I’m 26 years old, I have a mouth (and apparently a hand when a pen is in it by the looks of it) that runs off before my brain gets in the driver’s seat. I make frequent and often obscure pop culture references and I have a particular set of skills, skills that make me a nightmare for zombies like you. If you give the world back now, I will not look for you…
See? I love movies, comics and general nerd-stuff and can’t help but quote them.
What are my particular set of skills? Well, I’ve been doing parkour and mixed martial arts from thirteen. Zombies can’t chase you up a drainpipe when you spider-monkey the fuck away from them and using the aerial highway when possible makes life a little easier. Thankfully, I haven’t come across any climbing zombies as yet. I’ll probably just give up on life if that happens.
MMA is great for up close and personal if I end up tangling with another survivor for a can of soup. Ground and pound on a zombie is pretty useless, as no choke hold or arm lock is gonna stop Chompy McTwatface from chewing through your arm. Sleeper holds are ineffective against the rage-filled dead. Plus, I came up in the care system. When you’re a teenage girl and you start shaping like a woman, a lot of unwanted attention comes your way. I found the best way to deal with such attention was a kick in the balls followed by a knee to the teeth, so I applied myself to perfecting aggressively violent self-defence.
It also helped when Skeletor popped up like Aladdin’s genie and tried to bite a chunk out of my beautiful face. When I put my foot through the front of his knee, then kerb-stomped his head like an 80’s football hooligan, it felt pretty useful then.
What’s my other skill? I drive like a Hollywood stuntwoman.
Okay. I might be overdoing that a bit, but I’ve been stealing cars and joyriding them since I was fourteen. Admittedly, there were some “incidents” where things didn’t go “as planned” and I may have “crashed” a few times, but nobody’s perfect, right?
Look, I never said I was a shining example of goodness and light, but a girl has to do what she can to survive right? I came through the care system and learned to take care of myself. So, I’d describe myself as a mix of Ripley from Aliens (because she’s bad ass and you don’t know me so I can say whatever I like), Tigger and Jackie Chan, all rolled into one sweet-cheeked package of awesome. Go Team Lockey. (And the crowd goes wild…)
But all my awesomeness aside, I’m still shitting myself.
Do you know what is not one of my skills?
Strategy.
I’m more of a reactive, rather than a proactive girl. I wing it. I ride the wave of fortune and sometimes I’m up high, or sometimes I’m teeth-deep in liquid shit.
This was the latter.
What was I thinking? Who thinks a fucking high school is a good place to ride out the apocalypse? Well, my dearest reader, let me tell you about this rare and uncompromising genius.
Sticks two thumbs up, rams them backwards.
I’ve obviously watched too many movies where the great strategists say, “if you own the high ground, then victory is assured.”
Well, Boudicca here took that to heart, didn’t she? And the tallest building around was the top floor of the high school in this shitty small English town so off I went. Everyone was coming out, a flood of panicked teenagers desperate to escape, so Sun Tzu here decided to go for the high ground. Well done Lockey. You are now the proud resident of a classroom, with huge windows looking out over a town filled with fucking zombies.
They’re everywhere, because this high school is right in the middle of a residential area.
Sigh. I am so wise. Pass me that great tome of knowledge, so I can chew on it like a retarded donkey.
It’s not a big town by standards, but it’s still a town. In the full bloom of life, there had to be a good ten thousand living here. Not exactly a rural hamlet, so there are people everywhere. Well, there were. Most of the town fled when Hurricane Shitstorm landed, but they’re the live ones. The rest are dead and just milling about, all lost and forlorn.
Such a weird thing to say… the dead are just milling about.
So, what’s my problem? Well, let me tell you, my inquisitive unknown reader friend. About ten minutes after I shimmied my way up a drainpipe and through an open window, some panicked helicopter parent in their giant SUV (pointless for a town this size) came thundering through the school gates to pick up their precious little angel. Of course, Mrs. Thomson-Smythe isn’t exactly trained for high speed driving and as she came through the gates into the car park and rounded the corner at pace all panicked for her little cherub’s safety, she managed to plough through a field of teenagers.
Dear. Fucking. God.
It was awful. It was like a bowling ball through pins, scattering the poor little bastards everywhere, though the ones at ground zero just made a god-awful “thunk” sound as they were hit square and smashed flat, then ridden over. The asphalt of the car park near the school gate was splashed with crimson and mangled uniformed kids, which then unleashed all kinds of crazy. Kids started screaming, the mother in the giant SUV was screaming, I was standing two floors up screaming. Did I mention the screaming? There was screaming.
Turns out it got even worse, because one of those little angels that got splashed was her own little angel. So, Mrs Thomson-Smythe gets out of the SUV, screaming in
