The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) (3 page)

I shifted the rod and he burst out of the stairwell with our father, and two other guys we knew from around town. All of them were covered in blood. I couldn’t tell if it was theirs or someone else’s. Dax had an AR-15 assault rifle in his hand. He tossed me a Glock. My father was packing a 12-gauge double ought shotgun that he kept behind the bar.

“What about us?” Matt asked.

Dax handed a Beretta M9 to Specs who was the only one who had fired a gun besides Matt, who hadn’t touched one since his incident as a kid.

“So I guess I’m just bait?” Matt said.

“Just stay close,” Dax said.

Both Dax and my father were sweating hard like they had just come out of a sauna.

“Now listen up. A shit storm is going down right now. You guys need to stay here. I’m gonna try and make contact with law enforcement,” my father said.

“No. You can’t go back down there. It’s suicide.”

My father grabbed me by the shoulder. “Time to grow some balls, boy.”

He’d always been that way. Maybe it was his military background. His need to act all tough and shit, but it was liable to get him killed this time. This wasn’t any war he or Dax had been in.

“Now listen up, you pussies. You jam this door tight. Dax, make sure nothing happens to them. If I’m not back in an hour, you take the jeep and get the hell out of here. You hear me?”

He grabbed Dax around the back of the neck and pulled his head in close to his. They banged heads the way I’d seen them do it countless times over the years. It was some sort of macho bullshit. I could never quite make sense of it.

“Hoorah!”

My brother yelled the same.

“When I get outside, cover me.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like my worst nightmare. Being forced to act all military and shit. We weren’t built for this. Dax, maybe. My father, sure. But even then, they hadn’t been trained in anything but war with people. These weren’t people. Whatever the fuck they were, they weren’t people.

“Now move that post.”

My father gave me a look. It was one that I was sure I wouldn’t see again. We had never really got on well. His lack of empathy matched my lack of enthusiasm for the military. It had in many ways divided us. It was as if I had let him down, through my unwillingness to give my service to the country. But was that the only way to serve your country?

I thought back to our last argument.

“Put in four years. Then decide,” he said.

“I’m not gonna do it. It’s not for me.”

“Why? It was good for me. It was good for your brother.”

Like I said, Dax had only put in four active years. Just the bare minimum. But it didn’t matter to my father. He had on blinders to anything outside of serving Uncle Sam.

My father disappeared down the stairs, and we barricaded the door with the pole, and wrapped it tight with several rounds of clothesline.

“I can’t stay, my family is down there,” Baja said.

“We stay here,” Dax said without even looking at him.

The other two that came up with Dax were Scot Thomas and Jason Cole. They were one year older than us. He’d known them through the gun range. Both of them were packing heat. One of them had a Browning M2, while the other had a Winchester rifle.

“No, Baja’s right. We need to get out of here,” Scot said.

“You heard what my father said. We don’t move.”

“Who put you in charge?”

“Shut the hell up and keep an eye on the store across from us.”

There was an advantage to having stores close together, we could move from one to the other pretty easy. Except for a few that were several feet apart. In those cases we used a plank of wood, or rope. In the past we had been pulled aside by the police for doing parkour across the roofs. What the hell did they expect us to do? Jump over boulders?

From where we were, we could see the tops of all the roofs along Main Street. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, we watched as a few store owners took to the roofs on the other side of the street. Several were unable to barricade themselves in and Z’s pushed through. We tried to help by firing off several rounds. Dax took out two, and Scot managed to get one but there were too many. We watched in horror as old Bob Riley, who owned a candy shop, was overpowered and ripped apart.

You would imagine shock would set in, but it was quite the opposite. There was so much going on down below in the streets, that your eyes immediately turned to the next unfathomable act of violence.

It was then I caught sight of a police car speeding down Main Street. It crashed into Matt’s father’s gun store. The lights on top were the only thing illuminating the occupants that crawled out through the front window.

It was Jessica. The other one was Izzy Maitland. She had dated Dax a long while back when he was fifteen.

I recognized the cruiser as her father’s but he wasn’t with them.

“Jess,” I cried out to her and she looked up. They were trying to get into the store. It wasn’t the crash that had my mind whirling with fear, it was the group of Z’s that were heading their way. Like the ones in the run, they were a mixed bag. Slow suckers who were dragging ass, ones that were a little faster, and some that were moving like apes along the ground on all fours.

I leveled my gun and started firing off rounds. At the distance they were away from us, I was lucky to get one of them. Specs was having even worse luck. Luckily Jason picked off a few of the fast-moving ones.

In an instant both of them were gone. They had made it inside, but whether they were alive was anyone’s guess.

“I’ve got to get down there.”

I tried to jump over to the next store, when Dax knocked me to ground.

“Are you insane?”

I leapt up and again he held me back. “You are not going down there.”

“But Jessica’s down there.”

“And they’re in a gun store. I think they stand a chance. But you don’t.”

I shoved back and he twisted me around in a standing headlock. He’d always been a lot stronger than I was. Even at the ripe age of eighteen, I couldn’t pry his death-lock grip loose.

“Get off!” I yelled.

“Are you going stop acting like an idiot?”

He released his grip.

“Screw you, Dax.”

“Yeah. You’ll thank me for it later.”

“The fuck I will.”

I moved back to the edge to see if the crawlers had made their way inside the gun shop. While Scot and Jason had picked off the remainder of the biters, I couldn’t help wonder if more would show up. The only upside was the cruiser had jammed itself so deep inside the store that the gap between the hood and the glass was barely wide enough for someone to squeeze through. It wasn’t completely secure, but it would have to do for now. I had to hope Dax was right; that they were alive. There was a faint possibility that Matt’s father was still one of the living. He could protect them. I had no idea if she had ever shot a gun before, it just wasn’t a conversation you brought up when you were looking to get laid.

Several streetlights were knocked out, sending one half of the town into darkness, while the others flickered. I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before they made their way up to the roofs on our side. I slumped down, my back against the brick. I stared down at the Glock in my hand. How had it come to this? What could cause the dead to walk the earth?

I had been sitting for but a few minutes when Specs began shooting. The threat this time wasn’t on the ground. It had made its way to the roof on our side. Three stores down from us, the owner, Carlos Santo, and his wife were running from what appeared to be their two sons who had turned.

“Stop shooting. You are liable to hit them,” Dax yelled.

Carlos and his wife were heading in our direction. I knew there was at least an eight-foot gap between their store and the next. It couldn’t be jumped, that was for sure. They would need a ladder or an extremely long plank of wood. The one that Baja had been on wasn’t even long enough. The gap between the Black Dog Saloon and the next building was only a few feet.

Their sons were shuffling after them. It was the weirdest shit I’d ever seen.

Dax took position. When he felt he had a clear shot, he fired. It hit the Z in the neck, but didn’t stop him. There was no way Carlos’s wife was going to make it. In a matter of seconds we watched helplessly as their oldest son jumped on her back and clamped his teeth into her shoulder. The scream was horrendous, and gut wrenching.

Fuck this. I aimed my Glock and shot two rounds into the youngest one who was still chasing his father. He went down.

“Come on,” we shouted and waved Carlos towards us. But he stopped. Instead of trying to find a way to jump the gap, he looked back at his son who had practically torn apart the woman’s neck. His mouth was full of blood and flesh. Tears were streaming down Carlos’s face. He was uttering his wife’s name over and over again.

“Carlos. Move it,” Dax cried out.

He looked over his shoulder at us for a few seconds, long enough that he didn’t see his son coming at him. We tried to fire off a few rounds but they missed. Both of them disappeared over the edge. They wouldn’t have survived the drop. It had to have been at least thirty foot.

The look on our faces said it all. This was beyond anything we could have imagined. Zombie movies and books didn’t do this justice. These things were psychotic.

T
hat night
we didn’t get much sleep. What should have been a night of laughter had turned into terror. Our father never returned. Dax had said we would leave immediately but someone had already stolen the jeep.

A few hours passed and the screams became less. We figured those who were still alive were probably doing the same as us. Hunkering down inside a basement, on a roof or in some part of their home. Others may have fled the town, but I didn’t imagine they would have got far.

“We’ll leave in the morning,” Dax said.

I couldn’t see that happening. All of them were worried about their families. We had no clue what was going on, or how far this extended. If it had found its way to our small town, it must have come from the cities.

Specs was carrying a small battery-powered radio that he had turned on. He was trying different stations but not having much luck. Eventually he came across one that was broadcasting a message that appeared to be on a loop.

“If you are hearing this message right now, stay inside. Don’t go out. An unknown virus appears to have infected people causing individuals and groups to turn on each other. If approached, aim for the head. Destroy the brain. That’s the only way you can kill them. I repeat. Aim for the head. Stay tuned to this channel. We will update it with more once we find out where the safe zones are. We are broadcasting from Salt Lake City.”

Jason and Specs roamed the perimeter of the roof. We planned to take it in turns to give everyone a chance to sleep. Not that anyone could. Our minds were preoccupied and on high alert. Matt was looking worse than ever. He had curled into a ball and was sweating.

“What’s the matter with your friend?” Scot asked.

I didn’t think it was a good idea to say that he had been bitten in the run. Everyone was acting twitchy, and liable to make a snap judgment. At this point he was just ill in my mind. Baja seemed to be the only one that had managed to fall asleep, that could have been because he had drunk the most that evening, or smoked the biggest joint ever.

Dax sat with his back against the wall.

“You think dad made it?”

His eyes dropped. “I doesn’t matter now. He’d want us to stay alive. That’s what I’m going to do. Keep us alive.”

We’d heard of a virus spreading before. Ebola. The local hospital had made everyone wear masks and wash their hands. But that was as far as it went. However this was no normal virus, if that’s what it was at all.

“Makes you wonder if this was made in a lab. You know how these fuckers mess shit up. Half of the illness I think can be traced back to a test tube.”

Dax remained silent.

“Tomorrow, where will we go?”

“You heard what they said. Salt Lake City.”

“And food?”

All we had was snacks. Chips, donuts, and a few bags of jerky. Nothing that was going to sustain us for the days ahead.

“We’ll see what we can grab from the house. I’ll take Scot and Jason down tomorrow.”

“I’ll go.”

“No you won’t,” Dax shot back.

“What’s the deal with you? I’m eighteen. I’m capable of looking out for myself.”

“Really? That’s why you ended up at Tagon.”

Tagon was a juvenile reform center in Utah. Basically a boot camp in the middle of the wilderness run by ex-military assholes who had nothing better to do than shout and inflict punishment on you through physical exertion. My father had sent me away to one when I was sixteen for breaking into the local school. It wasn’t exactly a break-in, I fell in through the skylight.

Matt, Baja, Specs, and I had been messing around over the July 4 weekend, when Baja had the bright idea to fire off the fireworks we had from the top of the school building. It wasn’t like we were the first ones to climb all over it. Other kids did it. It was common to see police being called out because kids were loitering there after school hours.

Anyway, things got a little out of control and you could kind of say a firework came at me. I was paying more attention to escaping a rocket going up my ass than a skylight.

I was lucky to survive. But my father didn’t see it that way. He yelled at me, the first chance he got when visiting me in the hospital.

He said he was going to nip my attitude in the bud for good. I just thought it was another one of his distorted ideas to get me to follow his career path.

Two day after I got out of the hospital, I woke up at four in the morning, to my father handing me over to a bunch of goons who tossed me in a van and drove me out of Castle Rock. I had tried to put up a fight. I got one good swing in on one of them. Something I paid for later when they made me run eight miles and endure a freezing cold shower.

Apparently I was there because of drug use. My father hadn’t even mentioned the school incident. Smoking a few doobies wasn’t exactly what I called drug use. It was for medicinal purposes. To help me cope with all the assholes in this town. Either way, Dax hadn’t let me live that one down, and nor had my father.

“Point taken. But that was then. This is now,” I said.

“You’ll have to prove you can be trusted—”

“What are you gonna do, Dax? Make me run laps? Force me to drop and do twenty? Please, the days of your military bullshit are over.”

“I swear I’m liable to put a bullet in your head, long before a Z gets a hold of you.”

He was being a jerk. I got up and joined the others and left him to play with his gun.

I peered over the edge and watched as two creepers fed on the remains of… well... I couldn’t see if they were male or female. It was just a bloody mess of human flesh torn apart. More had gathered in the street. They moaned, gnashed their teeth, and moved slowly along.

I knew we weren’t going to be able to stay here. But I wasn’t going anywhere until I had Jessica. I was pretty sure the others weren’t going to follow Dax’s lead. Scot was already showing signs of being pissed off at having to take orders.

About to get some shut-eye I heard another scream, this time it was further down the street. In the opposite direction of where Jessica and Izzy were. It seemed to be coming from Maggie’s Gift Store.

“Dax. Dax, Maggie and her daughter are in trouble.”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“What?”

He continued cleaning his weapon with a rag.

“You heard.”

I got up, checked how many bullets I had left. There were eight in the magazine. I knew Dax would try to stop me, but I wasn’t going to see them die. Maggie had been good to us as kids. Her daughter grew up with us. She was one of these kids we never hung out with, but she always had a kind word. The store to the right of us had no gap. I shot Dax a look, he was busy cleaning. I sprinted and launched myself onto the next roof.

“Johnny, get back here.”

I didn’t look back to see if he was following. There were four Z’s that had entered the ground floor of their store. Maggie and Angela were on the top floor, leaning out of their window screaming.

I raced forward and jumped to the next roof. The gap was small but could have killed me if I had slipped. There were three more roofs until I would be opposite them. I had no idea what I was going to do. I would think about that when I got there. By now I could hear Dax, Scot, and Jason behind me.

I came up to the next gap, but this was much wider. I halted, looked back. The others were coming up. I turned, gave myself some running distance, and raced towards it. I thought I had estimated the distance, but I must have miscalculated it. I was still a foot from the other side when I fell. With my arms flailing, I was grasping for anything.

Now what you need to know, is that phone and power lines run between the stores. Large industrial dumpsters are rolled in between the stores. It kept everything looking tidy, but it also meant that the chances of strangling yourself on your way down, or landing on a steel box, were high.

My arm caught on a thick wire. It felt as though it was almost yanked from its socket as the wire dug into the pit of my arm. Pain shot through my body. I bounced back and forth a few times before I came to rest. My entire weight was being held by a wire that was no thicker than an inch.

Below, several biters were waiting anxiously for me to drop. I would have made an easy meal. I felt like a pig on spit.

“Hold on,” Dax shouted as he arrived at the edge and peered over.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“Trying to be a fucking hero.”

The Glock in the back of my pocket was starting to slip out. I could see directly below me an open dumpster. It was full of black bags and untold shit. The chances of me landing in it and not cracking my head on the side were not high. Knowing my luck I would knock myself out in the fall. Then who knew what would happen. Those creepy fuckers would be all over me.

I could tell this piece of flimsy cable wasn’t going to hold for long. Below three Z’s wandered in the dark, occasionally looking up at me with milky gazes.

“Here. Take this.”

Dax tossed down a rope but it was out of reach. Scot and Specs were peering over. They tried again to throw it nearer to me. I was hanging on for dear life with one arm over the cable and the other stretched out for this damn rope. I couldn’t get it. I went back to holding the cable with both hands.

“Shit.”

Scot aimed his gun down and was about to take a shot at the crawlers below when Dax yanked him back. I could hear them arguing even from halfway down. Something about, did he want to shoot me? Right in that moment I heard a snap, in the next breath I found myself slamming against the side of a building. They were all made of wood, but it still hurt like a bitch. I tried to catch my breath as I dangled, gripping the cable for dear life.

I looked up but there was nothing they could do. I had three options. One, swing on this and hope I could hit the window that was to the left of me. Two, drop and hope the Z’s made a nice cushion, or swing and drop into an industrial garbage can. I didn’t like any of the options but I was sure that wire was going to snap any second.

Being as I had already had some experience with going through a skylight and cutting myself up, I decided to drop into the dumpster. Now, I wasn’t dangling over it. I was going to have to swing a little. As I began to move, the Z’s looked up. Fucking creepers. I hated them.

I rocked back and forth. Once, twice, and then I let go. I fell about ten feet and landed hard. If people think landing on garbage is soft, they didn’t land on this shit. Someone must have thrown out their computer, as my ass hit something hard. The instant I hit, I could hear the walkers heading over. I reached up and yanked the thick plastic top down. I was now in darkness and it smelled so bad I began to gag. The noise of them outside banging into the metal and slapping the top was even louder inside. It echoed. I reached for my Glock but it was gone.

Shit. It must have fallen out on my way down.

The noise continued for what seemed like ages, but then it was silenced by the sound of gunfire. I readied myself for the worst.

The cover above me opened and it was Dax. He grabbed me by the collar and yanked me out.

“Ease up, Dax.” Specs tried to get between him and me.

“You ever pull a stunt like that again, I will shoot you myself. You understand?”

I threw my hands up. On the ground around us were the zombies.

“We need to go.”

Scot was at the far end of the alley keeping an eye out. We never did save Maggie and her daughter. By the time we had made it out of the alley, the noise of gunfire had attracted even more Z’s. Within five minutes we were back on the roof. Dax slammed the door shut and tossed me a look of death.

Jason handed me my Glock. “Lose something?”

I took it, disappointed that I couldn’t have saved them.