The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold (12 page)

I held off as long as I could but had to open up with my handgun when a swarm of zombies stumbled into view in the dim flashlight beam.
Davie wasn’t holding the light very steady and obtaining accurate headshots at our foe proved difficult. Batfish seemed reluctant to fire her own weapon and under the circumstances, I supposed that was a wise move. We’d quickly run out of ammo if we kept firing blind into the darkness. The shotgun shells spread a further width, propelling a bunch of steel pellets in a wide arc at the intended target. Zombies went down under fire but some hauled themselves back up onto their feet, only absorbing the shotgun pellets into their bodies.

I managed to take out a couple of zombies with headshots as the crowd formed an enclosing ring around us.
Davie fired both barrels at a long haired, female zombie leading the pack. The female’s head exploded in a mist of brown blood and decayed, gray brain matter.

We kept together as a pack, pressed within a few inches of each other.
Several zombies fell in our path from fatal gunshots and I noticed the dark shadow of the corner of the castle wall a few yards up ahead.

“Keep going,” Alex
barked, when there was a slight lull in the roar of gunfire.

I wondered where the hell Smith and the others were. Surely, they would have heard the gunshots by now and come to investigate. They wouldn’t have succumbed to the zombie horde without a fight.

We reached the corner of the castle wall and the clouds blew across the sky, revealing a glowing, silvery moon. The faint glow from the sky shone across the snowy waste ground that was once a golf course. I noticed a one storey structure positioned at an angle across the fairway.

“What’s that building over there?” I whispered
, deliberately slowing the pace.

Alex turned his head slightly and studied the structure in the distance. “That’s the clubhouse for the golf course. It hasn’t been used in a while for obvious reasons.”

I noticed around ten zombies milling around the outside of the building, as though they were interested in trying to get inside.

“Is it easy to get in there?”

“It’s been boarded up since the outbreak,” Alex explained. “Why? Do you think your friends could be in there?”

“It’s a possibility,” I muttered. “There aren’t many other places they could be hiding out around here.”

I looked around to the front wall of the castle. A huge portcullis doorway stood in the center of the wall, illuminated by the moonlight and barring any access to the building. The imposing towers and pointed spires reached upwards into the dark sky.

“Is there no possible way they could have got in through the front entrance?” I asked.

“It’s very unlikely, unless they scaled the walls somehow,” Alex said. “We haven’t lifted that gateway for a long while now. We closed it when the outbreak started and kept it in place ever since.”

I glanced back across the flat ground at the front of the castle. Clusters of undead lumbered across the snow laden land towards us. We didn’t have much time to make a decision.

“What are we going to do, Brett?” Batfish whispered. “We can’t stay out here much longer.”

“I know,” I muttered, desperately trying to think of the best course of action.

“Davie, send up that flare,” Alex commanded. “They should see it from their position, wherever they are. Then, we need to make tracks, before all those zombies come down on us.”

I peeked back around the corner at the route we had taken and saw human shapes lurking through the shadows cast by the castle’s side wall. We’d have to double back to get to the side door but couldn’t leave it too long or they’d be too bigger mass of undead
grouped together in the vicinity.  

“Let me
go over to that clubhouse and check inside before you fire that flare,” I said. “I have a feeling they could be holed up in there and if we fire the flare, we’ll cut them off from the side door.”

“We’ll all go,” Alex said.

“I’ll be quicker on my own,” I snapped. “I can avoid the zombies but if we all go in a bunch, we’ll have to move slower.”

“Don’t be silly, Brett,” Batfish scolded.

“Look, it is flat ground,” I pointed out. “I can be over there and back again within five minutes. If they’re not in there, we’ll send up the flare and get back to that side door.”

“All right, go and take a look but don’t hang around,” Alex said. “We’ll keep moving around but we’ll have to get back to the side entrance as quickly as possible.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a tick,” I hissed and bounded into the snow before Batfish could protest and try and stop me.

The wind whipped up and lashed flakes of ice and snow in my face as I hurried across the snowy landscape. My breath exhaled in white plumes and the groans and screeches rapidly increased as I dodged outstretched hands on each side of me. I
briefly wondered if this was such a good idea, leaving the others behind. But one person could move more freely than five and was less of a mass target for the undead to focus on.

I heard more shotgun blasts behind me but I refrained from using my M-9, as the sounds of gunfire would attract the undead to my position.
I drew nearer to the clubhouse and for some reason it reminded me of a wooden lodge I’d stayed in during a vacation to the Catskill Mountains, some years previously. The windows were indeed boarded over and the place looked long since deserted. I hoped I wasn’t making a serious mistake but the clubhouse would have been the place I’d have chosen to hide out, if I was left outside.

I slowed up slightly as I approached the
building. A wooden veranda stood at the gable end and a covered walkway stretched back along each side of the structure. Several zombies plodded up and down the walkways and some clumped over the veranda, all of them banged on the wooden clubhouse walls, searching for a way in. I had to join them in locating an entranceway but also had to remain undetected.

Glancing behind me, I noticed a few more zombies trailing in my wake, moaning and wailing but still in pursuit. I knew the following stragglers would alert the others around the clubhouse to my presence so I had to move quickly and make some snap decisions. No time to sink into the background and let Smith sort everything out. I had to do this on my own.

I quickly studied the clubhouse exterior, searching for an entrance that wouldn’t allow the undead to follow me inside. A couple of uncovered skylights sat in the sloping roof on each side of the asphalt tiles. I figured going the aerial route was my best way inside or at the very least, I could take a look through the skylight windows.

I skirted around the clubhouse exterior so I faced the veranda, at around thirty feet away. I’d have to dodge the remaining zombies and hop up on the roof in quick time.

I crept forward, hunched over with my M-9 tightly gripped in my right hand. I hoped the wind would detract my scent and the undead wouldn’t hear me approach. Without any medical evidence, we still weren’t sure how the animated corpse’s senses worked. All we knew was they were driven by a rabid hunger to seek out and devour human flesh.

The closest zombie to me was a loner, staggering around in small circles on his lonesome. I crept by him and he emitted a throaty moan that almost sounded sad. A few of the other corpses twisted their heads in my direction, grunting and lowing like a herd of cattle. They’d seen me, they knew I was there. My cover was blown.

Chapter Seventeen

I glanced back across the golf course to the castle walls. I could make out the silhouettes of Alex, Batfish and the others near the portcullis entrance to the castle. The boom and flashes of their shotguns erupted and blazed through the night. I knew they couldn’t hang around long and would soon be making their way back to the side door. Either I had to trek back the way I had come empty handed or make a break for the clubhouse. I wasn’t even sure Smith and the rest of my party was inside but I had a gut feeling.

“Fuck it!” I spat and
hurtled towards the wooden structure.

A skinny female zombie, with half her scalp missing, launched herself at me from my right. I swung my handgun in a looping arc and the metal barrel battered the creature’s already exposed skull. I clumped two more ghouls around their heads before I reached the veranda balustrade.
The zombies who had frequented the dual walkways at either side of the building now circled around towards the veranda, alerted by the increasing moans and commotion. I was going to have to be quick. The balustrade looked sturdy enough so I grabbed the low hanging fascia with my left hand and hauled myself up to stand on top of the wooden railing.  

I tried to refrain from using the M-9 rounds for as long as I could
but now the undead circled me and reached for my legs. I popped a couple of rounds at the two nearest snarling mouths then crawled onto the low roof. The zombies below me wailed and reached upward in a last desperate attempt to grab me. I crawled on my elbows and knees through the thick snow and across the inclining roof, towards the first skylight. The wind did its best to try and blow me off the roof and I had to dig in with my knees. I reached the skylight and held on to the wooden exterior frame for some purchase. I rubbed the snow away from the window and peered into the darkness inside the clubhouse. The moonlight reflected off the glass and I couldn’t see anything in the room below, no matter how I angled my head.

I tapped on the window with the handgun barrel, the metal chinking on the glass. Something dark moved in the room below and I called out but the wind tore away any audibility to my words.

The skylight window unexpectedly exploded outwards around me and I briefly heard the whip of a round buzz a few inches by my head. I rolled to the side of the skylight window, still clutching onto the right angled corner of the frame. My legs dangled over the side of the roof but luckily, I was still too high up for the zombies to be able to grab me from the ground below.

I struggled against the wind and the onrush of fatigue
when hauling myself back onto the clubhouse roof. I stayed to the right of the skylight frame so I wasn’t in direct sight of whoever was doing the shooting.

“Hold your fire!” I yelled. “I’m trying to
help get you out of there.”

I heard a muffled response
of a living male voice. I didn’t have many options so I waved my hand in front of the shattered skylight.

“Hold your fire,” I repeated. “I’m coming inside.”

I rolled back towards the window frame and pulled myself up the roof, using the sill as leverage. Flipping my legs through the shattered opening, I gripped either side of the skylight frame and hung for a couple of seconds before allowing myself to drop into the darkness below.

The soles of my boots crunched on the chips of broken glass on the clubhouse floor as I landed. I crouched and rolled to my left, clattering into a stack of plastic chairs. A flashlight beam shone in my face as I lay sprawled on the floor.

“That was one hell of an entrance, kid,” boomed a voice I recognized.

“Smith
...Is that you?” I stammered.

The flashlight beam moved away from my face and illuminated the brown linoleum floor.

“It sure is. How did you find us, Wilde Man?”

“It wasn’t all that difficult,” I sniffed, rising to my feet and brushing away the broken glass chips. “I just looked out for the nearest shelter and where a few zombies
were gathered. Who tried to take my head off with that shot through the skylight?” I pointed to the ceiling, where the wind howled through the open gap.

“Ah, sorry, man, that was me,” Gera muttered from the gloom. “I saw something moving up there and thought it was a zombie.”

“Zombies don’t climb on roofs, man. Anyway…apology accepted,” I scoffed. “Is everybody okay?”

“We’re all right, Wilde Man. Where the hell have you been?” Smith grunted.

Cordoba stepped into the dim light and gave me a brief hug.

“Batfish and I got into the castle. We were saved by some guy called Alex who lives in there with some other people
,” I explained. “We came out looking for you. They’re over by the main entrance so we better hurry if we want to get back inside. It’s a damn site safer than in here, anyhow.” I glanced around the clubhouse and could just about make out a bar counter at the opposite end and a line of glass covered trophy cabinets along the walls. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

“By an easier method than you did, kid,” Smith said, stifling a laugh. “We came through the damn door.” He pointed to a doorway to the left of the bar counter. “Some genius
went to all the trouble of boarding the place up but left the fire exit door open slightly and all we had to do was brush the snow away and we were inside.”

“Great!” I groaned. “So I went mountaineering on that roof for nothing.”

“How many zombies are outside?” Cordoba asked.

“There’s about fifteen around this building, mostly out on the veranda but there are a shit load more between us and the castle,” I explained. “We’re going to have to move real fast to cover the ground. I hope the others haven’t gone back inside already.”