Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons (14 page)

at 
11:03 AM

Posted by Josh Guess

Roger died this morning.
He developed an infection that there was simply no way to stop. The fever was intense, and caused him to become delusional. He tore apart his stitches and bled, it was all so quick that there was nothing anyone could do.
Roger was a good friend to me and many others around here. Though I only got to know him after our misadventure at the hotel, I felt blessed for the opportunity. He was a smart and loyal man, a dedicated father, and a hard worker. He was also intensely 
for 
this place. Roger stood very strong in support of what the compound is meant to be--a place where people who want to live in peace but are willing to fight can gather. Somewhere that doesn't try to stop you from whatever your pursuit of happiness might be so long as it doesn't endanger others or the overall safety of the place.
I can only imagine what his family is going through today, and we will do everything we can to support them as he did.
Roger was all for a new election in his lucid moments, knowing that even if he managed to survive he would be in no shape to lead anyone for a long time.
With that in mind, we must move on. We will mourn him and pay tribute as he deserves, but life continues.
The results of the election caught me by surprise. Darlene has been elected leader, and Will is her second in command. I have to admit that I thought most people around here would have some problem with electing a female as our leader given how brutal some of our decisions have to be. Will as second doesn't surprise me so much, since anyone who might have had doubts about his loyalties lost them when he mowed down some of his old chums with a machine gun.
Right now the leadership is working on defenses and weapons. Thankfully, the headache of managing the logistics for all of that mess has been passed off from me and my brother, though we've had the number of workers at our disposal reduced. That's ok, actually, since a lot of the big projects are going to have to wait until spring. We have plenty of small problems to deal with, like sending people to houses whose homemade heat stoves aren't fully sealed or failed at some point and fixing them.
We're working on rigging up a big generator as well, using one of the turbines Pat and his team brought us with their last trip in. They are already back out once more, third trip to the factory. The demand for power around here is high enough that we've decided to risk the runs to the factory as fast as we can make them.
The generator we're working on was actually Roger's idea. He pointed out that we do have extra hands around, and that if we rigged together a rough transmission system, we could essentially have a human-powered generator running around the clock. It's a good idea, of course. Roger was full of them. Now we have to try and build the damn thing and make it work without him.
I'm trying to go on about business as usual, tell you what's going on without pining for my lost friend. It's just that now that he's gone, I realize how much a part of my life he was. I mean, he helped care for me while I was sick. He tended Jess after her shooting. His and Patrick's forge and offices are right next door to my house, so he was forever here at his lunch time, finding out what our resources were for whatever project he had in mind, often spending too much time shooting the breeze with me and snacking endlessly.
It's hard to imagine that I won't see him at my door with a brown bag dangling from a hand dusted with black from working at the forge and eyebrows singed from the heat. Hard to wrap my head around the fact that he won't be teaching Jess how to weld like a pro, or the finer details of metallurgy. Roger was nuts for metal and how to work it, and spent his life learning everything about it he could, every skill for working and manipulating it.
I'll leave it with a paraphrase from him. I think it says a lot about why I liked him; namely that he saw life as I do, an exercise in viewing things philosophically.
Roger told me that the reason he began to work with metal is because it always fascinated him--how the stuff could be so strong yet brittle, be everything you wanted it to be if you knew how to ask it. He said that the idea of taking this raw material from the earth, understanding its properties and shaping it into a useful thing, was the very definition of being human. Making something complex and thoughtful from the hard rocks of the ground.
He helped us do that. Roger's knowledge, skill, and dedication have been a big part of helping us move forward as a community, to help us stay safe from the zombie hordes. For that, I will always be thankful. May his spirit find peace wherever it now rests.
Goodbye.

at 
10:28 AM
 

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Posted by Josh Guess

I want to start off by saying that we have some good ideas on how to make our little turbine project work, and it's awesome, but I am going to wait to fill you in until we know if we can make it happen. We're still planning on building a large power plant if we can manage, but we need a stop-gap in the short term. 

I talked to Jack today, and he and his folks are doing pretty well. They suffered a lot of losses during the storm of zombies a few weeks ago, but the recovery effort seems to be coming along well. He and his people have set up some backup systems for heat, should the electricity fail for whatever reason. Keep in mind that they live in a big industrial complex, not individual houses like we do. It's harder for them to keep the places they sleep warm, even though they have power. 

We've sent them a lot of extra supplies since the attack. The last truck that went that way was stuffed entirely with blankets and coats. Living in Michigan, of course, I am quite sure that most of them know just what kind of cold is coming, but we had the extra, thanks to the rather intense sacking of a Burlington coat factory in Lexington. 

We're still on the lookout for other groups out there to build relationships with as we have done with Jack's people. Most of those who we have come into contact with, even the ones who sent help to us up in Michigan, remain pretty wary of new people. Of getting close. I can't blame them, really. 

The major work around here is being carried out with gusto. The alterations and upgrades to the defenses are coming along, though Will has threatened me with a stabbing if I blab any details about them. Quite apart from the obvious advantage that keeping it all secret gives us in a fight, I think Will is sort of obsessing about this like it's his child. 

He's a pretty calm and rational guy most of the time. He doesn't usually snap at people or get sharp with them...but the last few days have been different. It's strange to see him move around this place with such intensity, checking and rechecking measurements and angles. This morning I saw him rush to a platform, measure the anchor points drilled into it, and then spend five minutes explaining why it had to be reworked because the anchors were offset by something like two degrees. He went on to the poor foreman about maximizing area of fire and all sorts of crazy details, and then he ran off to check something else. 

And it doesn't stop with him simply making sure that we're building things according to his designs. Whenever he has an idea for an improvement to something, he sends Dodger out running to update the plans. Some projects he's done this to three, four times. Poor Dodger is starting to look a little haggard, and maybe a little stabby himself. If I were Will, I'd wouldn't keep too many pointy things close at hand in his office. 

I won't be the one to bring it up to him, (though of course, he'll read this blog and know that the door is open if he wants to talk) but I really think that Will feels responsible for the attack last week. In one sense, he is. His helicopter crashed here, and we rescued him. It clearly isn't coincidence that his former buddies from the depot in Richmond have since come at us. 

I think he blames himself in a much more specific, guilty sort of way. He feels like it's all his fault, and that he has to make it his personal goal in life to save every one of us because of that. Hey, I'm all for a gung-ho protector type willing to work eighteen hours a day to ensure the safety of myself and the people I love, but for the right reasons. 

It's because of Will that they came here, while we were engaged with a vast zombie swarm, and tried to hit us. Tried to cripple us by taking our most important structures. Thing is, 
anyone 
could have been in that chopper, and it wouldn't have made any difference. Maybe he feels like if he had gone back to them they wouldn't have attacked us, perhaps thinking that he betrayed them. Well, to that I have to remind that we kept his ass locked up or under guard for a long time. He had no choice. 

So he shouldn't feel guilt. I really like Will, and I want him to be as happy as possible. I like seeing him laughing with us and telling unbelievably dirty jokes. I like watching him get irritated when my wife out shoots him with a rifle. 

I like more than anything that I can sit down and seriously nerd it out with him. We're both crazy for weird and trivial data, and soak that shit up like sponges. 

I just think he's getting too worried and way to anal about the defenses. I agree that the work needs to be done, but he has to take the time to be a person again and not some fucking machine programmed to defend. I want to see the guy who will veer off the street to comfort someone who looks upset. The man who scrabbled in the dirt for his own food despite the pain in his damaged limbs. 

So Will, when you read this, please don't misunderstand. We appreciate what you are doing for us, truly. But no one wants you to drive yourself crazy doing it. No one expects you to make something perfect and flawless. You 
have 
to relax a little, have some fun. 

Come over tonight. I'm taking out the dice bag and we're gonna have us some good ol' D&D action. It'll be fun. You need that once in a while. I promise if we get attacked while you are playing, no one will blame you. 

So don't blame yourself. 

at 
12:23 PM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

I've started jogging, which goes completely against my nature. I'm pretty sedate most of the time, working on my computer and snacking a lot. I'm a pretty solid guy, about six feet tall and two forty, slabs of muscle with enough fat to see me through a hard winter at least.
Evans thinks that all of us need to focus on getting in shape. Food has been plentiful enough that no one has really gone hungry since The Fall, and a lot of us have gotten more fit by the sheer amount of work needed around the compound. The real work will be building our endurance and constitutions up to a point where we can fight all day if we have to. Run all day if it comes to that.
Not to mention flexibility exercises and building muscle. The more nimble and strong we are, the better we will fare in combat situations. Now that the cold has set in pretty thoroughly, zombies are basically not a threat for the time being. The mark at which they tend to become active is about sixty degrees, and while some days get there, they are few and far between.
So we're dealing with an excess of energy now that we aren't fighting every other day or so. I have a strong suspicion that Will talked to Evans about this whole getting fit idea, but it seems like a good one. It helps that we are on rationed meals and that a great deal of what we eat is lean meat and veggies grown in the compound or around it. We still have a lot of canned food and dry goods, but we are trying to save that stuff for when we really need it.
At my weight I'm not exactly built for running, but I do it. I do a lot of things to improve my own life and set an example, like going to as many of Evans' classes as possible. I've missed a lot of them, but he's holding refresher classes and open tutoring times to help people catch up.
I'm still doing an hour a day of teaching myself, thirty minutes each of hand to hand combat and weapons. I'm a lot better at unarmed combat, but I've learned enough over the years to be decent with something sharp and deadly.
I want to be a bigger part of the community here. I'm already in a vital position, of course, because of the planning and logistics work I do with my brother, but I am fairly cut off from most people because of that. Like I said, I sit in an office and work eight hours a day at a minimum, and that greatly reduces the chances I have to meet and get to know people.
Consider. Most folks have jobs that take them outdoors. A guard, for example, is outside all day. He or she does four hours on the wall watching for external threats, then two hours walking patrol around the compound, and finishes with two hours of sentry duty. During that time, depending on what section of the wall they have been assigned that day, a given person can meet and talk to fifty people. Some are going through the gate to scavenge or run raids on dozing zombies. Some are simply digging up potatoes or carrots. Some are off duty themselves, merely enjoying a stroll (though more rare now that it's so cold.) while others are taking classes with Aaron.
Every bit of conversation, every introduction, produces a bit more togetherness. I have tried to get to know people, but it has felt all too often like trying rather than doing. It's felt forced.
I've had a little luck with combat training, but the idea is for me to teach. It's hard to be friends with the guy who demands you try harder, be better, because he knows you can even if you feel you can't.
So despite my heavy frame, I'm jogging. It gives me a break from the endless numbers and bits of math, and I get to be out there in the streets, smiling at babies and winking at pretty girls.
And getting to know the people around here, learning their stories, is important to me. I need to keep grounded in reality as much as anyone else, keep first and foremost in my mind what it is we're doing here. It's not about my anger or pride, having basically founded this place. It's not about my principles or ethics, my desperate and sometimes murderously harsh actions and decisions. It's about these people. Anyone that wants to live in peaceful cooperation.
They are the goal. Living, growing, 
continuing to be
. Every man, woman and child are the greatest treasure we have. All else is dross that can be burned away, painfully, but ultimately expendable.
I'm not separate from them, or different. I have as much value as anyone here, and they as much as me. Working on larger and more long term problems has done much to make me lose perspective.
I'm going to go for a run. Maybe straighten out my vision a little along the way.