The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers (40 page)

Smith was the first to reach the Coast Guard boat. He leapt onboard, causing the vessel to sway slightly in the water and made his way around the deck to the cab. He checked the controls; the boat seemed to be in working order so he fired up the engine. Smith had used similar patrol boats in his day in the Marines. After vowing never to set foot aboard a boat again, he was surprised how easily he remembered how to operate one.

Smith poked his head out the cab and saw Eazy helping Batfish onboard.

“Eazy, slip the ropes,” he shouted. Eazy looked blank so Smith pointed at the back and front of the boat. Batfish took Eazy’s shotgun and pointed it with one arm at the approaching zombies on the pier. Spot was still tucked under her other arm. Eazy nodded to Smith and removed the large looped ends of the ropes from around the bollards attached to the pier, threw the ropes onto the boat deck then jumped onboard.

Smith steered away from the pier and followed the river south. Batfish sat on the floor at the back of the cab huddled against the wall looking suitably uncomfortable, cuddling Spot.

“This thing’s gassed right up,” Smith said to Eazy as he came into the cab. “We can move down to Battery Park and have a scout around for old man Wilde’s ship.”

“Do you think Wilde and his crew made it down there?” Eazy asked. He looked back at the pier and saw large numbers of undead plunging into the river.

Smith shrugged. “I don’t know. That crazy Soames seemed like a liability to me. He seems the kind of guy to act first and think later. Guys like that get you killed.”

Eazy nodded. “That motherfucker would have killed us all without a second glance back at the airport.”

Smith slowed the boat as they looked at the scene of carnage across the Manhattan shoreline. Piles of vehicles blocked the roads, thousands of undead roamed the streets, plumes of gray smoke billowed from behind the skyscrapers from somewhere in the city.

“Jesus, it looks worse from here,” Eazy murmured. “Do you think there are any more survivors apart from your old crew?”

Smith shrugged again. “There’s probably a few left getting desperate for supplies.”

“I’m going to go around and check the lockers, see what I can find,” Eazy said. “Maybe there’s some food and weapons onboard somewhere. Looks like whoever sailed this boat left in kind of a hurry.”

Smith nodded as Eazy went out onto the deck. He glanced at Batfish whose face had turned pale and slightly green and gave her a smile. She returned a brief scowl.

Eazy searched through the lockers and found some life jackets and pieces of rope wrapped in coils. He opened a larger locker embedded in the deck and momentarily jumped backward. A mutilated corpse of a man dressed in a navy blue US Coast Guard uniform lay in the locker. Huge gouges spread across his face and arms which were folded across his chest. His head was tilted to the right, revealing a bite mark on his neck with serrated pieces of skin around the deep wound.

“Fuck, what happened to this poor bastard?” Eazy whispered to himself.

He reached into the locker to grab the Coast Guard man by his shirt front with the intention of hauling the corpse overboard. The Coast Guard man’s eyes snapped open, bulging and milky white. He snarled and grabbed Eazy’s hand. Eazy shrieked and went to pull his hand away but the zombie’s teeth bit into his forearm and tore away a chunk of flesh. Eazy screamed in anger and pain. He was now effectively dead.

Smith stopped the boat, letting the engine idle and drew his SIG pistol. Batfish looked out of the cab feeling terrified. Smith heard a gunshot and quickly moved out onto the deck. The body of a zombie lay at Eazy’s feet. Smith looked at Eazy and saw the blood running down his right arm and the Springfield .45 ACP in his left hand. Smith felt the strength drain from his body.

“You okay?” A dumb question he thought.

Tears rolled down Eazy’s cheeks as he shook his head. “Nah, man, I’m fucked,” he whined and gave the dead zombie a kick in the ribs.

Eazy bent down and grabbed the Coast Guard man by the back of his shirt and dragged him over the deck. He rolled the body over the side into the river and fired a few more shots at the floating corpse.

“Motherfucker,” he screamed.

Batfish tentatively staggered out onto the deck, feeling nauseous through motion sickness and felt even worse when she saw the wound on Eazy’s forearm.

“Oh, no,” she gasped, standing behind Smith.

“They got me in the end, Smith. They got me, man,” Eazy wailed.

Smith looked down at his shoes. He liked Eazy and was sorry to see him go. Tears ran down Batfish’s cheeks as she covered her mouth with her hand, too distressed to speak.

“It was a pleasure knowing you, kid,” Smith sighed.

Eazy nodded and stood close to the side of the boat with the barrel of the Springfield .45 against his temple. Batfish sobbed and rested her forehead against Smith’s shoulder.

“You two are the bomb, you know that?” Eazy sniffed.

Smith nodded and gave Eazy a wink. Eazy smiled through his tears before he pulled the trigger. Smith looked down again and when he looked up Eazy was gone. Batfish wailed on his shoulder. Smith gulped down the sorrowful bulge in his throat and put his arm around Batfish. He held her close as she sobbed into his chest.

Chapter Sixty-Three

I used to be quite good on a bike as a kid, doing all sorts of skids, swerves and maneuvers. Now, the years of self abuse began to take their toll again. My legs felt weak pushing the pedals around and my lungs burned. Sweat formed on my forehead and ran down my face.

We cycled by some kind of stadium on our right between the tree lined road. Large numbers of undead stumbled around the entrance. The road curved around to our left and I saw a blue sign on a lamppost with “Pier A” written in white lettering and an arrow pointing to our right.

“This could be the place, Denny,” I gasped.

Sherman still ran alongside us dodging the swarms of undead. I swerved the bike right off the main street to a slip road that seemed to head around the back of the pier.

“I don’t think this is the place, Brett,” Rosenberg said. “It’s a historic building. It doesn’t look like any ships sail from here anymore.”

I briefly glanced up at the pier buildings. Rosenberg was right. The long gray building with a green roof and green flash looked like something from the Victorian age. The windows were boarded and scaffolding stood against certain parts of the structure.

“Shit,” I spat and carried on pedaling passed Pier A and the old docks. The route we were now on looked like we had rejoined the coastal Esplanade.

Zombies lurched through the trees of some park to our left. I looked into the distance and saw a ferry terminal dead ahead. I glanced right and caught sight of a large white yacht anchored a few hundred yards off the shoreline. Could this be the place we were looking for? I felt a tinge of excitement. I scanned the yacht’s upper deck looking for signs of life.

“Look out, Brett” Rosenberg screeched.

I turned my head, looking back to where we were headed. A zombie with smashed legs, bent in different directions, crawled in front of the bike across the path. I touched the brakes but couldn’t stop the impact. The front wheel crashed into the zombie’s skull and snapped the head backward with a sickening crack. I lost control as the handle bars twisted violently from my grip. Rosenberg and I were thrown from the rider’s position onto the asphalt. I flew over the top of the handle bars and rolled forward several yards. Rosenberg fell to the left side. Sherman slowed and rounded back, barking at the approaching zombies.

Rosenberg sat up and tried to get to his feet, searching for his glasses that had fallen off his head in the collision. In the confusion, he didn’t notice the female zombie directly behind him.

“Watch out, Denny,” I yelled.

The circle of undead closed around us, moaning and lowing in anticipation of fresh blood. The female zombie behind Rosenberg lurched forward. Her long, black hair and cracked white skin made her look like a witch. The stumbled on top of Rosenberg’s shoulders and sank her teeth into the left side of his neck. Rosenberg screamed and blood spurted from the wound. He shoved the female zombie to one side and reached into his pockets taking out the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Run for your life, Brett,” Rosenberg shouted, his face pale and screwed up in pain. Blood rolled down his shoulder and chest.

I staggered to my feet, feeling shocked and horrified. Rosenberg and I were sort of kindred spirits and now, through my negligence, I’d killed him.

“I’m sorry, Denny,” I squawked.

“Just go, Brett,” Rosenberg was struggling to speak. His words came out as a grunt.

Sherman barked and circled me, trying to ward off the surrounding masses of undead. Rosenberg opened the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and then spilled the ketamine tablets into the top. He gave me a nod, replaced the lid and shook the bottle. The female zombie reached for him again. Several more undead closed in for the kill. Rosenberg hurled the bottle onto the asphalt.

A bright, yellow light momentarily blinded me. The explosion rocked me back onto the seat of my pants. The sound hit me in a wave. Several of the undead surrounding Rosenberg blew to pieces. A few seconds later my vision cleared. Puddles of blood and body parts scattered the pathway and Rosenberg had simply disintegrated under the blast. I didn’t want to see if any of his body remained on the path. Jesus! Rosenberg had certainly gone out with a bang in every sense. That was some bomb he’d put together.

Tears streamed down my face as I scrambled to my feet. The explosion had momentarily confused the undead and most of them stopped still, staring at the smoke spiraling in the air and the broken body parts scattered on the path.

I ran towards the ferry terminal. Guilt and frustration washed over me in nauseous waves. Sherman trotted beside me, his eyes firmly fixed on my face. I didn’t know if he could sense my emotion, first Soames, then Julia and now Rosenberg. All gone in a matter of hours.

I reached the glass fronted, white framed ferry terminal which resembled a giant conservatory. The interior was dark with shadows and no signs of life. I banged on the glass and tried the door which was locked. No more ferries from this terminal.

Groups of undead came towards me, moaning with their hands outstretched. I’d be overwhelmed if I didn’t move soon. The clearest route was back the way we had come. Sherman barked a warning at the zombies closing in on us. Reluctantly, I turned away from the ferry terminal and ran, heading north towards Pier A again.

Crowds of undead blocked the route back out onto the main street, Battery Place. I had no choice but to run around the back of the old pier. Maybe this was it, the end of the line and I was just prolonging the inevitable. I might as well climb the scaffolding and throw myself off onto the tarmac. All together the thought came to me that zombies couldn’t climb. The scaffolding was my temporary savior.

A collapsed wire fence ringed the old pier buildings, where the construction workers had separated the structure from the public. Sherman and I leaped the fence in one bound. The limited defense of the fence wouldn’t keep the zombies out but gave us a vital few seconds to gain some ground.

A sturdy wooden ladder stood against the first set of scaffolding we came to. I pulled the bottom of the ladder back across the jetty to allow Sherman more accessibility to climb. He wouldn’t go up at first and looked back at me with uncertainty. I pushed his butt up the rungs.

“Come on, boy,” I hissed.

Eventually and hesitantly, he began to climb. I followed quickly shoving the poor dog every hesitant step of the way. We got to the first scaffold level and rolled onto the wooden boards. I lay on my back, gasping and dead beat looking back across the shoreline. Zombies filtered through the wire fence in steady pursuit. I sat up and summoned my last source of energy by pulling the ladder up onto our scaffold level. We were safe, temporarily.

I lay back on the wooden boards trying to block out the sound of the zombie’s moans from below and the demise of my companions. Sherman pawed me on the stomach and then proceeded to lick my face. I stroked his head and looked into his big brown eyes, the only buddy I had left in this new, putrid world.

“What are we going to do, boy?” I whispered.

Options were incredibly thin on the ground. I just needed to get my breath for the moment.
“Your options are…”
I heard myself saying from my days on the phone in the call center.
“Your options are…1 – get eaten by zombies, 2- kill yourself by whatever means to hand, 3 – try a pathetic escape attempt and get your friends killed in the process, sorry you’ve already done that, 4- Do nothing and stay on the scaffolding and slowly starve to death, or press 0 for the main menu.”

“Can I redial and start again,” I laughed to myself.

Damn, I needed a cigarette and was thankful to find I still had a crumpled pack and a lighter in my pocket. I lit one and enjoyed the smoke burning in my lungs. I blew the smoke out into the early evening, clear blue New York sky.

“Get fucked,” I shouted down to the crowds of undead massing at the foot of the scaffolding.

I definitely decided
option 1
was out of the question. Fuck being one of those useless, walking pieces of crap.

I tried to look out to the river again where the moored yacht was but trees from the nearby park blocked my view. Was Dad still alive and well on that yacht, drinking a cocktail and looking at a nice piece of ass? I’d loved to have introduced Julia to him as my girlfriend, a well spoken English girl who his son, Brett Wilde, had heroically saved from the jaws of death to lead a charmed lifestyle aboard a luxury yacht sailing to the remaining ports still unaffected by the undead virus. Nah, Brett Wilde was just another asshole who perished like the rest of them but got lucky for a while by hooking up with some lunatic called Smith. I saw my other self sitting against the opposite scaffold pole, casually smoking and drinking a cold Bud, giving me a knowing “told you so” look.