The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers (8 page)

“Oh, what now?” I muttered.

We walked slowly to the wrecked vehicle. I peered through the side window. A man in a baseball cap and red hunting jacket sat slumped backward in the drivers’ seat. Blood spatters covered the cab and the windshield was cracked in the shape of a spider’s web. Half the right side of the drivers head was missing and the other half was a bloody mess. Smith took a look and made a gesture of a gun with his fingers and pointed to his head.

“Looks like a suicide,” he whispered.

We stepped away and tried the front door. Predictably, it was locked. The sign on the door read ‘Günter’s Gun Shop – Closed.’ Smith pointed to the vehicle and I hopped up onto the hood. I knocked away loose, jagged shards of the shop window glass with the golf club and winced when they tinkled on the ground. I jumped off the hood into the middle of the shop floor and crouched, listening for any movement. Smith followed me inside, his loafers crunched on the broken glass on the ground. The shop was almost in darkness. A humming sound reverberated from somewhere in the back of the store. It sounded like a generator or an air-con unit.

The shop wasn’t big and the whole floor area only covered roughly the size of an average family living room. Shelves of boxed ammunition stood stored in glass fronted cases behind a glass covered display counter. No cash register was on display; maybe the owner had taken it with him, wherever that was. Racks of hunting rifles, BB guns and bows and arrows of all shapes and sizes hung from the wall each side of the display counter. Hunting gear and various knives hung on the back wall to the right of the display case. I noticed a narrow doorway between some freestanding racks of waterproof jackets and trousers.

Smith crept over to the glass cases and searched for ammunition. I looked around the shelves for any spare hand guns lying around. I pulled at the hunting rifles chained to the shelves through the trigger guards.

“Have you fired a hand gun before?” Smith asked.

I shook my head. The closest I’d come to shooting anything was on the PlayStation. Smith smashed the glass display case with the baseball bat. The noise echoed around the store.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find the keys,” he held up a palm in apology. He took a pistol from the display case and held it out for me. “Here, this is a Beretta M9A1. It’s accurate with not much kick and takes fifteen, nine-mil rounds. Load it now and take as much spare ammo as you can carry.”

The gun was metallic blue with a long barrel. It felt good in my hand and I practiced aiming and shooting at imaginary zombies. Smith showed me how to load the weapon and passed me a few boxes of 9mm rounds that I stuffed into my rucksack. He loaded his Desert Eagle and stuffed his pockets with spare ammo. We took a rifle sling each to carry the ‘silent’ weapons on our backs. The handle of the golf club hung over my left shoulder for easy access. I wasn’t letting go of that weapon. Smith swapped his brown loafers for walking boots but kept the leather jacket, I thought he maybe should have swapped it for a hunting coat.

We picked up a hunting knife each from the shelf behind the register and moved towards the front of the pickup truck, ready to leave. We stopped when we heard a metallic banging. The sound came again so I took a peek through the window and saw a balding, male zombie staggering around the back of the truck. Huge gouges and pieces of metal protruded from his neck with flaps of ripped skin quivering as he moved. The scent of the dead flesh and blood of the suicidal truck driver was probably like the smell of a kebab to a drunk for this particular zombie. He banged on the doors and moaned that familiar low groan. I wondered if the undead guy was experiencing a sense of frustration. The only way to find out how a zombie felt was to become one. I wasn’t prepared for that situation yet.

“Shoot him,” Smith said behind me.

“What?”

“Go ahead. Shoot the bastard.”

“Why not?” I shrugged. At least I’d have some shooting practice and learn how to handle the gun. After all, how hard could it be?

I aimed the Beretta at the zombie’s head, took off the safety, like Smith had shown me and squeezed the trigger. The hand gun recoiled horribly to the right and nearly broke my wrist. The round missed by a mile and took out the remaining glass in the top right of the shop window.

“Good shooting,” Smith laughed. “We got ourselves another Clint Eastwood here.”

“I thought you said there was a little kick back?” I hissed, rubbing my wrist.

“Like this,” Smith demonstrated the stance, holding his right wrist with his left hand and standing with his feet apart. He extended his right arm and aimed down the sights. “Now you try.”

I copied the stance and aimed at the zombies head again. I fired and heard a metallic clunk when the round struck the side of the truck’s bed. It took me a total of eight shots before I finally shot the zombie in the head. I’d missed the target four times; the other shots hit him in the neck, arm and chest before I’d delivered the kill shot. The fatal bullet penetrated the skull under his right eye and sent him spinning onto the sidewalk.

Smith cheered or booed every shot, depending on how near the target I’d got. I laughed hard and felt like a kid shooting at a plastic duck at the fairground. The zombie kept coming forward towards the window and I re-aimed and fired after every missed shot. We were making so much noise that we didn’t see or hear the streams of zombies stumbling towards Günter’s Gun Shop in the twilight.

Chapter Ten

The amusement and laughter immediately stopped when one of the undead slapped a hand on the glass front door panel of the gun shop. Smith looked out into the street, in curiosity at first.

“Oh, shit, we got a whole bunch of them heading our way,” he hissed.

I looked out the broken shop front window and craned my neck to the right in the direction of the main street. Zombies shuffled towards the gun store in packs of twos and threes, like drunken shoppers with news of a bargain sale on an evening excursion. The gun fire, shouting and laughter had been like a homing beacon.

“They must be coming from that damn shopping precinct,” Smith said. “They’ll soon be tumbling through that broken window. We have to move now.”

Total darkness blanketed the gun shop. Light faded quickly on the street outside. Zombies crowded around the exterior trying to find a way in. The bottom sill of the broken window sat on a concrete wall at the front of the building, waist high to the sidewalk so stepping through the broken window pane was no easy task. Zombies would eventually squeeze inside of the shop through sheer weight of numbers; pushing and barging forward even with the cover of the trashed truck.

“This is going to get bloody,” Smith said, looking at the massing number of undead outside.

I suddenly remembered the humming sound when we first entered the shop. “There may be a back way out of here,” I said, inching towards the small doorway between the clothing racks.

Smith quietly followed me as the noise of hands banging against glass increased. Once Smith was next to me, I slid the clothing racks behind us so we had some cover, if slightly ineffective. I didn’t know if zombie’s senses worked on sight or smell. We crouched behind the clothing racks and tried the door. The handle was stiff but opened inwards. I prayed it wasn’t just a store cupboard.

The area was enclosed and unlit but I felt a rush of a breeze on my face which meant a back door or window. Broken glass tinkled behind us. I took a peek through the hanging clothes and saw the front door glass shattered. A zombie stood doubled over rubbing his face next to the center cross-piece of the shop door. They were inside. We had no choice but to move through the door behind us.

I edged through the small doorway and closed the door when Smith came through after me. I fumbled around in my rucksack and took out the flashlight. We were in a very small kitchen area with a kettle sitting on top of a worktop and a sink in the corner. Two plastic chairs stood each side of a cheap table, holding an ashtray piled with butts in the other corner. A doorway through the middle of the room led to a storeroom on the left and a toilet on the right. The toilet had two windows at the back of the trap, one was small and open on a latch, the other was enclosed in meshed safety glass.

“That’s not big enough to fit a fucking mouse through,” Smith scoffed at the small window.

We searched the storeroom for an escape route but couldn’t find any fire doors or windows. Something crashed behind us. More zombies were piling into the store.

“We don’t have much time,” I whispered.

Smith grabbed the flashlight and looked around the storeroom. He picked up a fire axe and barged his way into the toilet cubicle. He wielded the axe above his head and began battering the panel of safety glass. I picked up a rifle with no barrel and joined Smith in the toilet cubicle, smashing at the glass panel with the wooden stock. The noise echoed through the cubicle and probably through the whole shop but we had no alternative escape route.

The panel of safety glass cracked and bent but hung onto the window frame. Dead hands began the incessant thump on the back wall of the gun store. They heard us but didn’t know how to get to us. It wouldn’t be long before the undead stumbled on the door leading to the back rooms.

Eventually, the panel bent inward on itself and fell out of the frame into the darkness beyond. The door to the gun store rattled.

“Quick, get out,” Smith growled. “You go first.”

I didn’t know if Smith was being cruel or kind. He was telling me to get out first so I’d get away from the oncoming wave of zombies in a confined space but on the other hand we had no clue what lay on the other side of the crapper window. I didn’t have time to question Smith’s authority. I hopped up onto the pan and stepped through the window and jumped out into the night. I landed on concrete or blacktop and rolled, trying to break my fall. The last thing I needed was a sprained or broken ankle. A single gunshot echoed from inside the gun shop before Smith followed me out of the window.

“Come on, they’re through the door,” Smith yelled.

We ran from the outside of the building. The back of the gun store led us to a narrow alley somewhere closer to the shopping precinct. We were drawn closer to the center of town without meaning to be. I shone the flashlight up and down the alley. A ten foot brick wall topped with razor wire presented a dead end to our right.

The zombies would wander around the gun shop and the store room for a while yet and hopefully miss the broken toilet window.

We had difficulty seeing an escape route in the darkness. I didn’t want to use the flashlight constantly as it gave away our position. I turned it on briefly every few seconds. If a horde of zombies trapped us in the alleyway, we were dead. The bullets could only last until we were overrun, which wouldn’t take them long with my aiming.

We slowed up as we came to the end of the alley. Smith stood close to the wall and peered around the corner.

“It looks fairly clear,” Smith whispered. “What’s the plan?”

“I think we should find a vehicle and try and drive the hell out of here,” I said. “It’s too risky moving around on foot.”

Smith nodded. “A four-by-four would be good. Something with front bull-bars to smack those rotting fucks out the way.”

“What about the multi-storey car park by the precinct,” I suggested. “Lots of cars to choose from in there.”

Smith shook his head. “Those vehicles have been parked up and locked up. The owners are either dead or aren’t coming back. We need something with keys in the ignition and juice in the tank, ready to slip and slide.”

“Okay, but let’s get away from here first,” I said.

We doubled back, bypassing the side street where the gun shop was situated. The congregation of zombies outside the store didn’t notice us as we trod carefully by. The first vehicle we came across with keys in the ignition was a Chevrolet Impala. The car was half up the curb and stopped at an odd angle. The driver must have simply stopped the car and ran away. We took a look through the windows and once we were satisfied no zombies were inside, we opened the doors. Smith turned the key but the engine made a clunking sound and didn’t fire.

He shook his head. “This one’s been wrecked. Sounds like its overheated.”

We carried on back towards my apartment block. I was starting to worry as more zombies rolled out of the buildings into the streets.

“Just keep going,” Smith whispered. “We don’t want to start shooting and draw any more attention to ourselves.”

The zombies gazed in our direction, moaned and held out outstretched hands as though they were begging us to lie down and let them eat us. I couldn’t believe how quickly Brynston had been overrun and how rapidly the infection spread. I thought of Pudgy Face and wished I’d followed his advice and got the fuck out of town.

The shambling, undead figures filled the streets, silhouetted by the moonlight. Their moans seemed to intensify with every step we took.

“Smith, we have to get away from here,” I hissed. My panic levels were rising.

“Quit fucking whining. I’m on it,” Smith retorted.

A Ford F-150 pickup truck was badly parked on the roadside ahead of us and I inwardly prayed the keys were still in the ignition. The zombies gathered in number like a swarm of angry bees. They filled the streets, spilling from the surrounding apartment blocks and offices at an alarming rate.

I saw a woman thrashing around the cab of the Ford as we drew nearer. Her hair was in a tight fringe and she wore a low cut, white top. Blood oozed from lacerations on her forehead and ran down her neck which pooled between her large breasts. I’d have said in life she would have been attractive but not so much now. Her hands clawed the windshield and her mouth hung open in an awkward grimace.

Smith opened the cab door, took hold of the woman by the hair, dragged her out of the vehicle and flung her across the street.

“Quick, get in,” he barked.

I didn’t hesitate and jumped in the passenger seat. Smith gunned the engine and U-turned, knocking down the woman he’d just thrown out of the truck in the process. He kept the lights off as we drove down the street at a steady speed, steering around the amassing groups of zombies. I breathed a temporary sigh of relief and lit two cigarettes, passing one to Smith.