Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons (10 page)

at 
3:33 PM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

The temperatures up north started to drop this morning. Not to a really helpful level, but hopefully a sign of colder weather to come soon. 

But while the weather is important to us in the long run, it's not what I need to talk about today. 

At dawn today, the first rays of the sun at Jack's compound touched down on exactly the situation all of us feared. Several thousand zombies arrayed in loose ranks, split into one group for each gate. They held back just far enough that only rifles could reach them, and no one on the wall was going to waste any bullets. They stood for a long time, watching the wall and waiting for something. 

No one at Jack's was wasting that time. Sentries called in everyone possible, Will was hobbling along the wall shouting orders and trying to put together an effective defense for the gates. 

Just as the hordes began to move forward, a distant thumping was heard. 

Defenders and zombies alike paused, eerily alike in their reactions as all cocked their heads to hear better. It only took a few seconds for two helicopters to appear over the trees, low enough that the wind from their rotors buffeted the zombies where they stood. Courtney described them to me well enough that I can say they were military, though the fact that they unloaded a salvo of gunfire and rockets. Will says they were Apaches.

They didn't stick around after the zombies started to scatter. Maybe they were low on fuel, or simply didn't want anyone to know where they were from. Whatever the reason for leaving, their help was and is much appreciated. By themselves, those two machines cleared out about a quarter of the undead that were prepping to attack Jack's compound. Saved his people and ours from what was likely to be a long, drawn out battle, and gave them all time to prepare for what they now know will come again. 

If the zombies there are behaving in similar fashion to the ones here, then they are getting desperate. None of us are deluding ourselves that they will simply give up on cracking open one or both of our homes to get at the trove of people inside. 

Will, Courtney and Steve are working with Jack and his people to try and come up with a way to defend when the next attack comes. Ammo is getting tight and materials to make explosives are getting hard to scrape together. Hopefully someone will have a stroke of genius before the next attack, because no one is counting on outside help again. If whoever sent those choppers could have spared enough of them to wipe out more of the zombies, you think they would have, right?

Until and unless the weather turns bad enough to halt the majority of the zombies, this is a threat that will have to be dealt with. 

Given how easy we've had it here, I can only think that the other shoe has to drop at some point. When are we going to be hit in a similar manner? Can we be lucky enough to be spared such an enormous assault as Jack and our people have been dealt with? 

Time is our enemy and friend here. We have to hope that the attacks here and at Jack's will hold off until a cold front moves in, or that we can at least survive them until one does. We are strong, and our will to live is nearly unbreakable. 

But they are legion. 

at 
10:54 AM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

Cold. Very cold here right now. No zombies in sight.
We're as ready for winter here as we can be. Our stores are secured, the last of Roger's stoves are being installed, and we have enough fabric and wool to keep us in winter clothes and blankets through the harshest conditions.
Not so up north. In the relative peace at Jack's compound right now, some people are doing an inventory of supplies. They are good on food since we've been trading with them and they have made some very successful supply runs into the surrounding towns (before the current problems, of course). They are short on some basic needs like extra clothes, fuel for cooking, stuff like that.
It's stuff they can find, but not until Jack's people are free to move about. The massive horde that was driven off yesterday is still mostly out there, waiting. With so many vehicles damaged and so many strike teams dead, they have halted runs outside for now. The fact that no large groups of zombies are coming close to the walls only leads most of us to think that they are marshaling numbers for another try.
It's cold up there as well, if not quite as brutal as it is here. But just as most people have a sense of when the weather is turning, so it seems do the zombies. They know what's coming, and they are acting out of a deep need to build up strength.
The northern compound is simply in the midst of a waiting game. Here, we seem safe for now. Our main problems are internal, trying to decide how we need to address things here for the betterment of all. And, of course, waiting for the danger to be over at Jack's, so that our people can come home.

at 
9:42 AM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

I just realized this morning that yesterday was my fifth anniversary with Jess. We got married last year, but we count our real one as the first night we spent with each other, the moment when mere interest bloomed into something more.
I would love to say something about how much changes in five years, but really, the last year alone has had enough changes to make everything else seem rather minimal. I will say that there is no one on the planet I would rather have at my back, or spend my days with.
That's enough of my drippy love. There are bigger things to talk about.
This morning saw what we all hope is the last major fight at Jack's compound in Michigan. I will spare you too many details, since most of what I know are just battlefield numbers and logistical information, but I will give you a brief summary. It is my hope that Courtney will find the time to post something soon in order to paint a more accurate and vivid account.
Casualty reports are still coming in, but I can say for certain that they weren't very heavy. The attack came just after dawn, several thousand zombies in loose groups aimed at the gates to Jack's place. The initial response was pretty hectic from what I am told, and the fighting fierce enough that pretty much everyone from Jack on down was (or is, still) on the wall with a weapon in hand. Small groups of gunners fired what little explosives were left into the crowds even as the pit traps and stakes warded a number of the undead back.
The sound of gunfire became more and more sparse as the morning wore on, ammunition stretched thin over almost two weeks of constant struggle finally running out. Enough materials are on hand in that industrial complex those folks call home to fashion plenty of simpler weapons, but guns are one of the strongest advantages we have over the zombies. While lots of people on the walls there have bows made of metal and thin steel or aluminum arrows to fire from them, they aren't nearly as effective as bullets for stopping power.
Of course, Will, Courtney and Steve have been working with some of the people up there in charge of developing weapons and defenses to come up with new ideas. I don't want to act as though my three friends had this sudden brainstorm and saved the day, but each of them definitely had ideas that others hadn't considered.
For example, Steve heard that the idea to build ballista, or giant crossbows, was nixed a few months ago because of the stopping power problem with arrows. When he heard this, he came up with the idea to alter the bolts such weapons would fire so that they were long and hooked, able to pierce several zombies at a time and pin them to the ground, unable to move. The mechanics and engineers at Jack's place apparently hadn't considered such an option, which makes sense how pressed for time they must have felt while looking for defense solutions.
Courtney, as I have said, has been working with these folks a lot lately. She has given them tons of ideas, some workable and many not, but the most recent was altering some of the air driven guns used for firing those (completely AWESOME) spear-like pipe bombs into giant shotguns. There is a lot of gravel and loose rock around there, and her thinking was that pretty much anything sharp and/or hard fired by a hundred or so PSI becomes fatal. Those things are working out well, though the range is pretty short.
Will, though...that guy is a fucking genius. And sort of stupid.
It took him all this time to realize that there is 
always 
electricity up there. He's been trying to think of a method to kill or disable large numbers of zombies for a long time, and he never put two and two together until day before yesterday. When he got a very detailed look at one of the supply dumps around Jack's that he had missed on his first go round, will found everything he could hope for.
Huge spools of raw copper wire, ranging in thickness from barely larger than a human hair to nearly as big around as a pinkie. He spent some time with a few engineers reworking some of the air cannons himself, and managed to come up with one hell of a device. Just thinking about what it must have looked like in action gives me a shiver. I don't want to imagine what it had to smell like.
Huge, thin nets of copper fired one after another, each trailing a thick wire. Men on the walls spraying a fine mist of water in bursts across the zombies that had made it past the stakes, had managed to evade the bombs.
They let the undead get very close, bunched up...and tangled. Soaked and grouped together, they didn't stand a chance when Will signaled for the switch to be thrown. At least half of the attacking swarm died as once, convulsing violently as nearly the entire power capacity of Jack's compound crackled through them.
I might be making this a little more descriptive than it was given to me. Author's privilege. My imagination took the information I was sent and built this amazing picture, and that's how I have to share it.
Those zombies that didn't die from the raw power popping them like so much corn were so incapacitated that archers and air guns easily cleaned them up. What's really amazing is that the swarm kept coming, the ones in the rear of the groups unaware of the nature of the threat and pushing their fellows ahead. The great thing about electricity is that it isn't picky about what part of the body it touches...
Long story short, almost every zombie on the field this morning is now just another log to throw on the pyres. Those that didn't die by voltage were snapped off by the defenders, on the wall and those who began to lead strikes out into the thinning field.
It looks like they've won, and you can't ask for more than that. We will aid Jack's people in procuring more ammo and other needed supplies now that doing so won't be fatal almost to a certainty, and then our folks will come home.
Oh, and as of right now, it's ten degrees cooler at Jack's than it was at this time yesterday. Looks like a good break ahead for them. Time enough to resupply and dig in for the winter, and to mourn the dead.
At our compound, every one of us will raise a glass to the brave men and women who fought and died there, to defend their small pocket of life and love once again. Our hearts are with every one of you who lost and hurt over this difficult time, and our pride for your spirit and determination knows no bounds. You are a testament to the wondrous variety present in the human race--you fight, you teach, you build and redesign. Many of you have learned new skills when the need came, and perfected them in short order. When my friends had some ideas, you ran with them and made basic sketches on scraps of paper in functional, devastatingly effective machines in no time flat.
All the credit and honor belong to you.
We're proud to call you all friends.

at 
12:11 PM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. Well, I guess that's a matter of perspective. It was cold enough to frost today, both here and up north at the compound in Michigan, which is great for us and bad for zombies. Our guards haven't seen a single one from the compound's walls today. 

Still a lot of chaos going on up north. The huge slaughter of zombies there along with all the shrapnel and destruction requires a huge amount of cleanup. There were some explosions quite close to the wall that caused damage that has to be fixed, and the leadership there has been busy down in the trenches working with everyone else. That being said, things there are going well now that the worst of the fighting seems to be over. 

There remains the question of where the helicopters that strafed the assembled zombies the other day at Jack's came from. So far we haven't heard anything from any other survivors about where those choppers might have come from. No one has any clue. I highly doubt that they came from Richmond, which is the only military outpost that I know of with personnel still living at it. Too far away, and anyway Will says that they only had two functional helicopters left by the time he and his crew set out for Frankfort, and both of them were Blackhawks. Add to that a lack of fuel for them, and it seems that we have a mystery on our hands.