The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold (43 page)

Eventually, Smith saw what I was pointing to. He nodded and I recognized a hint of a grin on his face.
We didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise in case the welder zombie heard us. His excited groaning would no doubt give away our position.

Smith mimed us both moving along the top shelves we were positioned on, further down the aisle and leaping down on top of our prey. He took a wrench from the shelf below him and mimicked bashing an invisible victim over the head. We simultaneously nodded. Plan hatched.

We quietly crawled along our respective shelves into the dark shadows, away from the skylights. When we were positioned directly above the mask wearing ghoul, I realized it wasn’t as simple as to just leap down on top of him from fifteen feet above. Smith readied himself on the opposite rack. He was rocking backward and forward on his haunches, psyching himself up to swoop down on his victim. I held up my hand in a stop motion. The last thing we needed was to break a leg or sprain an ankle.

I pointed to myself and mouthed – “I’ll go down first so he turns my way.”

“What?” Smith hissed in a tone which was too loud. He obviously couldn’t see my word mouthing in the shadows.

I
furiously flapped my hand for Smith to be silent and felt my heart jolt as the zombie grunted below us. He turned his head and briefly gazed at the shelves at eye level around him. Luckily, the welding mask he still wore was obscuring his vision.

I pointed to myself again and held up a single finger. This time Smith nodded and I began my descent down the high shelving unit.
I took my time, allowing for the pain to slide away throughout my injured shoulder. I glanced around and saw Smith climbing down in unison with me. He obviously hadn’t understood what I’d meant. Ah, hell, I was just going to climb down and see what happened.

I reached the ground and turned to face the mask wearing zombie face on. He seemed to be tugging at the pipes connected to the gas cylinders and still hadn’t noticed me. Maybe some small part of his brain remembered what he used to do and the task he’d been carrying out before initial death.

Smith jumped down with all the grace of a flying rhinoceros and the noise of his landing caused the ghoul to glance upward from his gas tanks. In a sudden movement that took less than a second, Smith tore off the zombie’s welding mask and smashed the wrench across the top of his skull. The ghoul remained silent, tottered for a second until Smith brought down the weapon again. The second blow felled the hefty framed zombie and he lay motionless on the deck. Smith placed the bloodied tool and the welding mask onto the shelf next to him. He shrugged.

“Simple,” he murmured. Then he dragged the dead ghoul to the side of the aisle so we could fit the cart by the body.

“Do we need both these gas bottles?” I whispered.

Smith nodded. “One is for oxygen and one is for the acetylene. Mix them together and you got your oxyacetylene,” he explained. “You can’t have one without the other.”

“Shit, this is going to be awkward and heavy,” I sighed.

“I’m not one for saying I told you so,” Smith said. “But I told you so.”

“Ah, crap,” I spat. “We better get going.”

“I’ll just check the bottles over to see if they’ve got any gas in them and all the equipment we need is still here,” Smith said.

He bent down into the shadows and studied the gear.

“Hurry it up, Smith,” I hissed.

He stood back up. “It seems to all be here. There’s a welding torch attached and the gas regulators are still in place. There’s not much left in the bottles but it will be enough for what we need. I just hope the damn thing is still in working order.”

“Can we just go, Smith,” I hissed, between clenched teeth.
I was worried we were spending too much time down the dark aisle and the zombies would soon gain their feet and come looking for us.

“All right,” he sighed, seeming a little offended.

He grabbed hold of the cart handles and began wheeling it through the aisle towards the box stack. I winced and baulked when the cart’s turning wheels generated a loud, high pitched squeaking noise.

Chapter Sixty-Four

“Why the hell is that damn cart making that racket?” I hissed.

Smith shrugged. “I don’t know. The wheels are probably seized up or something.”

“Ah, shit, every zombie this side of
Glasgow can hear that noise,” I seethed. “We better hurry it up or we’re in deep shit.”

“I’m trying, damn it,” Smith grunted. “The wheels are stuck; the damn brake is seized on or something.”

I tried to help Smith pull the cart through the aisle. The squeaking became more intense and louder the faster we went. I kept glancing between the shelving racks to our right, checking if any zombies were closing in on us. We had one chance to get this damn welding equipment to the loading bay and we’d have to be quick about it.

We moved out of the shadows and into the light beneath the overhead skylights, halfway down the aisle. I noticed the first coverall clad zombie lumbering in our direction. He was soon followed by another half dozen tottering undead. They’d obviously managed to negotiate a way through the carpet of ball-bearings.

“They’re on their way, Smith,” I hissed above the squeaking noise.

“I can fucking
see that, Wilde,” Smith snarled. “Just keep going, will you?”

The cart’s wheels were barely turning and we were more or less dragging the damn thing across the floor. I estimated we had another twenty yards to run before we reached the end of the aisle, let alone get the cart around the stack of boxes and onto the conveyer belt somehow.

Every forward step seemed to be a Herculean effort and I felt sweat run down my back. Smith and I grunted and gasped with exertion, the pain in my shoulder returned with a vengeance and the conveyer belt seemed to be getting further and further away. I was beginning to consider abandoning the cart and simply making a run for safety.

“We’re not going to make it, Smith,” I wailed.

“Quit whining and just keep going,” he growled.

We reached the end of the aisle and the leading zombie was around ten feet from our position. Maneuvering the cumbersome cart slowed us down to the same pace as the zombies. Smith drew his handgun and fired off an accurate headshot, dropping the lead zombie. He glanced at me after the ghoul hit the floor.

“This is a last resort, kid,” he said.

A huge crowd of
undead followed in the fallen leader’s wake. Some crawled across the floor on all fours, failing to rise to their feet after falling amid the hail of ball-bearings. It didn’t matter, a crawling zombie was still a huge danger.

“Come on, you bastard,” I yelled at the cart, as we tried to drag the damn thing around the stacks of boxes.

The left wheel of the cart snagged against the corner of a cardboard box, stopping us dead in our tracks. We dragged the cart sideways, with much exertion to free the wheel up. Sweat poured down my forehead, dripping into my eyes. Every breath I took was a grunted gasp. My arms and legs felt floppy and had no strength.

The collective moans and growls of the undead boomed between the stack of boxes as we drew level with the conveyer belt. Now
came the next problem. How the hell were we going to get these gas bottles onto the belt?

“The cart won’t fit,” Smith hissed. “We’ll have to lift the cylinders out of the cart onto the belt. But keep all
the equipment together and don’t damage any of the gear, okay?”

I looked at the equipment lying in the cart. There were two separate gas bottles with dials and valves at the top of each one, different sets of pipes and a welding torch. Shit, the whole thing was a jumble and Smith was telling me we had to keep it all in one piece
!

Smith tucked his handgun into his waistband and grabbed the tops of the two cylinders with each hand.

“Lift the bottom of the bottles and put your end on the belt first,” he instructed. “Make sure the pipes don’t get caught up. We’ll have to slide the gear along the belt and one of us will have to go down the slope first and take the weight, while the other one lowers the gear gently down.”

“Fuck, Smith,” I hissed. “This would be a difficult enough operation even if we weren’t being chased by a whole bunch of zombies.”

“Just lift it, will you?” he spat.

I heard the sounds of hands banging on the cardboard boxes behind us as I grunted and took the weight of the welding gear. We struggled but raised the cylinders out of the cart and lowered them onto the conveyer belt. I let my end go too early and the bottles clanked together and one nearly slipped off the vinyl surface but I managed to stop it in time.

“Be fucking careful with this shit,” Smith scolded.

“All right, I’m trying my best here,” I protested.

We clambered up onto the belt, either end of the gas bottles and slid the equipment down the vinyl surface. I pulled the gas containers from the bottom and Smith pushed from the top. Somehow, I’d managed to be the one who was going to take the weight of the cylinders at the bottom of the slope. I glanced over Smith’s shoulder and saw the rotting faces of the undead storeroom workers rounding the maze of cardboard boxes, near to the conveyer belt.

I pulled the bottles harder as I saw the zombies approach.
Smith glanced over his shoulder and also saw the undead closing in. He turned and knocked a couple of boxes into their pathway to bide us a little time.

We
both gritted our teeth, puffed and grunted moving the damn cylinders. The zombies behind us roared and stumbled through and over the derisory box barricade. I reached the opening to the loading bay, pulling the bottles one handed as I gripped onto the wall edging. Smith shoved the top of the cylinders and I lost my grip on both the bottom of the bottles and the wall. I toppled backward and slid down the conveyer belt, with the welding equipment hurtling after me.

I heard Smith yell something but didn’t hear exactly what he said. I was too busy trying to stop myself being seriously injured by the sliding gas cylinders or falling off the conveyer belt.

Chapter Sixty-Five

I came to a halt on my back as I hit the bottom of the conveyer belt slope. The welding equipment closely followed me and one of the gas cylinders bottom edge slid between my legs and was brought to an abrupt standstill by my groin. I puffed out in pain but managed to stop the rest of the gear from tumbling off the belt.

“You managed to get the gear, Brett!” a voice called from somewhere to my left.

I twisted my head and saw Cordoba and Jimmy standing beside the conveyer belt.

“Where’s Smith?” she asked.

“He was right behind me,” I grunted, trying to maneuver myself into a more comfortable position. “Help me get this equipment off the belt, will you?”

Cordoba slung her rifle over her shoulder and her and Jimmy tried to move the gas cylinders so I could crawl off the conveyer belt.

“They are damn heavy, mind,” I said, rolling off the belt onto the ground.

Batfish and Wingate also hurried over to help
move the equipment.

“Where’s Smith?” Wingate wailed, glancing up at the hatch opening above the belt.

I looked back up and was about to repeat what I’d just told Cordoba when Smith burst through the hatch, grappling with a coverall clad zombie. They rolled down the slope, with Smith grabbing the ghoul around the throat, holding the creature’s snaffling jaws away from his face.

Smith and the ghoul rolled off the belt, hitting the floor heavily.

“Fucking kill it,” Smith croaked, still wrestling with the zombie.

The others had left their
make-shift, handheld weapons in the back of the truck, where they’d been sheltering. Only Wingate still carried her defensive tool she’d picked up inside the factory. I drew my handgun and moved closer to the grappling pair.

“No, Brett,” Wingate yelled. She rushed beside me brandishing the broken wooden broom handle. “You might hit Smith by mistake.” She waited until Smith pushed the ghoul’s head clear then stabbed the sharp end of the broom stick through the zombie’s left eye socket. Brown blood and a jelly like substance ejected from the wound. The ghoul immediately stopped thrashing around and slumped over on its side.

Smith gasped and hauled himself to his feet, nodding thanks to Wingate in the process. “Come on, let’s get on with this damn job,” he sighed. “There’s a whole bunch of those ugly fucks right beside that hatch up there.” He pointed above the sloping conveyer belt. “They’ll be right on top of us any minute.”