He caught the pack with his free hand and took out a smoke.
“Where the hell did I get to?” he barked, lighting the cigarette and tossing me the lighter.
The big petrol lighter crunched against my knuckle and fell to the ground. I winced in pain before picking up the lighter. I lit the flame with a shaky hand and poked the cigarette tip into the flame.
“The question should be turned around and put another way, Wilde Man,” Smith continued. “I think I should be saying to you – where the hell did you go?”
“I was right there, man, walking through that damn fog.” I returned his lighter with an underarm throw as he walked towards me.
“Well, I turned around and you were gone,” Smith said. “Lucky for you, kid I met an old preacher dude hotfooting it back along the road. He said he’d come across some guy whose name was Brett and looked like he was down on his luck. I figured that’s our Wilde Man.”
“You mean Jericho?” I asked. “Didn’t he come back with you?”
Smith shook his head. “U-ah. He said there were a shed load of gun slinging bad guys fighting it out in these woods.” He turned momentarily back to the trees. “I showed up and all I see is this piece of shit pointing a gun at my man.” Smith nudged the dead militia guy with his boot. He scanned the surrounding area, noticing the further two corpses. “Looks like somebody has had a real swinging time here.”
“Ah, Smith,” I sighed, exhaling smoke. “You should’ve seen it, man. A whole bunch of those island guys came storming out of the woods. They were chasing, I’m guessing what was left of the South American militia. They swarmed all over them, killed those two guys by the trees and chased the others back down the road.” I pointed at the dead man on the ground next to us. “Then this guy pops up out of nowhere and sticks a gun in my face. I tell you, Smith, I’m not having a good day.”
“So where the hell were you when all this was going on, Wilde?”
I pointed to my hiding place between the rocks on the opposite side of the road. “Right there. They didn’t see me but I saw the whole thing. There must have been like over a hundred of those islanders and they looked real pissed off and mean. We got to avoid those fuckers or they’ll chop us up into little pieces, man. I’m fucking serious.”
Smith gazed down the road towards the port town and made a deep rumbling noise in his throat.
“I tell you, man, we’re fucked in every direction,” I sighed.
“I hate to be the one to make your shitty day even shittier, kid but there is a whole bunch of dead heads making their way along the road behind us.”
“Ah, that’s just great,” I groaned.
“I tried to tell that preacher friend of yours but he wouldn’t listen. He wanted to keep heading back that way.”
“I hope he’s okay,” I muttered. “He seemed like a decent guy.”
Smith nodded, crushed out his cigarette underfoot and returned his attention back to the road.
“Well, here’s the million dollar question, kid. Which way do we go?”
CHAPTER FIFTY
I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know which way to go. We either head back the way we’ve come for no reason at all and head straight into that crowd of zombies or follow the road to the port town and get hacked to death by the locals.”
“So, which kind of death do you prefer?” Smith said, with a hint of a grin.
“Aw, come on, Smith,” I whined in frustration. “Let’s get serious here, dude.”
“Ah, you’re no fun anymore, Wilde Man,” Smith sighed. “Okay, in all seriousness, here’s my suggestion. We go off road and stick to the woodlands, head north and reach the port town from the north-east side. We can look down on the town and see how the land lies. I doubt the militia or the island mob will want to fight their way through all those undead roaming the streets down there.”
“No, just assholes like us make that mistake,” I sighed.
“Yeah, just assholes like us,” Smith repeated.
“I suppose it’s our only option,” I conceded. “You think Wingate and McElroy are okay?”
Smith nodded. “Yeah, they’ll be okay. Those guys are a little more sensible than we are.”
I felt like correcting Smith by saying ‘no, they are more sensible than you are’ but decided against it. I was just as bad as Smith. He was reckless and I was feckless. It sounded like the title of a really bad cop show. ‘Reckless and Feckless Hit The Streets.’ I nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of my thoughts. We were definitely the odd couple.
“You okay?” Smith asked. “You look like you’re having a weird out, kid.”
I nodded. This was simply the way things were. “I’m all right. Come on, big guy, let’s get going.” I waved my hand towards the shade beneath the trees. “People are waiting on us.”
Smith wiped his face and glanced into the woods. “That they are. Let’s get gone, kid”
I felt the adrenalin rush like from before. I realized I was actually addicted to this shit. I always went with Smith’s crazy schemes because I loved the head rush. The total madness. I reveled in it and I couldn’t live without it. It was a shocking reality but one I hadn’t fully acknowledged. I’d been a no mark in life before the apocalypse but now I was somebody, living every day like a roller coaster ride. Sure. I had mental issues, but who didn’t in these crazy times? Smith must have hidden demons inside his brain. Fuck, yeah! I was alive and going to be a father and going to keep it that way. I was going to do the best for my kid and not be a disappointing loser.
I gritted my teeth and nodded, gripping the butt of my handgun. “Let’s do this, Smith.”
He stared directly in my eyes for a few seconds. I figured he was trying to gauge my mental state. Hell, I didn’t know what the fuck we were doing but I was going to run into the chaos with gusto. If we were going to die then so be it. Everyone had their limited shelf life and in these times the sell by date wasn’t a very long one.
Smith nodded towards the trees and we set off at a brisk pace, marching through the woods with our handguns drawn and rifles slung across our backs. We headed down a slope where the trees became sparser and the dead leaves on the ground gave way to a rockier, grittier surface. I could still see the road to our left between the trees and it angled around a bend in front of the large rocks on the opposite side.
The air was cool and the sky gray and overcast. My eyes felt grainy and rough and my head, arms, legs and back ached. Lack of sleep and the beating from Ralph back at the tennis club hadn’t helped. But we were alive, having survived another close scrape with the Grim Reaper. I felt as though our luck tank was running on empty now. I had the feeling another dice with death wasn’t going to go in our favor. Too many times we’d survived by the skin of our teeth. Luck didn’t hold out forever, no matter who you were.
We trekked for around an hour, encountering a couple of undead that Smith dispatched with a fallen tree branch. He was still good at killing zombies and hadn’t lost his touch or killing instinct. I had long since come to the conclusion Smith was an out and out hoodlum who reveled in these types of situations. He was a psycho killer, no matter what.
The landscape continued to slope downwards and we saw the sea beyond the rocky ground, the spiky weeds and the few trees that grew between the gaps in the rocks where soil had collected. We stopped walking when we heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire and excited, raised voices.
Smith nodded to a large rock beside a couple of trees. We rushed behind the rock, taking cover and hiding from any spotters positioned on the slope. We peered around the rock each side. I saw the port town, La Bahia Soleado angled beneath us. I couldn’t figure out where the barn was that we’d crashed the truck into the previous day in relation to our position. I swiveled my head, studying the winding path down into the town and eventually saw the smashed up wooden structure further down the slop in the distance.
Smith tapped my shoulder and pointed around his side of the rock. “Tak
e a look,” he whispered.
I shimmied around Smith and leant out around the side of the boulder. Smith’s side had a better view of the town and I saw the islanders making their way down the track. They shot firearms and clubbed at the undead who tried to attack them.
“Why are they going for it?” I asked. “Why try and take the town now?”
Smith put his forefinger to his lips then pointed across the road. A bunch of around a dozen islanders stood on the grass verge jabbing their fingers, pointing handguns and gesturing at what looked like a derelict wooden shack. The structure stood at an odd angle to the road and the islanders casually and sporadically fired a few rounds into the wooden slatted walls. The mob ducked down when a green clad figure popped up in one of the glassless windows and fired off a couple of shots from a handgun.
“They’ve obviously cornered one or some of the militia in that shack,” Smith whispered. “I figure the rest of them fled towards the town and the island mob chased them down the hill and now both crews have run headlong into a shit load of zombies.”
It sounded plausible but what the hell were we going to do? “So, how do we figure a way through all this?” I asked.
Smith rumbled. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
A sudden thought occurred to me. “Are Duffy and Co still even out there on that boat? Because if they’re not, we’re totally wasting our time here.”
“Good point,” Smith muttered. He crouched lower into a clump of long grass and leaned around the boulder. He turned his head back to me. “The boat is still there. It’s out at sea a little way. I guess they’re trying to keep out the way while all this mayhem is going on around the town.” Smith shuffled backward beside me.
I thought for a moment. “The islanders battling with the undead down there at the edge of town will cause a distraction. Zombies will flock to where the noise is. That could give us an opportunity to get around them and make it to the jetty.”
Smith turned and leaned his back against the rock. He tilted his head back, resting against the hard, porous surface and closed his eyes. “Sounds like a plan,” he said. “Can you figure out how we’re going to get down there into the town? Looks like there’s only one road in and in case you missed it, that road is full of dead bastards trying to eat a mob of blood thirsty, gun totting bastards.”
I sighed. My escape plan’s major flaw was obvious. There had to be another way.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“There must be another route down into the town,” I said.
Smith and I both instinctively winced as more gunfire blasted from the shack across the road. It sounded as though the islanders and the militia holed up in the shack had come to some kind of stand-off.
I sighed in frustration. We had to move sooner rather than later or we’d be stuck out on the hillside with no place to go. We had to do something.
I waited a beat for the gunfire to subside then leaned out and peered around my side of the boulder. The terrain sloped away from us down to the sea. Although the ground slanted steeply, it wasn’t a sheer drop.
I turned back to look at Smith. “You think we can make it down that hill?”
“Without breaking our legs or being spotted by island folk or zombies? Sure, kid, no sweat.”
Smith still stood with his back against the rock, his eyes closed and his face tilted towards the sky. The sarcasm in his tone was annoying.
“You got any better ideas?” I snapped.
“Yell a little louder, why don’t you? Those guys over by the shack didn’t quite catch what you’re saying.”
I huffed and turned my attention back to the sloping landscape. Taking a few deep breaths, I managed to ease my frustration. I had to try and remain calm and think logically, if at all possible. I took a glance sideways at the terrain to our right. A few bushes and tall weeds sprouted from the ground.
“Smith?” I whispered.
“Huh?”
He seemed like he was almost asleep. I knew how he felt but we couldn’t stay where we were forever. We could rest once we were back on the boat.
“I figure we can stay hidden if we move right through that scrubland.” I pointed around the side of the boulder. “If we can stay out of sight from the road long enough, we can start heading down the hill. There must be a trail of some kind leading down to the sea. We can double back and reach the east side of town through the back way.”
I didn’t receive any kind of response.
“What do you think, Smith?”
He stood leaning his back against the rock. His mouth hung open and his eyes remained closed. I thought for one horrible moment that Smith had died right there.
“Hey!” I hissed.
Smith mumbled, opened his eyes and rolled his head sideways to face me. His eyes were bloodshot and he opened and closed his mouth.
“You got any water?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I sighed, reaching around for my backpack. I handed him a water bottle and repeated my proposal plan.
Smith took large slugs of water as he listened. He nodded when I concluded.
“And let’s say we make it down the hillside unscathed. Let’s say we make it through town and reach the harbor. How are we going to get to the boat? I doubt if Hannigen will want to bring the boat alongside the jetty. The island guys will see him moving and then they’ll know there’s somebody onboard. Hell, the mood those guys are in, they look like they want to massacre every other living soul left on this island. What do you plan on doing then, kid? Swim out to the boat?”
I nodded. “If we have to. We ditch all our gear and make a swim for it.”
Smith smirked and laughed sarcastically.
I had to restrain myself from shouting. More gunfire rattled from the shack across the street.
“The longer we stay right here discussing our intentions, the less time we’re going to have to get across town,” I said. “I don’t know if those island guys are intent on hunting down the rest of the militia or they’re going to tear up the town and try to totally wipe out all the undead down there. As for the militia guys holed up in the shack, well those poor bastards aren’t going to sit it out for as long as they possibly can.”
Right on cue, we heard more commotion from across the road. Smith and I crouched down and took a peek out from the left side of the rock. One of the islanders, wearing a white vest and blue shorts held a glass bottle with a flaming rag stuffed down the neck. Light brown liquid sloshed around inside the bottle. He drew his arm back and tossed the bottle through one of the shack windows. We heard the glass break and a plume of orange flame roared almost immediately inside the shack. Panicked screams and voices yelling in Spanish emanated from the interior of the structure.
The islander who’d thrown the bottle high fived a couple of his cohorts. A couple of militia guys leapt from one of the open windows to the rear of the shack and tried to make a run for the trees beyond. The islanders opened up with their handguns and rifles and the two militia guys fell into the long grass. Another militia guy stumbled through the doorway with his hands raised. He coughed then babbled in Spanish. His clothes were smoking and a terrified expression engulfed his face. One of the islanders in a claret colored baseball cap raised his handgun and fired once. The militia guy’s head jerked backward and blood momentarily sprayed against the shack door jamb. Another militia guy appeared at the window. His clothes and hair were on fire and he screamed hysterically.
The islanders showed no mercy.
“Fuck him, let him burn,” the guy in the baseball cap yelled.
The fire quickly raged through the old, rotten and dry wooden shack walls, the flames reached out of the windows and licked the edge of the tin roof.
The islanders stood around the front of the shack, whooping in delight and some fired their guns into the air.
I turned to Smith. “Wow! This is some heavy shit. We need to get out of here, now.”
Smith nodded. “That crazy plan of yours has start
ed to sound real good right now.”
We slid backwards and crept around the back of the rock. Smith drew his handgun and indicated for me to do the same.
“Just in case but it goes without saying, only use it if you have to,” he said.
I nodded. “Come on, big guy. Let’s do this.”
We took a quick glance behind us before moving in hunched stances for the scrubland beside the rock. The excited shouts and yells of the mob, surrounding the flaming shack rang loud in my ears. We had a limited window of opportunity while they stood with their backs to us, reveling in their murderous victory.
We had to get out of sight and as far away from the blood thirsty islanders as quickly as possible or we’d be the next victims to succumb to a grisly death.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Spiky thorns pricked my skin as Smith and I crawled through the bushes and weeds along the edge of the hillside slope. The sound of the cheering and jeering islanders and the orange glow of the burning shack receded the further we crawled through the scrub. I had no choice but to holster my handgun. I couldn’t crawl on all fours while carrying the weapon.
Thorns and stinging barbs tore at my skin and clothing. The stony, rough ground scuffed against the palms of my hands and against my knees. The pain felt intense but it also kept me driven and focused on what we had to do. And that was to get the fuck out of Dodge!
I turned my head to check Smith was still crawling along behind me. I didn’t want a repeat performance of earlier at dawn when we lost each other in the fog. Thankfully, Smith still lumbered along behind me.
We reached a ridge where the plant life became sparser. I turned back and saw the ground had sufficiently dipped so we were out of sight of the shack, although the cloud of black smoke was still visible, rising into the sky.
I scurried through the remaining bushes, eager to escape the ripping thorns. I stopped and crouched at the edge of the ridge surveying the view in front of me. Azure colored sea spread beyond the rough, rocky terrain around me. I took a closer look at the near ground. The land sloped downward and large, gray rocks jutted at angles from the coastline. A narrow, stony beach sat at the foot of the slanting landscape, at around five hundred feet from our position. I looked left towards the town. Large rocks provided a natural barrier to the east side of La Bahia Soleado from the beach but a narrow gap between the huge boulders provided a pathway to the town.
The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses Page 21
