Free The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) by Jack Hunt

They said they were going back to the store.”
    Specs’s family owned an RV about two miles out of town. It wasn’t exactly an RV as it was a cover for an underground shelter. On the outside it looked like your typical family camper van. But when you went inside, they had a trap door, and a ladder that went down into an abandoned silo built into a mine. The mine stretched for miles beneath the surface of the town. If you had claustrophobia you just didn’t go down there. At least the one below our saloon and museum was tight. The tours only took you a small way into the mineshaft, just enough to give you a taste of the history. But you couldn’t live down there. But that was exactly what his family had done. Built it in an abandoned section. They had secured it with metal beams. The whole nine yards. It was fucking amazing. One hundred feet underground. The silo had penetrated three tunnels. It had five levels. A living area, bedding, and a place for storing two years’ supply of food, an arsenal of guns, and a ten thousand gallon water tank. It had Sub-Zero appliances, Wolf ranges, and everything that made it livable for years.
    Baja was a little anxious too. His family was out of town at the time everything hit. He was a strange guy. One moment he would be talking about his family. Worry spread across his face. The next, acting as if this whole thing was nothing more than a video game.
    Izzy kept her distance from Dax. I was keen to know what her story was. I never got to know her. She was someone who didn’t hang out with Jessica as she was one year older than us. She was a stunner. Blonde, green eyes and had long legs. Jess was hot in my opinion but Izzy certain gave her a run for her money. I could see why Dax had been banging her. I mean dating her.
    Out of all of us Dax appeared the most calm. He hadn’t faced a war like this. OK, he had done one tour over in Iraq but that was it. Maybe that better prepared him for it. The closest we had come to war was Call of Duty, and I was shit at that.
    “Man, I could go for some ganja around about now,” Scot said.
    I got up. That was one thing I remembered Matt’s old man having. He kept this little stash in a plastic container in his bathroom. There was a small hatch just beside the bath. It was meant to look like the wall, but if you pressed it, it would go in and boom. There it was. I pulled the bag out. The opening was full of papers, ganja, and a bottle of Glenfiddich, fifteen-year-old malt whiskey. It was entitled appropriately, Wounded Warriors. He had a liquor cabinet but he always kept the best stuff hidden away. Matt had found it by accident. The few times I had slept over and his old man was out, we would smoke up a mushroom cloud in his room, and do shots. I felt an ache. I missed him. He would have got a kick out of us being in here now.
    When I came back into the room, I tossed the container down and Scot’s eyes widened. Baja shot up like a spring was attached to his ass. He pointed his finger at me.
    “Dude. You. Are the man.” Baja was the kind of guy who always wanted first dibs on anything. Dax rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t touch it. That was just like him. His body was a temple, he would say. Like what the fuck was he expecting? To end up on the front cover of Men’s Weekly ? If ever there was a reason to puff back on a little ganja, now was the time. Instead he opted to keep an eye out the window. Though he did have a drink of whiskey.
    With the window partly open, we all heard the moans of the dead. It was a reminder that we couldn’t get drunk. We had to stay vigilant if we were going to survive. It would only take a moment for us to drop our guard and it would be our last.
    However, that didn’t stop us passing around a joint like a pipe of peace.
    That evening we relished what little remained of our sanity. I knew the coming days were going to test each of us in ways we couldn’t even begin to imagine. We would need each other. This was