Deadfall: Survivors

by Richard Flunker

  Second voice “Down south to the airport and west of that location. Central has some ideas of where the datila (sp) might be.”

  First voice “So far, their guesses have been quite wrong. I still think we need to look further west, maybe into Tennessee. Did you hear about the one they found in Georgia?”

  Second voice “The one they actually found with survivors? Yeah, I heard. Gruesome.”

  First voice “What will you do if you find survivors?”

  Second voice “Have to do what central commands. Survivors are a liability.”

  First voice “Yeah, but to wipe them out? Just like that? Shouldn’t we find out what they know?”

  Second voice “Central says that these survivors were random, just people who found the datila (sp). They wouldn’t have known anything.”

  First voice “Better them than us.”

  Second voice “We follow Inanna.” (sp).

  First voice “We follow Inanna.” (sp).

  Entry 33 – Others[31]

  Our small hiking trip has been put on hold for now. The new information that Tague and Chris brought home with them was the issue of the evening, and has brought everyone together after breakfast. Last night, we had only been dealing with the things that Tague and Chris had heard, but this morning, Tague found out that the transmission had actually been recorded by one of the computers here at the house that was linked to the transmitting tower over on Mt Pisgah. It was essentially what Tague had referred to us, but actually hearing the words spoken by the two strangers brought the issue home for us.

  I had always assumed that there were others out there, survivors, like myself. Many times I had also thought about the very likely possibility that many out there that had survived, would take the new chaotic world to carve out a new world for themselves. Usually, for many of humanity’s worst examples, that kind of carving could be quite literal. Therefore, it wasn’t really surprising to me that some of the first people I encountered out in this new world were of the more cruder, violent type. In fact, I think I had been quite lucky to meet the group I’m with now, instead of someone more like the voices being transmitted by the radios.

  But what hit home was the fact that these two men, and whatever group they were a part of, were searching for something specific, and all of us in our large dining room could understand that somehow, they were talking about us. Specifically, talking about the house. We have no way of being sure of that, but it certainly seemed to make sense. Whatever this datila was, it could have people inside of it. In this new world, my house was certainly a highly valuable commodity, and I already knew that my father had been together with a larger, wealthier group, probably making many more of these underground (or not) survival forts.

  What little we could get from the recorded conversation, was that these places were being searched for. It was still possible that our house was not this datila, but regardless, there were men out there searching for something valuable in the area and were willing to kill, gruesomely, whomever they might find at these places.

  We had a few options. First, we could easily just lock ourselves back up into the house. The entrance would be virtually impossible to find, unless you knew exactly where to look, and it appeared that these men did not have specific locations. Inside, as we had already figured out, we could easily live for many years, if needed, most likely outlasting any current search of the area. We did have the transmitter tower up and running, and while that could be our ears to the outside, it could also lead people straight back to the house. While there were no direct instructions at the tower on how to reach the house, it was probably possible to trace the wireless signal that kept the computers here and at the tower networked. The tower stood out, and might be something these men might search.

  The other option would be to actively guard our house. Evan and Aaron suggest patrols. Actively patrolling might help us find one of more of these men, before they were able to find us. Unfortunately, this would involve us having to improve our weapon skills dramatically, and I was really the only one who knew the land and trails located around the house well enough to know where to go. The rest would have to follow maps, and this uncertainty could hinder us in our efforts to patrol successfully. We could just as easily run into any of these men, as they could into us.

  I’m quite mixed as to which option was the best. Ideally, I would much rather just stay tucked and hidden safely within our house. At the same time, I felt like we needed to find out more. If there was a larger group out there that was building a new world out of the current dying world, it would be in our interest to find out about them.

  And just who is Inanna?

  Entry 34 – Uncertainties[32]

  Well, the whole mood of the group in the house is definitely one of confusion. After a night’s sleep, those that were for remaining in the house, seem to have changed their minds, just as those who seemed at first more inclined to go out, patrol and be proactive about our possible opponents, seem to have given up on that option for the safety of the locked up vault that was our home at the moment. Yesterday, I had been for the more cautious remaining here, but overnight, I had woken up to the feeling that it would be better to get out and find these men.

  And then there was Dawn. I point out that I read her entry last night in more detail, and am starting to get a little wary of her rapidly changing mood. She appears to be having a religious challenge to her faith. She seems to be going from calm follower of a local church to having a faith breakdown, borderline psychotic breakdown. I'm probably exaggerating, since I really don’t have any real idea about psychotic breakdowns, but it really feels like a giant reversal from her usual mood.

  I’m truly beyond my scope here. I was a school teacher, and dealing with hormone filled teenagers, while difficult, was pretty straight forward. I’ve been really lucky so far that I seem to have found rather mentally healthy individuals who are dealing with the end of the world as best as possible. Even Heather, with the events that took place in her life, has done what she can without any real help on my end, which is probably for the best.

  So what am I to do if Dawn does have a complete breakdown? I feel I need to have a talk with someone else here in the group, show them Dawn’s entry, and get their opinion on the matter. But I’ll have to think about who to talk to this about. This could be nothing, and I would rather not expose any of Dawn’s current feelings to anyone who might not make the best of the situation.

  I'm not a religious person myself. I know my mother had been very religious, not that her religion had stopped her from cheating and then leaving my father so many years ago. Therefore, I’m not very qualified to be able to understand just what kind of conflict Dawn might be experiencing. If your whole existence is based on a set of chapters based out of a religious book, and those chapters are complete and absolute truth to you, well, then this new state of the world might be a complete cold shower to you.

  I, on the other hand, lived within the completely fabricated world of my father’s imagination and books. So while I understood reality from fantasy, my father’s ability to make the fantasy borderline reality, may have dulled my senses towards the reality that exists now. His books had such an essence of reality in their fantasy, that all the extraordinary events that occurred, while out of this world, just didn’t seem to out of place in my mind.

  Tonight’s conversation at the dinner table was mostly about the choices of whether to lock up or patrol, this time with different arguments given by those who changed their minds overnight. Heather really seems to be the only one who didn’t change her mind, naturally advocating for remaining in the house as long as possible. There was no consensus of course, and there were no heated discussions. Everyone seemed to agree that either of the choices were prudent, and it was just a matter of deciding which one to go with.

  I have a bad feeling they’re going to ask or rely on me to make that decision.

  Evan’s Notes: I don’t think Brian ever approached any
one about Dawn’s entry. I wonder if that foreknowledge would have helped in any way. We were all quite green back then, though.

  Entry 35 – Cold Mountain[33]

  It’s been a few days now since my last entry. As I had assumed, nearly every individual, save for Heather who seemed to go with anything, and Dawn, who still seemed to care nothing about what was going on around her, and instead seemed to be getting more and more quiet, could not come to his or her own decision about whether to remain locked up inside the house, or attempt to go out and investigate the people with voices heard on the recordings days ago. Now, they’ve left the major choice to me, something I was truly not hoping for.

  But, here I am.

  So, Heather and I took our hike over to Cold Mountain, as we had originally planned.

  Cold Mountain, and the hike there, is one of those relatively simple hikes that bring a lot of satisfaction to the hiker. My father and I used to hike to the peak and camp near the top whenever we wanted to get away from the world. While the hike is moderately popular, very few people actually camp out on the mountain, and therefore, we would regularly have the site all to ourselves. It was a remarkable peak for the east coast of the United States, one of the higher ones around, and, all to itself with the surrounding mountains, standing out quite alone in this little corner of the world. One could easily see well into Asheville and the surrounding countryside. Even the hike there was wonderful. You peak a few balds, peaks of mountains where for whatever reason, trees have not grown or are not growing, a rarity in the Appalachians. It is also a relatively easy hike, so that even newcomers to hiking, with heavy packs, can make the trek without hating life.

  So, Heather and I spent three days out, one day hiking over, one at the campsite, and one hiking back. The weather remained mild, but that’s usually the case up here in the mountains, even during the summer. Even on the hottest days, there’s still a breeze up here, making full effective use of your sweat to cool you off. Because of this, that first day hiking up was pleasant, and we were able to keep the topic of conversation off of the doom and gloom subjects that usually followed. Not that this wasn’t to be expected, the end of the world had come and gone, and we were those survivors here. Water cooler talk could hardly find any other kind of topic. But for that day, at least, we deflected all that darkness.

  With hiking having been my one and only true passion before the comet, I immediately delved right into it. I must have beamed proudly as I rattled off high peaks and strenuous trails that I had hiked in the past, without realizing that there was probably nothing to impress Heather with since she couldn’t relate. She probably hadn’t even ever heard of the names I was pronouncing. But I think she understood the general feeling behind my accomplishments. She talked about being part of two consecutive state playoff basketball teams her Junior and Senior years in High School, cherished memories she still carried along, and while I had never been any good at sports, at least not good enough to play on teams as she did, I recognized the sense of achievement, the same as my peaks and trails.

  At least her accomplishments brought upon recognition by others. Hiking is entirely a non recognition accomplishment. Sure, you can tell others how you hiked to a high peak, or crossed just so many miles, but there is rarely any recognition there. Instead, hiking becomes an internal reward. Only the hiker knows just how hard he or she fought for those miles, just how out of breath those trails straight up the mountains left him, and just how amazing it felt, either at the top of the peak, or at the end of the trail, despite the pain and soreness. And I guess that’s who I am, and just why this sudden mantle of leadership thrust upon me has become quite difficult.

  I must realize now that either by fate or luck, your choice, I did survive the comet and the undeath that it carried within itself, within a vault that carries the possible future of mankind, or at the very least, the future of those people who I’ve run across and have “saved”. I certainly don’t feel like a savior, and, as the past has shown, they might come to realize that I'm not that savior either, but for the moment, this group has left it entirely up to me to make these difficult choices for them. It’s a trust I really didn’t want, but appreciate nonetheless.

  We spent that first night huddled closely together in the chilled night. Here I was sharing my bed, or ground, with a woman I would have never met without a certain comet making its impact upon the earth, a woman who may have never looked upon me otherwise except as someone who saved her life. I made this possibly foolish remark the next day, as we sat around enjoying the cool peak and its views, and Heather was visibly quiet for a while, before honestly answering with “I'm not sure”. I really didn’t want her to feel that she had to be close to me in order to feel safe, just as with that first night, she didn’t have to offer herself up for “protection”. In all honesty, I didn’t think I was truly capable of offering any kind of real protection. All the protection we had came from the mind and works of my father.

  I talked to Heather about him. She had asked me why I didn’t mention him more often, and I had no solid answer. Our family, well, my father and I, had a very loose relationship. When he had left, just a month after the dead started walking, I think I had resigned myself to the fact that he probably wasn’t ever coming back. And yet, in those few fleeting moments where I did think about it, it bothered me to think that his body was ambling around somewhere, possibly even being the cause of death to some other survivor.

  I had no idea where he had taken off to. He just said that he wanted to get some things done. Always cryptic, just like our house in the mountains. Maybe he had more such locations that needed checking on. But more likely, I think my father was so intrigued by the fact that one of the wildest creations of his mind had been realized. He wanted to go out and see one of his own books come to life, to finally completely immerse himself into the very worlds that he had created in his mind to contend with the failures in his own life. I can almost envision my father being absolutely delighted by being torn apart by zombies, and yelling out, “see, see, I told you so”.

  I barely remember my father, pre books or movies. I have these vague memories of a quiet man, thoughtful even, but always sad, torn. It would be when I was an adult when I found out just how my mother had treated him, and the circumstances under which she left him, but not once in my life with him did I ever hear him utter one bad thing about her. Granted, he didn’t utter much of anything about her, and I can mostly say that it never was about him still loving her, because I'm sure he hated, or still hates, her, but it was simply that he internalized the pain of having been with someone you think is your all, your completion, and having then being suddenly thrust into a gigantic web of lies and deception that so overwhelms you to the point of a mental stun gun.

  He transformed that devastation into his apocalyptic books and movies (and into boat loads of cash), but his books, while heavy on the destruction, were always about redemption and surviving the worst. Now with this world around him being destroyed, I think something inside of him wanted to go out and redeem and survive, instead of being safely stowed away inside a five star apocalypse hotel.

  I never partook in his grief. My childhood, once my mother was gone, was about as great as it could have been. Even finding out later just how horrible and destructive my mother had been to us never really sunk in as it did with him. I had no problem having relationships with women (when I had them), unlike my father, who swore off relationships of any vigor, other than with his son. Maybe, that’s why he left me behind. I had no problem staying in the house.

  This was my conflict then; do I just stay buckled down, like my true personality would indicate, or venture out to see how the world was surviving, in memory of my father? Maybe, deep down, it was just that I wanted to find my father, one more time. The more I talked with Heather about him, the more she made me realize with her questions about him that I just didn’t know him that well and now I felt a sense of wanting to remedy that.

  Last nig
ht was a chilly one for a summer night, which can happen on a peak like Cold Mountain. Heather and I had been close all day, sitting together or laying down, talking. It took a lot within me to resist all urges to just give in to her. Her smell, her hair, it’s all a little too much for this forlorn idiot. It’s just that somewhere down in that poorly lit logical part of my brain, something is telling me it just wouldn’t be good for either of us at this point. Few things scream end of the world panic than easy sex. I will admit that I had trouble falling asleep. It also worries me that at times, her conversations tend to lead in the direction of hopelessness for the future. I would much rather not be her “last day on earth” guy.

  I sound like some old guy talking about chivalry and honor, you know the kind. He’s handsome, wealthy and married to the gorgeous perfect woman. Not a worry in life. I hope a zombie ate that guy.

  Evan’s Notes: Knowing Brian, who he is now, it’s amazing to see just how much internal conflict he was going through here. He just isn’t the meek quiet guy he thinks he was at this point in his life.

  Entry 36 – Close Encounter of the Cult Kind[34]

  It’s been just over thirteen days since my last entry. Sounds like a bad confession.

  In these past thirteen days, I have, at times, attempted to start a few entries, but the events that have taken place during these days has been rather chaotic, and to be honest, there was actually very little time to write good, thought out entries. Therefore, I’ve taken them all together, and with the help of the guys, have reconstructed the events of these past thirteen days. It’s been quite wild and revealing.

  Here goes.

  It’s hard to remember that far back, thirteen days ago, but those couple of days up on Cold Mountain with Heather were sublime, heavenly even. We made our way back in a day, in a goofy honeymoon state, holding hands at every opportune moment, all the way back to the house, using the subdued horniness to forget a lot of the things that had happened recently, and not so recently. Now, I remember this state so well, mostly because of the harsh change of emotions we got when we got back to the house that evening.