The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) Read online

  “Today we’re going to head over to Baja’s house,” I said.

  “I’m going with you today. I’m going stir-crazy being in here,” Dax replied.

  “See if you can pick up anything on the radio.”

  Scot dialed in. The others slowly crawled out of their rooms with all the enthusiasm of a slow-moving zombie. When Specs came out, the conversation went quiet.

  “Don’t stop on account of me.”

  He was going to go into the bathroom, but then stopped. The layout of Matt’s home was exactly the same as Specs’s. I saw his hesitation.

  “There’s a bathroom downstairs,” I said.

  He nodded and decided to use that instead. You don’t think much of hygiene when the shit hits the fan. Your focus is entirely on surviving. We still had running water and power. And while we knew life had taken a turn for the worse, we were doing our best to try and maintain some semblance of normality. This included brushing teeth, taking showers, and changing into clothes that were clean. You’d think that the thought of going into abandoned shops hunting for new clothes would be appealing now that you didn’t have to pay. But it wasn’t like that. It could get us killed. Z’s were everywhere.

  While we ate breakfast that morning, Dax looked through what we had collected from the military surplus store. There was much less than what we had anticipated. All the good stuff had been taken by whoever had killed Specs’s family.

  “Anything?” Dax asked Scot.

  “Nothing. Just the same signal from Salt Lake.”

  “And it looks as if the power has gone out,” Baja muttered while walking out with a bowl of cereal.

  “Great. That means all that food we collected isn’t going to last,” Dax said.

  “Maybe it just went out in here?” Jason asked.

  “We’re lucky it lasted this long.”

  “More reason to head up to my parents’ RV. They have a gas-powered generator there.”

  “And what happens when there is no more gas?”

  “Everything else is powered by the sun. There are LED flashlights and batteries there too,” Specs said.

  “Not exactly good if you don’t have food,” Jason said before taking a look out the window.

  “That’s why we grow vegetables, maintain livestock, and have a pond for our fish.”

  “Smart. But it’s probably been overrun by Z’s or ruined by those assholes who…” he trailed off.

  “Go ahead. Say it. Say it,” Specs said. “That killed my family.”

  Jason’s chin dropped.

  “Listen. We can’t change that. We’ve all lost family. But for Baja’s sake we need to check on his. So get your shit together and let’s go,” Dax added.

  “Hey, you know what? Go check out the RV. We can check on my parents later.”

  Specs looked surprised. “You sure, man?”

  “I’d like to say it’s because I’m nice guy. But I like hot food. Bring back good news. As I want to get out of this shit hole. No offense, Matt.” Baja looked around as if Matt’s ghost might still be there.”

  “Who’s staying behind? We don’t know how many of them there are. Someone should keep an eye on the weapons. I’m surprised they haven’t already shown up.”

  “Scot, Jason, Izzy, you guys stay here,” Dax bellowed as he was heading to the door.

  “Yes sir,” Scot said in jest.

  “I’m not staying here,” Izzy said.

  “Why? You think we might bite?” Jason replied.

  “Then Baja, you stay.”

  “You got it.”

  “I think we can handle this,” Jason said.

  “Sure you can. But better we leave a couple behind, got it?” Dax replied. Jason scowled. I could tell he didn’t get Dax’s usual commando-style orders. I was used to them. I had taken them long before he went into the army. Though I could see how others could take his orders wrong.

  So that was it. Specs, Dax, and I and the two women headed out. We took with us extra ammo, and a few more weapons. Honestly, I don’t think Dax trusted the others to watch over all of it. But we couldn’t take too much. Just a duffel bag full of ammo and a few more guns.

  Outside, we immediately shifted into combat mode. You did whatever you had to in order to not get bitten. That meant if you weren’t reaching for your assault rifle, handgun, or knife, you wielded anything you could get your hands on. The key was to destroy the brain. Even with dislocated jaws, guts hanging out, these suckers would come at you. They were the perfect killing machines. Each day we came out, the crowd of Z’s never seemed to get any less. New Z’s had replaced the ones we’d killed.

  In the heat of the moment I couldn’t keep track of how many bullets I had fired. That was dangerous. Unless you got a break in the battle, you had to run and fire at the same time. If you ran out of bullets, you used the butt of the rifle as a weapon. Numerous times I had to wield it like an axe to take off their heads. Each of us had found new weapons to use. Jess was keen on the crossbow. She had discovered it inside a closet at Specs’s apartment. They obviously hadn’t searched hard for that. Then again, I had to wonder if the reason they killed his parents was because of what was in the store. I think they wanted whatever they were keeping up at the RV. Everyone knew about it in the town. It wasn’t like it was a secret. Originally they had tried to keep it that way, but secrets are hard to keep in a small town. Eventually word got out and they were forced to pay a fine for building on government property. They had tried to fight it in the court, but lost. The government owned so much land in the area, it was unreal. What had happened to the days when no one owned land? When the United States belonged to no one?

  Izzy had borrowed a sword from Baja. He might not have got the whole wielding nunchucks down, but he knew how to swing a katana like a samurai. It was a beautiful piece of work.

  I would be lying to say that I didn’t find myself enjoying killing Z’s. When you spend your whole life having to get that kick from a video game, then you are allowed to take up a weapon and fire at something that is going to take your life for real, you get a satisfaction out of seeing them drop. It’s one less Z to worry about. That’s why I never rushed to get into the car, even though Dax was yelling for me to get inside. The way I saw it, we were the last defense.

  “I think we should see about getting a couple of trucks if we are going to leave Castle Rock,” Dax said.

  “Yeah, hook up some snowplow blades on the front of them. Might as well make it a weapon in itself,” Baja added.

  “Now you’re thinking,” Dax said. He loved anything that was to do with war. This was his own personal war. He might not have had the chance to fight on the front line, but he was trained for it. That had to count for something.

  “Not much snow around here. I wouldn’t imagine they would sell them,” Jess said.

  At an elevation of six thousand feet, the weather in Castle Rock usually hovered around eighty degrees in July, though it had been known to hit in the high nineties and around the low twenties in the winter. It meant we got around four feet of snow each year.

  “Enough. You just haven’t experienced a cold one,” I said.

  Truth was, it had been pretty warm the last couple of winters.

  “No, he’s right. We need to start thinking about everything as a weapon. We aren’t going to be able to stay here much longer. And before we leave, I’m going to have to give you all a lesson in surviving,” Dax said.

  “I think I could teach a few things,” Specs said.

  “That’s more like it. Step up to the plate. We need each other.”

  * * *

  The drive out to the RV which was two miles outside of town wasn’t without its fair share of Z’s. The road was littered with them. We spent most of our time dodging them. Dax didn’t want us wasting our bullets on Z’s that weren’t an immediate threat. There was no way of knowing who would be out at the RV.

  The highway wound its way through the mountains. Small and large pine trees of e
very kind covered the landscape. In the summer or winter it was beautiful. To think that we might not see this place again, ate away at me. As much as we grew up wanting to get out of Castle Rock, we never imagined it would be because there was no other choice.

  “Take a left up here,” Specs pointed to a dusty road turn-off. The cruiser bumped its way up and down a small road that looked as if it had been made to not look like a road. The further we went down, the more it opened up. We passed over old tracks in the ground from years gone by. As we came over a rise in the road, there it was. It looked like any typical recreational vehicle. Backed up against a large dune of rock. There was nothing to give anyone the sense that far below it, one hundred feet down, was a shelter that would make any prepper proud.

  Except there was one thing different. There were two black 4x4 trucks.

  “Hold up.”

  I stopped the cruiser.

  “Back up.”

  I shifted into reverse and rolled back over the rise in the road.

  “Park out of the way. We don’t want to alert these suckers to our presence. Specs, did your family have any surveillance cameras that might tell them if anyone was nearby?”

  “They were preppers. Of course they did.”

  “Great, then we may have just announced our arrival.”

  “They don’t know how many of us there are. Let’s do this. Spread out. Izzy and Specs, you take the left side, Johnny and Jess, circle around. I’m going to see if I can get close.”

  “Um. There is another entrance. I mean, exit for the underground. My father built it Just in case we got sealed in.”

  “Your pops thought of everything.”

  “Nearly.” Specs’s eyes dropped.

  Dax squeezed him on the arm. “Lead the way.”

  We covered the cruiser in branches. If another vehicle came in on the same road, they wouldn’t have seen it. It was way off the road, and covered by pine branches. We kept low and moved around the back, keeping a close eye on the entrance. Specs led us up to another rise of rock. At the top was a large metal dome, almost like a submarine opening.

  “Here it is.”

  “Good job.”

  Dax spun the top and slowly cracked the lid. It was dark down below. Metal steps went down and disappeared into the darkness.

  “It’s a long way down.”

  “Where does it come out?”

  “In a storage area.”

  Dax shouldered his rifle with the strap and began the descent. Each of us followed.

  “No. Two of you should hang back. Just in case,” Dax said.

  “We will,” Jess volunteered her and Izzy.

  “Ladies. Our lives are in your hands.”

  “Aren’t they always?” She smiled. I gave her a kiss, and then followed the other two. Jess closed the lid behind us. The steps seemed to go on forever. If anyone slipped, we would have been dead. No doubt about that. The idea of being trapped this far underground was crazy. I felt like an ant burrowing down into an unknown cavernous tunnel.

  Once we reached the bottom, we dropped down into a large arched room. It reminded me of a small warehouse. There were metal shelves stacked with boxes, and cans of food. Below that, bottled water.

  Dax started throwing us a couple of his asinine military hand signals. We just nodded pretending to know what the hell he was on about. We could hear voices. Male. There had to have been three, maybe five. It was hard to tell. Every sound echoed off the steel walls. The floors were pure rock.

  “One hell of a find. I told you they had stockpiled,” a voice came from the other room.

  “Tex, I swear that girl had a fine ass on her. You really missed out there.”

  “I don’t fuck what is dead.”

  “I dunno about that, I saw the way you got friendly with the mother,” another voice said.

  “I used her mouth. That was it. She was going to die. It was pity to let it go to waste. But fucking the dead. You guys are demented.”

  Laughter ensued.

  We were sitting quietly in the storage room. Close to the door.

  My face screwed up. What the hell?

  “All I know is they didn’t know what hit ’em.”

  “Teach them to be greedy. Greedy fucking preppers.”

  Specs saw red. Dax grabbed him and pulled him back with a hand over his mouth. He thrashed around. His anger turned to tears. I wanted to kill them as well. But we had no idea how many of them there were or what they were packing. Right now we were just assessing the situation.

  FIRST BLOOD

  We retreated fast. When we reached the surface, Izzy and Jess had their guns pointing at us.

  “Expecting someone else?” I asked, shielding my face from the glare of the sun.

  “Can’t be too careful,” Izzy said.

  “We need to get out of here,” Dax said.

  They both looked at Specs whose eyes were swollen from tears.

  “What’s the matter?” Jess asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I replied.

  On the way back to the apartment, Specs was silent. He stared out of the window. It was tough to think that humans could stoop as low as rape. But it took all types. I knew that if Dax had let him go, he would have probably ended up dead. We might not have got out of there alive. If they were going to die, we needed to do it on our terms. In a controlled environment.

  I remembered the first time I met Specs’s parents. He’d invited me to watch a movie. Of course they had picked it out. It was Rambo: First Blood. Throughout the entire movie his father would talk about all the things that Rambo did wrong. For someone who thought Rambo sucked, he sure had a lot of his movies. His father’s name was Alan, his mother’s Karla, and his sister, who was only eight when she was murdered, was called Nancy.

  That evening Alan taught us how to make our own bug out bag. It was a survivalist bag of items that could help you survive for the first seventy-two hours. We stood around as he unloaded the bag on the floor in the middle of his living room.

  “Now come close, kids. These are the essentials. People will say you are mad for making one of these. But let’s see how mad they think you are when the Russians nuke the land of the free.”

  It was divided up into essentials used for various things. Hygiene, fire, water, first aid, defense, navigation, tools, lighting, shelter, food, apparel, and communication. Inside were a sleeping bag, body warmers, duct tape, pliers, shovel, flashlight, first aid kid, tube tent, Swiss Army knife, FM radio, rope, and survival whistle. The list just went on and on.

  I had to admit it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I will never forget that night. Rambo followed by a lesson on how to make your own bug out bag.

  His father was always like that. He would take any opportunity when we got together to show us something. It was always something new. Like how to purify water, or how to start a fire using a magnifying glass or a magnesium stick.

  When we arrived back at the apartment, we immediately noticed something strange. Something was amiss. The back door was open.

  “Shit.”

  “Stay with the vehicle. I’m going in,” Dax said.

  “The hell you are. I’m going too.”

  He scowled but didn’t object. Specs jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “If we aren’t back in five minutes, get out of here,” Dax said.

  Specs nodded and we slipped out. We took our knives and plunged them into a few Z’s that were hanging near the door. Inside it was dark. We stayed low and hugged the wall.

  “Watch the ground.”

  It wasn’t something you thought about, but Dax was paranoid that we were going to trip a wire and end up with blown-off limbs or something. Inside it was quiet. We moved slowly up the stairs. Dax used the end of his rifle to push open the door. Then we entered. He immediately ran to the floor where Scot was coughing. I cleared each of the rooms. All the weapons were gone. There wasn’t one that was left behind.

  Shit!

  Wh
en I returned I noticed Scot had been shot in the gut. I tore off some material and Dax pressed it against his stomach.

  “It…” he was trying to get his words out, blood was trickling out the corner of his mouth.

  “Jason. He’s in on it.”

  “Where’s Baja?” I asked.

  “I dunno.”

  The window was open. I moved close to it, and as I did, the glass exploded beside me. I dropped to the ground and pressed my back against the wall. Shuffling out of sight. Another shot, then several rapid shots. I raised my assault rifle to the window while keeping low and unleashed a spray of bullets in every direction.

  When I turned back Scot was motionless. Dax stared at his lifeless body.

  “Fucker killed him. We need to get out of here.”

  We were showered in glass as we hugged the floor on our bellies and made our way to the door. Once we got out, we bolted down the stairs. Before we made it to the bottom, another series of gunshots sent us back up. They had come in through the front window. We slammed the door closed on the apartment and pushed the couch in front of the door. I went to the back window and waved down to Specs to get going. He peeled away, but not before they fired several times at them. I caught sight of one of them and fired a round at him. Caught him in the shoulder and he fell back. Z’s were quick to finish him off.

  I scrambled back into the living room only to dive to the floor as the door was peppered with bullets. We returned fire. Dax pulled off his rucksack and pulled out an M18 Claymore mine. It was often used in Vietnam. A piece of history. Deadly as fuck. We had retrieved it from the military surplus store. He rigged it up, gestured for us to go into the bathroom. Staying low we slipped into the bathroom. He closed the door and we both jumped in the bathtub. In his hand he was holding the detonator. They called it the Clacker.

  This thing was a wicked device. Unlike regular land mines that you stepped on, this was detonated by remote control. Like a shotgun going off, it fired metal balls in an arc of sixty degrees. Dax’s face was a picture of concentration. He was listening for them entering. At first there was nothing. A few more rounds of guns going off, then we heard the door being pushed. They were having a tough job getting in.