The Renegades 2 Aftermath (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller) (16 page)

I did my best to haul myself up, but he was on me fast. I reached for my knife but it was gone. I must have dropped it. This time he held me above his head and walked around the cage as if waiting to get the word to break my back on his knee. I was certain I was going to die, or at least be sucking shit through tubes until the next apocalypse.

Without a weapon I was shit out of luck. Flailing around above him, I was incapacitated.

This was it. I was about to become this guy’s toothpick.

Then he yelled something I didn’t expect.

“Enough!” he shouted. “This is over.”

Was my hearing fucked up? Did this guy really say that? Or was this all part of Domino’s sick mind game; one final sense that you were going to get out of it, and then the deathblow.

Bones lowered me down. He then picked up the knife on the ground, approached the side of the cage, and tossed it at Domino, it missed and hit the floor.

“You missed,” Domino said with a smug grin on his face.

“We’re done,” Bones replied.

“You are done when I say you are.”

With blood blurring my vision, I glanced over trying to make sense of it.

“Now kill him.”

“Do it yourself, I’m done,” Bones replied.

Domino smiled at me, then looked back at Bones. He raised a handgun towards him.

“Fight or die.”

N
ow it’s
hard to argue with a gun. This fight had just become even stranger. Why had this man given up beating me to a pulp? I was contemplating this when two new medieval weapons landed within a few inches of my face. This time one was a sword, and the other was a poleaxe. Being that I was closest, I reached for the sword. Despite being thoroughly confused as to why he didn’t kill me when he could have, I wasn’t going to take any chances.

The crowd tossed bottles and cans at the cage. Beer sloshed onto the floor making it even harder to run. Bones turned back toward me. I was already up but hesitant to attack.

“Sorry, kid, I’ve got no choice.”

I furrowed a frown. He really didn’t want to kill me. There I was imagining he was one of Domino’s henchmen, and it seemed he was being forced to fight. He was just another pawn in the game. Bones scooped the axe, he swished back and forward as if familiarizing himself with it.

“I’ll try to make this painless.”

“That’s comforting,” I replied.

And there we were again facing off against each other like gladiators in the Colosseum. Our weapons clashed together with such force that sparks ignited, and my entire hands shook with pain. I was sure this time that I wouldn’t be given a free pass. Now maybe it was the prayer I sent up to the big guy upstairs or perhaps I was just meant to survive, but over the chants of the crowd a sound echoed. I kid you not; it was the General Lee Dixie horn from
The Dukes of Hazzard.
It was so utterly bizarre that even Bones stopped and the crowd turned. As they did two men rushed into the building shouting something.

Once my ears adjusted to what was being said, it became clear.

“We are under attack.”

You would have thought it was Black Friday shopping at Walmart, the crowd piled out the door in a heartbeat. The sound of music was quickly replaced by gunfire, and the one thing I hoped I wouldn’t hear. The moans of the dead.

Now I would like to say that I killed that insane asshole who had thrown my ass in the ring, but I didn’t. Bones did. Upon seeing the crowd disperse, and Domino distracted by the chaos, Bones brought back his arm and launched that battle axe through the air. It soared through the metal bars and landed right between Domino’s shoulders. It was one hell of a shot.

“Good shot,” I commended him, and for a brief moment he turned and smiled. Then the crack of a gun echoed. Bones grasped his neck and I knew instantly he’d been hit. I turned to see Domino hit the floor and take his last breath. Maybe it was because Bones hadn’t killed me, or simply because he was no longer holding an axe in his hand but I scrambled over to him. He was coughing and choking on his own blood. The bullet had penetrated one side of his neck and come out the other.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

Through gritted teeth that were stained now in blood he spoke, “Get out, go now.”

I knew he wasn’t going to make it. I was torn by what this man had done, or by what he hadn’t. As I ran to the gate with the sound of gunfire, it was locked. I yanked on it hard but it wouldn’t budge. Now what you have to know about this cage was it went up high. The vertical bars were over eight feet high. At the top they turned in and had barbed wire around the edges. Even if I could have climbed up, I would have been cut to bits trying to make my way over the razor-sharp metal.

“Here,” Bones’s gruff voice called out. I swiveled around to see him getting up. “Get on my shoulders.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

I wasn’t going to argue. I climbed up on top of him like a steel climbing frame. Every inch of him was pure muscle. Once I was on top he stood up, stumbled forward a little but clung to my legs.

“Stand up,” he bellowed staggering around as if he was drunk. The blood gushing from his neck had got worse. He wouldn’t last long and there was no way in hell I was going to stay in there with him as a Z. God help the person who would open the cage after he turned.

Like a circus act I gripped his bald head for support and rose upright. He clung to my calves and moved back and forward. I had a feeling I was going to be impaled on the ends of the steel cage if he slipped. But standing on his six foot four frame, I removed my jacket and tossed it over the barbed wire.

“Ready.”

“Ok, dude, what the fuck are you going to do?”

He coughed then let out a stifled laugh. “You ever seen a Scottish caber toss?”

Before I could reply with a yes or no, he launched me upward so hard I nearly tossed up the contents of my stomach. I landed hard over the top of the barbed wire. My hands clinging to the edges. The sockets ached in pain. Beneath me, I saw Bones drop to his knees. One hand on the floor, the other on the side of his neck. He stared at me and I think he wanted to say something, instead he just collapsed. As much as I wished I could have thanked him, he was gone. The ruckus outside had reached a feverish pitch. Z’s were making their way into the tabernacle. I slid down the outside of the cage until my boots hit the floor. I double-timed it over to Domino, snatched up his handgun, and made a beeline for the door.

I fired three rounds into a bunch of snarling Z’s that were coming at me. When I made it outside I could now see what was going on. The place was overrun with Z’s. It was pure madness. Among the mass of dead bodies, and gang members running in every direction, a car was zipping around, its occupants yelling like lunatics while shooting. It wasn’t the occupants that made me know who it was; it was the car they had chosen. It was a 1979 Country Squire station wagon and none other than Baja was driving it, while Specs and two other black guys in the back were shooting up the place. I had never felt as relieved to see them than I did in that moment. Behind them in a jeep and five armored trucks were the Black Kings. The sound of the Dixie Lee horn went off again and I heard Baja shout out, “Hey, Johnny B. Goode!” He then launched into singing that damn Chuck Berry song again while continuing to take head shots at anything and everything. I swear he shot the head off a statute. He was nearly as good with a gun as he was with a pair of nunchucks.

I was about to go get the others when I felt a smack to the side of my head.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

It was the same guy who had collected us from the store.

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.

“Get up, motherfucker.”

He kicked me twice in the stomach, the second time I grabbed his leg and swept out the other one. He landed hard but not enough to stop him. This guy was a serious scrapper. He jumped right back up like a fucking jack-in-the-box and launched into a prizefighter assault. I returned fist for fist. At one point he began to choke me. I saw stars and darkness creeping in at the edge of my eyes. I knew if I didn’t get this punk off fast, it was going to be lights out. I brought my knee up and smashed it into his nuts with all the force I could muster.

He dropped and groaned in agony. It gave me a few seconds to catch my breath.

What I didn’t know was he had reached into the front of his pants and pulled out a .40 semi-automatic handgun.

“Let’s go, homie,” he spluttered. “Fight or die.”

I had enough of fighting. Down on my hands and knees I spotted the Glock beneath me. I clasped it and spun over and emptied the magazine into his chest until he was no longer a threat.

“I’ll go with die.” I spat a big glob of blood onto the concrete in front of me. I scrambled over to him and took the handgun and headed towards the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. That’s when I spotted Elijah. Wearing a black bandana with a white skull on it, he looked every bit the gang member that I remembered. He was holding two handguns and walking forward with all the confidence of a man ready to die. A shot to his left, then right, then behind him. He was taking down the dead and the Tongan Crips like a boss.

“Elijah,” I yelled. His eyes darted over to me for a brief moment. “I need a hand to get the others out.”

He nodded, kicking a Z back, and rushed towards me, calling for a few more of his men to follow. Gone were those guarding the front entrance. One of them lay on the ground, his stomach pulled inside out, brain matter and gristle spread inside a puddle of blood.

Inside we ascended the steps while two of his men took out Tongan Crips who’d been turned into Z’s. By the time we made it up to the ninth floor the muscles in our legs were on fire.

“You think they could have picked a lower floor?” he said, casting a glance down the hallway before we darted towards the double doors that were already open.

I ran in scanning the room.

“Dax? Jess?” I yelled but there was no reply. We moved down the hall kicking in the doors and checking every room. They were nowhere to be found.

“Perhaps they got out already.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

As we ran down the stairs, I had to ask him. “Why did you come to help?”

“Your friends can be pretty convincing.”

“And annoying but that’s another story. I’m just glad you guys showed up.”

“We had a little help,” he replied.

I shot him a look.

“From the dead. Your friend Specs suggested luring them into a truck. We just let them out when we got past the walls. Kind of like having an extra hundred men.”

“Smart idea.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

Back on the ground we shot our way out of the building and faced off against the remaining Crips that had taken up behind two overturned trucks.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Fuck that. I want their blood,” Elijah spat back.

“It’s not worth it, the Z’s will finish them off.”

The Tongan Crips had dwindled in size from two hundred down to just over a hundred. Bullets were flying back and forth between both sides. I was still trying to figure out where the others had gone when I spotted them. They were rounding the far side of the building.

I nudged Elijah. “Listen, I’ve got to get something from over there, you think you can cover me?”

“You got it.”

“You got a knife?” I asked.

He pulled one from the sheath around his leg.

Elijah shouted to ten of his men to provide cover by using one of the armored trucks to get me over to the middle of Temple Square, and another to provide additional cover. I was literally going to have to expose myself to retrieve the cure from the president’s mutilated body. I wasn’t sure what scared me more, getting shot in the head by a stray bullet or having to cut into the flesh of our nation’s commander-in-chief. No amount of hiding behind the truck was going to keep me from the Crips that had fanned out. Elijah tossed me an assault rifle. I hopped into the truck and one of his men swung it around and floored it. Bullets were pinging off the steel, and creating cracks in the ballistic glass windows.

I shot a glance at my watch. We had less than an hour to get over to the airport.

As I came up behind the pole that the president had been impaled on, I grimaced. Dry blood streaked the white paint. I tried not to pay attention to the carnage around me, and bullets zipping past my head. I stayed low and had to hope that the two armored trucks would at least block the continual rounds. I glanced up at his face. His head was upright. The pole had been jammed up inside of him and out his throat. Completely unnecessary, barbaric even, but that was Domino. He knew it would send a clear message to everyone.

I looked around his hip for a mark. It was hard to tell what could have been an injection, and what was just bruising from the battering that he’d received. Then I saw it. It was like a bee sting on his left hip. I took the tip of the knife and jammed it inside the flesh. The smell made me gag. As I looked away but continued to slice down I saw Kat in the distance with the others. She was looking directly at me. I’d never felt so uncomfortable, and yet I knew it was what had to be done.

The skin peeled back in one large chunk until I caught sight of the titanium container. It was tiny, no bigger than my thumbnail. To think that held the cure was astonishing. I was just in the process of pulling it out when I felt a bullet nick my skin. It had sliced through the top of my shoulder. I reeled back and began unloading round after round from my assault rifle in the direction of where the shots were coming from. Elijah must have seen I was in trouble as he gestured for them to pull the truck up in front of me. I reached up and pulled out the titanium capsule, skin tissue and all, and pocketed the lot.

After which, I hightailed it back towards Elijah. A lot of his men had already died fighting. There couldn’t have been more than half of the fifty still alive. He gave a signal to them men, but most ignored him. That was something about gangs. Their ego was huge. This was going to continue until they either won, or died.

But for us, it was over. It had to be. We only had thirty-five minutes before the choppers would arrive.

“We’ve got to go.”

Elijah grabbed me by my wrist.

“Is that it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s the cure.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”