Deadfall: Survivors (32 page)

Entry 48 – A Boat
[45]

Today, I was able to go through my father’s belongings. Sammy had kept them, just in case someone might have some use for them, or, according to my father, in case I ever came looking. I wonder if he actually thought I would come after him at some point. Maybe that is what he had wanted; for me to come along with him in the first place.

Among his things, other than some clothes, some radios, some assorted maps and books
, was one tattered notebook, which he had been writing what initially seemed like random notes about things he saw, and ideas he had, that the people could use in the towers. Most of it seemed like things that had been implemented in the towers; ideas for electricity, solar panels, wind turbines, steam engines and even river mills. There were all sorts of notes on plants to grow; herbs that could be used for medicines, and just a whole assorted bunch of random drawings and ideas. It was the kind of book of which he had thousands of when I was growing up. It’s how he came up with his stories.

There was one entry though, Tague found it, that seemed different from all the others. Towards the end, he had a page with a few things written on it.

Abraham.
Haiti.
Maxie’s boat.

He had scribbled a large X on the bottom half of the page
, and that was it.

Tague, the ever mindful, went through the maps
, and pulled out one that seemed like a navigational map of the northern half of the Caribbean. There were notes scribbled on there about supplies, and navigational time from Wilmington to a Fort Liberte in Haiti. There were no clues whatsoever about why my father had made these notes, and even after essentially reading every page of his notebook out loud, there was simply nothing else that would possibly give a hint as to what my father wanted in Haiti.

I then decided to ask someone who might know.

We were two radio jumps away from the Cliffdale tower, which made communication not nearly as lengthy as I had thought. They were even working on trying to find the right equipment, so that they could boost their signal, and reach any of the towers in one shot. It would still take them however many jumps it was to get a message down to us, but it would still be better.

We sent a message to
Cliffdale, and received a reply about thirty minutes later, that Maxie was on the other end, ready to talk. The jumps were being relayed by a tower somewhere in the Grays Creek area, a place I was unfamiliar with. Essentially, I gave my message to the radio guy, who then read it over to the radio man at the Grays Creek tower, who then repeated it on to the Cliffdale tower. It was like, advanced Morse code, except, not really. Here are the messages,

“
Maxie, I found out about my father here. Thank you for the news. I did find something among his belongings. Did he ever mention anything about Haiti to you?”

Reply
“Sorry you had to see it for yourself. Better that way. Richard never mentioned Haiti, why?”

“He said something about an Abraham, Haiti, and supposedly a boat you have?”

Reply
“Never heard of Abraham, or any plans for Haiti, but I do certainly have a large forty four foot sloop, docked in Wilmington. It should still be there. Your father did ask many questions about it, wanted me to teach him how to use it. I tried telling him it was virtually impossible to sail with only one man.”

After some talk on our end
“Would you be able to sail it to Haiti?”

Reply
“I don’t see why not. I’ve sailed it to the Bahamas plenty of times.”

“If I needed to, would you teach me?”

Reply
“So that you could sail to Haiti? You better have a good reason to. No, I wouldn’t teach you. I would take you myself.”

So
, there it was. I found myself thinking, over and over again, that I needed to make my way to Haiti, but when I talked it over with the rest of the group, it was easy to see that without any more information, that seemed like a really bad idea. It probably was. Besides, having found my father, it was probably time for us to head back to the house.

First though, Silvio and Sammy had a request for us.

Apparently, they had been trying, rather unsuccessfully, for some time, to make contact with the military and their ships down at Fort Fisher. It wasn’t that they couldn’t make contact, but that apparently, the military didn’t appear to want to have anything to do with them. I found this a little contradicting with what the soldiers had told us. According to them, they were on the lookout for any and all survivors. I wonder why they were shunning the tower people.

In either case,
I hoped we still had a standing invitation from Captain Rhodes, and the two founders were asking if we would drive down there, and see if they could get a meeting, or something of that nature, set up for them. They had food to offer, and once they connected the rail line and found a working train, they would be able to send them food they were growing. I did tell them that the soldiers had told us they had around two thousand people there, but they only countered with the fact that next year they would have large fields of corn, enough to supply many thousands.

After all they had done, and I guess
, more in the memory of my father, I agreed to it. It was an hour away, so it wasn’t as if we would waste away days trying to get there. Tague also mentioned that it would be good to have some concrete connections with the military types, in case we ever needed any help from them. Heather also pointed out the obvious. Who better to talk to about going to Haiti, than the Navy.

We witnessed that night
, as well, how they dealt with zombies. As my father had set up, they routinely went out on patrols, and made sure an area of about a five mile radius around the tower, was clear of walkers. If a large horde was spotted, depending on the size, they would either draw them away with the “drive slowly, until they are all following” technique, then when far enough away, speed off, or, as in tonight’s case, if the horde was smaller, they would actually draw them towards the tower. When the zombies came at the fence, everyone that could, armed with spears and other sharp objects, would walk around and spear them through the head to kill them. Heather and I walked with them, with our own spears, doing our small part.

That night
, they killed around ninety zombies. When no more were coming, they would go out in groups, and pile them up to burn them. Since it was late already, they would take care of them the next morning.

The whole mood was calm. These people had lived through the initial rising of the dead
, and had managed to turn this place into an actual working community. They lived their own daily lives, with jobs and tasks. The only difference here was that instead of walking the dog, you speared the zombie. Next thing you knew, someone would open up a Starbucks.

Evan’s Notes: I think there actually was an old Starbucks really close to there, in a small commercial area.

Entry 49 – In the Navy
[46]

We left early this morning to the sight of men and women piling up the zombie carcasses from the previous night. We had the radio frequencies, and Silvio and Sammy either awaited a message from us, or our return. I could only hope for the better.

Finding them
wasn’t  too hard. As indicated by Captain Rhodes, we headed towards Wilmington and turned south, just before the bridge into the city, and headed towards the military ocean terminal. Sunny Point, the name of the military terminal there, is, or was, essentially the largest military shipping station on the Atlantic. If bombs and guns were needed in huge quantities anywhere in the world, odds are they were being shipped from Sunny Point. It made sense that one of the spots the Navy chose to base its ships at, would be here. Not only did it already have the existing docks, but it still had vast stores of weapons that they could use to resupply, or simply use. According to Silvio, the terminal also had a rail line terminal, which tied into the line that came out of Wilmington, right next to their tower. It was a built in highway. Well, railway, actually.

B
efore we even arrived at Sunny Point, we were quickly blocked off by soldiers in their Humvees. They were clearly keeping a close eye on anyone approaching. They had guns pointed at us, and we, logically, stopped. The first soldier that came up to the truck, held his rifle pointed at us the entire time, and, in a quite hostile tone, asked us who we were, and what we wanted here.

At first, the hostility
was kind of surprising, but Lucy just pointed to the back of the truck. Clearly, an armed truck had just come tearing down the highway at them. They weren’t going to take any chances. I tried to point out to them that the gun was only for protection on the road, and that, in fact, we hadn’t even fired it once. I even tried to explain how we had gotten it, and that we knew Captain Rhodes, and that he had told us how to get here. It was probably not the best idea to mention the water towers just yet.

“Captain Rhodes? What unit is he in?” asked the soldier.

“Unit? I don’t even know what that means,” was my rather sorry reply.

I had to explain that Rhodes had been a helicopter pilot, quickly retelling the story of the battle up at Black Mountain.

He asked us to step out, and we, hoping our trust wasn’t about to get us gunned down, complied. As he moved away, two more soldiers, still pointing their rifles at us, took his place.

“Our CO there is going to try to verify your story. I think I
’ve heard of this battle you're talking about, but, I have to warn you, if he comes back and says that there is either no Captain Rhodes, or that he doesn’t know you, we’re  going to shoot you.”

After months of dodging the living dead, we were about to be shot by our own military.

Twenty minutes later though, our story cleared. The commander of the group guarding us informed us that he had been waiting to speak to Captain Rhodes directly, but that Rhodes had confirmed that he knew us, and asked that we be taken to him. The commander ordered us to follow his jeep in, and to not deviate at all.

We followed the jeep closely. At first, there was nothing to see, just good old North Carolina coastal brush, quite high actually. I guess without people mowing or burning
, nature was left to grow on its own. After a while though, we started passing what appeared to be large empty parking lots. At first, I was a bit confused, as I could see no purpose to all these empty parking lots, but further ahead, we began to see these lots filled with shipping containers. The closer we got the docks, the fuller these lots became.

The terminal has three large
, deep water docks (who knows how deep they are now, they had to keep them dredged before Deadfall). We arrived at one to see a bustle of activity. Hundreds of men and women in uniform were working on the docks, loading crates of all different sizes, onto small boats docked there. There was certainly a lot going on here, but what quickly stood out to me, was the giant ship looming in the background. We quickly found out that it was the USS Abraham Lincoln, nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and current base to the military command here in the Cape Fear region. This was proudly told to us by the commander who had guided us here.

“Is Captain Rhodes on there?” I naively asked.

He wasn’t, he was on dry land, on the island on the other side. We would be taking a boat across to meet with him. The commander then nodded at us, and pointed at some other soldier type (I really don’t know ranks or signs, or salutes or anything, so just keep up with all the soldier guys) who was walking towards us. This man would now be responsible for us, until we reached the Captain.

We parked our truck and van as we were instructed
, in one of the lots that was being used for this purpose. We were allowed to take a few personal items, whatever that meant. It wasn’t as if I was going to forget my toothbrush, iPod and latest backpacking magazine. He did guarantee that our vehicles would be safe, and that no one would touch anything inside of them. I almost laughed as I caught Evan gazing at his machine gun; as if he was saying goodbye to an old friend he might never see again.

We were taken out onto the dock
, and on board a smaller passenger, ferry type boat. This boat was certainly not a military boat, but most likely, a boat that had once, in the past, been used by some businessman or woman to give tours on the Cape Fear. Now, it was being used to move people back and forth across the same river. I almost felt like standing up and pointing some historical things about that little trip, but I felt like people just might not get it. Or I’d get thrown overboard. Or shot.

The trip to the other side was quick enough. Down river
, we could see a few more very large navy boats, I don’t know, battleships or destroyers. My limited  knowledge on these things comes from a board game. I’m  not an expert. One thing I did notice was that the Abraham Lincoln was not in the main river channel. Instead, it was clearly in the much shallower, eastern side of the river. It took me some courage, but I finally asked one of the soldiers on the ride over what had happened. He told me that they had purposely set the carrier there in order to be able to run an electricity line out to the mainland. Why they didn’t have enough cable to run a few more hundred feet, I don’t know, but there it was, a gigantic ship, marooned. It was, of course, obvious that it probably had no need to go anywhere else at the moment. I just wonder if anyone ever got to thinking that this is North Carolina. We get hit by hurricanes nearly every year. One good one coming up this cape and that ship is toast. Well, maybe, maybe not. That thing was, is, huge.

We were greeted on the other side by a familiar face, that of Captain Rhodes. He and two other soldiers drove us out from the makeshift dock they had built to accommodate the transport ferry
, and up into the residential area. Here, among the wildly colored beach houses, we arrived at a house he said he lived in. It was a four story vacation home that would have easily been worth a million dollars, or more, before Deadfall. He said it was one of the perks of being higher ranked, but that really, there were plenty of houses to choose from. During the summer months, between the towns of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, there were easily ten thousand people living here semi-permanently. All that housing easily provided for the two thousand plus soldiers that now used these vacation homes as their own homes. Rhodes explained to us how the vast majority had taken residence in the area he was living in, a few miles south of the only bridge into the area, a bridge that was guarded heavily against zombies.

He was the only one living in this enormous beach house, so he said there was more than enough room for all of us. He seemed at ease, and it sure helped that we had already had some past between us, but it wasn’t just
his attitude, but everyone that we had encountered from the ocean terminal and on. I had first attributed it to a general overconfidence that most military types have. I would like to point out, that I’m  not an army hater, or anything of the like. What I do think, is that being in the military does instill, as it probably should, a good sense of confidence, not only in ones abilities, but in the overall system which they are a part of. Of course, you might hear the jokes, from former or current military guys, that the army will bungle this or that up, but there’s  still that sense of no matter what, they get it done.

That feeling was evident here. While I had been impressed with the people I had met in the water towers, there was still an edge of desperation, of hanging on, of survival. Here, it was as if I had crossed over from a world where the dead walked
, to a small island somehow immune to the world’s ravages. Parties and get togethers were a common event here, and as we’ve  seen here well after dark, there are no posted guards in our area, no watch of any kind that we can see. I'm sure there are guards somewhere, but, I never once saw any. Our neighbor across the street has friends over, and it is loud. Now, that is something I had certainly forgotten about.

Once the dead took over, the natural silence of nighttime had been restored to the world, or at least this little sliver of the planet called North Carolina.
Not that it wasn’t much quieter during the day, as well, but at night, the only sounds hitting your ears, were the sounds that nature had been producing for countless millennia. I can clearly remember the shock it was to have such deafening silence. I think it took me a good week or two, before my ears stopped ringing at night, so used to the white noise of civilization as they were. And now, my brain was having a hard time coping with the reverse situation; the shouting, laughing and music that were coming from across the street.

I could tell the restlessness with the group tonight
, as well. Some commented on the sound, but something just felt off. I have a few theories. One could be that although we had slept in “safe” locations on many occasions, this was the first time that the safety wasn’t up to us at all. The location was safe by default, or at least gave that appearance to us, as vividly as any other.

It was also that we were simply uncomfortable with being part of a greater community again. It was one thing to be among
fifty to a hundred more human beings, and those few times were certainly different, but even with them, we knew that beyond the tower walls, the same death awaited all of us. But here, there were thousands of us, and we didn’t need to see them, to know that they were there. And, there was something very disconcerting about that. Tague had mentioned that, and I countered with my opinion, an opinion that had, at least, in my opinion, some weight behind it. That’s a lot of opinion.

Well, my theory is that we had reverted to a more natural state. Reverted isn’t the right word
, either, because that seems to show that somehow our situation had gotten worse, while I didn’t think it had. Certainly, the world going to hell, the dead rising and culling nearly the entire world’s living population is a step back, but in doing so, those of us that survived, found ourselves more in touch with our own humanity, a humanity that for a good portion of its existence, had relied and thrived in this very state; a state of codependence on nature, and I say codependence, because I think nature itself profited more from that relationship, than it did when humans had poured concrete everywhere. I might also mention that when I was talking about this, Heather punched me in the shoulder, and told me to go hug a tree.

My point is that, despite the horror of watching the world burn and our loved ones die, our travels have brought us closer to nature in a personal, rugged and human way.
We’re  slimmer; we eat leaner, of course, because we have no choice, but all of us agreed that we could think clearer and react quicker. Of course, that might just be because we didn’t want to get mauled by the dead.

We had gotten used to living close to the ground
, and had, in some ways, benefited from that, and now we had suddenly walked right back into that old world, and something was off.

Of course, I might be
completely wrong. I only happen to live in what’s probably the world’s most technologically advanced house.