Deadfall: Hunters (8 page)

Cape Fear Weekly

Military studies their enemy

Soldiers have been spotted recently making boat runs over to Fort Fisher in order to capture Limps. A statement from Admiral Gurtz explains why they are doing this.

“We are in a state of war against an enemy that is completely unlike any we have ever faced in humanity. While we understand the grave dangers in dealing with these creatures, it is critical that we understand how they work so that we may better fight them. For this reason, we have engaged special units to capture these creatures from Carolina Beach and bring them over to ships we have designated for their study. We are ensure that the greatest of safety and caution is followed so that no additional lives be put at risk.” Admiral Gurtz.

The military command has designated our new enemies as Living Impaired, or Limps. To the rest of us, they go by many different names. Walkers, biters, shamblers, undead or just the dead, are among the many common names used. Beyond those names though, they have a name commonly used in culture: zombies.

Our culture adapted the word zombie from voodoo culture in Haiti: Zombi. In voodoo, a sorcerer or witch doctor used spells to reanimate the dead to serve him. Those that tried to research this phenomena never found anything conclusive. On occasions, it seemed highly psychoactive drugs were used to reduce a living person to a zombie like state.

Zombies became a part of normal American culture due to their use in books and movies, depicted in a large variety of ways, from magic and evil sources to biological sources.

What we do know of our current zombies, the real ones, is that there is some correlation to the arrival of the pieces of the comet Deadfall, the green skies, and the rising of dead bodies about a month after that event. We also know that scientists were busy at attempting to discover what the source of our green skies was, but we have no records to go on after the rapid demise of civilization.

We hope that with this new research that we are able to better understand this menace, and more importantly, attempt to find a way to fight it.

Gracie Adams             

Cape Fear Weekly

Training against zombies begins

Evan Steers sits on a bench on the far side of one of the practice fields along the Cape Fear River, smoking a cigarette. It has been a long day, but he seems content with the results. It was the first full day of training against real zombies and Steers and his unit has been extremely busy. As he sits there, the two individuals who have the role of flank auxiliary, the two individuals that guard the flanks of the phalanx, are walking around ensuring that all of the zombies are dead.

Steers and the other unit commanders spent some time last week working on several boats which they transformed into zombie traps. Small motorized boats with large cages built onto them would go over to Carolina Beach and wait for the multitudes of zombies to board. The boat driver was easily protected by a zombie cage, as one would use a shark cage. Twenty to thirty zombies were brought over on each boat and dumped onto the shore under the careful watch of several armed soldiers.

This first day there was no phalanx training. Instead, individuals from each unit were tasked with destroying zombies one on one. This was done in order for them to understand zombie physiology and most importantly, to allow the individual to get used to being face to face with the enemy without breaking. For nearly six hours, individuals rotated in and out along a small stretch of sand in order to fight the boat loads of zombies being brought over constantly. Any that wandered off was quickly brought down by a soldier.

“It might seem foolish to throw my soldiers into the fire, but it is critical to know who might break. It’s also important that they understand how a zombie acts, their reaction times. They have to know how their body parts react when hit by different weapons. Plus, each person needs to know just how long they can go before they begin to tire. Also, it’s nice to just kill a whole bunch of them.” Evan Steers.

I was able to watch about two hours of this training. Boats continually streamed across the river bringing more of the creatures, which were more than eager to unload and go after new victims.

On a separate strip of sand, smaller amounts of zombies were brought for sniper training. As I watched the physical zombie training, gunshots could be heard in the distance.

Steers will continue this specific form of training for three more weeks, to completely ensure that every individual can face a zombie and not have any fear. Only at this point will they begin to train fighting as a unit, likely against even larger amounts of zombies.

“We are already working on making bigger zombie boats. It’s been a wild day and I'm sick of hearing their moaning and beating on the cages, but I have to admit, it really is a blast watching our guys just beat their brains in.” Private James Higgens, one of the boat pilots.

The true test though, will come only when these new groups begin entering the real world and fighting against other hordes. Whether this will work only time will tell, but the results here are very promising.

Gracie Adams.

Evan Steers

In the explosive growth of Sunny Pointe with the combination of civilian and military survivors, there is a large amount of the population that is left without any designated role in this new community. All survivors, especially civilians, are grateful to the military and their leadership in establishing this Sanctuary from this new world at Sunny Pointe, but the general consensus among the survivors is that it is not only wrong but not fair for the military to bear the brunt of this entire endeavor. The soldiers have already proven their ability to deal with the enemy of humanity but have proven in even larger part their engineering skills in salvage and reconstruction. The building of the Sunny Pointe wall could have only been done with their expertise and equipment.

Just by nature, nearly all of the survivors that have made it here are extremely skilled and resourceful individuals, completely wasted in use as manual labor. In most cases, and as our population here grows, most of us are left without tasks, without jobs. While there has been an incredible lack of any crime, it is only a matter of time before this becomes another problem that the military would have to deal with. Already, some of the groups have split off to form groups to plant and produce food. These individuals have the background and skill for this, and yet a portion of the population remains without purpose.

There are two general purposes for the groups I intend to form. Both fall under the necessity to ensure the survival of the human race. The first becomes apparent as we interview new survivors that come into Sunny Pointe; most are from a 30-50 mile radius of Sunny Pointe. There would appear to be a great deal of possible survivors in the state, area and nation. Most may simply not know about this new sanctuary but I believe that the biggest problem anyone would face is the dangerous travel to our new home. Any scouting done beyond our safe borders quickly reveals that large amount of Limps that easily outnumber us by 100 if not 1000 to one. The implementation of finding survivors therefore requires the elimination of our foe.

The main purpose of these hunter groups is to develop an efficient method to dispatch of the Limps in any area where survivors might be, starting out directly around our home and slowly spreading out while maintaining control of the number of Limps directly next to us. This requires a volunteer group willing to be put at harms edge without using the equipment and arms that are limited at the time and best left to use by the military for specific missions. There is a clear amount of danger involved, but a method needs to be developed to ensure the high safety of the volunteers, again, to ensure the survival of mankind.

These groups would initially have to be supplied by the military for food, at least up the point where our farming groups get crops and food coming our way. There is a good chance that these hunter groups may also become self-sustaining using salvaged nonperishable goods found out while roaming. It is unknown when this will be possible. The hunter groups though, would provide a safety net so that more and more food sources can be found and used, in other words, more land for farming. The lands in and around Sunny Pointe should work well for any kinds of crop, especially corn, but can only be farmed safely if a wide range of Limps can be removed to allow the farm workers to work in safety.

The hunter groups will provide their own weapons and training and not require the use of any military weapons. The main weapon in the group will be a large pike, around 7 to 8 feet long. These can be fashioned out of wood, although a better source, possibly steel or some other metal, would be preferred once this is something we are capable of. We will have some side arms as well as some long range rifles, but it is the hunter group’s main purpose not to have to rely on ammunition, an item that may be difficult to produce in the amounts needed to successfully eliminate all Limps. It is far easier to train someone to put a pike through a Limps head than to put a bullet through the same head.

Physical health will be essential for the volunteers in the hunter groups, but it is my opinion that this will not be a problem. The majority of survivors here at Sunny Pointe are those who are naturally gifted physically or because of their survival, have shed the former lifestyle and are now quite fit as well. Regardless, every volunteer must prove through physical training that they will be able to function within the hunter group, especially in the combat aspect.

Each volunteer must be mentally trained as well. It is a well-established fact that the Limps produce a sense of panic among those of us still living, whether it is a product of something we don’t know of yet, or it is simply our fear of the undead, it is imperative that each man or woman wielding a pike never waver. Repeated exposure to the Limps in a controlled fashion might enable us to eliminate this fear. Thankfully we have a vast amount of this resource just across the Cape Fear River and it is just a manner of finding a way to bring some over for training.

Hunter groups will also use the Limps on Carolina Beach for training using their weapons and for tactics. It is our hope that one if not our first major operation will be clearing Carolina Beach of all Limps. This may only be possible once we have enough hunter groups with enough experience for this undertaking.

Hunter group formation and training can begin immediately. We would require food supplies for a couple of weeks as indicated previously as well as a few individuals with training experience to oversee the whole operation.