The Renegades (Book 3): Fortress

  THE RENEGADES 3

  Book Three: Fortress

  JACK HUNT

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Synopsis

  FORTRESS

  PREPVILLE

  SWARM

  WAITING GAME

  GREAT ESCAPE

  REDNECKS

  OUTCASTS

  ZOMBIE SQUAD

  THE FALLEN

  UNDERWORLD

  BLOW SHIT UP

  ODD COUPLE

  GOOD GUYS

  ONE GOOD DEED

  JARHEADS

  THE RAID

  CIRCLE THE WAGONS

  NIGHT OF THE LIVING AND DEAD

  CONSEQUENCES

  SPLIT DECISIONS

  THE LONG GOODBYE

  A Plea

  Newsletter

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Jack Hunt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  THE RENEGADES 3: FORTRESS is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Dax, Baja, Specs, Jess, Izzy, Ralphie, Ben and Elijah

  Everything we do has consequences.

  DENNIS POTTER

  SYNOPSIS

  THE RENEGADES 3: FORTRESS

  After tackling vicious city gangs, hordes of the undead and escaping Salt Lake City, this daring band of misfits are forever changed. But the nightmare of this apocalypse is not over. Torn apart as a group, but having gained new allies, they must now battle for survival as they head to NORAD. But when they stumble on a group who offer safety within a fortress, and another that seeks to kill, one hasty decision may destroy them all.

  FORTRESS

  I was seconds away from death.

  Now they say when you’re about to die your life flashes before your eyes. If it did, mine must have been short because all I saw was some nasty-looking teeth exposed behind a half-eaten face. Some Z must have performed some seriously fucked-up plastic surgery on this guy, as I could see every muscle in his jaw as it snapped up and down. I looked deep into a pair of milky white eyes that were void of emotion. The Z must have missed breakfast as he was putting up one hell of a fight. Its teeth were inches away from my skin.

  This was it. This was how it would all end.

  I would die with the sound of moaning, gnashing of teeth, and my naked ass slapping around on the surface of the water. Another splash as one more Z stumbled in to the all-you-could-eat ass buffet. I had managed to fight off two of them, cracking their skulls with large rocks, but now there were too many. There had to be at least fifteen moving together as a group.

  So there I was, squirming beneath two zombies in a river no deeper than my groin. The assault had been fast and brutal. There was no time to think. I didn’t even hear them coming. My head had been under the water when the first one toppled over me. I got lucky that time. Why it didn’t sink its teeth into my ass was a mystery. Though I’m pretty sure it was because I stunk worse than cowpat baked in the noonday sun.

  All I could do was fight, and yell at the top of my voice.

  “Help!”

  How did I find myself in this mess, you ask?

  Up until this point we had been on the road for four days. We eventually had to abandon the station wagon, which of course brought a tear to Baja’s eye. He wanted us to push it until we could find a vehicle with enough fuel to get it going.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  The journey towards NORAD was painful. All I could think about was Jess, Izzy, and Ralphie. Were they okay? We had used up all our ammo, and were beginning to feel the effects of food deprivation after having gone without any for three days. What’s that like?

  In the first day all you can think about is food. Your stomach grumbles and protests. You start to feel a little lightheaded and weak. On the second day you begin to forget that you’re hungry. It’s kind of like you are riding a high. By the third you are pretty much ready to eat a turd if it was handed to you. Sure, people went without food longer than that. Realistically you could live up to forty days without food, though it depends on the individual. At least that was what Specs managed to tell us before Baja filled the cab with the smell of ass fumes, and we all jumped out gagging.

  We had escaped Salt Lake City, and the horrors of it were far behind us. Yet I would be lying to say that we weren’t affected by it. When we weren’t searching for food or ammo we were trying to avoid danger. As much as I wished I could have been free of rules when I was living in Castle Rock, I was beginning to miss the structure that society gave us before the apocalypse. Sure, we complained about it. But the truth was, we thrived on boundaries and structure. It was what kept us from losing our minds. A stressful day before the shit hit the fan wasn’t stressful in hindsight.

  Trying to find food while smelling like the rear end of a cow’s ass, and always wondering when your time was up, was tough. Add to that not knowing if there was anyone who had survived who was good, and never knowing if the world would ever return to what it was before all of this — was real stress.

  Even if the remaining government managed to find a way to kill the infection, what then? How many people would be left on planet Earth? We would be starting again from scratch. It would take twenty, fifty, maybe a hundred years to get back to where we were before all of this. Most of us would have to become farmers, tilling the land, producing our own crops, and squeezing cows’ tits for milk. I couldn’t begin to fathom the extent of it all but it didn’t look promising.

  It was early when I decided to venture down to the river for a quick bath. It had been days since we had come across a body of water. We had decided to take a small trail down into Medicine Bow National Forest to avoid a herd that had blocked I-80. It was just meant to be a small detour. We had been careful to set up a line with cans around the perimeter of our camp. A simple way to signal intruders or trip Baja up in the night when he decided to go for a piss.

  “Who the fuck put that there?” he would say.

  A slow moving river was just beyond that. In hindsight I should have waited or told one of the others where I was going. But the idea of stripping off naked around a bunch of folks wasn’t something I had got used to.

  Before I went in I had scanned the tree line for movement. There was none. I’d waited in the brush listening for the snag of a twig or branch, anything to indicate that Z’s were in the area. Satisfied, I stripped off and waded into the cool water. I shivered feeling a chill. I left my machete on the banks of the river. How foolish was that?

  But that was the thing about living in the wild. You didn’t think logically all the time. Especially when you hadn’t eaten in three days and had only got few hours of rest in the past twenty-four hours. The mind didn’t think clearly.

  “Help!” I yelled again as my leg became trapped underneath one of the Z’s. In the tree line, just beyond the embankment I could see more approaching. This was it. I was going to die. My heartbeat raced. My worst nightmare was about to come true. I would be torn alive.

  Just as a third Z, a fucked-up looking old granny, waded out into the water looking at my hands as if they were chicken fingers, an arrow shot through its head, dropping it instantly. Then the sound of another, this time the two I was fighting collapsed on me.
I rolled out, scrambled to the embankment only to find my clothes gone. What the fuck?

  My eyes swept the forest. A trickle of fear ran through me, unable to see anyone. I heard the wind as another arrow whipped past my head into another Z. I dropped back into the water seeking cover. Each of the Z’s dropped hard and fast. Then, when the final one stopped moving, I heard movement. Stepping into view, almost blending in with their environment, were four figures. They were dressed in dark leather outfits, with hoods. No sooner had the fighting ceased when Dax burst out of the forest on my side swinging his machete like an escaped mental patient from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Beside him was Baja looking equally insane.

  “What do we have here?” Baja said with an amused grin on his face. He gazed at our mysterious guests, then back at me. “Let me guess? You are Robin Hood and the Merry Twats, and Johnny… well… this is no time to be jerking off.”

  One of them pushed back her hood to reveal long dark hair. She was gorgeous. Her eyes as blue as ice. The others did the same, one had red hair, one light brown, another blonde. All four of them were women around the same age as us.

  “Well, heeeelllllo hot stuff,” Baja said.

  I immediately covered up at the thought of the effects of cold-water shrinkage.

  “Here, Johnny, use this,” Baja tried to toss a tiny oak leaf at me as he made his way closer to the women. I frowned.

  “What? You don’t have much to hide.”

  I shot a glance at the dark-haired girl. She smirked.

  “Take another step, and you’ll join them,” them being the array of Z’s turning a crystal-clear river into crimson red. Baja nodded and slowly stepped back onto dry land just as Ben, Elijah, and Specs arrived.

  “Who are you?” Dax asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. What are you doing here?”

  “Well, isn’t it clear? Our friend here was taking a bath with his rubber ducky when you rudely interrupted him.” Baja began grinning from ear to ear until I tossed a stone at him.

  The girl with dark hair looked back at me, her eyes wandered further down. I caught a cheeky smirk on her face. Luckily I had both hands over my manhood, and my embarrassment in check.

  “I-80 is blocked,” Benjamin said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “I was just about to tell you, at least once I got your digits,” Baja said.

  “That would be kind of difficult being as there isn’t any power,” Specs added.

  Baja rolled his eyes.

  “Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD.”

  The women glanced at each other before putting up their hoods and turning back into the forest.

  “Um, can I get my clothes back?”

  The dark-haired one turned around and motioned to one of the others, who dropped them on the ground.

  “Thank you.”

  “Hey, do you guys have any food?” Elijah asked. “It’s just… we haven’t eaten in days.”

  Without even looking back, she replied, “Follow us.”

  “Should we go?” Specs asked.

  “Hell yeah, did she see how fine those feisty girls were? Food or no food, I’m in some desperate need of eye candy.” He stopped. “No offense, but you guys are well… guys,” Baja said before he chased after them.

  Elijah retrieved my clothes and handed them to me as I waded out of the river.

  Dax shook his head with a look of disapproval. “I guess you are going to explain what the hell you were doing so far from camp?”

  “What do you think?” I moved past him. I dried myself with my own clothes then tugged them back on.

  “Hey, hold up. We just need to grab our things.”

  Elijah and I collected what little belongings we had from our camp and then trekked deep into the forest behind them.

  “Who do you think they are?” Specs asked before tossing a thin branch he had stripped with his knife.

  “My bet is they are Amazonian, like the myths. The Amazonian women. You know, Zena Warrior Princess, that kind of shit,” Baja added.

  I shook my head in disbelief. We followed them deeper into the thick of the forest. It was so dense the tree limbs acted like a canopy over our heads, making it appear darker than it actually was. It was only the middle of the afternoon. Medicine Bow National Forest covered over two million acres of the states of Wyoming and Colorado. It was a perfect place to find shelter, and even better place to create a camp away from prying eyes. It was thick with pine, fir, spruce, and aspen trees. The undergrowth, dense and wild. All throughout the forest we saw different trails that at one time would have been used for biking and hiking, now they remained empty and silent. There was an eerie feeling to the entire place. Only the sound of forest critters could be heard.

  I caught up with the four women, eager to know more about them.

  “Hey, um… thanks for what you did back there.”

  The dark-haired woman shot me a sideways glance.

  “I’m Johnny, by the way.”

  “Danielle.”

  “How long have you been out here?”

  She looked at me but didn’t reply.

  “Are there others?”

  Again she never replied.

  “You’re a pretty good shot with that bow. Who taught you?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  The other three women smiled, one chuckled.

  The deeper we went into the forest the more curious we were about where we were heading. Shards of orange and violet light lit up the forest floor as the sun began to wane between the trees.

  “Hey, how much further?” Dax asked.

  “Nearly there.”

  As we came over a rise, my eyes registered something unusual. At first from a distance it didn’t appear to be anything more than thick, dense undergrowth, like trees that had tightly grown together. Vines covered the sides like spider webbing, camouflaging it from a distance. Behind it was a wall of logs spanning to the left and right. Each log had to have been thirty feet high. The closer we got, the clearer it became. They had literally built their own fortress with its own moat that went down at least eight feet. Inside were the undead with holes in their heads. We followed the perimeter until we reached a thick iron gate. They gave two short whistles and a portion of the pine wall opened, and the gate lowered. As we crossed over I glanced up. Above, two males looked down.

  Stepping inside the fortress I took note of how thick the walls were. It was impressive. They had stacked them three trees thick, which would have made the place practically impenetrable. It also helped that no vehicles could get this far into the forest. So there was no chance of someone trying to plow into it. Obviously a lot of thought had gone into development and placement.

  “Wow, this is one hell of a crib,” Elijah muttered.

  Beyond the walls we could now see the full scope of its size. It covered at least four acres. It was huge and spacious. Inside there were cabins dotted all over the place, like a mini village with small narrow streets. Some areas were covered, other parts open to the sky. Everything was made from logs, bark, and branches. I turned to see a walkway around the top of the wall. Ladders went up to it. Men and women walked back and forth, some carried assault rifles strapped on their backs, others a crossbow. What struck me was the age of the fortress itself. It looked as if it had been here for some time. Not weeks, or even months but years.

  “Who built this place?” I asked.

  “My father, and a small community,” Danielle replied. She led us into a thick log cabin. Inside a group of men were huddled around on small stools made from cut pieces of tree trunk.

  “Which one do you think is Bilbo Baggins?” Baja muttered to me. It was strange for sure. Their clothing was made completely from leather. They drank from metal cups and one of them had a long pipe in his mouth.

  “I’m guessing that’s Gandalf,” he muttered.

  “Father,” Danielle said.

  A figure turned. His b
eard was so thick you could have used it as a bird’s nest. He had long flowing hair that hung loosely down past his shoulders. When he stood up, I had to wonder if he was related to the same guy I had fought back in Salt Lake City. He was huge.

  Immediately we could tell that he didn’t look pleased to see us.

  “Danielle, why did you bring them here?”

  “They were hungry, and...” her eyes flitted to me.

  He looked us over.

  Benjamin, who was used to confrontations and dealing with the general public, stepped forward. “My name’s Ben. We’re just passing through. We haven’t eaten in three days.”

  He glanced at the SWAT badge on the side of Benjamin’s jacket then his eyes darted back and forth between us before settling on Baja with a frown. Then again most looked at him a little strange. The whole yellow outfit didn’t do him any favors even with a military flak jacket on.

  “Specs?”

  A female voice came from behind us. We turned to see a petite blonde who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years of age.

  Specs brightened up. “Eva? What are you doing here?”

  “My family is part of the community.”

  “You’re preppers,” Baja let out a laugh. “Well, suck me backwards,” Baja said before going quiet when the large man glared at him.

  “You know these people, Eva?” the man asked.

  She glanced at us. “No, but I know Specs. His father is Alan Rudd.”

  “Alan Rudd? I knew of him. Where is he?” the man asked.

  Specs’s eyes dropped, there was an awkward pause.

  “I’m sorry. He was a good man.” He paused, sweeping his eyes back over us. “Danielle, get Isobel to bring some food. I think it’s time we get to know our guests.”

  PREPVILLE

  It was astonishing to think this group of one hundred and fifty people were surviving better than most in the middle of this forest. But to Specs it wasn’t. He had lived his entire life hanging out with these kind of nutters. Funny how the tables turned when the world went to shit. People who had not prepared for the apocalypse were now the crazy ones. We learned that Theo, who was Danielle’s father, was in charge of the community. It was made up of a mixture of young and old. They all came from different neighborhood communities located in two cities: Denver and Colorado Springs.