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

the hum of generators beyond a door at the back of the kitchen. It was locked and this time he did not bother with the picks, instead just aiming a ferocious stamp at the door. It smashed open and he descended into a thunderous basement, where four large generators were wired into the main phase of the house supply. They might be useful in the future, so he simply switched them all off, plunging the house into darkness.

Smoothly dropping the NVG’s into place, the pitch darkness was suddenly banished by a green filter over his vision as he swept up the stairs and back into the house.

He had no idea of the layout, so was forced to go room to room, moving swiftly and quietly, rifle up and ready, using his power over the darkness to his advantage.

A flicker of light ahead warned Nate of someone’s approach with a small flashlight. Stepping into a shadowed alcove, he waited in silence, hearing the shaking breath of a man as he nervously edged down the darkened hallways. The light bobbed closer as the unwitting man almost panted with fear in the gloom of the night. In comparison, Nate’s heart was slow and steady, his breath controlled and even, the rifle slung round to his back as he silently slipped his knife from its sheath.

As the flashlight came into sight in a trembling hand, Nate waited a heartbeat longer until he could see the man’s weapon. Stepping from the shadows, his left hand immediately took charge of the man’s weapon hand at the wrist and pushed it away, the knife in his right hand punching up beneath the sternum to ravage the heart. The man died without a sound, Nate disengaging the MAC-11 from his lifeless fingers and lowering the body quietly to the expensive parquet floor. He stabbed the corpse through the eye to ensure he stayed a lifeless corpse, then wiped the blade on the man’s clothing and re-sheathed it.

Checking the man’s radio for the channel, Nate changed the one strapped to his arm, an earpiece plugged into it, and accessed the enemy communications.

“Dave, you near the kitchen yet?” Nate quickened his step. Not Bancroft, but the voice was familiar. It was one of his captains identified when first monitoring their overeager and unimpeded radio chatter. Brodie, though whether that was a first or last name, he had no idea.

The chatter got panicked as Dave failed to respond, until finally Brodie demanded everyone switch to the alternate channel. The radio went silent and Nate continued sweeping through the ground floor, listening at each door for signs of life. He heard movement upstairs but then as he placed an ear to a door, he heard the blurred hum of radio chatter. Slowly, he moved to the side of the door and knelt, reaching out a single hand to pull the handle, gently opening the door.

A young man, mid-to-late twenties, a wall of blank screens in front of him, stared at a handset on the desk, listening intently to its chatter.

Nate sidled in, closing the door softly behind him.

“Don’t move.”

Isaac nearly died of fright. The words were spoken softly, but in a tone that would accept nothing but absolute compliance. He wanted to put his hands up to show he was unarmed, but he was too terrified in case the voice shot him for moving.

“Name?”

“I-I-Issac,” he managed to choke out. “I’m not one of them!” He kept his voice a whisper.

“Prove that?”

“You’re Nate, right?” It had to be. Everyone else in this damn house was loud, brash and full of themselves. The voice behind him was soft, but controlled, in perfect balance. “I’m the guy that’s been moving the cameras for you and your friend! I want out of here, man; it’s fucking awful.”

“Voice down.” Isaac immediately clamped his lips shut. “How many hostiles left, Isaac?”

“Nine sounded off when Bancroft checked in last, before he left me.”

“When was that?”

“Just after the explosion upstairs.”

He was silent for a moment. “That means eight left.”

The statement was so matter-of-fact, Isaac shivered. A man had already died on top of the two he’d executed from distance, but they were just numbers.

“Plus Bancroft,” he whispered, overcompensating.

“Where is he?”

“Top floor, library,” answered Isaac. “One way in and out, no access via roof or window. All of those he’s keeping captive are in there as well.”

“How many?”

“Six, one of them a kid.”

“Are all his guys with him?”

Isaac nodded. “And his bitch wife. You’ll spot her a mile off, dolled up to the eyes like she’s going to Beverly Hills for a shopping spree. More makeup than a big top full of clowns.”

Nate gave a low chuckle, which Isaac took as a good sign he was not about to die any time soon.

“Alright, son, you can relax,” he said, his voice softening.

Isaac blew out a relieved breath and swivelled his chair. He could not see anything except for a silhouette in the gloom, but the man radiated presence, even standing in the shadows.

“What’s the alternate channel?”

“Seventeen.”

Nate moved in the darkness, going quiet for a time. When he spoke again, it was soft, but it still made Isaac jump.

“I need your help, Isaac, if we’re going to save your friends.”

“Tell me what to do,” he said instantly.

“Good lad,” approved the warrior in the shadows. “I need you to draw some of his men away to cull the pack, so get on the blower, whispering that you’re in hiding in this room, and you can hear me moving outside the door. Sound scared.”

“That’s not hard,” muttered Isaac. “I think I’ve already shat myself twice in the past three minutes.”

Another amused snort. “Where’s the library?”

“Out of here to the right, head in a straight line and you’ll get to the main hall. You’ll see the main stairs. Up those you turn left and keep heading down the hallway, then it does a ninety-degree right angle down a blind corner. About thirty feet at the end of that hall is the