Deadfall: Survivors

by Richard Flunker

  I can’t forget what little I have seen. Heather sure as hell can’t forget what she has seen. And I don’t think I can just forget everything just for a few nights, weeks or years of inner calm.

  I'm no good at any greater proclamations. I may be just ranting here as well. Heather just knocked on the door, came in and sat down next to me, and read over what I have put in here just now. I know for sure that there’s nothing more she would want to do than just forget it all. But she has smiled at me, and I know now that she won’t.

  This is a dying world, but I won’t forget the life that once existed.

  I need to revisit Cold Mountain.

  Tague - 2nd Entry

  Log of the day.

  6:47 Woke up. Cold. I enjoy this temperature. Chris is still out. Making coffee and then going outside to relieve myself and enjoy the coolness in the air.

  7:13 My morning walk took a while longer. As I enjoyed the cool air, the brisk morning gave me a clear view towards the city of Asheville. Brian had mentioned he had seen a thick cloud of smoke coming from there months ago, but as I gazed out there, I could still see the thick black smoke billowing up towards the cold sky. I’ll have to do some research to see if what might be causing that.

  8:20 Chris has finally woken up. I’ve made breakfast for the two of us. Simple bread and cheese, along with some orange juice. Chris was not impressed, and asked about IHOP, an American restaurant. I told him that if he found one, and was paying, I’d go along with it.

  9:00 Everything cleaned up and packed up. We’re planning to stay the night, but I wanted everything packed up, in case we had to leave the station on a moment’s notice. Our next step is to begin cleaning up the equipment that’s located in this station, to begin taking account of what’s available here. I’ve instructed Chris on how to clean the equipment, and he is now dusting away at the counters, while singing a song at a rather loud and obnoxious level. No one should be this happy.

  11:30 We’re taking a break. Most of the equipment has been cleaned up, and I took the next step in taking accounts. I was granted a large surprise. As I had recorded earlier, I suspected that the equipment was good, and in possible working condition, but had not accounted for any power supply to the equipment. Upon cleaning one of the computers, it actually powered up, the bright screen coming to life and brightening up the room. The first real piece of information on the screen detailed the power output in its storage, which I can only assume are batteries. While I worked on the computer, attempting to look through the information displays, I tasked Chris on attempting to find the batteries, but he was unable to.

  The computer screen read that the power supplies were completely filled up, and that charging had stopped. I clicked on a few links and was able, at least according to what the computer was telling me, to power up the equipment, and then the actual building itself. The third option was to power the transmitter, wherein it displayed a timer, three hours and forty five minutes. I left that option disabled.

  With the power up, we turned on some of the other equipment; the controls to the transmitters, the several media players, as well as the radio and video equipment. The lights also came on, although we turned them off in order to save power.

  We’ll stop for a while, eat some lunch and rest a bit. Then we’ll go back to writing notes down about the equipment.

  16:35 While spending the afternoon testing equipment by simply turning things on, and then writing down what the device was, we ran across two different, yet important pieces of information.

  The first was that the second computer served as a wireless link back to the house. Once powered and booted up, the computer established a link back to the house, which allowed the computers back there to control the two computers here. They wouldn’t be able to control the devices, the transmitters and equipment, but those could be allowed to stay in a sleep mode, and then be powered on remotely to allow service from the house.

  The second piece of information came just twenty minutes ago. While testing some of the transmitting equipment by playing media recordings through it, we powered up some of the radios, just to see if the transmission was working. When these radios were powered up, we began to pick up what appeared to have been an ongoing conversation between two men.

  Chris and I sat there transfixed to the two human voices we didn’t recognize. From the ongoing conversation, we picked up that they were in Asheville itself, and were attempting to remain hidden from a large amount of zombies. The two men weren’t together, but separated by many miles. One was within the city, while the other was on the outskirts. They mentioned that they were looking for something, something they kept referring to as a “datila”. This was a word that neither Chris nor I could understand, or knew the meaning of.

  Chris and I began working on a method to contact these men, when the conversation took a turn we did not like. The man who was inside the city told the other to not worry about him, and that his primary task was to find this “datila”. When the other man asked him what to do if he found anyone at this “datila”, the first man proceeded to tell him to eliminate anyone.

  The conversation went on with the two arguing some points about what they were doing, but Chris and I understood that these men were not looking for help, and for our group, were far from being a help to us.

  As they finished their back and forth, one signed out by saying “we follow Inanna”, with the other repeating the phrase.

  I didn’t record the conversation, so I’ll have to attempt to recall the exact words later with the rest of the group.

  We’re finished for today. I think we’ve done everything we could here. I would have liked to have stayed a little longer to actually test the equipment, but I think this bit of news needs to be reported back to the house and those there.

  19:15 The two men who we had heard earlier came online once again, but only spent a minute or two talking, merely reporting their condition and their status. They were off as soon as they had done so.

  Chris and I have been in a lengthy discussion. He was the first to sense that the two strangers on the radio channels were not people that we should be making contact with. He shared some information about some occurrences that he had with American soldiers shortly after the initial outbreak of the dead. Apparently, these soldiers had taken the chaos as an opportunity to have their way with those they encountered.

  It might be in our best current interest not to broadcast anything from the TV tower.

  We’ll return tomorrow.

  Dawn - 1st Entry

  Never before in my life have I felt more lost or useless, and my life is the biggest example of being lost and being useless. I have been led along by the two most important figures in my life, my husband and my God. Both now appear to have vanished from my life, both with lies and deception that have left me lost and useless. I loved them both with my entire life, putting everything else behind for both of them, and now I’m here, without either of them, without knowing who either one of them truly was until the very end.

  I met my husband when I was very young, just turned seventeen, and he was studying business in college. He quit school to become a preacher, because he had a way with words, and more so with people. I was naïve, and was easily swept up by his words and his charisma. But more so, I was swept up by the promises of a God he professed to follow, the promises of love and life after death. What I ended up with, was a life with a false love and death coming before life on this earth.

  I will openly admit that I was completely deceived by my husband. I don’t know if he ever truly loved me, maybe he did, in his own way, but his true love was for the money that his followers brought in to him, and in part, I fell in love with that as well. He took away from me what deep down I had always wanted, children. Instead, he told me that God had promised me greater things, if only I could dedicate my life entirely to Him. I couldn’t do that if I had children. But he only wanted me to keep my figure and look good for his followers.

/>   I was there with him when he announced the end of the world, and took all of their money as “preparation” for the upcoming rapture into heaven. The glorious wave would wash us up into glory with God. Maybe he actually believed it, but he also believed in their money.

  I stood helplessly by as they attacked him. One part of me could not stop them, because everything that I had known about him had come unveiled before me.

  But what followed unveiled even more to me about God. I had heard my husband preach His words for my entire life, and never could I put those words with what the world has turned into. He was supposed to have defeated death, and instead, the dead rose and took the lives of those unfortunate enough to be caught in their paths. This wasn’t the resurrection of the just, but the death of fools. There was no conquest over death, only the spewing forth of the legion of dead from the gates of Hell. This world has become, by extension, a part of Hell, forever attached to Satan’s dominion through the dead that refuse to go forth into paradise or damnation.

  How can I reconcile the words from the Book with the visions of horror that plague my mind? Where is the promise of love from a God that has allowed his creation, made in his image, to be corrupted by the very thing His Son was supposed to have defeated? Is this the end of the world prophesied by John? If so, where are the saints and the just? These people who I’m with have no belief in their savior and God, yet here they are, my saviors. Those who I would have known to be saints in the eyes of man walk now, among the dead, flesh rotting away from their demonic corpses, forever doomed to a damned existence, roaming the earth alongside Satan.

  Where has it all gone wrong? My husband would laugh and tell me that God is testing my faith, by making me look beyond the good book and to see into my heart. My husband is dead, and is most likely part of the legion of the dead. His laughter rings hollow in my ears, the stench of his putrid words wafting up with the flies hovering over his walking corpse.

  The real test is the test of truth. God proclaimed that His truth was absolute, that His words were the end all of faith. One didn’t need to see to believe. But what I see are the dead walking, a flood ready to cleanse the earth of the living. What I see is the salvation of ammunition, preached from the end of a rifle. The holy retribution of fire spewing forth from guns.

  I’ve spent these days in a new found light. My faith has been tossed aside as harmlessly as a used tissue; pointless and without further use. I don’t require proof of God’s glory, for his failure is evident upon the very earth He created. I looked up to the heavens and didn’t see the Lord, but instead I saw the end of all things, colored green upon the firmament.

  I know what they would say, the other preachers and prophets. This is the end times, the beginning of the end of the world. The dead have risen to bring about the end, and we should all await to return of our Savior, triumphant and glorious. He should bring his army of angels, all armed to the teeth and ready to deal out vengeance, or he will only meet his own end upon the gnashing and grinding of the teeth of the dead.

  Of course, the best answer is that He is simply not what the book says. He did make the first zombie.

  I feel sorrow as I write this. I had nothing else other than the love towards my husband, and the love towards my God. I’ve been set adrift among this sea of death, and there is no wind in my sails. And now I find myself useless, a victim to giving everything up to Him. I followed a course in life where I assumed everything was taken care of, and now I find myself unable to provide even the smallest of uses to those around me, who do not care who or what I believe in.

  I see some of them beginning to love again, despite the horror and death afflicted upon them, and I cried inside, with envy. I had love my entire life, only to find now I never had any. I feel the sting of further loss without having been able to have my own children and my anger towards my husband and God increases ever so. I’ll never be able to have children, and have been punished for my life.

  There must be a new direction to follow. I tremble when I attempt to pick up a Bible and try to read, only to slam it down in anger and frustration. I’ve cried out to the heavens, and heard nothing back. My heart yearns for a peace only He was supposed to give me, and I find it filled with dread and despair. I attempt to pray, only to have my words drowned out by the moans and groans of the billions who cry out in their perpetual death. The God of life and love has become the Lord of a dead world, and I the fool who wasted my precious life to this new God of death.

  Why, oh Lord, have you led me astray? Why have you allowed death to be victorious?

  Why did you allow me to be deceived?

  I will not hear His answer, for maybe he has also been swept away by the walking dead, and his divine moaning and groaning can only be stopped with a bullet to the brain.

  Entry 31 – People[30]

  Everyone seems to have fallen into their own here. Each has developed their own pattern, with their own rooms and routines. I feel comfortable in leaving for a few days, as I take my own little personal hike of reflection. I of course, was extra enthused when Heather asked to come along. This would be the first time I hiked with someone else, other than my father, or fellow hiker. This was someone else. Of course, in my poor little deluded mind, the future was racing out in front of me. I dreamed of children, growing up and teaching them how to live in this new world. I dreamed of life with Heather, even growing old together. It was a dream I had dreamed for many years, but never with any solid face behind the woman I was with.

  Of course, this is my poor teenage self, deeply hidden underneath layers of a little bit of adulthood shining through. We have really only made this connection in the past two days, and it’s really a connection based out of high stress and uncertainty. It is almost a “last man on earth” situation going on here, but at the moment, I’m going with it.

  Tague and Chris should return today, if everything has gone well out at the TV station. I’m curious as to how everything has gone over there. I’m more curious though as to how Heather, the somewhat new Heather, reacts to having Chris around again. She may change her mind about going with me, which, would be ok.

  Aaron and Lucy have become the house’s local married couple. They argue a lot, but really only about their tasks of inventorying the rooms down below. Besides that, they laugh a lot, and sit together a lot, not talking unless it’s something worth laughing at. I’m not sure how either of them does it, managing with what both have suffered, together. Maybe, this is how they manage.

  Evan is a creature all unto himself. He has taken to setting up the firing range and going through the weapons. He is always the jokester, although his jokes are rarely any good. I’m pretty sure he knows that, and that whole concept is what makes him that more amusing. He’s an avid talker at mealtimes, willing to talk about anything at all. He was even brave enough to ask Aaron and Lucy if they were noisy at night, because “I sure as hell haven’t heard anything”. I know behind the jokes and bad humor, there’s actually a bright man.

  Dawn’s mood, on the other hand, has darkened considerably. She’s gone from being the cheery woman, to a somewhat brooding and depressing one. She’s remained quite silent lately during meals, somewhat lost in her own thoughts. She did give me her own addition to the journal entries tonight, so maybe I’ll have a glimpse of what is going in her head. At this point, I don’t think I would be surprised with anything relating to my guests. Each one has suffered in their own way, and is dealing with it, in his or her own way.

  I’ve finished packing up what Heather and I need for the trip. I know that supper will follow soon, and hopefully, Tague and Chris returning shortly afterwards, in the early evening. If all things stay the same, we’ll be on the trail early tomorrow morning.

  Evan’s Notes: With everything that was going on, most of us didn’t realize what was going on between Brian and Heather. I smile thinking of them and remembering those days.

  Also, I thought my jokes were good.

  And I know fu
ll well Aaron and Lucy were having lots of sex those days.

  Entry 32 – Recording

  Voice recording transcription taken off of the computer networked to the TV transmitter station. Audio downloaded automatically from the remote transmitter and transcribed by Tague.

  First voice “…at about 10 pm. Although maybe later.”

  Second voice “I won’t be there. I’ve been tasked to search out potential locations, just south of the city.”

  First voice “Where are you located at?”

  Second voice “Just south of the old Biltmore Country Club. About one click south, on Highway 25.”

  First voice “How is the activity there?”

  Second voice “Reasonable, about ten encounters per hour. Word is activity is incredibly worse in the northern part of the town, near the university and the interstate.”

  First voice “I can confirm that. I’m holed up in one of the buildings here at the university. From the third floor, I can easily see more than one hundred encounters. I’m just waiting for the distraction so that I can leave. Central mentioned they would be here around 5 pm this afternoon. If not, then I spend the night here.”

  Second voice “How are your supplies?”

  First voice “Decent. If I get out today, I’ll see if I can hitch a ride back to central.”

  Second voice “Is central still back at Black Mountain?”

  First voice “Yeah, aren’t you in touch?”

  Second voice “It’s been six days since I’ve been able to reach anyone.”

  First voice “Odd, it’s only been two days for me.”

  Second voice “Best of luck.”

  First voice “Thank you. What’s the range of your search?”