The Wild Ones (Book 2) Read online

  “Shit.”

  Alexa was closest to the back. She hopped up and sank her knife into a rotten scalp only to find it coming off in her hand. It was the sickest shit I’d ever seen. A mass of tangled hair, and bloody pus. Now I’d like to say we disposed of those four and remained as poised as we were when we entered, but that didn’t happen. One of the dead stumbled over a chair and collapsed, causing the chair to bounce off the tiled floor and clatter. My head jerked to my left just as the tidal wave of Zs looked our way.

  Forget knives.

  Gunfire erupted.

  A burst of bullets.

  The staccato filled the air, and the dead dropped.

  “Move out!” Nick shouted motioning towards the rear of the restaurant. The four that had entered weren’t alone; others had stumbled in hoping to take the same shortcut. Nick cleared through that cramped and dingy hallway with multiple three-fire bursts. We moved as one unit covering our ass on all sides as we broke out into the fading light.

  My heart sank as we emerged and made a run for the pier. Envision being at a football game and having both teams chasing you down, now quadruple that and add all the spectators in the stands. That would give you a taste of what it was like, so to speak.

  There was no time to go rooting through a boat for a flare. We had only one goal, and that was to make it to the water without being torn to shreds.

  “I hope you can swim!” Daniels yelled as he unleashed a flurry of rounds in a raking fashion to take down more than one at a time. My legs couldn’t carry me fast enough. I had a flashback of being in school and hearing our physical education teacher yelling at all the kids while we were doing cross-country. He was an unusual instructor and I’m pretty sure he had originally aspired to be a motivational teacher like Anthony Robbins as he would throw in all these clichéd sayings like… You Can If You Think You Can and Grow Through What You Go Through. Yeah, I know it was kinda lame but I gotta say the weirdest shit goes through a person’s mind when you’re running for your life. It’s like your brain’s freaking out and trying to come up with any good reason to keep your legs moving so you can survive.

  Ahead, Daniels continued to cut through the fast ones. There was only one other person as accurate at shooting and that was Lola and geesh did that girl shine in those final minutes. It was headshot after headshot.

  As they say, all the best plans in the world don’t mean shit when you’re running from a Z. Everything goes out the window, that’s because survival at its basic core is doing whatever you have to do in order to be the one still standing.

  Ten feet.

  Five feet.

  Three feet.

  I launched myself off the pier even before reaching the edge. My body slammed into the water. A huge gasp as the cold swallowed me. I came up gasping and swimming as fast as I could away from the edge. I turned to see each of the others do the same while my brother and Tobias swept their rifles side to side to give everyone a chance to put some distance between themselves and the approaching mass. It was one hell of a sight, like an out-of-control mob.

  As Ryland made it to the edge he stopped.

  “What are you doing?” Nick shouted. “Get in.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t swim.”

  I began heading back as Nick shoved him in and he disappeared below the surface. I dived into the murky depths, my eyes scanning. Then I spotted him. I clamped hold of his collar and hauled him in just as a Z came over the edge.

  Nick and Tobias were already in, swimming for their lives.

  I kicked at the Z while at the same time trying to prevent myself from being drowned by Ryland who was panicking and clawing up me like the mast on a sinking ship.

  “Nick!” I yelled. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to help him and keep the dead away as they were spilling over the edge into the water one after the other, a steady stream. Sure they couldn’t swim and were sinking but they sure as hell could pull me down, and right now one of them had hold of my leg while another was trying to sink its less than pearly whites into my throat.

  A bullet whizzed past my ear, then another and another.

  I figured it was Daniels. He was always harping on about keeping his weapon above the water, But it wasn’t. As I twisted, coming towards us were three high-speed boats, each carrying multiple military personnel. On each boat was a .50 caliber machine gun and right now they were tearing up the harbor and knocking down Zs like wildfire.

  Free of the pus bag that thought he’d snagged himself a human happy meal, I worked my way around Ryland and told him to stop resisting otherwise we would both drown. Unharmed but exhausted I swam a short distance until someone with a firm grip latched on to my collar and hauled me into the safety of a steel boat. Coughing and spluttering, I emptied my stomach over the bottom of the boat and looked up to see a hard-nosed Marine.

  “Any of you bitten?” he growled.

  “No.”

  He didn’t take my word for it. One of them held me down while another did a quick check. He slapped me on the back. “All good. Let’s get your folks inside Haven.”

  “Haven?” I asked as he helped me to a seat.

  He pointed towards the safe zone.

  Ryland snorted out snot from his nostril before saying, “Well, you did it again, Evans.”

  I rubbed water out of my eyes.

  “Did what?”

  “Stole my thunder.” He laughed and extended his hand. “But thank you.”

  The motors on the boats let out a roar as they veered around and bounced over the dark waves, leaving behind frothy white foam. I ran a hand over my face and one of the soldiers tossed me a towel. “Here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Long Lake, New York.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Ryland looked at me and smiled as we both replied, “You don’t want to know.”

  So there we were, far from home, having traveled over two hundred and ninety-two miles, survived a savage attack by unruly skinheads and barely made it through the city of the living dead by the skin of our teeth. We didn’t know what horrors would befall us tomorrow, what secrets Haven held, who was in charge or if we would ever see an end to the infected. All we knew was life was no longer the same. Gone were the comforts of a world that catered to our every whim and desire. Hope was now found in the pockets of society that hadn’t succumbed to the virus. And although there was no guarantee that a cure would be found, or that the surviving government would help us, we followed Diane into Haven holding out hope that whatever research she had conducted would be enough to turn the tide. Until then, we would serve, live and fight alongside each other until the country was free.

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  A Plea

  Thank you for reading The Wild Ones 2. If you enjoyed the book, I would really appreciate it if you would consider leaving a review. Without reviews, an author’s books are virtually invisible on the retail sites. It also lets me know what you liked. It also motivates me to write more books. You can leave a review by visiting the book’s page. I would greatly appreciate it. It only takes a couple of seconds.

  Thank you — Jack Hunt

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  Thank you for buying The Wild Ones 2, published by Direct Response Publishing.

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  About the Author

  Jack Hunt is the best-selling author of horror, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic novels. He currently has three books out in the War Buds series, three books in the Camp Zero series, three books out in the Agora Virus series, five books out in the Renegades series, one book out in the The Armada series, a time travel book called Killing Time, a science fiction book called Blackout, another called Darkest Hour, another called Final Impact and ano
ther called Mavericks: Hunters Moon. Jack lives on the East coast of North America.

  www.jackhuntbooks.com

  [email protected]