As we creep toward No More Heroes and its October 27th release date, I hope you’re enjoying the excerpts we’re posting every few days. There are a couple more to enjoy for free, on our dime, and I hope you’re getting excited to have the rest of the book in your hands.
To catch yourself up, here are the links to the earlier posts:
Parts One and Two: https://www.thechrisphilbrook.com/2020/09/12/no-more-heroes-entry-one-and-two/
Parts Three and Four: https://www.thechrisphilbrook.com/2020/09/17/no-more-heroes-entries-3-4/
Parts Five and Six: https://www.thechrisphilbrook.com/2020/09/24/no-more-heroes-entries-5-6/
Parts Seven and Eight: https://www.thechrisphilbrook.com/2020/10/01/no-more-heroes-entries-7-8/
And now, part 9; Particles
PART 2
THE PUG LIFE
8TH ENTRY
PARTICLES
Today I found a new notebook to start scribbling my thoughts in. I think this is my… eighth?… entry now, after all the weird school and farm shit went down. So, hello again, my fine imaginary reader that has not read my journal because I’m still writing it.
It’s weird that writing helps me figure out all this jumble of crazy bouncing round in my head all the time. The world shat itself a couple of weeks ago now, and after I escaped the school I got trapped in, only to get trussed up and almost anally invaded by a freaky Cheshire farmer, then saved by Clint Eastwood’s long lost English cousin (aka Nate Carter), it’s good to be writing again. I’m especially pleased though, because I have big news!
I found a dog.
His name is Particles and he’s my lucky charm.
Yeah. Particles. How frickin’ cool is that name? What makes it better is that he’s a pug, so he’s this tiny little grey ball of awesome that looks perpetually outraged by the apocalypse. I carry him in a little backpack I wear frontwards, with a hole cut in it for his head to stick out. Honestly, I look like fucking Kuato out of Total Recall, only my belly-face is a permanently outraged pug staring balefully at the world. Judging it.
I love him.
Nate hates my Kuato-bag, as I’ve dubbed it. I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t like Particles despite all the good he’s done. Probably because he keeps saying, “That’s not even a dog, it’s an accessory.”
Bah. The man has no soul. He’ll see. Particles is lucky, and I’m going to tell you why he’s lucky and how we found him.
Going back to Nate for a minute, I can forgive the big, grumpy bear. He’s a fifty-something ex-SAS badass (I think) with a jaw that can chew bricks and that rarest of all rare animals in this not-so-Great Britain; he has guns and knows how to use them. He’s seen some shit in his time, no doubt, and I’ll forever love ol’ Gunny Highway for saving my ass (literally) from Old McRapey on his farm, but how he can hate little old Particles with his particular brand of cute outrage, I’ll never know. War has taken a piece of his soul he needs returning, so my mission in life is to make him love Particles. Love him and squeeze him and call him his own. You watch me. I can be really annoying when I put my mind to it. I’m going to irritate Nate into loving Particles.
Not a sentence I expected to write today.
So how did we come by Particles? Funny story. Well, actually not funny for Particles’ previous owner.
So, after Nate popped Old McRapey between the eyes with his pistol and saved me from hell, we raided that farmhouse for supplies and hung round there for a few days. Eventually, Nate turned to me.
“We can’t stay here, Erin,” he said, in that throaty growl that makes him super-manly.
“Lockey,” I replied for the fifty-seventh time, flicking my long dark hair dramatically like I was in a shampoo commercial. “My friends call me Lockey. Everyone calls me Lockey.”
Nate has this way. He lifts his left eyebrow about half an inch, managing to convey – in that tiniest of gestures – the displeasure and contempt of someone who has just watched a leper take a shit in one of their favourite shoes.
He still doesn’t do outrage as well as Particles though. Pugs have that shit nailed. Indignation is another forte of the pug. If I’d had Particles at this point, I’d have held him up to Nate’s face, so they could have a stare-down. Nate can’t lick his own nose though, so I reckon Particles would win every time.
“We’re no farmers and there’s little enough food here. Plus, it’s miles from anywhere. We need to stay on the move.”
“We huh?” I said. “So, we’re like Starsky and Hutch now? Like Cagney and Lacey? Butch and Sundance?” I smiled sweetly at him. “Are we a power couple, Nate?”
He shook his head, pug-like in his expression. “Are you taking this shit seriously?”
“Absolutely not,” I replied. Ha. That stumped him.
“Erin, the world is over,” he said, all grave and serious and baritone, purposefully ignoring my preferred handle for the umpteenth time. “The dead are rising to eat the living. Society has crumbled. There’s no government, there’s no support. No one is coming. The world is dead. And you’re not taking it seriously?”
“Fuck no,” I snorted. “The world is shit and miserable, Nate. It’s taken everything away from us, so the one thing I’m giving the apocalypse back is my ability to drop my pants and wink my brown eye at it in a grand cosmic ‘fuck you.’ No point living if you’re just gonna mope about. Be more Tigger, and tell Eeyore to cheer the fuck up, that’s what I say.”
Nate looked at me like I’d just boned his dad in front of him. We’ve not known each other long, but he looks at me like that a lot. Most people do. Usually when I say words.
Anyway, we decided (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘Nate’) to load up the SUV I’d swiped on my escape from the school with what supplies we could, then head out and keep on the move. Maybe look for a survivor community if any had started to form. I mean, it’s early days yet and people in this country are notoriously selfish assholes at times, and the world only died and shat its pants a couple of weeks ago, so there’s some way to go yet before anything coherent starts to form I reckon.
But then again, this is my first apocalypse, so what do I reallyknow? I’m an apocavirgin, so to speak, so I don’t know how much this is really gonna hurt.
Damn, sometimes I should really stop writing. But I’m using a pen. I can’t delete. So, you’re getting the unfiltered Lockey brainwaves I’m afraid, my imaginary reader. You’re welcome.
Only a day passed before my life changed for the better. We started hitting up some of the country houses for supplies in the local area, mainly diesel for the SUV. Nate has a real hard-on about fuel supplies and being mobile, and always insists on driving.
And he drives so slow!
It’s like Driving Miss Daisy with that old fart behind the wheel. Not a soul on the roads and he’s driving like a pensioner on his way to Sunday church after three hits on a super-skunk bong.
I asked to drive once, he let me, then after a half hour of Hurricane Nate blowing in my face as he raged at me for my speed and late braking, a load of old man stereotypical whine about women drivers, threats of shooting out my knees, and general “I fucking hate you Erin” in various forms, I relented and swapped with him. Usually he’s all calm and stoic, showing his contempt with an eyebrow, or a tightening of the jaw. Enough to let you know you’re edging close to the line. My driving, it would seem, was his rage-trigger. And oh mama, that rage is scary.
For the record, I only swapped because he’s got a gun. And that he could probably snap me in two like a twig without one. I’m a fast little ninja with skills of my own, but Nate has “that look.” I read a really great description in a fantasy book by David Gemmell that really sums it up.
“The look of eagles.”
That’s a bad ass statement that just tells you anyone with this look is a stone-cold killer, backed by experience and will not be fucked with. I can hold my own with anyone in fisticuffs I reckon. I’ve never really thought “I can’t take you” when I’ve been involved in a fight, and I had a few growing up in the care system. I learned to fight fast and dirty, because if you didn’t fight back twice as hard, you’d always be prey. When you’re a girl, you have to be twice as hard so you can rip the dicks off guys who think you’re easy meat to satisfy their boner. So, I learned to fight and never show fear, to blast in headlong and whirl my arms, keys in fists, windmilling in classic British Kung Fu style. I’ve never been afraid to take anyone on in a scrap.
Except Nate. I’m just glad this guy is on my team, because I swear to God, he’s the first guy I’ve ever met that genuinely scares me. If he lost his shit, like really lost his shit, I bet he’s fucking terrifying. You don’t get in the SAS unless you’re a quadruple-hard motherfucker.
Pretty sure the bastard drove extra slow after we swapped back though, just to mess with me.
I do go off on tangents. Okay Lockey, focus.
Particles. Yes.
So, we rolled up to this secluded farmhouse, but this one didn’t seem like a working farm. It had a pretty garden, more like a cottage to be honest. It had this weird little Nissan Micra parked on a gravel driveway as well, bright yellow. God awful thing, but it suggested the owner was still home. Not that anyone being home bothered Nate, as he stopped the vehicle at the end of the path, slid out the door and drew the shotgun he’d taken from Old McRapey’s farm.
“Can you shoot?” he asked, his voice low.
“Like a boss,” I replied with supreme confidence. Probably too confident, as he cocked that fucking eyebrow at me again. “I’m a stone-cold killer on Call of Duty,” I added, making the finger guns and firing them off with a whispered “pew pew.”
Nate didn’t let me have a gun.
I followed in Nate’s wake, at least able to match his light feet with my parkour skills. Balance and grace, I’m not afraid to admit, are two things I can actuallyboast about. I think I surprised Nate, because he looked back to find me in his wake, not blundering around like a drunk bitch fighting with her bra before bed. There was no eyebrow raise, judging me. I call that a win.
Nate has this freaky way of moving, his combat walk. His knees are bent, hips solid, gun up, always in balance. The barrel of that shotgun didn’t quiver once as he stalked up the path. Scary shit. I was shitting sideways bricks in his wake, but he was calm as hell, breathing slow and even, not a twitch in any muscle. Stone cold. Ice instead of marrow in them bones.
Though, in fairness, what did we have to fear from the inhabitant of a cottage surrounded by flowers, who drove a bright yellow Nissan Micra? I was pretty confident a Taliban warlord wasn’t hiding out in the Cheshire countryside, driving a car the colour of a daffodil.
Everything was quiet. Deathly quiet. Nate signalled for me to open the little red gate that led up the path to the front door, and I did so. Now wasn’t the time for me and my smart mouth. Do what the big scary soldier tells you, Lockey.
As we ghosted up the path and reached the door, that’s when we both heard the bumping and scraping from inside the cottage. The curtains were drawn on the front window, so we couldn’t see into the little house. Then I heard the high-pitched yelp.
People can go fuck themselves most of the time. In my experience, most people are assholes given half the chance. I don’t trust easily.
But dogs? Man, I love dogs. They are pure, unconditional, excitable love. They’re like an animal version of me, but without the bad bits. They’re role models for how society shouldbe. Dogs are the only things on this shit-sucking earth that will love you more than it loves itself. You know what I reallylove about them? You can start celebrating and they’ll join right in, wagging their tails and lolling their tongues, when they have no fucking clue what the context is. Dogs are great because they’re just always ready to party. So when I heard that little scared bark-yelp, I started moving.
Now, I know a weakness of mine is impulse control. And no, I’m not doing anything to mitigate that, dear reader, because I am who I am. However, on this occasion, I accept that I made the very grave error of ploughing past Mr Spec-Ops and opening the cottage door, barrelling in and realising all too late that the place smelled like death had taken a shit in there.
I stopped, eyes streaming from the choking cloud of horror assaulting my senses. Then I heard that little muted yelp-bark again and turned to my left.
And promptly squealed at the pitch of a six-year old girl.
Just three feet away was a dishevelled old zombie woman. I say old, but she was probably about Nate’s age in life. Fifty or so. Still, I’m only twenty-six, so that’s two of my lifetimes. Old as time.
She had a little blue cardigan, spectacles on a chain hanging round her neck and hair like Albert Einstein after he’d been electrocuted. Seriously, in that brief snapshot moment, all I could see was this explosion of mangled grey hair, like she’d been banged doggy-style while her head was rammed in a bramble bush. Just all over the place and wild as hell.
She wasn’t moving too fast, slower than a normal shambler, and it was easy to see why. Her right ankle was clearly broken as hell and moving about on it had only made things worse. The foot had all but torn off and sat at a horrible right angle, and she was off-balance as she hobble-dragged herself around. A spur of bone from the shattered ankle was used to rest her weight on, like some messed up pirate peg-leg and – lord above – it was gross. There were bloody smears all over the once shiny oak parquet flooring, and grooves cut by the bone shard, where she’d dragged herself about and slowly torn that foot almost clean off. It made a jarring scrape on the wood as she moved, sending shivers through me like a rusty nail being dragged down my spine.
Agh. Just horrible.
Despite her off-centre gait though, as she neared, the milky-eyed old dear’s lips peeled back, her arms coming up like claws, ready to pounce like some undead predator.
That’s the weird thing, right? Our zombies don’t shuffle about, arms up, moaning and groaning for brains like they do in all the movies. They are silent as a ninja fart and way more deadly, and they smell worse to boot. They’re blank as a mannequin until they’re three feet from you, then their lips peel back, dead expression twisting to this rictus of soul-deep hate for you and they fucking lunge that last gap, ready to make your entrails your extrails.
I’m quick on my feet. But something had me frozen and in that moment, I saw my death. Death that looked like some sweet old lady living in a cottage, who drove a yellow Nissan Micra. The yelp had given me just enough time for a single step back as I squealed, arms up to futilely defend against the grim reaper’s grandma as she lunged for me, but that one step back meant she had to step into the hallway and into Nate’s cone of fire.
Can I just give special mention to – as my first real experience of it – a shotgun going off in a little confined space like that cottage?
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
It was like a god damn army of thunders tearing the air around me. Ho-ly shit.
The world got really loud, then really wet, as I was hit by some of the spray from Nate unleashing both barrels of the shotgun simultaneously. The little old lady’s upper quarter just vapourised in front of me, head and chest just gone, shredded beyond recognition. I think I got some old lady juice in my mouth. Nasty.
I think I was screaming. My throat’s vibrations told me I was, but I couldn’t hear for shit. There was just a dull whistle from the detonated bomb of the shotgun’s blast in the hallway. I was pretty certain I was gonna need to find a new pair of underpants from somewhere, though old lady knickers were off the list. I don’t have much self-respect, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
Dropping the shotgun, Nate smoothly drew the handgun at his hip and stalked the hallway, completely ignoring me until he’d swept the rest of the building for any other undead. Then his hand gripped my shoulder and gave me a shake, bringing me back to my senses.
“Are you hurt?” he said, his voice sounding both distant and underwater. Jesus, guns are loud. “Are you okay?”
“Well,” I shouted, like an Englishman pointing at fish and chips on the menu in a Spanish hotel. “I’m so damn happy, I might need to sit on my hands to keep myself from clapping! You?”
Again, that “you’ve just boned my dad“ look.
Hey, at least I’m consistent.
Well, it turned out that Long John Grandma was named Patricia Fox and – I shit you not – she was a god damn quantum physicist.
Now, I don’t know what a quantum physicist actually is, or what they do, but I do know that it’s all science and shit, and she had books in her house that I struggled to even read the title of, never mind the content. Her picture was on the back of some of them, so she even wrote about quantum silly string theory, or whatever it is. Anyway, she was a scientist, she lived on her own and from what Nate deducted from Sherlocking the place, it looked like she’d taken a fall, broken her ankle and either died from infection, or overdone the pain medication just to end it all.
I can’t tell you how sad that is. She was a quiet woman, smart as all hell, and she died in terrible pain, knowing there was nobody coming to her aid.
The apocalypse sucks, man.
She didn’t die alone though. That little yelp-bark came from under an ornamental bookshelf or dresser or… I don’t know. I don’t know what furniture things are called. Anyway, whenever poor old Patricia spun off the mortal coil, she must have gone chasing after her little doggy, knocked this furniture thing over and trapped said dog in it.
Because the dog was so small, the way the shelving had fallen trapped the animal inside a shelf space. Unbelievable luck. That dog had a tolerance of about eight inches either side or this big heavy bookshelf thing would have pancaked it, and that would have probably upset me more than Patricia’s lonely death. How weird and messed up is that?
Thankfully, Patricia’s spectacular living intelligence didn’t translate to her undead state, so she didn’t have the presence of mind to lift said furniture up to get at the animal trapped beneath. That was one lucky little dawg.
Nate and I lifted the toppled furniture up and found a shivering little pug beneath.
“Is that a dog, or a rodent?” muttered Nate.
“That, my dear Nathaniel, is a pug.”
He couldn’t have been under there more than a day, Nate reckons. Dr Patricia hadn’t been dead all that long. Again, that makes me sad. If only we’d arrived just a little earlier.
Despite no doubt being terrified, trapped under there for up to a day, the pug looked up at me and though pitiful, shivering and scared, somehow, he managed to look outraged.
I fucking love that about pugs. There’s something so very British about their quiet, unspoken indignation. They don’t possess the “small man syndrome” of a terrier or Jack Russell. Those little hilarious bastards act like they’re twenty times their size to compensate for their small stature, barking and screaming a challenge at everything.
Pugs accept their diminutive size and accept they will spend most of their lives being carried around like babies, yet they have this look on their face that mirrors an angry middle-aged man that listens to Radio Four. It’s a really sarcastic outrage, like the face of someone who holds a door for another, only to see them pass through without acknowledgment of the act. The quiet whisper of, “you’re welcome,” lathered in a thick coating of sarcastic outrage, is embodied by a pug’s face at all times. It’s like the world just annoys them and they have to accept being surrounded by absolute morons. I love it.
Anyway, I picked the dog up, feeling him shiver and found a blanket to wrap round him. Once I was sure he was okay, I fumbled on the collar and saw the name.
Particles.
I think I’d have liked Patricia. She was an old science looney who had an outraged pet called Particles. My kind of girl.
“We’re not keeping it,” Nate said.
“No way are we just abandoning him,” I said. “Particles saved my life.”
Again, that look. “What?”
“Had he not yelped when he did, I wouldn’t have had the step back that brought Patricia into your line of fire. She’d have totally blindsided me and ripped me open.”
“If you hadn’t charged in here like a dickhead, you wouldn’t have been in that situation.”
“Ah, but I did act like a dickhead,” I argued.
Admittedly, not my best retort.
“And I’ll probably act like one again before too long.”
I felt like the hole was getting deeper at this point, but I was committed.
“But with Particles here as my lucky charm, I might just make it to the end of this… end of days.”
Nate looked at me for a long moment, silent and thoughtful.
“You know none of that makes sense, right?”
I held Particles up to his face, so the little dog could convey my disgust at the notion of leaving him behind. Pugs have mastered that, too.
“I didn’t choose the pug life, Nate,” I said solemnly, with a completely straight face. “The pug life chose me.”
Here’s where shit gets hilarious.
Nate was having none of it. We took anything we could of use from Patricia’s little cottage – canned goods and the like – but I found a little backpack. I also found a big pair of those seamstress scissors, absolute monsters, and I set to the backpack as inspiration struck me. I got the measurements about right, packed the bottom of the rucksack with a blanket from the dog’s bed I found, then lowered Particles into the bag, zipped it up and out popped the pug’s head from the hole, Kuato style. I thought it was genius.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” was Nate’s opening statement when I walked out with the backpack as a front pack, and Particles staring moodily at Nate, flicking his tongue out to moisten his nose.
“What? He’s only got little legs! Poor little guy will never keep up.”
Nate looked at me for far too long, as still as granite. For a moment, I swear he was considering popping a cap in both our asses, and going on with his own existence, free of loud-mouthed idiots with too much energy and overly judgmental canines.
“For fuck’s sake.” The words hissed out in a low breath. “Get in the car.”
We’d been driving for about half an hour when Particles started to bark. He’d been silent and still for the entire journey, but something really jabbed him in the ass and stirred him, his little head turning to peer at Nate. It was like the dog was shouting at him. Hilarious.
“What’s up with him?”
“He’s house trained,” I mused. “Probably telling us he needs to go potty.”
“Needs to go potty?”
“Yeah, you know. Take a piss, dump, maybe both.”
“No, I know what you mean.” Nate huffed. “It’s just… need to go potty? Did you really need to say it like that? It’s a dog, not a toddler.”
“Well, however I say it Nate, you can stop the car and let Particles here split the atom, or we can have our own faecal big bang in the car.”
I am sopersuasive at times. Nate muttered a quiet curse under his breath and pulled over. I slipped out of the SUV and let Particles out so he could go spray some particles on nearby vegetation. Nate got out as well, ever the vigilant super soldier, eyes scanning the surroundings. There was a pickup parked just out of sight of the road in an overgrown layby. While I watched Particles with his weird tiny legs do that hilarious little run-hop thing pugs do, Nate palmed his handgun to his grip and combat walked to the truck to check it out.
When Particles had finished, Nate walked back over and I swear to shit, he was almost smiling.
“That pickup still has the keys in, almost a full tank, and no dead anywhere to be seen.” He sounded positively joyous. “Let’s unload everything out of this into the pickup. It’s more spacious, bigger engine, better ground clearance, a spare tyre and you’ll never believe what else.”
I stroked Particles knowingly, like a Bond villain with his white cat. “Go on.”
“There was actually a hunting shotgun in the back, with two full boxes of shells.”
I gave him a raised eyebrow. A knowing look. Any gun at all in England was as rare as rocking horse shit.
“What?” he demanded, his leathery face creased into a frown.
“Say it.”
I got a genuinely confused look. “Say what?”
“Say thank you to Particles.”
His expression quickly shifted into the ‘leper-shitting-in-your-shoes’ look.
“What?”
“I told you he was lucky,” I said imperiously. “He saved my ass with a well-timed yelp and now he’s got us not only a new vehicle with a full tank, but one with a gun and ammo. This is Cheshire, Nate, not Texas. Of all places Particles needs to curl a turd out, it’s right here, where there’s a shiny new vehicle with fuel and weapons? Come on! Admit it! He’s a lucky mascot!”
This time his expression reflected a man who had just witnessed a mutant penis grow out of my head while he watched.
“It’s just coincidence,” he huffed eventually.
“Denial, Nate? Really?” I sniffed in a mock haughty fashion. “Just accept that Particles is lucky.”
“Help me transfer all this shit to the pickup,” he growled.
Particles just looked at him.
Outraged.
He still wouldn’t admit my pug was lucky. Even though we were pootling in a giant dick-compensator (and going about twelve miles an hour because of Dame Carter at the wheel) and the proud owners of a new shotgun, Nate refused any further conversation on the subject of Particles being a lucky mascot. It’s just coincidence, he said.
“Well, isn’t it toocoincidental to be coincidence?” I argued. “I mean, come on Nate, a fucking gun with ammo in the Cheshire countryside? Unattended, with a truck that has keys in and nearly a full tank? Exactly where we stopped? Come on. Admit it, that’s not just coincidence. That’s providence.”
“What, so now we’re being looked after by a higher power?”
I shrugged. “Dog is God spelled backwards. Just saying.”
Nate swore. I was starting to piss him off. I should have stopped, really I should have. But I did make it rather clear earlier that I have a real issue with impulse control.
“All I’m saying is that there are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidence.”
“No way you just made that up,” he accused. “You’re not that insightful.”
Cheeky bastard.
“Maybe I’m just too lazy to show you how clever I am.”
He went to reply, stopped, then chuckled. Actually fucking laughed.
“Now that’s probably the smartest thing I’ve heard you say.” He glanced over. “So, who said the other thing?”
I thought about lying, but Nate actually cracking a smile was too good a chance to pass up, so I grinned back.
“V for Vendetta, Alan Moore,” I admitted.
We drove on for a little while longer. While we did, Nate talked me through loading the new shotgun. Despite my earlier dickhead reply about Call of Duty, I had to learn how to shoot. Firearms were too big of an advantage over the undead. That was one thing the Americans have over us in fighting this global shit-show. They have more experience and more bullets to use against the shambling legions of undeath. I had a great resource in Nate, so I’d be a dumb little prick not to use it.
While he drove, he talked me through popping it open – that’s called a “break action” apparently – and sliding the two cartridges into the barrels. This one was a single selective trigger, Nate said, meaning unlike the older model he shredded Patricia with that had two triggers – allowing both barrels to be blasted at the same time – this one alternately fired each barrel. Heh, look at me.
Learning, yo.
So, I loaded up the new shotgun with two shells and it was all ready to fire.
Then Particles started to lose his shit.
“The fuck is up with your dog?” demanded Nate.
I’d let Particles out of his Kuato-bag to sit on the seat with us. Obviously, he seemed outraged by this at the time, but he got on with it. Now though, it was like he was injected with crack, barking and yelping, scampering all over me with his tiny legs.
“No idea,” I answered truthfully. “I’ve been his owner for about two hours. Not exactly his homegirl for life just yet.”
Nate put the brakes on, stopping the pickup just before crossing a junction. Honestly, for a horrible second, I thought he was just going to draw his pistol and put Particles down.
“I can’t drive like this. You need to…”
The words died as a box truck whistled past the front of our pickup at about fifty, just inches away. Had Nate not stopped when he did, that big ass seven-and-a-half-ton beast would have sideswiped us. At that speed, Nate on the right in the driver’s seat would likely have been turned into a splash.
“What the….”
The box truck careened on and smashed with a bone-crunching thunder into an abandoned car parked on one side of the road.
It was an unholy mess of twisted metal, the box truck flipping to its side, the back doors cracking open as it slid to a sparking halt on the asphalt.
“Stay here,” ordered Nate, slipping out the driver’s door and palming the handgun, legs bent as he moved forward with liquid grace, perfectly primed and balanced for battle.
Damn, that always looked so bad ass.
Obviously, I disobeyed a little. I got out my door, laying the shotgun I’d been messing with on the seat. I watched Nate stalk towards the truck that had appeared out of nowhere at speed. I glanced down at Particles, who looked up from the seat expectantly.
“You are one lucky dog,” I said, turning my attention back to Nate, then whispered, “Holy shit.”
Nate had gone still. Out of the back of the box truck, bloody, shambling figures were beginning to emerge. Seriously, what the hell? Who the hell was carting zombies round in a truck? About twenty-five zeds crawled, shambled and fell out of the toppled truck, all their white eyes fixed on Nate.
Like he was shooting at a fairground range, Nate just planted his feet and went to work. Two hands on the pistol, he was steady, sure and somehow made the whole thing look easy. He didn’t rush, or maybe he made it seem like he was taking his time. I don’t know. What I do know is that the air filled with the crack of his Glock, as he started to put the mini horde down, one by one. Every shot was lethal, popping an undead melon with unerring accuracy, the bodies dropping like marionettes that had just had their strings cut. It was an honour and a privilege to see him go to work.
He popped a magazine out the pistol and switched in a new one from his tactical vest in one fluid motion, before resuming firing. Just as his gun barked into life once more, Particles let out an agitated bark of his own. As I turned to see why he was so tetchy, my eyes glanced over the rear-view mirror on the door I leaned on. My heart almost stopped.
There was a zombie only inches away from me.
Fuck, these things are so damn quiet.
Distracted by Nate’s bad-assery as he single-handed took down a mini-horde of undead, one single zombie had slowly shuffled up behind me, not making a single sound as it approached. As I caught sight of it in the mirror, it peeled back its lips revealing nicotine-stained teeth and bright red gums, an expression of hate twisting its chubby features like my very existence was an offence to it.
The guy was fat. A sliver from morbid obesity. There was a lotof weight in it and to top it off, it was wearing a really loud green and orange Hawaiian shirt. It was bad enough a fat guy had crept up on me, but a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt? Shame.
I barely had time to react as the thing lunged at me. God, that lungeis pant-shitting. It really comes at you with predatory speed.
I got my arms up in time to deflect its grasp, sliding my forearm underneath the zombie’s nine chins, across its throat and forming a makeshift brace as it snapped its rotting teeth inches from my face.
It couldn’t bite me yet, but I’m only a wee slip of a girl. I’m five-six and built to be a spider-monkey up drainpipes and jumping rooftops and ledges. I’m a tracer, not a wrestler, and even if I was I’d be a lightweight. This gigantic blob was a super heavyweight and the combination of his gargantuan girth and forward momentum with his lunge drove me back. Ultimately, it drove me down.
I could still hear the crack of Nate’s pistol as he cut down the horde, so no help was coming there. He had no damn clue I was being swallowed up by this giant blob of undead flesh.
What a way to go. If the Blob didn’t tear off my face with his smoker’s teeth, I’d either suffocate on his oozing flesh, or just be crushed under his extreme weight. I had nowhere to go, as the pickup door was behind me and it was all I could do to stop the thing biting me, as my mind fought for some solution to this absolute horror.
The weight was too much though. The pressure caused by his obesity and my balance utterly fucked from its initial lunge, eventually I buckled and went down, the giant undead atop me and only my forearm rammed under its chin preventing those teeth from tearing chunks out of my beautiful face.
My dear reader, I was going to die. I was sure of it. An ignoble death, borne to the ground by a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt, while Nate was gunning down a horde like a boss on his own. I always thought my death would be a blaze of glory, like missing an impossible leap to a ledge and plummeting to my death to die from concrete poisoning.
Suffocated and chewed to a death by a fat guy wasn’t on my list.
My strength was giving out. Like I said, I’m only a little gal and even if this thing was still human, I’d have struggled. It wasn’t human any more though, it was a feral thing, powered by some dark force I’m sure of it. This wasn’t any virus outbreak like in the movies. This was fuelled by hate, a hate so total and absolute than only the utter destruction of my flesh would sate it. That hate gave it strength beyond the human. It was almost demonic.
I was going to die.
Then there was a sound by my head like a storm cloud tearing itself apart.
And the zombie’s head exploded.
All the pressure vanished as the detonation rattled my skull and royally fucked me in the ear drum. I couldn’t hear for shit and I was absolutely drenched in zombie… goop? Blegh. Just awful.
My head felt like it would crack open, such was the aftershock of the gunshot. Had Nate finally finished and come to my aid, seeing my struggle on the asphalt?
Heaving the headless corpse aside, I looked down at my torso. Fuck me. I was covered in zombie shards. Nasty. Spitting a piece of fat man scalp out of my mouth, I put one filthy hand to my left ear which was still deaf, the right ear muted by a dull whine, and turned to check on Particles.
The shotgun I’d loaded was lying on the seat where I’d left it, the barrels pointing out of the vehicle. A wisp of smoke ghosted from the end of one barrel, evidence of its recent firing.
The dog had gone arse over tit into the footwell of the pickup. The fucking dog must have stepped on the trigger and somehow fired the weapon, and the recoil thrown the poor little bastard as it cannoned backwards from the blast. However, that freak firing had blown the fat zombie’s head clean away. It must have been in the perfect place to shred fat boy but leave me untouched by the spread of buckshot. A completely freak occurrence.
“You are one lucky fucking dog,” I said, spitting another chunk of fat guy from my mouth.
I gave Particles a baleful look as he sat in the footwell. One might even say I looked outraged.
He just licked his nose and gave me the same look back.
Particles did it better.
Nate finished his execution of the horde and appeared above me.
“Holy shit,” he said, seeing me drenched in undead goop.
“Now will you believe me?”
“Eh?”
I pushed myself to my feet, leaning into the truck and pulling Particles out, holding him up to Nate’s face. Naturally, Particles looked outraged by this turn of events.
“He saved my life against Peg-leg Patricia,” I said. “He got us a new truck and gun, he saved us getting side-swiped by a box truck full of zombies, and now he’s just shot a fucking zombie with a shotgun! Come on, Nate! Now you’ve got to accept the truth! Particles is a lucky dog! Without him, we’d be fucked!” I stopped then. “What was the deal with the truck by the way?”
Nate shrugged. “No idea. Driver must have been bitten a while back and died at the wheel. He’d reanimated and I had to put him down after dropping his passengers.”
“Makes no sense.”
“Nothing in this world makes sense anymore, Erin.”
“Ah HA!” I said, seizing the day. “That’s where you’re wrong. Keeping Particles makes sense, you have to admit! He’s now a member of the team, right?”
Nate looked at me for a long time before the ghost of a smile haunted his lips.
“Okay, the dog can stay.”
“Yes!”
I made Particles do an involuntary victory dance in the air, which he naturally looked outraged by.
“Just to be clear,” added Nate. “He’s not part of the team because he’s lucky.”
I frowned. “Then why?”
Nate quirked a smile at one side of his mouth.
“Because he’s killed more zombies than you.”
For the first time in my life, I was speechless. I turned Particles to face me and stared at him.
Outraged.
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