Before I'd entered the house, I had hoped that I would find them inside. Maybe I'd walk in and find them locked in the bedrooms upstairs, maybe they'd even have destroyed the stairs like I had done. I knew that David was a big zombie fan, we'd often played zombie survival games on the Xbox and talked about movies we'd seen, so I hoped he'd put some of our theoretical conversations into practice.
Now, as I looked at the abandoned plates of food on the table and spatter of blood on the stairs, I hoped they had taken refuge somewhere else. The spatter of blood wasn't enough to make me worry the house had been the scene of some bloody incident, but it made me worry about the family's safety. Someone had been hurt, hopefully not badly.
I thought about going upstairs to see if anyone was up there but I stopped myself. I had to focus on why I was there, the most important thing was that I got the car keys.
I turned away from the stairs and headed into the kitchen. As I stepped inside, a figure stumbled past the window. I nearly jumped out of my skin and my heart started racing uncontrollably. I ducked down below the work surface and prayed that whatever it was hadn't seen me. I heard a muffled moan but it sounded further away, the thing must have just randomly stumbled past. I tried to calm myself down and worked up the courage to peak out over the counter and through the window. I had visions of popping my head up and being face to face with a zombie or, even worse, that thing that had killed Karl.
I decided I was letting my imagination run away from me, so I counted to three and jumped up, tricking myself into having confidence that nothing was there, that I could jump into plain sight and not be confronted with anything. I was relieved when I was met by the view of an empty street.
I looked at the bowl that sat at the end of the counter and just as I had hoped, on top sat the keys for the car outside. A sense of relief washed over me that I wouldn't have to search the house, but there was an unsettling feeling that if they had gone somewhere safe, why had they left the car. Not to mention the fact that there was a set of house keys connected to it.
I tried not to overthink the situation because I knew I'd end up getting lost in trying to second-guess where they were or what had happened. I pulled the note out of my pocket and put it in the bowl, weighing it down with another key so that it wouldn't fall out. I wanted to make sure they knew who had their car and that I was bringing it back, the last thing I wanted them to do was worry about their car with everything going on. I felt bad for taking it but they obviously weren't using it right now and I couldn't just steal a random person's car.
I thought about seeing if they had anything useful I could take with me but decided that would be overstepping the mark. I could explain needing to borrow the car but anything more than that would be looting. Satisfied the note was obvious enough to be spotted straight away, I headed back to the patio door.
As I passed the bottom of the stairs I looked again at the spatter of blood. I was trying to decide whether to see if I could find any clues upstairs about where they had gone when I thought I heard a noise. I kept perfectly still and listened carefully. It had sounded like a very quiet thump but I wasn't sure if I had imagined it. I heard it again, it had come from upstairs.
I slowly started to make my way upstairs, wondering if the family had stayed and had been hiding upstairs the whole time I had been downstairs. Maybe they had seen me in the garden and hidden, thinking I was a burglar or a zombie. Maybe it was just one of them, David guarding the house while Marie and Julie stayed at a friend's house somewhere safer. Maybe it was even Julie upstairs, hiding alone, waiting for her parents to come home.
I called out in my hushed voice, shouting each of their names. No one called back but the banging started to get louder, maybe they were in trouble. I increased my speed up the next few steps and was going to call out again until I saw a thick pool of blood, soaking the carpet at the top of the stairs infront of the door to the master bedroom.
I froze, not sure what to do. The door shook as there was another bang, clearly something was inside and wanted to get out. There was a small, bloody handprint next to the door handle. The door shook again, more violently than before.
What if whoever was inside had fought off a zombie and had been hiding inside ever since? I needed to find out what had happened. I slowly approached the door and leaned forward so my face was close to the door handle.
"Hey, is anybody hurt in there?"
Something slammed violently against the door, I jumped back and stared. It shook again and I heard a snarl from the other side.
Images flashed through my head about what could be on the other side. Was it Marie, the snarl sounded slightly feminine, barely human but slightly feminine. I wondered whether it could be Julie. Had she died and attacked her parents? Maybe they had barricaded themselves in there and one of them had turned? Maybe Julie had been infected so David and Marie had locked her in there to keep her contained while they tried to find a cure? If it was just her, whose was all the blood? Was it hers? David's? Marie's? All of theirs? None of theirs?
The door shook violently again as whatever was inside rammed into it. I needed to get out before the door burst open. I nearly slipped on the blood as I turned and ran down the stairs, trying to get the horrific images of what could be behind the door out of my head. I tried to convince myself that the whole family was okay and that it was a random stranger who was locked upstairs, zombified. I knew how unlikely that was just by looking at how tidy the rest of the house looked, they were so house proud that even an apocalypse had trouble making a mess in there.
I closed the patio door behind me as I left, glancing at the upstairs window to see if anything was looking out. I couldn't see anything or hear any more banging, I didn't know whether whatever it was had given up or whether it had just gotten quieter. I walked round the back of the garage, looking back once more. I wondered whether I'd ever see any of them again or whether they were all dead upstairs, I felt sick as a great wave of loss hit me. Things were never going to be the same again.
Chapter 9
I jumped down from the fence into my own garden and unhooked the claw hammer that I had fed through a loop on my jeans for my belt. I felt a mild sense of relief that I hadn't had to use it. Even though it seemed to be getting easier to kill these things, I didn't know how I would feel about having to kill someone I knew, even if they were trying to eat my face.
I used the ladder to get onto the roof and entered the bedroom to gather my stuff. I hadn't seen anything on the street and hoped that whatever had stumbled past next door's house when I was in the kitchen had carried on going. The last thing I needed was to be carrying something to the car and come face to face with a zombie, caught off guard and with my hands full of stuff.
I thought about waiting until the next day before I set off to Scotland. It would take long enough to get there on a normal day but I had no idea what the world was like beyond my street, I didn't fancy breaking down or getting to an impassable point and having to abandon the car in the middle of the night. But however much it made sense to wait until the next day, I felt like I couldn't waste a second and I needed to get to my parents as soon as possible. I filled a few carrier bags with supplies, mainly food and clothes.
I tried ringing them again but knew that it wasn't going to ring before I even tried. I sent a message to say I was coming and told them to stay at the caravan and check their Emails. I also sent an Email from the browser on my phone saying the same thing but to check their phones.
Satisfied that I had done all I could to alert them that I was coming, I did one last sweep of the upstairs to see if there was anything else I wanted to take and quickly made some cheese toasties. I felt a bit better after eating so I drank as much water as I could stomach, I had a horrible feeling that this was the safest and most comfortable I was going to be for a long time. Maybe once I'd found my parents, I could bring them back here and we'd be safe. It would be a struggle to get them up on the roof but maybe this area would be a b
it safer by then. I had to stay positive.
With everything I was taking carefully lowered to the ground in the back garden, I mentally prepared myself for the journey ahead. I unbolted the gate and stepped out onto the drive. The coast seemed clear but I was going to be as cautious as possible, I slowly pushed the bike towards the front of the drive cursing how noisy the chain was in the silent air.
When I got to the gate I stopped. I leant my head over and quickly looked both ways before ducking back. There was nothing around so I pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the car. The clunk of the locks disengaging made me cringe at how loud they were, the blinking indicators looking like a beacon in the perfectly still street. I didn't move for what must have been five minutes as I waited to see if the noise and lights had attracted anything. I wondered if I should have unlocked the car from the roof so I could have had a better view, from down here my view was considerably limited.
With no new dangers arising, I opened the gate and popped the boot open. The bike went in quite easily, standing up so I didn't have to put the seats down. I opened the rear passenger door and started loading the car up. I didn't want too much stuff because I wanted to be able to take as much with me as possible if I abandoned the car. It looked like quite a lot because I had spread everything out, just so that everything was easily accessible in a hurry. I didn't want to find myself in an emergency and have to root through bags or piles of stuff to find something I needed.
In a couple of journeys the car was loaded and ready to go. I quietly closed the door after checking and double checking that nothing had crawled inside the car and was now hiding. I went back down the drive and locked the gate. It meant I had to climb over the fence to get back onto the drive but it was worth it to prevent any wandering zombies finding their way into the back garden and stopping me from getting back onto the roof when we returned.
I couldn't help but feel the same sense of loss I had felt before when I was leaving next door's house. It felt like I was leaving for good. I'd been brought up in this house and it had been my sanctuary for the past twenty six years, now I was leaving into the unknown for a cause that might already be lost. I started to feel a bit emotional and wondered whether I was venting all my feelings from the last couple of days.
A moan pulled me out of my inner monologue. Down the road, near where my car was still buried into the lamppost with that fast creature spilled out onto the bonnet, was a lone zombie. It slowly shuffled like I had seen so many do in films and games growing up. Another zombie appeared behind it from a joining road and another stumbled to an open door a few houses behind it. The front one had one of its arms stretched out in front of it, it looked like it was reaching out to me, pleading for help. It let out another moan which seemed to spur the other two zombies on, I heard another moan from the opposite end of the street but couldn't see anything.
I knew I had to leave and I had to leave right away. With one last look at my house, I got into the car, locked the doors and put my seatbelt on. As I went to start the car I suddenly realised I had no idea whether the car had any petrol in it. Maybe that was why David and Marie hadn't tried to escape, because they didn't have any fuel to get them anywhere.
I started to panic slightly as I started it and let out an audible exhalation of air when I saw the needle jump to the top of the gauge to indicate it was nearly full. It was a minor victory but something that could have completely condemned my plans.
I suddenly started to worry about the condition of the car. I knew that they were keen about looking after it, I'd frequently seen David working on it to keep it in good running order, but I worried that it would break down as soon as I got too far away to know where I was.
I shook the thoughts from my head and focused on my plan of action. I looked at the map and pictured as much of the route as I could. I knew which motorway I was going to take and knew a couple of ways to get there incase any were blocked or too dangerous.
With the ominous feeling of never seeing my house again growing in my gut, I released the handbrake and set off down the street. I glared at my car as I passed, still buried into the lamppost with the remnants of the fast creature slayed across the bonnet. On the other side of the road, I glanced at the remains of Karl, almost instantly turning my head away and wishing I hadn't looked.
The closer I got to the end of the street, the more I worried about leaving. I felt safe here and didn't know what the next street was like, never mind the rest of the country. Whatever lay ahead, I couldn't stay here and wait for it to blow over. I had to act.
I took a deep breath and headed out towards Scotland.
Copyright
Ridgetown: Rising copyright © 2015 by www.philipradford.com
Cover design by P Radford. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format without permission in writing from the copyright holders. For further information, email [email protected]
About the Author
This is Phil's second venture into sharing 'the scary world inside his head' with the rest of the outside world. His first book, 'A Subtle Introduction' is a collection of four short stories that can be found in the Kindle store. He lives in England, prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse, so that he can say “I told you so!” to a lot of people. For more information, please visit www.philipradford.com
Ridgetown (Book 0): Rising Page 7