Deadfall: Survivors (17 page)

All I can remember is the sharp pain drowning out my vision
, and I'm sure I just crumpled to the ground. When I looked up one last time, all I could see was a man, sneering over me, and then a motion with his gun. Then it was all black.

I came to somewhere dark, with some light coming in through a window somewhere. My eye felt swollen, my face sore beyond anything I could think of. I tried swallowing, but found that I couldn’t; it was either too dry or too swollen, I don’t know. It took me some time for my mind to even register what was going on. When I remembered what had happened, I tried shouting out for Chris and tried to sit up.

They had tied me to a pipe in whatever this building was. One of the soldiers was sitting by a door, just looking at me. When I looked around, I saw Chris and Megan, tied up and gagged as well. Chris looked at me, fear in his eyes. That’s when I realized I was gagged as well. That would have gave me a reason for why my tongue wouldn’t work right.

The soldier at the door shouted something, tilting his head towards the door. Within what seemed like an eternity, the other two came in. One was laughing
, and the other had a crazed, yet terrified look on his face. His eyes were red, bloodshot and he kept swallowing. The other one, the one that had hit me, had a calm look, as if nothing was going on.

They began talking about what to do, and they talked about just killing us. My heart raced. I had survived my
parents slaughter, and here I was going to be killed by our own soldiers and I had no idea why. If my eyes could have worked, I know I would have been in tears. But what came next only made death easier. The crazed look soldier began to take his pants off, and started laughing. He said that “if I was going to die, I might as well better die fucking.” At that point, I looked at Megan, and we both knew what was about to happen.

I recoiled instantly, bringing my legs up to my chest as best as I could, but I had a fear deep inside that I wouldn’t be able to fight them off. Megan was crying
a muffled “no” through her gag, and Chris was just starting to understand. They were going to make him watch, or they simply didn’t care. Something had snapped inside of these men. The soldier by the door stood up and said not to do it, but the calm one told him to fuck off. “You can have the boy if you’re such a faggot.” I looked at the soldier by the door, trying to get his eyes to connect with mine, but he refused to look at us.

At that moment, I wondered if death would be easier.

At first, I tried not watching, as the crazed look soldier slapped Megan a few times, then tried dragging her legs out, ripping at her clothes as she screamed and tried to kick back. When she landed a good kick, he punched her hard, knocking her groggy. Her eyes rolled back white, and she was at his will. He went at her, yelling and screaming as if he was a mad dog. I crunched myself up as far as possible, knowing I would be next. I was so ashamed, because I kept thinking that maybe he’d not want more after Megan, that he wouldn’t want me.

After he finished, he stood up,
pantless, laughing hysterically. Megan started coming to, crying. She was bleeding, a stream a blood dripping off her chin. I was crying myself. He was looking at her, asking her if she liked it. “Did you like your last fuck?” He kept shouting that over and over, and Megan just kept crying. Then, before I could even blink, he pulled out a gun, put it straight to her head, and shot.

The calm soldier remained that
; calm, while the other soldier quickly stood up and started shouting. The crazed soldier just turned, almost tripping over his pants and kept laughing. “It’s ok, I hit her in the head, she won’t turn.” They began to argue, but I could barely see out of my swollen up eyes. All I could see in my mind was that they would rape me next, and then kill me as well. I tried looking at Chris, but couldn’t see him; the crazed soldier was in the way.

I don’t know how long they argued. The calm soldier sat down where the other one had been sitting by the door, and began smoking a cigarette
, while the other two kept arguing. Sometime after that though, all three jumped up, facing the door, guns pointed. Something crashed through the lone window, and I swear I could see arms reaching through.

At that point, things got confusing. The crazed soldier shouted something, put the gun to his own head, and shot
himself, falling over on top of Megan’s body. The calm soldier began walking over to me, and raised his gun at me when a few more gun shots rang out and he came crashing down on top of me. The other soldier rolled him off and began cutting off my zip ties. I sat there, in stunned silence and he did the same with Chris. He gave me a set of keys and drug me up to my feet. He told me he would open the door, and run out shooting to try to get us to their truck. He would keep shooting and I was to drive.

It was all happening so quickly. He opened the door
, and three zombies were right there. The soldier quickly shot them down, shooting their heads. As we stepped out into the open, the bright light dazed me completely and I just began running. I could hear gunshots behind me and when my eyes cleared up, I had almost run into the truck. I jumped in blindly, fumbling at the keys, putting them in the ignition, and starting the truck. I looked beside me, and found Chris already in the passenger seat, but when I looked around for the soldier, he wasn’t in the truck. I looked behind me and to the right and I saw him, outside, shooting at what appeared to be a huge mob of those things.

This time, I didn’t think twice. I slammed on the gas and peeled out of there. This time, I wasn’t ashamed. For all I know, he was just trying to save me for himself later.

I don’t know how to describe the next couple of months. We drove and drove, until we ran out of gas. We hid in houses that were empty, eating whatever food was there. We went without food many times, days at a time. We barely slept. I had a gun that I had from the army truck that I took, but I was so afraid to shoot it and make more of them show up.

We stole cars and would drive, but if we saw zombies ahead, we always ditched the car and walked. We kept going north. We went through Atlanta, moving through the town a few blocks at a time. I have no idea how long it took, but eventually, we made it out of that dead city. I don’t know how many people we saw die, or how many dead people we saw alive. I just know that once we were out of that city, we vowed to just stay in the countryside.

So we kept traveling, mostly north. And then, we were in Charlotte. We were staying in a house near the interstate. We didn’t want to go deep into the city, so we stayed on the outskirts and we would go to different houses to find food and bring them back. During one of those times, one of them must have seen us, because it followed us back and almost got inside, but Chris shot it with the gun. He didn’t kill it, but instead, we were trapped in there, because every zombie nearby came towards us.

You found us there. It had been a few days. I just know we had no water and no food left over. I had really thought hard about just killing myself, but Chris just kept saying that it would be ok. How could
I even think about killing myself if he had any sense of optimism? So we waited, not sleeping at night because of the awful sound those things make when they’re  walking around.

I'm here.
We’re  here. You don’t know what my face looked like for a while, but the scars are still there.

When those soldiers asked us if we had anything to offer, I stammered, I couldn’t answer.

I can answer now.

Entry 29 – Choices
[28]

Tague and Chris are off this morning. They packed up really early. I was up and about, a lot on my mind. Chris seemed quite excited, ready for time on his own perhaps, away from the protective sister. Nothing wrong with either wanting to be out of the protection, as well as the protection itself. I asked Tague to check in tonight if he could, but once they had been gone, I realized I had forgotten to give him one of the radios. They should be fine. Tague is probably the most experienced person among us in dealing with, well, everything.

I also gave him a tablet. I asked him to write down the work that he was doing over there, what he discovered, and, anything else he wanted to tell me about himself. I think I actually winked
, too, when I said it. I have no idea what goes on in my head sometimes. The look he gave me said it all. I wonder if he had disdain for me, because I'm an American or simply because I say stupid things. He’s a good guy, though. I think a lot of what will happen to us, will be because of what he can do.

So now I'm sitting here.
I’ve  upgraded to a tablet, a digital tablet. If I ever go out again, I will take one along with a normal paper pad, but around here, where I can keep it charged, I will use one. It’s so much easier on my fingers and hands, plus it has a few other features, such as the ability to record voice and even take pictures. I thought about taking pictures of everyone, but haven’t really gotten around to it. Not sure what purpose it serves.

But, there is a far greater issue
here that I think, subconsciously, I’m  trying to avoid by writing too much about other things.

Last night, as I was just
lying in my room, I was startled by a knock on the door. It was Heather. She looked, well, terrible, as if she had just had a nightmare. She was sweaty, hair was messed up, and her eyes were red, swollen with tears. I was alarmed, thinking she had gotten hurt somehow. She asked if she could come in, and I said of course. She came in and sat down on one of the two chairs in the room. I had the lights turned down quite dim, so I didn’t notice that she had something in her hands.

Paper.

She had taken the paper I had given her, and written down on it, and she handed it over to me. I sat down on the other chair, set down my tablet, and started leafing through the papers. Thankfully, the voice recorder was on, so I still have the actual conversation of what happened last night. I will use it as faithfully as I can here.

“What is this?”

Heather
“It’s  what brought us here. I thought you might want to know.”

I was stunned, actually. Then I was morbidly curious. Knowing what I know now, I hate having felt so
childish. It was like the first time you see the picture of a dead body on the internet, you just want to see it because your mind has created an image for you, but you need the actual proof. But once you see it, it’s surreal, and normal, at the same time. I know I’m not the only one that has wanted to know what happened to the pair, Heather and Chris, that whatever has happened to them had to be far more brutal than anything anyone else had experienced.

My stupid and silly curiosity was quickly tossed aside. As I read, and her story got grittier and darker, I sank deeper into my chair. The one solitary light felt like an interrogation light, beamed right at my eyes. How did my survival even come close to comparing to hers? Attacked by both the living and the dead? Seeing someone raped
, and then sure it would happen to her? And the decision to leave the soldier that had freed her behind.

I was stunned. I
t didn’t take me long to read it. Now I understood why she looked like she had when I had first opened the door. She had just relived her nightmares, probably repeatedly, as she thought about what to write. My whole thinking about everything here was wrong. I figured that since I was lucky to have survived in comfort, and without the pain of losing anyone or witnessing the horror of mutilation, that I could somehow pass that one to the others, especially by bringing them here. I was, am, clueless. I have brought broken people here, survivors yes, stoic in some, quiet in others, yet broken in their own way. And some, more than others, even if they don’t show it or if they do. And here I am thinking that food and a bed will make everything better.

I didn’t have much before the comet
; a simple job, no girlfriend, family other than my dad. The thought that my mother is dead somewhere, or wandering around as a zombie, doesn’t make me flinch at all. In fact, it might make me smile a bit. But these people have lost husbands, wives, children, fathers, parents, and friends. They have lost their innocence and their will to live. If anything, they are the real zombies.

It’s no wonder they “look” up to me. To them, I am normal. I don’t have the look of pain and loss in my eyes. To them, I am still alive. A sad excuse, but alive none the less. I am their link to the living, and just how am I supposed to bring them to it? Heather herself, from what I’ve read, she seems the most troubled of them all. How would I even attempt to heal that?

Matters got worse. When I finished reading it all, in my stunned and stupefied silence, I put the papers down and looked to her, just as she was getting up from the chair.

“I, I don’t know what to say. I'm so sorry.”

She just stood there, tears still fresh in her eyes, just not rolling down her cheeks anymore.

And then she began to take her shirt off.

My stunned silence changed to shocked silence. It took me just a moment to register what she thought she was doing. I had read it in her story. As she took her shirt off, pulling it over her brown hair, my heart skipped. She tossed it aside, and looked me straight in the eye as she began to remove her bra. My heart was racing way too fast for my brain to keep up. I knew exactly what was going to happen, but I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to think. I had to stop her, but those voices from that dark animal part of my brain just kept growing louder and louder with every moment. When she began to lower her pants, finally, the more human part of me kicked in.

“What are you doing?”

Heather
“I don’t know how to do anything. But I can still be useful.”

“What? No. You don’t have to do that, with me, that is. That. Just.
STOP.”

She had gotten herself
undressed down to her underwear.

“Heather, you don’t have to do anything at all. Just live. No one is asking anything of you.
I’m  really sorry those soldiers did that to you, made you see what you did. But you don’t have to be that here. My goodness. (stammering) Just, put on, put on, uh, here, just put it on.”

She looked at me,
then collapsed to her knees in front of me. What was I to do? I quickly stripped the blanket off of my bed, and threw it around her to cover her up. It’s funny how stress and the horrors of our existence at the moment can make one forget the simple things in life. I kept seeing her nearly naked in my mind and she was, is, so beautiful. Broken, but beautiful. And then I had to shake that image from my mind. There was no way I could take advantage of her, even if I was a complete sucker for women. Those soldiers, in their desperation at the end of their lives, had killed one person and nearly destroyed another one’s mind. There was no way I could do that.

So what could I do? I just dropped down there on her level
, and put my arms around her, hugged her, tightly. Seems rather, goofy, corny, but it was something I remember from when I was young. My mother had stood in the kitchen, yelling at my father for being a failure. I was maybe four, I'm not sure, and had of course, adored my mother, without knowing who she really was. She blamed him for her lack of a life, and told him she would never be back and that she would never want to see him again. Then she looked me straight in the eye, and told my father to keep me, because I looked too much like him, that I’d probably end up like him. After she had left, my father hadn’t said anything, but had hugged me, as tightly and strongly as I could take, while I cried in confusion.  So I did what I learned from the only person that showed me love, and I hugged.

She melted into me, shaking in sobs. She mixed in things like “
they’re all gone” and “why?” amidst her cries of anguish. Among her sobs, I began thinking about what I had put away in the back of my mind; my father. I had used my subterranean fortress to hide the fact that I had lost him, just like everyone else had lost someone. I had used my solitary hikes through the peaks of the Pisgah National Forest in order to occupy my mind with things other than thinking about him. I was ignoring his memory, his words. He had built this place to live, to survive.

“We have to remember them all.”

She stopped crying at that point and just leaned into my chest. I held her close.

“We need to live, for them. We are a hope, for them, for their memories.”

Heather
“They’re gone.”

“No, they live through us. They don’t if we just give up.”

I don’t know how long we sat there. I just kept her close to me. She had calmed down and for a moment, I thought she had fallen asleep. I thought a lot. We couldn’t just survive here, we had to live. We had to live as if we had a purpose, each one of us, even if that purpose was a simple one. We all had to find that purpose.

Heather
“I’m thirsty.”

Right now, my purpose was to get a drink for her. I told her I’d be right back
, and I went rushing to the kitchen. I have no idea if anyone else was out there, although I doubt it. I poured out a glass of orange juice, something far more comforting than just plain water. I brought it back to her and she was still sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed, still covered in the blanket. I had kind of hoped she would have gotten dressed, but the clothes were still tossed aside. I gave her the cup and sat back down next to her. After drinking it, she leaned over and put her head on my shoulder.

Heather
“It’s so quiet in here. I hope I didn’t wake anyone up.”

“The rooms are quite soundproof. I doubt anyone heard anything.”

I reached over and grabbed the tablet, hitting play on a random selection of music. The title came up as Sonho Dourado by a group called Explosions in the Sky. It was surprisingly soothing. Very few things seem random these days. My father’s music though. This is the kind of thing he listened to.

Heather
“What should I do?”

“I think you could…”

Heather
“Should I tell everyone?”

“Only you can decide that. I think you might find them quite understanding.”

Heather
“I'm the only crazy one. Even Chris seems fine.”

“Probably only dealing with it in his own way.
A teenager way.”

(Pause)

Heather
“You can let them read it then, if you think it would be ok.”

“I’ll do that, then.”

Heather
“I think I’d rather this, tonight, that they didn’t know. I don’t need them to think…”

“I won’t say a thing. Be our little secret.”

Heather
“I'm so sorry. I can’t believe what you must think of me now.”

“I think
you’ve  gone through a lot. A lot more than me, that’s for sure. Besides, you gave my heart a kick start. Haven't felt this, alive, in a long time. I guess that comes from being alone.”

Heather
(Turning to look at me
)
“What do you mean?”

Never could be honest enough to say that for a split second, I had actually thought about it.

“Just that it was quite a bit for me in a very short notice. And stuff. Just wasn’t expecting a strip dance tonight. I haven’t gotten around to installing a dance pole in here.”
(I was really hoping humor was ok at the moment.)

She may have actually smiled, but I didn’t catch it all out of the corner of my eye. Glad at least my inane stammering made someone smile.

Heather
“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Before I could say anything, she must have read my confused mind.

Heather
“I’ll put my clothes on, I promise. It’s just that, Chris is leaving early in the morning, and I’ve  always slept with someone, him, for what seems like an eternity. I think I’d feel better. And I like the music.”

“Sure.
Of course. Ill drag another bed in here.”

Heather
“Actually, I was going to ask, for that hug again. All night, just stop me, it felt good.”

Maybe I took it too far with that, but it had felt good. Clothes were on at least, and she smelled so
amazingly good, even if maybe she actually didn’t.

I probably only got three or four hours of sleep last night, but I feel completely rested.