Deadfall: Hunters by Richard Flunker

individual handle actual combat with Limps?
    “We understand that fighting against zombies can be quite unnerving. It is critical that each person in a unit be completely at ease with fighting them, face to face at times, without flinching.” Evan Steers.
    Steers and the other commanders have come up with a plan for training against live Limps.
    Better yet, dead Limps.
    Gracie Adams
     
     

Cape Fear Weekly

What Are They?
    Military studies their enemy
     
    Soldiers have been spotted recently making boat runs over to Fort Fisher in order to capture Limps. A statement from Admiral Gurtz explains why they are doing this.
    “We are in a state of war against an enemy that is completely unlike any we have ever faced in humanity. While we understand the grave dangers in dealing with these creatures, it is critical that we understand how they work so that we may better fight them. For this reason, we have engaged special units to capture these creatures from Carolina Beach and bring them over to ships we have designated for their study. We are ensure that the greatest of safety and caution is followed so that no additional lives be put at risk.” Admiral Gurtz.
    The military command has designated our new enemies as Living Impaired, or Limps. To the rest of us, they go by many different names. Walkers, biters, shamblers, undead or just the dead, are among the many common names used. Beyond those names though, they have a name commonly used in culture: zombies.
    Our culture adapted the word zombie from voodoo culture in Haiti: Zombi. In voodoo, a sorcerer or witch doctor used spells to reanimate the dead to serve him. Those that tried to research this phenomena never found anything conclusive. On occasions, it seemed highly psychoactive drugs were used to reduce a living person to a zombie like state.
    Zombies became a part of normal American culture due to their use in books and movies, depicted in a large variety of ways, from magic and evil sources to biological sources.
    What we do know of our current zombies, the real ones, is that there is some correlation to the arrival of the pieces of the comet Deadfall, the green skies, and the rising of dead bodies about a month after that event. We also know that scientists were busy at attempting to discover what the source of our green skies was, but we have no records to go on after the rapid demise of civilization.
    We hope that with this new research that we are able to better understand this menace, and more importantly, attempt to find a way to fight it.
    Gracie Adams             
     

Cape Fear Weekly

Fighting Zombies
    Training against zombies begins
     
    Evan Steers sits on a bench on the far side of one of the practice fields along the Cape Fear River, smoking a cigarette. It has been a long day, but he seems content with the results. It was the first full day of training against real zombies and Steers and his unit has been extremely busy. As he sits there, the two individuals who have the role of flank auxiliary, the two individuals that guard the flanks of the phalanx, are walking around ensuring that all of the zombies are dead.
    Steers and the other unit commanders spent some time last week working on several boats which they transformed into zombie traps. Small motorized boats with large cages built onto them would go over to Carolina Beach and wait for the multitudes of zombies to board. The boat driver was easily protected by a zombie cage, as one would use a shark cage. Twenty to thirty zombies were brought over on each boat and dumped onto the shore under the careful watch of several armed soldiers.
    This first day there was no phalanx training. Instead, individuals from each unit were tasked with destroying zombies one on one. This was done in order for them to understand zombie physiology and most importantly, to allow the individual to get used to being face to face with the enemy without breaking. For nearly six hours, individuals rotated in and