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 ha
nds 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.
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 surfac
e 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.
Ridgetown: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel Page 5