The Renegades 2 Aftermath (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller) (17 page)

S
alt Lake City International Airport
was located west of Temple Square. It was a fifteen-minute drive on a good day but this wasn’t good. It was fucking awful. The sound of gunfire could still be heard echoing in my head as half of us dived in an armored truck driven by Elijah. In the back were four of his men, the rest remained. Maybe they had a death wish?

Up front I rode shotgun. Every few minutes I would cast a glance in the mirror to make sure Dax and the others were still following. On the way I brought Elijah up to speed on how we’d come to learn about the cure. He asked me if I thought it really held a sample that could rid us of the epidemic that was sweeping its way around the world. I told him I was full of as many questions as him. But if it was real, it was now our responsibility to get into the hands of those who might be able to end the horror.

For a few minutes it seemed as if we would make it, that the war we had just left behind would become a faint memory, but that was only wishful thinking. I had turned my head to look in the side mirror when the glass was hit with a bullet. It smashed into pieces and what remained dangled by a thread of cable. Elijah floored it. The engine roared.

“Those Tongans don’t give up,” he yelled before banging on the metal behind us to alert his men. The station wagon with the others came racing past us. The back window was now gone, and the rear door was riddled with holes. The sound of gunfire could be heard from behind us. Elijah’s men had flung open the door and unleashed a furious amount of ammo at the Jeep full of Crips.

“How far are we now?” I asked.

“At least another ten minutes.”

“Shit.”

For a moment I thought I couldn’t even assist them as armored trucks weren’t built for luxury, they were made to keep the occupants safe. So the windows couldn’t be opened. I didn’t even have a seat, I was crouched down on the metal floor leaning back when the gunfire started.

So I did the next best thing. I yanked on the handle closest to me and opened wide the side door.

“What the hell are you doing?” Elijah asked.

I gripped a silver handle on the inside and leaned out to return fire. At one point the vehicle swerved and I nearly found myself spitting asphalt. After numerous shots hit the driver of the jeep, the vehicle behind us swerved sharply and flipped sending all five of the occupants to a brutal grave. Smoke and fire erupted making it hard to see what was coming up from behind it. For a brief moment there was relief but it was short-lived when charging through the smoke directly behind them came an armored truck.

“Is that ours?” I heard one of Elijah’s men shout.

A return of gunfire answered that.

Now had it only been gunfire, I would have felt relatively safe. I mean for God’s sake we were in a vehicle designed to withstand bullets but that wasn’t to be the case. When I spotted one them readying the RPG I knew we were in a whole shit load of trouble. I slammed the door closed. The men in the back must have seen it too as they were unloading round after round in a desperate attempt to kill the Crip before he fired.

It was futile. We didn’t hear the sound of it approaching, only its impact.

The next thing I knew my world had been flipped on its side. The screech of metal, golden sparks flying, and smoke became all I could hear and see. I must have been knocked unconscious because when I awoke the truck had come to a standstill. The sound of fire flickering, amid the heat and black smoke, was disorienting. I immediately felt pain. There was a deep gash on my leg from where metal had torn into it.

“Johnny, give me your hand.”

I looked up. It was Elijah reaching down to me. I stretched out my hand and clasped his with what remaining strength I had. Pulled up and out of the steel frame I had a better view of what had happened. The station wagon was pulled to one side, all of them were out with their weapons still in the ready position.

Not far from the truck we were in, I noticed the armored truck that had been in pursuit. It was down in a ditch, the back was open, and bodies lay sprawled on the grass. Whatever had gone down had occurred while I was out cold.

Izzy came rushing over and gave Elijah a hand in carrying me to the car. Halfway there, a fear came over me.
The cure!

“Hold on. Hold on.” I reached into my pocket. I let out a sigh of relief. It was still there. The fear of losing the cure, the one thing we had risked our lives for, overwhelmed me. I could see now why it had been injected into the skin. There was less chance of losing it, and even less of it being stolen. Had one of the scientists self-injected it before the president did? Hopefully I wouldn’t need to do that. I glanced at my watch. We had ten minutes until the choppers arrived.

All nine of us piled into the station wagon. It was a tight squeeze and yet I don’t think anyone was thinking of comfort at that moment. Elijah hesitated at the door. He looked back towards the road where bodies lay motionless. The blast of the RPG had instantly killed his men.

“Elijah, we need to go,” I said.

“Hold on a second.” He ran towards the armored vehicle that had followed us. For a moment we lost sight of him in the darkness. A few seconds later he returned carrying the RPG they had used, along with a live round.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“We might need it.”

“Yeah, if we were in fucking Afghanistan,” Specs hollered.

He stopped at the door, taking one final look at the carnage, smoke, and fire. All around we could see Z’s making their way towards us. The place would be swarming in a matter of minutes.

“Elijah,” Dax shouted.

He slid in and Baja gunned it out of there. We zigzagged our way around abandoned vehicles and the dead. We hit our fair share of Z’s on the final stretch.

“There they are.”

I looked out the window, above in the smoke-filled sky I saw the anti-collision lights on the helicopters. They were hovering in the distance.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Jess yelled

“I’m giving it everything it’s got.”

“What a piece of shit,” Ralphie added.

“Hey! Respect the wagon, bitch,” Baja replied.

I wasn’t paying attention. All I could think about was getting out of the city. We burned rubber on our approach into the vast parking lot. As we came over a rise in the road, our sense of hope was soon diminished by what we saw next. Among hundreds of cars were countless Z’s. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

“Holy shit,” Elijah said, his jaw dropping.

“Why the fuck are they here?” Izzy asked.

“When the shit hits the fan you’d want to get out fast. Return to your family. Who knows?” Specs added.

The car idled at the top of a steep decline as we took in the sight. The vehicle wouldn’t stand a chance, we would be crushed if we even attempted to make our way to the airport building.

“Where are they going to land?”

There was barely any space for a vehicle let alone two choppers. They looked to be your typical military Black Hawk helicopters. In the distance we watched as they came down directly above the building.

“They’re gonna try and land on the roof,” Dax said.

“Can’t they see us?” Jess asked.

“Flash the lights,” I said.

Baja tapped the high beams several times, hoping they might spot us. Now maybe they saw us, maybe they didn’t. Who knew what they could see from their vantage point. That’s when we realized what might have made them second-guess coming over to where we were.

“We need to move, there are too many Z’s coming,” Elijah said, looking through the smashed-out rear window frame. I looked back. They were pouring into the airport from every angle.

“What do we do?” Baja asked.

Dax was quiet. I’d never seen him at a loss for words.

“Dax.”

He stared absently.

“Dax!” Baja screamed. “What do we do?”

“How the fuck should I know. Why are you asking me?”

The others looked at each other.

“Go around the other side,” Elijah said. “One side has parking, behind the building are planes. There’ll be more room.”

The noise of the helicopters, the rumble of our vehicle, and the lights were attracting even more Z’s on the outskirts of the airport.

“Elijah, we’re not going to make it through. That road is closing up,” I said.

“Just do it. Now. We don’t have any other option.”

Baja looked back at us. A look of helplessness.

“Now!” Elijah yelled.

The station wagon surged forward, Baja hit the pedal to the metal. Each of us readied our weapons and prepared for the worst. The road wound down into the parking lot. The route we were going to take was around the outside. It was less crowded but it still had more than enough Z’s to stop us. In the distance I saw the helicopters land, several military personnel jumped out and were firing at Z’s that had made their way onto the roof.

“Hit your horn,” I yelled.

“No, you’ll attract them,” Dax said.

“We need to be sure they know we’re here.”

“I’m pretty damn sure they do. We’re the only vehicle in the lot with lights on.”

Baja didn’t wait for Dax’s approval. He hit the horn and the Dixie Lee sound blasted out in all its glory. We jerked forward each time as the vehicle started plowing into one Z after the next. One bounced off the windscreen, smashing it.

“I can’t see shit,” Baja yelled.

Dax and Specs who were in the front began kicking the crumpled glass out, until it disappeared. Now the vehicle was unprotected in front and back.

“Head in that direction,” Elijah yelled. Gunfire erupted in the car, causing our ears to ring as Dax and Specs tried to clear the way ahead of us. It was pointless, there were just too damn many and the car was moving too fast. One flew up onto the hood of the car. With no window to protect us, it reached in. Its jaw snapped. Specs drove his knife into the head. The fear inside was palpable. This was the most insane decision we had made since this whole fuckfest started.

Rounding the building, we could see multiple Boeing 747s docked up against jet bridges. Luggage vehicles were stationed throughout, clothing scattered all over the place. In one area bodies were piled up high

“What now?”

“Head towards that stairwell.”

Several of the planes weren’t using the enclosed jet bridges that most people used to board planes. They had mobile stairwells that led up to the exit. There was no way we were going to be able to get into the building and make our way to the roof, there were just too many Z’s. If we stayed inside the vehicle we would eventually be overrun.

Baja slammed the brakes on in front of the stairwell that led up to a jet with its exit door open. We immediately jumped out and followed Elijah. I’m not sure why we were placing our trust in him other than the fact that he knew the area and out of all us he seemed to know what the hell he was doing. That’s the thing about stressful times. There will always be one who manages to stay level-headed. In this moment it was Elijah. We ascended the steps two at time until we reached the opening.

“Get inside.”

“What are you doing, Elijah?” Dax asked.

“You’ll see.”

I rushed inside with the others and began opening fire on the Z’s. I had shot one and was in the process of leveling up for another when I saw Elijah raise the RPG towards a Boeing in the distance. Seconds later an explosion erupted, and the shock waves could be felt.

“If they don’t know we are here — they do now.”

But that wasn’t just his plan, he had used it to lure the Z’s in the area away from us. To draw them to the far side of the airport building. Flames licked up the side of the Boeing. A giant hole could now be seen.

Elijah fired at several Z’s that were making their way up the stairwell.

Inside the plane the others were moving down the aisles clearing out those that had made a home inside. Ralphie and Specs went up front doing the same.

“Get in, Elijah.”

He stumbled back into the plane and I yanked the door closed, sealing out the fast-moving Z’s.

“Now what?” Jess asked in a panicked state.

“The front of the plane.”

We moved forward until we arrived inside the cockpit. I glanced at the countless dials, switches, and handles. Seeing the thick windscreen glass, Dax and I began firing at it until it was riddled with holes. Climbing up, I used the butt of the assault rifle to bang out the glass. We each clambered out onto the nose of the jet, and made our way up to the top of the plane. The glow of the burning plane provided more than enough light to see. Still, the fear of sliding over the edge into the mass of Z’s waiting below had all of us nervous. Carefully standing to our feet we began waving with both arms, and yelling as loud as we could.

“Hey!”

We fired rounds into the air. Seeing us, the pilots raced back towards the two Black Hawks and took off. Within a matter of seconds, they were getting closer. Wind whipped at our clothing the nearer they got. Now whether it was a malfunction or pilot error, we’ll never know but one of them was in trouble. We heard an alarm, and then in an instant it turned on its side and came down hard. A fiery explosion erupted and our hope diminished.

I
t was
like someone had kicked us in the gut. We watched as flames, and black smoke filled the air above the crash. Z’s immediately ascended upon the mangled frame. Their bodies caught on fire as they reached for the now dead occupants.

As the other Black Hawk got lower, we crouched down so we wouldn’t get blown off the plane. It hovered inches away from the top. Several special ops personnel hopped out and waved us forward. Izzy took Kat. They were the first to get on board. Ralphie followed suit with Jess and Dax. By the time I made it to the helicopter I could immediately see that not that all of us were going. It could only carry up to eleven occupants plus two crew members. There were nine of us, six special ops soldiers, a pilot, and copilot.

“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.

W
hen 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.