Free The Left Series (Book 1): Leftovers by Christian Fletcher Page A

freestanding racks of waterproof jackets and trousers.
    Smith crept over to the glass cases and searched for ammunition. I looked around the shelves for any spare hand guns lying around. I pulled at the hunting rifles chained to the shelves through the trigger guards.
    “Have you fired a hand gun before?” Smith asked.
    I shook my head. The closest I’d come to shooting anything was on the PlayStation. Smith smashed the glass display case with the baseball bat. The noise echoed around the store.
    “Sorry, I couldn’t find the keys,” he held up a palm in apology. He took a pistol from the display case and held it out for me. “Here, this is a Beretta M9A1. It’s accurate with not much kick and takes fifteen, nine-mil rounds. Load it now and take as much spare ammo as you can carry.”
    The gun was metallic blue with a long barrel. It felt good in my hand and I practiced aiming and shooting at imaginary zombies. Smith showed me how to load the weapon and passed me a few boxes of 9mm rounds that I stuffed into my rucksack. He loaded his Desert Eagle and stuffed his pockets with spare ammo. We took a rifle sling each to carry the ‘silent’ weapons on our backs. The handle of the golf club hung over my left shoulder for easy access. I wasn’t letting go of that weapon. Smith swapped his brown loafers for walking boots but kept the leather jacket, I thought he maybe should have swapped it for a hunting coat.
    We picked up a hunting knife each from the shelf behind the register and moved towards the front of the pickup truck, ready to leave. We stopped when we heard a metallic banging. The sound came again so I took a peek through the window and saw a balding, male zombie staggering around the back of the truck. Huge gouges and pieces of metal protruded from his neck with flaps of ripped skin quivering as he moved. The scent of the dead flesh and blood of the suicidal truck driver was probably like the smell of a kebab to a drunk for this particular zombie. He banged on the doors and moaned that familiar low groan. I wondered if the undead guy was experiencing a sense of frustration. The only way to find out how a zombie felt was to become one. I wasn’t prepared for that situation yet.
    “Shoot him,” Smith said behind me.
    “What?”
    “Go ahead. Shoot the bastard.”
    “Why not?” I shrugged. At least I’d have some shooting practice and learn how to handle the gun. After all, how hard could it be?
    I aimed the Beretta at the zombie’s head, took off the safety, like Smith had shown me and squeezed the trigger. The hand gun recoiled horribly to the right and nearly broke my wrist. The round missed by a mile and took out the remaining glass in the top right of the shop window.
    “Good shooting,” Smith laughed. “We got ourselves another Clint Eastwood here.”
    “I thought you said there was a little kick back?” I hissed, rubbing my wrist.
    “Like this,” Smith demonstrated the stance, holding his right wrist with his left hand and standing with his feet apart. He extended his right arm and aimed down the sights. “Now you try.”
    I copied the stance and aimed at the zombies head again. I fired and heard a metallic clunk when the round struck the side of the truck’s bed. It took me a total of eight shots before I finally shot the zombie in the head. I’d missed the target four times; the other shots hit him in the neck, arm and chest before I’d delivered the kill shot. The fatal bullet penetrated the skull under his right eye and sent him spinning onto the sidewalk.
    Smith cheered or booed every shot, depending on how near the target I’d got. I laughed hard and felt like a kid shooting at a plastic duck at the fairground. The zombie kept coming forward towards the window and I re-aimed and fired after every missed shot. We were making so much noise that we didn’t see or hear the streams of zombies stumbling towards Günter’s Gun Shop in the twilight.
     
    Chapter Ten
     
    The amusement