by Hunt, Jack
“Do you have the cure?” one of the soldiers yelled over the noise of the rotors.
I removed it from my pocket and handed it to him.
“Let’s go.” He placed a hand on my back and motioned to step into what would have been the final space onboard.
I cast a glance over my shoulder at Baja, Specs, and Elijah. I paused at the edge.
“Get in,” he yelled.
“Leave. I’m not going.”
The soldier gave a look as if I was insane.
“Johnny, get on,” Jess yelled.
“We’ll come back for your friends,” the soldier yelled.
“They’re not my friends. They’re family and I won’t leave them.”
And with that, I stepped away from the helicopter.
I waved them out. “Go, we’ll meet you there,” I yelled.
Dax’s eyes darted between me and the others. He hesitated for a couple of seconds then he hopped out. “What the hell are you doing, brother? Get on that helicopter.”
“I’m not leaving them behind.”
“Didn’t you hear them? They’ll be back.”
I scoffed, “They aren’t coming back, Dax This was about the president, his daughter, the cure. Not us!”
Dax studied my eyes.
A soldier came over. “What are we doing here? Are you staying or coming?”
The soldier looked notably frustrated.
Dax didn’t take his eyes off me as he replied, “Take them. I’m staying.”
“Then you might need this.” He handed Dax his rifle, and a few mags.
Jess tried to hop off but a soldier pulled her back in.
“Let me go. If they’re staying, so am I,” Jess spat back.
“Me too,” Izzy said trying to push her way off the helicopter.
“Are you all mentally insane?” one of the soldiers said. “We can’t let you do that.”
“Get off me,” Jess cried out.
I went back to the helicopter to help out. “Jess, go with Kat.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Ralphie looked torn. “You’re not coming?” Ralphie asked.
“We’re coming, man — just not now.”
The look in Jess’s eyes I would never forget.
“Johnny?”
I held both of her hands between mine.
“You’re safer with them.”
“No. No, you don’t get to make that decision.”
“Jess. Listen to me.”
“No. You listen to me.”
And there it was, the strong-willed girl I had fallen for years ago. “I’m staying.”
She turned to Izzy, “Stay with Kat, we’ll meet up soon.”
Izzy shook her head. Jess moved closer to her. “I promise.”
The pilot leaned back. “Who the fuck are you people?”
Now I know what I did next was wrong. But you have to understand that what I did was for her best interests. I made the decision for her. I turned to the soldier and told him to take them, including Jess who was still talking to Izzy. The soldier nodded, he gave a signal to the pilot to go, and he jumped back in, slamming the side door behind him.
I crouched down as I moved back. The wind of the rotors whipped at my clothing as my eyes fell on Jess who had now realized what I had done. From behind the window she was yelling to get out but the soldiers kept hold of them. It wasn’t just the fact that they would be safer at a military installation, but there wasn’t enough room for all of us on the helicopter. I glanced down at the mass of snarling Z’s. I couldn’t bear the thought of her getting hurt. Now she was surrounded by special ops guys, heading for NORAD. I had no way of knowing what I was sending her into but it had to be better than this.
I rejoined the others and we watched as the Black Hawk flew off into the distance until it became nothing more than a speck. Now there were only five of us. Down below the dead waited; a mass of rotten teeth, and milky white eyes, snarling, moaning, and filling every square inch of the tarmac.
As we crawled back into the aircraft no words were exchanged among us. We knew our next destination but how or if we would reach it was unknown. I had sent them off knowing that I might never see them again. A twinge of regret ate away inside me. Had I made the right decision? If it wasn’t, neither Dax nor any of the others brought it up. I wondered what their minds were preoccupied with? I would soon know.
* * *
When dawn broke, and a deep orange sun burned through the tiny aircraft windows, my eyelids flickered, then snapped open. I gasped.
Jess, was my first thought.
The memory of our evening flooded back in. I groaned feeling every bone in my body ache. We had fallen asleep in first class. Elijah was the only other one awake.
“Bad dream?” he asked.
I turned to see him looking out the window.
“Yeah,” I said swallowing hard. My mouth was dry.
“Here,” he tossed a half drunk bottle of water to me. I twisted off the cap and gulped down every drop.
“Is there more?”
He nodded without looking, then thumbed behind him. I cracked my head from side to side and rolled out of the reclined seat. I stretched my limbs and went in search of the toilet. I snatched up a bottle from a tray that Elijah must have pulled out. Inside, I closed the door behind me, twisted off the cap, leaned over the tiny sink, and ran the water over my head. I swiped my hand across a bloodstained mirror and looked at my ragged face. I was sporting weeks of growth. My eyes were tired with bags beneath them. I gripped the sides of the sink and dropped my head. You did the right thing. You did the right thing. I told myself over and over again hoping I might feel better. But now I was beginning to second-guess myself. What had I done? I wasn’t thinking straight or was I? I took a piss, and came back out. Elijah was eating a roll.
“Any good?”
“Solid as a rock, but you can’t be picky. You want one?”
I nodded. He tossed one to me. It was quiet on the plane and yet we could still hear the moans of the dead from beyond the cockpit’s window.
“Why didn’t you go?” I asked Elijah. “There was enough room for you.”
He swallowed the final piece of his roll and washed it back with water.
“I fuckin’ hate the government. I mean. Look at the mess we are in because of them.”
“Right, but you could have gone.”
“I prefer my chances here.” He paused, picking at his teeth. “With you guys.”
“You’re not going back?” I asked.
“What’s there to go back to? Everyone I know is dead now.”
I felt a twinge of guilt at the thought that he and the others had risked their lives to help us back at the temple.
“About that.” I thanked him.
As we were talking Dax came out, he stared at me and for a minute I thought he was about to rip into me but he didn’t.
He ran a hand over his face. “You got a smoke?”
Elijah reached into a bag and tossed him a whole packet from the duty-free.
“Well, look at that. I guess not everything is fucked up.”
He glanced at me and I couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible. Elijah returned to first class while Dax placed one between his lips and lit it. He blew out a plume of smoke.
“Go on. Say it.” I leaned back against the wall of the plane, waiting for him to begin.
“Say what?”
“You know, how I fucked this one up again.”
He snorted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He took another drag. “Though I will say this. She’s going to rip you a new one when she sees you. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, smirking.
“And Izzy?”
Dax dug through a cart of packaged food and small bottles of alcohol. He uncapped a travel size bottle of vodka and downed it. “We probably could use the distance.”
With that said he walked back to where the others were. I chewed over his reply
before joining them.
Baja lifted his leg and ripped out a morning fart as he stretched. “Shit hot!”
“Baja, you dirty bastard. Did you have to lift your leg in my direction?” Specs asked.
“Wherever you be, let your wind be free. That’s what my grandmother used to say.”
We all laughed.
“What?” Baja replied, oblivious to how he sounded.
That morning we ate anything that didn’t appear to look as though it had gone off. Which was very little. We checked how much ammo we had left, which was practically none. Though we did have the extra assault rifle, and a few extra mags that one of the soldiers handed Dax.
Outside, we could now see the extent of damage done to the plane. The entire side was torn to pieces by the RPG. The fires still burned, the dead still roamed, and we were over six hundred miles from NORAD. We knew it was time to move out. How we were going to do that was the question. While there appeared to be less Z’s outside as most of them had collected around the burning plane, and wandered into entrances in the airport, there were still many on the stairwell and ground shuffling around looking for a flesh breakfast.
Now several ideas were being tossed around between us. Dax of course wanted to just unlock the door, and shoot his way out like the ending to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Baja had the bright idea of throwing some of the airplane meals out the cockpit window. But he dumped that winning idea when he realized that it would be hard to tell which Z’s preferred kosher, vegetarian, or regular meals. The risk was too high, I told him before palming my forehead at the stupidity of it all. The fact is there was no easy way out, we had to go out that door or climb back up on top, hop down onto the wings, and possibly break our legs dropping down from there.
Readying ourselves, I cast a glance out the window to check on how many Z’s were directly outside while Baja and Specs argued about who was going to be Butch and who was Sundance. Just as I was about to turn back to the others I spotted a vehicle.
“Hey guys. Guys. Take a look at this.”
They all took a porthole.
An armored vehicle was plowing its way through Z’s. We heard a gun going off several times. The noise it was making was beginning to attract the Z’s lingering around the station wagon. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin it was leading them. Driving a slow enough speed to make them follow.
“What do you make of that?”
“Hell knows.”
“You think it’s the Crips?”
“Possibly.”
“Well, either way. They’ve just made it a little bit easier to get out. Look.”
On the stairwell the Z’s were descending following the herd. We gave it another five minutes before Dax broke the seal on the door and yanked it wide. Light poured in and we breathed the smell of smoke.
“Ah, nothing like a bit of fresh air,” Baja said sniffing the air as he stepped out. The Z’s that were still on the steps turned their milky white eyes on us.
“I got this,” Specs said.
“No. I do,” Baja said, pushing him to one side.
“Dude, I told you, I’m Butch, you’re Sundance.”
“The fuck I am, you’re the one with the dirty mustache.”
“Look guys, who gives a crap, from what I remember they both came out shooting,” I said.
Baja nodded. Specs agreed. All the while a Z was making its way up. Both of them turned at the same time and fired two rounds into its head. “Hell yeah!”
That began our push towards the car at the bottom of the stairwell. We moved forward with purpose, only taking out those that were an immediate threat.
“Baja, you better have the keys,” Dax yelled as he peppered the heads of three zombies.
“Of course I do, you penis.” He yanked them out of his pocket so hard they flew out of his hands. All we could do was watch as they soared through air. Then Specs performing his best Air Jordan move jumped up and caught them — barely.
I exhaled hard with relief and fired a round into a Z’s skull.
“That’s why I’m Butch, bitch!” Specs replied looking all pleased with himself.
“Give me those, you moron.” Dax snatched the keys out of Specs’s hand and charged ahead. “I swear I’m going to kill you both before these flesh-chewing freaks do.”
A few more rounds and we were back inside the station wagon. After a bit of an argument over who should be driving, Baja slipped over into the driver’s passenger side under the threat that if he fucked up, Dax was going to cut off his balls and hang them from the mirror like a pair of furry dice.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got this.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Dax spat back.
Baja put the key in and twisted. The engine coughed to life then went dead. He tried again. It coughed and spluttered.
“Please tell me you didn’t leave the lights on?” I asked.
“No!” he paused. “I don’t think I did. I mean in all the hurry, it’s kind of possible.”
“Shit, Baja.”
“Well, how the hell did I know we were going to have to use it again?”
All of us were shooting out of the windows as more Z’s shifted their gaze on us and decided the armored vehicle was just too far to shuffle for breakfast.
“Get it started. Now!”
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing, jerking off?”
Baja began speaking to the car as if it was a sick lover of his. “C’mon baby, don’t fail me now. Me and you go way back, or at least I do with your cousin, or perhaps it’s your…”
“Baja,” Dax yelled growing impatient.
Baja took a deep breath and tried again. This time it roared to life and he revved the engine hard. “Ooooh, that’s my girl.”
“How much gas we got?” Specs asked.
Baja tapped the gas gauge. “Half a tank.”
“That’ll do for now.”
“Alright, if you’re done giving foreplay to your girlfriend, can you get us the hell out of here?” Elijah shouted.
Baja gunned the engine and we tore away from the zombie-infested lot. As we rounded the building a vast majority of the Z’s had shifted to one side of the lot, no doubt following the noise and gunfire of the armored truck that was now nowhere to be seen. We sped up an incline that led away from the airport.
Upon reaching the crest of the steep hill we saw in the distance an armored vehicle parked sideways. Behind it a trail of mud spread across the highway as though it had taken a shortcut across a field. Baja brought the car down to a crawl as we approached it.
“Be ready,” Dax said as he brought his gun up.
From around the corner of the armored truck came a figure.
“Who the hell is that?” Elijah asked, squinting because of the glare from the morning sun.
I smiled. “Benjamin.”
He stood there, Glock in hand, assault rifle over his back. I tapped Baja on the shoulder and he pulled up beside him.
“Room for one more?” he asked.
I was about to reply when Baja spoke up. “Depends, can you handle yourself?”
Without even looking, Ben brought up his Glock to the side and fired a round directly into an approaching Z’s head. He didn’t even blink.
Baja sniffed hard. “Beginner’s luck.”
We laughed and opened the door for him. When he got in he turned to his right and looked directly at Elijah.
“Oh, hell no,” Benjamin said.
“Shit,” Elijah said, swiping his hand over his head.
“Do you guys know each other?” I asked.
They both said the same thing at the same time. “You could say that.”
I had a feeling we were about to learn a lot about these two. Baja breathed in deeply, as we peeled away. As we did he reached down by his side and lifted up the armrest compartment. He shot a glance down and then looked back at the road.
“Where you guys heading?” Benjamin asked.
“NORAD.”
<
br /> He shook his head. “I don’t know why I asked.”
Baja reached down and pulled out an old tape. “What do we have here?” he said.
“They still do tapes?”
Baja chuckled to himself. “They did in 1992, and I think you’re gonna love this one.”
I saw the words Geto Boys scribbled in marker pen on the tape.
He tossed it into the tape player and switched it on. All of us waited with bated breath for what was about to play. When I heard it, I began to laugh. The first song was Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta.
Baja breathed in deeply. “I think I can feel a road trip coming on,” he said before leaning back and letting the beat of the music take over.
So there we were on our way to meet up with Jess, Izzy, and Ralphie at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. There was no way of knowing what we’d find when we arrived, or even if we would make it. I guess in a strange twist of fate we were now placing our faith in a government that had let us down; in a cure that we weren’t sure was real.
We had gained new allies, and brought together two men who were former enemies. If there was hope for them, perhaps there was hope for humanity.
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.
Newsletter
Thank you for buying The Renegades 2, 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.
A Plea
Thank you for reading The Renegades 2: Aftermath. 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.
