Lockey vs. the Apocalypse | Book 1 | No More Heroes [Adrian's Undead Diary Novel]

by Meadows, Carl

  I became one of the lads. I stopped getting treated like someone they just wanted to bang when I proved myself to have more balls than the rest of them combined. Then I learned to steal cars.

  Look, I’m not proud of how that shit went down these days. This was ten years ago, and I was fucked up, a kid just looking to find a place for herself in a world that had chewed me up, spat me out, and shat on me repeatedly.

  Don’t feel sorry for me, dear reader. That’s not why I’m telling you this. I don’t want your sympathy. I just want you to understand who I was before I became who I am.

  Stealing cars got me in the worst trouble of my life. It was a turning point for me. Even if I do say so myself, I’m a pretty fucking good driver at high speed. My abhorrent lack of fear made me try things no sane child of that age would even consider. Yes, I crashed a few times, of course I did. Looking back, I’m just thankful that nobody got hurt as that guilt would royally mess me up now.

  I did get in a bit of cat and mouse with one copper who almost caught me a few times. He knew me by sight after some escapes from wrecked vehicles he’d chased me from, but have you ever seen a police officer able to follow a fifteen-year old girl with some serious gymnastic parkour skills when she’s on the run? Nope. The meathead had no chance of catching me once I scampered up the side of a building Spiderman style and vanished into the night.

  All good things had to come to an end though.

  One night, I fucked up, racing around town in the dark, and I lost control, smacking into a parked van. Lo and behold, just as I wrecked my current joyride and was trying to get my wits about me, that same copper’s patrol car turned the corner in front of me and I was bang to rights.

  He opened the door, checked I was okay—I was, just a bit frazzled—and then he gave me the biggest shit eating grin I’ve ever seen anyone express. He was like the Cheshire Cat post blowjob.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” he said.

  “Well, I got here as fast as I could,” I retorted, puffing out my cheeks.

  He was still chuckling as he put the cuffs on me.

  Officer Dean Williams saved me that day. I don’t know what he saw in me, what possessed him to take a special interest in me, but he did. He kept me out of juvenile detention when it went to court once he learned my background. He took me home himself, cast his eyes around the group home I was in, and I think he unravelled my story in that singular moment.

  Right until I was eighteen and a legal adult, when the foster homes spit you out to fend for yourself, Officer Williams was my guardian angel. I finished school with decent exam results because he was always on my back, driving me to be better, and he was responsible for sticking the first David Gemmell novel I ever read into my hand.

  If you’ve never read him, do so. Waylander, it was called. A good man once, torn by tragedy with the murder of his family, embraces the darkness and becomes a killer for hire after avenging his family’s murder. He falls so far and becomes so good at it, he ends up killing the king of his nation for coin, plunging the land into war.

  A chance meeting with a priest, a woman, and three children, sets him on a path to redemption. He seeks to atone, falls in love, becomes the nation’s greatest hero when it needs him the most. He rose above the darkness of his life to become something else.

  Something better.

  Officer Williams knew what he was doing with that book and it lit a fire under my ass. I devoured every one of those books I could get my hands on and those themes sang to me. Honour, redemption, friendship, love; good themes. I wanted to be better, like one of those characters in his books. Yes, I was flawed as all hell and I’d done some pretty shitty things (never killed a king though, so there’s that), but those books taught me that redemption and a chance to be better was always within my grasp. All I had to do was reach for it.

  Deano—as I lovingly called him as we were now BFF’s—and his wife, Maria, became like an aunt and uncle to me. Maria would forever feed me, send me off to the shower with clean towels and clothes, let me sleep in their spare room for a night or two if I needed it. They treated me like family, the first people to ever make me feel like someone really had my back, and they set my path on the straight and narrow. They made me want to be better, to step out of the shadow my asshole parents loomed over me with their fucked up choices and neglect. They set me on the road to being cuffed by Deano, but it was that copper and his wife that showed me there was a better way, if I had the courage to take a road less travelled.

  I fucking love that couple. They’re the very definition of honest, decent, hard-working people. He’s a police officer, and she a nurse. Their entire lives are dedicated to helping others and they do those jobs above and beyond any call of duty, simply because they care. I always felt bad for them because they couldn’t have kids of their own and had finally come to accept it as they both knocked mid-thirties. They’ll both be mid-forties now, no doubt holding senior roles in their chosen professions.

  I really hope they’re okay.

  After witnessing how fast shit goes west yesterday, when we went from ten living people to nine murderous undead in less than two minutes, I worry for them both, Maria especially. I mean, fucking hell, just consider how chaotic a hospital would become in two minutes.

  I’m feeling a bit raw now after spilling that out. I don’t like going over the past; I’m more of a live-for-the-moment type of girl and trudging through all that old dirt just ruins my mood. I might come back to it eventually and fill in what I did from becoming an “adult” at some other point.

  Particles is also looking at me like I’m the worst person since Hitler because I haven’t fed him yet, so I should go do that.

  17th Entry

  TAKING STOCK

  So, we’ve spent the day just recovering. Nate and I have been jumping about for a month and after yesterday’s unholy mess and subsequent physical labour, we needed to take stock and properly check out the lodge, while also running through the inventory.

  The room I blasted Top Knot in has been written off as a bedroom. No fucker will want to sleep in there, so Nate’s pretty handy with tools and the like, and has said he’ll build some shelving in there and we’ll make it a storeroom.

  I had a mooch in Grace and Theo’s bungalow and that place is pretty darn nice. Comfortable and cosy, yet pretty big. It’s got three decent sized bedrooms, so the three of us are going to move in there and make that our primary living space, leaving the lodge open for any new survivors we might collect along the way.

  Yeah, that was a fun conversation with Nate.

  “What do you mean, other people?” he demanded, after I said it in passing.

  “We’ve got space here,” I pointed out. “We can comfortably add a few extra people here. Complement the skills we have.”

  Nate shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. It’s too much of a risk. Have you forgotten what happened here yesterday already?”

  “No, Nate, I haven’t forgotten,” I said, my tone bleak. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget hearing Ariel’s mind break when her buffalo got chomped on.” I let that one settle with him for a minute and the guy at least had the grace to look contrite. “But just because we had one bad experience doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves in our nice little safe space. There might be other people out there, scared and alone, in need of help. Are you really going to tell a single mum with a five-year old to get bent and walk on, while they scream and beg for help as you pass?”

  “Erin’s right,” offered Freya, scratching behind Particles’ ears as he sat on her lap. “I don’t think I could sleep at night if we just left someone to die.”

  “It’s not practical,” he pushed back, though this time with far less conviction. Nate’s a hard man who’s clearly been through some shit that I’ll never be able to imagine, but he’s not an asshole and he’s got ticks in the box for noble acts. He saved me from a fate worse than death and let me stick with him, after all. Let�
�s face it; I’m probably more annoying than anyone we might collect on our travels by at least a factor of three.

  Honestly, I think he’s just trying to protect us, which is sweet, but ultimately pointless.

  “Well, if we’re talking practical, do you know how to tend those herb and vegetable gardens out there? That’s a great source of fresh food and good nutrients, but unless we learn shit real quick, it’s finite.”

  Nate’s not a man prone to snappy judgments. He sat there for a moment, still as a sculpture, then sighed.

  “Fair enough,” he conceded. “But we’re going to have to use some instinct and good sense. The fact is we can’t take every stray in, because there’ll always be the chance they’re rotten inside. Space is limited, food is limited.”

  “We should probably do something about that,” I mused. “We need food, we need medical stuff, and we need hygiene stuff, because I’m never spending a month covered in zombie goo again. Town is only about five miles away and if we keep to little corner shops and pharmacies, we could boost our stores considerably in no time.”

  And there it is; the beginning of a survival plan. I’m actually pretty stoked by it.

  Tomorrow, Nate and I are going out to a little row of shops I know in town, that’s away from the bulk of residential estates. There’s a pharmacy, convenience store, and a little further up the road is a petrol station. We need to fill up the pickup as it’s our best vehicle for loot loading.

  Freya’s not ready for the field yet, so she’s going to go right through the lodge and inventory absolutely fucking everything. Food, medicine, cleaning, hygiene, bedsheets, towels… everything. I’m so glad she volunteered for that job, because a quartermaster I am not. I can’t think of anything more soul destroying than inventory.

  What we need is a nerd.

  Right, I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow Nate and I go out to play, erm, I mean seriously recon the area and acquire much needed provisions.

  Priority one… coffee. I am a caffeine-dependent lifeform and I don’t care if it’s shite instant coffee. If I have to drink another hot fruity beverage, I’m going to lose my shit. I’d really like a proper cup of tea, but without milk and sugar, tea just doesn’t hit the spot for me. I can drink black coffee, however, with no problem at all. What I most certainly can’t do is drink another lavender and elderflower tea. It’s like drinking perfume.

  Nighty night.

  July 28th, 2010

  GORILLA WITH A GUN

  Well. Fuck. The situation has changed. A lot.

  First of all, you’ll note that I’ve got an actual date for this entry. Freya found a laptop in the bungalow, so I can now keep actual history, instead of just writing incremental entry numbers. The laptop calendar has given me a sense of time again, which weirdly makes me happy. Everything was just blurring into one great smear of time, so knowing the actual date has put some order back into my existence. It’s the little things.

  It’s also a lot easier being able to type my memoirs of the apocalypse than hand-write them in notebooks. I’ll have to scoop up my diaries and add them at the start of this digital record so it’s all in one place, but I’ll do that when I’ve got time.

  So, what’s changed?

  There’s a group of survivors in town that have banded together and, dear reader, these mother fuckers are bad news. I’ll get to them, but let’s get this shit shovelled.

  Nate and I rolled out early this morning about eight, taking the pickup. The truck’s bed was empty, ready for our loot haul, and all we took were weapons. Nate has attached a leather strip to my shotgun so I can sling it over my shoulder if I need to climb, and he also made me this cool bandolier type thing that goes from shoulder to hip, with tight loops to load up with shotgun cartridges. I now have two in the barrels and a further ten, ready to just slide out and pop in as needed.

  Nobody’s ever made me anything before. I don’t mind saying that I was a little touched by it. Also, it gave me great opportunity to rag on Nate about his mad sewing skills. I asked if he could crochet a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign for the bungalow, but I can’t repeat what he said. That block of granite could make Bernard Manning blush with the colour of his language when he puts his mind to it. I was impressed.

  Melee weapons for close work were important too. Nate has his Crocodile Dundee knife, and he gave me something called a roofer’s pick hammer. It has a usual flathead hammer one side, but on the other is a vicious looking spike, which is used for putting holes in slate tiles Nate tells me, before the other end is used to bang the nail through that hole. If I’ve got to smush a brain in quick order, that spike will do the job, no doubt.

  I felt like a bandido as we rolled out, leaving Particles in the loving care of Freya. She came to the gates with us and rolled the little car to block them off after we’d gone, and we gave her a signal pattern for the horn when we returned so she knew it was safe to let us in.

  And off we went.

  We rolled into the edge of town about twenty minutes later, the countryside giving way to rows of houses along a road that stretched right across the top of town. About half a mile down, I pointed out to Nate where the shop and pharmacy were. He nodded and pulled the truck up a little short.

  “It’s right there,” I said. “Why stop here?”

  “Recon,” he replied, reflexively drawing his Glock, checking the slide and chamber. He does that. Everything needs to be locked, loaded, and ready for action before he does anything. It’s like weapon OCD.

  Also, apparently, Glocks don’t have a safety. Those fuckers are live and kicking, all the time, and ready to party. Handy, huh?

  “Only go loud if you can’t take a walker down in melee,” he said, moving his checks to the shotgun. “Any shot will draw any nearby dead, or living for that matter, and things could go to shit at speed. We need to clear the buildings before we start collecting. No surprises, no injuries. If we’re going to work together, then I need to effectively teach you how to clear rooms and a building in partnership so we’re efficient, but above all, so you don’t shoot me.”

  “What about you shooting me?” I protested.

  “If I ever shoot you, kid,” he murmured. “It’ll be entirely on purpose.”

  I laughed. Funny old bastard.

  The shop front was locked, which gave me real hope that the place was largely untouched. Nate had me keep an eye out as he slid a small fabric roll out of one of the large pockets on his combat trousers and revealed bloody lockpicks. I need to learn how to do that and Nate is clearly a pro, as he had that door clicking open in seconds. Must be some Special Forces infiltration skill or something.

  You know, I keep banging on about Nate being SAS or some kind of special forces, but that’s just a massive assumption because he’s so fucking competent in these situations and keeps surprising me with elegant new skills. I should probably ask him, but I figure he’ll tell me when he’s ready eventually.

  Nah, fuck it. I’m going to ask him. Since when have I respected privacy? I’m a curious little shit and people’s stories interest me.

  Nate opened the door but held up a hand, shaking his head as I moved forward a step. He leaned inside and blew a quick whistle through his teeth into the dark confines of the store, then backed up.

  Sure as shit, some banging and bumping came from inside the shop and Nate turned to me.

  “No mistaking that smell,” he said by way of explanation.

  I nodded my understanding. You can always tell if something undead is in there. I’ve said before, it’s not just the rot of a corpse. It’s a real stench-of-hell kind of odour, pure taint and corruption. Knocks you sick.

  We backed up, knife and hammer ready respectively, as a heavy-set Asian man came stumbling into the light. He’d come home and locked himself in after being bitten it seemed, as there was a massive chunk of flesh missing from his left forearm. The bite had sealed his doom and he’d locked himself in his store, an undead booby trap waiting to be sprung.
<
br />   Booby. Snigger.

  The good sign was that there was no blood on his lips, which meant he hadn’t bitten anyone else since dying, so he was likely the only zombie in the shop. It wasn’t a big place, just a quick stop to pick up some bits, but for us it was a goldmine if still full to the brim.

  Nate nodded to me, indicating he wanted the pick hammer tested. I slung the shotgun diagonally across my shoulder, pulling the tool from my belt, and spinning it so the point was angled forward.

  I moved in its eyeline, letting it focus all that hunger and fury in my direction. As it neared, its speed increased, readying for lunge mode. One quick sidestep, one fast arc, and the thing collapsed as the hammer’s pick punched unerringly through the top of the balding man’s pate and into the brain.

  “Seems to work just fine,” Nate nodded, his tone suggesting I’d just started a car and revved the engine a couple of times. Meanwhile, I was trying not to shudder as I stuck my foot on the guy’s face to lever the hammer out of his head like King Arthur withdrawing some gory Excalibur.

  “Peachy,” I muttered, trying to avoid flicking brain juice on myself.

  I’m not going to lay down all the lessons Nate gave me then, but he taught me the correct way to work as a pair when clearing rooms and buildings, making sure the barrel of your gun never points at your team-mate, breaking a building down into sectors, how to do that balanced combat walk Nate does so smoothly. I have to say, it was interesting stuff.

  Now, he didn’t do a live test; that would just be dumb. Nate swept through that building single-handed first with his Glock, fast and efficient, while I kept watch outside. Only when he announced it was clear did he walk me through the building, telling me what to do at every stage, all the things I should and shouldn’t do, the latter of which were often emphasised with the motivational phrase of “stop fucking doing that Erin, or you’ll get us both killed.”