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

by Meadows, Carl

  “Shut the fuck up!” roared Jamie again, the grip on his temper loosening. “You shut the fuck up!”

  Then the loud-mouthed little bitch stuck her nose in.

  “What made you this angry, Jamie?” she piped. “Were you somehow conceived by anal sex? There’s no way being this much of a fucking asshole is natural.”

  Bancroft roared, lifting the revolver and blasting the remainder of the door to splinters, filling the room with a cacophony of thunder from the boom of the gun. The .357 was still pointed at the splintered mess in the doorway when a shadow beyond moved into sight. The crack of a rifle was followed by an explosive burst of agony in his right shoulder.

  The gun dropped from nerveless fingers as he tumbled backwards, and Charlie burst from his grip to leap into his father’s embrace.

  Chantelle screamed and raced to him, sweeping up the fallen magnum and turning towards the doorway, but she was too slow. The old man’s rifle cracked twice more, putting one bullet in her chest, then one in the head. She dropped like a stone.

  In the glow of a flashlight, Bancroft saw Caleb fumbling with the Glock in his hand, almost dropping it as tears streamed down his face.

  “Don’t do it kid,” ordered Nate, though Caleb seemed not to hear him, the gun still a tangled mess in his awkward hands.

  He was terrified, his mind addled as he fumbled for a solid grip.

  “Please, Caleb, don’t make me do this,” pleaded the old man again.

  The weapon finally came to rest in his hands and the boy looked up, his eyes wild.

  “Don’t fucking do it!” Nate demanded, his voice rising, but the gun started to lift. “God damn it!” roared the old soldier as he squeezed the trigger.

  Caleb’s legs collapsed as the round punched his chest, Glock falling from lifeless hands.

  “God damn it, kid!” Nate sounded genuinely pained. “God damn you and your fucking stupidity!”

  Nate lifted the NVG’s, heart like a brick in his chest. The boy had been terrified beyond all reason, immune to the veteran’s pleas for calm. He steeled himself and cracked a second round to prevent the boy’s reanimation in the darkened library, before turning his attention to Bancroft on the ground.

  The man was in agony, eyes darting between the motionless corpses of his wife and brother, one hand clamped to his ruined shoulder as blood poured from between his fingers.

  “Murderous old cunt,” he accused through his teeth. “He was just a kid.”

  “You put that gun in his hand, Bancroft,” replied Nate, his chest hollow. “I gave him a chance to put it down, but all you Bancrofts’ don’t seem to have any sense in your thick heads.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Nate sighed, slinging the rifle to his hip. He smoothly palmed his Glock and absently cocked the slide out of habit.

  “I’d have you patched up, but what’s the point? You’re rotten to the core, Bancroft. If I let you live, you’ll just cause pain to someone else, or make revenge your only thought.”

  “You’re fucking right I will.”

  “Everyone out,” Nate said to the room. None needed to be told twice and the six captives scrambled out of the room towards Erin in the hallway.

  Once they were clear, Nate turned his gaze down to the wounded man, amazed at the hate still burning in his eyes.

  “I’ll fuc…”

  He never got to finish the sentence. The moment he began speaking, Nate pointed the Glock at his face and obliterated it with a single pull of the trigger.

  It was done. King Shit of Turd Mountain had been deposed, and now, finally, there was a chance for peace from the living.

  Only the dead remained.

  PART 5

  BEYOND THE GATE

  August 26th, 2010

  THE FALL OF TURD MOUNTAIN

  Holy shit, the last few days have been crazy. I haven’t been able to write a damn thing because there’s just been so much to do, so many new faces to settle in.

  Yeah, new faces. Seven of them in total. I’ll go through them all in my next entry. I realise I haven’t recorded what happened at Turd Mountain and I should, what with us being victorious and such.

  Actually, that’s not wholly true.

  It was a pyrrhic victory, because we saved seven lives, but lost too many more. We couldn’t have done anything about those, but they still cut deep.

  Nate and I went out the night of the 22nd and from the get-go, it was bad news. When we heard Bancroft over the radio execute two of the women and threaten to take a few more, he made good on that oath. There were ten bodies sat against the wall of his front gate, five either side, displayed like some crazed Madame Tussauds exhibition. Ten of them.

  Of the twelve women he was holding captive to be used and abused by his henchmen, only two were left alive. Thankfully, we have both of them with us now, but as you can imagine, they are seriously messed up. Shit, who wouldn’t be? I came within a hair’s breadth of that awful fate myself when that freak of a farmer captured me, but I got extremely lucky that Nate turned up when he did. Those two women suffered beyond my ability to imagine. I can remember my own terror when I thought I was going to be raped; these two women have suffered consistent and repeated assault.

  I won’t cry for the men who abused them. The world is a better place without them in it. I’ll save my tears for those more deserving.

  Anyway, my thoughts immediately switched to Mark’s son, Charlie. If Bancroft had hurt that kid… shit… I would go feral on him. Nate pointed out, in his maddeningly logical way, that if King Shit had hurt Charlie, he would be on display with the women to knock us off our game. That made me feel marginally better.

  Marginally.

  Nate had a plan for extreme violence and chaos, but he spotted an open window at the front of the house, musing there was a sniper in there, and one who had a better understanding of how to do the job. Their mode of concealment, being set back from the open window or something like that, showed he had a better understanding of a sniper’s perch than Shooty McFuckface did on the court building roof. I offered the thought we should just go in the back, but Nate wouldn’t have it. He made a fair point to be honest; he knew there was an ex-serviceman still kicking about and surmised the shooter set back from the window would be that man. If Nate was going to breach the house, he didn’t want an ex-soldier hunting him inside a building, especially one who knew the layout.

  Enter Lockey’s insane plan, number eighty-three.

  I don’t know how I did it, but I convinced Nate to let me have one of his precious two frag grenades. He couldn’t see the shooter to take a shot himself, but I’d managed to work out a route up the house to the window. I could pop a grenade through that window and eliminate their last real trained threat. Nate agreed.

  This was a pivotal moment for us, I think. I know I can appear to take everything as a joke, and handling explosives certainly is no jest, so I listened intently to his instruction. Previously I would have had to argue the toss with Nate over any plan of mine that appeared reckless, but all he did was mutter some curse under his breath and then move into his instruction, which went something like, “Hold this little handle down, remove pin, throw, don’t fuck it up and kill yourself.”

  First job was taking out two corner cameras. Having purloined some black spray paint from a nearby farm that Nate remembered seeing—he’s got a good memory for a pensioner—I sneaked through the darkened trees.

  That, by the way, was a horrendous experience. I half-expected a silent undead to leap out of the darkness any moment, telling myself I was being stupid and I’d hear their stumbling through the undergrowth, but the sky was cloudless and the light of the moon was enough to ensure I could live without a flashlight. I had one anyway, just a little one, in case things got too gloomy.

  Nate had told me the blind spots to approach from and all I did was scale the wall underneath one and spray the paint over the lens, then once that one was blinded, did the same on the one at the other corner on the
right side of the house as Nate was looking at it. Then it was up, over, back against the house wall and wait.

  Two goons exited the house to investigate the cameras, chatting like they were on the way to the pub. No sense of danger at all, despite their boss pulling everyone inside the house after Nate’s menacing promise over the radio.

  Then Nate hit them with a one-two from the ridge, killing them both. Shit, that was some scary shooting. He doesn’t have a proper hunting rifle, so it was probably the edge of effective range for the SA80, as he must have been somewhere between three-to-four hundred metres away.

  The moment Bert and Ernie were dropped, I was on the roof of the house in less than ten seconds. It’s a fancy mansion, but it has multi-level roofs and fancy architecture everywhere, which made it a breeze to climb. I slithered over the roof as quiet as I could, assuming the shooter would now be scanning the horizon for a sign of Nate after his sniping of Bert and Ernie. Getting my bearings on the appropriate window by peering over the edge, I moved to the window beside it and lowered myself feet first on to the ledge, bracing myself in the deep frame. The curtains were closed on the window behind me, so no need to worry about being seen.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled out the grenade from my pocket, holding it like Nate had instructed, then I just couldn’t resist. I knew he’d be watching me down the scope, so I turned to face the spot he was watching from, waving at him with grenade still in hand with the stupidest grin I could muster, ripped the pin out with my teeth, leaned away from the safety of my ledge for the best angle, then tossed the live grenade like a boss through the shooter’s window.

  Quick aside here. I say, “ripped the pin out with my teeth,” but that’s not exactly true. I yanked and shook my head from side-to-side like a deranged puppy with a chew toy as I tried to work the pin out, and my teeth ached from chewing on metal before I finally managed it. Nate keeps leaving really important shit out. I had grand plans of looking like a bad ass, and instead looked like the clueless lucky amateur I am. Sigh. I bet that old swine was pissing his sides laughing watching me through his scope.

  I heard the guy swear and panic in the brief pause before the explosion, then it went off. Bloody hell, those things make a boom. I had to jam myself tighter in the window frame, as the shockwave of the blast rippled out, crisp and intense. One more thing on the “things Nate should have told Lockey about” list. Near shit myself.

  Nate was moving then no doubt, but I had a decision to make. Our initial plan was for me to defend the barn conversion thing, where the women were being held captive. With ten of those twelve executed, it was obvious that Bancroft had probably dragged all his remaining captives out as human shields. The barn was dark and the door ajar, so my part of the plan was pretty much done as of now. I was hovering about on a window ledge with no direction.

  So, like the genius strategist I am, I decided to go into the house. Swinging over to the shooter’s window, I swept into the shredded room, the plaster of the walls dotted with evidence of the frag shards, the floor blasted apart in the corner where the grenade had ended up.

  Quickly scanning the room, I found the shooter in a bad way. Oh, he was dead, but hell, that grenade had shredded him. He was also beginning to reanimate.

  You know, I really hate that. These fuckers get up so damn fast.

  The thing wasn’t yet on its feet though, so I slipped the pick hammer from my belt and brained the creature before it could cause me any issue. I couldn’t have done the required climb with the rifle slung around me and remain in stealth mode, so my rifle had been left behind. Soldier boy, however, must have inadvertently shielded his SA80 from the frag blast with his body, as his was untouched and in full working order. I confiscated his rifle and the two spare magazines he had with him, then decided to hunker down and wait. I knew the next part of Nate’s plan and I wasn’t going to mess with his reaper mojo. My part, for now, was done.

  It was probably no more than ten minutes before the house went dark. I’d been expecting things to blow up and the rattle of gunfire to go off as Nate went mental, but instead Nate had decided to go in quiet and take out the power at source. I found out later he’d cottoned on to an ally in the house, moving the cameras to allow us to get in unseen. His name is Isaac and we’ll get to our new friends soon, but with this new knowledge, Nate had adapted his plan on the fly to use that advantage.

  A little more time passed before I heard the sniper’s radio go off as one guy was shouting at someone to respond, though no answer ever came. Strike one for Nate.

  A couple of minutes later, the guy named Isaac came over the airwaves in a spectacular Oscar-worthy performance in a supporting role, whispering all terrified over the radio that Nate was outside, and he needed backup. He could have whispered, “I see dead people!” and I’d have believed him.

  Turns out this was all a ruse on Nate’s part, having already hooked up with our new buddy, and two men were sent to retrieve him, walking right into his trap. Bang bang, followed by another quick double tap. Nate had put them down in an ambush, then put them down a second time before they could twitch and reanimate.

  I made the decision to move out of the room and see if I could hook up with Nate. I was properly armed now and could support him as required. Unfortunately, I wasn’t well versed in traversing hostile buildings on my own with live shooters. I rounded a corner, just as a flashlight pointed my way.

  Two guys at the top of the stairs got eyes on me and before I had the presence of mind to fire, both of them pointed SMG’s my way and pulled their triggers. I just managed to dive back round the corner, plaster dust clouding the air as a shitload of bullets splattered the area I had been standing in just a second earlier. I stayed there for a while, not daring to lean round and return fire, switching my rifle to full auto. My thinking was a hail of my own might make them dive for cover and give me a chance to properly retreat, maybe go back out the way I came and get back on the roof. Seconds later though, the more familiar sound of a single rifle shot cracked in the gloom and I heard the scream of one man as Nate’s bullet royally fucked up his night. A quick follow-up shot silenced him for good.

  The second shooter turned his attention down the stairs, unloading on full auto to wherever Nate was taking cover, so I took the opportunity to wheel round the corner, shouldered the rifle, and spat out a storm of bullets from a fully automatic SA80.

  Christ, have you ever fired an assault rifle on full auto? It’s like a bucking bronco in your grip, but my superpower of undeserved good fortune meant the wild spray of automatic fire filled the area where the second gunman was standing. At least six of the bullets ripped into him, one of them through the skull. Insta-death, no reanimation, and the crowd goes wild. I got a little carried away with my celebration, pretty much putting an audio spotlight in my general area, and another gunman right down the end of the hallway appeared round a corner, a flashlight on his SMG giving his position away just before he unleashed a hellstorm of bullets my way. That brief signal of the torch beam had me yelping and diving for cover as an entire SMG clip filled the hallway.

  It went quiet for a moment as the gunman slapped in a new magazine, but then a single crack of Nate’s rifle unleashed some god-awful screaming of, “My fucking arm!”

  Seems old dead-eye had waited for the gunman to lean back round, then smashed a single bullet through his upper arm, all but tearing it off. As the grievously wounded man pleaded with some unseen friends to help him, I peered round the corner. The dark silhouette of Nate in his familiar combat walk glided down the hall, slipped a flashbang out of his chest pocket, and rolled it down the unseen hallway.

  Shit, the flash of light was brief and bright, but the explosion was skull-jarring, even from my distance. I would not want to be in the immediate vicinity of one of those going off.

  Scrambled and confused, the men down the corridor were quickly executed by Nate, and a third bullet to the head of the screaming man with the ruined arm returned the house to virt
ual quiet.

  I caught up with Nate, where he filled me in on Isaac’s excellent assist, then he put down the two dead that were reanimating outside a door at the end of the hall. He couldn’t use a flashbang inside the room because that’s where all the captives were, with Bancroft, his wife, and his youngest brother. It was the endgame, and it seemed Nate’s option was to try and talk to Bancroft.

  Flattening us both against a wall, expecting what would come next, Nate started the conversation.

  “Evening, Mr. Bancroft.”

  Most of the door’s top panel splintered as a thunderous gunshot came from inside the room.

  “Fuck you, old man! You come in here and I’ll blow the kid’s head off!”

  Well, negotiations had started promisingly.

  “All your men are dead, nowhere to go. Let everyone go and you can walk out of here. You have my word.”

  Bancroft wasn’t having that, naturally, but Nate pointed out he didn’t really have any other option.

  “I could paint the walls with this kid’s brains!”

  I don’t always remember exactly what words are exchanged in these conversations, so my recall of them can sometimes be a bit hazy or embellished, but I will not forget a single word of what Nate said next.

  “And if you do that, I will come in there like the devil himself, that I can promise you.”

  He did it in that colder-than-the-grave voice he has. There’s no anger in it, no heat, no fury, yet somehow that cold burns.

  I could hear the change in Bancroft’s voice as he responded again. That mausoleum tone of Nate’s had punctured his bravado. He offered a deal to walk out with Charlie, who he’d then hand over when they were safely in a vehicle. Nate wasn’t having it, citing his grisly display outside the gates as a reason for mistrust.