Lockey vs. the Apocalypse by Meadows, Carl (love novels in english .TXT) 📗

will continue to try and use their faces as a master key, but we’ve got actual thoughts. Let’s park up and find somewhere else we can climb over.”

“Erin, we….”

“Lockey,” I corrected again.

“Erin,” he repeated, just to be an ass. “What’s the point?”

“People are the point, Nate. They clearly don’t know what’s knocking at their gate. Come on, back the fuck up, park the truck, and come the fuck on.”

I slid out of the truck to make my point, Particles under one arm and his Kuato-bag in the other hand.

“Seriously?” he hissed, one eye glancing back to the mass of undead at the gate in case any had noticed us. They were a good distance away. “You’re taking the dog?”

“If you think I’m leaving Particles behind in a truck with the sun coming up, you’re very wrong. It’s already warming up. I’m not leaving the little guy to die a melty death in a truck.”

Particles emphasised my point by staring balefully at Nate, outraged at the notion of being left behind.

Nate said nothing, though I could almost hear the string of profanity echoing in his head, and I closed the door quietly. Nate backed the truck up round the corner, out of sight of the mass of shamblers, before climbing out. He kept his voice low as I settled Particles into his carry-bag. As his head popped out of the hole, all indignant at the inconvenience, Nate just stared at us both for a moment and shook his head in obvious irritation.

Cheered me right up.

We managed to find a way into the property by climbing a tree further back on the road, then moving along the boughs and dropping down the other side. Nate did an admirable job for an old guy, but he carries considerably more weight. I, of course, with my mad parkour skills, scampered up the tree, scooted along and dropped lightly down on the other side.

Nate’s attempts were comical, with him blowing out his arse as he dragged himself up, shakily moved across the branches, then flopped like a two hundred pound bag of shit on the other side.

“Wasn’t so bad, eh?” I gave him a shit-eating grin.

“Maybe not for a demented squirrel like you,” he growled.

Particles stared back at Nate, silently judging him.

We pushed on and as we entered a lush green field, there was a beautiful looking building at the top of a hill, all wood and glass. Pretty big too, not some little cabin. It looked like some classy chic hotel for the elite that had limited spaces. We could see a handful of cars parked outside, a long and slender road running from the building down to the front gate we’d seen from the other side.

Couldn’t see a single zombie from this side through the solid gates. You might see their feet if you went up close through the small gap between earth and the gate’s bottom, but other than that, looking down from the building would reveal nothing about the undead party taking place at the gate.

Ever vigilant, Nate had come looking like he was ready for some mass execution, all dolled up in his bad-ass tactical vest, spare clips for his handgun, shotgun shells aplenty, and the double barrel with the selective trigger loaded and ready for action.

We could hear voices, even though it was probably only seven in the morning, just a single, soothing voice, all hypnotic, though no words could be made out. We crested the rise, following the sound of the voice and as we reached the top, both of us stopped dead.

There, on the grass in front of this stunning country retreat, were ten people.

Doing yoga.

Yoga.

Fucking yoga in the apocalypse.

You only had to take one look at these people to know that Nate wasn’t going to get on with them. These people were gentle-looking, flighty and farty, breathing in the country air and finding their centre and learning to love themselves or some shit, while I was accompanied by the Terminator’s granddad.

The instructor was the only one facing us when we appeared, a quite beautiful woman in her mid-forties, who clearly took really good care of herself. One thing I immediately noticed was that everyone looked clean, and that gave me real hope for my future.

The instructor’s eyes were closed as she talked, holding some position that was sure to win any game of Twister without fail, but as she relaxed and began issuing her next instruction, she opened her eyes and Nate and I were both in her cone of vision.

She stopped for a moment, too stunned at seeing our incongruous little trio standing outside their shiny lodge. There was Nate; all in black, tactical vest, handgun, shotgun, and a facial expression that silently said, “what the actual fuck?” He’s shit at hiding what he thinks, especially when he thinks, “What the fuck?”

Then there was me, dirty and dishevelled with an off-centre ponytail in hair that hadn’t been washed in a month or more, my loose athletic pants, battered Nikes, vest top and hoody, with a backpack hanging over my torso, and a pug’s head staring back at them all, judging them. I waved and smiled, knowing full well Nate probably looked like he was about to execute every last motherfucking one of them.

The instructor let out a little squeal, squeaking out a name.

“Theo!”

A man at the front, about the same age as the yoga teacher—probably a little older actually—paused in his stretch and turned, blanching at the sight of us. To be honest, I nearly blanched at the sight of him. He had this really weird round face, with crumpled skin in folds, and a shock of wiry black hair on his head and sticking out of his chin, like he’d just been electrocuted. When I saw him, all I could think of was how he looked like a testicle. With teeth.

The whole group by now had turned to see the commotion and most of them squealed, clustering together fearfully, begging