As we drove on, Aaron began to slow down, I heard the two soldiers cheering in the back. Our savior came into view right above us. It had come down the highway, and I had not seen it at all, but Aaron sure had. Some kind of attack helicopter had swooped in and done some substantial recycling of those two trucks, and, probably, whoever was inside of them. The helicopter, an Apache I was later told, flew on down the road a little bit, circled around the trucks and then came back towards us.
The soldier on the radio was still talking on it, but there was a huge smile on his face. The soldier that had taken a hit sat up in the truck, and asked us through the window to pull over.
Aaron edged the truck to the side of the road slowly, and as we piled out of the car, he sat there in the driver’s seat, griping the steering wheel tightly. Some people threw up, others tensed up. Heather and I stood outside the truck. We were in the edge of this upper valley, maybe a mile before the highway began climbing up, more winding-like into the mountains. On our right, there was a wide meadow type area; probably had been previous farming land. The attack helicopter was hovering just above this area, the tall grass blown flat by the air being pushed down by our savior. The soldier was on the radio talking to the pilot in the helicopter, relaying information about what had happened. I gathered that there were two other of these attack helicopters somewhere else, maybe now being guided to find the other two missing helicopters. I didn’t quite get what the pilot said back to him, but the soldier replied that they would wait here for pickup. Then the Apache lifted off a bit higher off the ground, and sped down the highway in the direction we had just come from.
Evan had jumped out of the back of the truck, and was digging around inside the back of the cab, coming out with a first aid kit. He rushed back to the bed of the truck. The wounded soldier, well, the one that had been struck by the bullets, was sitting on the edge of the tailgate, and began digging into the kit. He had taken off his outer jacket and was looking himself over.
“It’s not too bad.”
He had been hit, not just once, but three times, but according to him, none of the hits were bad. Could just be soldier badassery, but at the same time, he wasn’t bleeding badly and he was up and about, not unlike someone who might have been shot three times in parts of the body that would make someone just fall over and give up.
Lucy had stayed inside with Aaron, still seated on the driver’s seat, but Tague had come out, and was now talking to the soldier who had the radio. His name was Captain Rhodes, the guy who had been shot was Private Black, and the one who had been hurt in the crash was also a Private; a tag on his shirt had his name, Cobb. Rhodes was the pilot of the helicopter. The captain had radioed in to another helicopter that was on its way to pick them up here in the clearing, and he informed us that they would get there in about fifteen minutes. He thanked us for the help and we began to exchange our stories.
I know we kept ours mostly on a need to know basis, and I'm sure they did as well, but here’s what we figured out.
Out east, based off a few coastal cities, the US Army (which was now essentially what had survived of all the branches), had organized itself off five nuclear aircraft carriers and a whole hodgepodge of other ships. They had based themselves in Wilmington, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, and Annapolis, Maryland. When Deadfall had occurred, the Navy had been in so many different areas around the world, and had not been immediately told to do anything different. When the zombies started popping up, orders started getting confused. Within a week, the whole structure on land had fallen apart, and the last orders were to return back to the US. Then less and less information was making it out to the ships around the world.
As the ships sped back home, they were still able to stay in touch with each other through a satellite system that still worked, but they were getting little word from anything on land. Some big time generals had managed to make it off the land and onto the carriers. As they began to reach the east coast (they weren’t sure about Pacific fleets, and what was going on in the west coast), they found out the president and his cabinet had gone to a bunker, and had not been heard of since then. With little to no command structure on land, the Admirals and the surviving Generals, decided on the three cities in order to attempt to reestablish contact with any military on land.
Apparently, those first few forays on land were quite disastrous. During this whole time, they had been at sea, and in their already highly controlled habitats, they had not had any issues with zombies, and were quite unprepared for what they encountered. Their first deaths resulted on these exploratory parties.
These specific men that we had just saved had been at Fort Bragg, a large military base in eastern North Carolina. They had been part of the largest force at the base that had managed to organize and barricade themselves against the fifty thousand or so zombies that poured into that base in the three weeks they had been there. While they had survived with typical army ingenuity, they were rapidly running out of supplies.
They made contact with the fleet now creating a base for itself in Wilmington, a coastal city, and with their help, they managed to get themselves evacuated out of the fort, along with as many of the helicopters they could get their hands on. For the following months, they returned many times to get more of the helicopters and to mark locations of fuel depots.
Two carriers and countless other ships now made the mouth of the Cape Fear River their home. They had taken over the southernmost tip of the Cape Fear, the old civil war Fort Fisher, torn down the bridges onto the island, purged that tiny sliver of land from zombies, and now had themselves a staging area. The carriers provided electricity for the entire island easily, and they used a military ocean terminal just on the other side to supply themselves. They also made use of the helicopters, scavenged from Fort Bragg, to tag locations with supplies in land, and well organized parties in trucks would drive in and get them. The hope had been to find as many of the military as they could bring back to begin to retake the country.
It never quite worked that way. The group at Fort Bragg had numbered almost two thousand, but that group was, by far, the largest that had survived intact. Some marines had survived at Camp Lejeune, just north of Wilmington, and there had been a few scant survivors from other bases on the east coast, but that hope for a surge of soldiers never happened. I wanted to mention that most of them had probably bailed and headed home, or in the case of someone I knew, had gone horribly rogue, but I didn’t want to give too much away at that point.
This group, along with many others, had spent the past nine months now flying as far in as they could, trying to spot survivors. As Captain Rhodes mentioned though, finding any in this dead wasteland was becoming harder and harder. The further west they managed to go, the fewer survivors they found. In fact, this was to be one of the last few scouting parties to be sent out. They were going to be canceling such missions, in order to save on fuel. Apparently, the brass was coming up with new plans on what to do.
On our part we told them, loosely, about our situation. I explained, without giving out details, that we survived in the mountains, and survived because zombies rarely came up there. I could tell from Tague’s facial expressions, that he was of the same thinking as I was. We still weren’t sure about the group we were looking for. They had certainly sounded military like, and while these guys certainly seemed legit, we just didn’t want to take our chances.
Tague asked them if they knew who had shot at them. The captain said he didn’t, but that it wasn’t new. Every once in a while they would come across a group of survivors who had actually enjoyed the fact that civilization had fallen, and had created their own little fiefdoms. They had been attacked on a few occasions, but it was rarely anything they couldn’t handle. They certainly had never been shot at by RPGs.
When the captain’s radio chirped to life, Tague pulled me aside. We wondered if we should tell them what we knew about the group. We agreed to tell them what we could, without giving away any in
formation about our house. After he got off the radio, we began to explain to him how we had heard the transmission on the radio, how this was some kind of group that was out there looking for some kind of vault or fort, and killing people who were there. The captain listened with a serious look on his face, as we told him how we had tried to track these people down, our failed attempt to get one of them and how we had found them, or at least some of them, at the conference center on Black Mountain. We explained to him that this was probably the group that had attacked them.
He was quiet for a moment before telling us that there had been many talks about the possibility of former soldiers or other government workers with top secret clearance creating their own groups, and using what they knew to find secret stashes of military or high tech equipment or supplies used to survive. He had yet to encounter anything like that on his missions. This was certainly information that he was going to have to relay back to his superiors.
All we could tell him about their identities was that they appeared to follow someone called Inanna, to which the captain could only shrug his shoulders and admit he didn’t know who that was or what that meant.
Their helicopter arrived a few moments later, landing in the clearing, and two other soldiers, carrying duffel bags, jumped off and ran over. The captain instructed them to take care of the two wounded soldiers. He asked us if we would remain here while he went up in the helicopter to find out what was going on, and we agreed.
Tague, Evan and I moved towards the front of the truck, where Aaron had finally calmed down. Heather had jumped in the passenger side and was sitting with Lucy. We huddled around the driver’s seat, and I began to relay to the rest of the group what we had learned from the soldiers. There was still a sense of distrust, and not just from Heather, but even from Aaron. When asked why he had been so quick to go help them, Aaron just nodded saying he didn’t know, but I could tell that there was something to it. Without pressing him, we began to discuss our options. We certainly didn’t want to give up our house, but if what these soldiers said was the truth, then we certainly needed to keep some kind of connection to them, and if they were rebuilding something on the coast, we would have to make moving there an option, as well.
Evan also mentioned he really wanted to find a way to mount his new toy onto the back of the truck. He had the biggest grin on his face. Tague told him not to say anything too loudly, or the soldiers might ask to have back what actually belonged to them. The look on Evan’s face made some of us laugh as he realized he just might lose his new toy.
Twenty or so minutes later, the helicopter landed back in the clearing again, and Captain Rhodes came back out. The three Apaches had taken the fight to the unknown group at the conference center, and had been joined by four other of the helicopters. They were called Hueys (that’s when I found out the name) plus a Chinook (what??). They had landed near the center, and were taking control of the area. Apparently, they were quite pumped. I guess these guys were soldiers, and were finally doing what most of them had trained for.
Rhodes told us that they had mounted an attack on the center, and that they clearly outnumbered the men inside. He then asked if we would take him and some of his men to the center. He would stay on the radio to follow the fight, but that it seemed it would be over by the time we got there. I had nothing to say because I wasn’t about to decide, and while we were a little on edge about heading back into a gunfight, he eased our fears a bit by saying that the helicopter would follow right above us, and this time be ready for anything.
So once again, we were on the road, heading right back down Highway 9, past the wreck of the two trucks, and the mangled bodies inside. It occurred to me later that unless they had had their brains chopped up, those bodies would come back as well. It also dawned on me that there’s no way that all this commotion had not drawn the attention of every single zombie in a good twenty mile radius. Granted, it would take them a while to walk there, but, I was a bit uneasy about it. I guess the rest of the group wasn’t, maybe having created themselves a little courage by the fact of having the soldiers with us. Or maybe, I just wasn’t reading them right, and they were just as uneasy as me.
Everyone was quiet as about twenty minutes later, we began driving up into the conference center. In the parking lot, two of the Hueys were “parked”. We were greeted by a pair of soldiers, who talked briefly with the captain, who was in the bed of the truck. He hopped out, walked to the driver’s window, and informed us that the “battle” was over and that they had taken the place.
We parked up near the entrance. I somewhat remembered this place. We piled out of the car, and followed the captain up to another individual, a Major Bowers, the guy in charge of this mission, and therefore the guy in charge of the center now. We overheard them talking about the battle. They had lost no one, and had killed twenty three of the men inside the center. If there were more, they didn’t know, but they were conducting a “sweep” of the compound. Military terms I wasn’t too sure of, but I figured they knew what they were doing. I heard the unease at which the Major explained how they had quickly turned the battle around, but that the men inside had refused to surrender and had fought to the death. They had preferred death, and this had left the Major a little uneasy about the situation.
I piped in that maybe they should go around making sure that they have their heads done in, or we would have more things to fight. The Major stared at me, a blank stare that revealed that he didn’t quite understand what I was talking about, and then that spark in the eye when he did understand. He barked out some orders to a couple of the soldiers nearby, telling them to make sure the men they had killed were completely dead. He told them to use knives to save ammo.
The Captain introduced me, and then the rest of the group. The Major was thankful for our intervention, and asked us if we needed anything. I could only look back at the rest of the group, mostly because I had no answer myself, and only wanted to make sure they didn’t either.
“What’s going to happen here?” I asked.
The Major explained that they were going to dig around to try to find out who these people were. It would probably take a day or two, but that they would collect any supplies they could use and then head back to Fort Fisher. He asked us how far we were from our house, giving away that the Captain had already revealed a little to him about us. When I told him about a day, he told us that we were welcome to remain here for the night, if we wanted to. He insisted that we would be safe here.
I was, again, a bit uneasy about saying yes, but after a quick conference with the rest of the group, we decided to stay. The Major smiled and told us that as soon as they had ensured the place was clear, that he would get us a place to stay. The Major ran off, and after thanking us again, Captain Rhodes walked off as well.
I think we were all just awestruck. Just this morning, we had been crawling out of a zombie attacked house after a peaceful night, and now here we were, in full presence of the US Army, our first real encounter with any real semblance of remaining civilization. We had been involved in a battle, I guess you could call it that, had been shot at, and had survived. We would be spending the night with what appeared to be about forty five other living human beings. It was quite a step for us.
As we began to get a few of our things out of the truck, Heather still had that grim look on her face, pursed lips, the occasional clenching of the jaw. She was not happy to be in amongst the soldiers. I tried to calm her, but really all I could say was that it would be ok, and who knows if that was true either.
We hung out for a bit at the back of the truck, some of us sitting on the tailgate. There was obvious activity inside and at one point, the Chinook flew over us. It was a huge helicopter; I guess that’s the one that was carrying most of them. It flew back behind the center where I believe it landed.
Tague moved up next to me as the Chinook disappeared behind the main building, out of sight, and told me,
“You know, it’s only a matter of tim
e. Remember that massive horde of zombies that we kept running into on I-26?”
“Brian, that’s exactly what I was about to say”, chimed in Heather.
Apparently, this was on all our minds, as the conversation quickly broke down into this topic. The helicopters had come out of the east, so they probably had not seen the horde. At this point, the horde was probably stuck in Asheville, and Black Mountain is an easy day’s walk. We made the decision to leave everything we could in the truck, just in case we had to make a quick escape. We pulled out the map, and found a way up north into the mountains, behind Black Mountain, that would allow us a free route away from the Interstate, which was directly south of us, and our only way to Highway 9.
I can’t remember just how long we waited there by the truck, maybe two hours, but at some time later that afternoon, the captain returned to let us know that everything was clear, and that we could bring our things to the main cafeteria where apparently, they were rustling up some food.
The mood that evening was quite celebratory. The soldiers were understandably in a good mood. It had been many months of detached boredom, wandering the countryside in the helicopters, looking for anyone and everyone, very rarely with any kind of success. Now, here at Black Mountain, they had fought a battle, won it, and they felt really good about themselves. It’s rather funny to think that these soldiers probably felt as if they were on deployment on a foreign land, when they were right here in good old North Carolina.
Apparently, they had raided the food stores the unknown group had brought here. They were grilling steaks. I’d like to know where our unknowns had actually found steaks. I hadn’t seen meat like this in a very long time. I only knew of one place that still had steak like this, the deep freezers back at the house. I wondered if they had found another house like mine. They had made it seem from their conversations, that ours was not the only one.
Deadfall: Survivors Page 22
