The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) (4 page)

W
hen the sun
arose that morning the reality of our predicament dawned on all of us. The streets were a bloodbath. It had been less than twenty-four hours since we had witnessed the carnage. I don’t know what made me think it would get better. I soon would come to know that optimism didn’t exist in this new world. How many other cities and small towns had been overrun by this virus? How many had survived the night in Castle Rock?

You could say our day started with a bang.

Dax, Scot, and Jason had made a decision to salvage what food they could. We’d been told to not fire off any rounds. After yesterday’s incident, the last thing we needed was to attract a horde of Z’s. Down below, there was no movement over at the gun store. At this point we had no way of knowing if Jess and Izzy had made it.

Baja was in the process of doing his morning stretching. If you squinted your eyes for a few seconds you could almost imagine it was Bruce Lee. That illusion was soon dispelled when he moved on to nunchucks and hit himself in the balls. Specs was still trying to get hold of his father using a makeshift transmitter that both he and his father carried. Specs was sure that he would have made it. I had to agree. They had spent their entire lives waiting for an event like this to happen. They even had a bumper sticker on the back of their minivan. While most had those stick figures of a pleasant family, theirs just said, “Preppers survive. Pussies don’t!” Yeah, it caused a little bit of an uproar among the religious folks in town.

Matt was still curled into a ball. He hadn’t shifted position the entire night. I grabbed up a can of soda to take over to him and asked Baja to take my position.

As I approached him, I knew something wasn’t right. He wasn’t moving at all. His skin had changed. It had become pale, and almost translucent. You could see veins in his neck and face. It was the same appearance that I had seen on the Z’s last night, when I had got within spitting distance from them.

“Matt?”

I was careful not to get too close. Up until this point we really didn’t have much to go on as to how people were turned. Was it a bite? A scratch? Did you have to get eaten? Everything we knew was based on fictional accounts through movies. He’d been bitten in the tunnel. Though we had just assumed it was one of the runners being an asshole.

If death had a smell, I was inhaling it now. “Matt? Hey bud,” I said, leaning over him to get a closer look. I had no idea how this worked. It still hadn’t sunk in. It felt as if I was in a walking dream state. A nightmare that wouldn’t let me wake up.

That’s when he turned. At first it was slow. I caught sight of his starved sunken cheeks, then his eyes which were milky white. Then, as if seeing me as breakfast, his lips drew back. Gone were the perfectly white teeth, now all that glared back was decaying black Chiclets.

I staggered backwards, utterly beside myself at what I was seeing. That’s when I lost my footing. What happened next, occurred so fast that even now I have a hard job trying to piece it all together. Matt, or what was left of him, let out a howl. I swear if he had been alive, he would have shit his pants. Instead, I nearly did it for him.

Even if I had shit my pants the smell of Matt was worse. How do you describe it? Take a shit and stick your nose in it, and that wouldn’t even come close. Matt moved faster than anyone I had seen. He didn’t hesitate, like a rabid animal he lunged at me, snarling and drooling black shit from his mouth. Instinctively I raised my legs to boot him in the face but I wasn’t fast enough. He was on me like a cheetah on a gazelle. Now I was in a fight for my life. Specs and Baja spun around and froze. They weren’t prepared for this. I honestly think they were still processing it when I kicked him back, reached for my Glock 17, and fired a round into his skull.

Matt didn’t drop like a fly, he fell back and tumbled over the edge. I heard the sound of his body hitting the ground. My hand was shaking, still outstretched.

I’d just killed my best friend.

If anyone asked later, when was the moment did it all become real? That was it.

The next noise we heard was Dax and the others banging on the door to let them back in. Baja dashed over and pulled the pole out of the way and untied the rope.

“What the hell happened?”

My eyes were wide, and I was in shock. I couldn’t even reply if I wanted. The only thing I could hear was the gnashing of Matt’s teeth when he was inches from my face. Scot and Jason rushed over to the edge and looked over.

I didn’t even have a second to respond. Dax took a hold of my arm and yanked me upright.

“
G
et your shit together
. We’re getting out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here. This place is going to be crawling after the noise of that gun going off.”

“He’s right,” Specs said. “They’re coming.”

A surge of undead were making their way towards the saloon. The pole and rope might have held some of them off, but it wouldn’t last.

“They won’t find their way up here,” Jason uttered.

“You want to stick around to find out?” Dax said.

We gathered up as much as we could carry, then one by one we went across a plank over to the next building. Scot and Jason took it with them after we were across. When we reached the next gap, they tossed it over. Dax eyed the distance and then took a run. We held our breaths. Like an Olympian he sprinted and lunged. He barely cleared it. As soon as he came out of the roll, he tied off the washing line around a metal air vent and then slung the other end across to us. Scott tied it off and we took turns shimmying over on the line. We could hear the sound of metal thumping. It was getting louder as if a hundred fists were beating against a metal door.

“Hurry it up,” Jason shouted to Scot as he pulled himself across the line. Jason was the last one. No sooner had Scot made it and Jason was in the process of untying the line when Z’s burst through the door above the saloon. Their milky white eyes settled on Jason. He was on the roof but the gap between the saloon and the one he was on wasn’t far. We had used a plank to get over, but realistically, you could have jumped it.

Like a stack of dominoes piled up, they stumbled over each other. I raised my gun to fire at a few but Dax pushed my arm down.

“We need to conserve ammo. Don’t.”

The Z’s were trying to get over to Jason but falling into the gap. There were so many of them that it almost looked like water pouring over a brim as they disappeared. Jason was struggling to get the knot loose.

“Forget it. Let’s go,” Scot yelled.

Realistically we needed that line. Some stores were squashed together, others you could jump, but many would require a line.

“I’ve nearly got it,” Jason yelled back.

My heart was beating a mile a minute. I was ready to start shooting if any of those Z’s managed to get over. Luckily Jason untied it and ran to the edge. He used it to swing to the wall and then we pulled him up.

We were so distracted by getting Jason to the other side that we hadn’t paid attention to the fact that we were now on the same roof as Carlos’s wife. It was almost like she had been waiting for us to get over before she made a move.

She made a spluttering sound, like someone gargling water, then began crawling towards us. Slow but capable of biting any one of us. Baja raised his nunchucks and slammed it down on her head, several times until it crushed in. Blood splattered all over his yellow and black jumpsuit. After, he turned and vomited.

“Where now?” I asked.

“The bank,” Dax said.

Castle Rock County Bank wasn’t attached to any other building. It was also the highest structure in the town, besides the old water tower. The problem was, we weren’t going to be able to swing, jump, or use a plank to reach it. The only way to the top was from the bottom.

We made it across three more roofs until we found ourselves on top of the funeral home which seemed a little bit ironic to all of us. From where we were positioned we had a clear shot of the local police department. It no longer resembled the professional establishment with pristine cruisers parked outside, and a shiny American flag flapping in the wind.

Now it resembled a war zone. Windows were smashed, doors torn off their hinges, and blood smeared over walls. Beside the building were several burnt-out cruisers, with bodies inside.

“Isn’t that your dad’s car?” Specs said.

He was right. Our father had made it there. The driver’s side was open but he was nowhere to be seen.

“We need to go and see if he’s alive,” I said.

“No. We stick to the plan.”

“Plan? This isn’t an operation, Dax. He could still be alive.”

“He wouldn’t want us to risk it.”

“Screw what he wants.”

Dax shoved me. “That’s the attitude that’s gonna get you killed.”

I wanted to tell him where to go, but I was tired of it.

“Now listen up. We’re going down through the stairwell. This is a lot like clearing rooms. You stick close to me, stay behind. Keep your guns on the ready. Don’t shoot unless I say.”

Dax readied his AR-15 assault rifle and entered the stairwell. It was dark, no lighting.

“Flashlight?” Scot asked.

Baja handed one to me, and I passed it to Scot who was directly behind Dax. We moved as one unit down the stairs. It reminded me of playing war as a kid. Except I knew if anything jumped out at us, all hell was going to break loose.

Dax hadn’t always been an asshole. Before he went into the military he’d been a pretty cool guy. He’d speak up when my father would rag on me. We’d spend the occasional weekend down at the firing range. He was the first one to show me how to fire a gun. There really wasn’t much else to do around here except drive, shoot guns, and drink. Something changed in him after the military. He’d never really got into why he left. I just knew that my father had been pretty mad the day he came home. It didn’t last long. That was one thing about my father that was good. He preferred you tried and failed, than didn’t try at all. I guess that’s why I didn’t get a free ride growing up.

We kept moving down the stairwell until we reached the ground. There was one more door between us and the funeral home’s corridor. I hated this place. I’d only ever stepped one time in here and that was when our mother had died. The funeral had been held here. Everything about the place creeped me out. A few days before the funeral they had an open casket where people could come and pay their respects. When it came to my turn, I couldn’t do it. Death wasn’t something I was ready to face. I wanted to remember my mother alive, not lying motionless inside a box.

I guess that’s why I wanted to make sure our father was alive. Even if he did act like a royal dick, he was all we had. The thought of losing him was unbearable. It’s strange that it took a zombie apocalypse for us to realize how much family meant.

Dax placed his ear against the door, one hand on the bar and the other on his weapon. He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder and gave us the nod. He didn’t burst through the door, instead he pressed against it ever so gently until it clicked, then he paused for a second as if expecting the undead to appear. Satisfied, he pushed it open just enough until there was a hairline crack.

That’s when Baja sneezed. We all looked at him as if we couldn’t believe his timing.

Dax didn’t wait another minute. He forced his way into the corridor. Within a split second he was firing off a round, then another and another. Scot was behind him and firing in the opposite direction. We followed suit until we had neutralized the threat.

As we passed over the corpses, I recognized them as the owners of the funeral parlor. To think they had decided to get into the business of the dead, and now they had wound up dead. We pressed on. We’d been given the tour of the funeral home a day before the wake. They had taken us through the chapel, shown us the columbarium which was a granite wall for placing the urns of those who’d been cremated. We passed by the arrangement room where they had attempted to sell us an overpriced casket. My father wouldn’t do it. We didn’t have the cash for something extravagant. Instead we opted for cremation.

As we got closer to the mausoleum, Dax began to look worried. This place held the remains of the dead in caskets. It was a permanent resting ground for the dead. And if any room in the place was going to be filled with Z’s it would have been there. There was no way of going around it, we had to go through it to reach the main hallway which led up to the main doors.

Dax was motioning to us using military hand signals. But he might as well have been doing sign language for all we cared. As none of it made sense, Baja even returned a signal of his own. A middle index finger. Dax didn’t find it amusing but I did.

Now I would like to say that we slipped through the mausoleum unnoticed, or killed one or two biters and arrived on the other side high-fiving each other. But that wasn’t the case. It was more like hacking our way through a dense jungle. The jungle being Z’s. Dax attempted to kick the door open and fell on his ass. What he didn’t know was a group of Z’s were pressing up against the doors.

The problem was, he kicked it hard enough that it cracked open and one of them managed to get his meaty fucked-up paw out before it closed. What ensued next was deafening. We fired round after round, until we cut our way a few feet into the room. We had no other choice but to go through them. It was that or go back up. The funeral home was the closest to the bank.

I don’t know how long we were in that room. Time ceased to exist. Creepers dropped like flies, only to be replaced by another wall of them.

“That is like Space Invaders,” Baja remarked before letting out a laugh and sticking a knife into a Z’s head. Fucking guy had an odd sense of humor.

Baja was referring to the 1980s Atari game that his father owned. It was a piece of history, and something he only brought out on special occasions. Usually his birthday.

By the time we made it to the other side, we were covered in blood. You couldn’t tell if it was ours, from the guy beside us, or just zombie flesh. From head to toe, we were dripping in the nastiest, rotten, decaying gunk that you could imagine. It felt as if we had just done an intense session of cardio. I had my hands on my knees, trying to catch a breath.