Deadfall: Survivors

by Richard Flunker

  The group spent the next two days onboard the One Star Wonder. On the second day, after attempting and failing to find Evan and Chris, the decision was made to stop trying to find them, and to remove themselves from what they considered a disaster they wanted no more part of. It was at this point that they made the decision to sail to Haiti.

  Brian’s next entry, his last of this volume, follows.

  Entry 51 – I Hate Goodbyes[48]

  There was a slight macabre horror I remember feeling when my father and I watched those first news shows and online videos when the dead were coming back to life. As fast as it spread, and as quickly as civilization came crashing down, I knew that either the end was at hand, or a new beginning was rising. I understood the horror of billions dying, but I was safely away in a cocoon, unable or unwilling to truly feel.

  Yet there was also a sense of relief. I had never had a greater love for mankind in general, and rather selfishly thought that I was better than most; I thought myself smarter, and therefore worthy of surviving. I knew I would live, and that this new world was more suited to me.

  I thought my new beginning came when I stepped out onto the trail that April morning. I thought my new beginning came when I saved a group of people who, because they had also survived, had earned the right to be a part of this new world. I thought my new beginning came when I found the woman I would come to love, the woman with whom I would share this new world.

  I had fooled myself. I was still living in the old world, and had simply deluded myself into thinking I was part of something new. I had tricked myself into keeping the old world, and tried imposing it over this new existence, and had simply shrugged it off when it wasn’t working. I had wanted the old to simply fit right in with the new, without seeing the warnings, the red flags.

  We cannot see life and death as it was. Our very death is but a step beyond which we have no control. Our very lives are an organic time bomb, just waiting to explode. We must sleep chained, and walk with vision at the same time, ahead and behind. There’s a further step in evolution we must take, one I had nearly missed. New life can only flourish here when we absolve ourselves of the life we left behind.

  I had to leave her behind, although I just as easily could have died with her. Maybe I should have, but now my only choice is to evolve. Lucy believes she is pregnant. A sign of new life just scant days after an entire wave of death washed away a few innocent lives off the beach; scrubbed clean to welcome in the new one.

  I think my father understood this far before I did. I think now that he saw I hadn’t seen it, and this is why he left me behind. I think Heather saw it at the end, too. She had removed her old self, the sacrificial lamb to the gods of the undead, a plaything for the soldiers who lost all grip on reality, and all it took was one spear.

  That song, the song Heather wanted me to listen to. Vienna, by a group called Caspian. I never listened to it that night. She had the iPod on her. I’ll have to listen to it if I find it.

  A seemingly warm ocean awaits us now. My evolution begins there, on an island far to the south. I don’t know what I’ll find there, but of this I’m sure, my true beginning starts there.

  First Entry – Evan Hollister[49]

  I think it’s in my best interest that I continue where Brian left off. I have no idea where they are, and I haven’t seen them in days. If they turn up as zombies as we clean up the island, well then that will be it. I do hope that they made it to the boat, and at least made it out to sea.

  I’m sitting off the edge of this big ass aircraft carrier. Looking out towards the island, I see huge plumes of black, acrid smoke rising up into the sky. They set fire to the whole place, bombed it good, and are waiting for the fires to die off, before they decide on what to do. They really want to get in there and kill all the zombies, but honestly, I wonder if they have enough bullets.

  I guess I can consider myself very lucky to have made it here. After I saw that buggy speed off that night, all I could hear as it faded away was Brian crying, a wail, a horrible and painful cry. I was choked up, too, but I just kept breathing. I kept running, until I got to a dock, but had to ditch that one and run further south, as the zombies kept pouring south. I finally found one that had a boat waiting, and we only got three people on it, before we had to move off the dock. Some of the zombies came out on the dock, but most were just intent on moving south. I know brass really wants to find out just what happened.

  I found Chris yesterday. He told me how he had been in the first wave of people getting off the island. I had to break the bad news to him. He just stood there for what seemed an eternity. Then he looked at me, smiled meekly, and said “I’ll see ya later on tonight.” I did see him later, and he’s bunking with me. He figures we should head back to Brian’s fort up in the mountains, but I’ll have to find out if we can. From what I’ve heard, the side where our stuff was parked got overrun, too.

  I’ve always figured myself out to be the tough guy. It’s hard to think that I’ll ever be able to tell anyone just how scared I was that night. The panic; people just gave up thinking. I saw one guy throw himself on the ground, screaming, then get right back up, turn and run right into the horde. People pushing others out of the way, it just wasn’t right. I’ve seen people die since the comet came and the zombies came, hell, I’ve seen them die quite gruesomely. I thought I was tough, because I told myself that was the way life was now. But, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over what I saw that night.

  I really hope the rest of them got out. Brian saved my life.

  I’ll be pissed if the truck is wrecked, and the fifty cal is gone.

  If Brian is dead though, I think it’ll only be right that I spend the rest of my life, no matter how long it is, hunting those things down, and letting their bodies properly rot in the ground.

  Epilogue

  This book is the third of a series of historic accounts, dealing with the world after a cataclysmic event that took place in the year 2017. Due to the nature of this event, finding documents reliving those days was very hard for many years, and it has only been with a recent revelation that I have been able to uncover these valuable documents.

  In remembering the seventy fifth year since Deadfall, or how the event has come to be called in this era, I was approached by an individual claiming to be a witness, and more important, a still living survivor of Deadfall and the years that followed. It is through the generous donations of documents and media from this elderly gentleman to the University of the Lakes, that I was able to begin to rebuild this lost history.

  Interviews with the gentleman proved to be not as good as I had hoped, but understandable with his age; most notably one of the eldest living human beings. We have though, received considerable primary documents from him; most importantly, the journal of Brian Orbison and the additions to that journal by those that survived with him; all the audio and video media collected by Tague Marcoux, from a large variety of sources including the tower cities, and the records, journals and statements recovered recently by the Army Department of Containment and Restoration, as well as the limited documents from the Cult of Inanna, recovered also by the Army, as well as Brian Orbison. I have also included a small portion of Evan Hollister’s own journal at the end of this book, in order to better explain some events.

  I have attempted to keep everything in the most chronological order, while still attempting to maintain the prose necessary to delineate the whole of his very important story, and its importance in history. We have known for quite some time the vague details of the events after Deadfall, and we have plenty of records, and nearly all digitized documents, of the world’s history up to that moment in time. It is only now that we have come to understand the origin of the vaults of knowledge that arose from Deadfall to help restore this world to the condition we find ourselves in, which, while nothing like the world it was before Deadfall, is certainly a new balance. We now also know the origins of the tower cities, as well as the origins of the cult
, the War of the Dead, and have a better understanding of their relationships with our world today.

  I have taken the liberty of converting the audio and video into a narrative in certain locations in order to better explain the situation. Otherwise, all journals and documents are left entirely as is, with the only changes being typographical and spelling errors that might confuse the reader. His grammar, or lack thereof, and writing style have been unaltered in any way.

  As you have read, Evan Hollister retained possession of this journal, and began putting in his own notes at the end of some of the entries. Dates for these entries are unknown, but they do offer his own perspective on events he did and did not witness, as well as his own unique thoughts. I have also attempted to date each entry, as well as give my own thoughts at the end of some key entries.

  The primary focus of this third volume is to give a very personal and individual account to the days, months and years immediately following Deadfall, through the eyes of an individual and his friends, who helped shape the survival of humankind as a living species upon this part of the planet. Other volumes in this series focus on other aspects, such as the War of the Dead, the tower cities, and the new American History after Deadfall. It is also important to note that this series focuses on American History, focusing on our defunct republic as a background. With the limited contact with other continents, information about their survival and hopeful prosperity in these decades is scant at best.

  This book has taken me more than five years to complete, but I only foresee that as we venture out more and more into this new world, that we will find more documents which I will be forced to use in further revising these books, while my newly formed Department of History here at the University has undertaken the task of keeping further record of History from this point forward.

  Professor Jonathan Gault

  Department of Recovered History

  University of the Lakes

  Coming in 2013

  Deadfall: Hunters

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