Read Online The Renegades 2 Aftermath (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller) by Jack Hunt - Free Book Online

restful night of sleep but it wasn’t. Caitlin turned sometime in the early hours of the morning. Izzy had taken it upon herself to end it. Caitlin didn’t want to shoot herself before she turned. It never ceased to amaze me how badly I felt after losing someone that I had only briefly known. Though it was the same long before the apocalypse. Every year I would hear of someone who had passed away from cancer, suicide, or an overdose. It would hit me in the core. I would feel the loss, regardless of how well I knew them. Maybe it’s because we are all connected in some unseen way?
    Benjamin had closed the rolling shutters later that evening. The use of blacked-out paint was to prevent anyone who might be passing by from seeing light. He covered the small area that wasn’t painted with duct tape. In the morning he removed it and looked out. We didn’t learn much from him that night. He was quiet and aloof. That morning he had made it known that when this had all kicked off he was part of the police department. He was one of the SWAT team. He didn’t really own the stores, but he had made them his own. For the longest of time he lived off food from the shelves next door. It was eventually raided by a gang. Thankfully he had managed to keep them out of Wilderness Outfitters with the shutters. The fake wall he’d built was his final form of protection. It worked well because it was pitch-dark inside. Anyone else would have just seen a dead end at the end of a hallway.
    “Have you seen many of these gangs?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.
    He laughed. “This city is full of them.”
    “Where are they? We never saw them coming in.”
    “You will. They are out there, like rats. I’m sure they are holed inside an apartment or the shopping center.”
    “You make it sound as though there are a lot of them.”
    Benjamin pulled away from the window to look at me.
    “Most days of the week my team and I were raiding drug houses in the city. There are over three hundred gangs in this region. You think the Z’s are deadly? You don’t want to encounter them. They are merciless.”
    He returned to looking out.
    “So why haven’t you left here?” Dax asked, scooping melon from a can into his mouth.
    “Where would I go?”
    “I don’t know. Look for others?”
    He scoffed. “People are dead. This is it. This is life now.”
    “So you are just going to stay holed up in this place? What about when all the food is gone?”
    “I’ll go out for more and bring it back.”
    “Come with us. We could use a man of your skills.”
    He shook his head. “Where are you going?”
    “Wherever they were broadcasting from. That’s where we’re heading.”

OVERRUN
    B enjamin wasn’t keen on going with us. His reluctance to leave was odd. He stood a better chance of survival in a group. But somehow he didn’t see it that way. I assumed he was used to working with a team. That he would have jumped at the chance. I figured there was something that he wasn’t telling us.
    Johnny and the others crowded round a table and stared at the map of the city. Benjamin knew the place like the back of his hand. He mentioned that the signal could have been broadcast from any one of the three thousand radio stations, but more than likely it came from the CDC. He took a red marker and circled its location, then mapped out several routes. The closest to us was a large radio station. Benjamin said they were known for providing the latest news for Salt Lake City.
    “You know what you are attempting is a suicide mission,” he said.
    “Every time we step a foot outside, it’s potential suicide,” I replied.
    “If Z’s don’t get you, one of the gangs will.”
    “More reason for you to come with us. We could use the help,” Johnny said.
    He shook his head. “No.”
    “Ok, well, what about weapons?” Baja asked.
    “Take whatever you can find from the storage out back. Most of the goods in the store itself were looted by a gang who broke in a