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

an opportunity to deal them a severe blow, not just to their numbers, but also their resources. Clearly, fuel was all important to running their generators and by hitting that essential supply run, Bancroft would go mental. Active denial of resources, Nate calls it. He’s so wordy.

Nate also warned that as soon as we did this, Bancroft would know he was in a two-way battle, not just a hunt for the beautiful princess and her loyal sidekick.

I am not the sidekick, so shut it. This is my story.

This had to go down smooth and for once, he was going to let me drive my way. The key to this whole plan was being able to draw at least one of those vehicles away and as they had the hots for us, if I was dangled as bait, they wouldn’t be able to resist.

I took the black Astra we used to get home from our last outing, realising it was a GTi with a bit of grunt to it. I dropped Nate off about a mile from the petrol station, in the opposite direction they would approach, and let him get set in his ambush spot. He was tooled up in his tactical vest, loaded with full magazines for his shiny new toy which he had spent an hour sighting in properly. It wasn’t a plaything anymore; it was locked, loaded and fully calibrated, in the hands of someone who knew how to use it.

Properly.

He knelt down at the corner of a building and gave me the nod.

I headed off towards the petrol station and as I approached, I could see the two SUV’s parked across the entrance and exit, the small tanker parked within. They’d have to manually crank the fuel in and had already been there a half hour. We let them get settled in like it was a normal, boring fuel run that they had to pull sentry on, then… enter Lockey.

I approached at a steady pace, waiting until they caught sight of me. One man leaned out and clearly recognised the car, saw it was Princess Peach sitting behind the wheel of this particular Mario Kart, and up went the alarm. I stopped, cementing the illusion that I’d just noticed them as they flooded to the two SUV’s en masse, then whacked it in reverse to pull a swift three-point turn.

I could have easily done a handbrake one-eighty, but I had to give them the impression I was just a helpless little girl who couldn’t drive for shit.

Both SUV’s followed, so I assumed they’d have left at least one or two sentries with the tanker. I let them gain a little ground as I headed towards Nate’s hidey hole, then dropped it down a gear and went full Bandit as my own personal Smokeys put their pedals to the metal.

As I approached Nate at high speed, I gave him two honks to signify how many vehicles were on my ass and as I passed Nate, I slammed on the brakes, yanked up the manual handbrake and did that full one-eighty to take in the show.

As the lead vehicle approached Nate’s position, the air shattered with the staccato rattle of the SA80. The windscreen was obliterated as a burst of high velocity rounds raked across it, shredding the two men riding within. With the driver suffering from a severe case of lead poisoning, the SUV spun out of control, careening away to crunch into the front of a small terraced house with an almighty grind of twisting metal.

The second driver instinctively slammed the brakes as he watched the first vehicle swerve off the road and as it screeched to a halt, Nate rose to his feet in that smooth combat walk and stalked in their direction. In perfect balance, the rifle unmoving, he switched to semi and with four quick trigger pulls, double-tapped both driver and passenger through their windscreen.

Just like that, it was done.

Nate moved in, rifle fixed firmly on the second vehicle, confirming the kills. Both men were dead and then he switched to the wreck of the first vehicle, one more shot sounding as he put a dying man down.

Four men dead in seconds.

Swiftly, Nate took the weapons and any spare ammo from both vehicles, using his knife to stop any of the dead men suddenly reanimating and chewing bits off him, and took two more of their radios. He moved the second vehicle to the side of the road, threw all the new and exciting loot on the back seat of the Astra, then jumped in the passenger seat and nodded.

Phase two.

I gunned it back towards the petrol station, stopping as we got closer to let Nate slide out while there was still cover and then waited, watching the digital clock on the dash. Five minutes he said. Wait five minutes, then engage phase two.

I’m not going to lie, this shit was exciting. I tried not to think too hard about the cold method of execution Nate employed, but we were on the side of right. These fuckers were keeping slaves for their own twisted ends, so I kept telling myself the end justified the means.

Amazing what stories we tell ourselves, isn’t it? We’re always the hero of our own story.

Philosophy aside, I waited the five minutes, then began rolling down the road at a less than leisurely pace. I rounded the bend about a hundred metres from the station to find the other two sentries out in the road, waiting for their non-responsive buddies. The radio sat on the dash was going mental, asking what the hell was going on, that reinforcements were on the way and to hold tight.

Ten minutes they said. That was five minutes ago.

As I rolled into view, I slowed. The two remaining sentries had rifles, both pointing my way. They didn’t have scopes, so I reckoned I was good, but the two mooks never triggered a single shot. Two rapid cracks came from somewhere else and the two