Ridgetown: A zombie apocalypse novel (23 page)

"You heard about me on that climbing wall, how do you think I am?"

"Try not to make me slow down for you too much."

Helen liked that he could still smile. The fear was still evident on his face but the smile helped visibly relax his whole body slightly.

Without saying anything else, Luke headed for the tree. He hoped it made him look fearless but, in reality, he moved before the rational part of his brain changed his mind. He ran a few steps, discarding one of his saws and holding the other tightly and launched himself into the air, he hit the platform with more speed than he expected and crashed into the thick trunk. He hoped his landing hadn't looked too clumsy to Helen, he could live with a bruised shoulder and ego better than holding back and falling short into the waiting clutches of the swarm below.

He checked that Helen was following and when he saw her readying herself for the run up, he started negotiating his way across the branches to the next tree. It was inevitable that some of the creatures would notice them in the trees above and begin to follow them so Luke knew how important it was to keep moving, they needed to get to a clear area to drop down.

When he reached the second tree's platform he looked back to Helen again, seeing her land on the first platform elegantly having judged the jump perfectly. He was still in awe of everything she did, he had known from the moment she had threatened him that she didn't need anyone to protect her but Luke felt an overwhelming sense that he wanted to keep her safe from anything that would hurt her. She was so strong and independent that Luke was struggling to keep up with her level of bravery, never mind stand in the way of anything that could harm her. She was definitely more likely to save him but the last thing he wanted was for her to pity or feel sorry for him, he figured he'd never be able to impress her if she started to see him as someone who needed her protection.

As they moved through the trees, Helen couldn't help but wonder what had happened to Liz and Mark after they had thrown themselves over the wall. She didn't think that they would have simply leapt over the wall to their deaths, they seemed a lot smarter than that, but they would have landed right in the middle of the horde. Maybe they had each carved a path through the creatures and Helen hadn't seen it. Any downed corpses or signs of a fight would have been nearly instantly covered by the surge of more zombies taking their places.

By the time they had traversed to the fifth tree, Helen and Luke had enough of a clearing to jump down. Luke dropped to the ground first while Helen waited ready to help him back up in case of emergency. He scoped the immediate area and signaled that it was safe to drop down.

Immediately, they backtracked to the closest zombies and used their weapons. Helen killed four and Luke killed two before they attracted enough attention for them to need to back away. Helen killed another before retreating and was considering attacking another before she heard Luke's voice.

"We need to lead them away from the estate."

Helen conceded to Luke's advice and slowly backed away to stand alongside him. A couple of zombies shambled towards them but their plan was to attract as many as possible.

"Hey! Hey!" Helen shouted at the zombies.

"What are you doing?" Luke whispered, unable to get Helen to take her eyes off the zombies in front of them.

"We need them to follow us so I'm trying to get their attention. Hey, you stupid sacks of worms!"

Luke shrugged and scoured the ground for a decent sized rock. He picked up one that was half the size of a fist and threw it deep into the horde as hard as he could. It hit a bald zombie square on the back of the head, causing its head to jerk forwards slightly. Slowly, it turned around and stared at Luke with its one remaining eye. It reached out with its crippled arms and leant forwards, pushing in the opposite direction to most of the other zombies. Other nearby creatures turned to see what the one eyed zombie was reaching for and joined it when they saw Luke and Helen. More had begun to pay attention to Helen's shouts and also changed the direction of their attention.

Luke and Helen started to lead the new group down the road and sped up as they got closer to the pub. When they were within fifty meters of the playhouse, they turned and ran the rest of the way. They quickly began to climb and had given themselves a comfortable amount of time to get to the top of the wall and collect a couple of spears. They waited for their group to enter the playhouse, not speaking, trying to prepare themselves for the next round of assault.

The spears they were using were made from long metal poles that looked like they had been used by a lifeguard at a swimming pool. Despite being long and sturdy, they were relatively lightweight and surprisingly easy to maneuver. At the end of the poles were jagged pieces of metal that were welded in place. Luke's consisted of three separate blades, each serrated with large teeth and pointing in different directions, the largest blade sticking straight out of the end of the pole and the other two angled outwards. Helen's looked similar, despite it only having a single blade it still looked deadly. They moved along the platform at the top of the playcentre towards the front of the building so they could stab their weapons closer to the entrance. The tension grew as they waited, knowing that once the first few zombies entered the building, it was going to be a long battle.

The first few zombies stumbled into the playcentre, Luke and Helen dispatched them as soon as they were in range of the spears. They stabbed at the next few as soon as they were close enough and quickly realised they were going to block the entrance with corpses. They moved towards the back of the building and waited as the zombies began to pour in.

Waiting for the zombies seemed counterintuitive to Helen who had been listening to Mark's ethos for the past couple of days regarding not taking your safety for granted and being careful not to give yourself a false sense of security. The whole act of drawing them into the playcentre was the opposite of what they had been trying to achieve at the estate but being at the top of the climbing wall offered them the best protection for the situation.

Luke stabbed at the heads of the zombies and moved on to the next as quickly as he could. Even though the blades were so sharp, it still required considerable effort to drive it into a zombie's skull, they began to give their spears a slight twist with each stab to help jerk the brain and increase the damage. There wasn't even a difference between how fresh a corpse was, an old disheveled zombie with half of its skull exposed was just as tough as a fresh zombie's that only looked a few days old.

Those were the worst, the recently dead. On more than one occasion, Luke stabbed at a creature and suddenly wondered whether it was a survivor due to its lack of decomposition. One in particular, a young man in a thick duffel coat and beanie hat didn't have any obvious serious injuries. Sure, he had looked pale, but not like the extreme shades that most zombies had. It could have been down to a fever, which could also account for the staggering if he had become delirious. Luke pulled the blade free and saw the dark red blood pour out of the wound, he told himself that it would have been brighter if it was oxygenated, that of a living person. He rationalised that a living person wouldn't have survived ten seconds surrounded by the unread, even in the extreme stages of a fever. Luke berated himself for allowing himself to get distracted, he immediately began stabbing again in an indiscriminate fashion.

Helen could tell that Luke was getting tired, so was she. Their attacks were becoming less accurate, sometimes requiring two or three blows to finish a zombie. Although they weren't coming into the playhouse as quickly, the mob was still coming in.

"Luke, where is the generator over here?"

"The back-up for the church? It's in the safe room in the pub. Why?"

Helen rested for a moment, staring at the growing crowd below as she continued to speak.

"I was wondering if we could borrow a few volts to wipe all of these out in one go."

Luke pulled his spear free from another zombie, it had pierced the zombie in the shoulder and done little damage. The zombie briefly staggered before reaching up at them undeterred.

"Technically, it's the amps that are lethal, not the volts."

Luke's comment earned a raised eyebrow from Helen.

"Sorry. We'd have to soak them to help the electricity jump between them. I don't know if the sprinklers still work, plus we'd risk soaking and cooking ourselves."

"We have to try. Wouldn't we be protected because of all the cushioning and rubber between us and them? I mean, if we could fire it down there, we'd be okay up here, right?"

Luke looked worried, more worried than usual, Helen could tell that he wasn't convinced. She'd barely convinced herself, so she wasn't that surprised. They needed to finish this group quickly, she had lost track of how long they had been in the playcentre but she was worried about the others back at the estate and especially Mark and Liz, she needed to know they were okay.

"You try to set the sprinklers off and I'll see what I can do about the generator."

Luke sounded decisive, displaying a hint of leadership that Helen hadn't seen before. She wondered if it had been something that had been repressed or whether it was a part of him that only came out it extreme situations.

"How do I do that?"

"If I knew that, I'd be setting them off while you looked at the generator." He shouted as he disappeared through the opening at the front of the building.

Helen shouted at the zombies below, gaining the attention of a couple that had been following Luke. She wanted to make sure none wandered outside of what was about to become a killing room. Well, it would be as long as she could figure out how to set the sprinklers off.

Helen thought back to fire safety training at her old job. She remembered being told that the sprinklers where she worked were basically just glass vials holding back the water. Once the heat from a fire got too strong, the vial would melt or crack and release the water. Helen took a minute to think about how she could create a flame and get it close enough to the sprinklers without setting the whole place on fire. When it registered she didn't have anything to create a flame with, she decided brute force would have to do. She started with the furthest sprinkler she could reach with the spear, stabbing at it as she had been doing with the zombies. Stabbing sprinklers however, was a lot harder. She had to fight gravity, aiming the spear upwards constantly. Whereas she had been attacking zombies closest to her, now she was having to stretch out as far as she dared reach without risking falling into the waiting clutches or dropping the spear.

She bashed at the sprinkler, failing to score a direct hit due to the distance and the narrowness of the blade. She resorted to swiping at it, the first blow glancing off the sprinkler and nearly causing her to drop the spear. She held on as tightly as possible, readying herself for the collision and swung again. The metal housing of the sprinkler bent to the side and she could see water trickling out and leaking onto a zombie below. She swiped again, this time ripping the housing free and causing water to rain down on the furthest zombies.

Spurred on by her success, she dealt with the second one, equally as far, quicker. The closer ones were much easier as she was able to swing the blade with more force, the extension of the pole giving extra leverage. Water was now raining down on the pit of undead below her, she was reluctant to break the sprinklers too close to her in case it put Luke and herself at risk.

She was about to go looking for Luke when he came back through the opening he had left through, now clutching a bright orange cable. Helen walked over to meet him, just as she reached him, Luke stumbled and dropped the cable. Helen's eyes went wide as she saw the high voltage cable with the severed end dance through the air towards her. She instinctively reached out for it, without thinking grabbing the end. She clenched her eyes tightly shut as her body waited for the sudden surge of electricity to reach her, but it didn't.

She opened one eye and stared at the cable in her hand, still wincing as she waited for something to happen. When nothing did, she opened her other eye and looked at Luke.

"Oh, it's not turned on." He said matter of factly. "Did you think it was turned on?"

Helen wasn't sure whether she was more relieved or angry about her fake near-death experience. She handed the cable back to Luke, jerking her arm out and not speaking to make it clear that she was less than impressed.

"I'm not gonna run round with a live cable, that'd be dangerous."

Helen wasn't sure if Luke saw the irony in his statement considering what they were about to try, she let it slide without comment.

Luke took the cable off her, pulled a wire stripper from his back pocket and exposed the wires further, removing more of the rubber from the cable.

"How long do you think the sprinklers will keep going for?" He asked.

"Don't know, maybe it's not a finite thing and we'll need to turn the water off?"

"Well, they look wet enough for now. I'm gonna have to go back into the pub to turn the power on, you make sure
that
end stays down
there
." He looked at her shoes. "Pin it down with your foot, you'll be fine with those soles. As long as the dangerous end stays down there, we'll be okay. I'll come back in and make sure everything's okay, when they're all well cooked, I'll turn it back off again. Sound like a plan?"

Helen was pleased to see this other side of Luke. "Yeah, sounds like a plan." She smiled.

Luke looked nervous again, as if the smile had disturbed the fine balance of his confidence. As soon as he turned to leave, Helen fed the cable down to the horde, still grabbing uselessly at her. She pinned it down with both feet and waited for Luke to turn the power on, the noise of the horde was too loud for her to have any kind of communication with Luke.

A zombie grabbed the dangling cable and pulled on it sharply. Standing with both feet together crippled Helen's balance and her feet were swept from under her. Her hips hit the platform, only slightly winding her but sending a flash of pain through her body, She grasped at the surface for anything to grab hold of. With her hands finding nothing but the spongy floor, Helen tried desperately to pull herself up, leaning as much of her upper body weight as forward as possible. For a moment, she thought she was going to fall as she kicked her legs wildly trying to give herself some momentum. She began to slip backwards and was convinced she felt something brush against one of her shoes and prayed that it wasn't a zombie. Her rational mind told her that she was well out of reach of any zombies but being in such a vulnerable position made her imagination run away with her, convincing her the zombies were climbing on each other or had extraordinarily long arms. The moment they became electrified, the zombies would fry anything they touched, including her. She allowed herself to turn her head, finding that it was the cable being whacked against her. She was out of reach of the zombies still but it didn't mean she was safe. She needed to pull herself up or she was at risk of falling and either being electrocuted or eaten, neither were very appealing.