Lockey vs. the Apocalypse | Book 1 | No More Heroes [Adrian's Undead Diary Novel] Meadows, Carl (book recommendations for teens TXT) 📖

two cartridges into the barrels. This one was a single selective trigger, Nate said, meaning unlike the older model he shredded Patricia with that had two triggers—allowing both barrels to be blasted at the same time—this one alternately fired each barrel. Heh, look at me.

Learning, yo.

So, I loaded up the new shotgun with two shells and it was all ready to fire.

Then Particles started to lose his shit.

“The fuck is up with your dog?” demanded Nate.

I’d let Particles out of his Kuato-bag to sit on the seat with us. Obviously, he seemed outraged by this at the time, but he got on with it. Now though, it was like he was injected with crack, barking and yelping, scampering all over me with his tiny legs.

“No idea,” I answered truthfully. “I’ve been his owner for about two hours. Not exactly his homegirl for life just yet.”

Nate put the brakes on, stopping the pickup just before crossing a junction. Honestly, for a horrible second, I thought he was just going to draw his pistol and put Particles down.

“I can’t drive like this. You need to…”

The words died as a box truck whistled past the front of our pickup at about fifty, just inches away. Had Nate not stopped when he did, that big ass seven-and-a-half-ton beast would have sideswiped us. At that speed, Nate on the right in the driver’s seat would likely have been turned into a splash.

“What the….”

The box truck careened on and smashed with a bone-crunching thunder into an abandoned car parked on one side of the road.

It was an unholy mess of twisted metal, the box truck flipping to its side, the back doors cracking open as it slid to a sparking halt on the asphalt.

“Stay here,” ordered Nate, slipping out the driver’s door and palming the handgun, legs bent as he moved forward with liquid grace, perfectly primed and balanced for battle.

Damn, that always looked so bad ass.

Obviously, I disobeyed a little. I got out my door, laying the shotgun I’d been messing with on the seat. I watched Nate stalk towards the truck that had appeared out of nowhere at speed. I glanced down at Particles, who looked up from the seat expectantly.

“You are one lucky dog,” I said, turning my attention back to Nate, then whispered, “Holy shit.”

Nate had gone still. Out of the back of the box truck, bloody, shambling figures were beginning to emerge. Seriously, what the hell? Who the hell was carting zombies round in a truck? About twenty-five zeds crawled, shambled and fell out of the toppled truck, all their white eyes fixed on Nate.

Like he was shooting at a fairground range, Nate just planted his feet and went to work. Two hands on the pistol, he was steady, sure and somehow made the whole thing look easy. He didn’t rush, or maybe he made it seem like he was taking his time. I don’t know. What I do know is that the air filled with the crack of his Glock, as he started to put the mini horde down, one by one. Every shot was lethal, popping an undead melon with unerring accuracy, the bodies dropping like marionettes that had just had their strings cut. It was an honour and a privilege to see him go to work.

He popped a magazine out the pistol and switched in a new one from his tactical vest in one fluid motion, before resuming firing. Just as his gun barked into life once more, Particles let out an agitated bark of his own. As I turned to see why he was so tetchy, my eyes glanced over the rear-view mirror on the door I leaned on. My heart almost stopped.

There was a zombie only inches away from me.

Fuck, these things are so damn quiet.

Distracted by Nate’s bad-assery as he single-handed took down a mini-horde of undead, one single zombie had slowly shuffled up behind me, not making a single sound as it approached. As I caught sight of it in the mirror, it peeled back its lips revealing nicotine-stained teeth and bright red gums, an expression of hate twisting its chubby features like my very existence was an offence to it.

The guy was fat. A sliver from morbid obesity. There was a lot of weight in it and to top it off, it was wearing a really loud green and orange Hawaiian shirt. It was bad enough a fat guy had crept up on me, but a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt? Shame.

I barely had time to react as the thing lunged at me. God, that lunge is pant-shitting. It really comes at you with predatory speed.

I got my arms up in time to deflect its grasp, sliding my forearm underneath the zombie’s nine chins, across its throat and forming a makeshift brace as it snapped its rotting teeth inches from my face.

It couldn’t bite me yet, but I’m only a wee slip of a girl. I’m five-six and built to be a spider-monkey up drainpipes and jumping rooftops and ledges. I’m a tracer, not a wrestler, and even if I was I’d be a lightweight. This gigantic blob was a super heavyweight and the combination of his gargantuan girth and forward momentum with his lunge drove me back. Ultimately, it drove me down.

I could still hear the crack of Nate’s pistol as he cut down the horde, so no help was coming there. He had no damn clue I was being swallowed up by this giant blob of undead flesh.

What a way to go. If the Blob didn’t tear off my face with his smoker’s teeth, I’d either suffocate on his oozing flesh, or just be crushed under his extreme weight. I had nowhere to go, as the pickup door was behind me and it was all I could do to stop the thing biting me, as my mind fought for some solution to this absolute horror.

The weight was too much though. The pressure caused by his obesity and my balance