The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers (29 page)

“Well, this is a precaution to stop motherfuckers stealing their pounded cars back,” Eazy said. “I knew this guy once who had his car stolen and it ended up here…”

Eazy’s illuminating story was cut short by Soames sounding his horn from behind us.

“What the fuck is that fool doing now?” Eazy spat. “He’s going to attract any of the hungry dead bastards in this vicinity like flies around dog shit. I’m going out there to have a word with Doctor Dickhead.”Eazy had an angry look on his face as he unbuckled his seat belt. He grabbed the pistol from the glove box and clicked off the safety.

“I’ll go with you, Eazy,” I said.

“Get that other boom boom and a flashlight and watch my back,” Eazy ordered.

I did as I was told and grabbed a flashlight. I couldn’t remember where I’d left the hand gun but luckily Julia retrieved it from one of the lower cupboards.

“Be careful out there,” she whispered, handing me the pistol. Then she kissed me briefly on the lips and stared intently into my eyes.

I heard the clunk of Eazy’s door close and hurriedly followed through the side door. I didn’t give a fuck if Eazy shot Doctor Doom in the face but I was worried about the noise that may attract any wondering zombies in the area. The bastards seemed relentless when it came to hunting living flesh.

I knew Eazy was pissed off by the bad look on his face and the purposeful way he strode through the rain, lit by the red tail lights of the RV. He ignored the downpour, his face firmly fixed on Soames car.

Soames wound down his window when he saw Eazy approaching.

“What the hell are we doing here?” he bellowed from the warmth of his car. I shone the flashlight on his face and saw tiny specs of rain reflect on his glasses. His face was full of anger and frustration.

Eazy spoke surprisingly calmly. “We’re here to get some gas. And if you sound that horn again, I’m going to blow your impudent dick clean off with this fucking gun,” he gestured to his raised pistol. “So sit tight and reflect on the fact that you had one hell of a lucky escape tonight and nobody has shot your sorry ass yet. Okay?”

Soames nodded, disgruntled and wound up his window, staring straight ahead while tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

“Stupid motherfucker,” Eazy sighed, turning away from the car. “Come on, Wilde. Let’s see if we can get these gates open.”

I followed Eazy through the rain towards the entrance gates.

“Shine your light on this chain, Wilde,” Eazy said, illuminated by the RV headlights.

He stood in his own shadow and I didn’t know what he meant so I positioned the beam around him. Eazy held a broken chain in his hands with a padlock swinging at one end.

“Someone has already been here and broken in,” he said with a grim expression on his face.

Chapter Forty-Six

Eazy walked over to the RV driver’s window. Batfish wound down the glass, squinting against the rain. I followed Eazy and stood beside him, glancing left and right in case of any assailants coming at us from the darkness. Eazy explained the situation to Batfish. Rosenberg and Julia stood in the doorway to the cab listening to what was going on.

“I don’t want to go in there in the dark, Eazy,” Batfish said. She looked tired. Dark rings circled her bleary eyes. “I don’t want to be pissing around in the rain and dark. Can’t we just drive up the road a little and stop for some rest and go back in the pound in daylight?”

Batfish’s idea sounded good to me. The rain was starting to soak through my clothes. Eazy nodded.

“Okay, we’ll find somewhere to pull off the road and rest up a while,” Eazy said. “I’ll go tell Doctor Smart Ass what we’re doing so he doesn’t freak out again.” He trotted towards Soames’s car and I headed back inside the interior of the RV. Julia took my jacket off me and hung it over the back of one of the small stools under the kitchenette breakfast bar.

“My God, you’re soaked,” she said. “Why does it have to rain in summer?”

Batfish hauled the steering wheel around and put us back on the road after Eazy jumped back in the cab. We drove slowly along the fence line of the car pound until we spotted a slight pull in between a gap in the road barriers.

“This’ll do,” Batfish said steering, into the lay by.

Soames’s car pulled up directly behind us. I hoped he wasn’t coming to share our accommodation. I didn’t want him trying to lay down the law and causing arguments. He turned his headlamps out but didn’t get out of his car.

“Did the doctor say anything when you told him what was going on?” I asked Eazy.

“No, he just said he was going to stay in his car.”

Batfish stopped the RV engine and pulled the interior curtains across the windshield. She walked from the cab through into the living quarters and stopped next to the bunk.

“Does anyone mind if I take the spare bed for a while?” she asked.

None of us minded seeing as she had done most of the driving. “Go right ahead,” I said. She slumped onto the bunk and zonked straight out.

Rosenberg turned on the water heater so a few of us could shower when dawn broke. We closed the curtains over the side windows and made sure all the doors were locked. I checked the cab and saw Spot curled up, sleeping in the middle seat. I gave his head a little stroke and turned out the interior light.

Eazy and Rosenberg took an armchair each. I turned out the lamp in the living area and crept through the dark to Julia’s chair and snuggled in next to her. I put my arm around her shoulders and she responded by laying her head on my chest. Within seconds sleep took me to a welcome place.

I sat in the back of the RV facing myself in the chair opposite. Julia still slept at my side. The faint light of dawn shone through the curtains and slightly illuminated the interior.

“What are we going to do?” my other self asked.

“Meet dad at Battery Park Harbor,” I answered.

“How are you going to get there?”

“We’re going to gas up and Eazy said we can drive through the Holland Tunnel, take the 9A all the way down to the Harbor. Weren’t you listening?”

“Come on, man. Get real! This big stupid bus isn’t going to make it through the Manhattan streets. You’ll be lucky if you make it through the tunnel,” my other self mocked and lit a cigarette. “You seem to be forgetting two major points here. The roads are clogged with broken down vehicles and the streets are crawling with flesh eating, hostile zombies. How are you going to get passed all those obstacles?”

I was beginning to dislike my other self. “We’ll find a way.”

My other self shook his head and flapped a dismissive hand. “That’s the trouble with you. You just bumble on through life without any plan or forethought. Just go with the flow, eh?”

“What else can we do?”

“Well, for a start, do you even know if dad is still there? Have you called him? He might have flown the nest because you took so long to get there.” My other self made a hand gesture I guessed was supposed to be a flying bird.

“That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t exactly want to be captured and tortured and turned into a zombie by those fucking soldiers or whoever they were.”

“Ah, yes,” my other self tilted his head and exhaled smoke. “The captured hero who offered Smith’s money to that scumbag in the bathroom. You were bargaining for your release with someone else’s money like the slimy fraud you are.”

“Hang on a second…”

“What would you have done, Brett, if that soldier had taken you up on your offer, huh?”

“Fuck you.”

“Would you have handed over the cash and driven off into the sunset without your friends, without the lovely Julia?” My other self waved his hand over Julia’s sleeping outline. “Would you have handed over that cash to save your scrawny, worthless ass? You’re a pathetic, useless piece of shit, man.”

“I don’t have to listen to this crap,” I snapped.

“Oh, I think you do, old son,” my other self leaned forward in the chair and jabbed the lit end of the cigarette at me. “Because I’m always in your head,” he whispered.

It seemed like a matter of seconds I’d been asleep when I was woken by a clawing at my shin. I sat up, eyes wide open, expecting skeletal, zombie fingers to be grabbing me. Spot was scrabbling at my pants with both front paws, a look of expectation on his face. He either wanted feeding or to do his business.

I rubbed my face and eased out of the chair slowly so as not to wake Julia, still sleeping beside me. The dawn light peeped through the RV curtains just as it had in my dream or whatever the hell it was when I was arguing with myself. That wasn’t me though, it surely was another alternative me from a deep down and dirty place. A shiver ran down my spine as I recalled his last, whispered words.

Spot continued to claw my leg. I checked the remnants of the sandwich plate on the kitchenette countertop and fed him a few bread crusts. He gobbled them up but still gave me the stare, wagging his tail. He definitely wanted to go out and do his doo-doos.

I sighed and stretched my arms above my head, trying to shake the limited sleep and my other self’s chilling words from my head. I noticed Smith’s cigarette packet on the floor by the chair opposite. I took one and lit it while moving to the interior door.

Five minutes outside alone wouldn’t hurt while I waited for Spot to relieve himself. I didn’t wake any of the others to lock the door after me. Spot followed me out into the gray dawn light.

The rain had ceased but huge gray clouds like World War I zeppelins hung low in the early morning sky. The eerie light made the outside world look like a black and white photograph.

I leant back onto the side of the RV, smoking the cigarette and watched Spot scuttle across the road onto the flat grassland opposite. A breeze rustled through the treetops that scattered around the grassland. Rosenberg said something the previous night about the surrounding area being called Liberty State Park, and how you could see the Statue of Liberty from the far side.

Spot cocked his back leg and pissed up a wooden power line pole. He sniffed the ground, spun in a circle, squatted and did the rest of his business. When he’d finished he sniffed the air facing the expanse of the park, then stopped dead still with one of his front paws raised off the ground. He let out a low growl, the fur on the back of his neck stood up. I didn’t like where this was heading.

“Spot,” I called, slightly above a whisper. “Come on, here boy.”

The dog let out another growl, totally ignoring my pleas. He put his head low and moved across the ground deeper into the park.

“Oh shit, please don’t run out on me now,” I hissed. “Spot, come back!”

Spot didn’t respond. He took off across the grass towards a shadowy thicket of trees and bushes, letting out a couple of shrill barks as he went. I flung the cigarette butt down and gave silent chase. Batfish would never forgive me if I lost Spot out there.

I reached the thicket but couldn’t see the dog anywhere. “Spot,” I hissed again. “Where the fuck are you?”

Something rustled in the undergrowth to my right. I couldn’t see much as the sun hadn’t fully risen yet, the shadows remained thick and long. I frantically looked into the dark, tangled mass of hedge plants and along the tree line. The silhouette of a human figure leaned with one arm against a tree, twenty yards away.

“Hello,” I called quietly.

All I heard in response was a dreadfully familiar, unwelcoming moan.

Chapter Forty-Seven

The figure moaned again and shuffled through the grass towards me with one of its arms outstretched. I stood still, not knowing what to do. I had no gun on me or weapons of any kind. I bent down and picked up a four foot long, fallen tree branch on my left. The branch was heavy and thick enough to repel the zombie for a few seconds. In my short experience with the living dead, I figured flight was definitely better than fight.

The zombie lurched out of the shadows and into the pale light. The figure was male, tall and looked like he’d worked out in his previous life. He would have been younger than me and had a trendy long haircut a few weeks ago. Now, his hair was matted in clumps, hanging around his head. Congealed blood plastered his fringe to his forehead. Chunks of his cheek and left eyebrow were missing as well as the tip of his nose. His lips curled back revealing broken teeth. The white eyeballs fixed firmly on me.

I readied myself, grabbing the tree branch like a baseball bat. I had to take the guy down with the first blow. I noticed a Nikon camera still dangling on a strap around his chest. Maybe he’d been a tourist around here before the epidemic struck. At least he didn’t have to worry about his visa expiring now.

The big guy came within ten feet, then nine. All my senses told me to run back to the RV and get a gun or get Eazy to get a gun or both. The big zombie swatted the air like he was trying to clear away a swarm of invisible flies. I was breathing heavily and nervously bounced on the balls of my feet. I hadn’t come into close quarters on my own with a zombie for a few days and hoped I could still muster the strength and willpower to survive. I briefly wondered where the buckled golf club, I’d used in the early days was.

I mentally lined up the distance between us and tried to get an angle where the tree branch would hit the head and cause maximum impact. Blows to the big guy’s arms were no good.

The thicket rustled to the left and Spot hurled himself out of cover and began dancing around the big zombie, yapping and trying to nip his ankles.

“No, Spot,” I hissed. “Back off.”

The big zombie looked down at Spot, slightly confused. I didn’t want the dog to bite the walking corpse and draw blood. I hadn’t seen any infected animals and didn’t know if they could contract the virus. I figured biting anything infected with such a life changing disease would come to no good, no matter what or who you were.

The big guy bent at the waist and took a swat at Spot. The dog was quick and darted out of range of the huge hand. The big zombie was in a perfect position for me, bent at the waist with his arms dangling down by his knees and head tilted forward. I took a huge backward swing and hoped the blow was going to be worthy of a home run.