Episode 3.0 - The crows

Episode Credits:

Amanda Hufford as Hannah

Abigail Turner as Cali

Writing and Sound Design by Damian Szydlo

Sensitivity and Script Reading by Mak Shepard

TRANSCRIPT

FADE IN

[Scene opens to the sound of frantic running through some leaves]

HANNAH

[panicked, trying to stop zombie-her from chasing headlong after something]

“No, no, no… no, Hannah. No! Stop!

They’ve really done it this time! Oh, no. This is not happening. I cannot even express how from good this is. Like if good was a person, this would be the bizarro version of said person and probably that duplicate would have a goatee. Never trust a twin that mysteriously shows up out of nowhere sporting a goatee.

I’m rambling. Okay, since I’m not exactly going to be able to stop her anytime soon… let me explain what it is that you just walked into, dear listener. In short, It’s crows. It’s the flippin’ crows! Again!

That doesn’t really clear anything up at all, does it? Alright, trying to calm down is hard while zombie-me charges headlong into possible disaster… but I’m going to try. For the good of us both. As the great Jack Nicholson might have said in a movie that has without a doubt gone unreferenced since the apocalypse happened: Goosfraba. Goooosfraba. [tries to shake off the panic]. Okay, I can concede that movies in the 2000’s were kind of weird.

Anyway, back to the crows. I don’t know if you know this but crows are incredibly intelligent animals. As far as animals go.  They’re cunning little cleptomaniacs with long memories. My mom taught me when I was a little girl that if you left little baubles or food offerings out for the crows they’d actually remember it. You could essentially befriend them, working your way into their complex social dynamic! It was really wonderful, actually. When you get in with them, you get in with them for life. You basically join the gang. If you REALLY get in with them, you get in for multiple lives because they teach their… crow children? No, that’s not right. Their crow chicks… to love you. Crows aren’t above letting you buy their love.

Conversely, if you make them angry; If you steal from them… If you hurt them… they also remember you. Except instead of being their pal, they remember you as an enemy and teach their children to hate you. Come to think of it… humans might have more in common with crows then I thought? Anyway, that’s a topic for when I’m not rushing through the forest as fast as my untied, pink chucks can take me. If those little devils hate you… well they can be real buggers to people they don’t like. Especially, as it seems, to zombie girls that they have beef with. Sometimes they fly down and peck at us. Or, dive bomb us without warning… which pretty much just sets ‘her’ off because of course somehow, like the crows, zombie-me seems to hate them right back. Today though, they’ve raised the rivalry to new heights. Do you remember that deflated old balloon she really likes? The one that was hanging on the telephone pole over on Garside? Well, they took it.

I’ve never seen her attention so locked on anything. She’s MAD, listener… and we’re both along for the ride until either they drop the balloon or she gets herself some crow du jour. Which is why, I suspect, that it was hard for me to calm down just now. Just like how I can sometimes get her to do things… to influence her… sometimes her ‘feelings’ gurgle back up the proverbial pipe to me.

This is very not good though. One of the things that makes zombies so dangerous is that as far as I know, we don’t actually get tired. We’d chase you for days if we had the attention span to do so. Fortunately for mankind, we’re easily tricked and trust me, we hate that. So this could go on forever.

[running stops, heavy, ragged zombie breathing]

Well, I’ve never been right so fast! I mean at least in regards to the short attention span! Yes! She’s lost track of them. Ha, zombie-me! Crows win again! Which is also a win for Hannah. Huge bonus: I will never, ever have to deal with her scrambling after that balloon again. Now maybe we can get back to… 

[cut off by the sound of robot horn/siren, zombie-hannah is confused at the sound]

Oh no. This just went from bad to good to worse. Please don’t tell me that was for us. Please, please please. Remember the sound I told you about before? That the robots make? That was it. Just… Just stay still Hannah. Listen for the next one before you move. Do this for me, girl. Just… hold on.

[A second blast of the dreadful sound rings out, farther away this time - sounds of energy weapons fire in the distance - the cry of crows echo through the forest]

Oh my God, It’s the crows! They’re after the crows! [relieved] We’re not in their territory. At least not yet… but we’re so close. 

[sounds of Hannah running again]

Aaaaand we’re running again. Back ‘from whence we came’, at least. Whew! I guess it’s probably pretty safe to say that zombie-me has a memory similar to those damned birds. Oh! Ummm Sorry… for the cursing… What I mean to say is that I guess she remembers that sound and what it means because she’s REALLY not having any of it. It’s actually wild that I only just realized that this is the closest she’s ever come back to where ‘it’ happened… to where we lost the others. Does that mean… she… that she remembers? 

Wait. Hold on a minute, this is a really weird, kind of difficult revelation that I’m not exactly sure on how to process. So hear me out as I work through this and for a moment, put yourself in my place, if you will. I’ve been bored out of my actual mind for what amounts to decades. On most days the only thing I’ve had going on in my life is the ongoing continuation of an observational study based on the daily behavior of the world’s loneliest zombie. I thought I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about her. I guess I’d kind of settled into a spot where I figured she was like… some big ol’ doggo or something? She likes being happy. She kind of has the same learned behaviors she repeats over and over while the holes in her behavior are filled in by a surplus of instinct. Like a wild animal. She’s never, not once, displayed that she actually ‘remembers’ anything. Or at least that she has feelings that are associated with anything that doesn’t essentially amount to more than a response to instant gratification. Like the balloon. Until now.

She’s… She’s afraid.

FADE OUT

CALI

Cali, reporting in. Again. I’ve reported more in the last couple days than I have in months. Whatever. Dear Diary, close call taking that Sarnia off-route. I’m not going to bag on myself for making the route shift; there was no way to tell that I’d find what I found out there. Long story short, ran into a gang of scavers set up around the outskirts of Detroit. Like I said before, normally wouldn’t have taken the long way around but I’m ‘glad’ I did. At least so that we can mark the hazard.

Not a lot of difference between these types and the Raiders these days. Used to be there was. Scaver clans were usually the first step to the founding of new settlements. They band together out of necessity, mostly. Families of scroungers and salvagers grouping up to make a living in between killzones; trading their finds to whoever they came across out there. As a rule scavers are usually nomadic but more and more we’re seeing them settling areas that aren’t the kind of hospitable ground a successful clan would normally put down stakes at… so it’s probably safer to say they’re bunkering in. 

As it turns out, most of these clans were only a few weapons away from realizing ‘taking’ what they need is an easier life than sifting through a bunch of ruins for artifacts. Maybe they just get tired. It’s not an easy life, pulling your family around to peddle scraps to the settlements. Still though, not sure if all that is worth giving up your humanity for. Something changes in you when you come to terms with how much a human lifes worth.

Grim topic for a cloudy morning, I know. Well, the specifics might just turn that around. At least I found it pretty fucking funny.

So there I was in high gear, banking off some debris for fun when I popped up over a broken overpass and almost ran straight over their lookout. Guy would have been windshield paste if not for my excellent, no, ‘supernatural’ reflexes. He was armed with an old rifle and I’m pretty sure that he might have taken a shot at yours truly if I hadn’t… well… caught him in a compromising position. Yeah. He was Squatting over, pants around his ankles and leaning hard on said rifle for support; so an off route Land Spinner was the last thing he’d expected to deal with before while trying to pass his morning shit. Scared him enough that he lost his balance, took a good tumble, too. Last glimpse I got of him, he was rolling around the ground half naked, trying to get a bead on me. Really wish the windows slid down on this thing. Would have loved to add literal insult to injury. Here’s to missed opportunities!

Anyway, that’s the report. Detroits even less safe now, and way too far away from Golden Gate for us to do anything about it. Maybe we can get ahold of Ann Arbour and see if they have the manpower to spare? I doubt they can manage it militarily. Who knows, maybe they can figure things out. More settlements, less raiders… it’s the only way we get to move past this post-apocalypse as a species.

Cali, signing off.

FADE OUT