The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run

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.