The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink (35 page)

“I remember when I was in the Corps,” Smith recalled. “We did some amphibious landing exercises alongside the British Royal Marines on the northern Scottish coast
, around this time of year. It was the freezing wind that really got through to your bones.” He sniggered at the memory. “Man, that was cold.”

Cordoba recounted a similar tale of a military exercise she’d taken part in, at the Northern Warfare Training Center, in a place called Black Rapids in Alaska.

I smiled as I listened to her detailed account and the pitfalls of her cold weather training. The situation seemed surreal. We were just like four friends, walking the dog on a mild winter afternoon. The stress of encountering hordes of undead zombies, plane crashes, weird hooded guys and the daily grind of running for your life seemed to be temporarily suspended.

We chatted, laughed and joked as I led the way into the woods. I wondered what day of the week it was. For some reason, it felt like a Sunday. A Sunday afternoon stroll through the fields and the woods was an occupation reserved for normal times. I hoped the situation was a shape of things to come. Maybe Cordoba would like to spend more time walking with me when we finally stopped running. I’d heard people talk about Scotland’s stunning views and deserted, beautiful coastal paths. Maybe I’d find a small dwelling on the coast someplace and live out my days walking around, taking in the incredible wildlife and awesome scenery.

“Shh…what was that?” Cordoba hissed.

We stopped walking and stood still and silent. My thoughts of a tranquil and carefree future existence quickly evaporated.

I heard the unmistakable snapping sound of breaking twigs and fallen branches cracking beneath somebody’s feet. The footfalls came from our right and we swung our heads in the direction. Smith and Cordoba drew their M-9 side arms.

We heard a throaty monotonous moan and a figure we barely recognized stumbled through the trees towards us.

Chapter Fifty-Five

The lone figure wore the tatty remains of a flight crewman’s coveralls.
We’d buried the two pilots, Capaldi and Remmick but the Flight Navigator, Novak was still missing. Now we’d found him. He was a fully paid up member of the undead. The skin on his face was almost gray and shredded by three deep lacerations, running at an angle from above his right eye to the left side of his chin.

Novak’s military pilot’s coveralls were torn and shredded and plastered in wet mud. The right sleeve was ripped completely away, which revealed the remains of a white bandage wrapped around his bicep.

“Look,” I squawked, pointing to the dressing on his arm.

“I’m seeing it,” Smith growled, raising his Beretta. “The fucker must have already been bit before we took off.”

“Did he get off the aircraft when we were in Canada?” Cordoba asked.

Batfish shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. I was in the back the whole time.”

Novak’s mouth hung open while he leaned against a tree trunk, briefly surveying us with white, secreted eyes. He emitted a throaty growl and approached us, quickening his pace through the undergrowth. 

“He was bit and covered it up. He probably turned inside the cockpit
while we were in the air and that’s why it all went to bat shit hell in there,” Smith barked.

Smith
fired the handgun twice. Both rounds zipped into Novak’s skull in close proximity at the center of his forehead. A spray of blood and brain peppered the tree trunk behind him. Novak jolted backward and fell amongst the bracken and twigs with his arms spread out from his sides. Smith cautiously moved towards the prone corpse, still covering the area with his handgun. He waited a beat until he was sure Novak’s animated existence was definitely terminated then reached down and carefully pulled down the bandage to reveal the wound. The distinctive shape of teeth marks broke the skin on Novak’s upper arm. Our suspicions were confirmed.

“That prick was the cause of the aircraft crash,” Smith spat. “He could have killed us all.”

“His body must have been thrown clear of the plane when we went down, judging by the way he’s all beat up,” I said.

“Do we take him back and bury him?” Cordoba asked.

“Nah, fuck him,” Smith snarled. “Let him rot.”

“Hey, Smith, Cordoba – you okay?” Chief Cole’s voice barked through the radio clipped to Cordoba’s belt.

Smith gestured for the radio handset and Cordoba handed it to him. “Yeah, we’re all okay, Chief.”

“We heard gun fire coming from your position amongst those trees.”

“Ah…yeah, we just shot a big rat. Nothing to worry about. Wilde Man is shit scared of rats so we had to shoot it.”

I winced. Smith was always accusing me of being frightened of various things that cropped up in front of us.
I knew for a fact, it was Smith who was shit scared of rats. He handed the radio back to Cordoba then turned back to the corpse on the ground.

“We don’t need to tell anybody about this,” he muttered, glancing at the three of us in turn. “It won’t change our situation but it’ll muddy this guy’s memory. Let’s keep this incident to ourselves, okay?”

We nodded in agreement. I saw the logic. Chief Cole and everybody else had enough to cope with. They didn’t need another horror story to add to their woes.   

The humorous, sunny Sunday afternoon atmosphere had definitely vanished due to Novak’s surprise guest appearance. I thought we were going to head back to the aircraft but the others still wanted to see Stonehenge. I didn’t particularly feel like leading the way on a tourist expedition but continued onward anyway.
We walked through the remainder of the woods in relative silence, the mood irreversibly darkened.

We looked around the stone monument and I showed them where I’d been chained to the big rock in the center. Smith picked up the rusted links and studied them. He looked at the rocky slab and scanned the porous, gray surface.

“It looks like there’s old, dried blood on this here rock, Wilde Man,” he said. “Those guys were probably making human sacrifices on here for some time. You are one lucky son of a bitch to still be alive.”

“Lucky?” I sighed. “I had to practically promise them a cure for them to let me go.”

Smith shrugged. “People say and promise all kinds of shit when they’re faced with certain death.”

I
chillingly realized Smith had probably had firsthand experience listening to the pleadings of people’s last words. We milled around the ancient stones for around ten minutes. Batfish seemed the most impressed and was in awe of the sequence of construction and what the monument represented. I knew she liked historical sites and all things mystical. Her face was a picture of wonderment as she brushed her hands over the huge upended, rectangular slabs, which stood around twenty-five feet high.

“I wish we could go back in time and watch those guys put this thing together,” she muttered.

“It certainly must have taken some time to construct,” I mused.

“Maybe, one day when the human race is no more, the aliens will come down and see this thing and wonder where it all went wrong for us,” Batfish said.

“Probably,” I muttered, picturing the bizarre scenario in my mind.

Another thought occurred to me. “What if the zombie infection was caused by aliens?”

“You are now entering
The Twilight Zone
,” Smith mocked from behind us. He whistled the theme tune to the TV show then chuckled to himself and Cordoba joined in the amusement.

“Come on, Brett,” she giggled.
“What next…wizards and goblins?”

I shrugged, rather disappointed they were mocking me. “We just don’t know, for sure.”

“Nothing is certain in this world,” Batfish sighed and leaned her back against the huge stone. “People used to say - one sure thing in life is that death will follow. You can’t even say that any longer.”

We stood in silence for a few seconds pondering the thought of eternal life as a living corpse. The wind whipped up from the north and a dark cloud covered the sun, casting a gloomy glow across the landscape.
The air turned colder and a distinct dampness hung in the atmosphere.

“Looks like we’re going to see some of that famous English rain,” Batfish said, peering skyward.

“We better get back,” Cordoba said. “We’ve been gone awhile and I told Chief Cole we wouldn’t be too long.”

Smith swung his
head
around to stare at Cordoba. “You came with us to spy on us?”

She laughed. “Cole
told me to tag along because I know you guys and he said to keep an eye on you. That’s all.”

Smith grunted in disapproval. I felt slightly disillusioned and a little foolish. I’d hoped Cordoba had decided to accompany us on our little outing because she liked me and wanted us to spend some time together. Perhaps I was
emotionally delusional as well as deranged.

Chapter Fifty-Six

The rain did indeed materialize as we walked back to the aircraft. Light droplets fell on us to begin with but by the time we’d trekked back through the woods, the downpour was heavily in full flow. Our clothes were soaked through as we approached the C-17 but our spirits lifted when we saw the engineers and aircrew had somehow managed to dismantle the cargo ramp. They placed metal, track ramps, sloping downwards from the cargo hold to the field below.

Chief Cole stood beside the access doorway, wearing a green camouflage, foul weather jacket and conducting the operation. He gazed up as we approached.

“Ah! There you all are,” he barked. “I was starting to get worried.”

“Making progress I see, Chief,” Smith said.

Cole nodded. “We should have this Humvee out of here real soon. We’re going to need a lot of vehicles to hump all this gear up to Scotland so you better get your shit together pretty quickly if you want to ride up to that army base with us. We’re going to make a couple of trips and take as many drivers as we can up there. We’ll bring the new vehicles back here, load up and head out at dawn tomorrow.”

All four of us were drivers and we all fancied a ride away from the downed aircraft.
We clambered back into the aircraft interior through the paratroop door. Some of the military personnel were more than happy to stay on board the grounded C-17 and sip a few beers or catch up on some sleep.

We dried ourselves off and Cordoba handed us some dry shirts as well as some foul weather jackets. Batfish handed Spot to Landri and Mignon, who continued to look bemused by their surroundings but were happy to take the small dog. The girls had attracted the attention of a couple of Marines and sat in a close circle, trying to communicate with each other. I smiled to myself. At least Landri and Mignon seemed obliviously happy.

Milner was nominated to drive the Humvee. Cole and Kauffmann stood either side of the track ramps, bellowing instructions as Milner rolled the vehicle slowly out of the aircraft. We waited in a huddle whilst the Humvee moved down the track ramps and into the long field grass. I couldn’t help but stare at Rogers who waited alongside us. The medics had dressed him in an olive green, full bio-hazard suit to stop him spreading any potentially fatal diseases. His head was covered with what looked like a transparent bubble and he wore a black rubber respirator inside the hood, covering his mouth and nose. 

Milner successfully completed the vehicle extraction operation and looped the Humvee around in a circle alongside the aircraft.
Rogers climbed into the passenger seat, presumably to direct Milner on the route to the army base. Chief Cole crawled up into the gun turret and Kauffmann joined Cordoba, Batfish, Smith and I inside the rear compartment.

Cole banged the roof once we were all onboard and Milner pulled away across the field. We joined a roadway and
Rogers pointed the way to the east. We took several turns through some narrow country lanes, flanked by trees and ditches. The surrounding landscape consisted of flat, grass fields and the Humvee navigated around a few abandoned vehicles, dumped at the roadside.

I noticed they’d packed some respirators and NBC suits in the rear compartment and hoped we wouldn’t have to use them.