Exploration - EBOOK

Chapter 1
Nero

‘Okay, gun it,’ Nyx said to him as they barrelled down a smooth slope of hard-packed earth. Nero held the wheel tight with both hands, keeping the vehicle straight as it bumped over stones and debris. Rocks rushed past them on either side as the charger’s throaty engine roared.
The oversized tyres kicked up dust behind them, creating a brown contrail of dirt and dust that obscured Nero’s view through his rearview mirror.
He wasn’t using it much out here, though. He focused on what was out in front of the car.
Nyx stood in her seat beside him, one foot up on the door frame. He’d installed a hatch in the top of the car above the passenger seat so she could stand up. She was up there now, holding her sword aloft with a determined grin on her face, her sandy blonde hair flowing out behind her, making her look like some kind of goddess of the wasteland.
Nyx yelled. ‘Whoop! Come on, let’s get some!’ she called as they screamed down the slope towards the small knot of undead bodies that were ambling in the wasteland up ahead.
There were three of them, spaced well apart, staggering slowly in the bright sunlight. They’d heard the charger approaching and were dumbly moving towards the sound. They didn’t see the danger that was coming their way; they were motivated only by their instinct to feed.
Nero made small adjustments to the trajectory of the car, aiming just to his left of the zombies to bring them past on Nyx’s side as close as he could without hitting them.
It was precise work.
Nero glanced to his right, up at Nyx. God, she looked beautiful standing there. Like some empress of the wastes with her right foot up on the door. She wore her usual fitted body suit, wide belt, dog collar, gloves and stockings made out of the same weathered black material as her body suit.
Looking back at the way he’d been living his life before meeting her, he now sometimes wondered how he’d not ended up killing himself. His life had been lonely and desperate, but Lucia Nyx had changed all that. She had a lust for life that thrilled him and made each day an adventure. It didn’t hurt that she was simply gorgeous to look at, too. He couldn’t believe his luck, really. The fact that she was into him as well just made things even better. She was a daemon in bed as well. She’d taught him a few things in that department, that’s for sure.
‘Bat ‘er up,’ she yelled and twisted where she stood, turning her back to him and showing him her ass. For a second, he just enjoyed the view of those two fleshy cheeks hanging out of her bodysuit that was giving her something of a wedgie.
Her bum wobbled as the car thundered along, making Nero smile at the memories of seeing that ass bounce up and down on top of him during one of their lovemaking sessions.
‘Hey! Eyes on the road, lover boy,’ she yelled at him.
Nero looked up to see her looking down at him, one eyebrow raised in an expression that told him she knew what he was thinking. It wasn’t the first time she’d caught him looking at her, and it wouldn’t be the last. She didn’t mind, she said as much to him time and time again, but they were in the middle of something here, and she needed him to concentrate.
Nero looked back out through the armoured windscreen and saw they were off course. He corrected with a twitch of the wheel and aimed to the left of the lead zombie.
‘First zomboid coming up,’ he yelled over the roar of the V8.
‘Woo-hoo!’ she whooped and wound up her arms. The zombie streaked past on their right side, right past Nyx as she swung her blade through the air.
‘Ooof,’ she grunted as she hit it and moved in her seat.
Nero glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the headless body stagger and fall in the dust cloud behind the car.
‘Fuck yeah,’ Nyx shouted. ‘Got it.’
‘Ready for number two?’ he asked.
‘Bring it on,’ she shouted back.
Nero turned the wheel, angling the car towards the next walking corpse, passing it moments later with Nyx swinging her sword once more and decapitating that one, too. She was very handy with that weapon, he had to admit. They’d been wandering these wastes for weeks now, passing through several encampments and outposts, moving away from the territory of the Whisperer, the daemon that Rex had owed loyalty to. They wanted to keep away from the Watchtower in case there was anyone local who was loyal to Rex and who felt like they might want to hunt them down.
They’d not had any trouble of that kind, though. In fact, it was the opposite, with people appearing to be happy that he was gone.
During their wanderings, they’d encountered the usual bandits, zombies, and mutants as they went from camp to camp, offering their services in return for supplies. Pretty much what Nero had been doing for nearly two decades. But it was different now he was with Nyx. Having that company and back up had changed things. She was able to help out when it came to the camps, too, as people seemed to like and trust her more readily than they did him.
Some of the camps knew him from previous visits, and the people he knew would pat him on the back and seemed happy for him that he’d found someone.
They’d travelled out across the dry ocean bed, moving further and further away from the main settlements, and found they were starting to encounter more and more untouched places and ruins. They’d found wreaked ships and submarines, outposts on former islands that seemed like mountaintop retreats now that the ocean had gone.
They’d spotted a valley up ahead and were heading towards it when Nyx had seen these three zombies and wanted to practice her sword swing.
Finally, they shot past the final zombie, and Nyx swung her blade once more, cleaving the thing’s head in two through its mouth.
‘Got him,’ she yelled with glee.
‘Awesome work, babe,’ Nero answered her and aimed towards the edge of the valley up ahead. Nyx angled her sword and dropped it into the holder on the inside of her door that he’d installed for her before she dropped into her seat, sporting an infectious smile.
‘Thanks,’ she said and leaned over to him, giving him a big kiss on his cheek. ‘Great driving, I’ll have to think of a reward for you later on, hey?’
He glanced at her and she winked at him.
He smiled and brought the car to a halt with a wide skid, right on the edge of the valley.
‘Well, how can I turn that down?’ he said.
‘You won’t if you know what’s good for you,’ she said.
Nero smiled and reached over, giving her thigh a squeeze. He turned and looked out the window down into the valley below. The sides of the valley were steep and rocky with the last desiccated remains of coral and other undersea plant life still clinging to the rocks, dead and bleached white by the sun.
Down at the bottom of the valley resting on rocks, Nero could see a massive ship. Some kind of navy destroyer or something as he could see huge cannons on the deck.
‘Shit,’ Nero said under his breath. ‘I think we found something.’
‘What?’ Nyx asked and climbed forward and over him to look out his window. She whistled when she saw it. ‘Oh, wow. Now that looks like a juicy find,’ she said.
‘Wanna go check it out?’ Nero asked.
‘Is the planet dead?’
Nero grinned and climbed out, grabbing his shotgun from the inside of his door and checking it to make sure it was loaded before he picked up a shoulder bag from the back seat.
Nyx got out on her side and pulled on her long trench coat before grabbing her sword and inserting it into the scabbard on the back of her coat. She walked around the car, the wind catching the hem of her duster, making it billow out behind her like some legendary nomadic warrior.
Nero couldn’t help but look and drink her in, enjoying the view as she walked over to him.
‘Ready?’ she asked.
‘Always,’ he said as he lifted the strap of the bag over his head and positioned it on his back.
With his guns in his holsters, Nero started over the edge of the valley and began to climb down. It was a steep angle, and at times getting close to vertical, but there were plenty of rocks and things to hold onto.
Part way down the slope as he jumped to another rock, Nero heard a hissing growl behind him and turned to see a zombie lurching towards him that he’d failed to spot as it had been beneath an overhang. Nero grabbed his dagger from its sheath and waited for a moment with Nyx looking on, reaching for her sword. Nero watched for an opening and lunged in, slamming the dagger into the corpse's skull, right up to the hilt. The thing froze and then dropped to the floor.
Nero checked to see if there were any more but found nothing. ‘Okay, all clear,’ he said, and Nyx followed him down.
The way down was long and potentially dangerous, but they took their time and didn’t take any silly risks. Nero wanted to make sure that any supplies they found down here could be taken back up to the car, so he took care to make sure that they’d be able to get back up without too much difficulty.
‘Shit, look,’ Nyx said. Nero looked up at her. She was pointing to somewhere below them. He followed her pointed finger down and saw what she was looking at. It was a brute.
Although most of the zombies of this world were the typical, shambling corpse kind, there were other sorts as well. There were the runners, who were not at all slow, the blobs, which were big and prone to vomiting very corrosive bile at you, and the brutes, who had been mutated into hulking monster zombie’s over eight foot tall, and more besides.
This one was a brute, and he was ambling around down below them, currently unaware of their approach. But they would need to get past him if they wanted to get into the destroyer.
Nero crouched down and looked along the length of the ship. There wasn’t an easy way up to the main deck on the outside, but there was a huge crack in the side of it that was clearly the best point of entry. This brute was close to that. If they got a little closer without this thing noticing, he might be able to take a shot at it with his pistol. If he were lucky, he might score a headshot and take it out in one go. But that was a long shot.
He looked up at Nyx, who was crouched on the rock above him. ‘Any ideas?’
Nyx looked around and seemed to see something. She looked back and forth and then smiled. ‘Lead him to me,’ she said and dropped down off the rock before setting off to Nero’s right. He quickly saw what she was planning as she ducked behind a big rock close to the level the brute was on.
With a grin, Nero looked back left at the brute. It hadn’t seen Nyx move, so Nero headed straight down, going as quietly as he could, dropping from rock to rock and using cover whenever possible. He actually managed to reach the brute’s level without alerting it and as he pulled out his pistol, wondered if he might actually be able to kill it himself at a distance. It would give him something to poke fun at Nyx with if he did.
Edging out from behind the rock, Nero raised his gun and took aim. The thing was moving about a lot, making getting a good clear shot somewhat tricky. Nero took his time, though, and when the thing stopped shuffling for a second, he let out a breath and squeezed the trigger.
The gun barked as the brute moved, and the shot went wide.
‘Shit,’ Nero cursed as the giant spun around and looked at Nero. ‘Aaah, crap,’ Nero said to himself as he dropped the pistol back in its holster and pulled his shotgun.
The brute howled and suddenly broke into a run, charging at him. Time for the backup plan, he thought, broke cover from the rock, and ran back towards Nyx’s hiding place.
‘You’re up,’ he shouted as he ran past her. He stopped a good ten meters or so past Nyx’s hiding spot and turned to face the thing, racking the foregrip on the shotgun and aiming it.
As he watched, he could see Nyx listening to the brute’s thundering footsteps. As it neared her hiding spot, she took a step backwards and then suddenly took two steps forward and leapt into the air as it passed her, swinging her sword with a flash of rusty steel.
Deep greenish-red blood gysered up out of the brute’s severed neck as its head spun end over end.
The body took a few more steps, almost as if it hadn’t registered that its head had been cut off before it stumbled, dropped to one knee, and smashed into the ground before Nero as Nyx landed nimbly on the floor behind it. The head hit the floor last, bouncing a couple of times before coming to rest.
Nero sighed in relief and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. He was relieved to have survived another dangerous encounter, but also feeling a little in awe of his lover.
She really was something else.
She stood up straight and looked at the body. ‘Phew, he was a big one,’ she said as she walked over to the thing’s head and gave it a look, cocking her head to one side. ‘They all die in the end, though,’ she said before winding her leg and back giving the head a kick as if it was a football.
‘She shoots, she scores,’ Nero commented as he walked up to her. She looked up with a mischievous smile. ‘Come here,’ he said. She stepped into him as he approached, looking up at him. Nero reached around and grabbed a handful of butt cheek as he kissed her. She reached up and took hold of his head, pulling him in and kissing him back, passionately.
They broke the kiss, and he looked deep into those bright blue eyes of hers. ‘What is it about seeing you leap about killing zombies that makes me so horny for you?’
‘Well, when you find out, let me know, cos I feel the same way when you kick some ass, too,’ she said.
With one more quick kiss, they separated and checked their weapons. ‘You ready for this?’ Nero asked as they walked along the side of the ship towards the huge tear in the hull. Nyx gave her sword a flip and nodded.
Nero turned and looked into the darkness inside the silent wreak. He’d been inside enough relics of the-world-that-was to know how dangerous these places usually were, and he was under no illusion that there were likely plenty more surprises in here yet to come. But, if they were lucky, there would be plenty of useful supplies in here, too.
It was a risk, but then, wasn’t everything these days?