I learned a lot.
But with the building clear, we had the joy of then assessing our loot, and oh mama, it was a payday. The place was pretty much untouched, so we rolled the truck up right outside the door and started loading it up. Canned food, bottled water, all the coffee, sanitary products (there are two women after all), bottled water, toilet paper, soap, cleaning products, shampoo, toothpaste, alcohol (mainly wine and spirits, because everybody has to kick back now and again), trays of canned fizzy drinks (because yum), and Nate even loaded up on cigarettes as well. I gave him a weird look and he pointed out that if we did meet others, they might make good trade items.
Clever bastard. Thinking ahead. Some people will still want to poison their lungs even in an apocalypse.
The owner’s keys were in his pocket and out back we also found his big white transit van, which he obviously went to the wholesalers in. That was a win, as his keys included the one for that too. So, we decided to take both vehicles back to the lodge. The van started first time and had a good half tank of fuel left, so doing as much as we could in this single run was just sensible. We could head back with a pickup and a van full to bursting of stuff, so we decided to spend a few hours loading up.
After a while, when we’d been left to our own devices with no further incursion from living or dead, Nate checked I was okay on my own and I gave him the nod. He wanted to break into the back of the pharmacy next door—as that had a full metal shutter covering the shop front—and fill up on important stuff like dressings, antibiotics, painkillers, general cold and flu treatments; that kind of stuff. What a fucking surprise, the guy was also versed in combat medicine and had a decent understanding of emergency stuff needed, so I left him to it.
I was out back, off in my own little world while sliding another tray of canned food into the back of the transit, when a voice stopped me dead.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
I froze, the shotgun still slung around my shoulder and hammer in my belt. A ripple of laughter told me the speaker was not alone. Slowly, I turned around, finding seven leering faces gawking at me. All of them were armed, wielding a collection of tools and blades. A couple of them had what looked like fire-axes, but they had a weird crowbar tool on the other end. One crazy looking bastard had—I shit you not—a fucking machete in his hand. The other three had a selection of heavy hammers. What really drew my eye though was the guy in the middle, as he was holding a semi-automatic handgun that looked almost identical to Nate’s.
“Well, fuck a duck,” chuckled the gunman, who resembled a gorilla more than a man. “If it isn’t little Lady Locke.”
Hearing my name snapped my gaze from the gun in his hand. I examined his face, frowning.
“You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” I muttered, as I recognised his leering grin.
I hadn’t seen the bastard for ten years and he was shockingly large then, as big as any grown man. Now he was in his late twenties, the mother fucker was huge of chest and shoulder. He wasn’t someone who’d worked out and got big; he was one of those guys that are just born with gargantuan natural brawn. Freakishly strong, a good five inches over six feet, hair on his arms that was closer to fur, and—as I looked squarely at him—he appeared almost as wide as he was tall. He was like the link between man and ape, stuck in the middle of his transformation, a thing hammered out on evolution’s forge before being cast aside for something more aesthetically pleasing and elegant.
Johnny fucking Bancroft.
This was bad. Very bad. Bancroft was a bonafide psycho, from a long line of bonafide psychos. He was the second of four brothers, his eldest brother being the most dangerous criminal in this little town. The patriarch of the family, Harry, was banged up in some prison somewhere, but the Bancrofts were a name everyone knew, and everyone avoided if they could. No good came from being on their radar.
While Johnny’s intelligence was reflected in his appearance—one evolutionary link beyond animal and just scraping the bottom of humanity’s barrel—his brother Jamie was the real deal. Drugs, guns, extortion rackets, grand theft auto, coppers on the payroll; full on criminal kingpin and really bad news. My past was coming back to haunt me a month into the end of the world. Another cosmic laugh-and-point moment from the universe’s black sense of humour.
“Long time no see,” I said, affecting a more relaxed pose, leaning against the van’s tail, mind working furiously.
“That’s a lot of stuff for one little girl,” he grinned, eliciting another ripple of sycophantic laughter from his minions.
“Well, Tesco’s running a bit behind with their deliveries, so I thought I should stock up.”
This was good. It meant they didn’t know about Nate, which suggested they’d only just got here. I had to keep my smart mouth running for as long as I could to give Nate time, though my eyes kept flicking to the loosely held pistol in Bancroft’s hand. If he didn’t have that, I could have escaped from this bunch of muppets in a blink. One false move though, and Bancroft might give me a severe case of lead poisoning I wouldn’t survive.
“That pretty mouth of yours is still too quick for its own good, I see.”
The way he said, “pretty mouth,” combined with his intense leer, made my teeth itch. Bancroft had always had a thing for me, but it was a possessive desire. He wanted to dominate me, have me under his power. He didn’t like the fact I was so much smarter than him, and every time I slapped him or his cronies with a witty retort back in the day, they pulled that “mental long division” face I referred to earlier. Bancroft wanted to shut my ‘pretty mouth’ up and I had no doubt what he wanted to fill it with.
Gag. I feel sick at even the notion. He’d get a shock if he ever did though; I’d grind that sweaty little chipolata of his to bloody paste between my teeth.
“How’s the family?” I asked, playing for time and not wanting to light the fire of his infamous anger too early.
“We own this town now,” he smirked. “We did before, but now, we make the laws. Anyone left here is ours now.”
Johnny Bancroft is not a genius, as his spilling of intel without any subterfuge proves, so I decided to dig a bit deeper.
“How many’s that?”
“About forty or so.” He looked me up and down. “We could do with another woman or two though. The ones we’ve got are getting a bit worn out.” Another smattering of laughter from his cronies.
I swear to God, if I could have swung my shotgun round without taking a bullet, I’d have blasted him into oblivion right then and there.
“Tell you what, Lockey,” he said in a tone that suggested he was about to offer me a sweet deal. “Why don’t you put that gun down before you hurt yourself, then come along with us. Jamie would love to have a word.”
“Well, I’d love to Johnny,” I sighed, “but as you can see, I’m a little busy right now. Rain check?”
And there it was. In the click of a finger, his expression clouded over, a little flicker of madness flashing in his eyes. His jaw became an underbite as it jutted in irritation, and I knew shit was teetering on the edge of violence.
“I wasn’t asking,” he snarled.
“Don’t move an inch,” said Nate, appearing behind me as he slid out from the front of the van. Jesus, that gravel tone was like the sweetest symphony to my ears.
Backup.
Johnny and his minions were slow on the uptake. Nate stalked to my side, Glock up in two hands and steady as a rock, the barrel clearly pointed at Johnny’s ape-like frame. The gorilla still had his gun down by his side. Oh, how the tables had turned. Ape-boy was the only one with a firearm, the rest of his thugs all armed with melee weapons, and Nate had taken control in an instant.
“Who the fuck are you?” demanded Johnny, adding a splash of bravado to his demeanour so he didn’t lose face. “You got yourself a sugar daddy, Lockey?”
“Quit yapping, puppy,” said Nate. “Or I’ll put you down.”
Nate just doesn’t need to raise his voice. At all.
He just tells you how things are going to be, and you shut the fuck up and listen. Bancroft, however, had all his brain cells lined up in single file. The guy is so fucking dense, I swear light just bends around him.
“Do you know who I am?” he postured.
Ah, that old chestnut.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” retorted Nate, equally bored by the chest-puffing. “Let me tell you what I do know, puppy. What I know is if you and your little puppy friends don’t put your weapons on the ground real slow, turn your arses round, and walk quietly away, this old wolf is going to end you.”
The whole scene went still, all of Bancroft’s minions starting to get twitchy. The fuckers were sheep holding sticks, and Nate was a lion with a gun. They were out of their depth against a real warrior. Intimidation and numbers were usually enough for them, but their true cowardice was starting to resonate under Nate’s steady and withering glare. Their eyes kept looking to Bancroft and he could sense their questioning gaze, but the dumb fuck was too obstinate to take the hint.
Pride is the most foolish of the seven sins. It builds a tiny fortress inside your mind and heart, swaggering round it like a mad dictator, while remaining completely oblivious to the enemy at the gates.
“There’s seven of us, old timer,” warned Bancroft, but his voice had lost its edge. He was losing and he knew it, but he was too damn stupid to know when to fold his hand. “You can’t take us all down.”
“I don’t need to, puppy,” said Nate. “All you need to know is that the moment even one of you twitches in a way I don’t like, your switch will get flicked, and you won’t have to worry about what comes next.”
Taking the opportunity, I swung the shotgun round from my shoulder, pointing it at some of the minions.
“From this range, I reckon I could get two of them with a single barrel,” I said jovially. “What do you reckon, Nate?”
He nodded on cue. “Easy. Maybe even three at once if you pop both barrels.”
That tipped them. The guy to Bancroft’s right leaned towards him.
“Come on, boss,” murmured Machete. “This ain’t the time.”
“Fuck him,” spat Bancroft, and he moved.
Nate’s first bullet was true, punching through the massive target of his chest centre-mass. The second bullet, a millisecond later, cracked through Bancroft’s skull before the gorilla’s gun moved barely an inch. The moment he spoke, Nate knew what was coming and as soon as Bancroft’s arm twitched, the old soldier didn’t hesitate. Bang bang, classic double tap, and the gun-toting primate was dead before he’d even figured out he’d been shot the first time.
The rest of his crew clattered their weapons to the asphalt, arms up, horrified at the shift in dynamic. Machete looked down at Bancroft’s corpse, then back up at Nate.
“You’ve no idea what you’ve done, old man,” he blurted. “Fuck, that’s Johnny Bancroft! Jamie’s not gonna stop until he strings you up!”
“Take your friend back to his family,” said Nate, ignoring Machete’s disbelief. “I see any of you dickheads again, we won’t be having this conversation. As of now, you’re shoot on sight to me.” They stared at him, horrified and frozen. “You’ve got till I hit ten. There are enough bullets in this magazine for all of you twice over. One.”
Nate didn’t even get to two. The six thugs picked up Johnny’s corpse and scarpered, struggling under the big bastard’s dead weight, but there was no way they were heading back to Jamie Bancroft without his little brother’s body.
“We better finish up,” said Nate quietly. “No telling if and when they’ll be back with reinforcements and I don’t want anyone tailing us back to the lodge.”
I nodded, wandering over to the weapons scattered on the asphalt. I picked up one of the weird axe tools, nodding at its hefty weight.
“I like this. Weirdest axe I ever did see.”
“That’s not an axe,” said Nate. “That’s a fireman’s halligan.”
“Halligan, huh?” I nodded. “I think I’ll keep it.”
We finished up in quick order, spending no more than twenty minutes with the two of us rushing for all we were worth, trying to get as much in the pickup and van as we could. Pretty soon though, Nate called time. We had plenty and even though the transit van was only half full, we were running down an hourglass of unknown size, so we closed up and set our little convoy for home. We had to forego the fuel run after our encounter, so that’s something we’ll have to come back to.
We had a conversation about Jamie Bancroft when we were back, but I’ll write about that tomorrow, when I’m sipping on my morning coffee.
I have to say though, I think we just kicked the hornet’s nest. Pride runs deep in the Bancroft family, reputation and image is everything to those bastards. Jamie’s not like Johnny; he’s smarter, but a real sadist. Johnny was just a meathead, not even trusted to lead the real thugs of the Bancroft operation. The Bancrofts have access to firearms, but Johnny’s little crew weren’t high enough on the food chain to be trusted with them apparently, and he only got one because he’s Jamie’s brother.
As if the dead aren’t enough to deal with, now we’ve got a local psycho and his mini-army thirsty for revenge.
Fuck this shit. I’m going to bed.
July 29th, 2010
HAPPY, WITH A TWIST
The sun is shining, I’ve got steaming hot coffee, I’ve had a hot shower, Particles is chowing down on some proper dog food, and the other two are fast asleep.
All in all, I’m in a decent frame of mind this morning, so while I’m feeling chipper, I’ll fill you in on our conversation last night.
I gave Nate the lowdown on the Bancrofts and the implications of him just shooting one of them dead.
“I gave them fair warning,” he shrugged, sipping at a coffee. “The ape chose to ignore it. It’s not like they can find us.”
“You don’t know Jamie, Nate,” I warned. “He’s a cunning shitball and single-minded. Anyone who crosses the Bancrofts ends up dead and the son of a bitch is a full-on sadist. He likes to take pieces from people while they’re still alive, getting a hard-on over their screams. This is bad news. They’ll be on the lookout for us, so going into town is going to be nigh on impossible for supplies.”
“We’ll just go to the next town over, in the other direction.”
“We can’t,” I said.
That caught Nate’s attention. “Can’t?”
I shook my head vigorously. “Can’t. He’s got captives. Women being used as sex slaves from what Johnny let slip. I can’t let that go.”
Nate put his cup down, slowly and deliberately. “I don’t want to sound heartless, but that’s not our problem.”
I gaped at him. “Not our problem?” I repeated, aghast. “Not our fucking problem? Nate, that baboon-gorilla lovechild was going to haul me off to be one of those unwilling sex dolls! And even put that aside, can we fucking sleep if we did nothing? Really? Isn’t there a quote about a bystander refusing to act when witnessing evil is, in fact, committing an evil act?”
“Hold up there, kid,” he said, raising a hand. “A minute ago, you were bemoaning the fact that I’d ended the brother of a complete psycho who will be gunning for us, but now you want to take the fight to them?”
“What can I say,” I shrugged, all nonchalant. “I’m whimsical.”
“This isn’t a storybook tale about good versus evil, light versus dark, and all that bullshit. This is real fucking life.”
“And they’re real people, suffering under a fucking sadistic tyrant,” I snapped back. “For all we know, we’re the only people anywhere near here that can do anything about it!”
“Forty, you said,” replied Nate, remaining infuriatingly calm in the hurricane blast of my outrage. “Forty, Erin. A fifty-two year-old veteran who finds new ways to grunt and groan as he moves every morning, and a twenty-something kid who only just learned to shoot. You think those are good odds against forty?”
“Forty was
the number Johnny gave as a total.” I wasn’t going to be deterred by something as obvious and logical as facts or common sense. “They won’t all be hostiles. We might even have allies if we kick shit off.”
“Kick shit…?” Nate’s sentence trailed off, staring at me to figure out if I was being serious, then a deep frown cutting the lines of his forehead as he realised that yes, I was. “What you’re talking about is insanity. They have us outnumbered a minimum of ten, maybe fifteen-to-one if that forty is a total headcount, but far more importantly, they have us outgunned. You said this Bancroft guy was into small times arms deals, local criminals, gangs and the like?” I nodded. “Which means every one of those hostiles could be armed.”
“They’re thugs, Nate,” I argued. “They’re not trained shooters. Just thugs.”
“Thugs, with guns, and ten-to-one odds,” he said slowly. “This isn’t a Jason Bourne movie, Erin.”
“I bet those fuckers are only used to sticking those guns in people’s faces or executing close up. I bet if you put them to the test, turned them around every which way, they’d be about as effective with those weapons as Imperial Stormtroopers.” He gave me his ‘you’re doing it again’ look when I make a pop culture reference. “Star Wars, you fucking luddite! Jesus, everyone knows Star Wars. It’s been around since 1977 for fuck’s sake.”
“In ’77, I was in basic training to be a Royal Marine,” he said. “Didn’t have time to catch the latest movies.”
I put that one in my pocket. First little slip he’s made about his past. Mind you, all I really took from that statement was “oh my god, you were a grown man when Star Wars came out, you creaky old pensioner.”
I tried a different tactic. “Nate, you were a soldier,” I said, forcing myself to calm.
“Marine,” he corrected me.
“Eh?”
“I wasn’t a soldier. I was a marine.”
I pulled ‘a face’. Pedantic old sod.
Lockey vs. the Apocalypse | Book 1 | No More Heroes [Adrian's Undead Diary Novel] Page 15
