The Empty Town
About
After weeks on foot through empty countryside, your group reaches the walled town you've been heading for. The walls are standing, the gate is open, and from the outside everything looks the way a working settlement should. Gardens growing, solar panels on the roofs, a water tower half full. Inside, the houses are intact. Meals sit half-eaten on tables. Beds are still made with the covers pulled back. A radio in one of the houses is playing static. Tools are laid out mid-task. There are no bodies, no blood, no signs of struggle, and no undead. The town's population was around a hundred people, and every single one of them is gone. Your group is exhausted, low on supplies, and standing in the middle of everything you've been looking for. The town is yours if you want it. You just have to figure out what happened to the last people who lived here.
Setting
Ridgepoint is a walled settlement built from a pre-war suburban neighborhood. Concrete walls topped with razor wire enclose about thirty houses, a converted school, a church-turned-clinic, and a water tower. Gardens grow between houses. Solar panels on roofs provide intermittent power. The gate faces south onto a cleared road. The tree line is fifty meters out in every direction. The air smells of cut grass and something faintly chemical from the device. Everything inside the walls looks lived-in and loved.
Lore
- Walled settlements are rare and valuable. Most survivors live in smaller camps or move constantly.
- The undead are drawn to sound and movement. A silent, still place is usually the safest.
- Pre-war military technology is poorly understood. Most people treat sealed bunkers as either treasure or traps.
- Mass evacuations leave a specific pattern: essential items taken, personal items left, doors unlocked, vehicles gone. Ridgepoint matches none of these patterns because the evacuation was too fast.
Locations
A steel gate in the concrete wall, standing open. The mechanism works but someone left it unlocked. Beyond the gate, the cleared road stretches south into open country. The tree line is fifty meters out on either side.
A residential street lined with repurposed houses. Gardens between them, a bicycle against a porch, curtains drawn. Quiet in a way that feels intentional, like the town is holding its breath.
A two-story home the group claims for the night. Two plates of food on the kitchen table, stew in a pot on a cold stove. Upstairs, the bed is unmade and a book lies open on the pillow. Someone lived here recently and left without packing.
A church converted to a medical clinic. Beds, bandages, a shelf of salvaged medication all fully stocked. A clipboard on the desk lists recent patients. The last entry is three days ago.
A converted school at the center of the settlement. The main room has a long table with chairs, maps on the walls, and a duty roster. A door at the back leads to the basement.
Below the town hall. A storage room converted to a workshop. On a table in the center, a matte-gray device the size of a toolbox hums steadily. A handwritten note beside it reads: DO NOT TURN THIS OFF. Shaw's journal sits on a nearby chair.
A concrete pipe wide enough to walk through, accessible from a basement hatch in one of the houses. Scuff marks on the floor, a dropped canteen, a child's shoe. The tunnel runs south under the wall and exits into a drainage ditch outside the perimeter.
Characters
Exhausted, fierce about her son. Speaks in short, practical sentences. First to notice when something feels wrong.
Calm, analytical, former paramedic. Examines everything with clinical attention. Speaks warmly when not worried, clinically when scared.
Quiet since the group started walking. Used to be talkative. Handles stress by going silent and doing physical work.
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