Deadfall: Hunters (21 page)

That’s a lie. It’s not the road. There are no roads on the water. I think it’s just the thought though. It is around 7:00 p.m. and that hot tropical sun is finally starting to go down. I am sitting here, hanging my feet off our ship and we are headed home. I had to dig out a new journal to write this entry in because sitting next to me, reading my other journals, is Sarah. Yeah, she’s coming home with us. She made that decision this morning. She won’t tell me why she decided to come back, especially since she has given me every indication that she didn’t have any desire to return to the States. But she and her son are our new passengers. What makes her decision even more mysterious is the fact that the remaining missionaries / Americans did remain behind.

Thankfully, they will be safe now. Safe now because of what happened two nights ago.

Dramatic? I should be a writer.

The basic plan had been to setup an ambush for Malachi’s men and hope that was enough to either defeat them or scare them enough into leaving the village alone. We had Maxie setup in the hillside north of the village while the rest of us would hide in other strategic places throughout the village. Ideally, we had the advantage of surprise, although it really wasn’t. They knew we were here. The other problem is that we were very likely going to be very much outmanned and outgunned. I didn’t like that. Being outgunned meant more chances for me getting shot. I didn’t like that either.

Maxie had twelve rounds left and in between the rest of us, well, there really wasn’t enough to sustain any kind of assault. Most of the villagers had left already, and of the six that remained behind to help us, only one guy had a gun. A revolver, one of those with the spinning thing with six bullets. And I’m positive he didn’t have six bullets.

Abraham had a different idea. He wanted to call the zombies back.

Here is where things got really bizarre. See, at first I thought it was a good idea. We’d done something similar in the past. It wasn’t too hard to manipulate the direction a horde was going as long as you were one hundred percent careful at all times. Tague knew it too. I could see it in his face. The long lines in his forehead, the eyes. He was already formulating a plan. There’s no way that horde could have gotten that far away yet. We were interrupted by Abraham as we started talking about that plan.

See, our medicine voodoo man had completely different plans. He wanted to use the powder to actually call the zombies here, and control them. I asked him again if he was capable of doing that. He answered that no, he could only keep them away, but he was certain that I could.

It got weird in that room.

Here is where I have to make a confession, one that I have made in the past. I have yet to understand why I was somehow picked out to be the leader of this group. I get it at first since I had the safe mountain home, but there have been no examples at all, since then, that show that I am, in any way, a leader of men. If anything, my decisions have been rather, inconsequential. Pointless. I’m rather clumsy, don’t know anything about guns, and my qualifying experience with telling people what to do comes from giving homework to teenagers.

My only redeeming qualification is luck, being in the right place at the right time.

This, whatever this zombie thing is, this dust, is just luck. Whatever happened in the cave, which, I still don’t understand, still doesn’t qualify me as a leader, as the solution to any of our problems. So you can imagine my state of mind there in that room as everyone stared at me, yet again. I want to say I just hung my head in resignation, but I’m not sure if I actually did.

So I asked, “What do I need to do?”

Abraham started with the words ‘I think’. That scared me. His theory was that ingesting the dust, as he had once, would allow me to then, somehow, communicate with the zombies. He was under the impression that the men that had been running amongst the first horde had actually used the dust, likely provided to them by Malachi. He thought that this drug had somehow enabled them to, at the same time, be ignored and somehow give commands to the undead walkers.

He had no proof though. Also, I had seen those guys. They were bleeding out of their eyes and noses. That probably wasn’t a good thing. I was pretty clear to voice my concerns. On top of that though, was the fact that I hadn’t ever really used that zombie drug, if that’s what it was. I tried to play on Sarah’s nurse empathy to get her to agree with me. There was no way I should take some unknown drug. She just sat there quietly.

My other concern was that, even if the drug worked, what was I supposed to do? Dream with them? My ‘conversation’ with the cave zombies wasn’t really very straightforward. I actually hadn’t any idea what it all meant. And, during that whole time, I was passed out. Or at least I think I was. I can’t even confirm that.

So after all that, I decided to use my group imposed leadership status to just veto that idea right there. I wasn’t going to go all voodoo and try to use the zombies. Not that way. Instead, Tague and I would stick to our original plan and try to draw the zombies back. If we could get enough of them to cause trouble for the fort Liberte men, then maybe we stood a chance.

As we walked off, I had one odd thought keep coming back to me. What if they just controlled the zombies that we drew back to the village and used them against us? Horrible thought. I wasn’t about to say it out loud. I’m fairly certain they all had the same thought though.

Tague and I set off right away that day. We had to get out there to track down the runaway zombies and start bringing them back before the second night. Blevin decided to go out on his own down the mountain to try to scout out the number of men Malachi was bringing. I have to admit, when he first mentioned that, I laughed a bit. This huge guy, who made a habit of screaming and laughing loudly when he tore through zombies just didn’t fit my motif of a stealthy silent scout. Problem was with my line of thinking, well, that I was usually wrong about these kinds of things. And, it really was a very good idea.

So off we went. Those left behind would get the ambush ready. Maxie gave out walkies to everyone, but it wasn’t a given if we’d even be able to communicate to each other through the hills and forest. Still, we would try.

I don’t really have details on how the group at the village prepared or how Blevin did on his scouting. It’s been a really quiet day here on the boat today. I’m still getting weird looks. Heck, I’m still giving myself weird looks, if that were possible. Mentally, I am.

Tague and I trekked out of the village headed south on the road. We really weren’t quite sure how and where we’d find our runaway zombies. The road led us down the mountain towards a larger city near the coast. If we used zombie logic, as if there were any, they’d probably use that path down, as it was the one of least resistance. The road intersected the small path we had used to come up from the boat, and where, presumably, Malachi’s men would come from. We went past that and headed down towards the city. We found a few stragglers, I think four, that first day, but they essentially ignored us. Besides, we needed more than that. We needed to find the main horde. So we left those behind and moved on. Towards that night, we tried radioing in, but were unable to reach anyone. We stopped at a small shack overlooking a valley and settled in.

We got to talking that night. It was different though, because this time around, it was Tague asking the questions and talking in general. I really liked Tague. When I first met him, he was the oddball. Yeah, he was a foreigner, not just in nationality, but in the way he thought. He was analytical, logical. He was the Spock of our group. He was a genuinely good guy. Of course, he was probably the one that would kill me if it would save the group.

But he was probably the quietest guy in our group. He always answered any questions we had and gave his input if needed, but he very rarely just, chit-chatted. He just wasn’t that guy. Because of that, or in spite of it, he just seemed to have a better understanding of everything going on. Everything made sense to him, because he found a way to make it make sense. The thing was, where I thought myself logical because I was not religious, and thought that’s why, Tague could see everything. I had never heard him rant on religion nor claim any faith. I thought I was an open minded guy, but Tague was really the most of us. Everything was always an option for him, where really, all the rest of us, had our biases.

I think maybe that’s why I always enjoyed talking to him. He was like that smart older brother that had the answers for any questions you had. Always. So when we had eaten that night and he started asking me all sorts of questions about, well, all the zombie stuff, I let it all out. I told him everything. I even showed him the little pouch of dust. That was when I first realized there was more dust there than first time I had looked in the pouch.

Things were very hard for me to understand, much less explain.

So we talked.

When the comet had first been spotted, Tague was part of the reporting group that brought the story to the news. He was also there when they found out the comet was going to hit earth. He had traveled the world with his reporters as they went from scientific group to scientific group trying to get the latest idea about how to defend Earth from the comet. He made many connections that way.

Then we hit the comet, it worked, we were safe and the sky turned green. Tague was still in Spain at the time when he started making phone calls to those same scientists to try to get answers. The problem was, the world was still recovering from near disaster. Most people had shut down everything, and Tague thinks that’s why we were so unprepared for the zombies. We were so relieved the comet hadn’t obliterated Earth that when the skies turned green, we were like, ‘whatever, that can’t be bad’. I remember one TV news report that talked about bugs in the atmosphere, but that was literally hours before the TV station went offline from the zombie chaos. Here’s what sucked about it, I don’t think I had ever thought about it again.

The world fell apart at that point. The biggest priority for nearly every human being at the time was to avoid the zombies, especially since the sky wasn’t green anymore. I was tucked away in my mountain hideout in complete safety and never gave it another thought. So I sat there that night, rubbing a bit of that dust between my fingers and we started talking.

Tague pointed out something completely obvious. A destroyed comet had deposited something on our planet that specifically targeted human beings. Logic would dictate that something like that wouldn’t happen. A foreign life form from outer space that targeted mankind and was able to operate their bodies after death was far too specific. It might have been coincidence before, but now, maybe not. My little out of body had shown that there was evidence of this zombie plague long before Deadfall had come. There was also a substance here on Earth, which was directly linked to the zombies. Abraham had been able to influence the actions of the zombies and was claiming I could too.

Of course, being able to explain any of that was impossible. Tague thought we needed to find out if we could. That would be the solution to the zombie problem.

I have to admit, when he said that, I laughed. He was one hundred percent serious though. To me though, it was impossible. I was just a normal guy. I was NOT the save the world kind of guy. Heck, what I knew from history was that there was no such thing as one person saving the world. The world was too big, there was too much in it. One guy simply couldn’t. I told Tague that very thing. Then he hit me with a two ton brick. He said we had to try.

Damn him being right.

We needed to find someone who could explain the dust. I certainly didn’t know anyone, and while Tague might have known someone, at some point, there was no way he could find them now. Maybe someone among the military back in North Carolina could help. We continued trying to connect the dots through the night. Tague remembered that really vague reference about Inanna, the ancient epic of Gilgamesh and the queen of the dead. That was made further weirder with those guys who called themselves the followers of Inanna. Then, to top it off, I had a few pages of that Words of the Voice. All of it was tied in.

I had a mission. A purpose. I think that’s why I have been in such a good mood. We had to get back to North Carolina and find out what all of this was.

I might not be in a good mood if I could remember what happened after all that. Problem is that I don’t. All I remember is waking up last night.

Here is what Tague told me.

We were talking about all the stuff I just wrote down. It was getting late and we were contemplating calling it a night. Tague got his stuff out to sleep and when he looked back at me, I was still sitting there. He called out my name, but I didn’t answer; just sat there, staring. He got close and noticed a dust mark across my face, right across my left eye. It was the silvery dust. I still had some on my fingers, and must have accidentally wiped some across my face, right into my eye.

I don’t remember any visions, or even any attempts to ‘talk’ to the zombies like Abraham had suggested. Tague sat with me all night as I was just in that state. Very early that morning, before the sun started to rise, I got up and started walking. Tague quickly picked everything up, including my stuff, and began to follow me. I was just walking back north up the road, back towards the village.

Tague followed me. Apparently it wasn’t too hard, as I was going at a slow pace. He tried waking me up out of my sleeping ambulatory state. Yes, I was sleepwalking. He threw water in my face, slapped my cheeks, and yelled at me. None of it worked. I have the marks to prove he tried, too. I didn’t stop, didn’t slow down or speed up. I just kept walking north. Just a few miles out of the village, Tague said he could hear gunshots in the distance and knew that the village was under attack. According to him, I stopped there too.