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

utterly fucked from its initial lunge, eventually I buckled and went down, the giant undead atop me and only my forearm rammed under its chin preventing those teeth from tearing chunks out of my beautiful face.

My dear reader, I was going to die. I was sure of it. An ignoble death, borne to the ground by a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt, while Nate was gunning down a horde like a boss on his own. I always thought my death would be a blaze of glory, like missing an impossible leap to a ledge and plummeting to my death to die from concrete poisoning.

Suffocated and chewed to a death by a fat guy wasn’t on my list.

My strength was giving out. Like I said, I’m only a little gal and even if this thing was still human, I’d have struggled. It wasn’t human any more though, it was a feral thing, powered by some dark force I’m sure of it. This wasn’t any virus outbreak like in the movies. This was fuelled by hate, a hate so total and absolute than only the utter destruction of my flesh would sate it. That hate gave it strength beyond the human. It was almost demonic.

I was going to die.

Then there was a sound by my head like a storm cloud tearing itself apart.

And the zombie’s head exploded.

All the pressure vanished as the detonation rattled my skull and royally fucked me in the ear drum. I couldn’t hear for shit and I was absolutely drenched in zombie… goop? Blegh. Just awful.

My head felt like it would crack open, such was the aftershock of the gunshot. Had Nate finally finished and come to my aid, seeing my struggle on the asphalt?

Heaving the headless corpse aside, I looked down at my torso. Fuck me. I was covered in zombie shards. Nasty. Spitting a piece of fat man scalp out of my mouth, I put one filthy hand to my left ear which was still deaf, the right ear muted by a dull whine, and turned to check on Particles.

The shotgun I’d loaded was lying on the seat where I’d left it, the barrels pointing out of the vehicle. A wisp of smoke ghosted from the end of one barrel, evidence of its recent firing.

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