The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink Read online

  “Shit, what are we going to do now?” I panted.

  “We’ll have to think of something,” Smith said, shaking his head. “It was a decent idea to use that forklift, kid, but it only got us one way. Now, we’re stuck here.”

  Milner told the rest of his crew to cease firing and conserve the ammunition.

  “I think we should fall back to the office, out of sight,” Milner suggested. “They’ll keep trying to get up here as long as they can see us. We can still keep an eye on the staircase through the window.” He pointed to the side of the office where a small window was situated in the center of the sheet metal panels.

  “Okay, let’s take some cover and grab a breather,” Smith agreed.

  “Fall back to the office,” Milner commanded through the radio headsets.

  We backed up the staircase and headed towards the small motor pool office. One of the remaining air crew closed the door and engaged the lock once we were all inside. I still heard the cage rattling on the concrete steps and the sounds of the undead, snarling and whining as they rocked the forklift truck.

  The office was a bland, rectangular shaped room, with four desks standing in a vertical line, one behind the other against the wall on the right side. The desks contained blank computer monitors and a few box files but no fun trinkets or family photos like the previous office area Smith and I had encountered. Filing cabinets lined the left side of the floor space with a row of box files neatly stacked on their edges sat on top. This was a strictly work related office area.

  I sucked in air, regaining my breath and leaned my back against one of the filing cabinets. Smith handed me a cigarette and we both lit up. Several more of Milner’s crew joined us for a smoke. One of the remaining air crew, I recognized as Kauffmann, kept vigil by the small window overlooking the staircase.

  “We appreciate you coming to get us, Smith,” Milner sighed. “But we’re back to square one now.”

  Smith nodded. “At least most of us are in the same place,” he said.

  Milner rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit! I can’t believe we lost Clements, though. He was the senior engineer in the crew.”

  “We lost Johnson on the way too,” Cordoba chipped in.

  Milner briefly shut his eyes and hissed under his breath. “We’re losing too many people on this operation,” he groaned. “There are still four personnel unaccounted for and we still can’t get comms with Cole.”

  “Yeah, these radios don’t seem to have much frequency range on them,” Smith sighed.

  “It might be something to do with blind spots in the terminal,” Milner said. “Certain places will prevent transmissions. There may be a frequency jam in this area because of the generators and sheet metal cladding or we’re just too damn far away.”

  “I don’t expect the blizzard outside helps,” Cordoba said.

  “We got to figure out a way out of here,” Smith sighed, moving to the window.

  “Not only a way out of here,” I croaked through the cigarette smoke. “We’ve got to double back somehow and get those fuel pumps working.”

  “I really didn’t think there’d be this many zombies inside the building,” Milner sighed and thumped the top of a filing cabinet with his fist.

  “I suppose they locked the place down when the epidemic hit,” Smith mused. “They didn’t realize they were condemning themselves to death.”

  I stubbed out my cigarette on the top of a filing cabinet and joined Smith and Kauffmann by the window. We looked out across the expanse of the zombie infested motor pool.

  “A few more than one hundred out there now, huh?” I said.

  Smith rumbled and leaned his arms on the window sill, staring out at the motor pool.

  I racked my brains for some sort of escape plan, studying the layout of the floor space below. Huge, metal roller shutter doors stood at regular intervals in the wall opposite the office. Presumably they led to the airport runways. I glanced at the selection of stationary vehicles and back at the roller doors. A crude plan formed in my mind.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Let’s take a look at that map, Smith,” I chimed. “We may just have a way out of here.”

  Smith glanced at me with a combination of bemusement and intrigue, while he took out the map from his jacket pocket. He unfolded the document and spread it across the window sill. Kauffmann leaned in and Milner stood behind us, peering at the map over our shoulders.

  “What do you have in mind, Wilde?” Milner asked.

  I pointed out of the window to the roller shutter doors. “Those entrances lead to the runways, I take it?”

  Smith studied the map and nodded. “Correct, Wilde. You win a cookie for your outstanding observational skills.”

  I ignored Smith’s sarcastic dig and continued. “We use one of the vehicles down there to break through those doors and back out onto the runway outside.”

  A few seconds silence followed as the guys mulled over my audacious plan.

  “Ten out of ten for thinking outside the box, Wilde,” Smith groaned. “But your master plan has several flaws, as I see it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Okay, let’s go through it,” he groaned. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the floor area is crawling with more undead than we can handle. We have to get to the vehicles. The trucks are probably non starters as the batteries will be flat. We don’t have keys to the vehicles. Those roller doors aren’t easy to break through and we still have to get to the fuel pumps. Do you want me to continue?”

  I felt deflated. “I was only trying to help,” I sighed.

  “Hold up a second,” Milner chipped in. “It may not be such a crazy plan as you think, Smith.”

  “Huh?”

  “This is a motor pool, right? They must have some kind of battery boosters or jump starters around here someplace.”

  “Almost certainly,” Kauffmann agreed. “The truck batteries would need a jump start regularly in the cold weather.”

  “And the keys to the vehicles are kept in these box files.” Milner pointed to the rows of document boxes on top of the lockers. “Each individual vehicle is marked by category on the front of the file.”

  Smith sighed and stared out of the window. Then he slapped the sill hard, causing us all to flinch.

  “Wait a damn minute!” Smith shouted. He almost had a smile on his face. “Some of those trucks down there are fuel tankers, right?”

  Kauffmann peered down, studying the row of vehicles. “Yeah, there are three of them down there that I can see. They don’t usually park them up inside the motor pool but they must have gotten them inside when the outbreak started.”

  “Would they still have aviation fuel inside them?”

  “Probably,” Kauffmann said. “I can’t speak for commercial airlines but on a military airbase, they get refueled right away after they are emptied.”

  “So, if we can get those fuel trucks rolling, we can gas up the C-17 without starting the generators for the external fuel pumps,” Smith said, with a hint of excitement in his voice.

  Kauffmann thought for a moment then nodded. “Yeah, we can do that. It’ll take about twenty minutes to refuel the C-17 on the ground. We’ll have to hold those zombies back while we’re carrying out the operation though.”

  “I’m sure we’ll manage that if we can reach Chief Cole on the radio,” Milner said. “We can get some more guys from the plane for extra firepower and use the heavy machine gun on the Humvee to keep those fuckers away.”

  “Ah, hold on,” Smith sighed. “How are we going to bust out those roller doors? Not a smart idea to crash a truck full of aviation fuel into something that might not budge.”

  I glanced out of the window and another vehicle caught my attention. “How about using the snowplow?” I pointed through the glass. “That sucker will break through anything with that big assed blade on the front.”

  “Yeah, that’ll do it,” Milner agreed. “That bastard will smash through those doors real easy.�
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  “So, let’s go through this,” Smith said, his excitement seemed to have faded. “We get the snowplow and the fuel trucks running with a jump starter. The snowplow goes first, breaks through one of the roller doors and the fuel tanker follows.”

  Milner, Kauffmann, Cordoba and I were all nodding through every one of Smith’s points.

  “The snowplow also clears a path to the C-17,” Smith continued. “We drive up to the aircraft; someone calls Chief Cole for back up and we hope we get through on the radio. The refueling crew does their thing while the others watch their backs. Then we get the fuck out of here.”

  “That sounds about right,” Milner said.

  Kauffmann nodded with half a smile on his face. “Do you know, it might just work.”

  Two of the other Marines gave each other a high five.

  “One thing is still bugging me,” Smith sighed.

  “What’s that?” I asked

  Smith looked me square in the eyes. “How the fuck are we going to get down there to start the trucks?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Maybe we can get out of here from up there?” Cordoba suggested.

  We turned to look at her and saw she was pointing to a small skylight window in the office roof.

  “The opening is too small,” Milner huffed. “Big guys like Kauffmann, Smith and me would never fit through there.”

  Cordoba shook her head. “No, but me and Wilde, here would.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel overjoyed she was volunteering me to go on a mission with her, or horrified that I was going to be the one to go back out amongst the undead again.

  “Go on,” Milner muttered. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Wilde and me could slip out of the skylight while you boys cause a diversion,” she explained.

  “What kind of diversion?” asked one of the Marines, whose name tag read, Amato. He was a big guy with short cropped, dark hair and olive colored skin. “I’m not going back down there on the floor. We’ll be ripped to pieces.”

  Cordoba fixed him a cold stare for a second. “I don’t know. Maybe just shout and jump around at the top of the staircase behind the cage for a short while. At least that would give me and Wilde a chance to crawl out of the skylight and get along the roof without being seen.”

  “How are you going to get down?” Milner asked.

  “I noticed a ledge along the back wall when we were crossing over here on the forklift,” she said. “That ledge runs right along the back of the office. I guess it was a maintenance walkway or something. Anyhow, we can walk along the ledge and jump down onto the top of the fuel truck.”

  Milner, Smith and I looked up at the skylight. Even I was going to have a problem fitting through the narrow slot.

  “We can search on the ground for a battery jump starter while you keep the corpses occupied,” Cordoba continued. “We’ll get the snowplow going and drive it back over here. You guys can climb down from the staircase and jump on the top of the cab.” She glanced at me. “You up for it, Wilde?”

  I felt the rest of the party’s gaze fall upon me, waiting for my response. A tough bunch of military guys, Marines and aircrew that had probably seen combat action countless times were all waiting for me to provide a positive reaction. How could I refuse?

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, nodding. “One problem though…oh, make that two. I don’t know how to charge up a truck battery and I don’t know how to drive a truck either.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Cordoba snapped. “They teach you a lot of skills in the U.S. Army, especially how to drive and maintain a truck.”

  “I guess that’s what you call a plan,” Smith said, grinning.

  “You better check those fuel trucks, before you do anything,” Kauffmann chipped in. “If they’re empty, we don’t need to use them and revert to plan B, which is simply getting the hell out of here.”

  Cordoba and I reloaded our rifles and Milner provided us with some more spare magazines. Smith rummaged through the box files and found the corresponding keys to the vehicles we needed to use. Amato and Kauffmann gave us their M-9 handguns and extra ammunition. I was glad to take the smaller weapon, which I was more proficient in using. Smith handed me the sets of vehicle keys and the flashlight, slapped me on the shoulder and gave me a wink.

  “Go for it, kiddo,” he muttered.

  I nodded. “We can do it, Smith. I know we can.”

  Smith clapped me around the face. I knew he was being friendly but the slap was a little too hard for my liking.

  “Come on, Wilde. Let’s go,” Cordoba commanded. “You guys ready?”

  Amato, Kauffmann and Milner nodded.

  “I’ll give you a leg up, if you need it,” Smith said.

  “I’ll give you a hand,” the other Marine, whose name was Swann, said to Smith.

  “Go through the skylight as soon as you hear us hollering,” Milner instructed. “Just make sure you don’t get seen and good luck to you both.”

  I gave Milner an appreciative nod before he, Kauffmann and Amato unlocked the door and stepped out of the office. The remaining guy, called Dyson was part of the aircrew but would have looked more at home working the land on a Midwest farm. He was a big guy with broad shoulders and short, sandy colored hair. He stayed at the window, ready to call the shots on the radio if the plan went to rat shit.

  I felt adrenalin pumping through my veins again as we moved towards the desk under the skylight. Swann slid a chair across the floor and positioned it next to the desk so Cordoba and I could use it as a step up. We clambered up on the desk and Cordoba slid open the skylight cover.

  We all looked towards the window, waiting for Milner, Kauffmann and Amato to start making some noise. The tension was almost unbearable. I just wanted to get on with it.

  “Hey, you ugly looking fucks down there! You want a piece of me, huh?”

  “Man, you is so ugly, even your Mama hates you!”

  We heard the shouts from outside and the sound of the cage rattling on the staircase.

  “Okay, go, go, go,” Smith hissed.

  Cordoba gripped the skylight frame and hauled herself out onto the roof like a gymnast. I passed her up my M-16 then she disappeared from view. I heard the clanking sound as she padded across the sheet metal roof overhead. I grabbed the frame and lifted my body weight. Smith climbed on the desk beside me. He crouched and locked his hands together. I placed my foot into his palms and used his hands as a foothold. Smith raised his arms and lifted me skywards. The skylight was a tight squeeze but I managed to haul myself through the narrow gap.

  The air was cooler on top of the corrugated, sheet metal roof. Cordoba was already crouching on the walkway at the far end of the office roof. I hunkered down and crawled across the space as quietly as I could.

  Milner, Amato and Kauffmann still hollered and hurled obscenities at the undead crowd below us. The ghouls growled, snarled, moaned and wailed in a building crescendo of deafening noise. I hoped they wouldn’t get into such a hunger driven frenzy that they would pull the forklift over and dislodge the cage, which was Smith, Milner and company’s only crude form of protection.

  Cordoba waved me forward but I stopped at the edge of the office roof. A gap of around six feet stood between me and the ledge where Cordoba waited. I looked down and could see the concrete floor, which seemed like a mile down below. The drop would be fatal and I had to steady myself from toppling over the edge. The image of Julia plummeting to her death from a building in Manhattan replayed over and over in my mind. That last expression of terror combined with sheer disillusionment on her face haunted me regularly, whether I was asleep or awake. I gripped the edge of the sheet metal and felt myself begin to shake. I couldn’t move.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Come on, Wilde,” Cordoba hissed. “Get your ass over here. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I…can’t…move,” I stammered. “I think… I’m having some kind of flashback.”

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bsp; “This is not the time or the place, Wilde,” Cordoba seethed. Her dark eyes burned with fury. “You have to get a grip on yourself and jump across to this ledge. Your pal Smith and Milner and all the others are depending on you. I can’t do this on my own. That cage balanced on the forklift isn’t going to hold out forever. If you don’t do this, we’re all fucked.”

  I looked into her eyes. The rage had given way to a look of pleading.

  “Okay,” I sighed. I puffed in and out a few times, trying to force away the emotion of the past. “Come on, you can do this,” I said to myself.

  I backed up a couple of feet, rose to a crouch. Cordoba beckoned me forward with an encouraging smile on her face. I took two steps forward and jumped for the ledge. Cordoba held on to a metal support stanchion with her right hand and grabbed the back of my jacket with her left as I landed on the ledge. She gripped me tight and I put my arms around her. We stayed in an embrace for a few seconds. I felt the tight contours of her body and caught a whiff of flowery perfume or the shower soap she’d last used. The feeling of being held tightly once again was enthralling.

  “You okay?” Cordoba whispered in my ear.

  “I’m okay now,” I replied and reluctantly drew back.

  Cordoba looked a little bit embarrassed and bent down to pick up the rifles from the ledge behind her. She handed me my M-16 and nodded with her head, gesturing for us to carry on down the walkway.

  I gave her a slight nod and she turned and led the way across the ledge. We had to move slowly as the walkway was narrow with no guard rail. A safety wire ran the length of the wall to our left but we didn’t have any safety harnesses to clip on so we had to step carefully, holding the safety wire or the roof stanchions.

  The echoing din from the wailing zombies faded a little the further we moved away from the office but they still sounded as though they were going bat shit crazy. I couldn’t help but take a few sneaky peeks of Cordoba’s ass as we moved along the ledge. I wondered if she had any feelings towards me or thought I was just another guy in a procession of many of her admirers.