The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) (15 page)

Here I was out of my restraints but now surrounded by the undead. I was back to where I was before, except this time I didn’t have a gun on me.

I
fell back
against the stage. My arm reached for the assault rifle the guy had over his shoulder before the biters began chewing on him. I didn’t have to worry about the others coming back in, as ten of the crawlers moved towards the door and must have attacked some of the men outside. Gunshots were going off. Another Z stumbled trying to make its way to the flesh feast that had once been one of the Colonel’s men. It tripped and fell right into my lap. I held my breath. I didn’t move a muscle. Unlike Chicken McNuggets over there who was currently being chewed alive and screaming, I was already covered in the rotten flesh and decayed blood of Z’s. I knew this was it.

Its fucked up face came close as if trying to gauge if I was one of them. If it had a nose, I imagined it was performing a smell check. Was this how they discerned between the dead and the living? I turned my head to the side ever so slowly as I tried to stop myself from gagging. The smell coming from its mouth was worse than anything I’d ever smelled.

I thought I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my chest. The very sound caused panic. If I could hear it, could the Z in front of me?

Then it turned. Just like that. It crawled back and began gnawing on the thigh of the guy. It had worked. Holy shit! I had nearly crapped my pants. Something clicked inside of me in that moment. I had stared death in the face and was still alive. Was it luck? I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. I scraped the floor with my nails as I pulled at the strap that held the rifle. Eventually it gave way and I had a hold of the end of the gun. I stumbled back and got up doing my best Michael Jackson
Thriller
impression, in hopes that they wouldn’t pay any attention. Somehow I don’t think it worked. One of them let out a blood-curdling scream. It turned towards me with a gleam in its eyes.

It began to shuffle towards me, picking up speed like an overgrown ape about to score big with a female. In that precise moment I knew two things: One, my cover was blown and two, I needed a fresh pair of underpants.

The shuffler moved faster than I had ever seen one move. It had no qualms about it. It knew I was alive. Like a rabid animal, it came at me snarling, spewing blood from its mouth and letting out this cry as if someone had taken away its bottle of milk.

I raised my gun just as it launched into the air and shot it. Losing my balance, I fell backwards. I saw another coming. That’s when I started unloading my magazine. I straightened up while keeping my finger on the trigger. The gun jerked hard in my hands as it wildly released bullet after bullet into their skulls. Blood splattered. I had one eye on the doorway from where they had come. I was trying to gauge if I could make it. I had never been through the tunnel system below our saloon. It had always been kept closed. How the fuck did they get through? I had no way of knowing if there were hundreds more down there. All I knew was it was meant to connect with the tunnels beneath the museum. There was no way I was going to be able to get out the front. If I didn’t get killed by the Z’s, I would likely get a bullet in me from scar face or his men. The shots ripped through their skulls like butter. I made a mad dash for the door that led to the basement, convinced it was safe when no more emerged.

I was a few feet from the door when I heard the snap of gunshots over my head. I dropped to my knees for the final few feet. Like a slip and slide from when I was a kid, I leaned back slipping forward on guts and blood while continuing to fire wildly in the direction of the main door. That’s when I ran out of bullets. It clicked empty. Shit!

With my survival instincts kicking into high gear I didn’t stop to think about how many Z’s were behind me. As soon as I cleared the doorframe and made it into the top part of the stairs, I slammed the door closed and locked it. The basement had always been an area my father never wanted us to enter. I was pretty sure he thought we were going to knock over cases of alcohol. Though Dax said it was because of the mine. It was unstable. That’s why he closed it off. Outside the door I could hear gunfire. I knew I had little time to get the hell out of there before the Colonel and his goons would come busting through the door looking to reenact Iraq torture methods.

“
Y
ou think
he’s telling the truth?” Specs asked.

Before the zombie chaos ensued, I had been sweating both physically and mentally as we peered over the ledge of the building towards the Black Dog Saloon that was further down the block. I handed the binoculars to Baja so he could take a look.

“Shit. How the hell did he get himself caught?” I said.

“Dax, you can’t keep blaming Johnny.”

“No?” I spun around to face Jess.

All five of us had heard the megaphone. Only a few hours had passed since I’d last seen Johnny. I thought it was best to give him time to cool off. I didn’t imagine this was going to happen. Then again, we didn’t expect to be fighting against other humans when the world around us was collapsing in on itself.

Izzy had managed to extract the bullet from Specs’s shoulder. She patched him up, and while I could tell he was in pain he said he could still function. Baja and I had been boarding up the entrance to the mine. We anticipated getting a visit from the men we’d pissed off earlier that morning. We weren’t taking any chances.

At first we thought it was a joke. I could barely make out what was being said. It was only when I stepped outside that I was able to make sense of what he was yelling. My mind immediately went to Johnny. Where was he? We had rushed upstairs to check on the others just in case any had made their way in through the roof.

It came as a crushing blow. They had us by the balls and they knew it.

We’d been laid out on the roof for the past ten minutes listening to this Colonel rant. Finally I was able to put a face to the voice that we’d heard that morning. He looked just as insane as he sounded. A part of me wanted to get closer, fire off rounds and kill them right where they stood. But who knew what he’d instructed his men to do if we opened fire.

We couldn’t see Johnny. But we could see the Colonel. In his arrogance and stupidity he had stepped out in the middle of the main road and was yelling at the top of his voice as his men kept their eyes peeled for Z’s.

“Come on now. Lay down your weapons and come out with your hands on your head. I guarantee you will not be harmed. We have killed one of yours, you’ve killed one of ours. There need be no more bloodshed,” the Colonel yelled.

I rolled away from the edge.

“Well, we have two options. We call his bluff, open fire, and possibly kill the men who are very likely going to kill us the moment they get their hands on us, or we wait for them to come after us, which is what they are going to do if we don’t come out.”

“I think you missed one other option,” Izzy said.

“Enlighten me?”

“The one where we surrender.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you serious? You really think he’s going to let us walk? He and his men will probably rape you both, keep you as sex slaves, and kill us.”

“I think we can defend ourselves.”

“Against Z’s who don’t think. But these aren’t Z’s. They have already taken out Specs’s father.”

Specs’s father had never been in the military, but he knew enough about weapons and combat that he could have easily taken down three men with his bare hands. They had to have surprised him, at least that’s what Specs figured.

“Excuse me while I find the humor in what you are saying,” I continued.

“You always were a jerk, Dax,” Izzy said.

I cleared my throat while mumbling a reply.

“What was that you said?” Izzy replied, looking over at me with her eyes narrowed.

“I said, and you were always a royal bitch.”

“That does it. I’m out of here.”

“Guys. Guys. Shut the hell up. We have bigger things to deal with here. They have Johnny,” Baja said.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Well, are you willing to risk his life?” Specs asked.

“This is so fucked up,” I replied.

It was at that exact very moment the sound of gunfire rang out. We thought they were firing at us, but when I peered through the binoculars. I could see they were firing back into the saloon. But at what? That’s when I saw them. Four Z’s stumbled out followed by another three.

“Holy shit. If they have got Johnny inside there, he’s in trouble now. Specs, Baja, come with me. Jess and Izzy, go back inside and stay out of sight, this could get ugly fast.”

I
n the basement
it was dark and damp, the way I remembered it. We’d come down here often, regardless of what my father said, just to steal a case of beer. He never knew we stole a case each week, as he was shit at keeping inventory. I held the butt of the unloaded assault rifle out in front of me as I moved towards the far end of the basement. The door to the mine wasn’t sleek and cool-looking like the one Baja’s father had. No tours had ever gone through here. The door was worn, but when I caught sight of it, I realized how they got in. It wasn’t broken as I imagined. It was wide open. Someone had unlocked it. It had to have been his men. Idiots! They had let Z’s in and now they were going to pay for it. I heard from behind me the door at the top of the stairs being kicked in. That was followed by a series of gunshots. They were firing their way in. Darkness or not, I would have faced a worse fate if I hung around. I dashed through the doorway into the pitch dark, fully expecting to find death waiting for me on the other side. I kept my rifle ahead of me. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. The air carried the scent of death. I moved down the tunnel using my one hand to feel the walls. I was deathly scared of falling into a shaft. There was a good reason why my father closed this up.

I thought I was making progress. I had lucked out. Then I heard an all too familiar moan.

W
e had made
it across the buildings until we were one building down from the saloon. Now what you need to know about the saloon was that the front was mainly made up of glass. There was a reason why. People could see everything that was going on inside. It was the same reason why restaurants put you near the window, even though all the other tables were empty. If they could make it look like they were busy, others would enter. It worked too.

“Can you see him?”

Specs held the binoculars and adjusted the lens focus.

“Nothing. All I see is Z’s inside and the Colonel and his men fighting back.”

I rolled over. “How much ammo have you got?”

Baja checked. He had three magazines left, and his handgun, which had a full mag. Specs had one mag left. I had two. Beyond that we had knives but they would be of no use.

“What do you think?” Specs asked.

Without replying, I rolled back over and took aim at one of the guys standing outside. The shot hit him right in the forehead. His head bounced back against the window and he collapsed to the ground. Before his pal could register where the shot came from, I had unloaded another one. It hit him in the chest. He collapsed, his body tensed and he fired off a round.

“Dax, what are you doing?” Baja said.

“Putting my trust in my brother.”

The other two glanced at each other before they too joined in. Bullets snapped through the air as the Colonel’s men retreated back into the saloon.

“Right. Spread out. After you fire a shot, move again. Right now they don’t know how many of us there are. No one survived the blast in Matt’s house. So keep moving, fire then move. We want them to think there are more of us than there really are. Maybe they will think twice about trying to come after us. At least if we can hold them at bay for one night, it might give us time to think about what to do next.”

Baja dropped two men. “And your brother?”

“I hope to God he makes it out of this.”

D
eep below the saloon
, I was pushing forward in the dark. My eyes had adjusted and I was now able to see the ground. How many tunnels were down here? Did this one go over to the museum or deeper underground? I could hear the sound of voices echoing in the tunnel. They weren’t far behind. Without me, they knew they had no bargaining chip. No one knew this town like we did. After a few more minutes I came to a T-junction. This had to be it. I turned left and bolted towards the door that would be at the end of the tunnel. Sure enough, there it was. I reached it and turned the handle. It wouldn’t move. I pushed my shoulder into the door. Again nothing. Shit, they had either locked it or blocked it off.

This couldn’t get any worse.

Bam! A gun went off and I heard the walls begin to shake. Someone was shooting at something. Again I shoved my shoulder against the door. Desperation was taking over. If I stayed in here, I would be either be shot or die from the whole place collapsing.

I felt another shake and chunks from the wall started to drop.

I
had nothing to lose
. I began hammering on the steel door with the butt of the rifle. With all the commotion and shooting going on outside, the chance of being heard by the others was practically zero. I had no other option except to go back the way I came and by the sounds of gunshots and moaning echoing that wasn’t going to happen.

I had never thought about how I would die only that I would one day. I never imagined it could be below the town I had grown up in. I cast a nervous glance over my shoulder as the gunshots stopped. Now even louder than that was the snarling of Z’s. All my banging was leading them this way. I began hammering hard, and yelling.

“Guys. Let me in.”

It was a surreal moment. When the sound of wood being broken on the other side could be heard, it couldn’t have come a better time. Through the darkness of the tunnel behind me I could see movement. At first it was subtle. I found my eyes played tricks on me in the dark, but this was no trick. Staggering forward, filling up every inch of the tunnel were walkers. Their mouths opening and snapping shut. Legs chewed to bits, jaws barely connected, and stomachs missing.

“Hurry up.”

“We’re moving as fast as we can.” I heard Izzy on the other side. I held my rifle up, ready to feel the full brunt of their force. There was no chance in hell I would be able to hold them back without bullets. There were too many.

I heard a bolt unlatch, the door swung open, and I fell back into the museum, in between Izzy and Jess who were standing either side of me. We had no time to shut the door, both of them aimed their weapons and unleashed a flurry of bullets and arrows into the group. As the first line fell, the others toppled over gnashing what little they had together. Jess tossed me a Beretta and still on the floor, I fired round after round.

“Go.”

We weren’t going to be able to hold them back. Making matters even worse, all the gunfire had attracted other Z’s in from the street. I rose to my feet and ran in the direction of the main door, firing at them.

“Izzy, Jess. Now!” I cried out. They kept backing up while continuing to shoot. Once they made it to where I was, we raced up the stairs, slamming the door to the apartment.

“What now?”

“The roof.”

That was the only safe place. That flimsy front door wouldn’t hold even if we stacked a cabinet behind it. One by one I hoisted the girls up through the skylight. They then reached down, took both of my hands, and yanked me up. Once clear, I closed the skylight. I stared down as the undead broke through the door and entered Baja’s apartment.

“Come on. The others will need us.”

We ran to join the others. When we reached them Dax looked relieved instead of pissed off, which made a change. He grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and pulled me in tight, patting me on the back.

“I thought you were gone. Don’t ever go off like that again.”

“I’m sorry, Dax.”

“I can’t lose you, dude. You’re all I’ve got.”

I nodded.

“Right. If you guys are done having a Hallmark moment, maybe we can get the fuck out of here,” Baja added.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They all began walking off. I stood in place.

“I can’t go yet.”

“What?” Baja said.

“They are holding women and maybe kids at the shelter.”

Dax whirled around. “How do you know?”

“He showed me. Said there was nothing we could do to stop change. Eventually everyone would fall back into basic instincts. He said we either joined him, or died.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know, I only saw two women. Young girls.”

“It’s too risky, man. As much as I would like to help…” Baja trailed off.

“He’s right, Johnny. Didn’t you hear what dad said, the government if it still exists, might have given the go-ahead to bomb towns.”

“There’s no way they would do that. Who knows how many living they could wipe out?”

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. We need to get away from here. If any of dad’s messages did get through. Who knows, when they might hit this town?”

They continued walking.

“Guys, they are rounding them up. That’s why they killed Specs’s family. I think his dad put up a fight. I think they all did and that’s what got them killed. They are rounding up women. I can’t leave yet.”

They stared at me as if I was insane. Truth was, I think I was beginning to lose it. It was very possible that the military could bomb this town if they saw that it was infected. But I hadn’t heard any jets flying over. And who would make that type of call? The president?

“Listen, I’ve made some stupid mistakes. I’ve put your lives in jeopardy. I wouldn’t expect you to stay. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to help them. Now, if you want to go, go. But this is our town. We grew up here. Our families worked hard to give us something. It might not have been much, but to them it meant a lot. And as much as I’ve wanted to put this place in my rearview mirror, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some Uncle Sam assholes come in here and piss all over the little that we have. So if you want to leave, go, but I’m going to help these women, or die trying.”

There was silence. I was sure each one of them was weighing up the cost of their own life against that of a stranger.

“Fuck! Fuck this shitty end of the world,” Jess said.

I stared at Dax. Jessica and Izzy walked back to me. He looked at them.

“Well, Bruce Lee didn’t live long. So I’m in,” Baja said, joining us.

“Do I need to even say anything?” Specs said as he walked over to us.

Dax stood by himself shaking his head. “Well, I can’t let you wimps go it alone. In the words our father, hoo-fuckin’-rah.” He smiled and came over. “You know I’m going to kick your ass after this, right?”

“You can try.” We both smiled.

W
e couldn’t go back
into Baja’s apartment so we entered an apartment above a gift store. It was an antiques and collectibles shop run by an odd Chinese couple that looked like midgets. Hardly anyone ever went in there, mainly because they wouldn’t let you in if you had a bag, or if you wore shoes. They would literally make you take them off at the door, and you didn’t go in unless you put on a pair of their slippers. Like how weird is that?

Anyway, I was told by a friend of a friend, of another friend that there were cameras everywhere and they watched you like a hawk. Yeah, they were certain someone was going to steal from them. And if for any reason they thought you had stolen, they would hold you there until the police showed up. Now, I’d always been fascinated with that part, especially after hearing how they had held down Ronny Palmer, a kid who was built like a brick shit house. Ronny played varsity football and was known for putting a kid or two in the hospital for tackling him too hard. That even included his coach. So how in the hell did these little midgets take him down? Baja said they knew martial arts. Others said they came from a long lineage of folks who use Chinese sorcery and black magic.

Being I was the first one to break into the apartment, I was relieved to find there were no midget Z’s scrambling to bite me in the ass or zap me with some unknown magic.

Specs rooted around inside their fridge for something to eat but all he could find was some gross-looking meat that look like pink brains and sliced kidneys. Their cupboards didn’t exactly offer anything better. I found yellow tins with Chinese words on the side. When I opened one, it didn’t look like pork and beans, more like something that your grandmother might have left in her bedpan. And the smell, oh God, the stench was so bad; I thought someone had hooked me up to someone’s rear end.

“Fuck this.” Specs tossed the food from the fridge on the ground. “I’m starving.”

“Maybe there’s some left at Matt’s apartment,” Baja suggested.

“If there was, it’s probably been blown to smithereens.”

“Listen, we need to figure out how to get in. They are going to have that shelter surrounded. They aren’t going to fall for the whole bottle against the side again,” I said.

“We grab one of their men,” Dax said.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s just mosey on up and knock one over the head,” Baja said.

“Worked for them, didn’t it?” Dax replied.

I stared back and shook my head. And there it was, rubbing it in.

“Guys. As far as we know right now they’re still out there looking for Johnny,” Jess said.

“I doubt it.”

“We need to draw them out. Get them all in one area. We don’t have enough ammo to enter some gunfight,” I said.

“And your idea for doing that? Cause from what I can see, these freaks aren’t going to come strolling out for a Sunday morning picnic,” Baja added.

I looked over at Jess and Izzy. Dax followed my gaze.

“Oh no.” Izzy threw up her hands.

“They haven’t seen either of you. As far as they are concerned, you aren’t with us,” I said.

“You want to send them into the lion’s den?” Dax said slowly.

“What other choice do we have? We’ll move in and take them out before they get a chance to do anything.”

“Johnny,” Baja said, shaking his head.

“Can you think of a better idea? Cause if you can, I’m all ears.”

“No, man, we can’t do that,” Specs said.

“Hello, do we have a say in the matter?” Izzy said. Her eyes darted from Jess to me.

“No, I think I know where he’s going with this,” Jess said, taking a seat on the couch and looking at me. “If they are rounding up women, then we give them what they want.”

“And what about if they attempt to rape us?” Izzy asked

“They won’t. I’ll be there too,” I said.

“What?” Dax added.

“Johnny, you don’t have to go with them, we’ll move in and take them out, hold one of them captive and turn the tables on them,” Specs said.

“You really think they are going to give a shit about one of their men?” I said.

Specs shrugged.

“No,” I said. “I’ll take them in. It’s the old Trojan horse approach. We stand a better chance of finding out where the other girls are being held, where they are storing the weapons. Then, we’ll get the girls out, and seal those fuckers in.”

“How?” Dax asked.

“Dynamite,” I replied.

“You can’t move that, Johnny. The nitroglycerin is leaking. You touch that, it’s goodbye Kansas,” Baja replied.

“Don’t you mean Castle Rock?” Specs added.

Baja rolled his eyes.

“We’re not going to move it. When I was coming through the mine they were firing off rounds and the place was shaking. That was just a gunshot going off. We ignite that dynamite and that whole network of mine tunnels is going to collapse like a house of cards.”

“And so will the whole fucking town.”

“This town has already collapsed.”

Dax shook his head.

“But when it does, so will that shelter.”

“No, Johnny, my father built that place to withstand blasts and earthquakes.”

“Sure he did, and if they are inside they might live…” I paused. “If they can get out.”

“What?”

I pulled out the map from inside my jacket and laid it out. I ran my finger across to where the shelter was located in the ground. “Your father built the shelter inside an abandoned missile silo. That silo only goes down so many feet. Why?”

I tapped my finger on the location of the connecting mine tunnels.

Specs looked down on the map. “There wouldn’t have been any more material to support it.”

“That’s right. Right now that shelter is like an elevator hanging inside an elevator shaft. Except in this case, it’s a mine shaft.”

I stood up and went into the kitchen, I returned with a tin can. I wrapped one hand around it. “Now my hand wrapped around it, is the earth.” I stretched out my other hand and placed the can upright on top, still holding the can.

“Wire holds elevators from dropping. In this case, the ground around the silo and beneath it are all that’s holding that container in place. There’s enough dynamite down there to collapse it into the tunnels below. We aren’t going to force them out, we are going to bury them alive.”

The others stared at me as if I had just emerged from a mental institution.

“And what if we don’t get out in time?” Izzy said.

I raised an eyebrow.

Izzy shook her head. “This is nuts.”

“All this, Johnny, to try and save the lives of a couple girls we don’t even know?”

“Know them or not, it doesn’t matter. Look, the shit storm of the century might have occurred. But we aren’t animals. Those women deserve to live. They deserve not to be held imprisoned for sex by some psycho maniac. Doing this… is what makes us human. So what? We run now, we get to live another day. Maybe two, maybe a year. But then what? What if those women were Izzy and Jess, would you leave them behind?”

Dax rubbed a hand over his head.

“Listen, I didn’t say this was going to be easy. This isn’t just about getting them out, it’s about preventing those men from doing the same thing to others.”

“And if doesn’t work?”

I sniffed, and exhaled hard. “Then I will die doing something that mattered. Fuck! C’mon guys, we’ve lived our entire life in this town, wishing to get out. To make something of ourselves. Before this happened, the best we could have hoped to achieve was donating to a worthy cause or a stint in the army. Not to knock the army.” I shot Dax a look. “But now we’ve got the chance to do something that can really help.”

Dax let out a sigh.

“How will we know when you’re out?” he asked.

“Specs, does your old man still have that ham radio inside the RV and your house?”

“Yeah, where are you going with this?”

“Give us one hour. Once we make it to the surface I’ll communicate via the ham radio for you to blow it.”

“And if you don’t make it to the surface in an hour?” Specs said.

“Blow it.”

“Johnny?” Dax said.

“You do it. You hear me.”

With that Dax stood up and tossed the can across the room. It smashed the glass cabinet. He disappeared out of the apartment door that went down into the store. Jess gestured for me to go and speak with him.