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

trigger with me running at him just fifteen feet away, I was a dead woman. Out of pure instinct, I swept the pick hammer back and launched it at him.

I’ve always hated the phrase “you throw like a girl,” like we’re inherently worse at it at a genetic level. Well, I fucked that old idiom up with my throw, as I sent it cartwheeling through the air like a thrown Viking axe to smack the ugly bastard right in the chest.

The shock of it gave me the moment I needed to close the gap and I swung my right foot like Steven fucking Gerrard, landing an absolute thunderbolt square under Shooty’s jaw. There was no fight left him in after that as one eye went north, the other south, blood welling in his mouth from some broken teeth, and his head lolling about like he’d just done a syringe full of heroin.

I took the pistol from his hip, slid the rifle and bag away from his hands with my foot (they always do that in the movies), flicked the safety off and pointed the pistol right at him. Never shot a pistol in my life, but from this range, it was point the nasty end at the nasty man and pull the trigger.

“Don’t move, fucknugget,” I said. Giving him the once over, he was quite a heavy-set dude. There was no way this fucker had climbed to this roof like I had, so I glanced round and found a skylight hatch.

I waved Nate over, shouting at him and pointing at the slowly emerging army of undead pouring between buildings. I needed Nate to come to us, because I couldn’t climb first or second and keep control of the shooter.

After he finally found his way up to us through the building, Shooty had come to his senses a bit more. He was sat up, still a bit dazed and not a little pissed that he’d been bested by little old me. When Nate hauled himself up through the hatch, however, his demeanour changed immediately.

Nate has that effect on people.

Nate chatted to him quietly while rifling through the contents of his bag. There were some basics in there like food and bottled water, but Nate looked like a kid at Christmas when he saw how much rifle ammo was in there. There were five magazines, the first of which was now empty after I’d caught Shooty mid-switch, which apparently are 30 rounds each. There were also two more boxes of 5.56, each containing fifty rounds. This guy was loaded for war, and this intrigued Nate.

“This is an SA80. An A2.” He looked at the captive. “This is military grade, used on the ground by British troops. Where the fuck did you get it?”

It turns out, now and again, Jamie Bancroft has a contact that makes a handful of these disappear. Now, this is good, because it means he doesn’t have a compound full of guys carrying assault rifles as they’re a limited number, but it’s also bad, because he does have some assault rifles, and considering how much Shooty was carrying, they’re not short of ammo either.

Shooty was very talkative, giving Nate a whole bucket full of juicy information. The Bancrofts are holed up in the family home, which is actually a big mansion outside the other edge of town. It’s gated, with its water supply like ours (though they have petrol generators running power, not solar), a big ass wall, a total of twenty-eight men under his command, and about sixteen captives, twelve of which are women. There are cameras operating around the grounds as well, as apparently one of the indentured servants is a mega-nerd with computers and electronics.

All in all, Nate looked extremely satisfied with everything the goon spilled, eventually holding the radio up he found in the bag.

“How often do they check in with you?”

“Twice a day,” mumbled the thug through his broken teeth.

“But you called and let them know you had us pinned, so backup is en route.”

It was a statement, not a question, and Shooty’s glum expression confirmed the truth of it.

“Vehicle?” asked Nate, dangling a set of keys in front of him.

“Out back. Black Astra.”

Nate nodded. “Time to go, Erin.”

I nodded and started gathering up my backpack and gun that Nate had brought over. I stopped as Nate drew his Glock.

“Wait, Nate what are you…?”

My sentence never finished. No hesitation at all, Nate lifted the handgun and cracked a round through the sniper’s head.

“What the fuck, Nate?” I squealed at him.

He shrugged. “You want to save those captives? Well, I’m not sending even one man back to bolster their numbers or give them even a shred of intel on us.”

“That was cold-blooded murder!”

“That, Erin, was a tactical decision,” he said calmly. “I don’t like it, but sometimes the right choice is the hardest one to live with. You started this, remember? You want to fly in and save all these captives, and I applaud you for it. But this is the reality, Erin. We kill them, or they kill us. Or are you suddenly forgetting this man was placed here to watch the main road? We were in a vehicle unconnected to us, and this fucker just started shooting at it. We could have been anyone, even that single mum and her five-year old you used as an example.”

That shut me up. I fucking hate it when he’s right. I’ll fight and kill to defend myself and those I care about, but I’m not sure I’m happy with executions. I don’t think I ever should be, and that’s the key I guess. Nate took no pleasure in it, but it scares the shit out of me how he did it without even blinking. Blam. Lights out. End of story.

He was right, but man, I was fucking pissed at him for springing it on me like that.

The undead were milling about so we cut our losses. The police station was a hot