The Left Series (Book 2): Left Alone (29 page)

We loaded the second batch of Jerry cans in relative silence and started the whole process again. By the time we’d loaded the last of the canisters onboard, the sun had dipped completely and we were working in relative darkness, only able to see in the dim glow of the Navy boat’s navigation lights.

Once the canisters were onboard, Smith hopped back onto the Navy vessel and hauled the dinghy back into its housing. I secured the small craft back in place and joined Smith, Tippy and Headlong back on the deck. Our captor gave Smith and me a cursory frisk down to ensure we had no concealed weapons from our trip ashore. He shoved us together in a tight herd when he was satisfied we posed no hidden threat.

“It’s too damn dark to diesel up now, folks.” Headlong spoke like he was the big cheese in some finely oiled operation. “So I suggest we get some shut-eye and gas up at first light, any objections?”

He wasn’t going to get any arguments from me. I was dead beat and wanted to sleep and guessed Smith and Tippy felt the same. Also, I didn’t fancy sailing into a zombie infested city in the dead of night.

“That’s a rap for today, then,” Headlong continued. “You two boys can take the wheelhouse cabin again and me and the woman will take the bunks below. You fellas take turns on watching our asses. I don’t want no zombies creeping up on us while I’m sleeping.”

Tippy looked horrified, even noticeable under the faint glow of the navigation lights. I knew she didn’t want to spend any more time alone with that obnoxious prick.

“Do we get any food?” Smith grunted. “It’s been a long, hard day, man.”

“Yeah, and the dog will need feeding as well,” I chipped in.

Headlong flapped his hand at us. “Ah, I’m sure the woman will sort you out with some chow. Come on, woman, my leg is starting to hurt again.”

Headlong jostled Tippy back down the hatch and the two of them disappeared down below. I breathed out a sigh and offered Smith a smoke and took one for myself. We moved away from the Jerry cans before we lit up to be on the safe side of caution.

“This is getting beyond a fucking joke, Smith.” I leaned on the guard rail, exhaling smoke and watching the night close in. “I can’t stand watching that guy bully that poor woman anymore.”

“It’ll all be over tomorrow, don’t worry about that. The situation will come to a head one way or another.”

I wondered if we weren’t simply wasting our time and Batfish was already dead or a zombie or had escaped on her own and then we’d never find her. I hoped our ordeal wasn’t all for nothing.

“I better go check on Spot,” I said, flicking my cigarette butt into the dark river.

The poor dog had made a bit of a mess in the control cabin, which was evident from the stench when I opened the door. He half growled and half whimpered when he saw me. I felt a pang of guilt I’d left him so long on his own. Smith walked him around the upper deck while I cleared up the mess. I found a small mop and a bottle of cleaning fluid, which helped dissolve the pungent odor of dog shit.

Smith and I slumped into the swivel, cushioned chairs next to the console when the cleanup operation was completed. We talked in tired, bleary voices, recounting the day’s events. Tippy knocked on the cabin door an hour later carrying a tray containing a large bowl of hot rice and beans and an open can of tuna, presumably for Spot.

“Sorry boys, this is all I could muster,” she wailed.

“That’ll do just fine,” Smith said, as she placed the tray on the side countertop. “Where’s laughing boy? How come he let you out here on your own? He must trust us all together.”

“He said we wouldn’t try and escape in the dark. I mean where are we going to go?”

I briefly thought about running there and then. We could lower the dinghy and reach the shore before Headlong had time to react and take a few pot shots at us. Then we could try and get back to the airbase and hook up with Chief Cole again. But that train of thought was soon quashed when I realized we’d never find Batfish if we made a bolt for it. Besides, it was at least two miles back to the airbase and we didn’t have any weapons. Stumbling along in the dark with no protection would be as good as suicide. Unfortunately, Headlong was right in his thinking.

Smith dished up two servings of rice and beans on the plates on the tray and scooped out the tuna. He set down the dish of tuna for Spot and handed me a plate. I tucked in and smiled watching Spot gobble his dinner. 

Tippy sobbed again and held her hand over her lower face. “It’s so awful with that guy. When you were away getting the diesel, he was making such lewd comments and then he started touching me…you know?”

My guts churned over. The rice and beans no longer had its appeal. Disgusting images flashed through my mind. What a sick bastard Headlong was, preying on an innocent, middle aged woman.

Smith put his fork down in the center of his plate and leaned forward in his chair.

“I know this is a terrible experience for you, Tippy. And I know it is real hard going right now, but I need you to stay calm, just until tomorrow, then it will all be over.”

Tippy sniffed and wiped away tears in the corners of her eyes then nodded. “Okay,” she croaked. “I’ll try.”

She turned and I knew she was reluctant to leave the control cabin and go back down below to spend some more time with her nemesis. I feared for Tippy. I didn’t know how much longer she was going to last, physically or mentally. Without her husband, she was lost. The two of them had stuck together and at least could comfort one another in times of dire trouble. Now, she was left surplus to requirements, if I was honest, in our quest to find Batfish.

Smith and I ate in silence. I forced myself to finish the rice and beans simply to keep my body functioning. My former life, before the outbreak, consisted of a boring job with an insurance company, boozing with my pals and ignoring the usual complaints from my on-off girlfriend, Samantha. How I longed for those lighthearted, carefree times. Now, life stunk of the same dog shit that Spot had generated earlier in the cabin.

I collected the empty plates and dumped them on the side countertop, too tired and frustrated to take them below to wash them. The sight of Headlong would have probably made me puke up the beans anyhow.

Smith and I settled in for another uncomfortable night in the control cabin. I dozed for a while then took Spot for a stroll around the upper deck and took a piss over the side. The night air felt chilly and damp with drizzle. I lit a smoke and stared into the darkness, wondering what the hell I was doing. Maybe death was an easier route out of all this chaos and madness. I could simply march down the hatch below, grab one of Headlong’s guns and shoot myself in the head. Game over. No more stress, no more worries, no more crushing emotions of self loathing and guilt, no more panic attacks and talking to a hallucinate version of myself. Easy option.

Inevitably, thoughts of suicide soon floated from my head and up into the ether alongside the cigarette smoke. I dismissed the self destruct option, as I knew deep down I wouldn’t have the balls to go through with it anyhow.

Spot raked his paw down the side of my pants and gave me an objectionable whine. He’d obviously had enough for the night and wanted to go back to sleep. I smiled, flicked my smoke butt into the night and bent down to give the little guy a stroke on top of his head. Whatever horrors lay ahead of us, I hoped this small dog would continue to be lucky and live a long and healthy life.

We wearily returned to the control cabin, Spot flopped onto the floor and I slumped into one of the chairs. Smith snored quietly in the opposite seat. I closed my eyes, trying to will the state of unconsciousness upon myself.

I half dozed, in and out of jumbled dreams and images in my head of screaming people, Chaplain Brady in his last living moments, the old, dead guy, whose head I stomped and that party girl zombie, who staggered down the road before being dispatched by a bullet to the head. I wished I could be more like Smith and just let all these freaky, crazy events and terrifying situations wash over me, as though it was all an everyday, normal occurrence.

The gradually increasing daylight caused me to jolt fully awake and away from the horrific images replaying in my mind during my stupor. I rubbed my face and tried to focus. The day outside was dull with gloomy gray skies and the riverbank was cloaked in a murky, thick mist.

Today, someone on the boat was going to die. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too painful if it was my turn to croak.

Chapter Forty-Eight

“Francine…huh?” Smith stirred and called out moments before he awoke.

I didn’t have a clue who Francine was, as I’d never heard him talk of her. Maybe it was an old girlfriend from his dim and distant past. Faces of people you used to know and subsequently forgot about seemed to haunt you during the all too brief periods of sleep.

Smith blinked and gazed around the cabin for a few moments with a look of confusion on his face. As his dreams of some far away time and place receded, reality kicked in and he rose from the chair rubbing his neck.

“I could do with some coffee, kid,” he blurted, while stretching his arms and arching his back. “We need to be Johnny-on-the-spot today.”

“Do you think Tippy is okay down there?” I stood up and reached for my pack of smokes on the countertop.

I offered one to Smith and we shared the lighter flame.

“Not much we can do till we get to the city,” Smith croaked, exhaling the first puff of the day. “There’s going to be one hell of a shit storm today, Wilde Man, I tell you that for nothing. Today is the day I’m going to kick some butt. Payback time.”

“We have to do something to get out of this shitty mess.”

I opened the cabin door and let Spot out, who hopped around in dire need of a piss. He cocked his leg and relieved himself up one of the bollards on the port side. I stepped out into the early morning air and followed suit by urinating through the guard rails and into the river.

Smith continued groaning and mumbling about how he wanted coffee so I made my way towards the lower deck hatch. The living quarters were illuminated with a dim reading light over one of the bunks.

Headlong slumbered in one of the lower bunks, still clutching hold of the scoped hunting rifle. Tippy lay on her left side on the opposite bunk with her back towards our captor.

“Hello,” I called softly and rapped my knuckles on the cabin wall as though I was knocking on someone’s private front door.

Tippy stirred and twisted around. She sat up when she saw me standing in the cabin and the dim light illuminated her face. My guts somersaulted when I saw she had an ugly, purple bruise under her left eye. She slipped off the bunk bed and her eyes filled with tears.

“He made me do things to him last night,” she sobbed quietly. “He got angry and hit me when I refused to do it at first. I can’t stand it no more.”

I bit my bottom lip and didn’t know what to say. Headlong was truly a slimy, piece of shit. Rage boiled inside me. I glanced around the cabin and saw the M-16 leaning against the bottom of his bunk. I made my way towards the rifle with the intention of shoving the barrel up Headlong’s ass.

“Stop right there, asshole,” the voice commanded, as my fingers curled around the rifle stock.

I glanced up and saw Headlong sitting up in his bunk with the wrong end of the hunting rifle a few inches from my face.

“I’ll put you down like a sick dog if you don’t back up a few paces.”

I raised my hands and reluctantly did as I was ordered.

“I told you people not to try anything stupid. But I guess stupid people can’t help doing stupid things.”

“Coffee?” I tried to defuse the situation slightly.

“You bet,” Headlong snapped. “And make it good and strong.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I gave Tippy a glance. You didn’t have to be a mind reader to tell she was absolutely petrified.

I made coffees all round and handed a cup to Tippy and Headlong, who took his black and slurped it down.

“When are we getting going again?” I asked Headlong.

“When I’m damn ready,” he snapped back at me, with spittles of black coffee shooting from his lips.

I shrugged and turned for the hatch, holding mine and Smith’s coffee cups. Tippy made a slightly audible whimper as I started up the steps. I turned my head and gave her an assuring stare.

“We’ll be back soon.”

I hoped she wasn’t going to suffer at Headlong’s hands again before we set off on our travels. Smith strolled around the upper deck and I handed him his coffee. We stood by the guard rails gazing into the misty morning. He muttered an appreciation of some kind then gave me a quizzical stare.

“What’s crawled up your ass? You’ve got a face like a smacked butt.”

“That fucking Headlong has been slapping Tippy around and what’s worse, he’s been forcing her to do stuff again.” I took a long sip of coffee which burned my lip but I was too full of fury to let the pain register. “We’ve got to do something, Smith. I was that close to grabbing a gun and ramming it straight up his dirty ass.”

“Whoa! Hold the fucking horses, tough guy. We’ve got a mission to complete, remember? Any mission has casualties, whether it’s fatal or psychological or whatever. We got to be cool until we get into a position when we can nail this bastard.”

“It’s not right, Smith,” I hissed. “It’s just not fucking right.”

“I know,” he said nonchalantly. “I got special plans for that particular nasty little piece of crap. And believe me, kid, it ‘aint going to be pleasant.”

“I hope so. That guy has stooped as low as things can get. Death would be too good for that prick,” I seethed, exalting my rage and frustration.

We turned at the sound of the lower deck hatch creaking open and saw Tippy trudge onto the deck followed by the shuffling Headlong, who clasped the M-16 in his hands.

“Right, fellas, let’s get this bathtub gassed up and ready to go,” he ordered.