The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) (17 page)

C
olonel Burrows gave
me the guided tour as if I hadn’t seen the place. He took his time. Which only made me more anxious. With each level I tried to gauge how many men we were up against. I glanced at my watch. I knew that the clock was ticking down. We had less than one hour to get the girls, grab some ammo, and get out. There was no way we were going to be able to haul out bags of weapons. We’d be lucky if we managed to grab even one.

The first level he had assigned to his office and anything related to business, though I recalled this was one of the apartments. The second floor was full of hydroponics. There was even a small pond where fish were kept. It was aquaculture at its finest. Of course none of this had been created by the Colonel. It was all the work of Specs’s father, a way to become self-sufficient and live off the grid, a smart way to stay alive if people didn’t come and rob you. The third floor was where they were storing all the weapons and ammo. It also doubled as housing for the some of the men. I counted four more. That made eight of them including the Colonel. When we made it to the fourth, that’s when I saw the two girls, plus Izzy and Jess. A few mattresses had been thrown on the ground. I knew these weren’t just for sleeping. Another man was watching over them. That was nine. I had already seen the final floor. The Colonel knew it too as he never bothered to show it to me.

“Now I’ll leave with you Harvey. He’ll go over the rules. Everyone gets a job. No exceptions. If you want to schedule in some time with the women, you speak to Pete, he’ll get you booked in.”

The fat guy now had a name.

“Other than that, you will earn the right to stay with us. As it stands, consider this a sort of probation period. You pass, you stay. You give us even the slightest reason to doubt your intentions here, you die. Understand?”

I nodded. “Good.” He gripped my shoulder. “Harvey.”

Harvey came over and I watched as the Colonel disappeared back up the winding staircase.

“Your job.” He smiled. “Clean the shitter.”

I eyed Jess and he must have caught me.

“Got your eye set on that one, have you?” He studied my face.

“Maybe.”

“Well, you can be sure of sloppy seconds, maybe even thirds by the time we are done.”

His macho bullshit was nothing compared to the asshole I had dealt with in the juvenile reform facility. Every day we had to work. Cleaning shitters was not new to me. I didn’t like it. But then again I didn’t plan to be staying here much longer.

“Now which one of you lucky ladies is going to be first?” Pete said.

A look of worry was now on their faces as Harvey led me out to where the toilets were. Specs’s old man used composting toilets. All the waste was broken down into compost with the help of peat moss. You only had to empty them once or twice a year as they didn’t rely on water. They all had a turbine fan, which was meant to help with evaporation and the smell. But I can assure you it didn’t help. When I walked into the room where four of these toilets were I wanted to gag. There was dark yellow piss all over the floor around the toilets, and I was pretty sure what the brown smudges were all over the stalls.

“You toss out the shit down a small mineshaft a couple of feet from the door on the ground floor. But I’m guessing you already knew that existed, being as it was your group that killed Ronny.”

He cast a glance at me. I didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, we know. He was a good kid, and he didn’t deserve to die.”

“Neither did the family you took this silo from,” I replied.

He squared up to me. “Do we have a problem?”

I pulled a face. “No.”

He studied my face to see if was lying. “Then get to it.”

There was an industrial metal bucket with a mop, and some cleaning solution. As he walked out he kicked it over and water went all over the floor. “Whoops.”

I waited a minute or two, before I took a hold of the mop. I unscrewed the wooden handle and then snapped it in half. I now had two extremely sharp stakes. I grabbed two bottles of bleach and unscrewed the tops. I refilled the bucket full of water. I placed the bottles back in place. I pushed the two parts of the wooden handle back into place and wrapped my hand around where the break was, to keep it hidden. I glanced at my watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed since I had entered the silo. We had exactly thirty-five minutes to get the hell out of here.

I heard a girl scream. Was it Jess? When I stepped outside the door, Harvey was speaking with another man who he addressed as Tom. Both of them were carrying a sidearm.

“What the fuck are you doing? Get on with the work.”

“But I heard a scream.”

He let out a short laugh. “That’s just Pete having some fun. You’ll get used to it.”

I watched as Harvey walked off, and Tom gestured for me to head back on in.

“Right.” I nodded. I turned to head back in. My stomach was turning. I knew this was it. There was no time to sit around analyzing a plan of action. There was no plan. I was going to have to wing it as this place was going to disappear into the ground, and I damn well wasn’t going with it.

“Oh by the way, I think I’m going to need a scrubber,” I yelled out.

“What are you on about? It’s all there.”

I readied myself close to the door, gripping half of the broken handle. The moment I saw him step foot inside, I brought up my arm to stick him in the throat but he was too fast. He caught my wrist, knocked it out of my hand, and threw me back.

“Big mistake. Now I’m going scrub the floor with your face.” I was still gripping the other half close to my body. Beneath my arm I saw him coming at me. I twisted sharply and stuck the broken end into his inner thigh. He let out a cry, and fell on top of me. I reached for the other half of the stick and slammed it into the side of Tom’s neck. Blood began spewing from his jugular. Harvey rushed in, pulled his sidearm, but didn’t have a clear shot because Tom was on top. Harvey’s face went pale. Dax was right, these guys weren’t military, they were ordinary men. I pulled at Tom’s sidearm and with Tom still on top of me, I swung my arm up and shot twice into Harvey. He collapsed to the floor. I rolled Tom off. He was still choking on his own blood. I fired another round into Harvey who was still alive and then took his sidearm. I could already hear men coming. As I raced into the section where the girls were, Pete had his pants around his ankles and he was in the process of trying to have sex with Izzy when I put a bullet in his skull. His brain splattered all over Izzy, who screamed even louder. I took Pete’s knife and cut the girls’ ties. Jess took the second gun from me.

I glanced at my watch. We now had twenty-five minutes to get out. Now it’s strange the kind of adrenaline that takes over in moments of stress. Some might say it’s courage, but it isn’t. It’s the will to survive. Jess and I ran up the stairs to the next level, two men were coming down to see what all the commotion was. They didn’t have a second to comprehend, before we had put a bullet in each of them. I scooped up one of their assault rifles while I was still moving. I hoped Jess did the same. I didn’t look, I just kept moving fast around the staircase. There were five of them left including the Colonel. When we made it out onto the third floor all hell broke loose. The other two men unleashed a torrent of bullets our way. It was like a game of pinball. Except instead of a ball bouncing off bumpers, bullets were ricocheting off the steel walls. One, maybe two hit me in the leg and I hit the ground. But I didn’t have time to roll around in agony. The will to survive was overriding any pain that was coursing through my body. I didn’t even look, I kept my finger on the trigger, firing wildly in a sweeping manner until they both dropped.

Three men left to go, I thought.

Jess dropped down beside me. “You’ve been hit.”

“Don’t worry about me, grab the grenades.”

She hurried over to a green metal box and flipped the lid. I gestured towards the stairs as we heard the sound of boots hitting them. Jess tugged on the pin and tossed it just as one of them appeared. The noise was deafening. I could hear ringing in my ears long after the cloud of smoke cleared. This was followed by a rumble from the mine around us.
Nuclear proof my ass
, I thought, struggling to get to my feet and head towards the stairs.

“Maybe that wasn’t a good idea.”

“You think?”

Jess had to go up first. As she did she was moving faster than I was and disappeared around the bend. I heard gunfire. When I got around another guy was dead and she was standing there looking pleased with herself.

I had only turned for a few seconds to check that Izzy and the other two girls were still coming up behind us, when I heard Jess scream. I spun around and the Colonel had a hold of her from behind. I raised my gun, but he wagged his finger at me. He had this insane look in his eyes.

“Put your weapons down, or I snap the girl’s neck.”

He pulled her neck to the side to make it clear that he wasn’t joking. Jess let out a muffled cry. I could hear the sound of the mine around us rattling. That grenade had been a bad idea. Steel and concrete didn’t matter. This place wasn’t soundproof.

“Don’t be stupid. Put it down,” he repeated.

In those few seconds as he stared me down, I thought about a world without Jess.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, kid, you’ve got balls. I could have used a guy like you.”

I kept my gun fixed on him. He moved his head behind Jess’s, only showing enough to see me.

“Just let her go,” I said.

He chuckled. “You still don’t get it, do you? What I’m offering here is sanctuary from what’s out there.”

“Sanctuary? Imprisoning girls? Keeping them as your sex slaves?”

“A man needs to blow off some steam. You withhold that right from them, and they will take it anyway.”

“Maybe. But that’s not for you to decide.”

I remained poised with him in my crosshairs. He and I knew the risk. If I laid down my weapon he would shoot me for sure and possibly snap her neck. If he stepped away, I was going to shoot him. There was nothing unclear about our situation. It was pure survival.

Izzy patted me on the back. “Put it down, Johnny. It’ll be OK.”

I stared at him.

“Listen to her, kid.”

As Izzy removed her hand, it swept down my back until she tapped the handgun that was squeezed into the small of my back.

“Let her go and I will put my gun down,” I said.

Slowly he released his grip on Jess’s neck as I took my finger off the trigger and pulled it away from the gun. I caught a glimpse of my watch.

There were twelve minutes remaining.

Slowly I began crouching to lower my gun. The Colonel eased his handgun back into his holster, never taking his eyes off me for a second or his hand off the gun. I could hear my heart beating hard. My pulse was racing fast. The pain in my leg was excruciating. As I got lower, I felt Izzy slide out the handgun tucked into my jeans. It all occurred in one smooth move. The Colonel shifted to the side, exposing enough of him to give her a clear shot. Not for one second had he taken his eyes off me.

But Izzy, that was his mistake.

I dropped to the ground just as she raised the gun and fired two shots at him. Both hit him in the right shoulder. He fell back while drawing his weapon. Jess dove for cover, as bullets snapped past her. I charged and slammed into him, we rolled on the floor. I kept a firm grip on his arms all the while yelling for them to get out.

“Move!”

I
was now wrestling
for my life to prevent the gun in his hand from shooting me. I had tried out for wrestling when I was in school, but got kicked out of the tryouts for kneeing a guy in the nuts. Like I said, I was never one for rules. Hopefully now that would work to my advantage.

Out the corner of my eye I saw the girls climbing the final staircase to the RV. I had no way of telling how many minutes were left, only the memory of seeing twelve, several minutes ago, and the knowledge that when those minutes were up, this sucker was going to collapse into the ground. How far it would drop was unknown.

Though right now that was the least of my concerns. Trying to stop him from killing me consumed my every thought. He was strong, but his age was against him. I managed to knock the gun out of his hand by bashing it against the ground. It slid a distance from us. He grappled the floor, hoping to reach it, but I gave him a right hook in the face. He tried to follow up with a head butt, but I jerked my head to one side and he caught the side of my eye socket. I think it hurt him more than it did me.

As we fought each other below the earth, it felt like an MMA cage fight. Though the pain I was in was excruciating, the one thing that was preventing me from tapping out was that if I lost, there was no walking away from this. No negotiation. Either he was going to kill me or the explosion would bury us alive. I caught a glimpse of my watch as he dug his nails into the bullet wound.

There were six minutes remaining.

I knew I wouldn’t have time to radio in any message. I had no way of knowing for sure if Specs would ignite the dynamite stored in the powder rooms throughout the mine. But I didn’t plan on sticking around to find out.

I screamed in pain, feeling his finger dig into the wound. I drove my knee up into his chest and he released his grip. Using all the energy I could muster I used both feet to kick him back. Both of us by now must have looked like pummeled meat. Blood, tears, and snot were covering my face. I scrambled towards his gun, but was yanked back only to be punched hard in the gut. Exhausted and with the wind knocked out of me, I was gasping for breath.

As I was trying to get back up he’d made it to his gun. Through gritted teeth and sharp inhaling, he spoke, “This has been fun, kid, but all good things come to an end.”

There were three minutes left. I had conceded to the fact that I wasn’t going to make it out of here alive.

“If you are going to kill me, get it over with.”

He studied me, his expression a mix of emotion.

“No, I’ve got something better in mind for you. Killing you with a bullet would be too easy. Now get up and move over there. You’re going to help me get those women back.” He gestured with the gun towards the staircase.

“Maybe you should go first,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Move it.”

I don’t think he realized what he was doing. By the time I made it to the ladder, the time was down to one minute. I began climbing up the stairs. My hands left behind bloody prints all over the steel railing. I could see him below, pointing the gun. “Keep going.”

As I reached the opening that brought me into the RV, my stopwatch went off alerting me to that the dynamite that should have gone off by now. But there was no rumble or explosion. Nothing. Had Specs decided against it? Did the aged dynamite no longer work?

I staggered over to the front door of the RV.

“Wait there.”

The Colonel was clambering out of the opening, trying to keep his handgun poised on me, when I heard the loudest series of explosions. It could have been compared to an earthquake with a magnitude of nine. It hit with such force, that the entire RV shook violently, turning on its side. The Colonel fell back into the hole, his gun flew out of his hand. In those brief seconds, I thought I was done for. I came to rest on what was now the side of the RV. I found I was lying beside the edge of a shattered window. When the mushroom cloud of dirt and darkness cleared, I peered over. It was if someone had made the earth below us vanish. It reminded me of a huge sinkhole. I had to wonder what was keeping the RV from falling into the smoky abyss of dirt, dust, and rubble.

As I tried to bring myself upright I felt the RV shift. The crack of metal, and sudden fear made me freeze. Whatever the RV had its hooks in was faltering. We were literally teetering on the brink of certain death.

“Johnny!” I heard the sound of Dax yelling.

“Johnny!”

“In here,” I replied.

“Hold on.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” I yelled back up.

I heard him run away, then the sound of a truck engine. Ten seconds, maybe longer and then a whirling sound, like a motor turning over. A crack of metal hitting metal, another, then I saw a winch wire come flying through the open door which was directly above me.

“Take a hold.”

I moved, reaching for the hook on the end. I heard the creak of metal and the RV shifted its weight a little more towards the vast opening below. I felt my heart leap up into my throat, certain this was going to be it.

“It’s too short, Dax!” I yelled.

“It’s as far as it can go. You’re going to have to reach it.”

Easier said than done when even the slightest movement threatened to make the entire RV topple. Again I felt metal shift, it moved even further away from the winch. I leaned my head to the side and could see what was causing the continual creak of metal. The Colonel was still holding on but climbing his way up.

“Don’t, you’ll make the whole thing drop.”

He wasn’t listening. I knew this was it. It was now or never. Like doing a rolling rocket sit-up, I rolled my body forward and lunged for the winch. All the while the RV shifted. A loud crack and I knew this was it.

Now I would like to say that it was all heroic and shit. That I caught a hold of that winch wire and wrapped my arms around a girl at the last second. But that wasn’t the case.

In fact, it was a little more like the way this all began.

At the crack of the RV metal letting go, I shit my pants.

Well, not exactly, but enough that it would have made Matt proud.

Clinging to that winch for dear life, and watching the RV drop around me, was scarier than seeing a zombie trying to attack. There I was, dangling with human slop in my underpants, and thrilled to be alive. Dax reversed the winch and I rose to the edge as dust particles fell on my face. When I reached the top, I lay back on the Nevada dirt, looked up at the bright sun in the sky, and breathed out a sigh of relief. Like an eclipse, Dax came into view looking down at me.

“The Colonel?”

“I told him he should have gone first.”

We broke into laughter. He clamped my hand and hoisted me up. As we walked back to the truck to join the girls, Dax wrapped his arm around my neck the way brothers do when they are about to give the other a noogie.

“I honestly thought you were a goner.”

“You and me both.”