LEFT ON THE RUN
By CHRISTIAN FLETCHER
Copyright 2014 by Christian Fletcher
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Christian Fletcher.
Also by the author –
Leftovers
Left Alone
Left On The Brink
Left In The Cold
Green Ice – A Deadly High
War Memorabilia
Operation Sepsis
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LEFT ON THE RUN
By CHRISTIAN FLETCHER
“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”―William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Chapter One
I felt no fear and no pain whilst I watched the swirling smoke rise to the ceiling and begin to clear around the gloomy bar room. The stench of cordite and hot metal burned in my nostrils. I couldn’t figure out why I was floating around in the air; a few feet below the wood paneled ceiling. I felt totally weightless, as though I was formed of the same thin wisps of smoke swirling around me.
Two candles still burned in the far corners of the bar room, casting an eerie orange glow through the dispersing smoke. The burning flames on the rest of the wax sticks dotted around the room had been blown out by the recent explosive blast.
I drifted slowly upwards, rising the last few inches until my back pressed against the wooden panels across the ceiling. I felt calm and relaxed, as though the weight of the troubles caused by the chaotic, undead infested world had suddenly vanished.
The smoke finally cleared and I glanced down over the bar room floor space below me. I saw my own body, bloodied and unmoving, laying on the floor in front of a smashed window. I remembered the grenade, then the explosion, then nothing. Was I dead? Had I seen out the last of my days in a dark bar in Glasgow, Scotland? Would the remaining survivors grieve for me or simply believe I’d wasted my life. At least, I had the satisfaction of dying without returning as diseased ghoul, destined to walk the earth with only one purpose, to consume raw human flesh.
“You are one stupid bastard, you know that?” The voice whispered hoarsely to my right. It sounded like mine but I hadn’t uttered any words or even thought that particular phrase in my mind.
I turned my head and saw a caricature of myself. Then I remembered the gloating, distorted version of myself, following me around appearing and disappearing in equal measures, while offering unwanted advice or berating me with cruel taunting.
“Huh?” I muttered.
“You think getting smashed on Scotch was a good idea? I can’t believe you, getting hammered while those dangerous rednecks were prowling around out there.” My alternative self was half steeped in dark shadow but his face looked gray, as though the flesh was rotting and had begun to peel away from the skull. The eyes were deep, dark pools in recessed sockets, with no visible pupils. His green and beige combat clothing was ripped and torn, hanging off his legs and torso in baggy drapes.
“They weren’t rednecks,” I snapped. “Rednecks are a term for country folk. Those guys out there are known as Neds in Scotland.”
“Rednecks, Neds, who gives a fuck what they are? They tried to blow you up, man. You should have been on top of your game instead of disappearing up your own ass and getting drunk.” My other self flapped a thin hand in my direction.
I was about to reply but stopped myself when I heard a door bang above the ceiling and hurried footsteps clattering down a staircase approaching the bar room. An interior door swung open and several figures stumbled into the bar.
“What the hell is going on?” a female voice screeched.
I watched as another disheveled looking, blonde haired female crouched over my prone body. I recognized her as Smith’s girlfriend, a US Army Medic by the name of Sarah Wingate. Smith, the big guy and my traveling companion since the whole undead debacle started almost a year ago, checked the room for hostiles. He hunched over in an attacking stance, tightly gripping an M-16 rifle, while peering into dark corners and glancing through the front windows.
The two other females consisted of Estella Cordoba, my own kind of on/off girlfriend and another of my constant traveling companions named Batfish. Cordoba was also a member of the US Army, when the world had been normal. She was also armed with an M-16 rifle and checked the dark, shadowy space behind the counter. I saw a worried expression on Batfish’s pale face as she crouched alongside Wingate, beside my motionless body.
“Is he still alive?” Batfish asked Wingate. “Please say he’s not dead.”
Wingate hastily checked my neck for a pulse then studied my body for any extensive bleeding. “Bring me a flashlight over here so I can take a good look at Brett,” she called to a skinny kid who skulked around the gloomy perimeter of the bar room. I remembered his name was Jimmy. He was a young Scottish guy who had tagged along with us since we’d escaped the flaming inferno of Connauld Castle, a few days previously.
Jimmy hurried towards Wingate and handed her a flashlight. She checked over my body and prized my eyelids open with her fingers. She shone the light beam into each of my pupils in turn.
“He’s still breathing but his pulse is slightly weak,” Wingate said. “What the hell you think happened down here?”
When Smith was satisfied the bar room was clear of hostiles or zombies, he searched the area around the shattered window. He saw a black cylindrical item, around five inches long and two inches wide lying between the legs of an overturned chair. Smith slung the rifle over his shoulder, crouched down and picked up the object. He moved towards the candle light for a better inspection.
Batfish saw Smith studying the pipe-like object. “What the hell is that?”
“Hmm…it’s what’s left of an M84 stun grenade, used to incapacitate its victims with a mighty big flash and a shit load of decibels. Those goons from the park obviously tossed it through the window.”
“A stun grenade?” Batfish gasped. “What does that do to somebody?”
Smith sniggered slightly. “Does exactly what it’s supposed to. Stuns the fuck out of people with one hell of a loud bang. That’s what we heard upstairs. It’s non lethal but it obviously went off right next to Wilde Man and it’s knocked him out of the park.”
“So it won’t cause any serious damage?” Batfish asked.
Smith shrugged and picked up a half empty Scotch bottle from the floor. “It shouldn’t do but it looks as though Wilde Man was doing his best to get shit faced before the grenade even went off.” He placed the bottle and the used stun grenade on the bar counter. “My guess is the combination of alcohol and that stun grenade going off kind of goofed him out a little.”
“He’s going to be okay, though?” Batfish asked. She turned her attention back to Wingate. “Brett’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Wingate sighed. “I’ll be able to assess him in more detail when he regains consciousness. My main concern is that those guys who tossed the grenade are going to come
right back here.”
“Yeah,” Smith agreed. “With more firepower than just stun grenades. I figure this little shenanigan was just a little warning.”
Chapter Two
“So, what do you think we should do?” Jimmy asked. “You think that pack of wee bastards will come back tonight?”
“Anything is possible, Jimmy,” Smith muttered. “We have to keep our wits razor sharp, unlike our unconscious friend here.” He nodded to the figure on the ground.
“What are we going to do with him?” Cordoba asked. “Put him upstairs in one of the beds?”
Smith turned and glanced out of the window, onto the snow covered street. The cold breeze blustered through the shattered window pane, causing Smith to zip up his combat jacket beneath his chin against the icy blast.
“We’d better keep him down here in case we have to get out of here real quick,” Smith said. “You better go fetch your little mutt as well. If those guys come back here with some heavy artillery and the shit hits the fan, we need to be out of here in five seconds period. No time for grabbing up shit.”
“Okay, I’ll go upstairs and grab Spot and all the gear,” Batfish said, rising to her feet.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Jimmy volunteered.
“Make sure you get a spare blanket for Brett,” Wingate instructed as Batfish and Jimmy moved to the interior door. “We better try and keep him warm. Let’s start by moving him away from the window.” She glanced up. “Help me move him, will you, Smith?”
Smith nodded and grunted a reply. He bent down and grabbed my unconscious body by the arms and slid me across the floor. “Where do you want him?”
“Move him into the corner beside the bar counter,” Wingate said, pointing to a shadowy spot. “I have no idea when he’ll wake up and I can’t tell if that grenade blast has affected him.”
“It was only a stun grenade,” Cordoba said. “He’s probably more drunk and passed out than seriously hurt.”
Wingate sighed. “I don’t know. Those stun grenades can still pack a punch and the shock of the explosion can still cause damage to the senses.”
Smith dumped me on the floor against the wall and then roughly rolled me on my side into the recovery position. He returned to the bar counter and took a slug from the whisky bottle.
“Hey, go easy on that stuff,” Wingate admonished. “We need you sober and thinking clearly in case those goons with the explosives come right back here.”
“Ah, quit whining,” Smith rumbled. “I ‘aint going to end up as an unconscious train wreck, like fucknuts down there.” He nodded towards my slumbering figure beside the bar.
“Looks like your friends ‘aint happy with you, man,” my rotting, alternative self whispered.
“Shh,” I silenced.
“What’s your problem? They can’t hear us up here. Besides, I’m a hallucination and you’re…well, god knows what you are, man.”
Sudden fatigue washed over me and my head felt totally fogged. I shook my head trying to clear my mind. The situation was confusing. I was in the bar room in three separate entities. How the hell did that work?
“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” I sighed.
My eyelids felt increasingly heavy and I struggled to keep them open. I felt myself slowly drifting downwards as I struggled to keep focused on consciousness.
“I have to sleep,” I mumbled. “So…tired of this shit.”
I was only slightly aware I was drifting towards the floor, drawing nearer to the shadows beside the bar counter where my unconscious, flesh and blood self lay. The sour smell of stale beer and old floor polish hit my senses before complete blackness engulfed me once again.
I didn’t know how much time had passed by when I suddenly awoke. I sat bolt upright, flipping a blanket off my torso. The bar room was still cloaked in darkness but I felt a sense of imminent danger. I was back in my own body, confirmed by the aches and pains and a relentless pounding in my head and streaking through my body. My mouth was completely dry and colonized with a sour, unpleasant taste.
The crack of gunfire and the stench of cordite assaulted my senses. I had no time to ease back into consciousness. Boom! There I was, back in the thick of things once again.
I needed a drink of water and a shower but was going to have to cope with neither. Smith and Cordoba hunched either side of a broken window, facing a dark street. Wingate crouched below the sill of the next window along to the right, reloading a Beretta M-9 handgun. Batfish and Jimmy stood pressed with their backs against the far wall, only their pale faces visible in the gloomy candle light.
“Hey, what’s going down, guys?” I asked. My voice sounded harsh and croaky and my throat felt sore and parched.
“Keep your head down, Wilde Man,” Smith barked, glancing away from the window. “Those douche bags who tossed that stun grenade at you are back. This time they’ve brought a fucking army.”
It took a few moments for Smith’s words to register and I felt totally confused. “Who are those guys out there?”
Smith spoke but his words were lost in the rasp of semi automatic gunfire, coming from the street outside. The rounds from the unseen shooter peppered the bar room, shattering glasses, bottles, photo frames and commemorative china plates and mugs on the shelves behind the counter. A shower of broken glass and china washed over me before a second volley of gunfire sent the expelled rounds thudding into the wood paneled walls in a horizontal line above my head.
“Jesus Christ,” I yelled, rolling onto the floor on my stomach.
“He won’t fucking save you, kid,” Smith rasped. “We have to get out of this mess all on our own.”
“Ah, shit, not again,” I groaned. I crawled on all fours across the floor, towards the window that Smith and Cordoba stood either side of. “I quite enjoyed being dead for a while.”
“You don’t cop out on us that easy, kid,” Smith growled. “Make yourself useful and load up a death stick. We need all the firepower we can muster right now.”
My head thumped at the temples like I’d been whacked with a baseball bat. “More noise and bad news? What the hell is going down?”
“Looks like the guys from the park who posted that stun grenade you copped are back in force,” Smith explained. “They suddenly opened up on us. One of the shooters is inside that clothing store with the broken window on the opposite side of the street. I saw a muzzle flash coming from there with that last burst of gunfire.”
I searched around my jacket and waistband for my firearm. “Err…I think I lost my shooter when I was out.”
Smith shook his head and reached into his combat jacket. “Rule number one, never lose your personal weapon, kid,” he sighed, handing me a Beretta M-9 handgun. “It’s loaded so don’t go looking down the barrel or nothing stupid.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered. “I’m not that much of a dumbass.”
Smith dipped his head. “Well, you were the one getting banzai on Scotch when you were supposed to be staying frosty down here. That’s just sloppy, kid. You were lucky they only decided to bomb your ass with a stun grenade.”
I felt a sense of anger burn through me and I knew my face had reddened. “Fuck you, Smith,” I would have blurted out loud if I had any case for my defense. But I knew he was right. What an asshole I’d been, taking pity on myself and getting sloshed when I should have been keeping watch. I could have not only got myself killed but all the others as well.
“I used to trust you with my life, man but now I’m starting to wonder about you.” Smith continued his bombardment of my character assassination.
“Okay, I think that’s enough for now, Smith,” Wingate cut in. “Let’s concentrate on the job in hand, shall we?”
“I’m not the one with my head up my ass the whole time,” Smith muttered, turning back to the street outside.
Wingate turned her attention to me. “How are you feeling, Brett? I’d take a look at you, only we have a bunch of guys out there trying to kill us right no
w.”
“Ah, I’m feeling okay,” I lied. “Bit of a headache but nothing serious.”
Trickles of sweat ran down my forehead, despite the coldness inside the bar. Smith was right. I needed to get back on top of things if I was going to remain alive and an active member of the team. We had no place for hangers on and people not pulling their weight. I’d been shoddy and ignorant of what was going on around us.
“Okay, Smith,” I sighed. “I hear you. It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” Smith grunted.
I knew he was deeply disappointed with me and I’d have to work hard to get back into his good books again and regain his trust. Batfish, Cordoba and Jimmy hadn’t spoken to me since I’d regained consciousness. Maybe they too, felt let down by my drunken, selfish behavior. I felt sheepish and like I owed them all an apology.
“Listen, all you guys,” I stammered, not totally knowing what to say. I felt as though I was twelve years old again, apologizing to my school chums for something horrendous that I’d done. “I’m sincerely sorry for landing us in this mess and I can promise that it will…” My words cut short as another burst of gunfire ripped through the bar room.
Wooden bar stools and small tables jolted and overturned as the semi automatic rounds ripped through them. Shards of glass from broken bottles sprayed in small chips through the air, showering the floor behind us.
“Save your sniveling for another time, eh, kid,” Smith said when the gunfire ceased. “We need to figure a way out of here before they decide to storm the place.”
Chapter Three
“Can’t we just, I don’t know, hang a white flag out the window and say we’re leaving the zone?” Batfish asked.
“I think it’s a little late for that,” Smith muttered. He leaned his head slightly to his right so he could gauge the street. “It looks like more guys are getting in position on the roof of that store opposite. My guess is they’re going to try and pin us down with covering fire, while more guys make an attempt at entry.”
The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run Page 1
