The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run (31 page)

I glanced around for the rest of my party. Chandra and Wingate were already on the dockside but Batfish still stood on the ship’s side with an apprehensive expression on her face. She held Spot in her arms and I knew she was worried about jumping while holding the dog. I had intended to help the woman with the sprained ankle but felt Batfish and Spot were my priorities. I moved through the fleeing crowd back towards the side of the warship, slipping the axe handle down through my belt.

“Pass him down here,” I said to Batfish, with my arms raised above my head.

“I don’t think I can jump down there,” Batfish wailed. She crouched and passed down the small dog.

I took Spot and set him down on the ground then looped his leash around my arm. The poor little animal looked totally scared and he scurried around my legs in a small circle. The last of the remaining refugees jumped from the side of the ship and they all headed in a group across the dockyard. I heard a shout of alarm from our forecastle as the Russian military guys spotted the mass exodus.  

“Come on, Batfish, you can do it,” I encouraged. “It’s only a distance of around my height.”

The warship lurched sideways on the tide and Batfish lost her balance. She whirled her arms around at her sides and toppled forward. I followed her downward trajectory, opened my arms wide and braced myself, ready for the impact.

Her torso thumped into my chest and I narrowly avoided her head flopping forward and connecting with my face. The blow would have probably knocked us both unconscious. Batfish gripped hold of my shoulders and I staggered backward, tripping over Spot’s leash draped around the back of my legs. We hit the concrete ground, still manacled together in an embrace. Spot tried to scurry away but the leash still restrained him. I felt the damn thing tightening around my calf as the dog tried to bolt.

“Are you okay, Brett?” Batfish squawked, still lying on top of me.

“You better get off me,” I gasped. “People will begin to talk.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Batfish groaned, rolling off of me. “Thanks, by the way.”

She staggered to her feet and untwined the dog leash from around my legs. I hauled myself upright and checked the axe was still tucked in my belt. It was a miracle the blade hadn’t dug into Batfish or me but we might need the damn thing for some protection.

“Hey, they’re heading off without us,” Batfish wailed, pointing across the expanse of the dockyard.

The refugees headed away and to the right of the two docked warships. A large number of zombies diverted from their route to the ships and gave chase, attempting to grab at the fleeing bunch of humans. The Russians onboard the warship also noticed what was going on and fired a few token rounds at the fleeing refugees. One shot hit a man in the back of his thigh and he went down, face first. A couple of pursuing undead pounced on the refugee and began tearing him apart. The man screamed as the ghouls grasped and bit at the bloody hole in his leg.

I didn’t know where the woman with the twisted ankle had gone and could only assume that she’d been helped to her feet and made her escape.

“The Russians are taking pot shots at us,” Batfish shrieked, pointing to the ship’s bow.

“If we don’t move now, we’ll be cut off from the rest of them by the zombies,” I yelled.

The longer we stayed still, the further our party moved away from us and the closer the undead came towards us.

Chapter Fifty-One

“We have to make a break for it, Batfish,” I shouted, pulling the fire axe from my belt.

I handed her Spot’s leash and took a swing at a female zombie, who lurched in front of me. She was small but portly and the axe blade split her skull slightly above her eye line. The female ghoul tumbled to the ground at our feet, blood pouring from the crack in her head.

I didn’t wait for Batfish to deliberate any longer. I held the axe handle in one fist, grabbed her hand and started off on a run, dragging her behind me.

Smith and company had veered off to the right and were now out of our immediate sight. I knew why Smith had taken that particular route. He’d led the others that particular way behind the adjacent ship so the upper deck machine gunners couldn’t get a fix on his position. The other moored warship was now masking his escape route. With any luck, the Russians would be too busy trying to help their comrades on the overrun ship and more worried about damage to their own vessel than bother with us.

I pulled Batfish and Spot further forward, bludgeoning undead stragglers out of our path with the fire axe. The majority of them still headed for the two docked ships, attracted by the loud noise. Only a few took notice of us as we ran through the steady stream of bodies lumbering towards the two vessels.

We headed to the right of the dockyard and I caught sight of Smith and the others up in the distance. Some of the refugees had been caught by clusters of zombies and lay screaming on the ground beneath a scrum of gnashing teeth and tearing hands. We had to ignore the fallen refugees and carry on with our own plight. Unfortunately, those who had been ensnared and gone down were now beyond help.

Smith led the charge, pursued by a string of undead so I had to follow cautiously and ensure they didn’t double back and trap Batfish, Spot and myself. The refugees ran to the right of two huge, hangar type buildings but changed direction and I wondered why at first. Then I noticed a tall wire mesh fence in the distance, blocking their path. Batfish must have also seen the impassable obstacle.

“There’s no way out of here, Brett,” she wailed. “We’re trapped in the dockyard.”

I didn’t reply. The situation was worrying. We were still too far away from Smith and his party to link up with them and around twenty to thirty undead lurked between us. We couldn’t go back and it seemed we couldn’t go forward. I glanced behind us and saw we were also pursued by a dozen or so undead stragglers.

Smith headed left, towards the two big, brick built structures. Maybe he was thinking they could run through the buildings and find another exit on the opposite side or they were simply attempting to consolidate their position, regroup and rethink their plans in a secure place. We couldn’t afford to stay in or around the dockyard for too long. The Russians would surely send out a heavily armed search party once their situation was under control. 

We had to follow Smith’s party in their direction. I doubted our chances of survival if we tried to make it out of the dockyard on our own. Somehow, we had to team up with the others. I kept an eye on where they headed, in addition to keeping a vigil for any zombies springing upon us.

Both building fronts were covered by huge roller shutter doors in the closed position. I guessed they were used for housing ships for some reason and now lay unused.

Smith and his party ran to the building closest to the wire mesh fence. I kept pace with them and closed the distance as much as I dared. Smith knew it was pointless trying to get through the roller doors so he led the others around the side of the building. Now they were out of sight from us but at least I had some clue where they headed. Either they’d keep going and run the length of the building or try and break inside somehow. Our problem was we were moving between the two giant structures with zombies chasing us at the rear. If we faced a dead end, we’d be stuck in no man’s land, with only a fire axe for a weapon.

Piles of loose bricks, several full dumpsters and rusting marine engine parts littered the ground between the two buildings. Thankfully, the snow had melted enough to allow us to see the junk sprawling in front of us. I glanced up ahead and saw a clear expanse of flat ground. At least no barriers trapped the route between the structures.

“Where are we headed, Brett?” Batfish puffed.

Spot trotted along between us, tugging at the end of his leash but I felt Batfish slowing behind me.

“We can’t stop now,” I gasped, breathing heavily myself. “We have to join ranks with Smith and the others again. We’ll never make it on our own.”

“How do you know where they’re going?” Batfish asked.

“I don’t,” I admitted. “I’m just trying to keep tabs on them so we know whereabouts they are. Hopefully, we’ll meet up at the corner of this building up ahead.” I nodded towards our destination.

“What if we don’t?”

I shook my head. “We’ll worry about that set-up if it comes to it.”

I turned my head to take a look behind us. The bunch of zombies still came after us but they were starting to drop behind. I knew they’d still follow us until they caught us or lost sight or our scent.

We reached the corners of the two buildings and slowed the pace to a fast walk. I gazed into the distance in front of us. We stood facing the mainland, slightly rising above the port. I couldn’t see any obvious exit route from the shipyard between the maze of crumbling buildings and tall fences. The whole of Belfast looked like the aftermath of a world war. Nearly all the buildings in the narrow streets had been decimated by fire or huge explosions. Charred wooden rafters poked from the ruins of piles of bricks, towards the gray sky. Blackened vehicles lay scattered on their sides or on their roofs in and around the roadways. Electricity poles and street lights stood wilting in crisscrosses, snagged up on the sagging cables.

“Jesus, what the hell happened here?” I whispered. “It looks as though a nuclear bomb exploded in this city.”

Batfish tugged at my arm. I could barely turn my gaze away from the wrecked city in front of me.

“Brett, you know you said
we’ll worry about that set-up if it comes to it
?”

“What?” I muttered, still shocked at the scene of decimation.

Batfish took a nervous glance back down the gap between the two buildings. The dozen or so zombies staggered over the bricks and debris towards us, moaning in unison.

“Well, Smith and the others aren’t here, nobody is here.”

I gazed around and didn’t see a living soul around the rear of the large structures. Only dead souls approached us.

Chapter Fifty-Two

The undead stumbled closer, their unmistakable grunts and moans slightly audible over the whipping wind and rasp of gunfire in the distance. I could only assume Smith and the others had found their way inside the building to our right. The zombies chasing them would possibly round the opposite corner and our only potential route would be towards the flattened city.

“They must have gone inside that building,” I muttered. “Come on, we need to find them.” I grabbed Batfish’s arm and set off at a jogging pace, heading to our right.

Batfish pulled back against my grip. “Hold up, Brett. Why would they go inside there? I mean, we’re on the run from zombies and Russians. Why would they want to stop still inside a place where they can’t get back out again?”

“I have no clue,” I groaned. “Maybe they stopped for a breather. Maybe one of them got shot or bitten or something. Hell, I don’t know, Batfish. But they must be inside that building otherwise they’d be right here right now.”

“Unless they got away some other way,” Batfish rasped.

I slowed the pace. I hadn’t considered that particular scenario.

“We need to take a look around the side of that building, anyhow,” I said, glancing behind us. I estimated our pursuers were around thirty yards to our rear.

We moved by the back entrance to the building. Several boarded up entranceways were situated along the rear wall. I noticed a number of sections of grimy glass panels running at the top of the wall, slightly below the dome shaped roof.

We hurried to the far corner of the building and slowed to take a peek around the angle of the rough brick surface. There was no sign of Smith or any of the refugees. There were some zombies though. The undead trundled through long grass, sprouting through the remains of the snow. I ducked back around the corner and made sure I was out of immediate sight before I leaned forward for a better look.

I saw a few zombies trampling over a section of the wire mesh fence on the ground, which had either fallen or been torn down. The undead headed across an expanse of waste ground, covered in various debris and knee high foliage, growing above the remainder of snow.

“Shit,” I whispered, leaning back out of sight around the wall.

Batfish took a look around the corner herself. I realized Smith and the rest of the refugees must have escaped the dockyard through the tumbled down fence. Now they were long gone and we had no way of knowing where they were. Surely, Smith wouldn’t leave us behind?

“I didn’t think they’d go inside this building,” Batfish whispered, in a
told you so
tone.

The zombies following us rounded the corner opposite and headed across the ground at the rear of the building. We could take our chances and head towards the city or follow Smith’s path across the waste ground and try to dodge the undead. Either option didn’t seem appealing but I estimated we had around one minute to make a decision. We’d need enough time to get away from the stalkers heading our way.