The Renegades (Book 5): United (14 page)

B
rolin pushed
his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin on his face. “Gotta love fish. That’s one thing this apocalypse hasn’t fucked up. As long as there is fish in the ocean, we won’t go hungry.”

Fishing had become a large part of our community. Besides food runs into Brooklyn for canned goods, most of what we ate came from the ocean. It was the reason why our community had grown so fast. Anyone living inland would have headed for the ocean, as most wildlife would have been attacked by Z’s.

I sat thinking about what Specs said. I kind of wished I had asked him to join us here but with all this kicking off, I was glad I hadn’t. It would have just become another one of the many decisions I had made that had caused the death of others. No matter what anyone said, I still held myself responsible for Dax’s death. If we hadn’t gone looking for Jess, we would have never ended up at NORAD. If we hadn’t tried to help those guys back at the Fortress, perhaps Danielle would have lived. Then there was Izzy, and now Rowan. It just didn’t seem to end. No matter how good our intentions were, people died when we tried to help others. It was a catch twenty-two. We needed help to save the others but in asking for it, I knew we were going to place more lives in jeopardy. At what point did it just make sense to turn the other cheek? To look the other way? To move on? Or in this case… hand myself in so no one else got hurt?

They stared at me as if I was an oddity.

“So you are telling us, you are immune to bites?”

I tilted my head from side to side. “I can still be ripped apart. But yeah, I won’t die from the infection.”

Lincoln leaned back and rubbed the side of his chin. “Then wouldn’t it make sense to hand yourself in? This Fritz guy. By the sounds of it, he’s trying to do a solid thing and create a permanent cure.”

“He has five immunes in the community. Think about it. Why does he need me?”

“Maybe he has a sweet tooth for good-looking guys,” Axel said before taking a swig of his beer.

I shifted in my seat starting to become a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I had any issue with folks who batted for the other team. Heck, a lot of them were cool folks but nevertheless it would take some getting used to. Castle Rock had a very small-town, closed-minded mentality. That only became smaller when you were raised by an army guy who believed men were men and women were women… and whatnot.

“Give it a rest, Axel,” Rayne said. “So you are saying they have taken over the armory?”

“It will be heavily guarded,” Wren answered.

All four of them looked confused. “You confiscated everyone’s weapons?”

“Kind of, sort of, well not exactly,” I muttered. “Up until the ninth month inside everyone carried. But some started to feel that maybe it was time to try and provide some sense of normality and not carry inside the walls, unless you were a guard.”

“I bet that pissed off all the ex-NRA members.” Brolin chuckled to himself. “What is it with people and guns? They immediately associate guns as being harmful. It’s the idiots that use them, not the weapon.”

I nodded. “Anyway, the founders decided to give people the option of relinquishing their weapons and housing them in an armory. Of course they could collect them at any time but unless they were on the wall, a police officer or going on a run, the guns would remain inside.”

“I can’t imagine many would want to give up their gun. I sure as hell wouldn’t have. I would have told them where to go stick it.”

Rayne rolled her eyes. “You have to forgive our demented friend here, he has a love affair with his rifle.”

“No I don’t.”

“Dude, you sleep with the bloody thing,” Axel said.

“Yeah, I’m sure I caught him humping it a few times,” Lincoln chuckled before Brolin punched him on the shoulder.

“How did you all end up here?” Wren asked.

“Probably the same way you did. We assumed that people would take to the water. You went one way, we went the other.”

Basically, Long Island split at the far end into a lizard tongue or jaw, whichever way you looked at it. The top half ended at Orient, the bottom at Montauk.

“Seems we got the better deal by the looks of it,” Axel said, putting his feet up on the table and picking food from his teeth with the tip of his knife.

“But where did you come from? Before this place?” I asked.

“The city. New York.”

“You all knew each other?”

Lincoln thumbed to Rayne. “That’s my sister, and the other two are friends.”

“I’ve gotta ask you. What’s the deal with the gear you wear?”

They smirked. “We were at a steampunk convention when this whole thing started.”

“I kind of figured.”

I looked around at the full restaurant. For a second I almost forgot that the world had gone to hell. Everyone seemed to be relaxed, enjoying food, drinking and laughing. There was no sense of impending doom.

“Anyone ever attacked here?”

“A few groups have made their way here and tried their luck. They haven’t made it past the second gate,” Lincoln said. “The folks here are very protective of what they have. Unless something drastic happens, I can see this place existing for a long time. We have what we need here. Anything we don’t, we go and get from the city at night. We know the areas to avoid and so forth.”

“How long have you been here?” Wren asked.

“Eight months.”

“And you never once thought to head down to where we are?”

“We saw the access point. We figured if you were anything like us, you would be protective and cautious with strangers. And anyway, have you ever thought of coming up here?”

“I guess not.”

“There is a lot of land and people are just content to find a piece that isn’t overrun by Z’s.”

“Do you think you can help us?” I asked, switching the conversation back to the problem at hand.

Brolin pulled out a small metal cigar box. It was thin and contained small Cohibas. He offered us one and I declined. “Suit yourself.”

As he lit one he was the first to answer. “Us, sure, we’ll help but I can’t speak for the others here on the island.”

I sighed. “It’s going to take more than six people.”

Brolin blew out a puff of grey smoke. “I’m sure we can wrestle a few more Samaritans but don’t expect much.”

Wren frowned.

“Problem?” Rayne asked.

“You seem a little keen to want to fight. Don’t you even want to think it over?”

She was dead serious then started laughing. “Tell ’em.”

“We are the only ones that do runs in the city.”

My eyes darted between them.

“You’re telling me out of the two hundred-odd people you have here, that you four are the only ones that venture out?”

“Bingo!” Brolin said, gripping the cigar at the corner of his mouth and squinting.

I shot Wren a look. “And I thought our group was mad.”

She nodded in agreement. “What makes you qualified and not them?”

“What makes us qualified?” Rayne repeated before swiveling in her seat towards the others. “She wants to know what makes us qualified.”

They all let out a laugh.

The whole conversation seemed like a big joke to them. They were very odd. The very mention of how many men Fritz had didn’t seem to trouble them in the least. Perhaps they were suicidal? It wouldn’t have been the first group of insane individuals we had met in our travels. Their clothing didn’t exactly do them any favors, and only made me think that they were two sheets to the wind.

“I was a Navy Seal before this,” Lincoln said.

“Green Beret,” Axel piped up.

Brolin sniffed. “Delta Force,” he added with a complete straight face.

We waited for Rayne to add that she was some CIA assassin. I leaned forward in my chair waiting for her to dazzle us with her confession.

“FBI,” she said.

“Really?” I said with a skeptical eye.

They all burst out laughing. “Ah, I love this guy. You really bought that whole thing about the Delta Force, Navy Seal shit, didn’t you? No, I was a checkout girl at C-town and well, these guys were just college dropouts.”

Yep, they had definitely lost it and by the sounds of it, so had we. These were no warriors. They were just losers from New York who played dress-up once a year at some convention for nerds. Shit! We were royally screwed.

I got up from the table. “Fuck this. We are wasting our time.”

“What?” Brolin said.

I whirled around. “We just lost someone today and tomorrow we are going to lose another person and all you idiots can do is make a joke. Like you aren’t prepared to deal with these people. They will turn your skulls into ashtrays. This is serious shit, not just some convention where you run around and pretend you are some steampunk assholes with attitude.”

Brolin stood up and walked over to me. He came in close, his eyes narrowed. “Let’s not forget, it was you who came to us for help. We said we would. If you don’t want it, there’s the door.”

Rayne got up. “Look, excuse us but we tend to make light of a lot of things. It’s the way we cope with it all.”

Brolin was giving me some serious fucking eyeballing. He wasn’t the only one. Lincoln got up and placed his hand on Rayne. “No. No. If they have a problem, let them deal with it themselves.”

“Huh!” I scoffed and turned around to walk out. Wren stood her ground even as I left the restaurant. I didn’t know until I was a few feet outside that she was still in there. Through the window I saw her talking to them. I didn’t go back in. I was fuming. The last thing I wanted to deal with was assholes who couldn’t see the gravity of the situation. This wasn’t a joke. Lives were at stake. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a box of cigarettes. I tapped it and nothing came out. Fuck! I screwed it up and tossed it. Not even a cigarette left.

When Wren came out I was curious. “What were you talking about?”

“I ironed out the wrinkles you made. They are going to help us.”

“What?”

She didn’t reply but kept on walking past me. That girl continued to surprise me. Now more than ever. I looked back inside and the four of them were talking among themselves. Whatever she had done had worked. But how?

A
s night fell
and we were enveloped in darkness, Lincoln had gathered together two hundred people who were willing to help. I say willing, by that I mean they were willing to show up and listen to what Lincoln had to say. Squeezed into a small church building, the atmosphere inside was tense. I wasn’t exactly sure how many of them truly knew what they were getting themselves into. It wasn’t like they were going to go up against three thousand people. Fritz couldn’t have had more than a hundred and fifty men. Murmurs spread throughout the room as Wren and I came in through a side door. We’d been told by Rayne to give them half an hour with the people beforehand. From outside we’d heard the arguing. People asking, why should we risk our lives for them? Lincoln had made it clear that if anyone didn’t wish to help they could leave. No one was going to be forced into this.

“I hope you have a plan of action as right now we are walking on a tightrope with these folks.”

I nodded and looked out at them. I didn’t have a plan. I hadn’t even begun to think about what we were going to do. I was stressed out and second-guessing everything.

“Quiet down,” Brolin said.

Most of them were men in their late thirties.

“Why should we help you?”

I paced up and down a few times trying to find the words that might convince them. But I realized it didn’t matter what I said, there would be those who would find problems. There were always those who saw the problems and didn’t hear the heart. Instead, I decided to be blunt with them, as honest as I could be.

“You shouldn’t help. If I were in your position, I would be thinking the same. Why should I risk my life for a stranger?” I paused. “If you stay here, you will live. For how long, who knows? I will say this. It will only be a matter of time before Fritz and his men expand out to your region at which point you won’t have a choice. But right now, you do. I can’t convince you to come; neither can I guarantee that you won’t lose your life if you do. This is dangerous. There are no two ways about it. They will shoot to kill. So if you wish to stay, stay. But know this, you are living on borrowed time. All of us are. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But if you want to live in peace, then you have to believe that all those people that are in our community are no different than you. They deserve the right to live as much as you do. They deserve the right to not be governed by a dictator.”

“Is it true? Are you one of them?” an older man in the back piped up.

“One of who?”

“Those who are immune?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Then why not just hand yourself in and be done with this?”

“Because it won’t end with me. He has no guarantee that he can create a permanent cure from whatever testing he has been conducting, and even if he did create it — don’t think for a minute he’s going to hand it out freely. All I can tell you is that people’s lives are at stake here. The clock is ticking and with every passing hour, our window of opportunity is getting smaller and smaller. If ever there was a time to unite, a time to lay aside whatever perceived ideas you have about us, or the other community, now is the time.”

“And what is your great plan?” a burly man asked with a grin on his face.

“To avoid as many casualties as possible. We have to get to that armory. If we can take that back, we can distribute the weapons to the community.” I paused. “There are two access points by land into the community. These are heavily guarded but you don’t have to breach those points. You simply have to create a distraction. If we have fifty men at each of those access points, we’ll take the other hundred across the water and come around back. All you have to do is create enough distraction, keep them busy, apply pressure and we’ll do the rest.”

“And if people die?”

“Like I said, there is a lot of risk involved here. I’m not going to cherry coat this. Some of you may not return. So decide now what you will do. But again, know this. They will come for you eventually, or you can bring the fight to them before they do. That’s all.”

I stepped back to allow Lincoln to continue. The men in the crowd mumbled among themselves.

“Can you give us a few minutes?”

I nodded and went back outside with Wren. The sound of waves crashed against the shore and crickets could be heard. Occasionally the ground would light up as fireflies flashed on and off.

“So you think they’ll help?”

“I hope so.”

Ten minutes passed before the doors of the church opened and a steady stream of men came out. They glanced at us before Brolin came out and motioned for us to go back inside. When we entered all that remained were around seventy people.

“These are the only ones that are willing to take the risk.”

“Well, I guess we’ll work with what we have. Split them up between the two access points. That leaves just us six to cross the water. Not exactly ideal but what can be done?”

“It’s dark. If they take ten trucks, there is a possibility they won’t know how many there are.”

“Let’s get to it,” Wren said.

It didn’t take long to load up the vans with ammo and weapons. It would take just under an hour for them to reach the first access point. We would be dropped off in ten minutes at the boat. The time was currently 9:48 p.m.

“Well, I gotta tell you. This is the most action we have had in weeks,” Brolin said, sounding overly eager to start killing people. He adjusted his weapon on his lap and checked the ammo. No matter how we did this, there was a high chance that Jess and the others would be killed. Fritz wasn’t an idiot, he’d already played out a similar scenario before back at the Hive. No doubt he would be on the lookout for me.

A few final checks and we rolled out.