Dave continued walking and now with an eye out for a bike that wasn't chained up. He was hoping to see a bike just abandoned on a road. A bike store would have offered a huge choice, but Dave knew less about bikes than he knew about camping. Walking by a fast food joint, Dave looked in and was surprised to see a single bike leaning up against a table. Why someone pushed a bike into an eatery and left it against one of the tables was beyond Dave. It seemed to have just been left there. It wasn't secured in anyway.
Looking around carefully, Dave entered the fast food joint, grabbed the bike by the handles and pushed the bike out of the fast food joint. Back out on the street Dave looked the bike over. He really had no idea what he was looking at but he basically understood how a bike sort of worked and this looked good enough. Dave rolled the bike onto the street, gave it a little push and tossed his leg over it. It was a balancing act to ride a bike while wearing a backpack but after being unsteady for a moment Dave found his balance and got himself smoothly moving forward.
His tiredness faded as Dave settled into riding along the street. A bike was much more easier to guide than something like a car, and it made weaving between the abandoned vehicles that were on the street much easier than a large vehicle. Dave could really feel he could cover a lot more distance now.
Dave looked up the sky. It was nearing midday. Maybe it would be an idea to find a safe place for the night. Dave was a little worried though - he didn't like the idea of idea of sleeping on the ground floor. The sooner he secured a place the better he would feel. The walkers were fast at night and Dave didn't want to experience that speed first hand.
* * *
Dave slowed down at the intersection. Coming to a stop, Dave stayed on his bike while resting a foot on the ground to stop himself from falling over. Just off the highway was a small two story apartment. Not great, but it would get him off the ground floor. It had only been a few days and Dave had developed a strong discomfort with being on the ground.
Dave pedalled towards the small apartment and looked the building over, checking to see if the place would be a safe place to stay the night. The bigger problem was that Dave couldn't at first see a way to reach any of the first floor balconies. He had lucked out with ladders so far, but now he couldn't see anything that he could use to help him climb. Dave looked around at the other buildings in the hope of finding a place that he could access easily but they all shared the property of being difficult to defend. Besides this apartment, all the other places were just single floor houses that could be easily broken into by a swarm of walkers.
Dave got off his bike and pushed it into the driveway of the apartment. Doubting that anyone would steal it, Dave left the bike resting against a wall with eight post boxes. Dave frowned while looking at the post boxes. If he could see four apartments at the front - two on the ground floor and two on the top floor - then there must be more apartments at the back.
Near the mail boxes was an area where the apartment's garbage bins were stored. Behind the bins was a gate. Dave approached the gate and gave it a push. Nothing happened. There was a hole through which Dave could see a latch. "Is it locked?" Dave asked himself while slipping his hand through the hole and fiddling with the latch.
For a moment Dave had a terrifying moment where he imagined some monster on the other side of the gate grabbing his hand. He quickly pulled his hand out and froze. He carefully listened and tried to peek through the access hole in the gate. Reassured that there was no cause for his jumpiness, Dave reached back through the hole and fiddled with the latch again. It wasn't locked. Releasing the latch, the gate was free to open.
Dave stared down the path that went along the side of the apartment. He listened for any sound. Dave stepped through the gate and gently let the gate close and re-latch behind him. Dave wasn't happy about blocking his path of retreat but the gate was spring loaded and was going to close even if he didn't want it.
He walked down the path, looking all about. He reached a small back yard that only had enough space for some clotheslines. Dave began inspecting the back of the apartment buildings. There were a further four apartments at the back of the building that mirrored those at the front. All the apartments had large windows facing out onto the backyard. Every window was covered with curtains.
Dave wanted to reach the second floor without going through the building if possible. But thankfully the backyard area was more decorative than the front and there was a stepped garden on the fence opposite to the side of the yard to the path where Dave had first arrived. Climbing up onto the garden, Dave found that the top of the second floor balcony wall reached the middle of his chest. Dave removed his backpack and dropped it onto the balcony. It required little
