Deadfall: Survivors (2 page)

Entry 3
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The Pisgah Inn is one of those unique places that my father certainly would have enjoyed visiting and staying at in those days before the zombies came. It’s  a “traditional” hotel establishment in that you have to get reservations and you pay per night, but it’s  unique in that it’s  far off the beaten path. It’s  right off the Blue Ridge Parkway, overlooking Mount Pisgah, in a section of the Pisgah National Forest where there are almost no other buildings around. In the fall season, when everyone came up to view the changing colors, this place was usually packed.

Now
, of course, it was empty.

I’m sitting in my room’s balcony
, with a wonderful view due south. It’s  a cold spring morning; not a cloud in the sky, and I could almost swear that I can see Charlotte from here. I have more than enough food for about ten more days, and I am positive that I can easily scrounge up more along the way. I have yet to check around the inn. There was a restaurant attached to the premises, but I’m  guessing that its stores of food have either all gone bad, or completely scavenged. I wonder what the people who were staying here at the time of the outbreaks did. Most of them probably did what everyone else did: went home.

That’s where I was when it all happened: home.

Now I suppose I must relate how this has all happened. If this journal somehow turns into a historical reference to the events that occurred on this planet, then I suppose I must be thorough and explain everything. The irony of it all is that if you somehow survived this all, then you know how this all came to take place, and if you are someone from a future generation with no records of the past, then, the world is somehow back to normal, and it might not matter that much, really.

So again, back to how it all occurred. The current end of the world was precipitated by another end of the world (almost).
I guess this entire situation is one of wild ironies, coincidences or just flat out luck. Most would call it bad luck.

B
ack in October of 2012, the news feeds exploded with the discovery of an object in space, hurtling towards the direction of earth. There was no secret to this event, for the object had been discovered by no less than fifty two individuals of different professional levels, and all at around the same time. In fact, there was a dispute as to what the new object, at first determined to be a comet, would be called.

Initial studies of its mass and trajectory found that it would be one of the closest objects from outer space to glide by the earth. In nearly four years after its discovery, this exciting new space
traveler would zip past at about the distance the earth was from the moon. Rumor was that the night sky would be lit up for days, and that even during the day this comet would be visible enough to see the details on it, if it had any.

Two months passed and during the Christmas holidays that year, lawsuits went up to determine the name of this comet. Since the event would be quite the spectacle, everyone wanted a piece of the action.
But this all went out of the door because, as my dad mentioned at the time, the “shit hit the fan”. After two months of the being able to study the object, scientists from all over the world came to a unanimous conclusion: this thing was going to hit earth. Suddenly, the comet had a name, and it was Death.

Now, at this time, the world (or really, mostly the civilized world, and even then, mostly just America) was fascinated by the supposed end of the world. You see, for many years now, all we heard was about how the Mayan’s had supposedly predicted the end of the world to happen in December of 2012. Now, my own somewhat educated guess was that the Mayans simply ran out of large round rocks on which to carve their calendars
, and figured that since the year 2012 was so far into their own future, why keep carving more stone calendars? My opinions notwithstanding, there were some really serious books, shows and movies into the matter. And, as humans are prone to being when they encounter something they don’t know, we, human beings that is, freaked out.

So now we have this incoming apocalypse that had been discovered
on December of 2012. Goodness, even my father, who I have always considered quite rational and pragmatic, was glued to the TV for days. It was all that was talked about. The media ate it up. The media outlets tried their hardest to outdo the other with computer generated graphics, interviews with scientists and the headlines. The headlines were the best. Oddly enough, I really can’t remember any of the good ones, but I certainly remember being quite amused by them.

Unfortunately for the news outlets, the comet had something against them. This thing wasn’t going to crash down next week, or next month. It was really only due in about three and a half years or so. That’s a long time, especially for the American people. By the end of January, Americans were already back
to being their own selves, wondering just who would win the Super Bowl that year.

2013 progressed normally
, I suppose. I remember I was teaching History in Hendersonville to Juniors and Seniors. Summer vacation was great; most of it spent in the woods and mountains, my kind of vacation. I remember trying to get my current girlfriend to come with me, but I found out that, despite her claims of being an outdoors person and loving nature, all that really meant was that she enjoyed going outside to her car and eating expensive organic food. That one didn’t work out too well.

That was also the first year I didn’t spend much time with my dad. He was gone
a lot, on trips, and on his own hiking endeavors. I didn’t think much about it at the time, especially since I was busy as well, but I guess the events during the year were actually very important to my existence right now.

I'm going to have to write about that sometime
, too.

Right now
I’m  wishing I had some kind of laptop with me. I'm going to take a break.

So I have been sitting up here on this balcony, soaking up the sun. The wildlife has really come back strong since people have been absent. I'm certainly not one of those nature nuts who would wish all people died and that the earth was restored back to nature, but, since I DIDN’T wipe out humanity, I won’t feel TOO guilty about enjoying the resurgence of animal life back in my woods.

So early 2014
was when the next relevant piece of news comes around. Scientists, governments and otherwise really smart people around the world, had of course been working on some kind of solution to the problem that was hurtling towards earth. At that point, we were now only two and a half years (or so) from impact and people were, after largely ignoring the problem for one year, starting to get nervous. Anyways, they, the smart people, had studied that matter in depth, and had come up with some conclusions. First, the comet wouldn’t destroy the earth. It wasn’t large enough to cause an extinction level event (I remember that term from a movie). Nevertheless, it was still going to really mess up a good chunk of the earth and make life very miserable for the rest of the planet for a few years. Oh...and people were going to die.

I can almost remember the one scientist who said that. He simply looked straight into the cameras and without blinking
said : “And people are going to die”.

I am fairly certain I laughed out loud.
Probably not the best reaction at the time.

Now, the other piece of news was the good part. Together
, with some other nations, the United States (of course, who else) had set up a battery of rockets that was quite literally going to blow the thing out of the sky. That is of course, the American way. I bet half of America stood up and started singing the national anthem. The idea was that since the comet was essentially all water, that a few (probably more than a few) good nuclear blasts could break the thing up. Of course, nothing was guaranteed. They, the rocket people, would only be able to launch the rockets three weeks before impact, and there was a chance that wouldn’t work. They, the smart people, not the rocket people, wouldn’t be able to determine for sure where the comet would hit the planet till about seven months before the impact. During that time, all nations of the planet (really those that could afford to) would work hard to evacuate the area of impact.

The next two years go by mostly normally. There is a rise in the building of bomb shelter type buildings by those who can afford it, but essentially, the entire population continues to live under the belief that
the hope has been created that this isn’t the end of the world, and the all too typical human emotion that “it won’t happen to me”. Most were certain the comet would fall on some other spot on the earth.

I almost got married in 2015.
Stacy. She was far hotter than anyone I had ever dated, and that should have been my first hint. I was completely in love with her hotness. She was completely in love with my money. Well, my dad’s money. It also wasn’t meant to be.

And yes, my dad is rich. Quite filthy rich as I understand.

Remember I had said that my dad had been gone a lot? It would turn out that he was using his well earned money to build himself a private getaway slash bomb shelter slash end of the world hideout. It was up in the mountains, in a spot in the Pisgah National Forest where there was not supposed to be any building. I guess money gets you things. I’ll get into that at some other time, as right now I got to keep my mind (and my cramping fingers) on the subject of the end of the world.

So, January of 2016
was the big date. It was then that the smart guys let us know that the comet, if it would hit, would be smacking earth just off of Venezuela. Essentially, the islands in the Caribbean were going to be wiped out, and there was going to be one huge tsunami along the Atlantic Ocean. The slightly good news was that the population that would need to be relocated was actually going to be far less that which would have been needed if this comet were going to hit say, China, or India. The bad part was that this side of the world was going to be the most affected. (Yes America, that meant you)

Ideally, humanity
was going to survive. For the next seven months, people were supposedly stockpiling non-perishable foods. Food production had already been ramped up for a few years at the expense of other things, say, sports and movies. The poor saps on the islands, who were expecting a free, all expenses paid trip to the United States, were instead moved to Africa. Not really what they had expected at all. There were all sorts of racial lawsuits, something to the nature of their ancestors had been taken by force from Africa, and that they were now being returned, by force, back to Africa. People never failed to amaze me. They still wouldn’t, probably, except they’re  all dead.

Death or Africa?
Is it really that bad?

The government
tried to insist that people go on with their lives as normally as possible, of course, as long as you were stockpiling that food you might have needed for a few years. I kept teaching, but there were fewer and fewer kids in class. Most of my students just decided to stay at home with their parents, waiting out the conclusion to this possible end of the world. I remember all the talk about how this impact (it seemed everyone was almost sure the government rockets would fail) would affect those of us living in this corner of North Carolina. The tsunami would most likely leave us alone, but we were supposed to feel a significant quake, and who really knew just how it would affect the climate.

As the time neared, scientists nailed down the actual date the comet would hit earth: August 16
th
, 2016. At least it would happen after summer vacation. That summer, I did finally move out to my father’s hideout in the mountains, there to wait out the end of the world.

Of course, that would all be very
anti climactic. The government did actually come through for us plebes, at least this time. The rockets went up three weeks before the impact. It was the highest rated TV show in the history. The rockets were shooting up into the sky from all parts of the world, at different times of the day, all coordinated to hit the comet at three separate times.

It was a fireworks show going off here on earth
, but even more so in the sky. The comet had already turned into a nice bright spot in the sky, slowly growing larger as time went by. On August 10
th
, just a few days before the comet was supposed to hit, the night sky, at least where my father and I were sitting under, lit up. In the span of about ten minutes, three extremely bright lights filled the eye were the comet had once been. The first explosion didn’t seem to change the comet much, but the second, and certainly the third salvo of nukes certainly did. After the third flash, the once visibly bright chunk of ice was gone. In its place stood a haze, the small chunks of the once mighty planet buster.

I remember sharing a beer with my dad (I'm not much of a drinker). We planned on staying the rest of the week as well as the next, get some hiking done, and then begin getting on with the rest of our lives. I do remember the TV scenes though. It was a party on earth like no other before. For a brief moment, the nations of earth had stood united against a common foe. Yeah, it sounds corny, and that foe was just a chunk of ice, but it really did have that feeling to it. Of course, I knew within a few days, we would go back to being what we were
; hating each other just as much as we did before.