Deadfall: Hunters (2 page)

Early yesterday morning, as I came out on deck after sleeping inside (it rained last night) I was instantly greeted by the warm charm of the moaning zombies. Apparently they had decided to stick around just in case we would jump off the boat and swim toward their eager claws. It didn’t take us long to get the ship moving again and headed south again. Coming out of the sound, we caught some more rain and we all took the moment to soap up and wash off in the fresh water. Our water stores were still full so we just enjoyed the cool morning rain instead of trying to gather more.

The map showed that there was another town just south where we would run this whole ordeal again. It was a town called Bruinswick; just another town set into the sounds along the coast.

We never made it there.

Not twenty miles south of Darien, as we began to enter the next sound, we came across what had been a small coastal community. On the map, it was called St. Simons. Visually, it was just another abandoned coastal town, once a haven for flocks of tourists paying to be in the sun. As we rounded the coast into the sound though, we noticed, at least from our coastal view, that it was quite zombie-free. In fact, we hadn’t seen a single one in the half hour of sailing we had done within sight of the town. We began debating making a test stop here when Aaron, who had been peering closer at the map than the rest of us, pointed out a potential bonanza: an airport.

It had been our experience that airports nearly always had at least one useful or helpful item. We sailed around a bend and up a river until we found some piers and a marina. There were many boats sunk next to the piers. Thankfully, yet again, not a single zombie was seen. Maybe they had all moved up to Darien. Regardless, and despite our increasing excitement, we anchored and stayed onboard for the rest of the day.

The following day, the sky was clear and the only sounds I could hear were the waves and birds. With that airport just a few miles in, we felt that the potential benefits far outweighed the possible risk. We would walk to the airport instead of trying to find a ride to avoid detection and noise, but would find some kind of vehicle once there if we could in order to flee. The great thing is that we found nothing on the way there.

The place was empty, deserted. As we walked through the town toward the airport, we still walked cautiously, always listening for the telltale sounds, but we never ran into any of the walkers. It was rare that you found a former residential area this cleared of zombies unless it had been done so intentionally. As we discussed this among ourselves, our first concern was the potential “bad” guy we might run across. Our distaste of zombies was only surpassed by our aversion to those still alive that took advantage of other living. We were made a little more nervous by the fact that we weren’t that well-armed. Between the three of us, myself, Aaron and Tague, we had one gun, a spear, and a bat. We weren’t exactly packing.

We continued walking into the town, always with a cautious eye out for either living or dead, but never ran into anyone or anything. We reached the airport after having taken notes on a few homes we might think about raiding at some later point on our way out of town. We radioed back to the boat where Maxie and Lucy were to let them know we had reached the airport safely and then began our search.

Our first item of search was always fuel. We didn't have any real important need for fuel on the boat, but we always marked any possible locations of large amounts of fuel on the map just in case we would have need of it in the future. It was no different here. Airplane fuel just hadn't been in high demand when everyone was fleeing the rising hordes and we found several thousand gallons stored here. The actual amount was hard to pinpoint and we could only guesstimate what was down in some underground tanks as well as two above ground tanks. This airport was certainly a reasonably sized one for such a small coastal community, but with the types of houses we had gone by on our way to the airport, it's easy to see why such a nice airport existed here in the first place.

We also found several tanks full of fresh water, which is something that would have been a godsend just a few weeks ago, but not that critical now. Plus, just the thought of trying to transport the water to the boat was taxing; it just wouldn’t have been feasible. We also found a few other odds and ends, propane tanks, and tools that might come in handy, and even some batteries. But none of these things were near our greatest find here. In fact, our greatest find actually found us.

He spotted us the moment we had entered the airport and hidden away, I guess, to follow us and determine our risk to him. At some point he must have thought we were enough of a non-risk because he showed himself to us. To be accurate, he got up on a roof and pointed a rifle at us, threatening to shoot us.

We had split up a bit, looking around, when the rooftop shout made us all spin around and see the man on the roof. He was standing behind a small wall at the edge of the roof, well out of the range of our gun, spear, or bat. I had a feeling, though, that we were well within the range of his rifle.

"Put the weapons down," he barked.

We readily complied.

"We're just scavenging. Didn't know you were here," Aaron shouted in reply.

He kept the rifle pointed at us.

"What do you need?" he yelled back.

I shrugged my shoulder. "Nothing specific, just checking it all out."

Aaron began to reply, "We can leave. We don't want any trouble..."

Tague cut him off. "Did you clear the zombies out?"

There was a visible hesitation as he lowered his rifle for just a brief moment before raising it back up and aiming it at us.

"Yes."

Now my curiosity was piqued as well.

"By yourself? How?"

He stood there for a moment, looking at us through his scope. I have no idea how long it was but he suddenly slung the rifle over his shoulder and vanished from the roof. We stood there, unsure of what to do. I was debating picking up the spear again.

"Where is he?" asked Aaron.

As I was about to take up the spear, the man appeared once again around the corner of the small building he had been on top of and was walking toward us, rifle still pointed in our general direction. He walked up to us and we were getting ready to do whatever we might have to, be it pick up our weapons and possibly defend ourselves. He stood there for a moment looking at us, then dropped his aim and asked:

"So what's the story?"

I distinctly remember smiling.

We told our part, relating everything from the house in Hendersonville, to Charlotte, the fun in Asheville and Black Mountain, and then our final trip to Fort Fisher and all of the happenings there. We conveniently left out the part about the possible treasure trove of information in our house and he didn't seem to pick up on anything missing from our story. He listened intently, asking a lot about the cult guys and he was particularly interested in the tower cities, especially the one near Elizabethtown with the airport.

"Haiti? Why?"

I explained the best I could, but the truth was quite apparent; we weren't quite sure why we were going to Haiti.

His story was just as unusual and typical of the survivors of Deadfall. His name was Gray Oliver. He had been a programmer, a computer-type guy from New Jersey. When the comet had been destroyed, he had partied like everyone, had been afraid of the green skies like everyone, and then jumped right back into life as usual. He had been sent down to Miami for some kind of meeting to help get the company back on its feet again. During a small break, he had driven down to Key West to take in the coastal scenery before heading back home. This was, of course, where he found himself when the dead began coming back to be a pain in the ass.

On his way back to Miami, there had been a wreck on one of the bridges off the islands that had been caused by a small horde of zombies coming from the mainland and onto the islands. Panic ensued and people abandoned their vehicles and were making their way back to the islands when a second smaller horde was coming onto the bridge. He was in that small group that was caught between the two hordes, and panic set in. Before he could have been overtaken by either horde, Gray jumped off the bridge and told us that he had been lucky not to have died in the jump itself. He made his way to shore and commandeered a motor boat to make his way back to the mainland.

He told us how the bridges to Key West turned into a meat grinder for anyone found there. Of course, those killed then returned as zombies themselves and as he got closer and closer to land, the bridge was that much more infested and congested with the dead. He abandoned the boat far away from any clear civilization and began making his way inland. He spent the first eleven months trying to get back home the only way he knew for sure; walking.

He had at first entered into Miami to try to find some people he knew there, but the large city had turned into a bizarre battleground pitting the newly risen zombie army against a large Latino gang that had in its mind the conquest of Miami. Gray stayed in the shadows going through the city as he witnessed the chaos of the gangs attempting to wage a street war against the zombies. He scavenged and managed to stay alive, but he said that by the end of that month long track through the city, usually one block at a time, he was quite sure the gang had either given up on their war, or had joined the far larger gang of the walking dead.

He stayed off the main roads and interstates as he worked his way north. He was once captured by a bunch of "swamp hicks" who wanted to eat him. He says they went off one night to find some secret ingredient for their human BBQ but never showed up again. It took him two days to work himself out of their restraints.

He made his way through Jacksonville, and that made me remember that Heather had lived there at the time. I had to quickly put that memory away as Gray continued his story. There he had joined up with several other survivors who had similar destinations in the north. The group did well going through the city, but one evening, they had taken a boat onto a small abandoned island in the sound in the northern part of the city. It had seemed like a safe option and they had been steadily attracting a large horde and felt this was a good place to rest for the night. Nature showed them otherwise. The tide receded in the middle of the night, allowing the sound to become just shallow enough for the horde to walk across and attack the nearly completely unsuspecting group. Gray had managed to flee across the same shallow sound, but never saw anyone from that group again.

He spent many months inching slowly north, avoiding roads and cars at all costs. He did the best he could to avoid the living as well as the dead as he found that both parties were just as helpful when it came to ending his life... When asked why he was so desperate to get back, Gray sighed and said that he had loved ones back there. We could tell by the way he said it that it most likely meant only one loved one and I immediately understood his pain and determination.

He had found this airport nearly three months ago and had gotten tired of walking so slowly. He then decided, foolishly or not, that he would attempt to fly home. He had decided that he had about the same odds of survival in walking the rest of the way, or learning how to fly and flying home.

Yes, he was going to teach himself how to fly.

Gray had never flown any kind of aircraft, but had always been an avid flight simulator fan and had actually logged many hours in legit flight simulators as well as countless hours on computer games. When he came across the abandoned airport, well, his words were "what the hell."

He found the town mostly uninhabited by the dead and had taken a week to clear them all out so that he could work without interruption or risk. He had found manuals and had been working on getting a small Cessna aircraft ready, working through various scenarios and taking short flights around the area. He described how he was shaking so hard the first time he took the airplane up that he nearly lost control, but he did land, and continued to practice. He felt he was comfortable enough to fly, and pointed out that he didn't really have to worry about the FAA or any other aircraft. His main worry was navigation. He was hoping to just rely on flying along the coast and using a simple GPS, which thankfully still worked. His other concern was fuel, which is why he was so interested it the Elizabethtown airport as well as the military at Sunny Pointe.

I must admit I was entirely fascinated with his story. It was unthinkable to me that an untrained person would attempt to fly an airplane of any kind, but here this Gray was, full of confidence in his abilities to pull it off. He showed us the small plane that he had been working on. He had started it up many times and taxied it around just to get comfortable with the feel of the aircraft. He had then, just a week ago, taken off, flown around the airport, and landed again, and from that point he was completely confident in his ability to make it north to his home. Even if he had to land many times, which he would have to, he could make it back there in just a couple of days.

I loved the confidence, or, I understood the desperation. In either case, he seemed like a good guy, whatever that meant in this world.

We radioed back to the boat and let them know that we were safe and that we would return the next morning. We spent a cool evening, thanks to a nice breeze coming off the ocean, on the roof of one of the maintenance buildings at the airport. Gray had built himself a simple shack up here to stay cool during the warmer summer days. It also offered some minor protection in case any unwanted bodies showed up, but according to Gray, he hadn't seen any bodies in many weeks.