The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold by Christian Fletcher Page B

we can slip out of the front door,” Batfish suggested.
    “What about the packs?” Cordoba whispered. “We left them in the kitchen. We can’t leave without that gear.”
    Bill abruptly came out of his shell again and his eyes widened but his face screwed in anger. “Where’s my hammer?” he yelled. “I need my hammer to fight the bastards.”
    “Be quiet, Bill,” Wingate hissed. “They’ll hear you.”
    “I need my hammer,” Bill barked, in an even louder tone.
    Batfish and I exchanged worried glances.
    “Give the guy his god damn hammer back,” Smith groaned. “Before he yells the place down and gets us all killed.”
    Cordoba picked up the hammer she’d put down in the small space between the wall and the side of the cabinet. She handed the heavy tool to Bill. He looked intently at the claw end of the hammer as he gripped the rubber coated handle.
    “The bastards have come into my house!” Bill abruptly roared, taking us all by surprise. He shrugged off Wingate’s attempts to try and control him and hurtled towards the doorway with the hammer raised above his head.
    For one horrific moment, I thought he was going to slam the hammer down onto my head as I crouched by the door, holding the Beretta beside my head and pointing to the ceiling. I went to lower the gun and point it at Bill but he barged me out of the way and tore open the door.
    “Bill, no,” Wingate screeched. “Don’t go out there.”
    But Bill wasn’t listening to anybody, let alone following their advice. The gray blankets fell away from his body, revealing a stained, white sweatshirt that was almost yellow and a pair of ripped, blue jog pants. He charged through the hallway towards the kitchen, screaming at the top of his voice.
    I composed myself and stepped out of the living room into the hallway, watching Bill disappear into the near darkness.
    “He’ll get ripped to pieces if he goes out there,” Wingate shrieked, bundling into the hallway after Bill.
    Smith grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her from moving further forward.
    “Let him go,” he growled. “Don’t put yourself in danger for that whack-job.”
    We heard sounds of a scuffle from the kitchen beyond the dark hallway. Heavy items scraped across the floor, glass shattered and bumps and bangs reverberated from the room. Gera, Cordoba and Batfish joined us as we edged towards the closed kitchen door. We all had our weapons drawn and at the ready. Cordoba and Wingate shone their flashlight beams further down the hallway. We could still hear Bill screaming and yelling the odd obscenity.
    “Don’t fire blind,” Gera warned. “We don’t want to end up shooting each other.”
    Cordoba reached out and turned the kitchen door handle then pushed it open. Bill struggled while battling several zombies inside the room. Two skeletal bodies lay on the flag stone floor with bloody clumps and tufts of matted hair beside their heads. Bill had managed to dispatch two of the undead and was in the process of terminating another, brandishing the hammer in a rapid up and down motion, smashing a thrashing female across the side of her skull. He was doing his best to dodge the clutches of at least another dozen zombies in the kitchen but their bony fingers tore at his skin.
    “He’s getting massacred,” Wingate yelled.
    Bill’s face was a sweaty mask of aggression and anger. His long hair flopped around the sides of his head and he gritted his teeth as he swung the hammer in swift looping arcs. Bill seemed resigned to going down while fighting to protect his property. The one thing he had left.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eleven
     
    Gera fired a couple of well aimed , single shots with his M-16 rifle and two zombies dropped the floor beside the back door. Bill was surrounded by his former neighbors and they were all intent on getting a piece of him. We couldn’t get a clear shot at the zombies around him for fear