Deadfall: Hunters (22 page)

Abraham said I could control them, and now there’s proof. The big problem is that I just don’t remember it at all.

Tague said he spun around when I stopped because he heard a noise behind him. He was greeted by a horde of zombies coming up along the road and out of the woods. Tague was surprised, not because of the large amount of undead, but by the fact that they had snuck up on us, or him. They weren’t making their usual noise, moaning and groaning, and their walking, Tague said, was more precise than usual.

Tague tried dragging me away but I just stood there until the zombies were within twenty feet of us. My friend admitted he was terrified then. He was then even more spooked when the walkers came to a halt. I then turned and faced the zombies. Behind the zombies, more and more came in forming into a block. There were hundreds. All silent, terrifying, focused. Tague had never seen anything like it.

I wish I could remember it.

The large group of zombies split up into three groups and two dispersed into the woods on either side of the road. I turned and continued my march towards the village with the main group of zombies following in sync right behind me. Tague stayed several feet ahead of me, keeping an eye in front of him, one on me, and one on the zombies. Yeah, three eyes. My cool-at-all-times friend was stressing a bit, I can imagine. When he told me, I could tell just in the way he retold it just how spooked he was.

He did admit that what he was seeing made sense, at least in the way Abraham said so. He was afraid for my safety, and looking back, especially since I can’t remember anything, I’m glad he was. He described what he saw when we emerged into the small meadow just south of the village. There were buildings on fire, lots of smoke in the air. Our attackers were hiding behind large piles of zombies we had left behind outside of the village. My friends were inside of the village, occasionally firing back at our enemies, but the majority of offense came from the attackers. Then we arrived. Tague’s exact expression was ‘I nearly shit myself’ when our little zombie army stepped out of the trees like an organized force.

Now, I have seen all of my father’s movies. And many others as well. I enjoyed them, as did so many people. There are certain scenes that always stick out. For example, there’s this one movie where this robot saves a bunch of reject robots that are in a junkyard of some sorts, and when the big bad robots are attacking people, this hodgepodge group of rebel robots shows up to save the day. It’s a really cool scene, the battle is great, and of course, the good bots win the day and become a part of society.

Thing is, no matter how cool that scene is, everyone seeing it knows it’s fake. Your brain knows. Those computer generated images aren’t real, especially since there are no self-aware robots in our existence. So we think the scene is cool, but we know 100% that it’s fake. But it could be possible. If it were possible, then maybe our brains would believe the scene more.

Here is what I’m trying to explain.

We live in a miraculous era. Ok, we did just before Deadfall. We had cellphones, the internet, bionic hands and digital photography. All of these things were incredibly normal to us, and for some, we can hardly live without them. If we saw a cellphone in a movie, our brain was ok with it. But imagine if some guy from the past, before cellphones, saw one? Would he think it was fantasy, even if it was right before him? Or better yet, what if some guy from the medieval times came to the future and saw an electric light? Or a TV? Would it be sorcery even though it was right there in front of them, working?

Ok, here is what I’m trying to say, yet again. Tague was telling me about what happened there, and I tried to imagine it in my head. He was explaining it like a movie, as if it were clearly not real. See, he said that our little zombie army showed up in formation, in three blocks. They began marching towards our attackers from the fort in unison, in perfect unison. They were zombies, barely the remains of former human beings. It had taken some time to accept them as part of our reality, and now, they were not acting like those zombies.

They marched in utter silence, this ragtag band of undead. Some were men and some were women in their past lives. The clothes they had, well, they could barely be called a uniform. They had no weapons, no guns, spears, nothing. Yet, despite this, Tague said, it looked like some old Napoleonic formation. I understood the reference. I could see it in my head. Like the lines of Confederate soldiers marching across a large meadow in a small town called Gettysburg.

I stood still, behind the line as they marched past me. Tague stood right next to me, as still as he could, but the zombies ignored both of us. Tague said even with just a few feet from him, they were utterly silent. No breath, no noise. The vast majority of them were barefoot, or whatever remained of their shoes, so even their steps were nearly silent across the grass and dirt.

The attackers didn’t see their new enemy until it was almost too late. They turned to face the zombies and were instantly pinned between them and my friends in the village. The two other formations came around to either side of the attackers and came to a stop. The men from the fort erupted gunfire into our little army. Those that had any aim, took down zombies as they hit their heads, but it wasn’t enough. The horde marched into them. The men from the fort attacked ferociously, but as Tague described it, it was a massacre.

Blevin described it to me from their point of view. He had fought many a zombie in the past, always fearless, but he admitted he was very glad he wasn’t in the middle of that. The zombies had a unified resolve, a single resolved mind. It wasn’t the random hacking of the usual zombie horde, but a very coordinated movement between the undead. He gave an example. He saw three zombies attack one man. The first two lunged at the man, on each of his sides, grabbing on to his arms. The third dove into the now exposed torso and plunged his hands through him, coming back up with the man’s guts. As soon as the man dropped in utter agony, the three zombies let him go and began moving towards the next man. There was no random massacre, just a resolve to kill them as fast as possible.

It was over in ten minutes from the moment Tague and I showed up... Two of the men had tried to flee back through the village. Maxie had shot one dead and Blevin had shot, but not killed, the second. The attacking men’s bodies were completely mangled, especially their heads. None of them would be rising as undead. Then our little zombie army turned right around and marched back off into the woods.

Tague stood with me for a few more hours as I just stood there. The rest of our group came out once it was clear the menace, the fort men and the zombies, were gone.  They carried me back into the village. They had to carry me standing up, if that makes sense, because I refused to bend or be carried any other way. They left me standing there in a room, and that’s where I came to, confused as hell.

Janine walked me out. The rest of the group was outside, cleaning up a bit. I came out just as Abraham said he’d found the remains of Malachi.

The rest I remember. Everyone was going on about the zombie army, my trance. I simply couldn’t believe it all. I tried hard to remember, but I had nothing. Abraham kept going on about how he ‘knew it’. Sarah was there too, with her son, but she was silent. She held her son closely, as they sat on a small bench.

Then I was hungry again.

The remaining villagers dispersed back into the woods to go after the others and let them know the threat was no more, at least for now. Abraham and Sarah disappeared for a while as well. Tague told the group what had happened, including our own little conclusions about the dust and the zombies. We all gathered our gear, what little there was, and got ready to leave immediately. We wanted to get to the boat by morning and be out on the water as soon as possible. Maxie said if we got good wind we could be back in six to seven days.

Sarah joined us and asked us if she could return with us. There was no debate, she was American and one of us, for the most part.

We hiked through the night, dragging along, barely staying awake. Our urgency kept our eyes open. It’s always faster to get down a mountain than going up, but we stumbled more than enough in the dark. At least no one got terribly hurt. I took one tumble, tripping over a root that reached out to grab me. That’s the only logical explanation. Why not? It makes as much sense as anything else. Honestly though, I was glad to be hiking in the dark. I was far more concerned with keeping my feet under me than anything else. I had next to little time to think about everything that had happened.

That’s what I’m doing now.

Tague is right though. Everything has an explanation, we just have to find it. That, and I’m ready to be off of this boat.

Before I finish this up, I do have to talk about what happened just as we were reaching the boat. Here we are, the masts of the ship in sight and we are all relieved, when the earth moved. Yup, an earthquake. It wasn’t anything amazing earth shattering, per se, but it was an earthquake. It was that same feeling I first had when I was on the boat. You’re standing on solid footing, but it was moving, and so my brain was quite confused. As we arrived at the boat, the ground started to move weird. I really thought I was just exhausted, but when I saw everyone else’s faces, then I knew something was up.

Again, it wasn’t that big. Nobody got thrown to the ground and trees didn’t fall over. It was just that odd sensation that the ground wasn’t all still. Janine said that she almost threw up because of an overwhelming sense of vertigo. Sarah had been around for that big earthquake that hit many years ago, back before she had been married. She was probably the most terrified, but was also relieved the fastest. She knew nearly immediately that it wasn’t a big earthquake. It didn’t last long. I want to say maybe ten seconds, maybe a bit less. And just like that, the world was back to normal.

Well, as normal this world could be with destroyed comets, green skies, zombies and magic pixie dust that lets you talk to zombies.

I found out a few things today. The first is that Sarah can draw. She can probably paint too, but we didn’t have that. She’s actually very good at it too, that innate talent. If I tried drawing what she drew today, it would look like, well, nothing. Instead, as I hold her drawing here right now, she drew the image so well, I almost don’t have to remember that I also saw it today.

Then again, I will never forget what we saw.

The last two days have been spent mostly sleeping, resting, or relaxing. That night hike and then getting the boat out to sea had been no easy task, especially after a day of fighting and whatever it was that I had done. Last night, we took our shifts, but ended up falling asleep everywhere anyways. Maxie said it was ok because there was barely a breeze in the air that night and we were barely making any way. When we woke up this morning, we were pleasantly surprised by the gusts of air. In the distance, storm clouds loomed, so we steered towards them to get water.

It didn’t take long to figure out those weren’t storm clouds. It was ash.

We could only assume that the earthquake we felt was related. There, off the coast of southern Cuba, was a volcano. I had never seen a volcano before, other than in pictures and movies. This was nothing like that. The sky was dark with ash, and beyond the volcano, lighting crashed through those thick clouds. The wind was blowing towards the west and away from us, which I think was good. Regardless, ash fell around us like black snow. Even the water had a thin layer of ash on it.

The new island, itself, was enormous. I can’t say how big because I just don’t have that kind of expertise, but, it was big. I know there were some mountains in the southern portion of Cuba. I had seen them on the way down, but this one towered above them. Then again, I couldn’t see those mountains. Everything behind on land was dark, far too dark for us to see.

It took us all day to leave it behind. Sarah spent most of that afternoon drawing the wrath of nature. I had no idea that the Caribbean could even have volcanoes, but Tague, of course, corrected me. There were many volcanos in the Lesser Antilles, the smaller islands like Dominique and Barbados. Of course, I knew about Haiti’s earthquake and all that was related, somehow.

In any other situation, namely before Deadfall, the destruction that volcano was wrecking upon the island would have been catastrophic. In this case, well, there was nothing left to save.

We could see the new island long into the night. The bright flashes of lightning in the distance contrasted against the near constant red and orange glow as the mountain continued to grow and regurgitate its molten insides. I just had to take some time tonight to write this all down. Also, I’m keeping this drawing.

I wonder what else is changing.

So when the world goes to hell and the dead begin to rise from the graves, and these same undead want nothing more than to tear you limb from limb, what’s the most dangerous thing on earth? Yeah, the other people still living. Time and time again, it’s those too wretched to still be alive that cause us the biggest problems. These last two days have been no different.

We spotted their boat yesterday. At first we thought it was just adrift, but we soon realized that it was coming towards us. Now, here is the funny thing, if there was one. We were just going with the sails, at a speed I cannot say since I know nothing about boats and sailing. Their boat appeared to be some kind of old fishing vessel, so it was motorized. Despite that, whether on purpose or not, they just weren’t catching up to us very fast at all. We had initially debated on slowing down to meet them, because, you know, everyone is good and I’m an idiot. I was quickly overruled, thankfully.

Well, they kept following us for the whole day, and after a few hours, we could tell that they were catching up. By that night, they were still some distance away. All night we kept a watch out, and the mysterious boat kept its lights on all night so we could spot them easily. If they were trying to catch us, they were dumb about it.

This morning, they were closer, but still a mile or so off. At that point, we started using our binoculars to get a glimpse of our followers. It wasn’t till sometime after lunch that we could see them. As brazenly as possible, we could easily see guys holding rifles on the deck of their little ship. As if we hadn’t already decided, it was clear then that we weren’t stopping for these guys.

Seriously though, who stands with a rifle all day long on board a ship, when you’re chasing another ship, but you’re really far away? It’s like they were amateur pirates. Again, I’ll never know exactly what or who they were. Sometime around four or five, Maxie came out of the cabin with his rifle and a small box. He set the box down and put the rifle against the railing of our ship. He took aim and fired one shot. We watched in amusement as the men on the boat reacted. We saw all the bodies drop for ten or twenty seconds. Then, when they stood up, they began to fire back at us.

Maxie let us know we were still well out of range of their guns. He wasn’t going to hit anyone at that distance either, but he wanted to make it clear to them that he would hit them before they could hit us. He took aim again, this time with more care, and fired another shot. He hit the side of the boat and the men on board dropped down again. Maxie fired a third shot, hitting somewhere towards the top of the fishing vessel.

It took almost a minute before we saw someone popping up again. It was also very clear that their boat had come to a stop and was turning.

I don’t know who they were. Maybe they were just desperate. Survival in this world is a desperate matter. I’d like to think that were are all mostly still good people, but the facts are proving me wrong. I keep telling myself that this was just a family, and they needed to resort to piracy in order to save a dying child. Of course, it’s barely piracy. This is just the second boat we’ve seen while out at sea, and the other had zombies. Just how would one go about being pirates when there is nothing to raid? So then my second thought was, these were just some people fleeing Cuba and that volcano. Of course, I felt bad. We should have stopped to help them.

Problem is, every time I have stopped to help people, things happen. Bad things. I know, I stopped and help Aaron and the gang, and I stopped to help Janine, and the people in the towers. Thing is, really, helping them has led to bad things too.

Heather is still dead.

Sarah tried talking to me about her after she read all my journals.

I declined.

Maxie says were a day or so away from Florida. Then just three days from Sunny Pointe.