by Jack Hunt
Fritz started nodding slowly. In his hand he held a Glock. He began walking around taking in the sight of everyone.
“Are you going to allow one person to determine if humanity gets the cure or not?”
“Don’t listen to him, the last five immunes he operated on died,” Annora said.
“What happens if your son, daughter or spouse is bitten? What then? Are you going to keep getting injections that last a month or two at most? Are you going to have your loved one suffer? Are you ready to put a bullet in their head?”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said.
I motioned for our group to get up off their knees and come towards us. I kept a close eye on Steadman. He looked agitated and jumpy with his rifle aimed at me. One by one they got up cautiously looking at Steadman and those who had weapons on them. They moved forward to join the others. Just as Jess began to shuffle towards me, Fritz grabbed her by the back of the collar. He pushed a gun up against the side of her head.
“I can’t let you do this. I won’t let you do this.”
“It’s over, Fritz.” I paused. “You’re over.”
“No. No.”
I stepped forward. “Just put the gun down.”
Jess was no longer sobbing. She stared intently at me as if coming to some realization.
Fritz had this look in his eyes like a wild animal that had been cornered and knew it was only a matter of time before sedation. Keeping a firm grip on the back of her collar he leveled the gun out at me. Immediately everyone began to run back, expecting him to shoot.
“I just needed to see. I just needed to see if I could do it.”
Annora came up alongside me. “Dad, put it down. You can still be of use.”
“How? Tell me how?”
“Just let her go, Dad, she’s suffered enough,” she said.
There was a long pause as if he was contemplating the situation.
His eyes became downcast as Annora continued speaking to him. Telling him that she loved him. She was getting through to him. He wouldn’t listen to me but to his own daughter, his flesh and blood — that was working. Slowly but surely he began to release his grip on Jess. When his grip was released, Jess glanced at him before slowly moving away. I put my hand out to her and she was only a few steps away from me when I heard the gunshot. Jess’s hands started trembling. A look of shock spread across her face. Her eyes drifted downward then she collapsed.
“No!”
My eyes darted to Steadman who had taken the shot. I didn’t even think twice, I threw the grenade clutched in my hand towards him. A sudden explosion and all hell broke loose in the camp.
I fell down by Jess and flipped her over.
Bullets snapped in the air as rounds were being fired in every direction. Elijah and Ben dragged me back out of the line of fire along with Jess who wasn’t moving. Once behind a vehicle, I tried to get Jess to respond.
“Come on, don’t you die on me.”
My eyes welled up with tears as I removed the grenade belt and Elijah took it. I pushed up her eyelids and then lowered my ear to her mouth. I could hear breathing. Shallow. Faint.
“That’s it. Stay with me. Stay with me.”
I ripped open her shirt to get a better look at where the bullet had gone in. Blood was pouring fast from her chest. My pulse began racing even faster.
“Annora!” I yelled. She came rushing over and started shouting to a couple of other people to grab a medic kit from the trailer. People raced around us firing rounds as Fritz’s men returned fire.
Both my hands were gripped tightly over one of Jess’s. “You’re going to be okay. The doc, she’s going to…” I sniffed hard knowing full well that she wasn’t going to be okay. It was wishful thinking. Denial perhaps. Blood trickled out the corner of her mouth. Jess looked as if she was trying to say something but nothing came out. “Jess,” I gripped her hand hard. Then, Annora looked at me. Slowly her head shook. “No. No!” I looked down at Jess, she was gulping as if trying to get air in.
Then, the life in her eyes vanished and her hand went limp. “No. No. NO!” I screamed. I pulled her up into my arms. Rocking back and forth, tears streaked my cheeks as I held her.
Though the world around me had fallen into chaos, my mind became strangely still and quiet.
CHAPTER 27
WHEN DAWN CAME, and a deep orange sun burned across the horizon, I was still holding Jess. The smell of gun smoke lingered in the air. I can’t say that I noticed what took place around me for the better part of the night. All I saw was Jess. She was gone, ripped from my world. My mind circled back and forth between what I could have done differently.
Guilt, anguish and an utter emptiness washed over me. Like nails being raked down a blackboard they tortured my mind. Eventually Wren and Ben came over and tried to convince me to let go of her so that someone could finish what needed to be done before she turned.
I refused. If anyone was going to do it, it was me. I wouldn’t let anyone carry that burden. It was mine. Ben placed a Glock in my free hand.
Pale, drained, tired and still in shock I waited there until her eyelids fluttered and milky eyes stared back at me. She gurgled some inhuman sound. I hesitated for a moment then placed the gun to the side of her temple.
Tears that streaked my face dripped down onto hers as I pulled the trigger.
My body jerked as it went off. Ben waited for another hour before he came and convinced me to let her go. Covered in blood and grime I walked away completely numb and paying no attention to what was going on around me. Baja took me back home and waited downstairs while I stepped into a shower. I crouched on the floor with my arms wrapped tight around my knees. As warm water rushed over me, I became mesmerized by the black and red colors that twisted and turned before disappearing down the drain.
In that shower, I broke down. All the pain I had carried for so long. All the loss. Everything that had been bottled up spilled out. When I stepped out on to the cold tiled floor and dried my body, my eyes were swollen and red.
The sound of gunfire was still ringing in my ears. The image of Jess and the way she looked at me was forever burned in my memory.
Later, I soon learned what had taken place in the hours that I sat with Jess. The community fought back, many died taking back control of what most had come to call home. Among the dead was Fritz. It was unknown who shot him. Though some believe it was Annora.
Over the following week, Ben, Elijah, Baja and Wren moved into the same house that I was holed up in. I hadn’t been out except in the yard to get some fresh air. Despite me telling them I would be fine, they didn’t believe it. Even at night I found at least one of them awake. They said they couldn’t sleep but I knew that wasn’t true. They were concerned for Wren and me. Both of us had lost people close to us.
Two weeks passed and I knew they wouldn’t leave if I didn’t get back to normal living. Whatever that was now.
A few weeks later, Sebastian was found murdered in his bed. His throat slashed. No one knew who did it. And quite frankly, no one seemed to care that he was gone. Everyone had a reason to want him dead. How he had managed to survive for as long as he had was still a mystery but I think Ethan wasn’t done with him.
Lukas and Kiera were eventually reunited with their sister, Jade. They had been through a lot for their young age, and as tough as it was to lose their parents, they now had a strong community of people around them to help.
I sat outside in one of the deck chairs staring at the empty pool. As hard as I tried to block out the pain I felt, I couldn’t. How would anyone understand? I didn’t expect anyone to. I certainly didn’t want to become a burden to anyone.
It was the same when anyone died. But the truth was, I wasn’t the only one who lost a loved one that night. We all did. Wren had lost her brother, the others a friend.
“Are you going to be alright?” Wren asked. She was seated across from me.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
She nodded
. In all honesty I wasn’t sure. What was she hoping to hear? It wasn’t like we were any different in our loss. Somehow she seemed to be coping better. How was that? How did she do it?
Death was strange. It always would be. Everyone carried his or her own beliefs about it. Some could bounce back within a matter of days, others months, and some would never truly recover. They would become a shell of their former self. Of course they would get up and smile and do all the things that had to be done. Life would continue. You couldn’t wallow forever but when did the grief stop? When should a person reopen the curtains and smile again without guilt? No one could say when, it was different for each person.
Nights were the hardest. In the silence of the evening, when I was alone with my thoughts, I struggled. I drank to block out the memory of Jess.
Eventually no more tears fell; instead I was left feeling numb.
As summer turned into fall, and the leaves began to change into a gold brown, the community slowly returned to normal. A stone was erected in section A in memory of the fallen. But I didn’t need to see it to remember. I still remained back there, lost in that moment. Of course I got up every day, I went through the motions and pulled my weight but a part of me had died that night.
I was unsure if I would ever fully feel the way I had for Jess.
As more immunes were discovered and Annora continued to run tests, the number of months that a person could live after a bite got longer and longer. Annora believed it was only a matter of time before she would successfully create the first antibody that would ensure people could survive.
Lincoln’s crew never joined our camp but we saw them often. We would go up to Orient; they would come down to us. We combined our resources and expanded the walls together. It would be a slow process but humanity would eventually stand again, infection free.
It was a hope we all shared.
And one that we all believed we would see.
A day when life would return to normal, if only through trial and error.
But then again, had humanity ever survived any other way?
EPILOGUE
OUTSIDE THE WALLS, NEW YORK
PRESENT DAY
SO THERE I WAS — hanging from a wall of some dilapidated building that once housed some of the finest alcohol in New York.
We were out on a run and I had become separated from the others.
How? Eh! Some Z, some asshole, the usual crap that happens.
But nevertheless, there I was dangling over the undead.
I was drunk out of my mind and reliving the past.
It was a bad combination for sure.
I wasn’t thinking right.
Sober — I had lots of reasons to live.
My relationship with Wren had become stronger.
I had friends around me that actually gave a shit about each other’s well-being.
I was part of a community that wasn’t perfect but was better and safer than anything I had been in prior to arriving on the east coast. Hell, even the future was beginning to look bright if measured by the advancements Annora had made with the new antibody.
But in that moment, all that was good and light was overshadowed and blocked out by dark thoughts as my blood alcohol content went off the charts, and my mind focused in on what the apocalypse had stolen.
Tears streaked my cheeks as I gave one final look at the dead waiting for me.
I loosened my grip on the brick, one finger at a time.
Closed my eyes.
Then let go.
In that moment two things happened.
One, I felt a hand grasp my wrist.
Two, I looked up and saw Specs.
I blinked hard thinking I was dreaming.
“Specs?”
“Are you really going to make me pull you up with one arm?”
“What the hell?” I said.
“A little help!” he shouted over his shoulder.
From behind him Baja came racing into view. He grinned and reached down to grab my other arm. “Like usual, Johnny, Specs here was meant to be a surprise and you royally fucked it up.”
“Just help me pull him up.”
A few strong pulls and they hoisted me up and over the edge.
All three of us slumped down breathing hard, backs against a wall of brick, me in the middle and both of them on either side. We sat there for a moment, not saying a word to each other but just looking out over the city as the sun’s light waned.
“Don’t ever do that again or I will kick your ass,” Specs said shooting me a sideways glance.
“Yeah, you don’t get to end it,” Baja said. “If I have to stay, so do you.”
I chuckled.
Specs ferreted inside his jacket and retrieved some smokes. “Cigarette?”
I took one out, still blitzed out of my head and thinking I was having some out-of-body experience, the kind that might have come from being torn alive by the Z’s. But it was real, Specs was here beside me, puffing away on a Marlboro Light.
He lit mine then lifted an empty cardboard beer container.
“I would offer you a beer but…” He tossed it.
“How did…?” I asked.
He breathed in deeply then blew out some smoke.
“We thought it would make a good road trip.”
Baja chuckled.
“We?”
“The family, and everyone who chose to come.”
I nodded slowly in my drunken state. We sat there for several minutes looking out without saying a word to each other.
“It’s a good view from here,” Specs said.
“Yeah, you can see for miles,” Baja replied.
“I think Matt would have liked it,” I added.
So there we were, back together again.
Old friends, brothers-in-arms, misfits to the end.
We may not have been the fastest or strongest.
We might not have had what it took to survive.
But there’s no denying, we were full of heart, and that was enough.
We were, the Renegades.
AFTERWORD
IT REALLY HAS BEEN a real pleasure to write this series. When I set out to write The Renegades, I never imagined how many people would enjoy the characters. It’s hard to believe that this was the last one but I think it wraps it up nicely.
For those of you who are curious, I wanted the final scene on the roof to act almost like a bookend to the first book. If you remember in the first book they used to go up on top of a roof, drink beer and look out over the town. I thought it would be good to end it there with the three original friends looking out across the city, and that no matter what, they would be there for each other through the highs and lows.
Thanks to all of you who have come along for the ride, left reviews and emailed me. I hope to bring you many more, wild and crazy stories over the coming years.
Please take a second to leave a review on Amazon and let others know what you thought of the entire series.
Thank you — Jack Hunt
A PLEA
Thank you for reading The Renegades 5: United. If you enjoyed the book, I would really appreciate it if you would consider leaving a review. Without reviews, an author’s books are virtually invisible on the retail sites. It also let’s me know what you liked. You can leave a review by visiting the book’s page. I would greatly appreciate it. It only takes a couple of seconds.
Thank you — Jack Hunt
NEWSLETTER
Thank you for buying The Renegades 5, published by Direct Response Publishing.
Click here to receive special offers, bonus content, and news about new Jack Hunt’s books. Sign up for the newsletter.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jack Hunt is the author of horror, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic novels. He currently has five books out in the Renegades series, and another called Mavericks: Hunters Moon. Jack lives on the East coast of North America. When he’s not writing, he’s engaged in dubious activities and general shenan
igans. He invites you to contact him, send him lots of money and turn all his books into movies.
If he doesn’t reply straight away, he’s probably running away from a Zombie, chatting with his drug dealer or having a dump. Either way, he will respond when he’s good and ready unless of course you are the FBI in which case you’ll never hear from him. ;)
www.jackhuntbooks.com
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Synopsis
Also by Jack Hunt
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Afterword
A Plea
Newsletter
About the Author