“Don’t shoot,” Smith barked. “Nothing carries down a street more than the sound of gunfire. Those goons in the vehicle will certainly hear us if we fire on this guy.”
“I thought those guys in the park said they’d cleared this area of zombies,” I whispered.
“What they probably meant was they’d cleared most of the zombies out the zone,” Smith said. “You can be sure there’s more than a few of them left rattling around inside some of these houses and properties.” He took a sideways glance at Batfish. “That’s why we can’t risk hiding out around here while these guys are looking for us.”
The old ghoul rattled the waist high garden gate, trying to break free of the grounds. He hissed and bared his brown teeth, with his murderous intent directed at me. My finger twitched on the trigger of my handgun but I restrained myself from firing a round into the revolting creature’s skull. I glanced beyond the zombie’s shoulder and saw the front door of the house standing wide open. Maybe he’d turned a while ago and only just managed to open the door by accident. Zombies weren’t capable of rational, logical thought or of operating anything basically mechanical. This old guy had probably been trying to break out of his former home for a long time and somehow engaged the door latch.
“Don’t fire, Wilde Man,” Smith reiterated. “I’ve got just the thing to silence this ugly fuck.” He slung his rifle over his shoulder and slowly drew the machete from his belt loop.
I lowered my firearm and took a couple of steps backward. Smith marched towards the garden gate, weighing up the machete in his right hand. He drew back the weapon then swung it forward in a round-house arc. The sharp machete blade sliced through rotting flesh, sinew and bone in a fraction of a second. The old zombie’s head rolled sideways and tumbled into the snow on the ground. Brown blood oozed over the standing torso from the remaining stump of the ghoul’s neck, before the body slumped in a heap, leaning forwards against the garden gate.
“Wow! See that fucking head come off, man?” Jimmy gasped. “That was fucking awesome, Smith.”
Smith shrugged and wiped the bloodied machete blade clean in the snow. “Good for a silent kill,” he muttered, replacing the machete into his belt.
The rumble of the vehicle engine seemed to grow louder and sounded as though it was heading our way. We were stuck out in the open with no cover.
“They’re coming,” Jimmy wailed, pointing down the street. “We need to hide.”
“They’re probably just randomly sweeping the streets looking for us,” Smith said. “They may not even come down this way.”
“Do you want to take that chance, Smith?” I asked, eyeing the open front door of the house in front of us. “What if we duck inside this place for a while until they pass?” I nodded towards the property. “It’s already opened up. A readymade hidey-hole.”
Smith noticed the open door. I knew by his facial expression, he was reluctant to enter the house but our options were extremely limited. “Okay, come on, let’s move real quick,” he said.
I hurried forward and unlatched the garden gate. The old guy’s headless torso sagged backwards as I shoved at the metal railings. The others followed me through the entrance. Smith dragged the zombie’s body by the ankles a few feet further into the garden and dumped it behind the unkempt hedge. He turned and unceremoniously kicked the severed head across the garden.
“Those guys in the vehicle might start asking questions if they see a freshly slain zombie,” Smith explained as he followed us up the garden path.
Cordoba entered the property first with Wingate and Batfish, then Jimmy following after her.
“Keep a watch out for any more zombies inside the house,” I whispered, as Smith and I bundled across the threshold into the small, glass covered porch.
Smith turned and pushed the front door closed. Cordoba led the way from the porch, through an internal door into a wide, shaded hallway. The growling vehicle engine grew louder. Smith and I ducked down but still kept a watch on the street, peeking through the clear glass panels in the front door.
Cordoba, Wingate, Batfish and Jimmy pressed on further into the hallway but Smith and I remained in position, keeping our vigil at the front door. A black Range Rover SUV slowly crawled along the street outside, passing the front of the house from right to left. Grim, pale faces stared out from the vehicle’s side windows, intently sweeping the streets for any signs of movement. I recognized one of the guys in the back seat. He was the hostile short, squat man with the scarred face, we’d encountered the previous day in Bellahouston Park. I thought at the time he looked like a ruthless little shit and wouldn’t bat an eyelid when shooting somebody in cold blood. These were the kind of guys who’d probably embraced the apocalyptic lifestyle and reveled in slaughtering the undead and any living person who stood in their way.
The Range Rover drove by the front of the house and carried on up the street.
“Shit, they’re going in the direction we need to follow,” I whispered to Smith.
“They won’t hang around long,” Smith said. “They’ll head on back to the park or someplace else if they didn’t see nothing.”
“Have they gone?” Wingate asked from the shadows of the hallway behind us.
“Yeah, they’ve ridden off into the sunset,” Smith confirmed. “We’ll give it a few minutes for them to make tracks and then we’ll scoot.”
“Wait, Smith,” I whispered when I heard an engine revving. “It sounds like they’re coming back this way.”
Chapter Eight
“Maybe they’re just turning around,” Smith suggested.
“Will you keep quiet,” Wingate scolded from the shadows.
I bit my bottom lip in anguish as I heard the Range Rover approaching. Tires crunched in the snow when the vehicle came into view. The brakes squealed slightly as the SUV halted directly outside the house.
“Shit, they know we’re here,” I whispered.
“Stay cool,” Smith muttered. “They can’t have seen us from way back behind those houses. Sit tight and they’ll soon drive away again.”
The Range Rover interior was filled with live bodies, all with determined, mean expressions on their faces. Two guys occupied the front seats and three sat in the back. They all had stone cold eyes of deranged and detached killers. The squat guy in the passenger seat stared intently at the front gate and I studied the area he was looking at. A wide smear of the old zombie’s diseased blood looked as though it had been brushed into the snow, in a curving sweep towards the low standing hedge.
“The blood,” I growled. “They’ve seen the fucking blood.”
A sudden rush of panic washed over me. I gripped the M-9 in my hand and watched the five men exit the Range Rover. Three of them wore thick puffer jackets and the other two wore military style combat clothing, including the scar faced squat guy. All the hostiles carried handguns and looked pretty much pissed off with the world. They stood staring at the blood smear for a few seconds then trod cautiously into the front garden.
One of the guys, wearing a thick black bobble hat and a black puffer jacket shouted to his comrades when he noticed the headless zombie lying behind the hedge. The second guy in the combats pointed to the detached head on the opposite side of the garden. They muttered amongst themselves for a few seconds then they all turned to study the front of the house.
“Oh, my god,” I whispered. “They’re going to come in here, aren’t they?”
“Relax,” Smith murmured. “We still got the element of surprise. They don’t know for sure that we’re inside here.”
“You think?” I hissed.
Scar Face muttered something to the rest of his small gang and two big guys wearing the puffer jackets nodded and moved from the front garden around the side of the house.
“They’re going to come on in around the back,” Smith whispered.
I felt my heart hammering in my chest and for one awful moment I thought Scar Face would hear my coronary pump from outside. Smith tapped my
shoulder and ushered me to move backward. We slowly retreated from the front door, moving backwards but keeping Scar Face and his remaining two cronies in our sight. They fanned out across the front garden, with Scar Face in the center, slowly approaching the house.
I took a quick glance behind me and saw Batfish and Wingate huddled in the hallway. I waved them backwards, indicating for them to move further into the shadows.
Scar Face loomed closer to the front door and the other guy to his right, also dressed in combats peered through the front window to our left. The third guy in the black bobble hat drew closer to the front window to our right. He cupped his hands over the glass pane to avert the sun’s glare and studied the room inside. I sincerely hoped Jimmy or Cordoba hadn’t crept into the room to try and hide.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. We’d let ourselves become surrounded by a hostile force once again, albeit the gang was smaller in number. These guys didn’t give up easily and now they were pissed with us for injuring some of their buddies back in the Pig and Whistle bar room. They weren’t going to let us off with a few colorful insults and a slap around the face either.
Smith slowly and quietly pulled his rifle off his shoulder, aiming at the glass panels in the front door. I followed his lead, aiming my M-9 at the panel to the right. Maybe they’d only see the dark shadows and not want to venture inside the house. My hopes were dashed when Scar Face tried the door handle and I knew for a fact that Smith hadn’t bolted the front door.
Gunfire from two separate weapons from behind us someplace averted our attention. A three round burst of semi automatic fire was followed by a double tap-tap of a handgun.
Scar Face obviously decided to throw stealth and caution out of the window. He immediately booted in the front door, which flew inwards and banged against the wall to the right. The wooden doorframe splintered under the impact and Scar Face marched into the porch with an expression of malice and his big handgun held out in front of him. Smith didn’t move and I stayed alongside him in the hallway entrance.
Scar Face’s expression briefly changed to one of shock and surprise when he noticed Smith and I crouching in the hallway door. He attempted to re-aim his handgun at us but was a fraction of a second too late. I couldn’t tell who fired the first round but I opened up with a couple of shots that thudded into Scar Face’s torso and Smith fired a three round burst, which ripped through the hostile target’s head. Blood and brain matter splattered across the doorframe and spiraled in a plume outside. Scar Face jerked backwards, the gun spilling from his hand and he slumped to the ground outside the front door.
Time seemed to stand still for a few moments before bellowing shouts and raucous yells of panic seemed to be coming from all directions. The stench of fresh blood and cordite burned in my nostrils and it took me a couple of seconds to regain some kind of self-control.
Smith was already on the move, still crouching but shuffling towards the open doorway. I followed behind him and saw the two remaining guys out front backing off from the property. The guy in the black bobble hat was looking at Scar Face’s corpse and calling out his name. The other guy in the combats edged towards the side of the house, obviously searching for his companions. Both men looked as though they were in shock and unsure what to do.
The guy in the black bobble hat raised his handgun and randomly fired a few rounds through the front windows of the house. Leaning against the door jamb, Smith re-aimed his M-16 and fired another burst, which thudded into Bobble Hat’s chest. The penetrating rounds generated a neat crescent shape of holes in the left side of his torso. He groaned once before collapsing onto his back into the snow.
More handgun fire followed by the boom of a double shotgun blast echoed through the hallway and I swiveled around towards the back of the house. My attention was drawn back to the front when the glass panels in the front door exploded, showering Smith and I with broken shards and small chips.
Smith rocked backwards inside the porch, to the left of the door. I couldn’t see what was going on outside as Smith blocked my view but he was desperately trying to reload his rifle.
“I’m out of ammo,” Smith yelled. “They’re getting away. If they escape they’ll bring back that whole damn gang with them. Don’t let them get to that vehicle, Wilde.” His eyes glinted with steely menace and I knew he meant business.
I nodded and scrambled to the doorway. A man in a blood soaked puffer jacket was aided by the guy in the combat clothing. Both men headed towards the garden gate at the front of the property. They fumbled with the gate latch, anxiously glancing back towards the house.
I recognized the expression of abject terror on their faces when they saw me aiming my M-9 at them. The guy in the combat gear made to raise his own weapon but I released a quick fire double tap before he had a chance to aim. Both rounds hit him in the back, slightly below his shoulder blades, producing two, large bleeding holes. He silently fell to the ground and the remaining guy in the blood stained puffer jacket stumbled backward, to the left of the gate. He looked as though he was going to burst into tears and made an attempt to raise his hands in a surrendering gesture. He was unarmed as far as I could tell but I couldn’t run the risk.
“Sorry, man,” I muttered before I fired off another three rounds.
The shots hit the target, plowing through the guy high in his chest, slightly below his neck. I’d aimed a little too high. The guy fell backwards into the hedge with his arms flailing above his head.
I stepped over Scar Face’s corpse in the doorway and moved towards the two motionless bodies by the garden gate. I had to check they’d been totally eliminated.
The guy dressed in combat clothing lay on his front with his head pointing towards the road. His eyes remained open and blood pooled in the snow beneath his torso. I turned my attention to the other man, half buried in the hedge. To my horror, the guy was producing a horrible wheezing sound and his eyes fluttered rapidly. Rivulets of blood ran around the sides of his neck and I could see the meaty mess of an open bullet wound at the top of his chest. Fuck! He was still alive.
I heard approaching footsteps crunch in the snow behind me and turned to see Smith slinging his rifle over his shoulder. He stood next to me studying the mortally wounded guy embedded in the hedge.
“Jesus, Wilde. If you’re going to put three bullets in a guy, at least have the decency to kill him.” Smith took the M-9 from my hand and stepped forward towards the hedge. He aimed the barrel at the guy’s forehead and squeezed the trigger.
The pop from the shot echoed around the street. The guy’s head jerked and he wasn’t wheezing anymore. Smith handed me back the M-9 and gave me a brief nod as if to say ‘job done.’
“Don’t forget to reload,” he called out as he strode back towards the front door.
I stared at the two dead bodies for a brief moment, knowing their drained, lifeless faces would come back to haunt me at some point. I didn’t want to think about it too much but I’d just shot and killed two men in cold blood when they were trying to run away. The fact that they’d been trying to hunt us down still didn’t seem to make what I’d done right. I turned away and followed Smith towards the house, trying to block the guilt from encompassing my mind.
We stopped in our tracks when Batfish appeared at the front door. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide with anxiety. I noticed she had smears of blood around the side of her face and over the front of her combat jacket.
“What is it?” Smith asked her.
Batfish’s bottom lip trembled before she spoke. “It’s Cordoba. She’s been shot.”
Chapter Nine
We rushed through the house and entered a large, pale blue and white, shaker style kitchen at the rear of the property. All kinds of emotions rushed through me as we hurried into the room. A combination of sadness, guilt and a failure to fully appreciate Cordoba filled my mind.
I stopped moving, breathing heavily when I saw her lying on the kitchen floor. Thick, crimson blood pooled on the whi
te tiled floor either side of her shoulders. Her foul weather combat jacket had been removed as well as her sweater. She wore only a blood stained white vest on her upper body.
Wingate knelt beside Cordoba, furiously applying pads and dressings from her limited medical kit. She pressed one blood soaked pad on a gunshot injury to the top of Cordoba’s left bicep but Wingate’s main concern was a bullet wound, high on the left side of her patient’s chest. Cordoba was still breathing but the gunshot wound made a sickening sucking sound every time she inhaled. Batfish hunkered down and wiped Cordoba’s sweaty forehead with a paper towel.
I felt sick when I looked at Cordoba’s pale face. Her eyes were open and she looked almost peaceful even though she struggled for breath. Jimmy stood beside a set of shattered French doors leading to the back garden. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he cradled his shotgun with both barrels pointing through the broken glass panes in the set of doors.
“What happened?” I blurted. I knew it was a stupid question as soon as I’d uttered the words. “Durrh! She got shot, asshole. What the hell do you think happened?” I heard my alternative self whisper in my ear.
“We were in the hall and heard a noise from the back,” Jimmy sniveled. “I followed Cordoba into the kitchen and we saw two of those dobbers trying to get in through these doors.” He nodded at the battered French doors. “Cordoba shot first. She got one of the guys. He’s dead outside there, by the way. But the other bloke fired on us. Cordoba shoved me back. She saved my life but she got tagged in the process.” Jimmy struggled to speak. He was wracked with emotion. “She went down so I fired the shotgun at the bastard. Boom, boom! Both barrels. I think I hit the shitebag but he legged it back around the front.”
The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run Page 4
