The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers (22 page)

“Anybody got any plans?” Eazy’s words were muffled through the walls.

I sighed and slumped down on the uncomfortable bed. Batfish made inaudible threats and I heard something about “kicking ass.” I for one was fresh out of any ideas or escape plans. All those near misses and scrapes, escaping the clutches of the living dead were bringing us here, to this God forsaken place. But the whole world had become a God forsaken place and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. Especially not Doctor Fucking Doom and that asshole Podolski. What the fuck did they think they were going to achieve? The remaining, living humans should be protecting each other not creating more death and misery. I hoped they would create another virus and inadvertently wipe themselves off the face of the planet.

All we could do was sit and wait for whatever was about to happen to us. I wondered what Smith would do in this situation. Where had they taken him anyhow? The reality hit me that I’d probably never see him again.

“The dog needs a pee, you assholes,” Batfish yelled, thudding on the door or the walls.

Poor Spot was going to have to piss in the corner of the cell. I wanted a cigarette but remembered the soldiers had confiscated all our personal items before they loaded us on the truck back at the Interstate. The only items they’d let us keep were the flashlights for the journey.

I thought about the world before the mass outbreak of infection had started. It was all bullshit. I wondered what kind of state the call center was in, where I’d turned up for work for nearly six years, loathing every wasted day. Enlarged photos of happy, smiling people had adorned the office walls. The people were supposedly happy because they had piece of mind due to buying life insurance from our company. All their concerns and worries would be taken care of because the insurance would cover all their financial needs if they got sick. What a total crock of crap that ideology was. I wondered how many people had claimed on their life insurance policies when they or members of their families had become infected with the zombie virus.

Politicians had talked about global recessions and economic failures for the last few years when, in reality, the whole structure of life itself had come crashing down in a matter of days. No amount of false smiles, slogans and advertising campaigns could have stopped the mass tidal wave of death, disease and chaos that had ensued.

I lay on the bed and dozed deciding to try and recharge my energy levels and make up for the lost sleep I’d missed over the last few days. Hours drifted by and I lost track of time as my watch was confiscated along with my other possessions. Occasionally, I awoke when one of my other cell mates banged on the door in desperation and vented their anger and frustration in muffled cries.

I felt like I’d been asleep for days when I was awoken by the cell door opening. My throat was dry and I was gagging for water as I sat up, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

Three soldiers entered the cell pointing their rifles at me. They didn’t wear the gas masks this time and their faces showed no emotion, only grim determination and red eyes through lack of sleep.

“Okay, get up,” one of the soldiers grunted, kicking the bed frame.

“What’s going on?” I croaked.

“Your presence is required elsewhere,” the soldier at the back of the line barked. The other two laughed briefly.

So this was it. I was being summoned to meet Doctor Doom for a face off. I felt dead already and hoped the experiments wouldn’t be too painful and drawn out. I hauled myself to my feet, still feeling exhausted and beaten. Surprisingly, I felt no fear. Maybe I’d just accepted my fate.

The soldiers led me out of the cell and I heard the others banging on their doors. I glanced back and saw their anxious faces pressed against the small windows. I gave a slightly pathetic wave and felt a lump of sorrow in my throat. I was the first one to be submitted to the experiments but maybe it was better to get it over and done with, instead of prolonging the inevitable conclusion.

I blocked out the muffled words the others yelled as the soldiers led me up the staircase. Whatever they said couldn’t have made any difference to the situation. I felt like some convict from long ago, taking his last steps up to the gallows.

I thought about dad, standing on the deck of his yacht anchored off Battery Park Harbor, checking his watch, trying my number on his phone and scanning the shore for our approach. Unfortunately, he’d have a long wait before he finally gave up with the crushing realization that I wasn’t coming. I felt overwhelming sadness as I imagined his face crumpling with grief.

Maybe we could have just holed up in Brynston somewhere and either starved to death or finally succumbed to the zombie hordes. We’d made a last stand and put up a bit of a fight, surviving longer than most. At least we’d tried to continue to exist. I felt slightly proud of that fact.

The soldiers led me through the corridor and passed the door where we’d been examined in the interview room. The corridor snaked around to the right with more rooms leading to the left. I hadn’t realized how big the building was when we entered, in what seemed like weeks ago.

My armed captors stopped outside the last door on the left of the corridor. One of the soldiers rapped on the small safety glass window and was acknowledged by a muffled reply. He opened the door and gestured for me to enter with a jerk of his head.

The room was dimly lit and the same size as the interview area with a different layout. Inverted wall lights illuminated racks of test tubes and glass jars along the back wall. Waist high counter tops ran around the perimeter of the room. A reclining dentist chair with wrist and ankle straps was positioned in the center with small trolleys on either side. I noticed several syringes placed on white cloths on the top shelves of the trolleys.

Doctor Doom and his evil assistant plodded back and forth across the length of the room. They trudged to various test tubes and lab equipment then back to an operating table in the corner. A dead body, illuminated by a bright folding lamp, lay on the operating table. The chest and stomach was cut open revealing the rib cage and internal organs. I hoped it wasn’t Smith. I moved slightly to the right and was relieved to see the dead body wasn’t Smith but recognized the face as Earkhart, the dead soldier. The fatal head wounds had been cleaned to reveal two circular bullet holes in his cheek and forehead. I wondered what disgusting experiments these two bastards were performing on one of their own.

“Well, sit our patient down in the chair,” Doom barked at the soldiers.

I thought of making a break for it. Grabbing one of the rifles and trying to shoot my way out like Smith had attempted. Before I summoned the courage, I was forced into the chair and strapped into place at the wrists, ankles and around the neck.

“Is that all, doc?” asked one of the soldiers.

Doctor Doom gave me a casual glance, studied the restraints and nodded.

“Yes, that will be all. Tell Colonel Podolski I’ll inform him of any progress made,” he said casually.

The soldiers nodded and left the room, leaving me at the mercy of the deranged doctor. I tried moving my arm against the straps but they were tightly secured.

“You’re supposed to be helping people live,” I blurted. “What kind of sick fuck are you?” My tone grew louder. “Call yourself a doctor? You’re worse than those dead bastards outside.” My rage and frustration spilled out, I felt tears welling in the corners of my eyes. I struggled against the restraints wishing I’d summoned the courage and will to live a few moments earlier.

The doctor ignored my ranting. He gave me a brief glance over the top of his lab glasses.

“You better suppress that patient, Finn,” he said to the chubby orderly. “I’m finding it difficult to work with all that noise.”

The orderly nodded and approached.

“Don’t you touch me, you fat fuck,” I spat. Spittle flew from my lips into the orderly’s face.

My threats were in vein. Finn rolled up my left sleeve and took one of the syringes lying on the top of the trolley. I screamed and shuffled in the chair as much as I could, primal fear taking hold of my body. He muttered something to the doctor before plunging the needle into my arm. I screamed louder as I felt the sting of the needle penetrate my skin. Sweat dripped from Finn’s forehead as his thumb depressed the syringe plunger. Clear liquid discharged from the syringe into my veins. The effect was almost instant.

My screaming ceased and I felt a warm glow of intoxication and light headedness. Was this the last sensation I was ever going to feel? For some reason the opening lines of the Beatles track, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” echoed around my head. Cracks like spokes on a bicycle wheel appeared in the ceiling before they began to spin in increasingly faster circles. The circle changed colors with each revolution before they blurred into one. The spinning kaleidoscope made me feel slightly nauseous so I closed my eyes and welcomed the numbness of unconsciousness.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Franco Dematteo woke from an induced sleep. He still felt groggy as he tried to recall what had happened to him in the last day or so. Memories of gun shots, zombies and soldiers swirled around in his mind. He tried to link the events together and suddenly the events clicked into place like a jigsaw puzzle.

He attempted to sit up and winced at the pain in his chest and side and remembered the gunshot wounds. His chest and side were heavily strapped with bandages, crisscrossed around his right shoulder under a loose fitting, olive colored hospital gown. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot in his life and he knew it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Dematteo thought of his traveling companions, Brett Wilde, Eazy, Batfish, Julia and Rosenberg. Were they already dead? He’d not much cared for anybody over the last few years but kind of liked this new bunch he’d recently hooked up with. They all knew him as Smith but he didn’t need an alter ego anymore. No cops or law enforcement authorities would be chasing him to any further extent. He decided to try and help his new companions escape if he could but first he had to evaluate his own chances of a getaway.

Tubes and wires were attached to his chest, up his nose and his male organ. A bag of clear saline liquid hung from a chrome drip feed stand attached to a tube entering his arm. The drip feed stood on the left side of the bed next to a heart monitor which blipped showing a healthy heartbeat. Why were they keeping him alive? Fattening the calf before the kill, maybe.

He scanned the room and observed his surroundings. Several empty beds lay in horizontal rows of three around the perimeter walls. The room was an infirmary of some kind. Dematteo noticed a soldier slumped against the wall by the door. His rifle, flak jacket and an empty bottle of Tequila lay discarded at each side of his feet. His head rested on his chest, snoring slightly in an alcoholic induced slumber.

“Looks like they underestimated young, Frankie,” Dematteo whispered to himself. “This jerk thought he had the easy option of guarding me.”

These bastards holding him and his new friends’ captives had pissed him off and now they were going to pay. This rag-tag bunch of so called soldiers was just a cluster of washed up nobodies clinging to the fact they were once in the military.

Dematteo had spent twelve years in the infantry in the US Marine Corps, rising to the rank of sergeant. His specialty was unarmed combat and weapon handling. He saw combat action during the war against Iraq in 1991 and taken part in several Black Ops missions in Bosnia. The Marine Corps had been his life until he met his future wife and given up his military career for a settled life in New York City.

A promising second career as a New York Precinct cop beckoned when he left the Marines, living in a Brooklyn apartment with his new wife.

Dematteo’s life drastically turned for the worse when he was implicated in a police bribery scandal. He had made a little extra cash by supplying a criminal gang with a few snippets of information. Nothing damaging he’d thought at the time but evidence was discovered in an undercover operation by the FBI. Dematteo and several other cops names were linked with payments by the organized crime syndicate.

Three years in detention in Rikers Island prison was considered a lenient sentence by the New York press. Life in jail had been tough for Dematteo. A crooked ex-cop was considered the lowest of the low by the inmates. His wife only visited twice and filed for divorce after a year in incarceration. He never heard from her again.

Once released after serving his sentence, Dematteo had taken the only career path left open to him. He hooked up with the criminal gang, full of resentment and disillusioned with the outside world. He became good at the third career in his life and began obtaining more money than he’d ever earned making an honest living. Bribery, extortion, robbery and even murder became the everyday schedule of his life.

Dematteo had taken enough shit in his life and wasn’t going to let these bunch of losers end it performing some weird experiments. He pulled the tubes from his body and unattached the heart monitor tabs on his chest. The heart machine bleeped a monotonous tone and showed a continuous flat line on the screen. The soldier stirred in the corner of the room but didn’t wake.

Dematteo hauled himself from the bed, trying to ignore the pain in his side and chest. He stumbled trying to find his feet and steadied himself by clutching the drip feed pole. Nausea and dizziness threatened to take hold of his body. He forced himself to stand and took a few seconds to get his breathing under control.

He bent and clicked off the electric plug socket to the heart rate monitor to kill the perpetual bleep. He steadied himself again, leaning on the bed before slowly shuffling towards the slumbering soldier. Each footstep was racked with pain, shooting the width and length of his torso. He used the pain as determination of what he was going to do to these bastards.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a noise from outside the room. A door banged shut and three shadows went by the infirmary door window, inaudible voices sounded as they passed. Dematteo waited a few seconds before carrying on his painful trek across the floor.