Ridgetown: A zombie apocalypse novel (6 page)

SURVIVORS X 3? X 4? HOSTILE? FRIENDLY?

The note made Helen feel uneasy. Until then, she thought that they had managed to keep their presence a secret, clearly that wasn't the case. It meant that they weren't as stealthy as they thought they were and she wondered how many other groups of survivors might have seen them. Helen jumped when Mark spoke behind her.

"We knew there were people in that area but you guys seemed to be keeping to yourselves, so we left you alone."

Helen felt foolish for jumping. Without looking, she could tell by the way that he spoke that he was smiling, that made her angry. "Where do you keep all your computers?"

"Everything's at the church for now. There are probably a couple of computers in houses on the estate but with no Internet access, there didn't seem much point in using them. Not while there are more practical matters to attend to."

"The church?"

"Yeah, we'll have to head to the pub first to get in." Replied Mark, not registering the surprised tone in her voice.

"The pub?" Helen asked with equal surprise.

"It's easier to show you than explain."

Helen didn't know what to expect so she began to feel nervous.

Mark removed the armour, leaving him in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved top, wrinkled from the velcro and straps that had held the armour in place. They headed towards a destroyed set of stairs at the rear of the dining room, Helen was again confused until she saw Mark reach up and pull down a metal set of stairs. They were the kind of stairs used to get into an attic space, starting off compact and then unfolding until they reached the ground.

Mark allowed Helen to go up first. She climbed to the top and waited for him, the stairs led to the middle of a landing that was well lit by the light coming in through the two large windows behind her. Mark followed her up and pulled the ladders up with him. Helen had to admit to herself that the idea of only being able to get upstairs with a bit of coordination made her feel a bit safer.

"I'll show you some of Ridgetown." Said Mark, tilting his head backwards as he did to indicate she should follow him. They walked into what was possibly the master bedroom, now stripped out and looking empty. The change in temperature struck Helen straight away, the rest of the house hadn't exactly been warm but this room was freezing. There was a large hole in the wall where there used to be a window. The surrounding wall had been covered with thick plastic sheeting, presumably to try to protect it from the elements. The brickwork underneath the gap for the window had also been removed making it look more like a doorway. Propped up next to the gap were multiple planks of wood and what Helen quickly realised were pieces of scaffolding.

Helen stepped towards the hole in the wall, it looked like a window to another world. Ironic, as it was essentially an enlarged window. The breeze that came through the gap was ice cold, making her feel more alert but also hesitant to get too close. She looked at the houses opposite and saw scaffolding adorning those, surrounding gaps similar to this one and extending the length of the house, connecting it to the next one. Helen wondered if this house looked the same. Each looked slightly different, using slightly different materials or having the scaffolding connected to a different part of the house. The overall effect was quite striking, brick buildings that looked more like children's tree houses.

The back gardens of all the houses had been joined together to make a big communal area. Helen saw activity in and around each of the houses, she took a step closer to the edge to get a better look. She was surprised by the amount of activity.

"Hi there!"

Helen nearly jumped out of her skin as an older gentleman strode past the window as if he was walking down the street. Her heart was still beating hard against her chest as she moved back towards the gap to see where the man was going. He walked to the edge of the walkway and grabbed hold of a thick rope that had been tied into a noose. For a horrible moment Helen thought she was going to witness the man hang himself in front of her until he put his boot in the noose and calmly stepped off the edge. He whistled as he was gently lowered towards the ground and some kind of counterweight on the side of the house was raised above the roof making it only just visible to Helen. She watched as he let go of the noose and strode out into what used to be the back garden, exchanging pleasantries with someone else as he went. He didn't look back at Helen, or the noose-lift he had just used, which returned to its original position, quicker without a weight to fight against the counter weight.

Helen saw people working together as if they were on a construction site. People in hard hats carrying drawings, carrying boards and bits of scaffolding, transporting toolboxes and cables. She turned to look at Mark who was observing her with a smug grin on his face. She realised she probably wasn't doing a very good job of hiding her look of awe.

"Welcome to Ridgetown."

Mark allowed Helen to marvel at the community from her observation point before leading her back downstairs and into the garage. Luke now had the sensor for the garage door in pieces and was closely inspecting each part. Mark offered her an old but thick leather jacket. It wasn't very stylish but it looked practical, rugged enough to withstand protection from a mild bite. He unloaded items from the boot of the car into a couple of backpacks he'd placed on a workbench beside the car, Helen assumed one of them was for her to carry. She didn't like the idea that she was going to be asked to leave her bag behind but at least her new bag would be full of supplies if she needed to escape.

They must have been on a supply run when they had come to rescue Luke because the boot was filled with cans of food, bottles of water, batteries, medication and tools. Mark picked a mixture of each for both of the backpacks.

"We can't get to the church without leaving the estate although it's only down the road. It's something we'd like to set up but the gaps between the buildings are too far at the minute."

"I'm surprised you don't have zip lines, this place is like an adventure park."

As soon as Helen mentioned 'zip lines', Mark stopped what he was doing and tilted his head in thought. Helen thought he looked like a dog that had heard a noise in the garden.

"That's a really good idea. It'd be quite far but it's something that could work. Make sure you remind me of that idea later, it's worth mentioning to Ryan." He hesitated for a few seconds, "I think you'd really fit in round here."

"I'm not stopping." Helen snapped in response.

"I wasn't sayin.... Urgh, never mind."

Mark lacked subtlety as he slammed the boot shut, the small garage making the noise seem louder. He passed her one of the backpacks, it was heavier than she expected.

"I thought we were just going to the church?" She asked. The packs seemed over prepared for a trip down the road.

"Whenever we go to the church we take stuff to resupply. The pub is where most newcomers go, so we need to be well stocked. It's an obvious safe house when you see it but the Church is much better defended, that's why we keep the supplies in there. The pub is more of an entrance to the church than anything. We could also do with resupplying one of the safe houses nearby, I think a couple of people have been using it for the past few nights."

"What if those people are still there?"

Mark screwed his face up like she had asked the question in another language, "I don't understand?"

"What are you going to do if people are still using the safe house? Are you going to kick them out?"

"Why would we do that?"

"Surely you're not going to resupply it while people are still using it? They'll just take all your stuff."

Mark snorted like he'd heard a rubbish joke. "That's exactly what it's for. Other survivors are free to use it as they want. If they want to stay, they can become part of the community. If they don't, they can recuperate for a few days and then move on when they're ready."

It was Helen's turn to screw her face up. She thought that Mark sounded like a deluded idealist. "It's exactly that kind of attitude that will get your 'town' raided." She made quotation marks with her fingers as she said 'town', adding to the sarcasm.

"Did you just air-quote me?"

"Well, it's not much of a 'town' is it? It's a bunch of boarded up houses in a gated community."

"If you air-quote me again, I'm gonna throw you out of our 'town'." He teased her by making quotation marks of his own, "And you'll get 'eaten' before you get anywhere 'near' your 'home'." He added a few extra air-quotes after he finished speaking to get his point across.

Mark strode past her into the kitchen. As Helen stood in the garage with Luke, who seemed oblivious to the whole scene that had just taken place, she pulled a face in Mark's direction and made some air-quote gestures.

"I heard that!" Mark shouted from the kitchen.

Helen snorted and immediately felt embarrassed, she hoped he hadn't heard her laugh. She put her new backpack on and followed him into the kitchen. The tins dug in her back instantly and the rattling noise they made as she walked made her feel like a one-man band. She couldn't wait to sort out their web connection and get back to the others.

Helen was slightly confused as they went upstairs to the hole in the wall.

"Aren't we going in the car?"

"No, it's not worth the fuel. Plus there isn't really an ideal spot to park." Mark made it sound like they were going shopping in a pre-apocalypse world, back when problems consisted of roads being too crowded and petrol being too expensive. All those things seemed so trivial now, Helen wished they were her biggest problems again.

"Are we walking?"

Mark was stood, half leaning out of the gap. He leaned back in with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Unless you're planning on flying?"

Helen felt furious, still reeling from being talked to like a child in the garage. She was meant to be being treated as their guest but she felt like she was more of an inconvenience that he couldn't wait to get rid of. Not that she wanted to be treated as a guest in the first place, she wasn't some child that needed to be looked after. In fact, she didn't need to be here at all. It was Mark and his group of daydreamers that needed
her
. She was about to put all of those thoughts and feelings into a sentence when Mark spoke again.

"We're gonna head down to ground level and through the gardens to the wall. We'll go over the wall and head down the road a few hundred meters to the pub."

"You said we were going to the church!" Helen threw her arms up in exasperation. "Well, originally you said we were going to the church. And then it was a safe house then the church. Where exactly are we going?"

Mark grinned which annoyed Helen even more. She was really trying her best not to punch his irritating face.

"We're going to the church where we'll drop off all the supplies, if we get chance we'll call to the safe house." Helen looked like she was about to speak, Mark continued and cut her off. "To get to the church, we have to enter via the pub across the road."

Helen didn't understand how that would work but she seemed satisfied with the plan.

"I noticed you fidgeting with your backpack quite a lot? Are you gonna be okay carrying it?"

"I'm not a child, I ca..."

"Good, shut up. That's all I needed. Let's go." He turned and briskly stepped out onto the balcony.

Helen was fuming. She darted after him, mainly to punch him, but by the time she had reached the gap he was already lowering himself down to the ground on the counterweight mechanism she had seen the other man use. She dashed to the edge and looked over as he dismounted and released the rope, allowing it to gently ascend back towards her.

She suddenly felt her legs go to jelly. Looking straight down made her realise how high and exposed she was. She wasn't normally afraid of heights but something about being stood on some knocked together bits of wood constituting a balcony make her hesitant. It didn't help that the rope looked too old be able to take any weight.

"Just put one foot in the loop, hold on tight and walk off."

Helen nodded at Mark's instructions, her mouth too dry to shout down and her anger softened by fear. Her mind didn't feel ready, not even sure she
could
just walk off the edge but her hand was already reaching out for the rope. She was determined not to show any fear in front of Mark and she knew better than anyone that, if you let it, fear will leave you paralysed. The best thing she could do was act without thinking.

Before she could give herself any more time to think, she put her right foot into the noose, held on with both hands and walked off the edge. Her brain was shouting at her to stop, she felt a tickle in her throat which might have been a whimper trying to escape but she held it in. Her stomach lurched as the rope suddenly tightened around her foot and she instantly began to descend, feeling like she was free falling. The journey to the ground only took a couple of seconds and wasn't as bad as she was expecting but she still felt slightly nauseous when she finally landed.

"Hmph", Mark raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. He was impressed. "Usually people take a lot of persuasion before they use one of those."

"I'm not usually people." Helen said smugly, trying her best to look impatient and unfazed by the leap of faith she had just taken.

"No, no you're not..." Mark realised his pause had created an awkward silence. "Anyway, let's get going. I notice you've still got your hatchet-thing. Once we get over the wall, we'll be killing any zombies in the immediate vicinity. Just to keep numbers down. That okay with you?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

She didn't particularly revel in killing zombies but thought of herself as quite good at it. She was keen to prove that she could handle herself in a fight and was off to a good start showing her bravery on the rope lift. For a moment, Helen wondered if Mark had been testing her. She wondered if they were going on foot to the church as an extra test, the sudden doubt made her more determined to split some zombie's heads open and prove what she was made of.