Ridgetown: A zombie apocalypse novel (7 page)

They walked through what seemed like a field between the houses but was clearly adjoining gardens with the fences removed. There were patches of mud where there were once flowerbeds and uneven areas of rocks or dirt where fence posts had been excavated and filled in. The area looked strange because of the pockmarked earth but also because of the activities that were going on across it.

There were work areas everywhere and mounds of supplies. There were different tools in one area and gardening equipment in another. There were clear plastic boxes of nuts and bolts and other boxes filled with a variety of nails. One area under a gazebo was filled with different lengths of wood that looked like they had been cut down from the old fence panels. Bits of machinery were scattered everywhere, Helen recognised some bits as car parts but others she didn't have a clue what they were from. There was a pile of old bicycles under one tent, there must have been nearly a hundred but she couldn't see a complete one amongst them.

As they headed towards the wall, Helen was welcomed by a couple of different people.

"How many of you are there?" She asked.

Mark turned and started walking backwards as he answered her. "Well, there are about twenty five fulltime residents but there are people who come back every so often. Plus a group of eight recently left."

Helen was surprised, she had assumed there were a lot more of them. The customisation that had gone into the vehicles and buildings that she had seen looked like too much work for a group of twenty five.

"How long has it taken you to put all this together?"

"The town's been under construction since I got here."

"Oh, you didn't used to live round here? I kinda assumed you'd been here since the start of this whole thing?"

"No, I was passing through and needed somewhere to rest for a couple of days. I just, never left. I was getting chased and made a beeline for the church thinking it would be a safe place to hide."

"It wasn't?"

"Oh yeah, it was very safe. Really safe. So safe in fact that I couldn't get in. I didn't realise that the whole place was locked down. It wasn't quite as secure as it is now but it was still nearly invulnerable. To get into the church now, we use the pub across the road as an entrance."

Helen wasn't sure she understood but didn't ask him to explain. They had reached the wall and she figured she was going to find out soon enough. There were hooks screwed into the wall with a multitude of goodies on offer, Mark took what looked like two climbing axes from one of them, carrying one and feeding the other through a loop on his belt. Lay down at the bottom of the wall were a couple of ladders. Mark lifted one of the wooden ones up and propped it against the wall.

"We climb to the top and drop down over it. It's only eight feet so it's nothing to worry about. Just make sure you bend your legs when you land, it'll take some of the impact off your knees. Doing a forward roll straight away helps even more, but that's something only showoffs do."

Mark went first. He climbed up and paused at the top, looking round to make sure the coast was clear. Satisfied that it was, he beckoned for Helen to follow him. She ascended the ladder, as she reached the top he dropped to the ground, bending his knees as he landed and went straight into a forward roll. He stood back up, turned to look up at Helen and winked with a daft grin on his face.

It was so dumb that it made Helen laugh. She jumped down and bent her knees as he had said. Sure enough, the bending seemed to dampen the landing. She looked towards Mark who seemed to have shifted into serious mode, his face looked stern as he pointed towards a zombie close to the wall to her right. It hadn't seen them and was facing the other way. He then drew her attention to another zombie that was slowly shuffling towards them across the road. He pointed to the further zombie and to himself and then signaled that she was to go after the one with its back to them.

Helen nodded in affirmation, immediately turning and headed towards her target. It was another opportunity to show that she wasn't scared and that she could handle herself.

She approached the creature quickly but stayed light on her feet so not to alert it. When she was only a few steps away, Mark's zombie let out a soft moan. The zombie in front of her slowly began to turn towards the sound but Helen had already raised her axe, before it had managed half a turn she slammed the axe into its head. The axe drove deep into its skull and the force of the blow knocked it off its feet, dragging the axe out of her hand. It was a clean kill and it definitely wouldn't be getting back up. Helen squatted in front of the corpse and pulled the handle towards her, levering it out of the thing's head. Thick, dark blood came away with it and she wiped the blade of the axe on the grass at her feet.

The moan that had alerted her zombie had been cut short, indicating that Mark had silenced it. Helen looked over and saw the zombie on the ground, dead. Mark was stood at the corner of the street it had come from. He held his bloody pickaxe in one hand and held his other hand up showing all five fingers clearly, pointing down the street before dashing off. Helen assumed he meant there were five more zombies down the street and a faint groan suggested she was right. Adrenaline still pumping from killing the zombie, she rushed towards the street Mark had disappeared down, ready to take on another one, tins of food digging into her back with every stride.

As she reached the corner of the road, she saw there were a group of six zombies between herself and Mark. Mark seemed to be luring one of the zombies away from the group, the closer he got to it, the more it sped up ready to lunge. The other five were grouped quite close together, all of them with their backs to Helen, she decided to use surprise to her advantage and dashed forward, driving her axe into the middle zombie's head as hard as she could just as she had done with the last one. As with the last one, her axe stayed embedded in the skull and pulled itself from her grip as the lifeless body collapsed.

The other four zombies turned towards her at once, lurching sharply. Helen backed away from them quickly, caught off guard by all four grabbing for her. The closest one took three quick steps, sacrificing its balance for speed and falling over. The one behind it made a similar dash, tripping over the first one, sending it sprawling onto the pavement face first. The unpredictable speed and movement of the zombies caused Helen to lose balance herself, she struggled to steady herself and keep moving backwards, trying to anticipate when she would reach the step for the pavement, paranoid that she would trip and fall. All of the zombies were well decomposed, their skin shriveled and grey, pulled taught in places over broken bones and swollen joints. Open sores covered their bodies, blood congealed on the surface and turning a sickly green colour with no living cells to repair the wounds, leaving them to get worse or simply never heal.

A moan immediately behind Helen made her let out a startled cry. She turned to see an old zombie practically fall on top of her. She stumbled to the floor, feeling a hand claw at her arm. She had no idea where the last zombie had come from and didn't have time to process it as she started scuttling backwards on the road. She turned her head slightly and shouted for Mark without taking her eyes off the approaching creatures.

Mark suddenly appeared in her peripheral vision from the direction she had shouted. He stamped on the closet zombie's leg, sideways at the kneecap and by the time it had dropped to that knee, he had already embedded his axe into its head. He pulled the axe out and pushed the body away with his foot. The next closest zombie got the same treatment, a stomp to the knee before the axe in its head.

It was only then that Helen realised he had already dealt with one of the group, leaving one of the original group and the zombie that had surprised her. As Mark stomped and axed the zombie in front of him, Helen got to her feet and stood her ground against the final approaching zombie. It had embarrassed her by catching her off guard and she had been made to look like a fool in front of Mark because of it. She wished she still had her axe so she could take revenge on it, but at least she could show she wasn't scared by standing in front of it as it approached.

It kept its focus on Helen even though Mark had killed five other zombies around it. She stared into its bloodshot eyes, wishing it could understand that she hated it. It seemed to scowl back at her, the dark redness of its eyes giving the impression it was seething with fury. It had been an old man before it had died, the bulbous nose and ears betraying its age, parts of the body that keep growing as your body gets older. It may have been someone's kind uncle or grandfather but now it was a shell, a puppet controlled by some unknown force that drove it to kill and feed. Helen didn't hate the man that it used to be but she hated this ungodly creature that stood before her and had nearly bitten her, causing her to join its undead ranks.

Mark's axe drove through the centre of its forehead and its eyes rolled backwards in its head. It was gone, turned off and the body of this unknown gentleman could finally rest.

Helen felt embarrassed and frustrated. Only now did she think about the knife that was attached to her leg, she hadn't even thought about using it while she had been scuttling away from the zombies like a mouse would scurry away from a cat. She was annoyed she hadn't paid attention when she ran onto the street and had neglected to notice the other zombie behind her. These were stupid little mistakes that she shouldn't have made, she was normally so careful. She wondered whether she had been too engrossed in trying to prove a point to Mark, a point that she had spectacularly failed in delivering.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

He sounded genuinely concerned without sounding patronising but that didn't help Helen feel any better.

"I'm fuming with myself." Helen struggled to look at him, she avoided eye contact as she talked. "I'm normally so careful. It was totally out of character for me to go rushing in like that."

Mark could tell she was upset with herself and didn't want to push the issue about how irresponsibly she'd acted. She was lucky she hadn't gotten herself killed. He was surprised after seeing how professionally she had dispatched the first zombie, that's why he had gone straight for the group without discussing it with her first. He thought it would have been simple but he was starting to wonder whether he'd misjudged her. He didn't think he had, she seemed more than capable, but maybe it would be best to take things slowly for now. He wouldn't be treating her like a new member of the team straight away. Not that it mattered anyway because she would be leaving as soon as the network was up and running.

That thought brought him back to his senses and made him focus on the task at hand, getting to the church.

"Come on, we'd better get to the church. Did you see it when we dropped down from the wall?"

Helen shook her head, managing to make eye contact this time.

"Well, it's not far anyway. You still okay with your backpack?"

Helen tightened the straps on her bag, seeming eager to get moving. He couldn't tell whether it was because she was unnerved by the area or because she wanted to put it behind her.

"Yeah, let's just get going."

She waited for Mark to lead the way before walking alongside him down the road. They stuck to the centre of the road, not giving anything the opportunity to jump out on them. Helen noted that the roads had been cleared of any vehicles or blockages, she was also very aware of a lack of bodies apart from the ones they had just created.

"You seemed pretty confident taking out those zombies?" The inflection of Helen's sentence made it sound more like a question than a statement.

Mark was surprised by her attempt to strike up a conversation but pleased that she was making an effort.

"I've always been into different fighting sports, interested in evolving my training. When this whole thing happened I just used instinct to deal with them. I've made notes on what seems to work and what doesn't and stick with what does. That's something we can use against these things, their predictability and lack of adapting to what they see. A zombie could watch me kill three others in the exact same way and wouldn't even think about trying to protect itself or attack me a different way to the others."

Helen thought about how methodically he'd stamped on each of the zombie's legs and then struck them with the axe, each one the same and each one getting its desired effect.

"As long as you don't get too overconfident, their lack of speed and mobility can make them easy targets."

"Like I said, I'm normally really cautious."

"Hey, I'm not picking at you. It's easily done, your mind slips for a few seconds and it gets you in trouble. It's happened to me before and it'll happen again, I won't mean for it to, but it will."

Helen felt reassured. It didn't sound like he was being patronising, more like he was letting her know that he wasn't judging her.

"I wasn't being figurative when I said I make a note of what works. I mean I literally have handwritten notes and drawings of fighting methods for these things, stuff that I use to show other people how to defend themselves against an undead attacker. I'll show you later."

Helen wasn't sure what to say so she didn't say anything, she just smiled. It was an awkward smile but it was the best she could do. Sitting down and looking through some hand drawn zombie martial arts techniques didn't exactly sound like a fun activity but she appreciated that Mark was trying to be helpful.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, listening out for any noises that would give away an approaching horde. The whole town seemed really quiet, with the occasional noise from the constructions going on a few streets away travelling on the wind.

When Helen saw the church, she instantly realised why they couldn't just walk in the front door. Clearly a lot of time had been spent adding razor wire to the surrounding wall and although the windows didn't look covered, the front doors looked completely sealed.