Renegade Z: The Battlefield Z Series

By Chris Lowry

How far would you go to keep your kids safe?

 

He's found two of his three children and he's on the hunt for the third.

 

The odds of finding her are a million to one.

 

But never tell him the odds.

 

It's going to take grit, courage and a whole lot of rage to fight his way to find her while he leads a ragtag group of survivors from one safe haven to the other.

 

The clues say she's still alive.

 

Can he find her in time?

 

Find out in the series fans of the dead walking and action packed thrillers packed with heart stay up all night swiping.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Lowry
• Release date: Mar 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9798215907870

Chris Lowry

Chris Lowry is an author and adventure seeker who has traveled the globe exploring new worlds and writing about his thrilling experiences. With over one hundred thrillers, science fiction, and urban fantasy novels to his name, as well as more than a thousand articles published across various publications, Chris has established himself as a master storyteller and a leading voice in the world of action and adventure. Whether he's fighting off hordes of undead in a post-apocalyptic wasteland or braving the depths of outer space, Chris is always ready for his next thrilling adventure. Follow his journey as he battles against impossible odds and becomes the hero that the world needs.

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Chris Lowry

Renegade Z a post apocalyptic action adventure

Copyright © 2023 by Chris Lowry

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

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Contents

RENEGADE ZOMBIE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

RENEGADE ZOMBIE

I’m pissed.

I’m not worried about my kids, at least not my two oldest.

Scattered to the wind again by another crazy survivor.

She sent my boy to a depot in Nashville, and his older sister abandoned the township in the company of a scout I trust, another kid I’d crossed half the country with.

Everyone was scattered to the wind, but it gave me purpose.

And anger.

What should have been a simple drive across the country, pick up my two oldest, drive back to grab my youngest and find someplace to hide out the end of the world had turned into a cluster.

Most of it wasn’t even my fault.

I just piss people off. I guess it’s my face.

Granted, before the zombie apocalypse I was only considered marginally handsome by a select group of genius women.

Even as my hairline receded, they blamed it on excess testosterone and told me I looked like my father.

Since the end of the world, I’d been shot, blown up, grazed, beaten, bullied, made fun of and even hanged.

Those tend to leave scars and now, though I could not often see my reflection, I looked more like Frankenstein’s monster than I did the C-suite ladder climbing salesman I was before it all started.

Or maybe just a really unlucky boxer, one who wasn’t that great at fighting, but was tenacious.

A real life Rocky fist fighting for life against Z, mad militias, religious nutters and assorted maniacs that gravitated to power after the Armageddon stole almost all the good people.

Which made me wonder why I was so good at surviving if all the good ones were gone.

Philosophy would come later.

First, find the boy.

Save the boy.

Second, find Bis.

Save the world.

My world at least.

And yes, those were nicknames for the kids, which stuck.

The girl’s based on the banana fana song, and the Boy by the fact of being the only one in the mix.

I thought I’d have to do it alone.

Find and save my kids.

But after I used some samurai logic on the madwoman in Kentucky and her group of Colonel’s that sent the boy to Nashville, a yellow bus popped up on my horizon.

I planned for another fight and got a pleasant surprise.

It was more people from my second family, there to help.

CHAPTER TWO

My kids are gone, I said to Brian.

We’ll find them, Anna rubbed the small of my back.

She knew touch was going to keep me grounded, something instinctual.

I imagined they could hear my heart pounding against my chest, breath constricted in fear.

The Boy, lost, sent away by Mags on a fool’s errand.

Bem and Tyler missing, gone after him perhaps.

Or killed and hidden.

Bis somewhere on the East Coast.

Every turn, someone trying to stop me from reaching my kids, someone trying to keep me from making them safe.

How many men had I killed who stood in my way?

I lost count.

A thousand zombies. Maybe more.

I’d kill a million more if that’s what it took.

The rubbing on my back stopped.

Something in the woods, Anna breathed.

Her brown eyes were pools of darkness as she stared through the afternoon shadows trying to pick out what it was.

I ran my hand along the back of her waist, pulled a pistol she had tucked there and stalked to the front of the yellow bus.

My look shut everyone up.

Brian’s hands waved them down to make smaller targets or get ready to run.

I leaned against the edge of the hood to use as cover, scanning the tree line, trying to look for patterns, searching for whatever didn’t fit.

The shadows under an oak shifted, moved.

Bodies.

Lumbering through the trees, slow.

I lifted the pistol, aimed and got ready to fire.

The body moved under the darkest part of the tree, half hidden by the trunk.

Coming this way.

I took a quick look over my shoulder, did a head count.

If it was Z, I could get it before it got too close.

A spiked gumball bounced off the hood of the bus with a loud clang. I looked back and saw the shadow Z launch a sidearm pitch.

Another gumball whizzed by my head, and I lowered the pistol.

Z don’t pitch. Z don’t throw.

Then Tyler stepped out of the woods.

Thought you were going to shoot me, he called out.

Bem stepped out behind him, bundled up in his jacket.

Us, she called.

I don’t remember running. I don’t recall scooping her up or spinning her around, and those weren’t my tears leaking all over the place.

I set her down and grabbed Tyler’s outstretched forearm, pulled the slight boy into a hard hug.

We know where they sent him, Bem said.

I was going to track, Tyler confessed. But it’s a straight highway shot.

How far behind are we?

I led them back to the group.

Days, said Tyler.

They could have gone off track, I said, thinking to myself.

Not with the guy they have leading, said Tyler. I eavesdropped on him. He’s a by the book dude.

By the book.

Words that would never apply to me.

Throw the book, sure, or crack open a book, always.

But my life up until the Z had not been lived by any set of rules.

Which is how I ended up mid-level management in a cube farm, nursing rage daily at the constraints of a life I hadn’t chosen.

Or I guess a life my choices led me to live.

Two kids in one state, a third in another. Two ex-wives. Money coming in, because that’s all their moms told me I was good for.

Other men raising my children.