Ridgetown: A zombie apocalypse novel (10 page)

As if realising she was watching it, the UAV zipped off behind the horde. Helen barely had time to pay it any more thought before another zombie grabbed at her. It was an old woman, or a young woman who had turned a long time ago, it was hard to tell. The shriveled skin could have been a sign of decaying just as much as it could have been a sign of aging. Its scrawny arms grasped for her with curled hands like blunt claws, the nails missing and the skin worn down to the bone, presumably from scratching at some previous victim or endlessly clawing at a hard surface trying to get to whatever was on the other side.

Helen grabbed its wrist with her left hand and yanked it down as hard as she could. She felt a sickening pop and for a split second thought she had ripped the arm completely free of its socket. The miserable creature fell to the floor in front of Helen and she stamped down on the back of its head with the heel of her boot.

Without looking up properly, she swung the axe upwards, now holding it with both hands and felt her arms shudder as it connected with another zombie's chin. The satisfaction of a clean hit overwhelmed by the dismay of another zombie being so close. Helen had hoped she would have been swinging the axe at thin air, finding the closest zombie was actually a few metres away. She was suddenly very glad she had swung the axe wildly, conscious of the fact the horde was a lot closer than a few seconds ago.

Helen felt sick at the thought of only having a few minutes of fighting left before her body would refuse to fight any more. She afforded herself a few seconds to glance to her right where she saw Mark still fighting.

He had an axe in each hand and was swinging each methodically, one after the other. If a zombie hadn't gone down from a strike, it was hit again. The rhythm of the attacks made it look like Mark was drumming. His persistence would have been inspiring if it wasn't so obvious how tired he had become. Each strike seemed to be slower than the last and each zombie was taking at least two hits. When she had watched him fight to begin with, Mark had been eliminating a zombie with every strike, now he was lucky to do it in two. Sweat dripped from the hair that hung just above his eyes.

Helen noticed that he was looking over the heads of the crowd as he fought. At first she thought he was looking for something but she quickly realised that he was looking
at
something.

She held the head of the axe up to the closet zombie's chest, using it to keep the creature at bay and hoping it would give her arms a few seconds of respite to recover. Instead, the zombie drove its weight towards her, causing her to use even more arm strength that she didn't have. She craned her neck upwards to try and see what Mark was looking at and thought she heard shouting.

She thought she imagined that there were less zombies than before, that the tiredness was making her delusional, shaking her head to concentrate again. She pushed towards the zombie, driving it backwards and raised herself onto her tiptoes. The slight increase in elevation allowed her to see further than before.

There was a commotion at the back of the horde. There were definitely less than before and some at the back were actually turning around. She noticed that there was less noise than before and she could hear Mark shouting her. Adrenaline gave her a burst of strength and she pulled the axe away from the zombie's chest, she sidestepped and it fell flat on its face. Helen kicked the kneecap of the zombie directly behind and it collapsed to the floor, tripping two zombies behind it as the tried to move forward. She looked at Mark as she drove the axe deep into the back of the first zombie's skull.

"They're here!" He shouted, "Keep fighting!"

Helen felt another surge of adrenaline, she thought her heart was going to explode. Her ears thumped as the blood pounded in her eardrums. She could see the unmistakable movement of living people behind the closest zombies. She felt like she was nearly safe, like she was moments from being able to stop. She saw the faces of the people that were hacking down zombies, one of them was Luke. It looked like he was using a machete, his expression betrayed how uncomfortable he was, a mixture of fear and disgust with each blow.

The group of survivors charged closer to Helen and Mark who found new energy and drove forwards to meet them. The joint attack allowed Mark and Helen to focus on the immediate threats in front of them instead of worrying about exhausting themselves.

A short while later, it was over. Helen took deep breaths, finally allowing fatigue to set in. The air felt cool as a gentle breeze blew, her whole body burning and covered in sweat, feeling hotter now she had stopped moving. She looked at Mark who looked in a similar condition.

The group that stood in front of her looked at the pair of them, Helen could tell they were trying to see if either of them had been bitten. Luke was the first to approach them, choosing to speak to Helen.

"Are you guys okay? We weren't sure where you were but the crowd of zombies turned out to be a bit of a giveaway."

Mark gave Helen a puzzled expression, "Did you tell them exactly what I said over the radio?"

"Yeah, Swarm at the Gate!" Helen felt offended that he didn't even trust her to do that right.

Luke swapped his attention between them like a child watching their parents fighting, "Oh yeah, we got the message loud and clear. We just didn't know what the hell you were on about. Is that some kind of code you've made up?"

"What?" Helen was furious, "you mean you made that up? I thought I'd said something wrong when they couldn't understand me when I transmitted."

Mark suddenly appeared sheepish, "Well, I just kinda thought you guys would know what I was on about."

Helen made an effort to lunge towards him but Luke stepped forward and blocked her path.

"Listen, you're both okay. That's the main thing. Let's get back to the streets, I want to look at the drone footage we got. I think I heard that big one roaring again."

Mark's attention was piqued, "Did you see it on the drone?"

"I don't know. I was looking for you guys but might have picked it up as I was panning. Do you think it was the one we heard Scarlet talking about?"

"No idea, it sounded big though."

Helen was too angry to ask what they were on about. Angry and tired.

"Let me throw my backpack in the entrance so I can restock the church later."

As Mark headed back into the playcentre, Helen followed the group back towards the road she had walked down with Mark. She hung back with Luke in front of the pub so that Mark could catch up. He seemed to take a while but she didn't blame him, all she could think about doing was resting, she couldn't imagine climbing that wall again.

As they made their way back to the gated community, Luke was excitedly telling Helen about the drone and how they were using it to gather as much information about the behaviour of zombies as possible. She barely even responded to what he was saying, too tired to feign interest but absorbing what he was telling her.

He explained how he'd modified it himself and, with a bit of help, was in the process of connecting it to an old mobile phone using the Bluetooth connection, allowing it to follow him round without him having to guide it. He started to explain how he was hoping to implement a few of them, if they could get a reliable network set up with Helen's help. He mentioned the possibility of adding weapons to them and how it would revolutionise their fight back but he quickly got the impression that Helen didn't want to talk.

They spent the rest of the walk in silence, allowing Helen to realise just how close she had come to dying, not just in the car park but also earlier on when she had allowed her attention to slip. She felt like she was being too reckless with her safety, she was normally so careful with Scott and Dennis. At that moment, she couldn't wait to give them the Internet access they wanted and get back to her small group. If she spent much longer with these people, they were going to get her killed.

They used the same gates they had driven through earlier to get back into the compound, Helen wondered if the procedures earlier had been exaggerated to make her feel like they were more security conscious than they actually were.

"Liz, do you have any spare clothes Helen here could have?"

The only female in the group turned around to address Mark's question, "Sure." She changed her attention to Helen directly, "You can get cleaned up at mine. I don't exactly have a warm shower but it's warmer than freezing."

Helen felt that the woman's words sounded friendly enough but her face didn't give any emotion away. She was hard to read which was something Helen didn't like, ironic as she considered herself hard to read.

"Thank you."

Mark continued, "Luke, you come back to mine and we'll go through the drone footage. Helen, have a bit of a rest and something to eat. Come over to mine when you're ready."

Helen nodded. When she turned her attention back to the woman whose house she was going to, the woman was already picking up an old wooden set of ladders that had been lay on the driveway of the house right in front of them. Helen sighed as she realised she would have to do a bit more climbing before she was in a position to relax.

She climbed the ladder to an improvised platform at the bottom of the roof that circled round to the back of the house. Even climbing the rungs of the ladder was hard work after her battle. Her calves screamed in protest with every step and the tips of her fingers were sore from grabbing on to clothing. As she reached the top she felt light headed for a second and had to pause to steady herself, she hoped the woman who was following her didn't notice. The adrenaline surge from earlier had now subsided and left her feeling physically and emotionally exhausted. She tried to remember the last time she had eaten something, struggling to think clearly.

Without needing to be told, she followed the boards around the edge of the roof to an opening at the rear of the building, nearly identical to the one she had seen in Mark's house. The layout seemed to make sense, standardised.

Helen waited at the opening as if waiting for the owner of a house to open the door for her or tell her she had permission to enter, Liz caught up and invited her in. Helen followed Liz inside and was surprised to see a tent inside the empty room. Liz must have noticed her looking because she addressed it.

"I like staying in here incase I need to bug out for any reason. Makes me feel a bit safer knowing that I'm so close to an exit.

"My name's Liz, by the way. I haven't formally introduced myself" She extended her hand, Helen was taken aback by the formality of her introduction.

Helen shook it, "I'm Helen. Did you say I could I could get a shower here?" Her question sounded more abrupt than she meant it to be.

"Sure, I should have a spare towel you could use. Follow me."

As Helen followed Liz through the hallway to the bathroom, she noted how similar the layout was to Mark's house. They walked past a set of metal dropdown steps similar to the ones in Mark's house, in a similar spot where a set of real stairs had been ripped out. It may have been identical, which wouldn't have been surprising considering they were both recently new builds on the same estate. She wondered if every house had the same layout, it would definitely make defending the estate easier.

She also noticed how different the feel of the two houses was. When she had been in Mark's house, there was a distinct impression that it was a base of operations, purely functional. There was no decoration or personalisation, the only things pinned to the walls were maps and plans.

Liz's house was different. Helen looked down into the living area below and saw comfy chairs. There were four individual chairs and a grey two seater sofa. Two armchairs were from a brown set and the other two were completely mismatched, one being stripe patterned whilst the other had a bright green floral pattern. In the centre of the chairs were two coffee tables, one of which had a kettle and three mugs on it. It looked like Liz had people round to socialise whereas Mark used his house as a base.

Like the other rooms she had seen, Helen found the bathroom to be basic but bright. The tiled walls reflected the light that came in through the frosted window.

"The shower's electric so it'll get warm but the water pressure has slowly been getting worse. I suppose it was going to happen some time, we're going to try to locate the closest water treatment plant. Someone must have kept it going to keep a supply running for this long, we're hoping we'll be able to keep it going with as little bother as possible."

Helen took that as a polite request to keep her shower as brief as she could. Liz gave her a large towel that had been hung on the towel rail and left her alone. As Helen showered, she tried to remember the last time she had had one. She had grown so accustomed to cleaning herself with a small bowl of cold water that even a brief, mildly warm shower seemed like a luxury spa break. She dried herself as quickly as possible so that Liz would know she hadn't been long in the shower.

Washed and changed, Helen found the metal steps extended to the ground floor. She climbed down and collapsed on the couch, her body melting into it like the two were destined to be together. She heard Liz's voice faintly in the background but she didn't have the energy to open her eyes, within seconds she was asleep.

The hours passed as she slept, it was light when she awoke. She realised her head was resting on a pillow that wasn't there when she went to sleep, she was also covered by a blanket. Morning light shone through the overhead window, lighting up the room. She stood up and walked around, stretching her aching muscles that had cramped up after getting the chance to relax.

Liz walked into the room whilst Helen was looking round.

"You're awake? You've been asleep for nearly twelve hours."

Helen was shocked, she knew it had been more than a light sleep but she hadn't realised it had been so long. Her right arm was sore when she bent it, her ribs hurt and she'd already noticed the area turning red when she was in the shower. She knew now there would be a huge bruise on there.