Ridgetown (Book 2): Neighbours

by Philip Radford

  Inside The Outpost, the group heard gunshots outside. They readied their weapons in a threatening manner towards each other, each waiting for someone else to make a move. Accusing glances were being cast as Chris pressed the button on his lapel again.

  “Anyone, what’s going on out there?”

  A tense few seconds passed, another gunshot was heard.

  “Adam? Dan? Report!”

  A few more seconds passed. In his peripheral vision, Mark could see Ishaq trying to get his attention. Mark glanced at him without moving his head to see Ishaq’s eyes flicker between Mark and Chris before widening and looking up to imply he would try to take on Sharky if Mark made a move for Chris. Similar situations had been dealt with before, with varying degrees of success.

  “Try it.” A raspy voice said coldly as Ishaq felt what he assumed to be the barrel of a gun pressing into the back of his head.

  Chris tilted his head as he had done earlier and addressed the group.

  “Dan’s been bit. We need to go, sensors are picking up a Jumper.”

  Ishaq felt the pressure ease from the back of his head, he spun quickly on one foot but the man know as Sharky was already at the bottom of the stairs.

  Chris strode across the room, ignoring Mark and barging Ishaq out of the way.

  “I suggest you people get going too. Don’t come sniffing around any of our bases again, next time we won’t be as accommodating.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. That’s it? You haven’t even said who you are or what you’re doing.”

  Chris was already at the top of the stairs. “You don’t need to know. Just leave us to our work and we’ll leave you alone. If you see us collecting, stay out of the area.”

  Ishaq and Mark followed them up the stairs and into the entrance room. Sharky was gone and Chris was readying himself to abseil down. Mark grabbed Chris by the shoulder as he held the rope outside, clipping himself in. As Mark spun him around, Chris held up his handgun, forcing Mark to back off.

  “Did you send the spiky one after us?”

  “What spiky one?”

  Mark was thrown by the obvious confusion in Chris’s face. Chris left Mark in the entrance room and jumped out of the window, sailing towards the ground.

  Chris ran towards Adam who was holding a handheld device in the air like he was trying to get a signal on a mobile phone.

  “How far?” Chris asked.

  Sharky ran over to Dan who was sat up and sitting in a pool of his own blood, holding his leg. Sharky raised his gun at Luke who was squatted down next to him.

  “Get back.” he snapped.

  Luke raised his hands, held at gunpoint for the second time in the space of half an hour.

  “Hey!” Helen dashed over with her axe, unintimidated by the gun. “Lower your gun or I’ll take your arm off.”

  “Sharky, chill out.” Dan whimpered. “They’re okay, just help me get up. I need to get to the mad scientist.”

  “You won’t make it.” Sharky said cooly.

  “That’s what we said about you.”

  “We’re taking your vehicle.” Chris announced, striding towards Mark.

  “Like hell you are!”

  “Our man’s been bitten! We need to get him back to our base, fast! You can just scurry back into your little safe house.” His final sentence sounded venomous, as if this were all Mark’s fault.

  “You can’t help him, it’s too late.” Helen said, trying to sound sympathetic.

  “Chris, it’s here!” Adam interrupted.

  A Leaper flew from the bushes, soaring over the car and connected with Dan, snatching him from Sharky who was knocked to the ground with such violence that he rolled a turn and a half landing face down. He quickly pushed himself up and gathered his weapon that had skidded further down the road.

  The Leaper raised its head and screeched, its mouth smeared in blood.

  “Adam!” Chris shouted.

  Adam had already put away his device and reached over his shoulder, grabbing a folded up crossbow. As he slowly stalked forwards he held the weapon at the base and snapped it forward causing it to unfold and extend towards the top in the shape of a cross. In contrast to a regular crossbow that had a string on top of it to draw back, this one had one on top and one underneath with a pin that protruded through both sides. Adam pulled the pin backwards until it locked into place, as the strings were drawn backwards they angled the bolts out, the top bolt upwards and the bottom bolt downwards. As soon as the pin locked into place, Adam tilted the crossbow horizontally causing the bolts to face either side of the Leaper and fired.

  Time seemed to slow as Helen watched the bolts fire towards the Leaper’s legs and both miss. Both bolts shot far of the target, the razor sharp steel wire that connected the bolts dug into the Leaper’s legs at a high speed. The weight of the bolts caused the wire to wrap around the legs and keep wrapping until there was no more wire to wrap around.

  The Leaper immediately tried to move, causing the wire to dig deeper into its legs and causing it to crash onto the floor, stumbling over the mutilated corpse of Dan.

  “Just like an AT-AT.” Luke muttered.

  Helen was thinking the same thing but before she could speak Chris strode up to the Leaper and fired three shots into the back of its head.

  Luke looked at Helen in amazement. The ease and confidence with which the team had dispatched the Leaper was impressive and it made them both think about the cost of previous attacks by the creatures.

  “The other one won’t be far away. We’d better move.”

  “Other one?” Mark asked.

  “Yeah. We call them Jumpers, they hunt in pairs and have incredible momentum that they can transfer to running speed or height of their jumps. You’re lucky we were here.”

  “We’ve killed them before.” Mark replied.

  “And we call them Leapers!” Luke added.

  “Oh right. Well, I didn't see you guys doing anything.”

  “Do you guys trap them or confuse them with calls from other zombies?” Adam asked.

  “What do you mean confuse them?” Mark asked.

  “Leave it Adam, we need to get going.” Chris squared up to Mark, his face just a few inches from Mark’s. “You and your friends can go and hide in your safe house while my troops and I put what’s left of our friend in that car and take it back to his wife.”

  Mark didn’t blink and refused to back away but he was also fully aware of what had just happened and could empathise with Chris. He felt like they were both on the same side but Chris couldn’t see it. Now seemed as good a time as any to offer an olive branch.

  “Fine.”

  Chris walked over to Dan’s corpse and helped Sharky lift the body over to the car. Luke went to help but Adam stopped him by raising a hand in a non-aggressive way.

  “Thanks, but we’ve got it.”

  The three of them loaded into the car without looking at Mark or any of their group, no longer regarding them as a threat. As Chris got into the car Mark felt compelled to speak.

  “Chris.”

  Chris turned his head to the side but didn’t look Mark in the eye.

  “We’re not enemies.”

  Chris looked back to the car and continued to get in. “Stay away from us, or we’ll kill you.”

  Ishaq put his hand on Mark’s shoulder, “We need to get back to The Outpost, before another Leaper turns up.”

  The group quickly and quietly made their way back to the safe house, Mark watched as the car drove off down the road.

  Helen used her phone to call Ridgetown and gave them an overview of what had happened. She explained that the other group didn’t seem overtly hostile but that it wouldn’t be a good idea to follow them again, at least for a while.

  Gaz joined in the call and told them that they’d send someone out with another vehicle as soon as the raiding party was back. Mark decided that rather than have someone travelling alone at night in order to fit them all in the vehicle, they would be okay
spending the night at The Outpost. Gaz was concerned that the other group would come back but Mark was pretty confident that they wouldn’t.

  Helen messaged Liz to keep her updated and to tell her what the others had said about the Leapers hunting in packs and the idea of confusing them with sounds. Liz liked the idea of being able to disorient them and make them slightly less dangerous.

  Luke and Ishaq talked about the weapon Adam had used and how they could create something similar. It was obvious that the crossbow had been extensively modified and Ishaq suspected it was something that had seen multiple iterations until they had found a design that worked, They speculated about what kind of equipment and materials they had access to in order to create something like that. Determining their designs were a bit crude for the moment, they decided to analyse the tactic of disabling its legs.

  Mark stayed quite quiet, typing away on his phone for most of the evening and getting food and water for the others.

  “You okay?” Helen eventually asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” he answered despondently.

  Helen raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to elaborate.

  “I don’t know. I just can’t help but feel that we came off as the bad guys in that situation with the tracker and the lying. When Chris was saying it, I could see what he meant. I keep thinking that if we had done things differently we could have made some strong allies.”

  “How so?” Helen asked.

  “Come on. You saw them. How skilled and efficient they were. How quickly did they kill that Leaper? Their equipment looks like custom stuff, they have real firearms whereas we have scavenged rifles from deserted farms, we have old hatchbacks and they have a train.”

  “You seem to be forgetting why we were following them in the first place.” Helen interrupted.

  It was Mark’s turn to frown.

  “The containers, the trucks? We still don’t know what they’re up to. I think they collected those new special zombies from the store and left that other one to kill us after they had torched the place. There’s no evidence that they aren’t the bad guys.”

  “I don’t think so.” Said Mark. “Chris didn’t seem to know what I was talking about when I confronted him about the spiked zombie.”

  “Maybe he was lying.”

  “His reaction seemed really genuine. I’d like to think that I can spot a genuine reaction when I see one.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Helen sighed. “Maybe they are innocent of any wrongdoing. But don’t forget, we weren’t the ones pointing guns at them.”

  “What you doing?” Jez asked Zack.

  “Huh?” Zack was in a world of his own, sat on the roof of Gaz’s house following a discussion about their plans tomorrow.

  Jez stood on the platform that surrounded the house, only his head visible to Zack who was stretched out on the tiles holding his phone in the air above his face.

  They had been on four successful raids in three days and their confidence was growing. With Blue team and Red team having to step down from raiding duties, Green team had been the main team and the rest of Ridgetown seemed to give them more respect.

  Zack and the rest of Green team had never felt overshadowed by the other teams, any one person or team who ventured outside of the safety of the town to scavenge was given respect by the rest of the town. However, since they had taken the number one spot, their extra effort wasn’t going unnoticed. People hurried to meet them when they returned from a raid and were eager to cook for them or clean and maintain their gear so they could rest. Zack knew that Gaz had probably suggested that people help out a bit more but the gestures didn’t feel forced or fake. People wanted to show that they were grateful for Green team’s effort and it felt good.

  “I was just thinking about the car we lost to these military types. It was a real useful vehicle, plus it was really valuable with all the work and parts that had gone into it.” He hesitated for a moment. “Not to mention, you know… It was Ryan’s. It was like having a piece of him still around.”

  “I know.” Jez sighed. “It’s not like we can just go and get it back though.”

  “Why not?” Zack sat up, leaning on his elbows.

  Jez let out a chuckle. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not at all.” Zack replied in a serious tone.

  “You think these people are just going to let us walk up, get in our car and drive off?”

  “Our car! You just said it yourself. We wouldn’t even have to hot-wire it, Ryan had a spare key.”

  “Did he? I don’t remember seeing one. Plus,they’ve got real guns, not just the odd rifle or old shotgun. And they sound like they’re well trained. We don’t even know where the car is, we could waste days or weeks looking for it.”

  “Yes we do.” Said Zack, ignoring Jez’s first two points. “Luke’s phone was still in the car, I’ve found its GPS and have been looking at the area its in. Looks like its at the industrial estate where Ishaq did his covert mission. It’s hard to tell but I don’t think it’s even inside that compound, we might not even have to see any of them.”

  Jez stayed silent. Zack had known him long enough to know that it meant he was listening and considering what he was saying.

  “Come on, can you imagine how much of a boost it would be to the town if we got Ryan’s car back?”

  Jez shook his head and turned away from Zack, looking across the estate. Zack slid down the tiles and dangled his legs over the edge of the roof next to Jez.

  “I’m not saying it’s risk free but if we were heading in that direction for a raid anyway, surely it would be worth a look?”

  “We’d have to check with the others first.” Jez said reluctantly.

  Zack tried to hide his excitement. “Obviously. We’re not doing it unless we’re all on board.”

  “And we don’t commit to anything. We check it out and if it looks to dangerous, we abandon the idea.”

  “Just like any raid.” Zack smiled.

  “If this gets us killed, I’m gonna be livid with you.” Said Jez. He made his way down the rear of the house without looking back at Zack.

  “I’m in.” Said Rhys.

  “Yeah, me too.” Said Cassie.

  Zack had barely pitched his idea to the two of them before they agreed to it. He was surprised but pleased they were so eager. He was aware that it might seem like an unnecessary risk so expected resistance from at least one person about getting the car back. The only person who hadn’t spoken yet was Eleanor. Zack was ready to scrap the idea if any member of the group didn’t want to do it and he didn’t want Eleanor to feel that she had to say yes. He knew that she wouldn’t hold back if she thought it was unnecessary and felt that her being slightly older may stop her running ahead with the plan without giving it careful thought.

  The rest of Green team looked at Eleanor, trying to keep their faces neutral so they didn’t influence her.

  “It’s just a car.” She said.

  The others’ eyes glanced at each other, each betraying a hint of disappointment.

  “But it was Ryan’s car. And that makes it important to this town, to all of us. I think we should go get it.”

  “Well,” Said Zack, “I guess that settles it. Tomorrow we go and get some supplies and get our car back.”

  Rhys and Jez high fived, Zack whooped and Cassie gave Eleanor a big hug.

  The next morning, Zack outlined with Gaz Green team’s plan for the day, leaving out the part about stealing their car back.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea going that close to the area where that other group is. We don’t want to create any more animosity between them and us.” Said Gaz.

  “Mark said there was a decent sized store around there that looked untouched.” Zack lied. “We’ll make sure to keep our distance, just incase.”

  Gaz was reluctant. He turned to Mo and asked what he thought.

  “They know what they’re doing. They haven’t done this well for so long by taking unnecessary ri
sks.”

  The vote of confidence made Zack’s gut lurch. Even though they were doing this for the good of the town he secretly knew that Gaz and Mark would go mad at his idea, probably call it reckless and dangerous. That was why he was keeping it a secret from them all.

  It felt wrong just by keeping it a secret, Ridgetowners didn’t keep secrets from each other. Secrets bred distrust and one of the most important qualities the community had was its unwavering trust amongst all of its residents. Trust was what the estate were putting in Green team to fetch back valuable supplies, it was what Gaz gave them to come up with their own plans for raids and what drove Mark to suggest they take up a more prominent role in the first place.

  Zack began to hesitate about the whole idea. “Maybe Gaz is right. Maybe we should just stick to somewhere safer, closer to home.”

  “Nonsense!” Mo exclaimed and stood up. “Do you think explorers like Christopher Columbus or James Cook stopped trying just because people told them to. You do what you think is right. Ignore this bald creature with horrible fashion sense and you do what you think is right because we all know you can do whatever you put your mind to.”

  Zack felt empowered by Mo’s words and for a split second thought that Mo knew what they were planning. “I won’t let you guys down, I promise.” He stood up, gave them both a big smile and headed off to meet up with Green team before he changed his mind.

  “Go young Zack! Go and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t.” Mo dropped back into his seat, purposefully not looking at Gaz who was staring at him intently.

  Gaz shouted to Zack as an afterthought, “Mention to Jack I’ll be ready to leave in an hour or two if he’s still up for picking Blue team up.” Gaz’s attention returned to Mo. “That was quite the speech you gave there.”

  “Thank you.” He finally looked at Gaz and smiled. “Sometimes I think people just need someone to believe in them.”

  After a moment of silence, Gaz spoke again.

  “So. Whatever happened with James Cook?”

  Mo squinted and looked into the distance. “You know what, I can’t even remember.” He shook the hazy memory from his head and shrugged. “Probably not important.”