“Move to where?” I barked. “There are fucking zombies all over the damn place.” Sweat rolled down my forehead and streamed down my back. We were trapped with no place to run.
“Time to make a decision, kid,” Smith said. “Stay here if you want but you won’t make it off this roof alive if you do.” He started crawling along the tiles to the edge of the building.
I made the snap decision to follow Smith off the roof. Facing the zombie hordes was slightly preferable to getting my head shot off by the militia sniper. I glanced around at Tony. He still sat in a crouched position with snot and puke dangling from his face and staring down at the tiles a few inches below him. Sweat poured off him and he seemed to be in some kind of trauma induced trance.
“Tony, come on, man,” I whispered. “We have to get off this damn roof.”
I turned my gaze to Smith who pulled a pained expression then drew his hand across his throat, indicating for me to cut ties with Tony. Smith was probably right but I felt I couldn’t just leave the guy to be slaughtered. I had to at least try to get him to come with us.
I reached out and shook Tony’s shoulder. “Come on, man. We’re moving out.”
Tony sniffed, wiped his face and glanced at me. “You carry on, mate,” he croaked. “I can’t go on and I can’t face going down there with that lot.” He jutted his chin towards the street.
“We’ll get out of this, Tony,” I said, nodding my head. “We’ll get away from here, I swear.” I inwardly winced at my false promise and hoped I sounded convincing.
Tears welled up in Tony’s eyes and ran down his cheeks. He screwed up his face and shook his head. “I’ve lost everyone now,” he sniffed.
I sighed, exasperated. Tony experiencing a full psychological meltdown on the damned rooftop was the last thing I needed. Another shot ricocheted off the tiles only a few feet from our position, sending a flash of orange sparks in all directions.
I wasn’t hanging around any longer. The next sniper bullet had either mine or Tony’s name on it.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“Come on, Tony. We’re going now,” I roared, grabbing him by the arm.
Smith had already disappeared from the rooftop and god only knew where he was. I dragged Tony across the tiles to where I’d last seen Smith. We scrabbled to the edge of the roof and I looked down below. I saw a narrow alleyway steeped in shadow with only a few zombies shuffling their way around to the scene of the fresh corpse at the front of the building. I noticed a broken window frame high in the wall of the red brick structure across the alleyway opposite. Either Smith had dropped down into the alley or jumped through the window in the adjacent building. My money, if I had any was the route through the flimsy wooden window frame.
“We’re going through there,” I said, pointing at the window. The jump was around ten feet from the roof and roughly six feet below us.
“I can’t make it,” Tony protested.
I forced away thoughts of Julia unsuccessfully attempting to jump across buildings in Manhattan.
“You can and you will,” I growled. “We have no choice.”
A couple of the zombies in the alley must have heard my mutterings and gazed up at the roof. They stopped moving, growled and clawed the air, grimacing at us from the shadows.
I was anticipating another sniper’s bullet either shattering my skull or coming pretty close at any second. I took another quick glance at the window then back at Tony.
“You jump first but hurry it up,” I said, hoping I sounded as encouraging as the situation allowed.
Tony winced and his face screwed up. I thought for one horrible second he was going to have another meltdown. Thankfully, his expression immediately changed. He gritted his teeth and shook slightly as his face turned to a look of steely determination. He emitted a kind of grunting sound then sprang from the rooftop and launched himself across the alleyway.
I watched, silently praying Tony wasn’t going to nosedive onto the alley floor below or splat straight into the brick wall opposite. His left shoulder thudded against the side of the window frame and span him around slightly but he managed to guide himself through the gap and into the building.
I was about to follow him across when a sudden thought occurred to me. We hadn’t a clue what lay beyond that battered window frame. Maybe a whole bunch of undead stood in the room beyond that flimsy wooden rectangle. There was no way of telling for sure.
Doubt receded when Tony briefly popped his head out and waved me forward. As soon as he retreated I leapt from the rooftop.
The graying skin of the zombie’s faces below briefly flashed through my vision while I was momentarily airborne. My feet clattered onto the bottom of the window frame and a wave of pain shot through my left ankle. I rolled forward and crashed into something that toppled forward under my momentum. I lay on my side for a few seconds waiting for the pain to subside. Warm wooden floorboards pressed against the side of my face. The air smelled stale and the room was dim. Tony was speaking to me but I couldn’t decipher his words. Everything seemed a little blurred and hazy as though I was inside a soundproof bubble.
“You okay, Wilde Man?” Tony was asking me when my senses slowly returned.
I squirmed and Tony bent down to help me to my feet. The pain in my ankle was still there but not so bad that I couldn’t stand.
“I’m okay,” I rasped. “What is this place?”
“I don’t rightly know, mate,” Tony said, glancing around. “I think it’s some sort of loft space.”
A few wooden chests and old wooden furniture stood piled against the walls in the cramped space around us. I’d crashed into a waist high dresser table when I’d come through the window and the thing lay sprawled on its side in the center of the room. A rectangular gap in the far corner of the floor space revealed the top of a descending wooden staircase down onto the ground floor. I shuffled tentatively towards the steps, checking my handgun was still in place in the back of my waistband.
“You still got your gun with you?” I asked Tony.
He shrugged and shook his head. “Nah, sorry, mate. I lost it somewhere back on that rooftop. I think I dropped it when Dan got shot.”
I managed to contain the rage that threatened to spill out of me. “Okay, Tony. Not to worry,” was all I could muster.
I drew my Glock and checked it over. It still looked in reasonable condition. I crouched down and glanced through the opening at the top of the stairs. No movement of any kind caught my eye and I couldn’t see any shadows moving across the beige floor tiles in the room below.
“Follow me,” I whispered, as I began to pad slowly down the staircase. Sweat rolled off me. Where the fuck was Smith? “Smith...are you down there?” I heard no response. Nothing. I felt uneasy leading the way. Normally, Smith took charge and I followed. Now, I had the responsibility of Tony’s life in my hands. Not something I was comfortable with. I always had a tendency to get people killed.
Tony followed close behind me. The stairs creaked as we trod slowly downwards. The acrid stench of rotting flesh attacked my senses as we neared the ground floor. Sunlight blazed across the room from windows facing the street to the right.
I moved slowly in the shadows, close to the brick wall to my left and indicated for Tony to do the same. We were in a rectangular shaped, open plan kitchen come dining room with the windows facing the harbor to the right. Two rotten corpses sat facing each other at a circular glass table situated around three feet from the bank of windows.
The dead couple had obviously taken their own lives some time ago. They sat with their decaying heads tilted to the ceiling, the skin parched and tightly pressed against their skulls. The hair was wispy and gray and the eyes had gone, their teeth protruded in a deathly grimace. Half full glasses and an empty pill bottle sat on the table in front of the bodies. From their decomposing clothing, I gathered they were a man and a woman, probably a retired couple intending to live out their days on the island and had taken their own lives when the undead virus engulfed the world.
A crowd of zombies trudged by the windows, groaning and screaming as they purposefully traipsed down the street, as though they had a human target to aim for. I didn’t know what had attracted them but at least it kept their attention away from our presence.
“What the fuck is going on?” Tony muttered.
I put my finger to my lips. It wouldn’t take much for the undead horde to batter their way through the bank of coastal facing windows. We had to allow them to pass before we figured out our next move.
I closed my eyes, willing the undead to pass by. Images of people I’d known floated through my mind. My sister Samantha, Julia, Estella Cordoba –
beautiful intimate moments
. My father, Eazy, Rosenberg, Jimmy, Pete Cousins, Marlon Keen and good friends in good places. I shuddered and had to open my eyes. The past was not somewhere I wanted to visit. The past was another world. A lifetime away. Gone forever but not forgotten.
I breathed a few inward breaths. Smith was nowhere in sight and I didn’t know what his plans were. I didn’t even know if he was still alive. We couldn’t go back to the truck and I didn’t know where the sniper was in the town.
The question I had to ask myself was - did I stay put or try and make a break for the boat in the harbor?
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“What are we going to do now?” Tony asked me, when the rush of zombies had trotted by the windows.
I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t know what the hell to do for the best. I didn’t like the feeling of somebody hanging on my every move. What the hell! I just wanted to be back on that damn warship playing chess with Chandra, moaning about the onboard facilities and being bored out of my brains.
I knew we couldn’t stay where we were or we’d end up like the old couple sat at the table. The extreme heat, the stench of decaying flesh and the intense situation made me feel like puking. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted a stiff drink. I wanted to be in a safe place. I knew I wasn’t going to get any of those things unless I thought with clarity and acted rationally.
“Smith will be heading for the boat,” I muttered. “We have to try and get to the jetty.”
“We ‘aint going to get out of here in one piece, Wilde Man,” Tony wailed. “Fucking zombies are all over the gaff and that bastard sniper will shoot our bollocks off if we try and make a move out of here.”
Perhaps Tony was right. I’d been in some shitty situations since the world had gone all to hell. This one was right up there amongst the top of them. I tried to think logically.
“Smith must have come inside here and he must have made it out of here somehow,” I said, pacing across the kitchen. “He can’t have just disappeared.”
“If he had any sense, he’s done one and legged it out of here,” Tony said. “We should try and do the same, mate.”
I opened a small wooden cabinet and saw a half empty bottle of rum. I lifted the bottle, unscrewed the lid and took a long slug. The burn down my throat felt good. I turned and offered the bottle to Tony. He rushed forward and took the bottle, glancing out of the windows before taking a swig.
“This is totally fucked up. All that sea out there and we’re stuck in here,” Tony murmured.
I took the bottle from Tony and engaged in another long gulp. “All we have to do is make it to that jetty,” I said. “Once we’re out of the harbor, those bastards can’t touch us.”
“I hope you’re right.” Tony gulped and wiped sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “So, what’s the plan?”
I passed him back the rum bottle and thought long and hard before I spoke. I gazed out of the windows at the bay beyond.
“We’ll make a run for that boat and try and get out of the harbor,” I said. “Smith will either show up or he’ll stay somewhere in the town. He’s probably trying to track down that sniper. He’s the one guy who can find her.”
Tony shrugged. “I haven’t even got a gun, mate.”
I glanced around the kitchen-diner. “Grab something you can use as a weapon, just in case.”
Tony moved to the countertop and took a long kitchen knife from a wooden chopping board rack. He studied the blade for a few seconds then held it up.
“This will do,” he said.