The Renegades (Book 4): Colony

by Jack Hunt

  Another man emerged from a room wearing nothing more than a pair of white underpants. If that wasn’t odd enough, he was also wearing black dress shoes, black socks, and sock holder-uppers.

  Baja leaned over to me and whispered, “We really should have held on to those nipple clamps. They might have made a nice gift for these two.”

  I stifled a chuckle.

  Vinny held out his arms while the bald, and frankly odd-looking fellow helped him into his gown. Vinny tied it off and then gestured for us to join him in the living area. The room had cathedral ceilings and lacquered walls with mother of pearl embedded in them. A four-foot-high chandelier. The furniture was all cream in color. Leather couches and chairs. Glass tables and wraparound balconies that provided a stunning view of Central Park and the remains of the Big Apple.

  “Can I get you a drink? Water, beer, vodka perhaps?”

  He held up a bottle of vodka.

  “I’ll have some of that,” Jess said, stepping forward.

  Now I fully expected Baja to lead the way, not Jess. But she tossed that vodka back like it was a glass of water. Izzy followed suit. What had happened to these two in the time we were gone?

  “Please take a seat.”

  Vinny lay back in a cream-colored chair, lighting a cigarette and blowing a smoke ring into the air. A few of the guards stood at the door keeping a close eye on us.

  He gave a wry smile as he looked us over, then his eyes fell on me. We began to update him on how we came to meet his father. He was curious to know why we had sought him out. We were about to tell him about our search for the Coalition when the doors burst open. A young man covered in dirt was shoved down onto the floor; his hands bound behind him.

  “Please, Vinny, I didn’t tell them.”

  Vinny looked at me and got this mischievous look in his eye. He got up and walked over to the man. We couldn’t figure out what the argument or disagreement was over but in that moment we realized why people feared him. It didn’t matter that he was dressed like a woman or he pranced around like he had drunk one too many cocktails. No, without even saying a word he walked over, withdrew what looked like an envelope opener from a side table, and proceeded to slice the man’s throat in front of us. Blood gushed to the floor, creating a small pool that kept widening. He wiped the knife on the dead man’s clothes before giving a flick of his hand to have the guards remove the body.

  I watched them slide his lifeless corpse out the door. A huge crimson smear was left behind on the stone floor. Vinny didn’t bat an eye, he returned to his seat, picked up his cigarette again.

  “Now where were we?”

  Oh he was crazy. I was certain of that.

  Though I had to wonder if he did this just to make sure that we knew who we were dealing with. A little example of what he would do if anyone crossed him. If he did this now, what had he done before the apocalypse?

  “Chuck. I mean, your father said you can help us find the Coalition.”

  “And what do you want with them?”

  He must have seen the hesitation in our faces as he continued. “You don’t even know, do you?” His eyes flitted over to Hannah. “Darlin’, what is your name?”

  It struck me as odd that he wouldn’t know his own sister’s name.

  “Hannah,” she muttered.

  “Come over here, Hannah.”

  She looked at Izzy as if wanting to see if it was okay.

  “It’s okay, I don’t bite.”

  She motioned for her to go. Hannah went over. Vinny shifted forward in his seat. My pulse was racing a little. After witnessing him slash that man’s throat, it left all of us a little nervous about what he would do next. He looked her up and down, then pulled up her sleeves to reveal the bites.

  “Just as I thought.”

  He looked at us. “You know the Coalition can’t help you or her for that matter.”

  “What makes you an expert on them?” Elijah said.

  “I was the one who started the Coalition.”

  “You are no longer with them?”

  He took a cherry from his cocktail and sucked on the end of it before stirring his drink. “Let’s say we had a little falling-out.”

  “The same kind of falling-out you had with your father?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed, I must have hit a sore point as he didn’t reply. I regretted saying it immediately.

  “Do you know where they are?” Ben asked.

  “Of course. Here, there, everywhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t stay in one spot. They move around. You don’t find them. They find you.”

  “Well, we found them the other night,” I said.

  “How did that work out for you?”

  My eyes dropped and he let out a laugh.

  “Listen, unless you are going to help us then we are just wasting your time.” I got up to leave and he motioned to his guards to close the doors.

  “So, what? We are your prisoners now?”

  “No, don’t be silly. But we are not finished here.”

  “Unless you have—”

  I was in the middle of speaking when one of his men burst into the room.

  “The Coalition is here.”

  I looked back at Vinny.

  “I guess this really is your lucky day.”

  COALITION

  I WAS STILL OBSERVING Vinny when an influx of people came charging in. My eyes scanned them before I recognized one. It was Rowan. Then came the girl with light hair. She glanced at us. I’m pretty sure I saw a smirk dance on her face.

  “So tell me, Vinny, when did you make an alliance with the Hive?”

  “Now settle down, Wren.”

  Vinny put his hands out in front of him, which made me wonder how far his power extended.

  “Don’t tell me to settle down. There were only a few people who knew about our meeting the other night and you were one of them. How did the Hive hear about us?”

  “Why don’t you ask them?”

  We all stood to our feet. Rowan caught sight of me and brought his gun up.

  “Stand down, Rowan,” Wren yelled.

  His gun was inches from my face. “Give me one reason not to kill you right now.”

  “He has an anomaly with him. The girl,” Vinny said, sending the room into silence.

  Rowan didn’t take his eyes off me for even a few seconds. His gun swept back and forth in front of our faces.

  Wren looked at us. “Well?”

  “We have no idea. Like we told you the other night, we are not with the Hive but you obviously didn’t want to listen then, so why would you listen now?” I asked.

  “You better show some respect,” Rowan said.

  “You better get that gun out of my face.” I slapped the barrel and he pushed back.

  “Enough.”

  The room had turned into total chaos. Vinny’s men were pointing guns at the Coalition, the Coalition members were pointing them at Vinny, and I had just had about a fucking enough of it all. I strolled over to the window that looked out across Central Park.

  “Where the hell do you think you are going?” Rowan stammered.

  “You know what, man, if you want to put a bullet in me, go ahead, you would be doing me a favor. But I’ve had about enough of this apocalyptic bullshit. There are people hooked up to machines being drained like a fucking vampire buffet and all you can do is wine and moan at each other like little bitches.” I sniffed hard as I prowled around the room with little regard to whether or not he would shoot. Now, maybe my brother’s death had switched off something inside of me, or I was just losing my mind but I really didn’t give two shits if I lived or died in that moment. But one thing I knew, I wasn’t going to be taking orders from some punk-nosed muscle head who looked as if he chomped on steroids for breakfast.

  Baja’s eyes widened like silver-dollar coins as I passed by him. I exhaled hard, leaned over, and picked up a bottle of vodka, tossed it around a few times, looking at
the brand. I twisted off the cap and glugged back a few mouthfuls before wiping my lips on the back of my sleeve and continuing my grandiose speech.

  “So listen up, dickbags. If you have shit to sort out with Liberace over here, then be my guest but I am only going to say this one more time. We do not work for the Hive. We don’t work for the president. In fact, we don’t work for anyone. Hell, the way you motherfuckers dress, I’m surprised you have anyone working for you. I would hate to see your benefits package. Now you can either work this shit out or keep running around playing soldiers and blaming each other like a bunch of pussies. Either way, I don’t give a shit. So talk it out, figure it out, and reach a decision. As for me,” I stared at the bottle. “I’m going to get shit-faced as I have had one fucked-up day. Now excuse me.”

  With that I walked out of the room. The silence behind me was either a good thing or I was seconds away from getting a bullet in the back of my head. At least if it was a bullet I wouldn’t have to listen to their whiny asses. A few seconds after, I heard Baja say, “I’m with him on that.”

  One by one all of us walked out of there and made our way down to the lobby. When I went into the bar area, I have to admit, it was slightly peculiar to see someone sitting at a grand piano playing while a guy in a tuxedo served drinks behind the bar. These folks were living like the world hadn’t fallen apart.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the bartender.

  He was a small Chinese man and obviously didn’t know much English as he muttered some name that sounded like “Lu Fow Ping Pong.”

  “I’m just gonna go ahead and call you Dave. Now um, if you want to start me a tab, Dave, that’d be swell.”

  I spun around on the seat with my elbows against the bar and drank the remainder of the vodka. The others trailed in. Jess and Izzy took a seat on the plush leather couches that were set up like a gentleman’s club. It was very spiffy indeed; a little ostentatious even. Ben put in an order for drinks and slid over beside me.

  “That was quite the speech. But um, a little risky.”

  “Yeah, you know me. I like to push the envelope.”

  He chuckled, grabbed up three drinks, and took them over to the others. Baja was chatting to some skirt further down the bar. Typical of course. A few minutes passed before Wren showed her face. Rowan wasn’t that far behind her. He was in her shadow like a little lap dog, never too far away. She came over and took a seat beside me.

  “To think they blew the shit out of this city and the one place that you would think would have been leveled is still standing.”

  Behind the bar was a mirror. I could see her staring at me in it. Even though she was right beside me I didn’t look at her. I just continued drinking whatever Dave put in front of me which appeared to be shots of tequila.

  “At this exact moment, I’m kind of glad it wasn’t.”

  I tossed back another shot and moved on to the next.

  “You know, there are few people who would have said what you did upstairs and continued breathing. Must be your lucky day.”

  “You know, I’ve been hearing that a lot today, and I have to say I don’t exactly feel lucky.”

  She smirked and asked the bartender to bring her a drink.

  “Don’t you find this a little odd?” I said, turning to her.

  “Odd as in?”

  “You know, us sitting here having Dave serve us drinks when outside the undead are roaming around looking for their next meal. It seems a little strange, don’t you think?”

  “We’re alive. What are we meant to do? Spend all our time hacking into the undead? We have to live. It keeps people sane to have something that resembles what they once they knew. I mean at some point the pendulum is going to swing the other way and we’ll need to get back on with living.”

  I let out a huge burp that blended into a laugh. “Well, if you believe that, you truly are mad.”

  She lowered her bottle of beer. Condensation drops made a circle around it.

  “Why? Because I believe there’s hope for what remains of society?”

  I tossed up my hands. “Hey, I’m not saying don’t hold on to hope but I’ve seen a fair amount of it crushed.”

  There was silence between us.

  “Who did you lose?” she asked.

  I paused, holding a shot inches away from my mouth.

  “Does it matter?” I tossed it back. “We all lose people in the end.”

  She inhaled a deep breath. “No, it doesn’t matter but if I’m not mistaken you have a bit of a death wish.”

  I chuckled. “You know what. You don’t even know me. You don’t know any of us.”

  I got up to walk away. I wasn’t interested in pouring out my past to some stranger even if she was good-looking.

  “I know enough that they wouldn’t leave you out here unless they were up to something.”

  “Keep on filling up her drink, Dave. I think she needs it.”

  Now I really hoped that the evening was going to be one full of drink and a fair amount of rolling around in the sack but unfortunately that wasn’t going to be the case. I was stupid to think it was.

  One of Vinny’s men came running in.

  “We’ve got a breach.”

  “I knew it. I fucking knew it. How the hell did they know we were here?” Rowan yelled.

  By now Vinny had come down and joined us in the bar area, looking vastly different from what he had twenty minutes earlier. Gone were the cross-dressing clothes and in their place were army fatigues. That guy sure enjoyed changing up his wardrobe. Everyone started running around like chickens with their heads lopped off. Wren had her gun on Vinny again.

  “Did you call them?”

  “No. No, I swear.”

  Whatever level of fear he put into people, Wren seemed to hold a helluva lot more weight around here and the men knew it. Why? How? Those would have been better questions. Wren only looked about twenty years of age.

  Vinny’s eyes fell on us.

  “Why don’t you ask them! I bet you they have a tracker on them.”

  “Shut the hell up, we don’t have shit on us,” Elijah yelled.

  Rowan came over and started rough handling Baja and holding up some handheld device that was beeping.

  “Dude, get the fuck off me or I’ll nunchuck you in the balls.”

  “What the hell is he looking for?” I said, moving over to get in between them.

  “No, let him. They have placed trackers on people. Why do you think we dropped you off in the middle of nowhere?” Wren said.

  “Oh I just thought the tour ended,” I replied.

  Suddenly the device turned a dark red and the beeps turned into one long beep. He had it hovering over Baja’s shoulder

  “Here,” she handed me a knife. “Cut it out of him.”

  “What?” Baja yelled in total horror.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I asked.

  “If you don’t want them tracking your every move, you better get that out of him.”

  By now we could hear gunfire erupting outside.

  With that she turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere you guys aren’t.”

  “We can’t hold them off long. Do it now!” Vinny yelled.

  I turned to Baja. “Shit! Sorry, man, we’re going to have to do this hardcore style.”

  Now under any other circumstances we would have heated up the knife and got everything sterile but there was no time. I jammed that knife into his shoulder and Baja let out a howl that could have cracked glass.

  “Where are our weapons?”

  Vinny gestured to one of his men to go get them. The sound of gunfire outside was intensifying and getting closer.

  “Can they get in here?” I said, continuing to push the knife in further and then twisting.

  “Not easily but they will. There’s more of them than us.” Vinny was barking orders at his men when a bloodied tiny piece of metal popped out of Baja’s shoulder.r />
  “Quick, all of us.”

  One by one we cut those trackers out of our shoulders.

  Nutrients, my ass! I thought back to what the doctor had said.

  No sooner had we done this than I shouted to the others to follow Wren. I wasn’t letting them get away this time. Whatever or whoever they were connected to was our only chance of understanding what the hell was going on and what could be done about the virus. We snatched up our weapons from one of Vinny’s men and chased after Rowan and Wren who had rushed down into the basement of the building. Vinny led the way through several rooms until we entered one that looked like a library. One of the bookcases had been pulled back to reveal a set of stone steps that went down into a dark cavernous tunnel.

  “Oh shit and there was me thinking we were going to see the last of the underground.”

  “It doesn’t go into the sewers. It’s an escape route that was built years ago, back in the time of Prohibition.”

  “You mean for carting alcohol in and out of the place?”

  “Give this man a history award,” Vinny bellowed, passing by him.

  The door sealed shut behind us. Above, all we could hear was the noise of gunfire as Hive personnel stormed the hotel in search of the Coalition. It didn’t take us long to catch up with Wren and Rowan.

  “Why did you bring them?” Rowan asked Vinny before slamming him up against the wall.

  “You better get your hands off me,” he replied.

  I don’t know what this guy’s deal was but he was really starting to piss me off. There was always one. It didn’t matter where you lived, where you worked. There was always one dick who had a chip on his shoulder. I just imagined they would have been the first to die in the Z attack. Perhaps, I wished it.

  “Save your squabbling for later,” Izzy shouted at them.

  We pressed on down the tunnel, leaving the sound of gunfire far behind us. It was unsettling being thrown into this situation between warring groups. Eventually the tunnel came to an end at another staircase that led up into a cellar. We came to learn it was one of many restaurants in the New York area that were all tightly connected by a network of tunnels. Some of them had blocked off access but there were many that still existed even today. Once outside it was nighttime. Darkness covered everything. A cold breeze blew through the streets carrying loose sheets of paper like tumbleweed. I was still feeling the effects of all the drink that I’d had. I felt like a passenger or a fly on the wall just observing everything that was going on around me. The chatter, conversation, arguments, and fighting blurred together but one thing that became clear was a name — Annora.