by Hunt, Jack
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!”
CHAOS
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.”
SALT LAKE CITY
It was a slow drive back to what remained of Castle Rock. Jess and Izzy sat up front with Dax, while the two girls and I were in the back. I learned the older one’s name was Caitlin, the other Millie. I must have looked like a newborn baby covered in blood, gunk, and shit. We never spoke much on the way back. I think each of us knew that we had turned a corner. One we could have never have seen coming a year ago. If each of us were asked, I imagined we would have said we had an aversion to killing, but when you are pushed into a corner, it’s surprising what you will do to survive.
I only wished that it hadn’t come to this.
As we rounded the final bend that led in to Castle Rock, I blinked hard, unable to believe what I was seeing out of the front window. The ground looked like a wide smiling mouth. Main Street was gone, and with it at least two thirds of the area including Z’s. A few stragglers shuffled around moaning and snarling, but nothing compared to the horde that once streamed through the streets, back alleys, and stores.
Dax brought the truck to a stop. As it idled quietly we gazed at the little that remained. Even if we had wanted to stay, there was nothing left to stay for. The town had fallen into the vast network of mine tunnels. Swallowed by history itself, the once booming town that had attracted miners and tourists with the allure of riches, now lay in ruins.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a Z came up alongside the truck and slapped the window with a half-eaten hand. Its fingers were gone, chewed right off, now all that it had was a bloodied stump. The two girls, who we had come to learn were sisters, huddled together, pressing their bodies closer to each other. I imagined it would take a long time for the shock to leave. They had been traumatized on a level that none of us really knew. Assaulted, both by the dead and the living.
Dax shifted the vehicle into drive and slowly we made our way around the perimeter of the town. When we arrived at the back of Specs’s old man’s apartment, we had to park a good distance away because it had collapsed into the wide fissure that ran through the street.
“Wait here. I’m going to take a look.”
Dax jumped out. I joined him, taking one of the assault rifles.
“You think they got out in time?”
“I don’t think they would have been dumb enough to stay inside.”
We tried not to get too close, there was no way of knowing how safe the ground beneath us was. We hadn’t been out of the truck more than a few minutes when we heard the sound of shotguns being pumped behind us.
Without even turning around we held out our guns.
“That’s it, turn around slowly.”
I frowned. I knew that voice.
“And suck my dick.”
I cast a glance over my shoulder to find both Baja and Specs trying real hard not to burst out laughing.
“You assholes,” Dax said, swinging at them while trying to hold it together himself.
“We had you. You should have seen your faces.” Baja mocked us by pretending to cower.
“I actually think they shit themselves. In fact, hold on a minute…” Specs sniffed the air. “I can smell it.”
I raised my hand. They started laughing even harder.
“Ah man, what the hell?” Baja said, holding his nose.
“You hang from a wire over an abyss. See if you can hold your shit together.”
“Dude, you are worse than Matt,” Specs added.
Which reminded me. The first order of business before we hit the road was to get cleaned up. The strangest thing was the only building that hadn’t fallen into the hole was the one owned by the midget Chinese couple. It was as if the entire crack had avoided their store altogether.
Baja held a closed fist up to his face. “Oooh, that’s some serious black magic shit, right there.”
I could hear laughter coming from the truck as I dashed into the store and cleaned up using water from a burst pipe. A burst pipe, and a few cracks in the wall! That was the only damage. It was uncanny. When I returned to the truck, the laughter still hadn’t subsided. My face was flushed, not that it mattered. When they saw what I had changed into they continued snorting. The only thing I could find was a pair of pants that belonged to the owner. They were so short, they could have been mistaken for a pair of boxers.
As Dax turned over the engine and adjusted his mirror, he smirked at me in the back seat and shook his head. Baja and Specs squeezed in beside the girls. Even they looked as if they had perked up a little.
“Where now?” I asked.
“Salt Lake City.”
“What’s there?” Caitlin asked
We all looked over. It had been the first words we’d heard out of her. I was about to say sanctuary, but after hearing the Colonel’s definition, instead I said, “Hope.”
Hope was the only thing keeping us from losing our minds.
As in all honesty, that was all we had now. The hope of a new day. A fresh start. A possibility to find something better. Whether Salt Lake City offered that was another thing entirely. As the truck bumped its way beyond the outskirts of town, heading for the city, I glanced at the others. I don’t think any of us cared, we were alive and for now that was all that mattered.
So maybe we will live to see another day, or perhaps we’ll die. No one can be certain. But one thing I know, until then, we will choose to stand between what remains and all that might come to kill.
We may not be the fastest or strongest.
We might not have what it takes to survive.
But we’re full of heart, and that’s enough.
We are, the Renegades.
A Plea
Thank you for reading The Renegades. If you enjoyed the book, I would really appreciate it if you would consider leaving a review. I can’t stress how helpful this is in helping other readers decide if they should give it a shot. Reviews from readers like you are the best recommendation a book can have. 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
Jack Hunt
Jack Hunt is the author of horror, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic novels. Jack lives on the East coast of North America. When he’s not writing, he’s engaged in dubious activities and general shenanigans. 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.
[email protected]
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Synopsis
Prologue
ZOMBIEGEDDON
OUTBREAK
NO WAY OUT
REALITY CHECK
GUN RUN
HAVE FAITH
AISLE TWELVE
FIVE-O
PREPPERS
LIVING INSANE
FIRST BLOOD
ENTER THE DRAGON
SHAFTED
RECKLESS
COMEBACK
DEATHMATCH
FIGHT OR FLEE
&
nbsp; LION’S DEN
TICK, TOCK
CHAOS
SALT LAKE CITY
A Plea
Jack Hunt