“Sarah, you go first,” Smith muttered. “Get out there fast, get that truck fired up and ready to go and make sure it’s the one with Dante and the two girls in the back, okay?”
Wingate made an agreeable but slightly pissed off sound, a little grunt in her throat. She was obviously still kind of annoyed about mine and Smith’s collaboration with Mia and Ronda but was smart enough to know any grievances would have to wait for another time.
Smith and McElroy squeezed closer together so they blocked out Wingate from view of Moses and Vinnie. I stepped backward and took a brief glance behind my two big framed companions but saw only dark space. Wingate was gone. Quick as lightning and out through the doorway.
I was now positioned slightly in front of Smith and McElroy. I’d be first in the firing line if either Moses or Vinnie decided to turn their weapons on us. It wasn’t a great thought but the two islanders were still locked in a heated struggle of hissed insults and glaring expressions.
I kind of felt sorry for Jericho Kline. He stood a few feet away from the pair, attempting to pacify the situation and calm the two men down. I knew that wasn’t going to be possible. Too much had been said between the two and too many secrets had been exposed. The wounds of truth had cut too deep and were bleeding out in bitter hatred under Jericho Kline’s church roof.
I kept my eyes locked on the three men shouting, bawling and arguing in the center of the church floor. Smith, McElroy and I continued slowly stepping backward and I became aware we were standing in the doorway alongside the tall, wooden column marking the interior boundary. I heard the sound of a big diesel engine rumble into life and caught the whiff of muffler smoke in the breeze.
Jericho Kline needed to come with us and leave the battling pair to it. I willed him to start backing up and moving away from Moses and Vinnie. He was a good man and didn’t deserve to be caught up in the intense struggle.
It was almost as if he’d heard my thoughts.
An eerie, almost supernatural feeling tingled up and down my spine. Jericho turned his head and looked me straight in the eye with an affirmed expression on his face. His eyes were wide and alert.
“Go,” he whispered. “Go and live your lives.”
I nodded and felt Smith pat me on the shoulder. I took one brief glance at the web covered Christ on the cross above the altar and turned in the doorway. McElroy and Smith had already gone. For a second, I just sucked in cold air and couldn’t see anything but total darkness and I felt as though I was somewhere between life and death. In some kind of afterworld limbo.
A hand roughly grabbed my right bicep.
“Come on, kid,” Smith growled. “What the hell is wrong with you, for Christ’s sake?”
Smith dragged me forward and then sideways. McElroy was ahead of us, clambering into the back of the pickup truck, which faced directly away from the church pointing down the crossroads. The tail lights glowed red and the muffler belched out gray smoke. Wingate sat in the driver’s seat looking back over her shoulder at us with a determined expression on her face.
“Come on, fellahs,” McElroy yelled, kneeling up on the truck bed and waving Smith and I forward.
Wingate started to pull the vehicle slowly forward.
Smith and I ran through the graveyard and out through the gates marking the church boundary. We stumbled across the road and were only a few feet from the back of the truck when I heard a gunshot, closely followed by a fizzing sound and then an almighty explosion erupted around us.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Smith and I partly dived and partly leapt towards the back of the pickup truck. Smith collided with McElroy in a tangle of outstretched arms. I smashed into the metallic bottom base of the truck bed and skidded around on my side. I saw the church walls blast outwards and the roof shatter apart a split second before the whole building combusted in a roaring, orange flame.
Wingate stamped on the gas pedal and the vehicle gathered speed while pieces of shredded timber, smashed bricks and pieces of searing hot tin from what remained of the roof whizzed around us like bullets fired from a machine gun. Pieces of debris clattered against the sides of the truck and rained down on us. I lay on my side and held my arms over my head, silently praying none of us would be fatally hit by the flying pieces of shrapnel.
I heard shrieking and shouting around me and hoped they were no more than cries of fear. Wingate drove along the narrow road at speed for at least a full minute before the rain of debris subsided. She slowed the truck and brought it to a halt, with the engine still idling.
“Everybody okay?” she yelled.
I moved my arms away from my head and lifted myself up slightly. I glanced around the back of the truck bed. Wingate had swiveled around in the driver’s seat and was looking around the prone figures lying around me. I didn’t feel any new pain and all my limbs were still intact.
“I’m okay, Sarah,” I wheezed.
I turned back to take a look further down the road and saw huge, orange flames dancing around in the night sky, around a mile behind us.
“What the hell just happened?” I stammered.
“Ah, family feuds. Don’t you just love them?” Smith sighed, sitting upright next to me. “They obviously got to the point inside that church where nobody was going to back down so they went for it. I heard Vinnie fire the gun. Moses must have fired that rocket launcher in retaliation and with all that other live ammunition lying about, there was only one outcome. Ka-boom!”
I felt bad for Jericho Kline. He was caught up in the center of it all and paid the ultimate price. I hoped he was in a better place and at peace with his daughter…and his God.
“Holy crap,” McElroy gasped, sitting up and holding his head. “I think I got hit on me bonce by half a feckin’ brick but I’m otherwise okay.”
Smith fished out the pack of cigarettes he’d taken from Rats Tails and handed them round. He produced the lighter that belonged to Jericho’s and we dipped our smoke tips into the flame. I didn’t say anything about Smith pilfering the preacher’s lighter. I didn’t think it was the time and it really didn’t matter now.
“So they all went bananas and blew each other to smithereens then, eh?” McElroy summarized, exhaling smoke.
“You might want to cut those other three free in the back with you, Smith,” Wingate squawked, nodding at the three trussed up figures at the front of the truck bed. “I know you’ve still got that knife on you.”
I leaned forward and saw Dante, Mia and Ronda lying in the shadows with their hands secured behind their backs and gags tied across their mouths.
Smith snorted. “Some fucking look-outs they turned out to be.” He pulled his knife from his boot, reached over each of the three figures and slit their restraints with a quick flick of his blade.
“About time,” Mia protested, after she removed the gag around her mouth. She sat up rubbing her wrists and glaring at Smith, McElroy and I in turn.
Ronda wiped her face and sniffed. Dante wailed and stared up at the dark heavens.
“So that’s all the SMAWs gone then?” McElroy asked. “The whole feckin’ lot gone up in smoke in one foul swoop.”
Smith dipped his head. “There’s still one more out there. We had one launcher that they took at the port.”
Wingate shook her head. “No, the last launcher is in the back with you guys someplace. I saw it when I was checking the back of the trucks.”
“Is that this damn thing I’m sitting on?” Mia wailed. She reached down and slid the SMAW launcher across the truck bed. “I was laying on top of that thing and damn uncomfortable for ages.”
Smith glanced at McElroy and smirked. “We have the last rocket launcher.”
“So what do we do now?” McElroy asked.
“I can see a gateway up ahead. I can just about see it in the headlamps,” Wingate said. “It looks pretty smashed up though and there’s a car on its side by the gates.”
Smith and I exchanged glances. We both hauled ourselves upright and gaze
d further down the road, following the truck’s headlight beams. I noticed a couple of shadowy figures prowling around near the wrecked car.
“That’s the tennis club,” I said, shaking my head. “We don’t want to go that way. It’s full of bad shit, believe me.”
“You best turn around and head back to the port town,” Smith said. “We’ll try and find a boat alongside one of the jetties.”
“In the dark, are you crazy?” Wingate groaned. “I’m sure the island mob didn’t completely rid the town of undead. Going through there now would be insane.”
“Ah, you’re probably right,” Smith groaned. He flicked his cigarette butt out of the truck bed and slumped back down to a sitting position.
Smith seemed tired and I knew how he felt. We’d hardly slept or eaten or even rested in around three days. I sat back down next to him, feeling all the aches and pains and fatigue of the last few days rapidly catching up with me.
“Let’s just find a quiet spot to hole up for the night,” Smith sighed.
“No, I mean, what do we do now about the island mob,” McElroy insisted. “They are still going to come after us, aren’t they?”
“Probably,” Smith croaked. “But without Moses to lead them, it’ll take them time to regroup and they haven’t got any rocket launchers, so they can’t attack the warship. It’s too far out to sea.”
McElroy sighed and shook his head. “This whole expedition has achieved absolutely nothing.”
Smith nodded. “You got that right.”
Wingate took her time turning the truck around. I noticed somebody, probably Wingate had grabbed the two hunting lamps from the church doorway and put them in the back of the truck. That was a good move I thought. Those damn lights could blind anything coming our way at twenty-five yards. I just hoped we wouldn’t need them for the remainder of the night. I was too dog tired for any more torrid encounters.
Smith was already snoring by the time Wingate turned the truck around on the narrow road. Smith lay on his back on the truck bed with his jacket pulled up tightly around his chin, covering half his face.
I thought I’d better keep Wingate company in the cab and offer her some directions, so I clambered over the legs and bodies of everybody in the back of the truck and hopped into the passenger seat alongside her. She gave me a brief sideways glance as I slumped in the seat.
“You okay, Brett?” she asked.
I sighed. I didn’t know how I felt. I was trying to push any emotion out of my mind. I was simply trying to get through another long night.
“I think so,” I said. “Although I’m feeling a little numb. How about you?”
Wingate turned her eyes back to the road ahead. “I’m kind of feeling the same, I guess. All this killing seems such a waste. We all survived so many horrific times, us and the islanders I mean. And here we are. We’re all still trying to kill each other despite what’s happened to the world. It feels as though the human race has learned nothing from all this.”
I nodded, mulling over Sarah Wingate’s words. The sad thing was she was right. Instead of banding together, the survivors of the apocalypse were still fighting turf wars and committing horrific acts on one another. Maybe it was time our violent species was halted in its tracks before it inflicted any further damage on the planet.
The remains of the church still burned with high flames when I directed Wingate to turn right at the crossroads. Debris littered the road and Wingate was forced to slow right down and steer round huge, burning chunks of wood, the burning remains of the other trucks and jagged blocks of stone. I felt the heat from the fire on the side of my face as we drove by.
We spotted an abandoned barn on the left side of the road a couple of miles further on. Wingate stopped the truck outside the barn doors. McElroy and I checked out the interior armed with the two revolvers we had left, while Wingate shone one of the hunting lamps around behind us. The barn was clear of anything except a couple of rats that soon scuttled away out of the light.
Wingate drove the truck inside the barn and McElroy and I secured the doors. It wasn’t perfect or one hundred percent safe but it would have to do for the rest of the night. McElroy checked his watch and the time was almost two thirty in the morning.
“It starts getting light around six a.m.” McElroy said. “I’ll keep awake and keep watch until I can’t stay awake any longer then I’ll give one of you guys a shake, okay?”
Wingate and I nodded in agreement.
“I would say we could ask either Dante or the two girls to help out keeping watch but look what happened last time we did that,” McElroy said quietly.
I muttered some sort of response, already looking forward to a couple of hours in the land of nod.
McElroy positioned himself sitting on the truck’s open tailgate with the revolver in his hand and the hunting lamp beside him. Wingate sprawled out across the front seats and I lay down on the truck bed beside Smith. Within thirty seconds, I was asleep, sleeping the sleep of the dead.
It seemed as though I’d been out for less than five minutes when I was roughly shaken awake.
“Come on, Wilde Man, wake up,” Smith yelled at me.
I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Daylight streamed into the barn between the gaps in the wooden struts forming the walls.
“What is it?” I croaked. “What’s wrong?” I rubbed my face, trying to wake myself fully. Were we under some kind of attack?
Smith was shaking everybody else awake but I couldn’t see any sign of trouble as I glanced around the barn. McElroy awoke with a start and looked at Smith with a confused expression on his face. Smith had obviously woken at sometime during the night and relieved McElroy of his watch keeping duty.
Smith continued on his round of shake awakes. Even Dante, Mia and Ronda were crudely awakened.
“Ah, what is it, Smith?” Wingate wailed. She rubbed her eyes and sat up in the driver’s seat.
“What is it, big man?” McElroy groaned. “What’s got you all riled up this morning?”
Smith stood up in the truck bed, making sure we were all listening. A big smirk engulfed his face and for one bizarre moment, I thought he was going to burst into song.
“Guys, I have a great idea,” he said.
I heard Wingate groan in the cab and I felt the same way. What crazy scheme had Smith got planned now?
“Go on, yer big eejit,” McElroy huffed. “Let’s hear it then.”
McElroy seemed to have as much faith in Smith as Wingate and I did.
“I’ve been sitting here for hours thinking this over. We can’t move the warship, right?”
“Yes, Smith,” Wingate sighed. “We know that.”
“So we have to get away from the island in some other way, agreed?”
“Ah, just cut to the fucking chase, man,” McElroy groaned, rubbing his eyes.
“Okay, Mac,” Smith said, looking slightly offended. “You’re ruining my big moment here.”
McElroy opened his eyes wide and shrugged.
“We don’t have any boats big enough to carry everybody, right?”
McElroy and I exchanged a frustrated glance before nodding.
“So, what other modes of transport are available to us, guys?”
Smith opened out his arms and flashed us an expectant grin, as though we were all going to answer him. Instead, we all looked around blankly at each other.
“No idea,” I muttered.
Smith let his hands flop down by his sides and looked disappointed.
“Remember the airport, guys?” he said. “Remember all those big airplanes we saw just lying around?”
McElroy and I exchanged a concerned glance. I didn’t like where Smith’s plan was heading. He’d obviously thought long and hard about this scenario and I knew he was going to push it as hard as he could to make it happen.
“Ye-es,” McElroy said, sounding skeptical.
“So, we choose one of those big birds, fix it up, fuel it up and fly right on out of here. What do you t
hink, guys?” Smith grinned in expectation we were all going to cheer and whoop and give him an exuberant round of applause. Instead, he was met with stunned silence.
“So, you think we can just get on a plane and fly out of here, just like that?” Wingate screeched. “Are you totally nuts? We don’t know if there is any fuel at that airport. We don’t know if any of those planes are serviceable. The logistics of getting everybody off that ship and onto the island and then getting them to the airport is going to be practically impossible. Hell, we don’t even have anybody around who can fly a plane. None of us can.”
Smith turned to Wingate and smiled. “No we can’t.” He turned his gaze to Dante and pointed at him. “But he can.”
I blew outward and put my hands on top of my head. It was a wild plan but I felt we had to get away from this damn island somehow. Maybe Smith’s idea was too audacious to even consider but I couldn’t help thinking it was a way out. Even if we did get the plane working, there was a good chance we’d crash into the sea. Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad way to go out. Dying in a plane crash was slightly more preferable than turning into a shambling corpse. The plan was so foolhardy but I thought it was brilliant.
“I’m in,” I said boldly.
Smith nodded and tipped me a wink.
“Have you gone crazy too, Brett?” Wingate groaned. She glanced at me and I noticed an underlying expression of regret she’d asked that question.
“Probably,” I said, with a wheezy laugh. “But Smith is right. We have to try to get away from here somehow. We can’t just sit and fester on that warship forever. The supplies are going to run dry in a few weeks. We’ll have the islanders coming back at us at some point. We’ve still got the undead to contend with and we can’t be sure the Russians won’t find us out here eventually. Surely, it’s better to go out trying to do something positive than sitting around and just waiting to die.”
Again, stunned silence descended around the barn. I hoped the others were mulling over my words instead of thinking I really had lost my mind.
McElroy sighed and finally spoke. “I hate to admit it but I think Wilde Man is right. We have to try and get out of this place. In addition to what he was talking about, the hurricane season is on its way and we don’t know for sure if the warship will stay afloat in the rough seas. We either move everybody onto the island and face an all out war with the mobsters or try and do something different. I vote we try something different.”
The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses Page 33
