Left In The Dust Read online

  O’Neil diplomatically reached behind him and closed the cockpit door due to the fact several of the passengers were watching the altercation going on inside the cramped cabin.

  “The navigation system failed,” Smith said. “The damn thing was spinning around and around and we couldn’t tell where the fuck we were.” He twirled his finger around in a circle for effect. “Dante said the wind had blown us off course and once we lost sight of the coast we had no clue where we were. We were trying to look out for an airfield or something to land the plane when the reserve tanks ran dry. I apologize, gentlemen but this is as good as it gets.” Smith waved at the desert view behind him. “I don’t like the situation any better than all of you.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you say something?” McElroy growled, through gritted teeth. “We could have acted as spotters and kept an eye out from the windows instead of just laying this shit on us like this.”

  Smith looked slightly taken aback. “Hey, I didn’t want anybody to panic, man. I didn’t want anybody freaking out. I thought we’d have enough juice to find an airfield someplace.”

  McElroy shook his head and huffed. “You still should have let us know what was going on, Smith.”

  “Hey, I didn’t exactly know for sure myself until the red lights started flashing,” Smith said, shrugging. “Dante here, ‘aint exactly the world’s best communicator.”

  The Columbian pilot was busy rubbing his face with his hands and sniffing back tears and snot. McElroy slapped him on the shoulder in a congratulatory manner.

  “Well done, pal,” he said. “You did well to get this thing on the ground without killing us all.”

  “Are there any casualties?” I asked, trying to change the course of the conversation a little. I suddenly thought about Batfish. “Anybody hurt?”

  “From what I saw, there’s a few with bumps and bruises,” O’Neil said. “Sarah, Chandra and a few others are tending to the injured but I don’t think there’s anything serious.”

  I knew he was referring to Chandra Yadav, a doctor who’d joined our band when we were in Glasgow, Scotland and Sarah Wingate was a former US Army Medic.

  “That’s a relief,” I said, with genuine concern. “Did you see Batfish? Is she okay?”

  “She’s absolutely fine, Wilde Man,” McElroy said. “She’s tougher than you think. She’s not going to shatter like a pane of glass, just because she’s having a baby.”

  I sighed in relief and allowed myself a brief smile. I noticed Chernakov glaring incessantly at Smith for a few seconds, shaking his head.

  “What’s your problem, buddy?” Smith sneered.

  “Idiot,” Chernakov muttered.

  “Hey, it was your damn engineers who revamped this plane, asshole,” Smith hollered. “If they can’t do their jobs right, that’s not my fault, okay?”

  Chernakov’s face twisted with rage and his cheeks turned an angry shade of red. “They are marine engineers used to working on ships, not aircraft,” he bellowed. “Do you not even know the difference?” He stormed out of the cockpit, leaving the door wide open as he exited.

  “That guy is a real jerk,” Smith sneered.

  The cabin remained silent for a few moments as we all tried to process what had happened. The vibe was a little calmer as McElroy and O’Neil’s tempers cooled. McElroy peered out of the front window, surveying the barren landscape beyond.

  “So, which little piece of heaven do you reckon we’ve landed on now, Smith?” he asked. “Whereabouts were we when the navigation system went to shit?”

  Smith turned to also take in the view outside and shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know, Mac. We could be anyplace. The navigation system packed up when we were still over the sea. We caught up with the coastline and decided to follow it. The wind blew us inland and way off course.”

  “Best guess?” McElroy pressed.

  Smith sighed. “Well, judging by the terrain and weighing up where we came from, I’m sure we can’t have drifted as far out as Arizona or New Mexico and California would just be too damn far.” He shook his head. “If I was to lay a bet, I’d guess we were either in Mexico or Texas. Probably Mexico.”

  “Ah, great,” McElroy sighed. “What’s in Mexico? And don’t you dare say fucking Mexicans.” He jabbed a finger at Smith with the hint of a grin on his face.

  Smith smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of barren land out there but as for how the human race is doing, I don’t have a clue, man.”

  “We sure as shite can’t sit here on our asses,” McElroy said, with a renewed determination in his tone. “Anybody up for a wee scouting mission, just to check out the lay of the land?”

  I felt as though I’d been sitting onboard the stuffy aircraft for far too long and was keen to get out into the open air. People milled around the aisles and fussed around those who’d taken a bit of a battering. A few of the kids cried and parents tried to comfort them. Some passengers glared at us through the open cockpit door, muttering and shaking their heads. The whole plane carriage seemed claustrophobic and cramped, with an atmosphere of total confusion and an air of hostility towards the leading committee members, which unfortunately included me.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Yeah, I’d be up for a trip out of here,” I said, eagerly volunteering my services.

  “Okay,” McElroy said, nodding. “What about you, Smith?”

  “Count me in too,” Smith said, still rubbing his neck. “If I stay here, Wingate is going to chew my ass off for the next few hours. It’s best I stay out of her way until she cools down a little.”

  “You all right, Smith?” McElroy asked. “I notice you keep massaging your neck there. I don’t want you tagging along if you’re injured and not feeling up to it. You might slow us down.”

  Smith huffed. “No chance, Mac. I’m okay. I’ll be better once I get off this damn plane anyhow.”

  McElroy smirked. “Okay, that’s three of us.”

  O’Neil raised his hands and looked to the ground. “Count me out fellers,” he said. “I’m way too old for such excursions and I’m needed here to add a little calmness to the situation. I wish you good luck in finding us shelter and finding supplies. God’s speed.” He straightened and sauntered out of the cockpit.

  “That guy’s full of shit too,” Smith grunted, when O’Neil was out of earshot.

  McElroy shrugged. “You think we should take anybody else along with us?”

  Smith glanced over at Dante. “Well, if we are in Mexico, I would suggest bringing Laughing Boy there along for the ride. He could translate the lingo for us if we run into anybody but he’s shot to pieces and I figure he’d be more of a pain in the ass than an asset.”

  McElroy nodded. “You’re all heart, Smith but you’ve got a point. I’ll ask some of the guys if they fancy a trip in the big wide open out there.” He nodded towards the cockpit window, staring into space for a couple of seconds and then turned towards the door.

  I waited for McElroy to walk away down the aisle before I spoke. “It looks as though he’s still missing his crew.”

  Smith glanced at me incredulously. “Oh, you think?” His voice was laced with sarcasm. “He grew up with those guys we lost on Saint Miep. They were all buddies since they were kids, apart from Hannigen and I know he misses him too, even if they grew up on the opposite side of the fence. We all miss them, of course we do.” Smith leaned with his back against the control panel, still rubbing his neck.

  McElroy’s close friends and close knit crew, consisting of guys named Hannigen, Duffy, Dunne and McDonnell had been blown to smithereens by a rocket launcher during our altercation with the locals before we left Saint Miep.

  “Too many good guys have fallen by the wayside,” I sighed, thinking about all the people we’d lost in our company since we’d begun our journey through the post apocalyptic world.

  “You got that right,” Smith said. He thought for a brief moment a
nd tilted his head to one side. “I’d like to think, we’ve kind of helped weigh things up a little though. We’ve wasted plenty of bad dudes and a shit load of undead along the way.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, we have. It still doesn’t make me feel any better though.”

  Smith pushed himself away from the cockpit’s control panel and slapped me on the top of my right shoulder. “Come on, you morbid fuck,” he said. “Let’s get geared up and get out there to try and figure out where the hell we are.”

  We left Dante alone, still in the pilot’s seat in the cockpit. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do as the guy seemed to be in a bit of a state but maybe he wanted some time on his own to gather his thoughts and finally realize how lucky he was. When it came to the crunch, Dante had somehow managed to land the plane relatively safely with no fuel and no navigational system in a howling tailwind that sent us miles off course. That was still an incredible feat in my book. He might be a sniveling wreck of a man and totally useless in close quarters combat but he was one hell of a pilot.

  Smith and I made our way through the central aisle between the rows of plane seats. We were both on the receiving end of some pretty grim expressions, angry glowers and heard plenty of muttered, underhand comments. I seemed to have reclaimed my throne as public enemy number one amongst my fellow survivors.

  Wingate and Doctor Chandra Yadav were busying themselves with the injured, applying bandages around sprained wrists, fingers and ankles. I caught sight of Batfish, sitting in a window seat across the cabin on the row of seats on the far side. She looked up and we made brief eye contact for a second.

  “You okay?” I asked, mouthing the words theatrically rather than shouting over people’s anxious conversations.

  Batfish nodded briefly and looked away. Conversation over. Her gesture felt hurtful and my stomach churned over slightly. I’d met Batfish when this whole, shitty, dead-people-rising-and-eating-the-living thing had started. Call it what you liked, zombie apocalypse, end of days, the new plague or the undead virus; it still amounted to the same crappy, hard slog day in, day out for the rest of us left alive.

  Batfish and I had been inseparable friends at one time. We’d lost a lot of friends and acquaintances along the way. Too many good people. She and Smith and the little Jack Russell dog we’d named Spot, who was hopefully still around and unharmed, were the only living beings left alive from our original little band, who had escaped the horrors of my home town of Brynston, Pennsylvania.

  Those days seemed like several life times in the past and the memories I had of those days seemed to belong to somebody else. We’d all changed so much as human beings and I hoped one day, we could all get back to some kind of normality and return to being the people we used to be. I doubted if it would ever happen but it didn’t hurt to cling on to some sort of hope.

  For some bizarre reason, unknown to either of us, Batfish and I had partaken in a drunken encounter one night in Belfast. The result was her pregnancy, which seemed to cause her to disown and dislike me intensely. The baby was close to being due but she thought I was some kind of crackpot now and barely acknowledged my existence. I couldn’t blame her entirely though. If I was her, I wouldn’t want a relationship with me either.

  Smith and I met up with McElroy where the airline flight stewards and stewardesses had previously kept the food trolleys and poured drinks in the serving quarter when the plane had been fully functional. Three other guys that I recognized leaned against the wall on the far side of the small area. One guy I knew was Seamus Heath, a little Irishman who’d acted as McElroy’s weapons armorer back in Belfast.

  McElroy was bust taking out several Glock handguns and a couple of Armalite rifles from a metal locker housed in the wall of the plane. McElroy passed a handgun to me and Smith one of the rifles. He kept the other Armalite for himself and handed the other two Glocks to two of the guys hanging around the serving area. I recognized the two men and courteously nodded to them both. I didn’t know them well but we’d spoken in the past. One was tall and stocky, with a short and dark crew cut styled hair. He had piercing blue eyes and a long jaw. I remembered his name was Kevin something or other. The second man I knew from the time in Scotland. He was younger, shorter and skinnier than Kevin, with unkempt mousey brown hair and a pale complexion, despite our time in the Caribbean. His name escaped me though.

  “These two are Kevin Dovey and Robbie Anderson, if you don’t know them,” McElroy said, pointing to each of the guy’s in turn. “I hope you two have no objections to these guys tagging along with us. They’ll be adding some extra muscle and firepower, just in case we need it.”

  Smith and I shook our heads before McElroy introduced us to Kevin and Robbie. They both knew who we were by name. Infamy seemed to spread quickly amongst these guys.

  “We’ll load up outside the plane, guys,” McElroy said, grabbing a stack of loaded magazines from the locker. “We don’t want to accidently make any holes in the fuselage do we?” He laughed to himself and winked at Seamus.

  Seamus nodded to himself and secured the metal locker with the key and put it in his pocket.

  “What? You think this crate is ever going to fly again, Mac?” Smith asked.

  McElroy shrugged. “I’ve asked Chernakov for his engineers to have a look at the landing craft and the navigational system while we’re out. He’s agreed and they’re going to see what they can do. Seamus here will act as there armed guard while they work on the plane. I know we’ll have to find a shit load of aviation fuel from somewhere first but, hey, you never know.”

  “No, you never know,” Smith repeated in a groan.

  McElroy opened a closet next to the secured locker and handed out rucksacks, bottles of water, tactical gloves, belts with handgun holders, Russian baseball style, black caps and tactical sunshades. Smith and I glanced at each other before gearing up.

  “Jesus, Mac, I thought we were only going for a quick look-see, not a camping vacation,” Smith said.

  “You know me, Smith,” McElroy said, grinning. “Always be prepared because you never know what’s around the corner, so you don’t.”

  We made our way to the cabin door, situated at the side of the plane. One of the survivors who used to work in the Belfast shipyard had brought a home made a rope ladder as we knew we weren’t going to have a ground crew waiting for us wherever we landed. McElroy stuffed the loaded magazines into his jacket pocket and slung his Armalite rifle across his shoulders. He pulled open the door and kicked the rope ladder out through the gap. Brilliant sunshine shone through the open door and hot air seemed to blast into our faces, along with a spattering of sand blown in with the wind.

  McElroy went down the rope ladder first, followed by his two new acquaintances.

  “After you,” Smith said in mock politeness, pointing to the rope ladder dangling from the bottom of the open doorway.

  “You’re too kind,” I responded in the polite mocking tone, right back at him.

  I lowered myself down onto the rope ladder and felt a nervous churn in my guts as I stepped down into unknown territory.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Smith came down the ladder last and gave us the thumbs up as he hopped onto the sandy terrain beside us. We glanced around but saw only acres stretching into miles of open scrub land and desert, with rocky hills and mountain ranges further in the distance. The aircraft sat at a tilted angle, with one wing pointing to the blue sky and the other pointing at the dusty ground.

  We turned away from the plane and loaded the weapons. The sun was bright so I put on the tactical shades, which momentarily turned the landscape into a blue hue before the lenses adjusted to the light. The air smelled fresh and clear, even though the climate was warm.

  I glanced at the plane’s landing gear and saw one of the big tires was flat on one of the back sets of wheels but otherwise there was not too much obvious damage to my untrained eye. The problem was going to be finding aviation fuel for a passenger plane in the middle of nowhere.


  “Where are we heading, Mac?” Smith asked.

  McElroy turned in each direction, studying the landscape. “Well, I figure this was some kind of roadway back in the day.” He stamped on the trail and brushed sand away with the sole of his boot. “It’s got to lead someplace.”

  “I saw a signpost back there down the trail,” I said, pointing in the direction behind the plane.

  “Which way was it facing?” McElroy asked.

  “It had some faded words on it but I couldn’t make them out,” I explained. “We went by the sign so damn quick.”

  “So the sign was pointing that way?” McElroy said, pointing in the opposite direction.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding.

  “Okay, we’ll head that way for a few miles and see what we can find,” McElroy confirmed.

  We agreed and trekked along the dusty trail, glancing in each direction and studying the mountains in the distance. There didn’t seem to be any immediate threat so Dovey, Anderson and I holstered our handguns while Smith and McElroy slung their rifles over their shoulders. Time seemed to stand still in this new place and the only sound was the breeze or the occasional bird fluttering around the scrub bushes on either side of the trail. It felt good to be back out in the open air and I liked the vibe of the mountains, wide open plains, blue sky and desert air. The environment didn’t feel threatening at all.

  The vegetation became a little thicker further along the trail and a few colorful flowers grew amongst patches of long grass. Smith pointed out a couple of small deer nosing around the foliage to the right side of the track. The deer sensed us, glanced up and watched us pass by, seemingly amused at our presence.

  “If there are animals here, it means there is water fairly close by,” Smith said.

  “That could be good or bad, Smith,” McElroy said. “If it’s just animals around here then that’s fine but if there’s water, there could be people and if there are people, there’s a chance of them being infected, which is bad for obvious reasons.”