Lockey vs. the Apocalypse | Book 2 | We Will Rise [Adrian's Undead Diary Novel]

by Meadows, Carl

  Strapping the rucksack tightly to his back and testing the weight, Dean moved the rifle back into position and left his home for the last time. He closed the door behind him but did not bother to lock it. If it could offer shelter to some survivor in the future, then at least some good would come of their empty home.

  “Maria?” he called out to the empty street, hearing the crack in his voice. It was a futile hope, he knew; the slimmest of chances she might be with an elderly neighbour in need. That was her way, and who she was. It was why he loved her.

  Only the echo of his voice answered in the quiet street.

  “Maria?” he called out once more, a little louder. Still no response, save for the sight of a solitary undead man shuffling into view out of a driveway, drawn to Dean’s despairing cry.

  Whispering a final prayer for her safety, and his heart a shattered remnant of its former glory, Dean knew deep in his soul he would hear no reply.

  Without looking back, Dean fought his way back to his SUV and set out for his new home, fighting tears all the way.

  Since that day, Dean had poured all his energy into making the Crenshaw campus as safe as he could make it. They all moved into a single building which had a clear view of the entrance gate, and Dean selected a room for himself on the first floor. If required, it would give him an elevated firing position over the open killing ground from the front gate to the admissions building at the forefront of campus.

  Lower windows were reinforced with lumber from the wood shop, and all the food was stored in the small canteen of the dorm building. Each of the four large dormitories had their own mini-canteen, multiple bathrooms, kitchen and dining area, and communal space for socialising. Dean took the room reserved for an adult dorm supervisor and stored all the weapons and ammunition in what was essentially a small, self-contained apartment. It had its own tiny bathroom with shower cubicle, toilet, and sink. In the main space there was a desk and chair, two-seater couch beneath the window, and a single bed in the corner. This was home now.

  Graham took one of the larger single rooms, and Sarah did not have to move. Final year students had the luxury of their own dormitory room in whatever hall they resided in, and this was her dorm, so she had no need to move. The only addition to her room were her newest possessions; a light Kevlar vest, a dark Glock 17 with holster, two spare magazines, and two boxes of 9mm ammunition.

  Zain also had his own room as a last year student, but he was forced to move his possessions from another building, and JJ was upgraded to a single room as she was the only other girl and needed privacy. The three remaining mid-teen boys all moved into a shared room that once would have housed six, but now there were just the three of them.

  The four halls were each named for the elements to give them more of an identity rather than just letters or numbers, and their small band of survivors had taken residence in Fire. He was not sure why, but that name just seemed appropriate to Dean.

  Dean had done numerous supply runs, clearing houses of undead and useful resources, but after hearing the thundering war in the distance back in August, supplies were harder to come by. For safety purposes, he was only striking at isolated clusters of housing, but they weren’t generating the supplies they needed to keep a balanced diet and their immune systems strong. They desperately needed to supplement their vitamin intake, and Sarah had pointed out that both she and JJ needed sanitary products, something a mid-forties man would never have considered.

  Their small band of survivors sat in the communal space on comfortable seating, each nursing a hot chocolate, the instant kind made by adding hot water to powdered mix. Dean mourned the lack of milk, as he would give his right foot for a good cup of tea right now. The October night outside was cold, and it had been raining hard for a couple of days, keeping them all housebound. Dean thanked God again for the welcome advantage of solar power and heating, and the hot beverage was comforting. He counted their small blessings.

  It was October 31st and there would have usually been Halloween celebrations at the school for those living on site. The remaining children were older and did not think to celebrate it, and Dean felt no desire to push them. The world beyond their walls was infested with the walking dead, so it was time to focus on the living.

  “I think we’re going to have to take a chance, and go to a pharmacy,” announced Dean when everyone was seated. “We need vitamin supplements, the ladies need specific products, and any medicines we get will be vital. The cold snap will be coming, and we’re likely to pick up colds and sniffles along the way.”

  “Do you have one in mind?” asked Graham, smacking his lips after sipping from his cup.

  Dean nodded. “There’s one I know at the very top of town, that’s down a side road, just enough off the beaten track that it can’t be seen from a main road. It’s not massive, it’s out of the way, and I’m hoping any looters won’t have thought of that one, instead going for the easier access ones. In truth, it’s also the closest. I don’t want to go any deeper into town than I have to.”

  “It sounds risky.”

  “It is,” agreed Dean. “But we can’t survive without some element of risk, which means I need hands to help while we provide security.” He turned to Sarah. “Time for your first test out in the field with a live weapon. You up to it?”

  To her credit, Sarah remained perfectly calm. “I’ve got your back,” she said with a single nod.

  Dean grinned. “We’ll need two more, just for speed of moving any goods out of the pharmacy and loading up, so Zain and Alex, you’re coming too as our elbow grease.”

  The two boys shared a surprised look that was half excitement and half fear at venturing out into the land of the dead.

  “Don’t get carried away,” warned Dean. “You do what I say, when I say, and don’t mess around. This is serious business, you hear me?”

  “Yes sir!” both boys intoned with eager nods.

  “Shall I bring my bow?” asked Alex tentatively.

  “Yes, but only as a last resort. This is a test as well, Alex, to see if you’ve got the temperament to let me consider you using that skill on the regular in the field. Skill is only one part of being on active duty. Attitude is just as – if not more - important. Understood?”

  The boy nodded. “Absolutely. Loud and clear.”

  “Okay then. As soon as the rain lets up and we’ve got a dry day, we’re going to move out.”

  The rain finally receded, and after a full dry day and the sky clearing, Dean set the outing into motion. Alex and Zain were both strapped into light Kevlar vests, helping to underline the very real danger that existed outside the walls of the campus, and Sarah checked and double checked her weapon. She was nervous, but that reassured Dean in a small way. Nerves meant she was taking the danger seriously and lessened the chance of any complacency.

  Dean took his usual loadout of the Glock and G36C and the four of them climbed into his Range Rover. In the boot, they’d loaded up a few backpacks from the school to make carrying any medicines they could recover quick and easy. This was a get in, load up, and get out mission. Direct to the pharmacy, do what they needed to do, and return to the school. After that, Dean would start planning their next move in hunting for more food. Having Sarah to back him up would hopefully help speed up those operations and he reminded himself to organise building clearance lessons with her. Having so many differing buildings on campus would give him varied options to test her developing skills, but for now, they were distant plans.

  “Everybody ready?” he asked as he closed the driver door. He turned to look at the two boys in the back seat. “All good?”

  Both boys gave a nod, clearly nervous.

  “We’re ready,” said Sarah, gifting him with a smile of reassurance. She looked so much like her mother at times. Each day the likeness to the late Andrea was growing.

  “Alright then. Buckle up. Let’s get this done.”

  The drive was relatively simple on the quiet roads. As they approache
d a right turn that would take them towards town, his three young passengers gaped at an old accident that had occurred back in the early days, when a speeding BMW coupe had smashed into a small Mini Cooper as it pulled from the junction, scattering debris all over the road. The three of them gasped as they passed it, seeing an undead woman still strapped into the Mini, the white eyes and silent snap of her jaws a chilling accompaniment to the broken arms reaching for them. In the back seat of her car, the tall sides of a child seat poked up above the rear window, though the twist of the metal prevented them from seeing if there was a child still strapped in. They were not ready for such sights yet, so Dean thanked the Lord for such a small mercy.

  “Is that what it’s like everywhere?” asked Alex in a small voice as they made the turn.

  “It is,” confirmed Dean. “Out here, you’ll find little hope. Only tragedy and sights you can never unsee.”

  The three youngsters remained silent at that. Dean did not like to seem so negative or dramatic, but managing their expectations was more important than protecting their innocence. While he did not feel the need to force such macabre sights as undead children still strapped into car seats on them, they needed to know that the things they might see would affect them. The dead had risen to murder the living, and society as they knew it had fallen. Life was forever changed.

  As they started passing a few clusters of housing on the outskirts of town, the three passengers stared out of the windows constantly, drinking in the stillness of the world around them. The road was devoid of traffic, no people were tending their gardens, no red-faced joggers with their earphones in, and no cyclists frustrating drivers by taking up the whole lane on the winding road.

  “It’s so still and silent,” said Sarah absently, her eyes drinking in the apparent tranquility. “Like we’re driving through a landscape painting.”

  “That’s a neat way to describe it,” replied Dean. “It won’t stay like that, mind you. We’re approaching the top of town now, so sightseeing is over, sweetheart.”

  Sarah turned to look at him, forcing an expression of tight focus to her youthful face. She nodded, saying nothing more, and idly rested a hand on the gun sheathed at her hip.

  As he neared the end of the long road, Dean could see there was already a mound of twisted metal across the approaching junction. He had not entered town this way before, but it was the easiest way to access the small pharmacy, which was about two hundred yards from that junction. When he had visited town on some of his early excursions, he had used a couple of different routes that kept him far from the town centre, where traffic accidents would have caused difficult snarls in road access.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as he neared the junction. From a distance, he had imagined a mountain of mangled vehicles and undead interspersed among them. As he neared however, it was clear that much of the traffic must have been able to get around the obstacles by mounting paths and grass verges usually reserved for pedestrians. As he neared, the vehicle jolted as he mounted the small pavement, using the same tactic as previous drivers. Driving over a wide, flat grass area and following the road to the right, he spied the small left turn where the pharmacy was situated.

  There were corpses littering the scene of the accident, which drew the eye of the three youngsters as Dean concentrated on driving.

  “Uncle Dean?”

  “Yeah?” he said absently as he steered carefully round an obstacle.

  “I can see about twelve or thirteen dead in the road. Not undead, but dead.”

  “And?”

  “From what I can tell, they’ve all been shot in the head.”

  That gave him pause. “Say again?”

  “They all look like they’ve been shot in the head, and quite recently, as they don’t seem particularly rotted or bloated. As though they’ve recently been put down.”

  Worried thoughts of the warring armed groups entered his mind, but he kept his fears to himself in case the younger ones started to panic.

  “Well then we best just get in and get out as we planned, eh?” He tried to keep his tone casual. “Anyway, we’re here now.”

  He gestured to a small, glass-fronted store that looked like it was just another house in a small row of terraces. Only the large glass window, and a green and white cross on the small sign jutting above it, signified its difference to the handful of residences.

  “Looks like someone already looted the place,” observed Zain as they pulled up to the kerb beside it.

  The glass front of the door was smashed, and the door itself was half-open. From her closer vantage on the left side, Sarah moved her head about, angling to look through the window.

  “Most of the shelves are actually still untouched,” she said.

  “I was half-expecting this in truth,” said Dean. “The main thought on people’s minds will be the strong stuff, like the codeine, morphine substitutes, tramadol, other opiates, that kind of stuff. Addicts and criminals will have taken the opportunity with the new lawless existence to take what they need for a fix. That’s not what we’re here for though, even though they would have been a bonus. We want ointments, dressings, cold and flu treatment, antibiotics, cough linctus, female sanitary products, and every bottle, box, and packet of vitamin supplements you can find.”

  “How do we know what’s of use?” asked Zain.

  Dean reeled off common antibiotic names picked up from two decades of marriage to Maria. Having a nurse practitioner for a wife lent itself to simple absorption of information over time.

  “If in doubt, take everything you can,” said Sarah.

  “Hold up!” said Dean as they all moved to get out of the car. “Nobody’s going anywhere until I’ve been in that building and made sure it’s clear of living and dead.”

  “It’s tiny,” started Zain. “Can’t we…”

  “Complacency kills, Zain,” cut in Sarah, ending any debate before it could begin. “We wait here.”

  Dean smiled approvingly at her. You’ll be just fine, sweetheart, he thought with pride.

  The police officer swept through the small pharmacy in less than a minute, checking the back office and small storeroom as well. The tiny store was free of living or dead and he stepped back outside, beckoning the three of them from the vehicle.

  “Okay, good to go,” he declared. “The shelves behind the counter are mostly swept clean, but in the back storeroom there are unopened deliveries and extra storage boxes. The looters didn’t think beyond the prescription stuff behind the counter, so let’s move and get what we need. I want to be out of here as soon as we can. Sarah, help them for now while I stand watch. If things start to get edgy out here, I’ll holler.”

  The young woman nodded and immediately assumed a position of command over the two boys, even though Zain was only a few months her junior. Her confidence was infectious though, and the two boys responded to her without question.

  They had been going only fifteen minutes when the chugging of a diesel engine caught Dean’s attention. His eyes drifted up the road they had taken, and he watched in creeping dread as a Humvee rolled into sight, crawling toward them. Thankfully, there was no light machine gun mounted on it, but there was the visible top half of a black-clad man looking his way, a bolt-action rifle in hand. For now, the barrel was pointed up.

  “Stay in the store,” hissed Dean, just as Sarah was approaching the door. “Get everyone back. I’ll try and deal with this.”

  Sarah said nothing, following his instruction and ushering the two boys to the back of the store.

  The Humvee was a military transport, not the commercial Hummer model purchased by those with deep pockets looking for status. It looked like an older model, desert tan in colour, but it was clearly up armoured. Such vehicles could be purchased commercially from surplus by those with pockets deep enough, but the sight of it left Dean feeling cold. The men in the vehicle could be ex-military, or they could just be maniacs with access to money and guns. Neither option was comforting if the
ir intentions were hostile, but if they were, he would rather be facing the latter.

  He raised a hand in greeting, trying to disarm any situation immediately with a friendly smile and visible display of non-aggression.

  The Humvee rolled to a stop around twenty feet away and Dean sucked in a breath as the man sticking out the roof lowered the rifle in his direction.

  The vehicle opened and three more men exited, all of them dressed in combat BDU’s, military boots, armoured in light Kevlar vests and a variety of sidearms at their hips. A couple of them looked to be carrying semi-automatics, but the man who strode to the fore of the group had what looked like a .357 Magnum revolver at his side.

  The leader, if that’s what he was, carried no other visible weapon and strode forward, confident his comrade’s Ruger was fixed on Dean from the top of their vehicle. If Dean even twitched in a manner they did not like, a .22 rifle bullet would come his way and there was little he could do about it.

  Behind the leader, one man carried a Mossberg shotgun, while the other held an MP5 submachine gun with a folding stock, much like the couple Dean had appropriated from the constabulary locker. The leader probably had a larger weapon in the Humvee but was confident enough that he did not need it. The three junior men all looked to be in their late twenties, while the leader looked to be early thirties. All of them had close cropped hair in a military fashion.

  Dean was outnumbered and most definitely outgunned.

  “Good morning,” he said to the lead man.

  His eyes shrouded by a pair of aviator sunglasses, the man nodded once, reaching up a hand to scratch at his stubble and affecting a casual stance.

  “Morning friend,” he replied. His voice was deep and gravelled. He gestured to the rifle across Dean’s chest. “Have to say, seeing someone with that kind of hardware out here is damn rare.”

  “I’m a police sergeant and authorised firearms officer,” he said, purposefully leaving out his specialist title. The less they knew about him the better. “When everything went to hell, I grabbed what I could. Got this, a little bit of ammo, and the Glock. Not much, but it’s kept me alive.”