The Renegades 2 Aftermath (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller)

by Hunt, Jack

  Pushed forward, I stumbled. That only infuriated them more. One cursed and batted me in the back with the butt of his gun. We were heading towards Salt Lake Tabernacle. It was a huge dome-shaped auditorium. The roof was a shiny aluminum resting on top of a sandstone foundation. Fire flickered, casting shadows against the walls and ground as I was pushed through the doorway. It was like entering an MMA event. Gangbangers were jeering, shouting, and even tossing empty beer cans in my direction. Someone spat at me. Others took advantage of the moment to land a few blows. Whatever I was being led into, it wasn’t good. The noise of the crowd grew louder, their voices echoing off the roof above. Above the bobbing heads I saw a steel cage octagon. I glanced up to the second tier above us. More men filled out the space and were tossing down toilet paper rolls that unraveled as they hit their targets below. The smell of weed lingered in the air as I found myself outside the cage. Domino was seated and talking to a good-looking girl in her twenties. She was wearing a tight shiny outfit that reminded me of the seventies.

  “Ah, glad you could join us.” He rose to his feet and clasped the sides of my shoulders. “You are just in time for the main attraction.”

  “Which is?” I asked inquisitively.

  “You of course.” He let out a deep rumble of laughter. I got a whiff of his bad breath and felt like gagging. He smelled like he’d swallowed a Z’s ball sack.

  “Isn’t this a little past your bedtime?” I asked.

  He sneered before breaking into a grin. “I like you. That’s why I’m giving you a second chance to tell me what you know.”

  “What makes you think I know anything?”

  He scanned the crowd. “Have you wondered why these men follow me?”

  “Let me guess. You give good head?”

  He scowled, and prodded his finger against my chest.

  “You’re a bit of smart ass. Now let’s see if there’s more to you than words.”

  I sighed growing weary of his drivel. “Is this where you kill me?”

  He snorted. “I’m not going to kill you.” He turned me by my shoulders. “He is.”

  Inside the steel cage was a beast of a man. He had to have been twice my height and three times as wide. He literally looked as if he had swallowed another human being. Bald, his entire face and upper half of his chest was tattooed. Numbers, spider webs, dots, tears, skulls, and all manner of explicit imagery. His earlobes hung like an African Zulu warrior, with two bones piercing them. He had muscle on top of muscle. Hell, he looked as if he lived beneath a bench press. He grinned, showing nothing but a gold grill.

  They shoved me towards the steps that led up to a thick metal gate. One of the gang who was hanging off the side like a monkey reached down and unlocked it. Entering the cage, I looked back when I heard it lock. I gulped. My eyes immediately began looking for a way out, or at least a way to stay out of the reach of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hispanic cousin.

  The crowds roared a name. Bones. They repeated it over and over again. I was pretty sure it wasn’t my nickname, and he wasn’t called that because he had two in his ears. No, I didn’t think it could get any worse than going hand to hand with Goliath. But it did. Tossed over the top of the cage, two medieval-looking weapons landed in the center of the octagon.

  One was a one-handed flail. A sickening device that had a wooden handle with a chain attached to one end, and a spiked ball on the other. I’d seen these on Halloween in Castle Rock. But this was no kiddie replica. It was a real ball cracker. The other? A shitty little knife that might have been good for peeling a tomato, and that was it.

  Bones didn’t wait for me to decide how I wanted to be killed, he immediately went for the flail. He was fast, but then again I wasn’t planning on getting my noggin cracked with that shit. I lunged forward as he bent down to pick it up and kicked him in the side. Now I was pretty damn sure my boots were going to give him air. Instead, it was like kicking a wall. He didn’t move a fucking inch, and yet I bounced back a foot.

  When I reared my head back up, the look on his face said it all. It turned from a grin into a scowl. The next thing I knew I was running around that ring hoping to break the four-minute mile with a tiny little knife that probably wasn’t sharp enough to cut my toenails with.

  Every time he swung the spiked ball it would rip into the wooden floor and tear up splinters the size of stakes. Now clearly I was at a disadvantage both in size and weaponry, never mind the fierce mustache he was sporting. He could have won an award for that in Movember. Yep, November, the time of the year all the pricks in our town grew thick mustaches.

  I ducked as he swung his meat-shredding ball sack with fury.

  Now I’d seen enough Muhammad Ali video clips over at Baja’s house to know when to dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee. And I’d like to say there was a strategy to my mad River Dance moves that I was doing to avoid becoming torn to shreds but there wasn’t. I was just hoping I could wear him out, or at least make him consider dance academy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working.

  From the time that flail hit the ground and got stuck to the time he managed to pry it loose, I figured I had about three seconds.

  Now I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hack his head off with that penis-size blade even if the ladies like to say, it isn’t the size of your tool that matters, but how you use it.

  It was a lie then, and it was a lie now.

  The ball of metal tore into the floor and I saw my opportunity. With his wrist down tugging at the handle I came down on his arm with a lethal kick that would had made Baja proud. The fucking guy was holding it so tight his arm crunched beneath me. I toppled to the ground and scrambled to get clear but he wasn’t rushing. He was yelling in agony. The bone hadn’t pierced his skin but I had clearly unhinged some part of the joint below the muscle.

  As he was screaming all manner of obscenities I came over to the side of the cage right in front of Domino and spat at him.

  “Who’s the bitch now? Get in here. I will…” I saw his eyes flare with excitement and I knew that meant only one thing. I dived to my side just before my head was nearly caved in by the weapon from hell. The meathead had snatched up the flail in his other hand. I kept him on his toes as I bounced my way around that cage like a man on speed. I was panting hard. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I could hear my pulse ringing in my ears.

  Once again as the flail came down, I scooted around him and cut Bones on the back of his legs. Shit! This tiny thing does work? He screamed in agony and swung the spiked ball again like a lunatic.

  When I attempted to repeat the same move that had unhinged his one arm, Bones caught my leg. He spun me like a feather with one hand. I’d never felt such strength in my life. I smashed into the side of the cage. The sharp metal cut the side of my face. Blood began to trickle down. Now maybe I got lucky, but he never did get that flail back out of the floor. It was stuck in there stronger than the sword in the stone. While that had worked in my favor, what happened next didn’t. Bones slammed his foot down on my back. I swear it might as well have been a ten-ton rock. Pain shot through me. He grabbed me by my neck and slammed his other hand into my nuts and lifted me up as if I weighed nothing more than a buck. I gasped as he tossed me from one side of the ring to the other. I slammed into the cage. I tried to get up fast but the muscles in my leg wouldn’t have it. I spat blood. The crowd was going wild. This was like an MMA fight except no one was getting paid, and they had certainly screwed up the weight class.

  I did my best to haul myself up, but he was on me fast. I reached for my knife but it was gone. I must have dropped it. This time he held me above his head and walked around the cage as if waiting to get the word to break my back on his knee. I was certain I was going to die, or at least be sucking shit through tubes until the next apocalypse.

  Without a weapon I was shit out of luck. Flailing around above him, I was incapacitated.

  This was it. I was about to become this guy’s toothpick.
/>   Then he yelled something I didn’t expect.

  “Enough!” he shouted. “This is over.”

  Was my hearing fucked up? Did this guy really say that? Or was this all part of Domino’s sick mind game; one final sense that you were going to get out of it, and then the deathblow.

  Bones lowered me down. He then picked up the knife on the ground, approached the side of the cage, and tossed it at Domino, it missed and hit the floor.

  “You missed,” Domino said with a smug grin on his face.

  “We’re done,” Bones replied.

  “You are done when I say you are.”

  With blood blurring my vision, I glanced over trying to make sense of it.

  “Now kill him.”

  “Do it yourself, I’m done,” Bones replied.

  Domino smiled at me, then looked back at Bones. He raised a handgun towards him.

  “Fight or die.”

  THE CURE

  Now it’s hard to argue with a gun. This fight had just become even stranger. Why had this man given up beating me to a pulp? I was contemplating this when two new medieval weapons landed within a few inches of my face. This time one was a sword, and the other was a poleaxe. Being that I was closest, I reached for the sword. Despite being thoroughly confused as to why he didn’t kill me when he could have, I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  The crowd tossed bottles and cans at the cage. Beer sloshed onto the floor making it even harder to run. Bones turned back toward me. I was already up but hesitant to attack.

  “Sorry, kid, I’ve got no choice.”

  I furrowed a frown. He really didn’t want to kill me. There I was imagining he was one of Domino’s henchmen, and it seemed he was being forced to fight. He was just another pawn in the game. Bones scooped the axe, he swished back and forward as if familiarizing himself with it.

  “I’ll try to make this painless.”

  “That’s comforting,” I replied.

  And there we were again facing off against each other like gladiators in the Colosseum. Our weapons clashed together with such force that sparks ignited, and my entire hands shook with pain. I was sure this time that I wouldn’t be given a free pass. Now maybe it was the prayer I sent up to the big guy upstairs or perhaps I was just meant to survive, but over the chants of the crowd a sound echoed. I kid you not; it was the General Lee Dixie horn from The Dukes of Hazzard. It was so utterly bizarre that even Bones stopped and the crowd turned. As they did two men rushed into the building shouting something.

  Once my ears adjusted to what was being said, it became clear.

  “We are under attack.”

  You would have thought it was Black Friday shopping at Walmart, the crowd piled out the door in a heartbeat. The sound of music was quickly replaced by gunfire, and the one thing I hoped I wouldn’t hear. The moans of the dead.

  Now I would like to say that I killed that insane asshole who had thrown my ass in the ring, but I didn’t. Bones did. Upon seeing the crowd disperse, and Domino distracted by the chaos, Bones brought back his arm and launched that battle axe through the air. It soared through the metal bars and landed right between Domino’s shoulders. It was one hell of a shot.

  “Good shot,” I commended him, and for a brief moment he turned and smiled. Then the crack of a gun echoed. Bones grasped his neck and I knew instantly he’d been hit. I turned to see Domino hit the floor and take his last breath. Maybe it was because Bones hadn’t killed me, or simply because he was no longer holding an axe in his hand but I scrambled over to him. He was coughing and choking on his own blood. The bullet had penetrated one side of his neck and come out the other.

  “Why didn’t you kill me?”

  Through gritted teeth that were stained now in blood he spoke, “Get out, go now.”

  I knew he wasn’t going to make it. I was torn by what this man had done, or by what he hadn’t. As I ran to the gate with the sound of gunfire, it was locked. I yanked on it hard but it wouldn’t budge. Now what you have to know about this cage was it went up high. The vertical bars were over eight feet high. At the top they turned in and had barbed wire around the edges. Even if I could have climbed up, I would have been cut to bits trying to make my way over the razor-sharp metal.

  “Here,” Bones’s gruff voice called out. I swiveled around to see him getting up. “Get on my shoulders.”

  “What?”

  “Do it.”

  I wasn’t going to argue. I climbed up on top of him like a steel climbing frame. Every inch of him was pure muscle. Once I was on top he stood up, stumbled forward a little but clung to my legs.

  “Stand up,” he bellowed staggering around as if he was drunk. The blood gushing from his neck had got worse. He wouldn’t last long and there was no way in hell I was going to stay in there with him as a Z. God help the person who would open the cage after he turned.

  Like a circus act I gripped his bald head for support and rose upright. He clung to my calves and moved back and forward. I had a feeling I was going to be impaled on the ends of the steel cage if he slipped. But standing on his six foot four frame, I removed my jacket and tossed it over the barbed wire.

  “Ready.”

  “Ok, dude, what the fuck are you going to do?”

  He coughed then let out a stifled laugh. “You ever seen a Scottish caber toss?”

  Before I could reply with a yes or no, he launched me upward so hard I nearly tossed up the contents of my stomach. I landed hard over the top of the barbed wire. My hands clinging to the edges. The sockets ached in pain. Beneath me, I saw Bones drop to his knees. One hand on the floor, the other on the side of his neck. He stared at me and I think he wanted to say something, instead he just collapsed. As much as I wished I could have thanked him, he was gone. The ruckus outside had reached a feverish pitch. Z’s were making their way into the tabernacle. I slid down the outside of the cage until my boots hit the floor. I double-timed it over to Domino, snatched up his handgun, and made a beeline for the door.

  I fired three rounds into a bunch of snarling Z’s that were coming at me. When I made it outside I could now see what was going on. The place was overrun with Z’s. It was pure madness. Among the mass of dead bodies, and gang members running in every direction, a car was zipping around, its occupants yelling like lunatics while shooting. It wasn’t the occupants that made me know who it was; it was the car they had chosen. It was a 1979 Country Squire station wagon and none other than Baja was driving it, while Specs and two other black guys in the back were shooting up the place. I had never felt as relieved to see them than I did in that moment. Behind them in a jeep and five armored trucks were the Black Kings. The sound of the Dixie Lee horn went off again and I heard Baja shout out, “Hey, Johnny B. Goode!” He then launched into singing that damn Chuck Berry song again while continuing to take head shots at anything and everything. I swear he shot the head off a statute. He was nearly as good with a gun as he was with a pair of nunchucks.

  I was about to go get the others when I felt a smack to the side of my head.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

  It was the same guy who had collected us from the store.

  Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.

  “Get up, motherfucker.”

  He kicked me twice in the stomach, the second time I grabbed his leg and swept out the other one. He landed hard but not enough to stop him. This guy was a serious scrapper. He jumped right back up like a fucking jack-in-the-box and launched into a prizefighter assault. I returned fist for fist. At one point he began to choke me. I saw stars and darkness creeping in at the edge of my eyes. I knew if I didn’t get this punk off fast, it was going to be lights out. I brought my knee up and smashed it into his nuts with all the force I could muster.

  He dropped and groaned in agony. It gave me a few seconds to catch my breath.

  What I didn’t know was he had reached into the front of his pants and pulled out a .40 semi-automatic handgun.

  “Let’s
go, homie,” he spluttered. “Fight or die.”

  I had enough of fighting. Down on my hands and knees I spotted the Glock beneath me. I clasped it and spun over and emptied the magazine into his chest until he was no longer a threat.

  “I’ll go with die.” I spat a big glob of blood onto the concrete in front of me. I scrambled over to him and took the handgun and headed towards the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. That’s when I spotted Elijah. Wearing a black bandana with a white skull on it, he looked every bit the gang member that I remembered. He was holding two handguns and walking forward with all the confidence of a man ready to die. A shot to his left, then right, then behind him. He was taking down the dead and the Tongan Crips like a boss.

  “Elijah,” I yelled. His eyes darted over to me for a brief moment. “I need a hand to get the others out.”

  He nodded, kicking a Z back, and rushed towards me, calling for a few more of his men to follow. Gone were those guarding the front entrance. One of them lay on the ground, his stomach pulled inside out, brain matter and gristle spread inside a puddle of blood.

  Inside we ascended the steps while two of his men took out Tongan Crips who’d been turned into Z’s. By the time we made it up to the ninth floor the muscles in our legs were on fire.

  “You think they could have picked a lower floor?” he said, casting a glance down the hallway before we darted towards the double doors that were already open.

  I ran in scanning the room.

  “Dax? Jess?” I yelled but there was no reply. We moved down the hall kicking in the doors and checking every room. They were nowhere to be found.

  “Perhaps they got out already.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  As we ran down the stairs, I had to ask him. “Why did you come to help?”

  “Your friends can be pretty convincing.”

  “And annoying but that’s another story. I’m just glad you guys showed up.”

  “We had a little help,” he replied.

  I shot him a look.