Prologue: Week 4
Opening with static followed by a wrench being tightened.
The static fades
Gabe:
Come on, Gabe. Come On.
Ah hell! Why is that on fire?
You know Mom if you were here you could have fixed this
Loud clattering noise
Gabe:
What is wrong with you, Gabe. Anyone could have fixed this stupid thing by now.
You stupid – sound cut off by clattering and static while gabe curses
You wanna live? You need help you need to-
Static cuts in then fades out
Gabe:
panting
Come on man, come on
Static pops in and out
Come on, come on, come, on.
Static then stops suddenly
Wait.
Gasps of surprise
Wait.
Why are you blinking
Are
Are you on?
Joyous laughter high fiving himself
Clears throat
Hello!
Followed by feedback and echoing the word “Hello”
Gabe crying out in pain and shock
Gabe:
Uh. Oh ok.
Too much bring it back
Static
Ok uhm. Got it.
Pants from exhaustion
It’s working
They can hear-
They can hear me.
I can’t believe
I can’t
I can’t believe
Wait..
They can (pause) hear me.
Aw Shi-
Static
Static fades
Gabe clears throat
Gabe:
Levels seem to be good.
This is definitely going to be huge drain on the batter.
Going to have to find more cells to charge.
But this is progress
Sighs
I’m set to make my first broadcast
Uhm
Now what do I say?
Should I write a script?
nah I’ll just wing it.
You know past Gabe?
I think this was an excellent use of my time.
Take that!
Future Gabe will thank us.
Accomplished sigh followed by a sudden click.
Episode 1: Week 5
Static fades to low hum of pops and sizzles throughout the episode
Gabe:
Hello?
Can anyone hear me
Is anyone receiving this?
This is Gabriel Blythe.
I am alive, I am in the Salt Lake area.
I
Pause
Repeat
My name is Gabriel Blyth.
I’m in the Salt Lake Area
And I…
Am alive.
I can’t be the only one with two cents in their brain after what happened
Everyone is just shambling around
They’re just..
They’re just Mindless
I know I can’t be the only one who somehow missed whatever’s affected everyone else.
If you can hear this, you’re - you’re not alone!
Defeated sigh
Maybe you can’t respond right now.
It must have taken me a few weeks to set this damn thing up.
Just to read out to you or anyone else who might be able to turn on a radio.
Cause that’s what all the kids know how to do.
Set up a CB radio.
Sighs
So if you can hear me…
I think we need to meet up.
We’ll be strong in numbers
And its’ important that we find each other and stick together
Our chances of surviving what… whatever this miss is, only goes up if we work together.
If we find each other
I have some food.
Food that is gonna last awhile.
I can share. We can go out for more and watch each others back
Or
Chuckles
I’m not doing a good job of convincing you.
I am pretty good with tech stuff.
Anything I read I grasp pretty quickly
Not just computers and mobiles
But solar panels
Uhm
And generators
And
Laughs
Radios… ish
Uhm
Point is.
I have some useful skills and I’m sure I can’t do everything myself.
What strengths do you have?
Pauses
This is the part where you tell me something.
Jeez, Gabe.
Everything goes sideways in a couple of weeks and you’re already talking to yourself.
Great!
Clears throat
Just in case you can hear
Just case my words aren’t falling on deaf ears
For king and country, we need to stick together
If you can hear me.
Come find me!
I’m going to go out so that way I can be found!
Hopefully not by the
Searches for a word then sighs
What do we call them?
Scoffs
Never mind
I’m going to make it so you can find me.
But where?
All the films say you shouldn’t reveal your headquarters…
Hums thinking
OH!
Here we go.
I will be at the stadium.
Tomorrow.
Uhm
I think that’s Wednesday?
From noon to 18:00
Or maybe you don’t have a clock!
Of course
Power has been pretty inconsistent since…
Why do I have to be the one to come up with all these names
Sighs
All right.
Let’s go cliché
Electricity has been pretty much nonexistent since the…
Said with a flair of sarcasm
The Event.
So maybe I gotta figure
Maybe you can’t tell the exact time
According to this almanac
Uh about 18:00 is when we get sunset
So…
From about midday to sunset
And I just realized I sound like a total nob.
Sorry.
I shouldn’t assume you don’t have power
Or you don’t know when sunset is.
It’s a thing I do.
I don’t want my weird quriks to push you away.
I promise I have good…
Quirks too?
That seems like the dumbest thing anyone has ever said.
Sighs
Good thing it’s the end of the world.
Clearly my self esteem isn’t one of my strong suits.
But nothing we need to worry about right now, right?
Unless you’re a proper therapist and that’s your skill set which may not be the best-
Loud power down noise followed by a generator starts whirring up
Gabe:
ah Geeze
I haven’t talked in awhile and I drain most of my battery already
I should have written that script
OK deal with that later.
quick recap
I am alive
I’m not affected by
Again the worst name over
The Event.
I have electricity
I have food
And I figure our odds of surviving this are better if we work together.
So if you are alive
And that sounds really dismissive too…
Them
Anyways.
Salt Lake area stadium
From midday to sunset
18:00 hours or so
To-tomorrow
If it’s safe, make your way there.
We can meet up and work together and survive this…
If I call it, what is it makes it all too real
We can survive this situation
Yeah...
If I don’t get a response and I don’t see you.
I’m going to reach out again and again and again.
Maybe no one is hearing me yet.
But I can’t be the only one.
I sure as hell don’t wanna do this alone.
I’ll put this broadcast on repeat every day until I get a response.
I’ll keep trying every week
And will be monitoring the frequencies from 9 am to 11 am
So, if you’ve got something to say. I would love to hear another voice besides my own.
Sighs
Never thought I would get sick of myself so fast
You know, in the past I would have cherished-
Power down sounds followed by static.
After long pause morse code follows the broadcast.
Episode 2: Week 6
Opening Static noise
Gabe:
Hello?
Is anyone out there?
I’m broadcasting again
I really can’t be the only survivor so if you’re out there
…
Okay
My name is Gabriel Blythe
I’m in the greater salt lake area
I’m trying to reach out to anyone who might be…
Cognitive of what I’m saying.
The people on the street they seem..
They seem docile.
Not like you would see on TV
They’re pretty chill!
I mean..
Most serials and films say they should be…
Well you know
Aggressive and trying to attack you
I don’t even want to call them…
You know the Zed word
It seems
Degrading
Since they are people.
And seeing them as people
Makes me think that all of them walking around out there aimlessly.
Will snap out of it!
Knights!
Maybe this will just be fixed like people waking up from a coma
Just
Snaps fingers
magically
Like this is something we just go through and think
“well that was weird”
Everything was fine in the end and they’ll just say it was a small thing, just a blip.
King and country maybe it’s just localized here.
Then we wouldn’t have to meet up in the end.
You cause it’s all just temporary!
Well you know what they say:
Plan for the worst hope for the best and all that.
But I don’t know if anyone actually planned for this
Not even those preppers could have planned for this.
Could they?
No
I mean, how could you plan to be all alone at the end of the…
At the end of the….
Sighs
If I say it out loud it feels just extra real
Never mind living it for so long
Wait a minute.
How long has it been?
Six weeks I think maybe/
Maybe, two months?
It’s hard to keep track of time.
Ok ok back to business Gabe.
OK
If you can hear my broadcast
If you can hear my broadcast, I'll be at the stadium just off of Main Street, just sitting in the middle of the field, real easy to spot me.
I'm trying to reach out to you so we can meet up and work together.
I I have a lot of questions, but mostly, I'm just lonely, and it can't be healthy being alone for so long.
Sigh
So, I'll be there Wednesday tomorrow from noon to about 1800 hours or midday to, you know, sundown.
frustrated sigh
Now that I have, I have this hope that I could meet someone, it is a bit easier to keep track of the days.
So that's that's something.
Right?
At first,
I- I appreciated the silence.
You know?
The lack of responsibility and no social obligation or norms to follow.
I didn't do anything crazy, mind you.
Just felt nice to not have to do anything.
Nothing expected of you.
But now it's several weeks with no communication, no dialogue with anyone.
I I kinda miss people.
Ugh Never thought I'd hear myself saying that, but you know where we are right now.
It makes sense that you're bound to change.
I guess you can figure I'm I'm I'm pretty introverted.
Laughs
Thus, all this mindless rambling.
Unfortunately for you, I can't read your facial expressions to know if I'm bothering you or not.
I can just sit here and talk your ear off, assuming you are hanging on every word and enjoying this fascinating conversation about what's going on.
Well, that was dumb.
Stupid gabe.
I'm sorry.
I don't really know - I don't really know how to hold a conversation, especially that's this one-sided. But if you wanna meet up and not be alone, great transition gabe, real real smooth.
We can meet Wednesday, and I'm already repeating myself.
Maybe I should wrap it up.
I - I don't know what I'm saying anymore.
I'm just rambling away.
Sighs
Oh!
You don't have to worry about the battery dying on me this time though.
That's nice.
I found more cells and I was able to string them together.
I even found some more panels.
Surprisingly, it takes a lot of power to get this up and going and I'm getting distracted again.
Listen, if you need help or support or food I have food.
I have water, and I'm I'm making this space a little more bearable day by day.
I don't know why we're the ones not affected by what happened in the event.
Oh, man.
There's gotta be a better name.
Regardless, you don't have to be alone even though a lot of what's going on makes it feel like you're supposed to be.
Right now, it's safe.
The people, the the zed words, they're not hostile, and you can just walk right by them.
They don't they don't notice you.
If we can meet, we can start working together to make something better and start working on making things as they were.
I'm just rambling again.
I keep trying to figure out how to end this, but I'm not used to any form of conversations.
I'm sorry.
Okay, here we go, Gabe.
Ending it officially.
Psych up breathing.
I'm going to put this message on repeat, and I'm going to blast it over and over again.
And then monitor all the frequencies well, the ones I can monitor and the ones I have access to.
I'll monitor those every morning from 9 to 11 AM.
2 hours to tell me how I can help you.
You deserve help too.
You you deserve that.
You deserve help.
Don't let this isolation tell you anything less.
I hope to see you tomorrow, Wednesday.
So this is Gabe? Over and out.
Well, that's stupid.
Good thing no one heard you. Right? Yeah... That's the thinking that'll get you out of this.
Sighs and turns off signal with a click
Episode 3: Week 7
Opening Static noise
Gabe:
Alright, Gabe.
3rd time's a charm.
We got this.
We're gonna reach out to somebody today.
Come on.
Yeah.
Okay.
My name is Gabriel Blythe.
I'm in the Greater Salt Lake area.
I'm calling out to any survivors, broadcasting to anyone and-and everyone who might be able to-to reach out in return.
Pause
Well, it was worth a shot.
Figured you would reach out by now if you could.
I realize that not everyone has access to a CB radio or anything else to broadcast with.
And even if you do, it's not the easiest thing to figure out how to work.
I had to read all of these boring books.
I mean, just book after book on how it all works, I gotta tell ya, my least favorite thing is reading the foundations of how radio waves work.
I guess-I guess any book starts from the beginning and that makes sense.
Right?
How else do you learn?
Also, how does the book know what I may or may not already know?
So they-they gotta write like that.
Groans
I don't know.
It's it's just so boring because none of these books are, like, directly correlated.
Right?
So I wanna skip to where it picks up in the gap of my knowledge.
But then I'm afraid to skip ahead in a few chapters and I'm gonna miss that one piece of crucial information, that that that thing that will make it all just click.
You know?
Like-like this one time in grade school, I I pretended to be sick.
Oh, man.
Chuckling
I I did that a lot.
I was sick a lot.
And I don't know if it was just the people or just because I could.
You know?
Anyways, I was out the day that my class covered fractions.
Simple enough.
I mean they covered everything.
And I mean they covered everything.
And I mean they covered fractions, everything to do with fractions because I remember when I went back to class the next day, the very next day mind you, they never talked about the basics ever again.
And to this day, what, 20 some odd years later, still haven't the foggiest.
I mean, I know the basics.
Right?
One eighth is less than 1 half.
But it asked me how to make 30% of, I don't know, 16
Whooshing
right over my head.
Might as well ask me how to write a sonnet or compose the works of Beethoven.
Not possible.
Well, not possible for me.
Everyone else in my class seemed to grasp the concept of fractions just fine.
Maybe one of them could write a sonnet, guess I'm gonna have to find out where they all went after this is all over.
Did Kate ever meet that boy band that they were always going on about?
Was Higgs
Chuckling
was Higgs ever able to jump so high he flew to the moon?
Laughs
Man, we had such interesting stories and lies to tell when we were young.
Okay.
Enough rambling.
If you wanna hear more of my riveting stories, you can find me tomorrow, Wednesday, every Wednesday from midday to sundown.
Figure I'd drop the time specifics for the midday and noons and whatnot because who knows if everyone can tell what time it is.
No power and whatnot makes life rather difficult.
Although after that fun snippet, you may avoid avoid me entirely, and that might be fair.
Anyways, I will be at the stadium, uhh right in the center.
You can't miss me
Tomorrow.
The
Sighs
the people,
I wanna think I do wanna think of a easier, better title than the zed word.
That word, it just doesn't feel appropriate.
I just I can't see us giving them a word that connects with a thing we created.
Right?
To distract ourselves and and demean others, to to belittle people, to belittle everyone else. Because what if they-what if they come back?
I know. It's been what?
7…
7 weeks?
It doesn't feel like they'll just wake up, but if they do and they find out we have been calling them these degrading things when they were just fighting for their lives.
And and to diminish what others are working hard to achieve and and and this invisible fight that they've had to live with for the past few weeks?
No.
It it just it just doesn't feel good to call them anything less than than fighters.
It's always just too easy to punch down, especially to other people, because we don't understand them.
Or we refuse to.
Fighters isn't bad.
Survivors?
The afflicted.
Infected?
Ugh…
Woah.
Got really sidetracked there.
Sorry.
What I was trying to say is that at the stadium, the people who aren't talking…
This is so hard.
The people who aren't responding there you go, Gabe.
Gold medal.
They don't they don't they don't follow you and and they don't tend to be in the stadium.
So so it's it's safe.
It's a big giant open space.
If you do decide to come, bring what rations you have?
I may have eaten through my rations.
Yeah Yeah.
I know.
I know!
I said I had food that would last us a while.
But I found out that I have a very low impulse control.
And when I am bored, I just eat.
Had I known before all of this that 7 weeks ago there was going to be this blinding light while everything was shaking and I would need to work on my eating habits that would help me survive, I would have made a few changes to how I live my life.
That's that's all!
Sighs
I have been reading and and listening to just nothing but static, and I have just eaten so much food in that time.
7 weeks.
Everything.
I've been trying to venture out a little bit more.
And and again, I I just I have this this hope.
This hope that everything will go back to normal.
And I and I don't want to have to pay for some crime I committed trying to survive.
And I and some copper comes up to me and says, I owe Mori and Sons for several weeks of food.
Besides, it's not like I had a high salary job before all this started, and I doubt I'll get any form of back pay.
Maybe maybe I'll I'll make a few stops at a big box store.
You know?
Like, they won't miss anything.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And by King and Country, I don't want this following me around for just trying to survive, for just surviving everyone.
That's my defense.
What a rap sheet I'd have.
Stealing food, cables, batteries, solar panels
off of other people's homes, mind you.
Wiring supplies, squatting.
All because the world shook for what felt like ages and everyone stopped acting like themselves.
Maybe, we will all be excused.
I is is surviving really punishable?
Sighs
Even if we're not doing the best things for ourselves and everyone else, sometimes we have to work really hard to survive.
And pulling ourselves up, sometimes we push other people down.
I don't know.
I'll think about it some more.
Maybe you can convince me otherwise.
What what have you been doing?
By now, you know the drill.
Stadium, midday to sundown.
Sighs
I'm looking for something that's a little bit more in the open.
I I I get that that the stadium is you have to go through a lot.
You know?
But I like the stadium.
It makes me think of before…
Pause
you can't tell that I'm gesturing to everything, but I am gesturing to everything.
I'll put this message on repeat every day.
Monitor most frequencies from 9 AM to to 11 AM.
I I hope I see you there.
Gabe, you gotta get better at this.
Short and to the point next time, please.
Thank you.
Sighs and turns off signal with a click