“Ah, fuck, Smith,” I whined. “We ‘aint never going to get in there.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Smith turned his head slowly towards me. His steely gray eyes flicked to glance over my shoulder, presumably to view the oncoming undead.
“We
are
going over this damn fence, Wilde, even if I have to throw you over. We do not quit. Not for anything, got it?”
I groaned and nodded. He was right, I wasn’t a quitter. If I was going to get tagged by the undead, I’d at least like my last actions to be attempting to escape their murderous clutches. I wasn’t simply going to lie down and let them devour me.
“All right,” I sighed. “I’ll give it a try.”
Smith clung on to the fence still fixing his stare on me. “We’ve gone through too much shit to let a damn fence get in our way, right, kid?”
I gulped and nodded.
The gates rattled and shook and I felt the wire vibrate in my hands as Smith began scaling the wire mesh, pulling himself upward and using the gaps to get a toe hold. I didn’t think I even had the strength left in my body to haul myself off the ground. I tried, grunting with exertion as I heaved my weight skyward. A fresh wave of agony pulsed through my left ankle as I tried to use my feet to lever myself off the ground.
I couldn’t keep hold of the spear and climb so I inserted it between the wire sections and let it fall onto the gravel driveway on the other side. I was now weaponless but the only way I could possibly have carried the spear was to grip it between my teeth. Too late to even try that idea, the damn thing was now on the other side of the fence.
Smith scaled the gates and jumped down inside the compound before I was even two feet up the wire. He stood opposite me on the other side of the fence, glaring with fury.
“You get yourself up that fence, Wilde. I had faith in you but you turned out to be worthless. I can’t keep on saving your sorry ass,” Smith seethed.
I knew he was trying to motivate and goad me like a military drill instructor and on a personal level it was good of him to do so. But no amount of insults could cure a physical injury and stave off total fatigue.
I continued my slow ascent up the gate, inch by inch, just doing enough to keep climbing at a steady rate. I didn’t look back behind me. What was the point? I knew the zombies were coming but I couldn’t climb any faster. There was little strength in my arms and legs and my ankle felt as though my foot was no longer attached. Just a solid lump of torn gristle and twisted bone dangling at the end of my leg.
Sounds of grunting and snarling drew closer and I knew the undead were nearly at the fence line. I crawled up higher until my fingers curled over the solid metal bar at the top of the gate. I hung on, knowing I had to get over. Although the fence was tall, the zombies would probably still be able to reach my legs and ankles if they raised their arms high enough.
I pulled hard, with every ounce of strength I had left in my body, straining and snorting with the almighty effort. I hauled my upper body over the top of the gate and just let myself hang there for a few seconds.
“Come on, Wilde,” Smith growled. “Get your skinny ass over that gate.”
I swung both legs sideways and scrabbled my lower half over the top of the upper bar. My intention was to twist myself around and slowly climb down but I got the momentum all wrong. I didn’t have enough strength to hold on to the top bar and plummeted down to the ground. Although landing squarely on my ass wasn’t a pleasant experience, the fall worked out well for a couple of reasons. The zombies reached the fence line at about the same time as I hit the gravel driveway. They snapped their jaws through the mesh gaps and would definitely have taken a few nips out of me if I’d been climbing down. Also, I’d landed on my backside, which took the impact and saved more damage to my left ankle.
“You okay, kid?” Smith stood over me and grabbed my arm to pull me up.
I shrugged off his grip. “Just give me a minute,” I grunted. “I need to get my breath.”
I sat there on the gravel for at least five minutes, waiting for some element of strength to return. I watched the zombies mass against the fence line, screaming and moaning and rattling the gates and the wire mesh. Their faces were sun burned brown and torn and the skin had started to peel from their skulls. They still had most of their teeth and they snapped at the wire strands, trying to chew their way inside the compound.
Smith remained silent during the rest period. He plodded up and down the driveway with the ripped bathrobe billowing around him and the remaining spear gun still strapped across his back, waiting for me to rise.
When I felt a little more human, I pushed myself up, careful not to place any weight on my left foot. Smith stood a few yards away looking at me with a strange expression.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “Never better. Hand me that spear down there will you?”
Smith huffed and retrieved the spear from amongst the chunky brown gravel. He passed it to me.
“Listen, kid, I didn’t mean to disrespect you in any way with what I said before we got over the fence. I was just trying to keep you alive.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “And you did what you had to do.”
Smith nodded like he was satisfied. Discussion over. We move on.
I hobbled a few paces and the pain forced me to stop. “Can we move off this damn gravel? It’s killing me.”
“U-huh,” Smith muttered and we slowly trod to the long grass at the left side of the driveway.
“What’s the plan now?” I asked.
“Let’s go have ourselves a house party,” Smith said, tugging the spear gun off his back and holding it at his waist like a rifle.
We trudged through the long grass towards the front door of the big domed house and away from the groaning undead who pressed themselves against the fence line. The house looked as though some kind of giant bird had squatted in the middle of a field and laid a massive white egg. I studied the dark circular windows to see if I could spot any movement inside.
“I hope this is going to be worth it,” I sighed.
“It won’t be if the place is full of dead motherfuckers. We’ll really be up Shit Street if that happens.”
I flashed Smith a sideways grimace. “Thanks for your optimistic input, Mr. Smith.”
Smith shrugged. “Just trying to cover all the angles, kid. We got no plan B on this one.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “I can’t ever remember having a plan B at anytime.”
We plodded slowly across the driveway towards a gray paved stone area between the two big white lion statues.
“They must have cost more than your average garden feature,” I muttered, poking one of the stone lions with my spear.
Smith led the way to the wide front door. The entranceway was around five feet wide and the door was constructed of dark wooden panels. Smith reached down to a chunky, black wrought iron handle and tried turning it. The handle didn’t budge. Smith tried barging the door with his shoulder but it looked solid enough to withstand a charging rhino.
I sighed and felt the craving for a cigarette.
“What now?”
Smith looked a little perturbed about the locked door and glanced around the front of the house.
“Let’s try around back,” he said.
“Ah, not more walking,” I groaned.
Smith flashed me an incredulous glance. “You can stay right here if you want, Wilde Man but if we run into any trouble, you’re on your own.”
“All right, I’ll come with you. I don’t want you pissing your woman’s nightie if you get scared.”
“Whatever,” Smith huffed.
We moved around the curved perimeter wall, watching and listening for any sudden movement or sounds of the undead. I struggled to keep pace with Smith and let him carry on a few yards ahead of me.
The unkempt side garden was overgrown with tall weeds and knotty vines that had probably long ago been flower beds or a vegetable patch of some kind. We moved around in a semi circle, close to the house wall until we reached the rear of the property.
The rectangular shaped swimming pool was centered in the paved patio area. The water inside the pool covered around half the depth and resembled the texture of pea soup. A few white plastic chairs with a thin layer of mildew on the arm rests and backs of the seats stood at odd angles on the patio beside the pool.
A sudden welcoming breeze rippled the long grass beyond the patio and I glanced into the back garden. I saw a big, stone built barn to the rear of the compound that I hadn’t noticed from the view on top of the house in the village. A clump of swaying palm trees stood to the right of the barn, obviously masking it from my previous vantage point. Two sturdy looking wooden doors in the barn’s front wall blocked any access and the roof had a row of skylights fitted amongst the surrounding orange tiles. The gravel driveway snaked around from the front of the house and led to the closed barn doors, at a distance of around two hundred yards from the back of the house.
“You see that?”
Smith mumbled something I didn’t catch. I turned back to the rear of the house and saw Smith peering through the darkened windows, cupping his hands against the glass. The spear gun was slung across his back once again.
The rear of the big house was much the same as those in the village, only on a larger scale. The French doors were in exactly the same position as the smaller counterparts and I saw the units and appliances steeped in shadow behind the kitchen windows.
“You see that barn over there?” I repeated.
“Yeah,” Smith snapped. “I heard you the first time.”
“Anybody in there?”
“Not that I can see. Hand me that spear will you?”
I complied and he took the spear, then repeated his breaking and entering technique by removing the beading from around the glass pane next to the handle in the French doors.
“We better make sure we put the glass back in the frame this time,” I said.
Smith didn’t comment. He simply handed me my spear back along with the loose glass pane. Reaching inside the gap, Smith clunked open the lock from the inside then turned the handle. The French doors opened outwards onto the patio.
I placed the glass next to the wall and Smith turned to me with a wry grin on his face.
“Let’s go investigate.”
Whenever Smith gave me that look, I always knew trouble was around the corner.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Before we entered, I insisted we replace the glass panel. Smith huffed but complied, using the blunt end of the spear to hammer the beading back into place.
We entered the gloomy interior and stood in a spacious kitchen, with a black and white checkered tiled floor and sturdy looking oak closets hanging around the walls. The countertops were dark gray granite and the cooker at the opposite end to the French doors was a big chrome beast that could have knocked up a banquet all in one go.
Smith closed the door behind us but didn’t lock it in case we had to make a quick getaway. I smelled the faint odor of cooking, almost as though the facilities had recently been used. The kitchen looked spotless, not the usual dank, grimy and decrepit places we frequently encountered. I ran my finger over the worktop. There wasn’t a molecule of dust or grime on the surface.
“You think somebody is still living in this place?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.
Smith pulled an ‘
I don’t know or give a crap
’ face. He began searching through the closets and found a large, ribbed plastic container with a blue top. Colorless liquid sloshed around inside. Smith flipped off the lid and smelled the contents, quickly pulling his head away.
“Don’t drink that. It’s turpentine or some shit.” He banged the bottle down on the countertop and continued his search through the closets.
I turned and hobbled to a glass paneled door to the left of the cooker. The glass was smoked so I couldn’t see through the other side. I opened it quickly with my spear raised beside my head. No zombies or other monsters came looming out.
I poked my head through the open doorway. A long hallway with a gray stone tiled floor led further into the house’s interior, with the front door and two more closed wooden doors standing on the opposite side. I was sure I heard a slight thudding from somewhere inside the house. The sound was almost like a base beat from a hip-hop tune. I listened more intently but the noise seemed to fade.