The dog had gone arse over tit into the footwell of the pickup. The fucking dog must have stepped on the trigger and somehow fired the weapon, and the recoil thrown the poor little bastard as it cannoned backwards from the blast. However, that freak firing had blown the fat zombie’s head clean away. It must have been in the perfect place to shred fat boy but leave me untouched by the spread of buckshot. A completely freak occurrence.
“You are one lucky fucking dog,” I said, spitting another chunk of fat guy from my mouth.
I gave Particles a baleful look as he sat in the footwell. One might even say I looked outraged.
He just licked his nose and gave me the same look back.
Particles did it better.
Nate finished his execution of the horde and appeared above me.
“Holy shit,” he said, seeing me drenched in undead goop.
“Now will you believe me?”
“Eh?”
I pushed myself to my feet, leaning into the truck and pulling Particles out, holding him up to Nate’s face. Naturally, Particles looked outraged by this turn of events.
“He saved my life against Peg-leg Patricia,” I said. “He got us a new truck and gun, he saved us getting side-swiped by a box truck full of zombies, and now he’s just shot a fucking zombie with a shotgun! Come on, Nate! Now you’ve got to accept the truth! Particles is a lucky dog! Without him, we’d be fucked!” I stopped then. “What was the deal with the truck by the way?”
Nate shrugged. “No idea. Driver must have been bitten a while back and died at the wheel. He’d reanimated and I had to put him down after dropping his passengers.”
“Makes no sense.”
“Nothing in this world makes sense anymore, Erin.”
“Ah HA!” I said, seizing the day. “That’s where you’re wrong. Keeping Particles makes sense, you have to admit! He’s now a member of the team, right?”
Nate looked at me for a long time before the ghost of a smile haunted his lips.
“Okay, the dog can stay.”
“Yes!”
I made Particles do an involuntary victory dance in the air, which he naturally looked outraged by.
“Just to be clear,” added Nate. “He’s not part of the team because he’s lucky.”
I frowned. “Then why?”
Nate quirked a smile at one side of his mouth.
“Because he’s killed more zombies than you.”
For the first time in my life, I was speechless. I turned Particles to face me and stared at him.
Outraged.
PART 3
NEGATIVE ENERGY
9th Entry
I THINK IT’S JULY?
Hola amigo! I haven’t written anything in a while, but I found this shiny new notebook. It’s pink with hearts, stars and rainbows all over the cover. It’s absolutely fucking awful and looks like a unicorn threw up on it, but it will serve my purpose. And that purpose is recording the new adventures of Erin Locke (loud applause), Nate Carter (muted polite applause), and Particles, my lucky pug (and the crowd goes wild!)
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote anything. The apocalypse has been in full flow for roughly a month now and Nate, Particles and I have been touring the countryside like some shit BBC show following B-roads and seeing the back-country sights of this green and pleasant land. Nate had a hard-on for always being mobile, never stopping in one place too long, but it’s really starting to grate on me now.
Like, really.
I really want a bath, or shower, or I’m gonna be able to pass myself off as a zombie soon enough with the death stench rising from my pits and crotch. I’m no girly girl that needs pampering, but I am a normal human being that likes to at least be clean.
So, what have we been up to?
Well, Nate taught me to shoot. Not with his pistol, as he says that his ammo stash is limited for that and it’s too important a weapon, but after Particles’ magic powers helped us discover a new shotgun with two boxes of shells, he showed me how to use that.
Put a controller in my hand on Call of Duty, I’m the baddest stone-cold bitch that ever pulled a trigger.
The first time I fired a real shotgun, I fell over and squealed, as it felt like someone had smacked me in the tit with a hammer.
Fucking hell! Shotguns kick like a mule on PCP. This is not like the movies. Shooting is fucking hard and it’s doubly annoying that Nate makes it look so damn easy.
Anyway, I’ve got the basics, and Nate showed me how to take shit apart and clean it, as apparently that’s super important for reliability. We need some more supplies in that regard, which is partly why we’ve been hitting up every remote farmhouse we can find, as that’s likely the only places we’ll find shotgun ammo and cleaning stuff. As it turns out, the fucker was right. We’re pretty fat on shotgun goodies now, but Nate’s starting to get all twitchy about his Glock ammo. Nine-mil is a bit harder to find in rural Cheshire (like… zero chance except for police stations with AFO capability) and he says he’s okay for now, but still.
It’s starting to get a bit old now though. With Driving Miss Daisy here rolling around at fifteen miles an hour, it’s boring beyond belief. Also, being stuck in a car with a sweaty man and a dog is pretty rank. If either one of those two drops a fart in the car, I swear you’ll still be chewing on it an hour later. Just gross.
Also, I’m getting sick of squatting in bushes when I need to go potty.
Generally, I’m just sick of it. I need some interaction with people. I’m a social person, I need conversation, banter and bullshitting. Nate has the conversational desire of a brick and he’s all business, all the time.
Plus, the only sign of people I see are undead ones. Nate is only a marginally better conversationalist than the zombies, and he doesn’t try to bite my pretty face off, but surely the whole point of an apocalypse is we have to come together and rebuild? Surely?
Not for Gunny Highway here, though.
Anyway, our hand was starting to get forced as I caught Nate glancing down at the dash repeatedly yesterday.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Low fuel,” he rumbled back. He’s so economical with words, shortening his sentences to the minimal amount. You can see why he’s a pain in the ass.
“What’s our stash like?”
“Almost gone,” he said.
“Great,” I muttered. “And here we are, crawling around the arse end of nowhere. Don’t think we’re gonna find a petrol station in…” I looked out the window. “Where even the fuck are we? As far as I can tell, we’re in fucking Narnia.”
“You swear a lot,” he observed.
“Well fuck-a-doodle do, Sherlock, nothing gets past you.”
That was pretty unfair, but you have to understand, the old bastard was really getting under my skin by this time. The last thing I needed was some old soldier telling me I cursed a lot ‘for a girl’. Thankfully, those three words hadn’t been tacked on as yet, but I swear the minute he does, bad-ass soldier or not, I’m dick-punching him.
Nate said nothing to my childish response, which is just as infuriating. You know when you really feel like having it out? Like a really cathartic screaming match to blow out the dust? I was ready for one of them, but Nate never bites. He just cocks that infuriating eyebrow at you and says nothing more, making you feel like a whiny little twat. Bastard.
We trundled on in silence for a little while more, and it was starting to get dark.
“We’ll sleep in the car tonight,” Nate announced. “Can’t afford to trundle around in the night looking for a new place to stay. We’ll be alright out here.” He declared this as he pulled into a rough imitation of a lay-by and put the pickup in park.
“Seriously? In the car? With you and a pug?” I swore again, just to piss Nate off. “I’m making you a solemn promise that if you start to snore like an asthmatic ogre, I will throat-punch you.”
Nate’s mouth just quirked in the twitch of a smile, just for a moment.
I was awoken sometime after dark. It wasn’t super late, maybe around ten, but there was an obvious change to the world outside. I shit you not, my dearest reader, I could hear fucking drums in the distance. Not war drums, like a Zulu horde was suddenly going to appear on the horizon, but really shit random drumming, like the contents of a percussion studio had been handed to a bunch of three-year olds smacked up on sugar and left unsupervised. And there was something like singing, or chanting, or some of the shittiest karaoke I’ve ever heard in my life. It carried on the quiet night air and all I could think was, “You know there’s a fucking apocalypse, right?”
Nate and I had our chairs clocked all the way back for sleep and I was about to sit up when his hand rested lightly on my arm. I glanced over at him and he just shook his head, the movement barely perceptible in the gloom, as he lifted one finger to his mouth to shut me up before I said anything dumb. Then he pointed at my window.
My arse nearly dropped clean out as I spied the silhouette of a shambling figure, not two feet from my door, shuffle blindly past. I was too afraid to even shudder in horror in case I made any kind of sound at all, then another went past, and another. Every one of them was silent as a crypt, only the odd scrape of a shoe on asphalt disturbing the night air.
Super creepy.
I swear, I was twitching and sweating like Anne Frank in a pair of tap shoes as the undead wandered blindly past us, and looked down to Particles, feeling the little guy shiver under my hand. He was scared witless, which was much better than him barking some challenge at the undead and drawing them to us. He’s a good pooch and knows when to keep his mouth shut.
I watched in cold silence, hugging Particles to me, as about eight or nine undead shambled past us up the country road, drawn to the constant wall of noise by the morons in the distance. All three of us remained perfectly still, not even the twitch of a muscle, until the group had passed us by.
We waited in silence for another hour, the same stupid drumming and chanting banging away for at least another thirty minutes. No more undead shuffled past and finally, we started to relax.
Didn’t get much sleep that night, though.
Shit, I’d never been so damn happy for the sun to come up and the world have the lights flicked back on again.
“What was that drumming last night, do you think?” I asked Nate.
He shrugged. “No idea, but whoever they are, they’re thick as shit.”
“We should go warn them,” I said, excited at the prospect of new people.
Nate shook his head in the negative. “They made their choice. Can’t risk it.”
“What if they don’t know, Nate?” I said. “What if they’ve no idea the world’s shat itself?”
“How can anyone not know?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t say I had the answers. But come on, we know there are other people nearby now. Let’s find them. Strength in numbers blah blah blah.”
Nate snorted, spooning more beans from a can into his cavernous maw.
“Those numbers sound more like a hindrance than help.”
He was starting to get on my nerves now.
“Look, you big miserable bastard, there are people nearby who might not know if the world is even ass-fucked by razor blades, but more than that, there are simply people.” I threw my hands up, exasperated by his spectacular lack of give-a-shit. “What’s the fucking point carrying on living like this, Nate? Huh? Crawling around, picking over graves and empty farmhouses for little bits of food, a splash of diesel here and there, maybe some nice shotgun cleaning supplies or ammo. That’s all very well as a start, but that isn’t any life, Nate. This is just a fucking existence. I want people. I want a bath. I want to stop moving just for a little fucking while as we figure all this shit out!”
I was almost panting by this stage, shoulders heaving and spitting my words through clenched teeth.
“Fuck, I want some clean clothes!” I moaned. “I swear my sports bra has fucking mould growing on it right now. Hell, I just want to take my damn bra off for an evening.”
Clearly my brassiere talk made Nate a little uncomfortable, what with him being so old school and what not, so obviously—being the little shit that I am—I jumped on that like a predator.
“I think new life is starting to grow in my under-boob, Nate,” I said, my mood improving with each new squirm. “A whole species of tit-fungus is growing in those dark and dank places. I need to give them a good scrub and let them air for a bit. Same with my crotch.” He visibly blanched as I moved the conversation below. “I swear upon all that is holy and sacred, my lady-garden has turned into the Amazon in rainy season with all the sweat down there.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hand up in defeat to stop me talking. “Shit, we’ll go take a look. No promises if we’ll stay, but fucking hell Erin, please, stop jabbering about your bits.”
Victorious, I gave him a haughty nod, like I was royalty granting my approval to a peasant soldier.
“Well… good,” I said imperiously.
People.
Sweet. I couldn’t wait. I was so looking forward to it. Potentially a community, and if I was really lucky, they’d have some kind of running water for a bath or shower. I don’t even care if it’s cold. I just want to stop smelling like a zombie shat me out yesterday and left me to bake in the sun.
Well, we met those new people. I’m going to give my hand a rest before I introduce you to our new friends.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
Buckle up.
10th Entry
SERIOUSLY?
We set off at a slow roll, mainly because Nate’s two speeds are crawl or dead when he’s behind the wheel. We followed the road for about a mile before Nate brought the pickup to a dead stop.
“Shit,” he breathed.
There was a big ass wooden gate, just set off from this tiny country road, a good eight feet tall mounted on columns of brick. Either side were just long lengths of dense brush, utterly impassable for anything larger than a fox that acted as a border wall. However, milling about outside this gate were zombies.
Lots of zombies.
There must have been maybe forty or fifty, just banging their faces against the gate, pressing against it. I could see it was bent inwards slightly from the inexorable push that the undead provided, tireless and constant.
“How are there so many?” I whispered.
Nate shrugged, his deep voice almost inaudible. “Don’t know. Maybe those morons have been doing that drumming night after night and they’ve been drawn in over time in tiny groups, like that one last night.” He sniffed. “That seals it though.”
“What seals what?”
“We can’t get in and I’m not blazing through ammunition to take all those fuckers down.” He glanced at me askew. “And you’re not combat effective enough for this tight space. Open space maybe, but not crowded on this little narrow road.”
“There must be another way in for people with actual brains,” I offered. “Those dumb shits will continue to try and use their faces as a master key, but we’ve got actual thoughts. Let’s park up and find somewhere else we can climb over.”
“Erin, we….”
“Lockey,” I corrected again.
“Erin,” he repeated, just to be an ass. “What’s the point?”
“People are the point, Nate. They clearly don’t know what’s knocking at their gate. Come on, back the fuck up, park the truck, and come the fuck on.”
I slid out of the truck to make my point, Particles under one arm and his Kuato-bag in the other hand.
“Seriously?” he hissed, one eye glancing back to the mass of undead at the gate in case any had noticed us. They were a good distance away. “You’re taking the dog?”
“If you think I’m leaving Particles behind in a truck with the sun coming up, you’re very wrong. It’s a
lready warming up. I’m not leaving the little guy to die a melty death in a truck.”
Particles emphasised my point by staring balefully at Nate, outraged at the notion of being left behind.
Nate said nothing, though I could almost hear the string of profanity echoing in his head, and I closed the door quietly. Nate backed the truck up round the corner, out of sight of the mass of shamblers, before climbing out. He kept his voice low as I settled Particles into his carry-bag. As his head popped out of the hole, all indignant at the inconvenience, Nate just stared at us both for a moment and shook his head in obvious irritation.
Cheered me right up.
We managed to find a way into the property by climbing a tree further back on the road, then moving along the boughs and dropping down the other side. Nate did an admirable job for an old guy, but he carries considerably more weight. I, of course, with my mad parkour skills, scampered up the tree, scooted along and dropped lightly down on the other side.
Nate’s attempts were comical, with him blowing out his arse as he dragged himself up, shakily moved across the branches, then flopped like a two hundred pound bag of shit on the other side.
“Wasn’t so bad, eh?” I gave him a shit-eating grin.
“Maybe not for a demented squirrel like you,” he growled.
Particles stared back at Nate, silently judging him.
We pushed on and as we entered a lush green field, there was a beautiful looking building at the top of a hill, all wood and glass. Pretty big too, not some little cabin. It looked like some classy chic hotel for the elite that had limited spaces. We could see a handful of cars parked outside, a long and slender road running from the building down to the front gate we’d seen from the other side.
Couldn’t see a single zombie from this side through the solid gates. You might see their feet if you went up close through the small gap between earth and the gate’s bottom, but other than that, looking down from the building would reveal nothing about the undead party taking place at the gate.
Lockey vs. the Apocalypse | Book 1 | No More Heroes [Adrian's Undead Diary Novel] Page 7
