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

and I have been jumping about for a month and after yesterday’s unholy mess and subsequent physical labour, we needed to take stock and properly check out the lodge, while also running through the inventory.

The room I blasted Top Knot in has been written off as a bedroom. No fucker will want to sleep in there, so Nate’s pretty handy with tools and the like, and has said he’ll build some shelving in there and we’ll make it a storeroom.

I had a mooch in Grace and Theo’s bungalow and that place is pretty darn nice. Comfortable and cosy, yet pretty big. It’s got three decent sized bedrooms, so the three of us are going to move in there and make that our primary living space, leaving the lodge open for any new survivors we might collect along the way.

Yeah, that was a fun conversation with Nate.

“What do you mean, other people?” he demanded, after I said it in passing.

“We’ve got space here,” I pointed out. “We can comfortably add a few extra people here. Complement the skills we have.”

Nate shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. It’s too much of a risk. Have you forgotten what happened here yesterday already?”

“No, Nate, I haven’t forgotten,” I said, my tone bleak. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget hearing Ariel’s mind break when her buffalo got chomped on.” I let that one settle with him for a minute and the guy at least had the grace to look contrite. “But just because we had one bad experience doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves in our nice little safe space. There might be other people out there, scared and alone, in need of help. Are you really going to tell a single mum with a five-year old to get bent and walk on, while they scream and beg for help as you pass?”

“Erin’s right,” offered Freya, scratching behind Particles’ ears as he sat on her lap. “I don’t think I could sleep at night if we just left someone to die.”

“It’s not practical,” he pushed back, though this time with far less conviction. Nate’s a hard man who’s clearly been through some shit that I’ll never be able to imagine, but he’s not an asshole and he’s got ticks in the box for noble acts. He saved me from a fate worse than death and let me stick with him, after all. Let’s face it; I’m probably more annoying than anyone we might collect on our travels by at least a factor of three.

Honestly, I think he’s just trying to protect us, which is sweet, but ultimately pointless.

“Well, if we’re talking practical, do you know how to tend those herb and vegetable gardens out there? That’s a great source of fresh food and good nutrients, but unless we learn shit real quick, it’s finite.”

Nate’s not a man prone to snappy judgments. He sat there for a moment, still as a sculpture, then sighed.

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “But we’re going to have to use some instinct and good sense. The fact is we can’t take every stray in, because there’ll always be the chance they’re rotten inside. Space is limited, food is limited.”

“We should probably do something about that,” I mused. “We need food, we need medical stuff, and we need hygiene stuff, because I’m never spending a month covered in zombie goo again. Town is only about five miles away and if we keep to little corner shops and pharmacies, we could boost our stores considerably in no time.”

And there it is; the beginning of a survival plan. I’m actually pretty stoked by it.

Tomorrow, Nate and I are going out to a little row of shops I know in town, that’s away from the bulk of residential estates. There’s a pharmacy, convenience store, and a little further up the road is a petrol station. We need to fill up the pickup as it’s our best vehicle for loot loading.

Freya’s not ready for the field yet, so she’s going to go right through the lodge and inventory absolutely fucking everything. Food, medicine, cleaning, hygiene, bedsheets, towels… everything. I’m so glad she volunteered for that job, because a quartermaster I am not. I can’t think of anything more soul destroying than inventory.

What we need is a nerd.

Right, I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow Nate and I go out to play, erm, I mean seriously recon the area and acquire much needed provisions.

Priority one… coffee. I am a caffeine-dependent lifeform and I don’t care if it’s shite instant coffee. If I have to drink another hot fruity beverage, I’m going to lose my shit. I’d really like a proper cup of tea, but without milk and sugar, tea just doesn’t hit the spot for me. I can drink black coffee, however, with no problem at all. What I most certainly can’t do is drink another lavender and elderflower tea. It’s like drinking perfume.

Nighty night.

July 28th, 2010

GORILLA WITH A GUN

Well. Fuck. The situation has changed. A lot.

First of all, you’ll note that I’ve got an actual date for this entry. Freya found a laptop in the bungalow, so I can now keep actual history, instead of just writing incremental entry numbers. The laptop calendar has given me a sense of time again, which weirdly makes me happy. Everything was just blurring into one great smear of time, so knowing the actual date has put some order back into my existence. It’s the little things.

It’s also a lot easier being able to type my memoirs of the apocalypse than hand-write them in notebooks. I’ll have to scoop up my diaries and add them at the start of this digital record so it’s all in one place, but I’ll do that when I’ve got time.

So, what’s changed?

There’s a group of survivors in town that have banded together and, dear reader, these mother fuckers are bad news. I’ll get to them, but let’s get this shit shovelled.

Nate and I rolled out early this morning about eight, taking the pickup. The