Deadfall: Hunters (26 page)

Of course, with my information now, they understood that the undead could be controlled, at least to some degree. What they didn’t know is who their enemy was, and why they were using the zombies. They didn’t have much time to regroup either. Not just two days after the spent Hunter groups had made it back to Sunny Pointe than zombies started showing up in mass numbers there too. It was only the dumb, aimless kind, but in numbers that posed a real threat. Over the days, those numbers kept climbing. They seemed to be coming up from the south, probably from that same stream of walkers we saw in Myrtle Beach, and it was only the southern portion of the wall that was under the greatest stress, but everyone at the walled city was worried that the zombies they had fought at Benson were headed towards them as well.

Reports from the tower cities all over the countryside had come in, but nobody had seen anything yet. What was more striking was that the Fayetteville tower hadn’t seen them either and they were certainly in their path. In the meantime, the trains continued leaving through the north wall and out to the towers. The Hunter groups were now getting ready to take to the southern wall and see if they could make a dent in the zombie wave.

I offered up a sample of the dust I had retrieved in Haiti to the military folk. They asked for it and I offered it up gladly. I was still on the border in between thinking this stuff was pixie dust or something I could actually wrap my brain around. I want to say that they thought the same, but in a world with the walking dead, anything was possible. Sadly, they didn’t have any kind of timetable as to when they’d get around to looking at it in any way. I think it was their way of saying they didn’t have anyone that could.

To add to that, there were several of them at the council that asked if I would use the dust to try to fight off the zombies, or make them leave, as had been done in Haiti. I wonder what kind of stupid smile I had on my face at the time. I thought I had made it clear that whatever had happened on the Caribbean island was a fluke, which I had no idea what I had done. Using the dust again would guarantee nothing at all. Sad thing was that these men and women probably weren’t too keen on using the dust to try to save their fledgling city. The soldiers were a hands-on kind of people; they wanted solutions they could implement with their hands or guns. Even the non-military on the council were survivors. They had lived through the chaos with their own hands as well. The dust was too hocus pocus for them.

It was for me, too.

Thing is, they are desperate. I get it, too. Just imagine that you’ve managed to survive the initial wave of undead. Who knows what untold horrors you’ve seen, or even committed in order to live. You’ve probably gone hungry, been hurt and wondered how long you could last. Then you make it here, to Sunny Pointe, where other similar folk have made it. You have soldiers, you have people growing food and for the first time in a year, living seems like a remote possibility. Then, just as you’re feeling good about being a human being again, here come the undead, again, knocking on the walls of your city, asking for its destruction.

Oh, and to top that all off, there is a very good chance these zombies are being controlled by someone else, other humans. Betrayal by your own kind. Actually, that part isn’t surprising. By far, the worst I’ve encountered since Deadfall have been human asshole beings. Homo Assholius. Still, though, it’s a rough place to be, and so, I can see why they are asking me to drug up and see what will happen.

It’s a quiet evening. Thousands of men and women have gone out to the walls to see what they can do. I saw lots of large vehicles driving or being towed out too. I saw a large steamroller. I kinda wish I could see that in action. I also saw two large cranes with demolishing balls on them.

Evan and Chris went off with them too. I wanted to sit with Chris, talk to him, but what was I really going to say? That I felt guilty for her death? That I thought it was my fault? The kid had grown up so much. He also had a rifle. What would stop him from just shooting me? Yeah, I know… a rather dumb thought.

I’m back on the boat. Maxie has been working hard all day cleaning up the boat, fixing things I don’t really understand. He even sanded off the name. I wonder what the new name will be. He hasn’t given me any clue. He left earlier, just before sundown. He rode out with the last train to make a stop at the tower he helped found. In the meantime, the rest of us are still crashing on the boat, mostly because the few tents and cots the military had offered to us didn’t compare to our hammocks and quarters here on the boat. It was also far cooler on the boat than on land.

Tague cooked something up down below and I can hear Blevin telling another of his stories. They involve lots of roaring laughter. I’ll have to join them in a bit, although I’m not quite hungry tonight. I’m watching from the side of the boat as men and women are still working at cleaning up the mess caused by the storm we nearly got lost in. The hurricane didn’t hit them full on, but it still made a mess. It’s a calm evening though, finished by an unusual conversation I had with Sarah.

She was up here, sitting near me. Clayton was down below eating. She sat there looking out towards Carolina Beach. We had told her all that had happened there a few months ago. It certainly didn’t look like the zombie hellhole it was that night. From all I have heard, they had cleared most of them off of there. Training for the Hunter groups I was told.

I kept an eye on her as I was writing up this entry. She kept this aloof gaze out towards the other side of the river, but I could tell she had something on her mind. That woman has these moments - maybe it’s the starlight - when she is stunning. Of course, here is to hoping no one ever reads this journal, and especially not her. My stupid lack of sense when it comes to the other sex would make me look, well… stupid.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked.

She shrugged. “A lot to take in,” was all she said.

I asked her, finally, why she was really here. Her answer actually caught me completely off guard. Here I was expecting her to say something about coming back home, finding someone, helping us. Of course, in that deep dark part of me who is a hopeless romantic, she was saying she came because of me. But, no. She said she came back because Abraham told her to.

The voodoo priest guy told her to. That was certainly one of those ‘what the…’ moments. At that point, I guess the look on my face prompted her to explain. See, Abraham had told her to come with me, to stay close to me, especially if I took the dust again. The priest told her that she would be able to help me, if help was needed. I asked her how she was supposed to help, but she didn’t know.

It says a lot that this strong, independent and driven woman left her work behind because the voodoo priest told her to. I don’t think that man ever told me everything he knew. That should bother me. I think at some point, it will.

My head still hurts. Worst headache I have ever had. If I could wear multiple pairs of sunglasses, I would, even though I’m inside of the truck. A truck heading west, towards the mountains. A truck heading home.

It’s a desperate trip though, not a wonderful homecoming, as I would have hoped.

My last entry was two nights ago.

It started out like most nights. Waking up with those screams echoing through my brain. She was calling out to me, again. But unlike every night, this time, there were thousands of her, all shouting. Some shouted in unison, while others screamed and howled in chaos. A thousand pair of bloodshot eyes stared at me from the darkness of my dream, piercing. Despite this visage though, it wasn’t a shout of terror, of undying hunger. It was almost a plea for help. A cry for guidance. I have no idea how I know these things. I just remember waking up, confused, but not really scared. At least not how I think I should have.

But here is where it got weird. I could almost swear I could still hear the voices after I woke up. Somewhere, to the west of the boat. I rubbed my eyes, splashed my face with the cool brackish water of the river and even thought of slapping my face. It stopped, and then I was worried I had imagined it all. I strained to look out to the land. It was still really dark in the west, although light was just starting to creep up in the east horizon. Of course, I wasn’t going back to sleep.

Tague joined me shortly after I had startled awake. He came up with a cup of coffee in his hand and stood on the edge, staring west too. He wasn’t hearing voices, but he could hear something, off in the distance. It took me a while to hear it too. It was almost like the sound of a city at night, with some truck driving by in the distance and those random sounds of a city settling in. It was such a foreign sound to me now. Of course, we both knew what it was.

It was a battle.

It was the start of a battle.

You know, looking back, I wonder why I ever call them battles. I taught History in school, so naturally, much of what I teach has so much focus in battles. For Americans, there are few things as glorious as the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the World Wars, as well as all the other smaller wars stuck in for good measure. So much of what our past is made up of is defined by battles. So maybe I’m writing this journal as a historian, and so I define these conflicts as battles. But is it? Are zombies really enemies or just a force of nature? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of preparing for a hurricane as preparing for a battle. I’ve also never heard of people referring to a volcano blowing up as the actions of an enemy.

Then again, zombies used to be people. Even if they aren’t anymore, it’s still too hard to take away that association. And, the undead are quite literally attacking us. Attacking makes it a battle. And to top it off, there is that unknown element behind the zombies, or at least we think. The Haitians at the fort used them and there is something similar going on here. If someone was able to weaponize a tornado, and used it against their enemies, we might call that a battle too, if there was any way to battle a tornado.

So there. I’m calling it a battle, if for anything, it’s a battle for our survival.

It wasn’t soon after we woke up that we saw a lot of commotion on land. Blevin took the dinghy to the shore and was back in a hurry. His look betrayed what we all thought. The other zombie group had made it and was starting to attack the northern section of the wall. We all decided to head to shore and see if there was anything we could do to help. And yes, I brought the dust along.

No sooner than we had gotten on shore than we ran into Maxie. He had come in on the first train from his tower. He had barely been able to enjoy an evening with his friends when they began to get reports of zombies. A large horde. They had been expecting them to come through there, but the reports were from the north, not the west. The undead had come down interstate 40 and had gone through Wilmington. They had reversed course, back up in Benson, and gone down I40. If there were any doubts they were being controlled, this gave it away. Maxie had then gathered up some of his folk and had taken the first early train back. He got into Sunny Pointe just as the first signs of the walkers were appearing on the walls. No further trains would be leaving or coming to Sunny Pointe. They were about to be surrounded.

All four Hunter groups were still on the south wall, although I’m sure, by now, they were aware of what was going on. There was a fifth group too, one that was still in training. They were housed really close to where we were anchored. They used that area to train and they were about to get their trial by fire. I watched as an ordered panic of men and women rushed around, gathering their pikes and swords, and tossing them into their trucks and driving off north. The wall would hold the walkers for a while, but not for long.

Those were just the Hunter groups though. Plenty of soldiers were running around too, getting their gear. I swear, in the darkness of that emerging morning, I saw a tank rolling past a few streets down. Overhead, I could hear helicopters, several of them, although I couldn’t yet see them. There was a sense of urgency, but not overwhelming panic. Not like the first time you came face to face with a zombie horde. They had built walls for a reason. They knew something like this could happen. Better yet, they knew something like this would happen.

My first thought was to find Evan, but I’m sure he had his hands full. So instead, I decided to head up to the north wall and see how we could help there. We, all of us except for Maxie, who had rushed out to his boat, managed to hitch a ride with some soldiers on board a truck up towards the northern wall. By the time we got there, the sun was just about to crest the ocean to our east, that is, if we could see it. Clouds were rolling in thick and heavy from the south or southwest.

We were dropped off some ways behind the wall, presumably so that the soldiers could get ready, prep, or whatever it was that they did. We tried making our way to the wall, but the commotion ahead of us was a bit frightening. We could see hundreds of men and women on top of the wall, that sandy structure, some ways ahead of us. Naturally, we couldn’t see beyond the walls, but it wasn’t pretty. I gathered that from the panicked shouting and screaming from the top of the wall. There, the soldiers and hunters were stabbing downwards past the wall with their pikes. There were officers, or leaders, whatever you call them, shouting instructions back and forth and men and women would pick themselves up and rush to wherever they shouted at. At the end of the street, where it met the wall, was a large metal gate. Solid, not the kind I could see through. As I had guessed before, there were two tanks idling just behind the gate. We tried moving inlands a bit, while still keeping an eye on the wall. I really wanted to get up on the wall and see it.

I could feel it in the air though. Something electric. I’m not sure how that was possible. I felt connected to it all. If it wasn’t for all the shouting and screaming, I could almost hear their voices. I write this now thinking back, and it just messed up. No way should I be thinking this way.

Anyways, we were making our way through some brush towards the wall when Tague stops me by my sleeve and points back to the gate. They had opened it, swinging in. Soldiers were lined up on either side, with either pike or rifle and as soon as they opened the gates, the undead started pouring in. The soldiers were disciplined and started dropping them immediately. Then the two tanks roared to life. I can’t tell what kind they were, but they were modern. Evan would know. Black smoke erupted from their engines and the two beasts pulled forward through the gate, absolutely crushing everything in their path. I think that was their intention.

We could hear gunfire now. Sporadic. We could place it all over the wall. It wasn’t chaotic gunfire. A crack here, then another. As we approached a set of stairs at the wall, to our far left, way down the wall, a huge plume of black smoke rushed up into the sky. I could hear cheering, people chanting something. We made our way up the stairs, although Sarah stayed down at the bottom with her son. Janine wasn’t having that though. She followed us up. We had to fight traffic as hunters and soldiers scampered up and down the steps.

Then we reached the top.

I had seen zombies before. I had seen hordes. We had been in a very large horde in Myrtle Beach. This wasn’t a horde. This was an ocean. The land here was a thick brush, with trees and vegetation so thick and deep you wouldn’t want to walk through it. But in every spot that I could see, there was a set of unholy eyes, staring blankly at the sand wall. It nearly took my breath away. That and the putrid smoke.

I winced as tears streamed down my face. I wiped them and gasped again in the smoke. As far as I could see in either direction, the undead came at the wall. In some spots, they came slowly, stumbling about as we knew them best. They crashed over the bodies of those that had already been killed. Many had impaled themselves on the barricades and stood there, wriggling. Down to my right, a large fire burned down as far as I could see. A moat filled with, most likely oil. I was going to say tar, or pitch, but that was too medieval. But the idea was the same. I’ve never understood why, but the zombies were always attracted to fire. And they burned too. Problem was that it didn’t really kill them, not right away at least.

To my left the two tanks had split up, one turning left at the wall and the other turning right. They were rolling down the side of the wall, some ten to twenty feet from the base on the outside, just cruising along slowly crushing everything in their paths. It was effective to a degree. It also looked really badass. I watched as it rolled past us and I could see more than half of the zombies crushed underneath it still ‘alive’, but smooshed into the ground.

It was a mess. It was chaos. But for the most part, it seemed that it was all under control. Yeah, that didn’t make sense. As we had seen from below, people shouted out orders, and the soldiers obeyed. Zombies that made it through the barricade and the bodies of their fallen undead, found the sharp end of a spike going through their brains as they tried to scramble up the sandy wall. It was a difficult prospect for coordinated humans, nearly impossible for the clumsy zombie. Then, after they speared a zombie, the soldier would use the pike’s long length to push the zombie. Often, it would just go rolling or sliding down the wall, ending up in a pile along with all the other destroyed bodies. In some places the piles were starting to get large.

Looking far out as I could see, I predicted that those piles would only get larger. But, that’s not what worried me. When I really started studying the enemy out there beyond the wall, I could see them forming. There were still plenty wandering aimlessly towards the wall, but behind it all, I could clearly see more rigid groups of zombies. Most of them just stood there, waiting. Zombies didn’t wait. Not unless they were told to. We all saw it. All of us started scanning to see if we could find their human handlers, but the brush was so thick it was hard to see. Add to that the rolling tanks, the thick smoke and the fact the sun was hiding behind the clouds. Still, we knew they were out there.

I found the closest leader, officer, guy who was shouting orders. I tried getting him to stop for a second, but he just ignored me, ran past me and shouted more orders. I ran and found the next one. He was actually stopped at the time. I probably should have explained better, but there really wasn’t much time. I told him he needed to keep an eye out for actual humans among the zombies. He said ‘WHAT’ followed by several expletives. He shouted something back down the inside of the wall. Someone below shouted back up and he pulled out his radio. He barked into it, asking if anyone knew about what I had just told him. He heard something and turned to me.

His image will be forever etched into my brain.

It was a look of ‘serious?’ The face remained as I heard a crack in the distance and his head exploded into a shower of red. I fell over in an instant, wiping my face furiously. I looked back and saw that everyone that had heard the shot had dropped onto the ground. I looked down and saw the body of the soldier rolling down the inside part of the wall, leaving a trail of blood splattered on the sand. I saw blood stained sand sliding down with him in blotches. When I managed to turn my head back to look back into the ocean of zombies, I saw them marching forward.

Marching.

A solid block, maybe forty wide and ten deep. All along the seemingly chaotic waves of zombies these, armies, came forward. They were not running, but certainly walking faster than anyone here had seen them do before. They stepped over bodies and came around the barricades and began marching right up the side of the wall. Men and women watched in stunned silence as they got closer and closer. It was about to happen.

Then came one of the proudest moments of my life. I got up, grabbed a pike that was nearby, and shouted out. Blevin got it right away, and he jumped forward, also grabbing a pike and standing next to me. Dwarfing me. I shouted out ‘LINE!’ and before I knew it, men and woman had joined up next to me. Not a moment later, they were nearly at the top. I lowered the pike and everyone followed suit and in what I would consider a volley, we lunged and sent the first line of walkers crashing down in a heap.

Then it got hot and sweat and not in the fun way. It was relentless. They came row after row of them, trying their hardest to bash their way through the pikes, swiping with their arms and hands, but we kept them at bay, lunging and lunging with the pikes, smashing them through their heads. Pikes broke under the weight of the zombies if their heads didn’t come clean off. It didn’t stop though. I had a moment to glance down the wall where other undead were attacking and the defenders did all they could to keep them off. One of the tanks made a wide turn and started coming back our way. It fired one shot, exploding in the sand some thirty feet in front of us. The shockwave knocked everyone down, human and undead alike. Rotten body parts rained down on us. We didn’t have time to rest though. The walkers were up in an instant and were on top of us. At that moment it became a slash fest.