Deadfall: Survivors (12 page)

Evan spun around,
still riding high with the confidence he had just gained from killing the first group of zombies, only to see at least twenty more zombies pouring out of the same field and start walking over towards us. I ran around to the driver’s side and jumped in, started the truck and pulled it around quickly, hoping I hadn’t just thrown Evan off the back. A quick check in the rear view mirror showed me I hadn’t. Later on that evening, when we had reached the park, he told me about that moment:

“I had been scared shitless when I turned and seen that
zomb just standing there so close to me. There’s no way I shoulda used two shots on one that close. But when they came walking across the street from the field, it was like a turkey shoot. I just kept linin’ them up and gunnin’ em down. I felt so badass, man. But then when everyone was gettin’ in the truck, and I turn, thinkin’ I'm gonna be all Rambo on them, and I saw how many there were, I dun think I pissed myself. Don’t tell anyone though. I like being the badass with the gun.”

We had managed to pump enough fuel to get us to where we wanted to,
but we hadn’t really found any decent amount of food, other than the cans of sardines and Vienna sausages. That would have to do, unless we found something else.

We took
Highway 276 that went up over the top and through the middle of a designated park area, which to most was just a section of wilderness (my idea of a park). Near the top it got near, if not over, that magical thirty five hundred feet that made me feel so much safer. Granted, this was one of the more popular camping and hiking places in South Carolina, but, I had a feeling most people weren’t taking their time to hike and camp as zombies took over the world. Despite that, we were driving a noise making truck to the top. Once we had reached the top, we pulled over in a scenic sighting area and made our camp for the night. We let Heather and Chris sleep in the truck, maybe to add a sense of security for them.

Right before coming back to
the section of trees that I had tied my hammock to, the rest of the group and I had been in a conversation about a few different subjects.

“Is this really what
we’re  eating? And cold?”

“Do you think we need to have a watch tonight?”

“Are Heather and Chris going to be ok? They’ve  barely spoken since we found them.”

“How far is it to the house? Will it be safe?”

“What are we going to do now?”

“If
we’re  all dead already, why keep going?”

That last one was, of course, what had been plaguing humanity’s mind ever since the zombies began rising and eliminating that said humanity. I don’t think I had ever clearly given that much thought
, mostly because of where I had been. I had watched the rise of the dead in complete safety, and had not been out in the real dead world when all the TV and radio stations went dead. I had not seen the amount of death that I am sure the rest of the people here had, and therefore, had not really allowed an overwhelming sense of defeat enter my psyche. That being said, I could see how Aaron, Evan and the others felt defeated,  tired and hopeless.

At the same time, the whole idea of doom and gloom was already, in
an ironic kind of way, a part of my life and background. I can’t really put time into that now, but my father made his living with doom and gloom, and therefore, it had always been around me as a kid growing up. It had been his expertise in everything going wrong that had allowed me to survive and even thrive in a world where most human beings were attempting to kill the other. So maybe I had become desensitized to it all, whether that was a good thing or not. I preferred to keep life going as it had in the past, up until the very moment when it was not. At that point, it probably wouldn’t matter too much to me as an individual.

As to the other topics of conversation
we had that pitch black night, I can really only remember the gist of the words spoken. I do know that once I get back to the house, I’ll  pick up a little recording device I know my dad has, so that I can record the conversations I think hold merit to this journal. I think the exact wording is quite critical to these conversations, especially when Evan talks like the redneck he thinks he should be, or Dawn talks with her articulated Midwestern voice.

This, then, is what was talked about
:

The food sucked. And yes, it was cold
because I had no fuel left. I don’t think I've ever had anything as nasty as a cold sardine. At least the sausage I was able to swallow without gagging. I did mention that my house had some stores of frozen meat that I'm sure we could break out to celebrate a different sort of homecoming. That seemed to peak their interest.

We agreed that we probably needed a watch, even if I was almost sure we would see nothing up this far. First, we were quite a ways off from any of the major cities and the major
highways that usually managed to draw off the zombies like ant tunnels. Second, I still stood by my thirty five hundred altitude zombie barrier. And thirdly, we hadn’t seen a single zombie anywhere at all on the road a good two hours from the spot we were camped at. We figured that just two people splitting watch would be more than enough. In any way, just to be cautious, we packed everything else back up into the truck once we were done eating, and had only our sleeping bags out.

We talked a little about our two new younger additions. From my own experience a
s a teacher, I merely suggested, that either, or both of them, would talk when they felt comfortable with it. Or they might never speak of whatever happened to them again in their lives. It was up to us to make sure that they were ok, and that whatever did happen to them didn’t completely change them, and perhaps even make them dangerous to us. Dawn, the poor older woman who had never had children of her own, gave hints that it was her responsibility to take care of them. I remember Aaron and Lucy snickering to each other when she mentioned this. I can only imagine that there’s  something going on here that they find funny.

I have a feeling that this desire Dawn has to “take care” of the younger ones in our group
, rises from a hidden (or not) guilt that comes from that fact that she thinks her former husband didn’t take care of their flock as he should have. This might be her way of paying for his sins. I understand all about that kind of guilt and pain that comes from deception in a family. Notice I have spoken a lot about my father, and yet there hasn’t been a single mention of my mother. Horrible family past and deception is something I rarely like speaking about, much less writing about, although I feel like I may have to at some future point.

We talked about the
next two days (that's how I calculated it). Our fuel was fine to cover the fifty or so miles up to the small town at the foot of the mountains that I planned on leaving the truck behind. Our concern was still food, so I mentioned a few smaller towns along the way, since I’d be trying not to use any major roads or highways. I suggested raiding homes instead of stores, since the likelihood of finding food in houses seemed higher to me than the places most would have raided already. The zombies had arrived later and in slower number in the less populated, and more specifically, more hilly and rural areas. I’m  still a little surprised that I hadn’t met more survivors in the areas that I hiked through. Then again, surviving for nine months without a constant source of food and energy might drive a lot of people to leave. I still suspect that there are plenty of people alive in the mountains.

Raiding homes would take longer
, of course, but I planned on spending the night at a small mountain village called Balsam Grove. If I remembered right, there was a community center we could lock ourselves into for a night. We would all need a good night’s rest, and hopefully, good and plentiful food in preparation for the hike the next day. I was really worried that this hike might be too much for them, and I’ve  really been trying to drive that subject home, really harping on how hard it’s going to be, yet no one is really saying anything against it. I really expected some opposition to the plan, or at least insistence on driving the truck all the way up.

That whole development worries me a bit.
They’re  all simply following my lead. Except for Dawn, I'm the oldest here, but that seniority crap is pointless here. Evan is clearly better equipped mentally for the end of the world type scenario that we’re  in. Aaron is clearly an alpha type, who’s  usually the kind in charge and comfortable giving the orders. Tague is an international journalist, who has clearly been around far more than all of us put together. I’m  nothing like those guys. I'm a former history teacher, who loves to hike and is afraid of guns.

I've been really trying to hint at this fact quite a bit now. I think, deep down, I just want one of them to take over and be the leader, but so far, no one is headed that way. Well, maybe after the hike, they won’t be so willing to follow my lead.

So what do we do? I know we have to get home first, but then what? That’s  been a thought that has been rattling around in my brain now for a few days, even though I've managed to nearly get myself chomped on by zombies. There’s enough food to last this whole group a couple of years, if we did nothing at all. So then what? We build ourselves a nice little mountaintop community? What happens when one of us dies, and we get eaten by our own community members? The conversation would die quickly though, when that last subject came up. I know I was feeling hopeful about returning to my home, but I already knew what awaited me there. For the rest of them, it was like some secret holy paradise that was waiting for them after death, and I was their angel, leading them to their reward for enduring the pestilent zombies.

So what’s going to happen after they
realize that it’s just another place, safe yes, but another place where life is the same?

It’s a nice cool evening. I hope I sleep well. I have to get them up that mountain first.

Yes, a lot happened in these past two days.

Evan’s Note: Did I really sound so redneck back then? I wonder if Brian just exaggerated.
That couple of days was chaotic. Finding Heather and Chris, I had almost forgotten how it had happened. Chris rarely talks about it anymore.

Entry 23 – Up We Go. Fifteen Days Since I Started Writing.
[22]

It was, in essence, a quiet drive here. It wasn’t quiet because it was a storm of conversation both inside and, apparently, outside in the truck bed, where Evan and Tague had decided to continue riding in. It was quiet though, in that not one zombie was seen. It almost felt like a normal drive through the countryside with a bunch of friends, except for the fact that these people here with me are still, for the most part, strangers to me. But at least a day like this helped take some of that strangeness away. It also helped me breathe a sigh of relief. If I had been worried that I was taking potentially dangerous people to my safe place, it seemed to me, more and more, that these people were not one of those. I may still be proven wrong, but for now, I can breathe easy.

We stopped twice along the way. The back roads that we took really led us through some rural areas with sparse housing. We did stop at
some mountain resorts filled with luxurious cabins though. One was right at the bottom of the wilderness area we had stayed in last night. It only took us about an hour and a half of rummaging through the cabins and storage areas, and while we found no food worth ingesting, we again saw no zombies. Plus, the difference between the city and out here was also calming on the nerves. In the bigger cities, the destruction caused either by rioting, looting or zombies was so vividly apparent, that the cities no longer felt like what we were used to. But out here, there was no destruction, just abandonment. If you could blank your mind for a moment and forget all that had happened, you could actually think things were normal, and just that feeling, I could see, gave people hope, put smiles on their faces.

The second resort yielded us two large boxes of elbow noodles
, and even some blocks of some type white cheese. Yes,  this evening, we’re  dining on macaroni and cheese a la apocalypse. It’s nowhere near what we, as good Americans (except Tague), had come to know as mac and cheese, but it was definitely an enjoyable meal. We were able to find some pots here at this community center we are at, and after some rummaging for fuel of any sorts, we decided to hit up a stock of firewood Aaron had found at a nearby house and we made a simple campfire. Boiled water, cooked the noodles and melted the cheese are all things done easily over a fire.

There was far more than
eight people could eat, but I do think we ate for eighty people tonight. It’s  exactly what we all needed. To top it off, some of us cut up the rest of the sausages and put them into our meal (although not the sardines). Then Tague delivered the ultimate dessert in the form of some instant coffee and hot chocolate packets he had found. We only found five mugs, but we gladly shared. I'm not a coffee drinker, but this time I mixed some with my chocolate drink.

Heather and Chris seemed to be more smiles than not.
It could have been the slight semblance of normality, maybe the first time in a while, that set them at ease. Heather had asked me earlier, when she saw me looking at something in my journal, what I was doing. When I explained to her about my journal, she asked if she could have some of the paper as well. I ripped out a few pieces and gave them to her, and as I look over to her now, I see she’s found a pen or pencil somewhere among the mess here, and is writing something down herself.

Therapy works.

After dinner, while it was still light out, I had everyone redo their packs. I wanted to make sure we had only the bare necessities, enough to get us up the mountain without completely tiring out those who weren’t ready for this kind of hike. I had a water filter with me, so we wouldn’t have to carry much water with us. I knew for sure that there were plenty of streams we would be crossing. We would even be following one for a while up the mountains. We packed the noodles that we hadn’t cooked, as that would make an easy lunch again. While everyone packed or repacked, I made sure my handheld GPS was still charged. I had plugged it into the truck this morning, and while I knew the trail I was going to take quite well, I wanted to be sure. It had been years since I had hiked it, and it had been nine months since I'm sure anyone other than deer and bear had taken the trail. I didn’t want to risk getting off trail and getting lost.

Tague had finished first. He was by nature a minimalist,
and had learned so in his career as a journalist to pack light, so he was ready to go. He told us he was going to go check a small volunteer fire department station right next door to the community center. Our luck with finding the guns in the fire station in Charlotte made it a good idea to check out. While he did that, Evan and I fashioned a pack for Chris. He would only be carrying a few extra things, the pot to cook with on the way up and ammunition. Evan, of course, wanted to carry as many of the weapons as we could all carry, but I managed to get him down to three guns between all of us, plus ammunition for them. I just didn’t see the need for them, and it was just more to carry. His main worry was having weapons for the future.

“We don’t need to carry any up.”

Evan:
“What if we need some later on? Up in the mountains?”

“We probably would never need to use them up there.”

Evan:
“And, at some other time? You know, when we go out to raid?”

(That always made me smile.
What, were we pirates?)

“Well, I know for sure that there are guns at the house.”

Evan:
“What kind?”
(He said that with the joyful tone of a kid being told he is going to a toy store to buy something, with eyes wide open and a hint of excitement in his voice.)

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

Evan:
“Oh yeah, you're not a gun guy.”

I could only shrug my shoulders. I had thought about it today. I had always been afraid of guns
, because I didn’t know anything about them. Now I had someone who did know about them. I think that once we get up there and get settled in, I really should learn. One of my biggest fears in this new world, and where the use of guns would be necessary, would be if we ran into the living that had worse intentions than those I had rescued in Hendersonville. It may never happen, but maybe I need to start preparing myself for situations like that.

Tague didn’t find much at the station, mostly random junk, but I did take a shine to some LED flashlights he had managed to dig up. Combined with rechargeable batteries, those could come in handy. He did come up with a good idea though. We decided to stash all the weapons we were leaving behind into the truck
, and park it inside of the fire station. It would keep it out of sight, BUT, if someone were to find it and need it, it would be a boon to them as it had been to us. And if not, then we knew where it was, if we needed either the truck or the weapons.

There were plenty of couches and
cushions from which everyone was able to make beds out of, at least beds that were far more comfortable than lying on the ground. Together with the hot and plentiful meal and the nice hot drinks, everyone was in a good mood, and generally, a good mood led to a good sleep. I found a way to string up my hammock and tonight, I would sleep with the top off. Wouldn’t need any kind of bug or rain repellant tonight.

We barricaded the door with anything we could find
, but there really wasn’t any real worry in the air. Even my usual caution had gone out the window a bit. I can only think that it’s this closeness to what has become my own safe haven that’s giving me this feeling of safety. I’ll  be glad to be back.