Ridgetown: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel

by Philip Radford

  "Obviously I'm not saying you're fat, the three of us have never had any issues with it. Not that I'm comparing you to us. You don't look like a man, no one's said you do." The stream of words began to turn into nonsense as he struggled to vocalise what he meant. "Basically, we don't know how much weight it can manage. So we keep trips as light as possible to look after its longevity."

  Helen had enjoyed watching him get uncomfortable. She hadn't for a moment taken offence to anything he had said but the startled look when he thought she was insulted was too good to waste.

  He muttered to himself as he walked off. "That's all I was trying to say."

  From the outside, the church building itself had looked pretty standard. No major modifications, beside the walkway around the roof and the entrance on top that could only be seen from the back. Even the front doors were mildly reinforced on the outside compared to the inside. From inside, the church looked ready to withstand a siege.

  The central area had been cleared out of all seating and the ornate wood had been used to reinforce the doors at the front as well as the lower parts of the windows. The interior was still well lit by the large amount of window that hadn't been covered as well as lights that hung from the tall ceiling. The altar at the front hadn't been touched, Helen wondered whether it was a sign of respect or just unrequired space due to the large area where all the seating used to be. Along the wall to the right of the altar were shelves of food, mainly tinned food and large bags of long life food such as dried pasta. There was also a large collection of bottled water stacked up like it was in a storeroom of a warehouse.

  What really drew Helen's attention was the mass of electrical equipment at the far end of the church. It looked like a pop-up Internet cafe had crash landed into the church. A couple of tables had been grouped together and five separate computer stations had been set up, all next to each other around the pentagonal surface. Each computer looked different, clearly collected from separate locations. All of them were mainly black which helped them visually blend together a bit better but the eclectic mix was something Helen had come to expect. The monitors were back to back, meaning that the people sat at the computers would all be facing each other. Towers had been put under the table and all the wires met in the centre of the tables where a gap allowed them all to feed up to their hardware from their respective towers. There were more towers on a separate desk against the far wall. They were lined up neatly and all the wiring was hidden behind them, cable tied together. Generic screensavers danced across the monitors and chairs surrounding the table sat vacant. Helen wondered how busy it would have been if she had let them keep their Internet access.

  "Quite the setup you guys have here." Helen was impressed and didn't mind them knowing it.

  "None of this would be here without Luke. He really got stuck in and got everything up and running. We all try to help as much as we can but we'd probably have stopped at a single computer if it hadn't been for him."

  "I don't think I did that much."

  Luke attempted to play down the praise that Mark was giving him but Mark continued.

  "Sure you did. You went out and learnt this stuff when you reached the limit of your knowledge. It's a really great achievement and you should be proud. Tell Helen about how you've set it up. What is it you call it? The shadow system or something?"

  Luke looked embarrassed, "I've actually thought about calling it something like Legion."

  Helen raised an eyebrow, "As in we are legion, we are many? Don't you think that's a bit...." She looked around the church, "blasphemous?".

  "I don't mean it to be, I just think it's a good name to describe what I'm trying to build. Let's go down and I'll show you."

  The four of them lowered themselves down the rope ladder that led to ground level, Helen's fear of heights no longer being a factor which she found strange considering it was the same height as the bridge. Maybe it was the fact that the rope ladder was a single, purpose built thing or maybe it was the idea of safety from zombies that the church offered. Allister and Mark removed their backpacks and headed over to the racks of shelving, Luke led Helen to the computers.

  "Our idea is to get online and create a virtual space that people can access and share information about the zombies. I've got this image in my head of what it would be like."

  "The main page is going to be a map of the area that people can update themselves. We'll be able to add things like safe houses, unsafe buildings, sightings of roaming hordes or these special zombies. People will be able to see where they can go for a rest if they are passing through or where they can find us if they'd like to join the community. We'll share any new information about whatever's causing this and plans to make new areas safe."

  Helen noticed that he started to speed up as he was talking, something he had done when he was talking about his drone idea. It seemed to be a trait he had when he was talking about something he was passionate about.

  "The main thing is to set up an online communications network. We'll be able to stay in contact with each other as well as people nearby and miles away. People can give each other advance warnings about roaming hordes or friendly and unfriendly survivors. We could even coordinate raids or attacks on large groups of zombies."

  "When I went out to the tower the other day, imagine if I'd been able to speak to you about it first. I could have asked permission or arranged to meet up so we could trade gear or you could help with any issues I had."

  "That's assuming I wanted to help." Helen pointed out. "What happens if some group of thieves pretends to be a couple of helpless children and lures you out somewhere? Or uses your site to scout you out? Or fills it with incorrect information?"

  Luke shook his head while smiling.

  "I really thought we were getting you round to our way of thinking. There's always going to be that danger, but we can't just sit by and not help people because we're scared of a few bad apples."

  "There aren't just 'bad apples' out there! There are monsters worse than those dead things wandering round! People who wouldn't just let you die so they could survive, they'd actually feed you to those things for fun! I sometimes think you guys are living in a cartoon world! These people aren't going to be nice to you just because you're trying to help them!"

  Allister and Mark showed interest in the raised voice but quickly went back to lifting boxes over the other side of the church.

  "You were."

  The comment caught Helen off guard.

  "Things could have gone very differently the other day. I'm not going to go on about it because I don't think that's fair, but I do get the impression that you look for the bad in people whereas simply looking for the good in people could itself create a different outcome."

  Helen thought about Luke hidden in the air vent hanging from the ceiling. "Your team would have found you if we hadn't turned up, you'd contacted them and they weren't that far behind us. I've every faith that they would have made it in time to rescue you and they're more than capable of handling a few zombies."

  "I'm not necessarily on about the zombies."

  "What do you mean?" Helen asked.

  Luke looked past Helen and shouted to Mark, "Hey Mark. What did I put in the message I sent to you guys from the air vent?"

  "You told us to come and rescue you because some nut-job woman was trying to kill you."

  Helen scowled at Luke for referring to her as a nut-job, he laughed nervously.

  "Yeah but what specifically did I say about these guys?"

  Mark hesitated and looked between Luke and Helen as if making sure he had permission to say what came next.

  "You said, don't kill them."

  Helen was shocked.

  She had seen first hand how Mark and the others could handle themselves against zombies but hadn't even considered them killing living people.

  "I didn't think you guys..."

  Mark had walked over, ready to follow up his comment.

  "Look, we're not murderers
or dangerous or anything like that. But, we had no idea who you were. We weren't just going to stand by whilst you killed one of our own. We're more than a community, we're a family. We'd die for each other, some people have. But that also means we'll kill for each other to protect ourselves."

  Allister joined them, "We'll never provoke anyone or start anything, but if anyone attacks us we'll hit back. And to be fair, we had pretty good reason to believe you were hostile."

  "So why didn't you come in guns blazing?" Helen asked.

  "Just like Luke said. He'd told us not to kill you and we trusted his judgment."

  Helen looked at Luke who looked slightly uncomfortable again.

  "Why?"

  "I just had a feeling. There was something I trusted in you guys."

  Helen turned to Mark, "How did you know I hadn't told him to send you that message?"

  "We didn't, we had to take a risk ourselves. Plus we have a code-word for situations like that."

  "Code-word?" Helen was intrigued.

  "Yeah. When you guys came out, I asked if everything was alright."

  "And I said it was retro." Luke grinned.

  The word activated a memory in Helen's mind. The word had struck her as odd when he had said it. It seemed obvious thinking back on it now.

  "Now that we've met you, we can see that Luke made the right call. At the time? I wasn't so sure and was tempted to hit and run you guys as soon as you walked out."

  The thought was slightly scary to Helen. She hadn't considered it before but thinking about it now, from their perspective as they described it, it sounded perfectly legitimate to think that Dennis, Scott and herself were hostile. The four of them were silent for a few moments as the events of the past two days sank in and how differently things could have been.

  Mark was the first to speak. "Anyway, enough about that. Can you get us online? I need to update my iPod."

  Luke began by showing Helen exactly how he had set up their own network and what he wanted to be able to do. The more he showed Helen, the more respect she had for him. He had set up the computers to be their own individual terminals but also for them to use an Appliance, a piece of software allowing them to use a virtual computer across all of them. It meant that if one of the computers went down, the others would still be running the virtual computer. Any computer would be able to update the virtual computer in real time and multiple computers could work in different areas of the virtual computer at the same time.

  Helen asked what would happen if there was a power failure and all the computers went down, that was when Luke puffed out his chest with pride and went on to explain the real beauty behind his design. While most of the computers were powered by the church, one had its power supplied by the pub as well as a back up generator in the pub's safe room. There was also a backup generator that was connected to one of the computers and the collection of towers on the back table.

  If the power to the church went down, there would hopefully still be power coming from the pub. If all power went out, the petrol generator would come online and supply power to the single computer while the power was hopefully fixed to the others. In theory, the generator would keep going indefinitely as long as it didn't break and there was a continuous supply of petrol to keep it running. The next stage of Luke's plan was to create some kind of battery system that would act as another temporary lifeline if the generator failed. He said he'd seen some at a media company he had done some work for but they were the size of small filing cabinets and really heavy. Getting some would require time, effort and resources that could be better spent scavenging for food or medical supplies. He explained that if the online community proved to be worthwhile then batteries would be something that might be considered supplies.

  As Helen listened, she realised how much hard work had been put into it and how ambitious the whole project was. The towers on the bench were to build their own servers so they didn't have to rely on external sources, again making them more self sufficient. The only thing they needed to get the project going was Internet access and Helen felt more compelled to help than ever. All she had been using it for was herself whereas Luke was trying to open it up to as many people as possible.

  Luke showed her round the setup on one of the computers before she started working on one herself. They used the Appliance so they could see how each other worked. Hours went by as they tried different ways of remotely accessing Helen's workstation at the safe house but they kept running into reoccurring problems.

  "I'm going to have to go back to the safe house, maybe even the substation. It shouldn't take long from there though, most of it's set up at this end."

  "Oh." Luke almost sounded disappointed.

  Allister and Mark had been watching them work, listening and learning without getting in the way. Mark stood up at Helen's summarisation.

  "That's no problem. We can run you back there now and probably be back before it goes dark?"

  "You're bringing me back?" Helen was surprised.

  "Oh, sorry. I just assumed... Of course where you go is totally up to you. It's just I thought you might want to spend a bit longer here?" It hadn't occurred to Mark that Helen would want to go back to her group so soon.

  "I hadn't thought about it, I do like it here. I'd come back again, but the guys are probably missing me. God knows what state they're in having to fend for themselves."

  "Well let's start by heading to your place, we can meet up with Ishaq as well. Luke, is the transmitter here still working?"

  "Yeah. This one just uses radio, no need for Internet. For situations exactly like this." He grinned smugly and pointed towards his head, "This guy, this guy right here isn't just a beautiful face, you know?"

  Helen rolled her eyes and Allister walked away.

  "Just get hold of Ishaq and tell him we're coming."

  Luke strode over to the front of the church confidently, whistling as he did, leaving Helen and Mark stood by the computers.

  "Listen, I hope you didn't think we were going to bring you back here without making sure it was okay with you first? I just didn't realise how eager you were to get back to your group."

  Mark felt compelled to explain himself. Helen had seemed very abrupt when he had first met her, bordering on hostility, which was understandable given the situation, but he had seen a change in her attitude and didn't want her to revert back to closing herself off. He liked her and thought that she would be a good addition to Ridgetown. It was an early assumption but Mark considered himself to be good at assessing people's character and the others trusted his judgment about such things. He'd check with Ishaq, but the other two seemed like decent people as well, it definitely sounded like Ishaq had bonded well with Scott. Whether this new group would want to become part of Ridgetown was only their own decision and Mark wanted to make sure they knew that and would join because they wanted to, not because they felt like they had to.

  "No, I understand. I admit, when Dennis originally suggested I came here, I was totally against the idea. I came because it seemed like the most beneficial idea for everyone and Dennis believed you guys. He trusted you and I trusted him."

  "And now? Do you trust us now?" He asked.

  "I wouldn't use the word trust yet. I don't throw trust around easily, but I'd be willing to sit in a room with you without a weapon. Or maybe just a small knife."

  Mark wasn't sure what to say.

  "I'm not sure what to say."

  "You're welcome." Helen smiled, enjoying the confused expression on his face.

  The two stood in silence for a moment before Luke came jogging over.

  "Guys, I can't get hold of Ishaq." Concern was clearly painted across his face.

  "Were you using the right frequency? Maybe they left it on the second one?" Mark asked.

  "No, I tried all of our frequencies, including emergency ones."

  "What does that mean? Are they in trouble?" Helen's heart started to race.

  "It could be something simple, like
their radio's broken. But I don't like it, it was fine earlier on." He scanned the church for Allister, who was carrying broken lengths of wood through one of the small rooms at the front of the church. "Allister, the others aren't answering their radio."

  "Let's go." Without hesitating, he dropped what he was carrying and headed towards the rope ladder.

  "Luke, is your mobile still connected to the net?"

  "I haven't tried it since we left the substation but I would have thought so."

  "See if you and Helen can contact them. Dennis mentioned something about having messaging at your safe house?"

  "Yeah, we use a messaging client if we need to split up for any reason." Helen knew Dennis wasn't comfortable using it but he knew how to if he needed to.

  "Keep trying until we get there, let's go."

  Together they traversed their way back to the pub and down the climbing wall. They jogged back to Ridgetown, constantly looking out for any roaming zombies but not seeing any. As they jogged, Mark had gone over a plan.

  As long as Ryan wasn't working on the truck, they'd take that and one of the cars from the other day, they'd kit up and head out as they had arrived at the substation. Mark and Allister would wear their armour and Luke and Helen would be drivers. They'd also take Ryan and Liz as extra numbers. Due to not knowing if anything was wrong, they'd brief another raid team leader, Gaz, on the situation and ask him to ready another three person team incase they were needed. If it turned out nothing was wrong, Ryan, Liz and Allister could come back with Ishaq and Mark, Luke and Helen could bring the others back utilising the back of the pickup.

  It was a rushed plan but it would hopefully cover the two major possibilities of something being wrong or nothing being wrong. They reached the wall where they had dropped down earlier. Allister used a prop that was leaning against a nearby tree to hook a rope ladder from the other side of the wall, it was one of the simple security measures that Helen had noticed since Mark had mentioned how open and accessible the community was. If you didn't know about the rope ladder before hand, there was no possible way of knowing it was there or that the unassuming piece of wood next to the tree was a tool to be used to retrieve it.