Ridgetown (Book 2): Neighbours

by Philip Radford

  Chapter 3

  Luke and Helen decided to update the website straight away. Their plan for the website was to offer up to date information on the area and warn people about dangerous areas. This was a perfect example of that, people needed to be warned to stay away from that store for the time being.

  They headed across to the church, leaving via the wall as usual and walking down the street like average people on a normal day. Regular sweeps of the area were conducted every day to keep the immediate vicinity clear of zombies. Originally zombies were allowed to wander round the area and the people of Ridgetown would either avoid them or deal with them when they left the estate. Now they were much stricter, every street visible from the walls of Ridgetown was kept clear at all times.

  There was always someone on wall duty, doing a patrol to spot any potential problems. If a single zombie was spotted by the person on lookout, a team of three was sent out to kill it immediately, no exceptions. It was tiring work and people were sent out all the time, teams took it in turns to be on call at night but were regularly woken to take out a single zombie that had roamed too close to the enforced limits. Despite the tediousness of the job, no one complained. They would all rather deal with the inconvenience of going out to easily kill a single zombie than fight an army of hundreds.

  Luke and Helen took their time walking to the pub, it was only a few minutes stroll but it was the closest either of them had felt to normality in a while. It was pleasant and they both enjoyed it.

  “Scott was telling me and Mark about your idea to incorporate an online keypad for the locks on safe house doors. That’s really smart.”

  “Thanks. It’s something that could speed up entry to places when we need it, we’d need some kind of override though incase the power goes again. I don’t want to take it for granted that this electricity is going to be around forever.”

  Electricity in the area had been working solidly for three months now. Ant and Maisie had told them that this was the only area with power compared to everywhere they had travelled over the past couple of months. They couldn’t speak for other areas of the country but everywhere they had been was in total darkness when night time came. The streetlights and lights in the buildings had lit the area up like a beacon when they had first explored nearby. No one had really addressed where they thought the power was coming from, it had been brought up in a few meetings and it had been suggested that the source of the power needed to be explored but other priorities inevitably got in the way. The longer the town had uninterrupted electricity, the less of a priority finding the source had become.

  “I know what you mean, there’s still something that bothers me about it, how we take it for granted that one day it just started working and now it seems to be here to stay.”

  They stayed alert around the pub, making sure there was nothing lurking nearby and scaled the climbing wall at the back. They exited through the window at the front of the building and traversed the platform around the front of the roof. There were now two bridges that branched out from the pub. Helen and Luke took the first bridge that led to the church opposite.

  When the large clean up operation had begun to remove all the zombie corpses from the area after the battle for Ridgetown, Liz had suggested they use them to test her theory about zombie corpses attracting live zombies. It was one of the reasons they started moving the bodies straight away, to prevent any more hordes from being attracted to the area. They had created three sites where they had dumped the corpses far away from Ridgetown and set up webcams to keep an eye on the area. One of the cameras had recently stopped working but the other two hadn’t produced any significant results. As reassuring that it was that a large number of corpses wouldn’t attract the attention of more zombies, Liz had hoped that they might have been able to learn something about their behaviour by seeing some kind of correlation.

  Liz had asked Mark if they could keep the Leaper’s body in order to try and learn more about it. Mark was hesitant at first but agreed that anything they could learn might be useful to them the next time they encountered one. They both agreed that people would probably feel uncomfortable keeping it within the Ridgetown estate so Mark, Helen and Liz had started renovating a house next to the pub to be suitable for any kind of testing.

  The house was barricaded completely on the ground floor so that access could only be gained from the pub, just like the church. It seemed like a smart idea, keeping whoever was inside safe from anything outside and also containing anything inside should things go wrong. Mark had less than tactically stated that Liz could ‘have a mad scientist lab as long as it could be contained if she started bringing things back to life’. Originally offended, Liz played on the idea Mark had hurt her feelings to get as much help as possible setting it up. Mark’s guilt compelled him to oversee the conversion of the building and hire Luke, Gaz and Gaz’s team mates Mo and Idris to help construct the bridge and a winch to get things into the building that were too heavy to be carried.

  Gaz's three man team were referred to as 'the tanks'. They consisted of Gaz and his two friends who had been with Ridgetown before the apartment block siege.

  Idris was an imposing figure, six foot four and a hundred and twenty kilos, Idris had been bodybuilding for most of his adult life. Now aged thirty five he still kept in the best shape he could, he was the driving force behind turning one of the houses in Ridgetown into a gym. Not as well barricaded as everywhere else, it wasn't designed to be a stronghold of any kind. It was somewhere that people could go to keep fit, something considered very important for the residents.

  A zombie will always out-cardio a human was spray painted to the wall at the back of the improvised gym, it was unfortunate but true and was meant to inspire people who to stay as fit as possible. Idris spent any chance he got at the gym and was always the first person to volunteer for any heavy lifting jobs. Despite his size, he was a very humble person. He rarely spoke out at meetings and would always listen to everyone speak before he shared his opinion on things. Idris was also one of the main scavengers when it came to gathering food. He ate a lot and in a post apocalyptic world, that was something that could be a struggle. Conscious of being thought of taking more than his share, he always set out to make sure everyone had enough food before he took his share.

  The third member of the team was Mohammed but everyone called him Mo. Mo was openly bisexual and liked to play up to a flamboyant image if he thought it made people feel uncomfortable. He was quite short and compared to Idris looked skinny but everyone who knew him knew he was equally as dangerous as Idris.

  Before the rising he had been a professional lightweight boxer. When he started fighting at an amateur level, he faced a lot of homophobia from his opponents due to his lifestyle. He quickly silenced his critics with knockout after knockout, developing a fanbase and was soon spotted by organisers of bigger shows. He became notorious for winding up any homophobic opponents before a fight and throwing their insults back at them after he beat them. The crowd loved it and they loved him.

  When he had his first professional fight, he walked out to the weigh-in in a dress. The pictures spread like wildfire and he became a celebrity overnight. To his credit, his opponent didn't bat an eyelid and refused to comment on Mo's appearance in a negative way. He addressed the fact that he knew Mo was a dangerous fighter and he was looking forward to a good fight. The fight was nothing short of a war between the two fighters and it went to a decision. Mo was declared the winner by unanimous decision. The undercard fight was a PR dream and it got more coverage than any of the main card fights. Both fighters took a real beating and their faces at the end of it were a mess.

  Mo's opponent in that fight was Gaz and they'd been friends ever since.

  The winch idea was suggested when they had finished barricading the building and attempted to get the dead Leaper inside. The sheer weight of the Leaper meant that it took two people to transport it even after it had unceremoniously been dumped into a wheel barrow.
They had joked about how heavy it was but there was an underlying sense of fear as Luke and Mark had remembered one, possibly this one, flying through the air and landing on the woman who had been trying to escape from it. From any height, the weight landing on someone would be devastating but they had watched it throw itself twenty feet in the air and come crashing down on that frail woman. The only mercy being that the impact surely would have killed her instantly.

  As a student doctor, Liz was the most science minded to the residents and she shared her knowledge with anyone that would listen. She was keen to learn as much as possible about the zombies and especially the special zombies they were encountering. The more they knew about their physiology, the more effective they could become at killing them. She had been the one to suggest using a levelling system to describe a zombie and assess their threat level. The idea went down so well that everyone started using it straight away and although there were some discrepancies on what people classified as certain levels, as a whole it gave people a way of describing the situation they were in over the radio or sightings logged on the website.

  LEVEL ONE - Low threat level

  A level one is any zombie that is basically just a head, generally found when a zombie has been decapitated in an attack and presumed dead. If it is still alive, it is dangerous. However a level one zombie should be considered the lowest level of threat and can be avoided by simply staying away from it. Despite this, it is still a threat and should be dispatched properly with the brain being destroyed adequately.

  LEVEL TWO - Low threat level

  A level two zombie is a zombie with the capability of moving itself, albeit at a slow pace. The number of limbs a level two zombie has can differ but the factor that categorises it as a level two is that it moves by dragging itself along the floor . Generally referred to as crawlers, level two zombies are only marginally more of a threat than a level one due to the ability of a survivor to avoid them with relative ease. Level two zombies are most dangerous when they are underestimated. Like a level one, care should be taken to kill the zombie so it is not forgotten about or misjudged.

  LEVEL THREE - Moderate threat level

  A level three zombie does not have all of its limbs intact but is otherwise fully mobile. They are capable of standing even if they are not entirely stable on their feet. Level three zombies are capable of pursuing a survivor across uneven terrain and are capable of getting back to a standing position if knocked down.

  LEVEL FOUR - Moderate threat level

  A level four zombie has all of its limbs intact and are fully mobile. They are able to grab a survivor and attempt to bite them. When knocked over they are able to get back to their feet and continue their pursuit of a survivor. They have better balance than a level three zombie and are more likely to stumble and stay upright than fall over when pushed.

  LEVEL FIVE - High threat level

  A level five zombie is a recently turned zombie that had not suffered any effects of rigor mortis. Like the level four zombies, level fives have all of their limbs but can run. A level five is fast and can keep pace with a survivor, unlike a survivor however, a level five zombie will never get tired. They have a much better sense of balance than other zombies and can dodge objects in their way, changing direction and jumping back on their original path. A level five zombie is considered high threat and should be killed as quickly as possible to avoid a chase.

  LEVEL SIX - Special zombies

  Liz had created the list in a notebook that she kept in her lab. It was where she wrote all her findings and theories and became known as her book of the dead. She added sketches but, at her own admission, Liz wasn’t a particularly good artist. She recruited Cassie who had studied art at university and could create drawings good enough to be published in a medical journal.

  Luke looked towards the lab as he crossed the bridge. There were no lights on and it looked quite unassuming for now. He still felt slightly unnerved knowing that the body of a Leaper was lay inside the building. He and Helen crossed the bridge to the church and made their way down the ladder. Luke enjoyed working on the website with Helen because it allowed them to geek out together. It was something the two of them were equally good at and encouraged each other with challenges. Scott was working hard to help them but there was more pressure on him to help with scavenging and keep up general maintenance of The Outpost with there only being three of them. His mobility was improving but it was still going to be a long time before he was fully agile after his leg break at the mercy of the Leaper.

  The church very much felt like a sanctuary, protected from the dangers outside and a place to escape to where they could work together without anyone bothering them for hours. Helen and Mark had been updating the website while they had been scouting the surrounding areas, live updating was something that Helen and Luke considered crucial to the website. Luke began by updating the homepage with a news update about a new kind of special zombie while Helen updated the special zombies page.

  Helen wrote as much as she could remember to the page, trying to stick to the facts and not let her imagination run away from her. She was aware she was rambling at points but didn’t want to leave anything out that she thought insignificant but might be valuable to someone reading it.

  “Have we got any cameras in that area?” Luke asked.

  “Nothing nearby, the closest safe house is about three streets away.”

  “Maybe that’s something we could ask Gaz to set up tomorrow when they go. We can keep an eye on it from here and The Outpost.”

  They continued coding for the next few hours, fixing bugs with the map. Certain areas of the map were copying any updates added to them and pasting it into neighbouring grids making it look like safe or dangerous areas were larger than they actually were. Reliability was the other main focus of the website along with instant updates, there was no point in updates being instant if they weren’t accurate. Between them, they realised where the problem was and made sure to troubleshoot it.

  They were playing with the CSS file, slightly altering the colour scheme to make it easier on the eyes when an instant message came through from Scott.

  We can hear the vehicles again. They sound closer than last time so we’re gonna try to get a closer look. Will keep you updated.

  “You see that?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah. Is it dark outside? The guys had said they heard vehicles at night.”

  Although the stained glass windows were left unobstructed towards the top, it was difficult to judge how light it was outside. Luke got up from the hub of computers and walked to the vestry towards the front of the church. He stretched his back and felt it crack multiple times. It felt good and made him think about how long he had been sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair at the computer, hunched over as he always did and staring at the screen. It couldn’t be good for his eyes or posture the way he sat but once he began working on something, Luke found it hard to tear himself away until it was completed.

  He walked slowly and used the opportunity to stretch his legs as he went, performing lunges that got more and more extreme with every step. Hoping that Helen was watching, he exaggerated them even more until he was practically doing the splits with each step and it was becoming uncomfortable.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Helen asked with an amused inflection in her voice.

  “Don’t curse.” Luke told Helen off, “And I’m stretching. We really need to look at getting some new chairs in here, something a bit more comfortable.”

  Helen took the opportunity to stretch herself. She stayed sat down, extending all of her limbs as far as they would go. She let out a moan as she did, getting more high pitched as she stretched.

  Luke stopped and turned around, raising an eyebrow.

  “What?” Helen gave him a puzzled look back.

  Luke shook his head and grinned, he stopped lunging like an idiot and walked normally to the vestry. The ladder in the main room led to a hole in the roof that functioned a
s the entrance and exit however, to keep the inside of the building safe from bad weather, a miniature roof had been built over the top meaning that it was impossible to see the sky from inside the church. The vestry had a normal window above the door that led outside. The door had been very securely sealed and couldn’t be opened from the outside at all, even opening from the inside would require a crowbar and a considerable amount of effort. The window was small enough and high enough that it had been left uncovered so that daylight could light up the vestry. Luke looked through it and saw the dark night sky. He opened his mouth to should to Helen and let her know it was dark.

  “It’s dark.” Helen shouted before he could speak.

  He looked at the raindrops trickling down the window but concluded it wasn’t still raining, again he turned his head to shout and tell Helen.

  “It’s been raining… But it’s not at the minute.” She cut him off again before he could speak.

  Luke stuck his head through the door of the vestry, “How are you doing that?”

  “What?”

  “Can you sense the weather or something?”

  Helen looked puzzled and tilted her head as she screwed her face up, “I looked on the cameras.” She said as she pointed at her monitor.

  Luke blinked a couple of times, something Helen noticed that he often did when he was processing information.

  “Okay, good idea.” He briefly disappeared from the doorway before reappearing moments later, “I needed to stretch my legs anyway.”

  Helen messaged Mark on their private chat to check if he had seen Scott’s message, he quickly replied that he had and had told Scott not to take any unnecessary risks.

  The chat client that Helen and Luke had incorporated into the website was a mixture of social media and private chat clients that they had combined so that users could have public and private conversations through the website. The messenger could be expanded or hidden on the screen and allowed a user to set up a group chat and invite as many website users as they wanted. Groups could be set to private so that users had to request access before joining and private chats could be set up between two users. Most people in Ridgetown were in multiple groups and had private chats with everyone as well. No user could see what groups or private chats another user had so there was still a sense of privacy.