. “I wish I hadn’t killed that kid on the riverbank though. Even though it was an accident, I still feel like a bastard. I’ve upset the local people when I really didn’t need to.” I thumped the bar in frustration. “Why the fuck did he have to draw that gun, man? Why did the situation have to turn out like that? Shit, I’ve put all our lives in danger.”

  Smith shook his head. “Don’t keep beating yourself up, kid. Shit happens, you know that.” He took a sip of bourbon. “I’ve done a whole bunch of bad shit that I could look back on and feel bad about but you have to just carry on. That’s the way it goes. No matter how guilty you feel, the world keeps on turning, even through all this undead shit.” He twirled his fingers around his head.

  I thought about what Smith said and decided it was time to talk about the truth.

  “You remember when we first met in Steve Cousin’s apartment in Brynston?”

  “Vaguely,” Smith grunted.

  “If he had been there and I was there with him, what were you going to do?”

  Smith sniffed. “Tell you the truth, Wilde Man. If all you motherfuckers couldn’t have collectively paid off the debt owed, I‘d have driven you guys out to the garage between Pennsylvania and New York and probably executed all your sorry asses.”

  I nodded. “I thought so. I had a vision of that exact situation a while back. So I’m guessing the zombie apocalypse kind of saved my ass. Strange how things turn out.” I refilled our glasses. “Here’s to weird shit.”