The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold (44 page)

Between us, we lifted the gas cylinders and the rest of the welding equipment and carried it towards the gates. Smith pulled the welding goggles off his arm and handed them to Cordoba.

“I hope this works,” he said.

“It will,” Cordoba said with confidence.

“How long will it take?” I asked, nervously glancing back at the top of the conveyer belt.

“Once the chain has heated up, it shouldn’t take more than ten seconds to cut through it,” Cordoba explained.

“Yeah, but how long does it take for the metal to heat up?” I yelled, growing impatient.

Smith gave me a nudge that told me to calm down.

Cordoba flashed me a reproachful glare. “When it’s ready,” she spat.

“We’ll keep an eye on that top hatch,” Smith said, almost dragging me away from the gates.

“Oh, Smith, I need your lighter,” Cordoba said.

He tossed her his Zippo and we trudged back towards the conveyer belt. We could hear the zombie’s moans and growls coming from the storeroom above us. Smith and I began shifting the boxes, building a makeshift wall around the bottom of the conveyer belt.
It wasn’t much of a defense but it could buy us a few vital seconds in our escape attempt.

We stacked the boxes as high as we could reach and heard the first zombie tumble through the opening and down the slope.

“Shit, they’re coming down,” Smith grunted. “Let’s get back over to the gates.”

We rushed by the motionless trucks and the intensely bright light generated by the welding torch briefly blinded us.

“Whoa,” Smith groaned.

I turned away from the light and saw the others huddled beside one of the trucks with their backs turned to the gates.

“How’s she doing?” I asked. “Those zombies are getting into the loading area. We haven’t got long before they’re all over us.”

“She’s doing her best, Brett,” Batfish scolded me.

Smith grabbed his backpack from the rear of the truck and handed me mine. He took the rifle from Wingate and stayed on guard at the corner of the truck bed, studying the pile of boxes we’d constructed.

I felt nervous and agitated and I hopped from foot to foot. I took a pee against the truck’s front wheel to try and alleviate my tenseness.

The crack of rifle fire further heightened my tension and I rushed alongside Smith. Several zombies had burst through our crude box wall and staggered across the loading bay towards us. Smith picked a few off a few ghouls with headshots but more were tumbling through the opening at the top of the conveyer belt.

I rushed back around the side of the truck and took Cordoba’s rifle from Batfish, then returned to the vehicle’s rear corner alongside Smith. More zombies barged through the boxes, knocking down the hastily built barricade.

“That wall didn’t keep them out for long,” I wailed.

“Just pick your shots,” Smith grunted. “Don’t waste the ammo.”

“Got it,” I snapped, raising the M-16 to my eye line.

We fired a few single shots at the
zombies who gained the most ground towards us and also shot at the ones who circled around the other trucks. We didn’t want them sneaking up on us from our flanks.

“How’s that damn chain looking?” I yelled, turning my head back to the gates.

Somebody muttered some kind of answer but the words were lost amongst Smith’s gunshots and the increasing level of noise from the approaching zombies.

A big cluster of undead surged forward and although we picked off the few leading the charge, we couldn’t take them all out at once.

“Shit, we’re done,” I squawked.

Somebody tugged Smith and
I from behind and for a second I thought a zombie had crept up on us from our rear. I let out a fearful screech and turned my head. Jimmy stood behind us yelling something in his Glaswegian accent. I glanced over his shoulder and saw the metal gates standing open with the chain and the welding torch steaming in the snow on the ground. Batfish, Wingate and Cordoba were gathered beyond the factory perimeter outside the gates, waving us towards them.

“She’s done it, Smith,” I yelled. “We’re out of here.”

Smith twisted his head and saw the open gates. “Let’s go,” he screamed.

The two of us turned and followed Jimmy through the factory gates and out into the side street. We were free but now we had to negotiate our way out of this forsaken town.

We’d run a few yards from the gates when Smith stopped and turned.

“What are you doing, Smith?” I yelled.

He raised his rifle and aimed back at the factory gates. I thought he was trying to shoot a few more zombies in some futile attempt to diminish their numbers. He waited until the first few undead appeared in the gateway then fired one shot. A huge explosion erupted, followed by a plume of orange flame shooting towards the sky. The gates were torn from their hinges and collapsed across the entranceway.

“That ought to slow them down a bit,” Smith muttered, as he turned around.

“What did you do?” I gasped, as Smith caught me up.

“That’s why we had to be careful with the oxyacetylene bottles,” he said. “One spark the wrong way can cause an explosion like that.” He jabbed his thumb back at the carnage behind us.

Chapter Sixty-Six

Wingate and Smith studied the map and guided us through the back streets towards the outskirts of the urban, industrial area. We only encountered two more zombies on the road out of town. Smith dispatched them both with the remaining couple of rounds he had in his M-16 magazine. We weren’t in the mood to hang around the narrow streets any longer.

We trudged through the snow, bypassing small towns heading towards the city of Glasgow
, from the west. We decided to search for a hotel, inn or someplace suitable to hole up for a few days or maybe longer. Smith pointed to the map and suggested we follow the train tracks for a route towards the city. We joined the railway track south of Glasgow Airport and north of the town of Paisley. Batfish released Spot from his harness and let him run free on his leash. The little guy looked relieved to be let loose for a while.

The route took us unhindered, further towards the city. We decided to head south, where some golf courses were detailed on the map.

“We should be there round about now,” Smith said. He glanced around our surroundings with a confused expression on his face. He held the map in his hands and followed the railway route. “This doesn’t much look like Hawkhead or Crookston, where we’re supposed to be.”

The light was fading rapidly and by the sound of things, we were totally lost. I glanced around and saw a gray housing tower block to the left and a brick station building a few yards in the distance.

“Let’s go up to that station house,” I said, pointing the way. “At least it’ll give us some idea of where we are. Any ideas, Jimmy?”

Jimmy looked around but shrugged. “It all looks so different like this. I
cannae tall where we are at all.”

We followed the track to the station, warily looking out for any hostile attackers.

“We better find a place to stay soon, you guys,” Batfish groaned. “It’s getting dark and the temperature is dropping rapidly.”

Smith hopped up onto the station platform and wiped the snow off the sign with his free hand. “
Cardonald,” he read aloud and turned to look at Jimmy then gazed back down at the map.

“
Cardonald, you say?” He looked at the sign in front of Smith. “Oh, aye, I know it. I’m not too far from home. There’s not much around here in the way of accommodation, but there are a few guest houses around Bellahouston Park, which isn’t far from here.”

“Sounds perfect, Jimmy,” Wingate said. “Let’s hurry, I’m getting cold.”

“Cold or not, we still need to keep our wits about us,” Smith rumbled, crumpling his map back into his pocket. He seemed pissed off because he’d got us lost but it didn’t really matter where we ended up, in the grand scheme of things.

“Do you know the way from here, Jimmy?” I asked.

He pointed across the station platform. “Aye, we can cut through the cemetery, follow the Paisley road a wee while and then we can cut through the park.”

“Lead the way, my good man,” I said, gesturing with my hand.

He smiled and turned, heading across the railway tracks and up the bank. We followed behind, turning every which way and listening out for the moans of the undead.

The sun began to set as we walked through
Craigton Cemetery and the snow covering the gravestones made them unreadable. A tall, concrete cross stood amid the icy cemetery, as though it was a monument to the many people who were never going to be buried. The wind whipped through the open ground blowing ice and snow into our faces. We exited the cemetery beneath the growing shadows of the high rise housing apartments and turned left, heading along the main road.

“It seems too quiet,” Smith muttered. “A built up area like this should be crawling with zombies. I don’t like it.”

“Jesus, you don’t like it when zombies are after us and now you don’t like it because there aren’t any zombies around?” I said, shaking my head. “There’s no pleasing you, Smith.”

Various stores with metal shutters pulled down over their fronts, dilapidated looking warehouses and empty, brown brick houses stood on either side of the main road.
A few long abandoned, snow covered vehicles littered the road and some were dumped askew on the sidewalks.

We’d walked east for a few minutes when the
row of buildings on our right ended and gave way to a line of snow covered trees, standing amongst a vast expanse of open ground on the other side of a railed fence. Snow laden hills rose across the landscape in the distance, behind the tree line. 

“This is
Bellahouston Park,” Jimmy said, pointing to our right. “We’ll cut through here to see if we can find a nice place to stay. I know there are, or were a few hotels in the south of Bellahouston but things might be a wee bit different now.”

Jimmy led us through an opening in the fence line and we trudged through the snow, across the open ground and I could see long grass sprouting beneath.

“This place used to be a sports center, and a kind of arty area,” Jimmy explained. “You can see most of the city if you climb the hills and the Pope came here once, back in the 1980’s.”

“I bet it was beautiful, back in the day,” Wingate sighed, glancing around the huge, tree lined park.

We walked along the pathway, moving by some boarded up buildings and what were probably previously carefully tended flower gardens. Jimmy seemed to know where he was going and we followed his lead. We left turned, heading east and I could see the outer limits of the park when Jimmy stopped dead in his tracks. The sun was setting between the trees and the final shards of daylight produced a red glow in the sky.

“What’s up, Jimmy?”
Smith asked.

Jimmy raised his palm up to us, indicating for us to stop. He crept closer with a worried expression on his face.

“There’s a whole load of fellas by the park exit ahead,” he whispered. “They saw us coming along the pathway but I saw them duck back and hide behind the trees and the stone pillars around the entrance.”

“
Fellas, what fellas?” Smith asked shaking his head.

“Guys from the city, probably wide-
o’s, wrong’un’s, people we don’t want to meet,” Jimmy stammered.

Smith sighed and checked his rifle and his handgun were loaded. “It’s damn cold and I’m tired. I’m not in the mood for fucking around. Come on, Jimmy. Let’s go talk to these guys. The rest of you stay here.”
He strode forward towards the park exit.

I was slightly worried Smith was going to go and speak to these guys and deliberately piss them off.
“I’ll come with you,” I blurted, stepping forward.

Smith stopped and turned, glancing at me. “What, you have to hold my hand now?”

I ignored his jibe and caught up with him and Jimmy. I drew my handgun and checked it was loaded and the safety was off, as we marched towards the gateway. Jimmy held his shotgun at the ready and I hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

Smith turned on his flashlight and shone the beam around the trees and stone pillars, marking the exit boundary. We saw the silhouettes of some skinny guys scamper around, repositioning
themselves while trying to get out of the light.

“Okay, guys, let’s quit playing fucking hide and seek,” Smith called out, raising his rifle to waist height. “We’re just passing through and we ‘
aint going to cause you any bother.”

We heard a muttering of voices beyond the park perimeter.

“What’s a fucking yank doing here in Glasgow?” a voice yelled back in a regional accent.

“As I said, we’re just passing through and looking for someplace to hole up for a while,” Smith replied.