Lockey vs. the Apocalypse by Meadows, Carl (7 ebook reader TXT) 📗

taking everyone with him, leaving just me, Charlie, Norah, and Particles back at the lodge. I got really antsy and wanted to ride along, but I was scolded by pretty much everyone to take it easy. They weren’t going out on some major loot run and doing house breaching or anything. They decided to take that loader truck from the builder’s yard to a farm a couple of miles away that had a big wood burner in it and bring it back here. Many hands make light work and all that jazz.

It was a good chance for Maria and Isaac just to work on vigilance pulling security, and the building was cleared by me and Nate a while back, so there was little chance of contact. They would likely need extra hands because the stove is a beast and they had to get it out of the farmhouse before the loader crane could even be used. Mark, being the expert planner that he is in all things engineering, made sure that one of the things he loaded up at that builder’s yard was a pallet jack, and a fancy high lift one that rises to a height of around 800mm and could bear just over a ton of weight.

He’s so smart.

Anyway, that’s what they did today. Nobody got any serious injuries – just a few minor bangs and scrapes from the labour – though I did hear tales of some terrible profanity when things got stuck, or some ingenious lubrication that was needed to finally get the beast out of the farmhouse so Mark could grab it with the loader crane. They’ve left it covered on the truck for tonight, as I don’t think anyone could face pissing about with it after their fun times at the other end. Mark brought all the stove piping back as well but has to do some prep work inside before it can be installed, like brickwork for heat reflection and such things. A good day’s work from everyone, but it’s really got me twitchy to get involved again.

Did I mention I hate being idle, Freya?

Hate it.

So, I guess it’s about time I addressed this whole anti-Lockey movement the undead seem to have. I think it’s safe to say now, without any shadow of doubt whatsoever, that the following statement is true.

This apocalypse is not natural.

I know that’s a completely bone-headed statement because the dead have risen to murder the living. This isn’t man-made though, nor is it some rapid mutation of an unknown virus that’s gone pandemic. I’ve said from the start that the hate these things have for you as they lunge, it’s dark and deep-rooted.

However, it’s always been a primal savagery, like the monsters are working from instinct. See or hear living, hunt living, kill living. Once living is dead, stop eating and let the new foot soldier rise to join the undead legion.

That itself is a tactic, and yes, it could be the method a virus or parasite would use to reproduce. Reproduction and survival are the two basest instincts of any organism, and the fact that we can put the undead down with a brain trauma might suggest any parasite causing this is rooted in the brain. Even a parasite is difficult to validate though, as it doesn’t matter how someone dies. Everyone gets up as an undead, no matter the manner of their passing.

But none of the above reasoning stands up with the recent change in behaviour I’ve seen, and it certainly has no explanation when an undead pharmacist, a thousand-strong wall of undead blocking the route through downtown, and another horde in a builder’s yard, all react in a specific manner of focused animosity towards me as an individual.

I know I can be a bit of an arrogant bell end at times, and joke about my awesomeness, but strip that right away. Others have seen it, Nate above all. He’s seen it every time, from that little sortie where we first saw the change in the lady pharmacist, how the downtown unliving wall reacted when I opened my mouth, and the crowd of zombies that largely ignored Nate and the other two on their elevated perch, yet the things swarmed the handset when my voice crackled through it.

I don’t care what anyone might argue in response, that shit is personal. But that leads to one unanswerable question.

Why me?

I can’t help but feel that there is an agency behind the undead somehow, and after your death, Freya, that agency has switched tactic. It’s weird, as though my deep abyss of grief was the catalyst in a change to their behaviour, but I just can’t fathom why. Any agency with any kind of sense would see that Nate is way more of a threat than little old me. That guy is a one-man army, so I would have thought whatever… force… has sparked this uprising would see Nate Carter as more of a menace. Instead, that entity – for want of a better term – has decided to focus on a foul-mouthed woman with a stupid sense of humour that uses sarcasm as her primary method of attack.

Maybe that entity is a bit dumb. Shit, I hope so, as that would make the fightback a little easier.

Is this a permanent change in their behaviour, I wonder? If it is, that means me going beyond the gate would put everyone else at risk. If I’m some kind of zombie flypaper, that means I’d have to stop going out and quite frankly, that would send me insane.

Hmm. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the builder’s yard incident was some kind of trap for me. The one way to really get under my skin is to go after my friends, as I’ll come in windmilling - all British Kung Fu style with my keys in tiny fists - when it comes to looking out for those I care about.

Essentially, the guiding hand of the undead – if such