Ridgetown: A zombie apocalypse novel (11 page)

"I can't believe I slept for so long. I bet Mark is wondering where I am."

"He went out earlier with Luke and Allister. I think they were going to move some of the bodies. It looked like a pretty large job that'll probably take a couple of days."

"Why do you move them?"

"Mainly for hygiene reasons, we can't leave them to rot so close to where we live. Plus, such a large collection of bodies could attract others. We've seen similar behavior before, I'd like to do some research into it if I can. I want to see if it's anything similar to ants."

Helen frowned and tilted her head, Liz took it as a sign she didn't know what she was talking about.

"When an ant dies, it gives off a hormone to alert other ants that it has died. It's thought to be a warning to other ants to stay away from that area, but in the case of zombies I want to see if it attracts them. Maybe a dead zombie indicates a living person has killed it, lots of dead zombies could mean more living people. I'd like to see if there's any correlation between the amount of dead zombies in one area and the speed or amount of zombies it attracts."

"That sounds..... Kinda like something a mad scientist would say." Helen hoped she didn't sound too harsh, Liz seemed like a nice woman, but her idea sounded dangerous.

Liz paused for a moment before she spoke, blinking rapidly, visibly taken aback by what Helen had said.

"Well, I..... I don't...." She pursed her lips, "I suppose it does."

Liz laughed, which surprised Helen, making her laugh in return. Liz wasn't sure why it was so funny but it felt good to laugh, it had been so long. Her laugh evolved into a cackle, a cackle so harsh and sharp that it made Helen laugh harder. The two sounded hysterical as they laughed at each other laughing. Any tension that lingered in the room evaporated with the laughing. Helen was laughing so hard she was no longer making a noise, Liz wiped tears from her eyes as her cackle receded into a grunt.

"I'm sorry." Helen took a deep breath as she stood up straight, "I didn't mean it to sound like that. I just think that any gathering of those things is a bad idea, whether it's for an experiment or not."

"Don't worry. I understand the risk involved, it probably won't come to fruition. If it did, I'd make sure to do it somewhere far away from here and take plenty of steps to be as cautious as possible." She twisted her body towards the door behind her, "Come in to the kitchen and get something to eat, we'll see if Mark's back. I hear you're here to help us with our Internet connection, I can't tell you how thankful we'd be if you could fix it."

Helen felt a pang of guilt as she realised Liz didn't know that it was her that had booted their connection.

"I'm sure the guys have already been lecturing you on how much of a lifeline it would be for us, so thanks in advance. Anyway, what do you fancy? I've got plenty of tinned stuff for you to choose from."

Mark felt exposed without his body armour on, especially after last night. Lifting another body onto the back of the flat bed was difficult enough, he knew it would be twice as difficult in the armor. Still, it didn't make him feel any less vulnerable.

They had been shifting corpses for nearly three hours and had cleared a decent amount in that time. They had dumped the bodies at different locations, ever since Liz had shared her theory about the bodies alerting other zombies to their location they had been careful to scatter them around. Liz had pointed out it was only a theory but Mark didn't want to take any chances.

Varying their routes also gave them an opportunity to scope out the surrounding area. There were plenty of streets and estates they hadn't explored and they were always looking for possible raiding locations. Allister hated it when Mark used the term 'raiding', he said it made them sound like looters. In reality, it was just a throwback to Mark's video gaming days when he and his friends would arrange 'raid nights', all meeting up online to complete particular missions. The raids they did now weren't that different. They would pick somewhere and scope it out. Then would be the planning stage where they would decide exactly who was going to do what. Each person had their own preparations to do before they would group together and set off to their objective. However, with these raids, the stakes were higher and there was no respawning if someone got bit.

"Are we doing another run after this one?" Allister helped Mark lift another corpse onto the flatbed where Luke dragged it onto the pile and went about attaching the ratchet straps to hold them down. It wasn't very dignified but it was convenient and made transporting them a lot easier.

"No, that's enough for today. I don't want to put off work on our network any more than we have already. "

He looked over towards the estate as he spoke, wondering if Helen was up yet. He had called round at Liz's but Liz had told him she was asleep. Mark had found Helen hard to judge at the best of times in the short time he'd known her, he didn't think waking her up from a much needed sleep would put her in the best mood, especially to do something she had already made clear she didn't want to do.

"I hope she's okay."

Luke's voice interrupted Mark's train of thought, he looked up at Luke who was gazing towards the estate still holding a half tightened ratchet strap.

"Cool it Romeo, you can go see her after." Mark grinned as he spoke, he loved teasing Luke and could tell that Luke had a crush on Helen. He couldn't blame him, Helen was good looking, but it meant Mark barely had to put any effort in to winding him up.

Predictably, Luke began to turn bright red.

"What do you mean?" His defensiveness gave away the fact that Mark had hit a nerve.

"Please, your tongue's been hanging out since you met her."

"When I met her, she was trying to kill me!"

"Well, you were all doughy-eyed when we turned up."

"I was not!"

"The lady doth protest too much." Allister shouted from the front of the truck, jumping on the opportunity to tease Luke.

"What do you know? You weren't even there!"

"I spoke to Ishaq on the radio this morning. He said you were holding your stomach in whenever she looked at you."

"I was not!" Luke's eyes widened as if he'd been caught stealing from an old lady's purse.

Mark laughed and walked towards the passenger seat of the truck.

"Mark, tell him the truth! I wasn't" Luke sounded flustered.

"Which do you want? The truth? Or to say you weren't?"

Allister laughed and got in the driver's side.

Luke muttered to himself as he tightened the ratchet straps as tight as they would go. He hated it when they were being idiots. He couldn't hear what they were saying but one of them, probably Mark, was talking in a fake high pitched female voice while the other one was putting on a fake deep voice. Luke simmered as the high pitched voice giggled and they both made erotic groaning noises. He started laughing himself, which made him even angrier.

"You're a pair of morons!"

He heard Allister and Mark laugh like school kids as Allister started the truck. They set off and Luke sat on the bed of the truck, clicking a makeshift seatbelt around his waist and holding onto an old drawer handle that had been screwed on to the body of the truck. Luke grinned to himself as he thought about what Ishaq had told Allister, he grinned because it was true.

They headed out to one of the first areas they had been to that morning. It was around ten minutes drive at a reasonably slow pace meaning that Luke didn't have to hold on too tightly. As they drove Luke looked down as many side streets as he could, constantly on the look out for trouble, never taking his eyes off the pile of bodies for too long. One thing Luke had learned from Mark was never to take the safety of your surroundings for granted, '
No-where's ever really safe
', something that had been proven time and time again.

The truck bounced as it went over debris in the road, or a body, causing one of the corpse's arms to fall free and dangle off the side of the flat bed. Luke stared at it, making sure that the only movement was coming from the vibration of the truck.

Staying mindful of his surroundings, he looked up the next side street to his left. As they passed he saw a woman running down the street towards them, at first he thought she was a zombie but there was something human about the way she moved. He was so used to seeing figures shambling or stumbling around the streets that someone moving quickly and staying upright stood out as different.

Luke banged on the glass window of the truck behind him, "Hey, there was someone back there! We need to go back!" He shouted loudly so they would hear him.

Without questioning Luke, Allister slammed the brakes on and brought the truck to a halt. He instantly threw it into reverse and started backing up, leaning out of the driver's window to give himself a better view due to Luke blocking most of the rearview mirror.

As they approached the side street, Luke called for Allister to slow down. The figure was quite far away but it was definitely human, she saw the truck and continued running. The three of them stared from the truck, Luke was about to shout before he was cut off by a gun shot. Mark and Luke ducked at the sound, Allister instinctively shifted the truck into first gear ready to make a getaway if the shots were aimed towards them. It wouldn't be the first time they had been lured into helping someone only to find it was a trap. This however, seemed different.

The woman cried as she ran and at the sound of the gunshot, looked towards one of the houses she passed. Another two gunshots sounded in quick succession and the woman let out a scream. Luke surmised that someone she knew was inside battling zombies while she fled. He unfastened himself and held out his arms in a gesture so she understood he would help her aboard the truck.

Suddenly, a window from the house exploded into hundreds of fragments of glass and a shape leapt out onto the road. The woman screamed again, clearly aware of what was behind her, she ran faster towards the truck without looking back.

The zombie that had landed on the street was big, really big. Luke wondered if the human had been an obsessed bodybuilder who had been injecting himself with steroids or human growth hormones, he had never seen anyone as muscular, never mind a zombie in such shape. Both its clothing and flesh were torn, the clothing ragged and the skin ripped, exposing the muscle tissue bursting through. Even from the other end of the street, the creature was the unmistakable dark red colour of something that had been feeding and clawing through flesh.

"Run!" Luke wasn't sure why he even shouted. The woman was running as quickly as she could and clearly knew the thing was behind her.

The zombie stood still as it watched her run, it hunched forward as if its large shoulders altered its centre of balance. The outwards movement of its arms exaggerated its slow heavy breathing. Luke had never seen a zombie pause before when it could see a human, they were always like liquid, constantly moving trying to reach their meal. Seeing this one stand still sent a shiver down Luke's spine, it was like the creature was
thinking
about what it was going to do next and that was a terrifying notion.

After a couple of seconds watching, the zombie took two slow, heavy steps towards the woman before launching itself into the air. Luke watched in a horrified awe as it rose what looked like twenty feet in the air, covering the distance between itself and the woman. It sailed back towards the ground and Luke knew exactly where it was going to land.

The woman noticed the shadow growing round her and looked up over her shoulder. The creature landed on her with such force that her body crumpled beneath it like she had been hit by a train.

Luke felt sick and wasn't sure whether he had actually heard the crunch of her bones beneath the zombie's feet or whether he had imagined it.

The zombie pinned the woman's corpse down with its hands and feet and drove its face into what was left of the neck of its victim. It looked like a wolf or a lion as it tore strips from its kill and chewed on what it tore off. It looked up at the truck, which was a distance equal to what it had just jumped, and stared just as it had done before it had leapt at the woman.

"Go." Luke didn't take his eyes off the zombie as he whispered to Allister. He slowly backed up towards where he sat, feeling behind him for the seatbelt instead of taking his eyes off the zombie.

Allister slowly disengaged the handbrake and waited for Luke to get close to his seat. He didn't want to speed off and have Luke fall over the edge, something told him that they were about to start driving very quickly. As he saw Luke sit down, he slowly feathered the throttle and released the clutch hoping the smooth movement wouldn't attract too much attention from the creature. Having reversed down the road moments ago, Allister knew there was nothing in front of him so felt comfortable keeping his eyes on the zombie as they set off. He felt like the zombie would make a move towards them as soon as he took his eyes off it, comparing it to tigers he had seen in nature programs who would attack a human if they turned their back on it.

The zombie watched the truck hesitantly start to move down the road and stood upright as it did. Luke's eyes widened as he watched it take two slow and heavy steps towards them, just as it had done moments earlier.

"Go! Go! Go!" He shouted, not caring about attracting attention anymore.

Allister was already flooring the accelerator, recognising the methodical steps forward just as Luke had done. The tires screeched as the truck struggled to get traction before jerking the truck forwards.

As the truck sped up, the zombie launched itself into the air again. It howled as it did and Mark instantly recognised it as the sound he had heard the night before when he had been making a stand against the horde with Helen.

Luke's eyes widened as he watched the zombie soar towards him in the air and realised it was going to hit the truck. Time seemed to slow as it came closer, its arms outstretched with its fingers bent like claws. Luke noticed how prominent its veins were, creating a pattern of black and dark blue lines all over what he could see of its skin. Its tatty clothes were little more than a short sleeved shirt and long shorts that came below the creature's knees.