The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone (10 page)

I wheeled the scooter through the gate and out into the post office parking lot. I bypassed the decapitated corpse of the dusty dead guy, who was attracting the attention of a swarm of flying insects. 

The scooter had a basic gear system, neutral and drive. The memory of trying to start my sister’s shitty excuse for a bike, years ago on the iced up paths during winter in Brynston, Pennsylvania, made me smile. I held in the clutch and clunked the gear shift on the left handle bar to drive. My dad had told me that my sister managed to get to Alcatraz Island when the outbreak first started. The old prison would have been a safe haven for a few days but not somewhere she could have sustained an existence for long. The whole communication system throughout the world had broken down some time ago, so there was no way of contacting anyone from our previous, normal lives.

I felt sad and missed my sister. I missed our old family life when we were briefly happy and all together, sharing birthdays, Christmas dinners, Thanksgivings, St. Patrick’s Day and other celebrations. Our house in Kilburn, north-west London had always been full of drunken uncles, flirty aunties and old family members having too much to drink and stumbling on the way to the bathroom. My parents hadn’t been together for long but I always reflected on those few years of bliss with warm, happy feelings. Emotions I hadn’t experienced for a long time now.

“Are we good?” Smith yelled at me, snapping me back to reality and back to the present. My warm, fuzzy memories evaporated into the ether.

I ran beside the scooter, holding in the clutch on the handle bar then releasing it when I’d gathered sufficient speed. The small engine coughed and spluttered, throwing out a puff of black smoke from the muffler before it whined into life. I twisted the gear shift back to neutral and stood the scooter on its stand.

“Ta-da,” I cooed to Smith, with my arms open wide like I’d just performed an amazing conjuring trick.

“Very impressive, Wilde Man,” Smith grunted as he walked towards me. “Your next trick is to get us the hell out of here.”

I nodded and clambered onto the scooter. Smith sat on the rear of the seat, clutching Spot and the shot gun across his lap. We pulled out of the post office parking lot speeding along at around 15 mph. It was a far cry from the Pontiac Firebird Smith drove when we first met in Brynston, which felt like several lifetimes ago.

The sun continued to sink as we rode along the highway towards the small town in the distance. Smith fished through my kiddy knapsack and pulled out the maps and the opened bottle of bourbon. I turned my head and saw him take a few swigs while studying the map. He offered me the bottle but I shook my head.

“Drinking and driving costs lives,” I quoted and smiled, thinking my retort was a hilarious quip.

Smith didn’t get the humor. He shrugged and took another long slug.

The landscape was flat and sparse either side of the highway. Patchy grass fields grew on the left side and several isolated, farm dwellings and shacks stood on the right between the highway and the river. The warm evening breeze felt good, blowing into my face and hair. 

“I think we’re on Highway 11,” Smith yelled far too loudly in my ear, as he studied the map. “The next town we’re coming to is called Empire.”

The name of the town meant nothing to me. Another small town caught in the grip of a worldwide epidemic. Towns and cities were full of nothing but walking corpses and the reek of death and decay in my limited experience.

“Did you know that Empire is the third biggest seafood port in the United States?” Smith roared in my ear, reading aloud from his tourist guides.

“I didn’t know that,” I answered out of politeness. I neither knew nor cared about irrelevant facts. The inhabitants of the world’s seas were probably flourishing due to the demise of the human race.

Smith obviously picked up on my apathy.

“What I mean is there’s bound to be some boats in working order in the harbor.”

“Okay, right.” We still didn’t know where we were heading so boat or road didn’t make much difference.

We rode by the sign that welcomed us to the town of Empire, population 2,211. I wondered how many of that population was up and around, walking in search of human flesh.

Chapter Sixteen

The highway was flanked by houses and small stores on each side. The odd lone, lumbering zombie staggered between the buildings, turning to look in our direction as we glided by. I slowed the scooter to a crawl and struggled to keep us upright. Highway 11 apparently ended with a half built bridge construction across a horizontally running river. The blacktop ceased and ‘
No Entry
’ signs stood in front of the wide crevice, effectively cutting the highway from the opposite side.  

“What the hell do we do now?” I shouted to Smith.

“There must be a harbor around here someplace. Turn around and we’ll have a look down some of these side roads.”

“I saw something that looked like a lake a few hundred yards back on the left,” I said.

Smith nodded and I U-turned the scooter in the center of the highway. The bike wobbled under the weight and I fought to keep us level. I drove the scooter back the way we had come and turned right off the main highway next to an expanse of water.

The road took us alongside a canal which opened up into a vast waterway with an elevated, bridged highway running over the top. Smith tapped my shoulder and pointed to a marina on the opposite side of the canal.

“Let’s head over there and see if we can find a boat,” he shouted.

I nodded and drove the scooter along the road running parallel to the canal. I hit the brakes when I saw a number of the undead milling around the center of the road, around one hundred yards ahead of us. Their slow, shuffling gait was easily recognizable. 

“Zombies ahead!” I yelled to Smith.

“Yeah, I can see,” he murmured in my ear. “Keep going and I’ll give them a blast if they get too close.”

I worried we were going to be trapped in a bottleneck. The zombies trudged around the road as we approached and a small harbor lay behind the undead mass. The main marina with several moored, white fishing boats lay across the opposite side of the canal.

The first few undead in the crowd heard the scooter’s muffler approaching them and turned their bowed heads in our direction. A male in a white vest and a short female wearing the remains of a tight, blue dress scowled and opened their mouths wide, emanating low drones. The rest of the undead crowd turned and followed suit. The whole bunch of walking corpses began to stagger forward, as if to meet us head on.

It didn’t seem one of Smith’s best ideas. I knew how those ill fated historic soldiers felt when they made their futile cavalry charges against an overwhelming enemy. The zombies staggered closer, only a few feet away. I took a quick glance ahead to the pontoon where the boats were moored and wondered how we were going to release a boat and fight off all these zombies at the same time. That was, if we got to the pontoon in the first place.

The leading two zombies, the guy in the white vest and the girl in the blue dress, reached out for us as we drew close. They scowled and hissed as I weaved the scooter between them. I felt the inevitable adrenalin rush as grabbing hands came within inches of our arms and faces. I was worried if Smith fired the shot gun, the recoil might send us over on our side, skidding along the blacktop.

Smith smashed the shot gun butt into the face of a male, gray haired zombie who came too close to us. Gnarled blackened fingers tore at us as I weaved the scooter between the walking corpses. The dead moaned and hollered in frustration, they wanted our blood. I instinctively screamed at them to keep back, as if they were going to take any notice.

Spot snarled and growled at the gawping faces of the undead crowd. Some of them had half their facial features and eyeballs missing. I wanted to retch when their stench of decay attacked my nostrils. We couldn’t go back now. We were too far through the crowd.

“There’s too many of them, Smith,” I yelled.

I had to slow the scooter down to nothing more than a crawl. Gnarled, battered finger nails scraped against the scooter’s side panels and handle bars. Dead hands brushed my shoulders and upper arms.

“Keep fucking going,” Smith shouted in my ear.

Green snarling faces flashed into my vision as I weaved the scooter between the decrepit, decaying bodies. The sound of their frenzied screeches reverberated around my head. I was having trouble keeping the scooter going. We skidded and I nearly dropped the damn thing on its side.

Smith battered at the grasping hands with the butt of the shot gun. Spot barked and snarled at the masses of undead. I swatted away gray hands and arms as best I could.

I couldn’t see how we were going to make it to the pontoon. I pulled back the throttle as far as it would go. The scooter gathered speed, knocking an old, small fisherman type zombie off his feet.

“What the fuck are you doing, Wilde Man?” Smith roared in my ear. “We’re going to crash this damn thing.”

The scooter tore through the crowds of zombies and sped along the edge of the jetty. I didn’t slow down and carried on. The wheels left the wooden pontoon boards and we were airborne for a brief moment. I heard Smith yell something behind me. The water was cool as we submerged for a few seconds. I felt the scooter plummet to the murky depths beneath me.

I breathed in gasps of air and checked to see if Spot and Smith were still with me when I surfaced. Smith bobbed up and down a few yards behind me, spitting out a mouthful of river water. He still clutched Spot, holding him just above the surface but the shot gun was gone.

“What the hell was that all about?” Smith spluttered. “I lost the damn gun. I dropped it when we hit the drink.”

“We weren’t going to make it to the boats,” I said. “There’s too many of them. We’ll have to try and swim to the marina on the other side of the canal.”

The undead mass followed the route of the scooter and began trudging to the edge of the pontoon.

“We better get going.” I pointed at the zombies tumbling into the water. “They’re coming after us.”

Smith turned his head for a quick glance at the pursuing crowd of undead.

“They’ll probably sink but I don’t know how deep this water is. I don’t want them grabbing my legs and pulling me under.”

We paddled our way out into the expanse of the canal waters. Smith struggled to keep himself afloat and hold onto Spot at the same time. He bobbed under the surface of the water. Our wet clothes hung heavy and dragged us down.

“Let him swim, Smith,” I spluttered. “He can swim okay.”

Smith complied and let go of the little dog. Spot paddled beside us with ease but the distance to the marina now looked a daunting prospect. It didn’t look that far, only about two hundred yards but the wet clothes sapped our strength and the marina seemed one hundred miles away. The cartoon gator knapsack on my back weighed heavy as well with the cans of drink and the bottle of bourbon. I spotted a floating dock halfway across the canal.

“Try and get to that dock, Smith,” I gurgled between gulps of canal water. “We can stop for a rest.”

Smith nodded and paddled onward.

We reached the floating dock after what seemed like an hour splashing around and nearly drowning. I used what little strength I had left to haul myself up a white, metallic ladder at the side of the dock. Smith clung to the ladder breathing in huge gulps of air between coughs. I leant down into the water and grabbed Spot by the scruff of his neck then dragged him onto the wooden deck. He shook himself and I ignored the droplets splashing into my face. Smith slipped halfway up the ladder before recovering and clambering onto the deck beside me. We lay in the fading sunlight gasping for air and coughing up canal water. I flicked my wet hair away from my face.

“Jesus Christ, I’m done,” Smith gasped.

I knew what he meant. I was physically drained and exhausted. I couldn’t swim another stroke.

“What are we going to do?” I rasped. “It’s going to be dark soon and we can’t sit out here all night.”

Smith and I glanced back to the pontoon we had swum away from. A few of the undead floundered in the shallow water but the tops of some of their heads were still visible on the surface. They were somehow half floating their way towards us.

I turned to look at the marina across the canal. A few zombies roamed around the jetty but the area was relatively uninhabited by the undead. The marina building was a large glass fronted affair and would have been a pleasant boating destination before the epidemic gripped the world. White and blue colored boats bobbed around on their moorings, still tethered after months of inactivity.

“Do you think we can make it to the marina jetty?” I grunted.

Smith glanced across the canal with a look of despair on his face.

“We’re going to have to try, unless we sit here and wait for those floating fucks to join us on this dock.”

We had no guns of any kind to defend ourselves. The shotgun shells would be soaked and useless in the backpack. I took a quick peek at Smith’s waistband and saw the hatchet still tucked into his belt. At least we had one weapon, basic though it was.

Various items of debris floated around the canal surface but nothing was close enough to grab to use as a float. I had dreadful thoughts this situation was going to end badly. We could either sit on the floating dock and wait to be attacked from underneath by the undead or take our chances and try and swim to the marina but risk drowning in the process. The decision was a no-brainer. I’d rather die through lack of oxygen with my lungs filled with water than be ripped apart and eaten alive. At least drowning would be less painful.

“Come on, Smith,” I sighed. “Let’s at least try and get to the other side.”