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

All that specialist training suddenly seemed like the greatest choice he had ever made, as he dropped down the back seats of his personal Range Rover and started loading in his haul from the armoury. Three Glock 17’s, two H&K MP5 submachine guns, a single H&K G36C rifle, spare magazines for the weapons, every shred of the 9mm and 5.56mm ammunition variants he needed for the weapons he could lay his hands on, four spare sets of body armour—he was already strapped into his own—secure channel radios with charging docks, medical equipment, holsters, gun maintenance supplies, tactical goggles, spare optics for the firearms.

The surprise haul was finding a H&K PSG-1 marksman rifle with two detachable ten-round magazines with one hundred rounds of 7.62mm ammunition; a real bonus find. If it wasn’t nailed down, Dean took it.

He considered leaving some weapons behind for others, but every AFO and SFO had already been deployed into the county when the shit started hitting the fan, so anyone with any training was currently armed. Leaving police issue firearms for untrained—or even criminal—individuals to find was just as dangerous to the living as the walking dead were, so he reasoned the weapons were better in his care than in the hands of dangerous amateurs.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

The truth was he could not possibly know what the future held, and his only concern now was getting Sarah and Maria, then finding somewhere for them to make safe. He wanted every weapon he could feasibly lay his hands on to do just that, so if it was there, he took it.

As he climbed behind the wheel and closed the door, he stopped, as Erin came to mind. He checked his phone again, cursing at the lack of service. He and Maria had only spoken to Erin a few times in the past year, their schedules never aligning and—Dean reasoned—Erin was a grown woman now, with a life of her own.

If there was one person in Dean’s life that would figure out some insane survival plan to get through this rising mess, it would be her, and she would probably manage to put undead down with her bladed tongue and wit. She was tenacious, resourceful, and without a shadow of doubt a survivor. He hoped she was okay, and offered another prayer for her safety, in the hope he and Maria would see her again.

Thundering the Range Rover into life, Dean snapped closed his seatbelt, his back route to the country Crenshaw school already planned in his mind and set out into the bleak new world that awaited him.

Nothing prepared Dean for his first visible sight of the walking dead. The constabulary headquarters was at the top of town, a vast expanse of fields stretching to the north and east, a small industrial park to the west with a high metal fence separating the grounds, and the south exit on to the single main road faced the entrance to a large, middle-class housing estate, with the main road running east and west past the entrance. West would take him towards the town centre, and Dean knew that direction would be chaos; with strings of traffic lights and panicked drivers all day, and the clock now a little past 3pm, the centre of town would be a mess of twisted, burning metal and shambling dead in his opinion. The sky looked a little dirty as he peered up, despite it being a bright summer’s day, obvious evidence of heavy smoke drifting and dispersing over time.

No, west and through town was out of the question.

Heading east, however, would take him to a choice of back roads that he could use to make his circuitous and largely country route to Crenshaw school, which stood on its own stunning country grounds, with no neighbouring buildings to the site for at least a mile. Even while loading the equipment into his SUV, Dean had considered the school as a potential location to place their flag and fortify, but he didn’t know the grounds or capabilities too well and would have to look them over. First, however, he needed to ensure Sarah’s safety.

Even as he approached the small roundabout at the end of the road, he knew something was off. The first exit that led off towards the city, twenty miles distant, was blocked by an accident, as an under-steering Mercedes van had taken the left turn at speed, ploughing across the central line and hitting a small hatchback virtually head-on. Dean’s natural inclination was to slow down to see if he could help when he saw the female driver of the small car moving within, but as he rolled to a stop and was about to slide from the safety of his vehicle, he paused.

The woman, or at least what used to be a woman, raised sightless, white orbs in his direction, bloodied teeth gnashing silently in his direction as she struggled against the restraint of her seatbelt.

A shambling man in bloodied labourer’s clothing shuffled into view from between the two wrecked vehicles. A huge chunk of his bared upper arm was missing. Dean assessed that the brachial artery had been torn asunder in what looked like a bite from the dead woman. Just trying to help the woman he had steered into in a panic, the man died trying to atone for his sin, and now his blood-drenched husk was walking in Dean’s direction.

He stared in mute horror for too long, trying to make sense of the gory scene before him and the two animated dead reaching or ambling towards him. Pushing the car back into drive, the police sergeant pressed the accelerator, swinging round to the third and last exit, leading to the network of smaller roads that ran between the local towns and villages.

The journey to Crenshaw was largely without incident, save for the odd vehicle that sped past him in the opposite direction, or overtook him in frustrated