Deadfall: Hunters (20 page)

I didn’t want to snort drugs though.

I just talked to Sarah, before I came back to the house. I didn’t tell her what was going on, but I did ask her if she trusted Abraham. She never flat out said yes. But she did say that he had saved them, even if indirectly. He had claimed they would be safe from the zombies, and they had been, up until the point he had left. She really didn’t know him that well. She knew he was a doctor, and also knew he was a voodoo priest.

Apparently, the fact that he was a voodoo priest and she was a Christian nurse didn’t matter. I asked her about it, asked her if her faith had changed since Deadfall. She said it certainly had, but that her father had told her something important once. Faith wasn’t about knowing everything for certain, but about believing your faith was enough. She seemed content with that sentiment. Then she added, “But who knows. I never knew my father would end up being a racist coward.”

I finished my night by returning to Abraham. I told him I would go to his secret zombie place and do whatever was going to be done. He told me we would leave tomorrow morning.

I’m going to leave my journal with Tague, and hopefully, I’ll pick it up again when I come back.

I woke up just a while ago. I’m here, back in the house, and I have no idea how I got here. Blevin was sitting in a chair next to my bed, waiting for me to wake up, I guess. He asked me what happened, but I don’t have time to tell him now. I have to write everything down first, then I will tell the crew. I did ask for food and I am currently putting down everything that’s put in front of me. I don’t even know what it is. It doesn’t taste like anything. It’s just going down my throat as fast as possible. It feels like I haven’t eaten in days.

Turns out I haven’t.

Let me start at the beginning, where it matters the least.

Abraham got me up that morning. He had snuck into the house, completely creepy-like, and shook me awake. We left just as the sun was rising over the mountains to the east. I think we headed out north first, then somewhere, we turned east and quickly descended the mountains. Steep really. There was a path there somewhere, but it felt like we were just falling straight down.

At some point, after a brief stop for lunch, Abraham said we had actually crossed over into the Dominican Republic. I didn’t know. There certainly was no way to tell. It was still the same thick tropical forest we had been hiking in that whole day. Then we spilled out onto a hilly meadow and I was greeted by the bright blue and green of the ocean, directly ahead of me. We walked through tall grass through a very evident trail, through a palm grove and suddenly, we were at the beach. To the southeast, the mountains vanished into thick clouds. We kept hiking along the beach, staying just under the cover of the palms, until the sand came to an abrupt end and we were at the edge of seaside cliffs.

A small, narrow, but safe, path led us alongside the cliff, relatively close to the ocean. It was close enough that we were occasionally sprayed by the waves as they crashed some ten to twenty feet below us. At times, the path led us higher, and other times lower. The path took a turn inwards at a deep crag and then emptied out into a small lagoon. White sand coursed the edges of the cliffs, but the water was clear, unbroken. The waves never made it in that far. The cliffs weren’t that high here, maybe a hundred feet. Looking up, I could see thick green vegetation creeping over the edge.

We camped there, at the hidden beach. Abraham caught some crabs for us to eat. I could tell he was proud with his achievement, but to be honest, those critters tasted horrible. I ate them out of respect and hunger. Mostly hunger.

There was something weird about that lagoon. There was a vibration in the air, almost a humming. I couldn’t tell what it was. It gave me a headache, I think. I remember my ears were hot, like I was feverish. It was just bizarre. Abraham told me we were really close, but that I would go in the next morning.

If I slept that night, I don’t remember. All I remember were the dreams. In fact, I’m not sure where the dreams started and reality began, or vice versa. That is why I am hurrying to write this all down because I am not sure.

This is all going to seem very odd, random. I’m not even sure I am writing this all down in the order it happened. When you have a dream, and wake up, sometimes you remember parts of it, and then later that day, you remember something else, but you can never quite put it all together. That’s what happened to me. Maybe one day I’ll come back to this and try to make sense of it.

The dreams that night started with her, again. I remember being pissed too. Not at her, I don’t think, but at the fact that I was dreaming of her again. I was trying hard to get over it all, and she just kept coming back to me in my dreams. I think I shouted at her, asking her why she kept coming back. I’m fairly certain II got a reaction, because her face changed. I remember that really well.

Then I was swimming. I know because I was gagging on water, chocking and spitting trying hard to gasp for air. I looked down at my arms and there were chains on them, and they were pulling me in the water. At first, I thought they were pulling me down, into my death. But they were pulling me sideways. The chains pulled me out of the water, dripping and wet, up into some huge contraption, like a giant cross. They pulled me up onto the cross, and I was standing on the cross beams. I looked out and I couldn’t see anything.

I walked across a plank, or a bridge. There was water underneath me and there were these little steamship paddleboat type things on the water. They were billowing smoke and steam and when I looked at my hand I was holding a dozen remotes and I couldn’t figure out which ones worked on the little toy ships. I was very frustrated. I think I was actually asking out loud if someone knew which the right remote was.

A dream. Very bizarre.

I don’t know when or how, but I walked across the plank and reached dry land. The remotes and boats were gone. I was in my high school. I was teaching, except I was pissed because no one was paying attention. I really sense a theme here; I’m angry. The kids were looking right at me, as if they were listening, but they weren’t. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. They weren’t listening. I was shouting out their homework and the lesson and it was like a foreign language. One of the kids stood up, walked over to the board, one of those old school blackboards. I have never used one in my life. The student wrote my name on the board then went back and sat down. When I looked back at the board, I saw my name, except it wasn’t. I can’t even explain it. My dream was telling me that was my name, but on the other hand, it wasn’t Brian.

In fact, I don’t think it was even in English. Or even used our Alphabet.

I sensed something and looked back, and all the kids were pointing at the board. Except they were now zombies.

At some point, I was on one of my remote controlled steamboats. Except I was on the boat, on the front. It was plowing through the Mississippi, or a huge river like that. I had the remote again, and it had a goofy wooden wheel on it, but if I turned it, nothing happened. The remote had a turbo button. Yes, a turbo button, and every time I hit it, the ship’s whistle would blow. Again, I was angry. I couldn’t control the stupid thing. Also, I looked up and could see a giant me walking on a wooden bridge.

Fantastic dream if it ended there.

The classroom had five zombies now. I know they were zombies, except they didn’t look like them. It was five black men. They were sitting on student desks, and chains hung down from the ceiling onto their hands. They looked like they should be alive, except they were zombies. They were having a conversation. They were talking about how great it was to sleep, that they had spent so much time tired. They all seemed to agree with this topic. Then the one in the middle had a newspaper and he was reading it. I couldn’t see what the date was, but whatever date it was, it was Deadfall.

There was a headline on the newspaper that said something like ‘We are all angry we are awake again.’ The ‘WE’ was them, the five zombie guys. When I looked again, they had exaggerated dark spots under their eyes, almost cartoonish. I guess the point was they were tired.

I started shouting out to them, asking them what was going on. They didn’t reply. I think I asked some stupid things, like what their names were and where they lived. But, I was either being ignored or they couldn’t hear me. Then, and I don’t know why, I said my name. But, it wasn’t Brian. It was that name on the board. No clue how I said it, but I did, and we were all back in a dark cave. The five zombies were looking at me, right at me. They were chained to a wall by their hands and feet. They were zombies for sure now. They weren’t moaning though, they were just staring at me with those dead eyes.

I called out that name again, and behind them, a TV was there, in the wall. There was a movie playing on it, a video of some sort. There were tall dark mountains in the background and it was snowing heavily. I was actually shivering in the cold. The cold wind was blowing in my face. That was because I was there. I was inside the TV. Of course, it wasn’t a TV, it was a real place. I was huge, tall. My skin was pale almost translucent, and I was definitely there. I looked back to see if I would see the back end of the TV screen, but instead, I was looking down into a deep valley.

There were two armies fighting in the narrow valley. A river ran lengthwise through the valley and the armies were spilling into the river itself as they collided. I felt a sense of sadness, as if I was losing something very important. I continued to watch the two armies fight, but I couldn’t make out the details from that far away. What I did know is that one of the armies was made up of zombies. And they were overrunning the other army. I was sad, because I could stop it, but it was too late. Not sure what it was too late for, but it was.

Stars started falling from the sky, burning bright and slowly. The fire turned into rain, washing the snow away in a black wave. The water poured into the valley and swept both armies away, crushing them against the mountains, dashing them to pieces. The valley continued to fill up with water until it started to get close to where I was standing. Again, I was sad. I turned around and walked into something, a barrel, I think. It was giant though, or I had shrunk.

Inside the barrel, I was back in the cave with the five zombies. This time, though, their chains were shackled to me. I tried walking but I tripped and fell. I couldn’t move. I tried to reach around but my arms were really heavy. I pulled on them and saw a thousand chains on them, all leading back into a huge warehouse full of zombies. I was chained to them all. I tried pulling on them, but nothing happened. I struggled to move, but the zombies pulled right back. I got angry and shouted: “MOVE!”

Then they moved.

One of the five zombies was back to being a normal man. He was unchained now, and standing directly in front of me. He reached out with his hand and started vomiting all over them. I didn’t know what to do, so I turned to avoid the vomit and fell into a hole.

Then I woke up here.

So, I’ve written this all down. I think there are some other things I missed, other weird things. Despite that, I had this odd urge to reach down into my pants. Nope, not gross. Instead, I just now, literally just now, pulled out a small leather bag, about the size of a grapefruit. And inside of this bag, well. I stuck my fingers in it, and when I pulled them out, they were covered in a silvery dust.

I think I need to find Abraham. For now, Sarah has come in with some news she wants me to hear.

I’m still hungry.

What the hell just happened to me?

I don’t feel as hungry today, but that’s only because I ate far too much food today. Not only did I gorge myself at every meal, but I just couldn’t stop eating other snacks throughout the day. I can’t tell what’s wrong with me. Blevin pointed out that maybe it was because I was out of it for a while, but I was eating far too much for just making up some lost calories. In fact, I had easily gone without eating or eating very little many times before without turning into a starving hungry hippo.

Oh, and I never quite filled up either. I’m sitting here writing this stuff down and I’ve already eaten three bananas.

My brutal hunger is actually the least important thing today. Sarah had come over last night. While Abraham and I were gone, Emma had disappeared. At first, everyone thought she must have vanished during the zombie attack. There were still plenty of people missing when they vanished into the woods. But she had shown up again the morning we had left. Problem was, she showed up with a group of Fort Liberte men. As it turns out, she was a mole, a spy. Either she had been brainwashed, or she was truly a traitor.

I always knew that our little escape had come too easily. Janine had done her part, but Emma had played along too willingly.

The girl showed up with the men at the village edge with a threat. They were to turn over all of the villagers to the fort. They would live there. The foreigners would also be turned over, their fates decided by trial. But they wanted Abraham for execution, treason against the captain of the fort.

Lunatics.

If the village did not concede, then they would attack again, but this time with a far larger group. It was truly a scary proposition, considering what had just happened. Of course Abraham was not there to be turned over. The way Sarah told it, I don’t think she was too sure what they would or not do. For a moment, she was afraid they would round her up along with the others. The fact that Abraham wasn’t there put everything on hold.

They left, but would return in two days, with the group that would attack them if they were denied their prize.

The threat had caused even more people to vanish into the woods. Sarah wasn’t sure just how many people were left. The village certainly felt a lot emptier. Sarah was clearly bummed. She had worked hard keeping the village not only together, but starting to grow and prosper. She didn’t blame me, but I was waiting for it. I mean, we showed up, and it all went to hell.

We all sat together at lunch, while I stuffed my face. Abraham was there too. Before we could figure out what to do, he had to tell us his side of the story. So before he could start on all that, Abraham asked me if we should tell them what we had actually done. I forgot that no one else really knew. You can imagine their reaction when they found out that Abraham could ‘talk’ to the zombies.

I told my dream, or vision, or whatever it was. It was the first time Abraham was hearing it as well. He was surprised, shocked. He had needed to use the drug in order to visit the five zombies, but I had never taken it. When he woke up that morning, I had already disappeared. Abraham thinks there are a series of caves under the lagoon that lead to the cave where they are. He had needed the drug to be able to speak to them and find his way in there. I hadn’t needed it. More mysteries for me. Yay.

Well, Abraham had freaked out a bit upon waking up and finding me vanished. He had tried diving into the water, but could not find his way by himself. He then tried using some of the silver dust, but said that he still couldn’t find his way in. At some point in his drug induced state, he must have wandered out of the lagoon. When he came to, later that afternoon, he made his way back to the lagoon to find Malachi there with some of his men.

And so we learned that Malachi was like Abraham, and had gone into the caves himself, many years ago. Unfortunately, they had driven him mad. I can understand why. When Abraham had undertaken his own pilgrimage, and found out his brother had as well, he tried talking to him about it. By then his brother was already starting to have his mental issues. Malachi had tried on many occasions to return to the cave. He didn’t want any more dust, because, as I learned then, the dust grows, on its own, over time. (More crazy stuff). No, Malachi wanted to go back to destroy the five zombies and stop the voices in his head.

Abraham watched from a high vantage point as his brother tried over and over again to find the cave. He’d vanish under the water only to emerge, gasping for air, and screaming in frustration. He continued this way for a long time, a couple of hours, until, finally defeated, he and his men left.

I wonder how many times that lunatic had done that in the past years.

Well, Abraham finally went down to the lagoon only to find me there, washed up on the shore. He isn’t sure when I washed up, but it was clearly after Malachi and his men had left. I was fine although still out of it. He tried getting me to drink water, but apparently, I was completely passed out. We had rested there that night and the next morning, he carried me out of there and brought me back to the village.

This was the part when I looked at my friends and saw shock and confusion. Questions erupted and I couldn’t keep up with them. Five zombies, and magical dust, and weird ass dreams. Problem was, I didn’t know any of the answers. I looked pleadingly to Abraham, but even he was a bit confused. He admitted he could talk to the zombies. Before Deadfall, he had no idea what the dust was for, except for visiting the cave the first time. He knew about zombies, they were part of his religion. He had once used the dust to bring about a catatonic state on a man who had severe mental problems. The man essentially turned into a zombie, just like the stories of old.

So the big question was, why didn’t I need the dust?

I laugh as I write this stuff. Magic dust. What am I, Tinkerbell?

Here is what I do know. My father had come down here to, at least by Abraham’s estimates, find some kind of ancient writings about zombies. So how did my father know about zombies? I mean, he wrote books and made movies, but it was just like anyone else in the industry. My father though, had some kind of inside knowledge. He knew something was coming because he built the bunker in the mountains. Granted, he only started building it after they found out about the comet, but he had been searching for these writings long before the comet. Now, the logical conclusion is that my dad was just looking for things that would serve as inspiration for his books. So, was it coincidence?

And why hadn’t he turned when death had come to him?

I had my pouch of dust and I had part of the writings that Abraham had copied to me. Maybe, with this, I could dig around all that data my father had saved in the computers.

I think it was time to go home.

First though, we had to deal with the other problem at hand. Fort Liberte.

Really though, I should have just packed up my stuff and gotten out of here, but, I certainly couldn’t break the tradition of helping everyone we came across. Even if doing so could easily bring about our quick and horribly painful deaths. We’d been lucky so far.

Malachi’s men are showing up tomorrow. Villagers are leaving the village. Those that are still here probably don’t want anything to do with this fight. We have a few guns, but very little ammo.

Also, we don’t have a tank.

I would have settled for a bazooka.