Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons (40 page)

Finally they have started to talk and tell me bits and pieces of what happened to them. In reality, I wish I didn't know but it has seemed to help them to talk about it. The major breakthrough came when Kylie found a hidden weapons bunker. They heard me talk about a place where people would protect them and keep them safe but I don't think they believed me, and after what they've been through I don't blame them. When we found the weapons, I think they finally believed we had a fighting chance. Every time they have found safety since the fall it has been taken from them with violence by men with guns. So they took a measure of peace in having some of their own. Alysa's first word came when she held up a massive AR-15 and said please.

When I told them I would teach them to shoot the look of determination on Alysa and Kylie's faces almost broke my heart, Alice just looked happy to be included with the older girls. Then she too broke my heart when she said that she was happy to be helping her daddy come back to her faster. I glanced up at my nieces and they just both shook their heads at me. I knew Morry, Alice's father, was dead because I found his body when I went to his house looking for my sister and the girls. I found out later that when my sister fled his house with Alice and the girls she told Alice that her daddy was off fighting the monsters so they wouldn't get her, that he would come back after they were all gone.

In the last week I have taught the two older girls to fire every gun in the bunker and Alice to reload each and every one. I went on further to find a gun that was comfortable for each of them and give all three an hour of target practice each and every day with their own guns. With the huge amount of ammo here and basically unlimited targets Alysa and Kylie have become rather good shots, god knows they are determined enough. Alice on the other hand is still too scared and closes her eyes on most shots, but with help from the other girls she is getting better with her little .22 pistol.

It's really is amazing to see the transformation that the girls have been through in so short a time here. While none of them will ever be the innocent, attention seeking, light spirited, silly hearts they once were, they have manged to regain a measure of confidence. I just wish that it didn't come from a gun, that Alysa didn't have to sleep with hers in arms reach to sleep through the night. They have also manged to regain some of the weight lost and have put most of the symptoms of scurvy behind them as well.

I wish to tell you also the stories that the girls have told me of Morry, my sister, and my aunt and uncle but there are pieces missing still and I don't want to push the girls now that they are talking to me. I'm sure that it will come in time. Right now I've done what I wanted, let off some steam and let you all know that we are o.k. and getting better by the day.

R.I.P. Jack

You will be missed

at 
10:31 PM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

Jess and I have made it back to Jack's no worse for the wear. It was pretty uneventful travel back, but we took our time anyway. Getting stuck in that rest area shook us both, and we weren't going to take any chances. So, we avoided any groups of zombies on the drive here, parked and rested when they covered the road (out of the line of sight, of course) and generally took it easy.
Both of us are still recovering from the extended lack of water and trying to make up for the lack of food. We've been hungry many times over the last eleven months, and because of that we don't have significant reserves of fat to draw on. Not that the diet of rice and preserved vegetables feels exactly hearty, but it worked for a billion plus Chinese people for centuries, so I reckon it'll do for us as well.
I got word last night that Dodger and Jamie are going to be picking up Patrick and his girls sometime in the next few days. It's been a long haul for that group, my brother David tells me, and full of all sorts of interesting stories. Apparently they've been sidetracked and slowed down quite a lot over the weeks since they set out to find Patrick. Helping people as they ran into them, hiding for days on end to avoid swarms of zombies, and they had to go on fuel hunts a few times. Any of the juicier bits I hear about when they get back will be passed on, I promise.
Gabrielle tells me that the engineers are hoping to get the human-powered generator up and running within a week. The most important parts of it are ready to work, no machining required. The transmission being built for it is simple enough, but needs to be tested to make sure it can handle the stress without falling apart. I'm hoping that we can use this idea again in the future. I've had some thoughts on renewable power that might make this a very functional and efficient model other places...
Honestly, I just don't have a lot in me today. Being back and safe after such a harrowing (and admittedly funny) escape has left me with a simple, pure happiness to be here.
Well, that's a bit of a starting point, I guess. I've never really looked at our situation, the world's situation, that way before. So much awful shit has happened that I never really thought about the sheer joy of just being alive. Yeah, there are lots of little things, many of which I have blogged about before, that make us happy and help take the edge off of the terror and desperation that comes with living in a world that has faced apocalypse and lost.
But man, I'm just really happy to be alive. I guess with everything else that weighs down on us, not the least being Will Price helping the Richmond soldiers to take our home, that sort of gets lost. I'm sitting at a table with friends right now, able to type about what's going on around me, while shoveling spoonfuls of rice and broccoli into my mouth. My dogs are wandering around here, one or another of them coming over now and then to nuzzle me or sniff at Simon, my cat, who is snoozing contentedly on my lap.
Now that I'm looking at the scene around me, the normality of it, I can't help but smile. It's not everyday when a person gains the perspective to realize just how awesome it is to simply be alive. To have the capacity to interact with the world, enjoy it for what it is.
I don't know why I keep thinking about my mom so much lately, but this feeling reminds me of her. She and I had one of those strange relationships that was much more a friendship than mother-son. I knew her exceptionally well; her habits, mannerisms, likes and dislikes, her views on almost everything, her attitudes...And I can't help but think that this is how she got through her days.
Mom had a lot of health issues throughout her life. She had chronic back problems from her job (nursing will do that--I was a CNA, I know) along with a host of other issues from cancer scares to terrible insomnia. She was always tired and worn out, and she developed Osteoporosis in her mid forties, which made her bones weak.
Yet, she was overall a happy person. I'm not saying she didn't have her bad days, we all do. I know that a huge part of who she was as a person was tied into her favorite and most important role--being a mom. I think that even more important than that was this idea that just being here, just being able to watch your kids grow and change, achieve and fail, was her driving force. I mentioned the other day that her favorite saying was "Don't sweat the small stuff", and now I think I get why. It wasn't that she saw problems as being inconsequential, but instead that every day, every minute, was an opportunity for a solution.
Every day has infinite potential for good and bad, but if you're huddled over in misery worried only about what 
has 
happened, you miss the chance to involve yourself in what 
might. 

As time ceaselessly pulls me farther from the past when she was here with me, I think I gain a little more perspective on her. Then, I would have been sitting at her kitchen table, telling her about this whole experience, asking if she had ever felt such a pure joy in simply 
being.
 Now, I have to turn over my understanding of her in my brain, take what I have learned and felt and hold it up to those memories, and see what I find.
I didn't really mean this post to evolve this way. I wanted to update you on what was going on, and then maybe take a nap. But I think it's important for all of us to take a closer look at who we are, and what we've lost. The old saw about those who ignore history being doomed to repeat it? True. The only way we as individuals can become better people is to learn from the past. The only way for individuals to come together and make a better society is to have the desire for that self-improvement, and enough awareness to achieve it.
Otherwise, we're just leftovers from a fallen race, squabbling among ourselves and slowly killing our hope to become anything other than extinct.

at 
9:21 AM

Posted by Josh Guess

I've been sitting in the cafeteria in the main building of Jack's for about three hours. It isn't really a cafeteria as most would think of it--there are no ovens here, no facilities of any kind for making food. Well, the counters are overflowing with microwaves, but that's it. The thing that makes it a cafeteria is the fact that people eat here together often. Also, there's a sixty inch T.V. on the wall, and that sleek black rectangle is why I'm here right now.
Susan Martin, the woman that took over for Jack when he died, has by and large done things as he did them. She hasn't changed any policies or decided to make this place march to her drum, unless perhaps you consider that the cadence of her leadership and that of Jack are so similar that they might as well be the same song. She's incredibly smart, and it's easy to see that the way Jack did business worked for the people here. No need to change things up too much.
That being said, she does have a different perspective on what it takes to make a happy and productive community. I don't want to make it sound like the folks here have some kind of dreary life defined only by the work necessary to survive--it isn't that way at all. People around here have been encouraged to be social, get to know one another and build friendship with as many of their fellow citizens as possible. Hell, there's even a group of dedicated fill-ins, all volunteer, who take over for people who need to take off a shift for whatever reason--cookouts, board games with new friends...sex. You know, whatever.
It's just that there haven't been a lot of activities for anyone and everyone to join in on. It's hard to accomplish that when there is a constant need to cook food for all these people, walls to be constantly guarded agianst the zombie swarms outside it, work to be done in the machine shop, and a full-time staff just to run the details of the place. Biggest part of the problem was trying to accommodate schedules while finding a place and activity that suited most people.
Susan decided to break the problem down into the simplest terms, instead of overthinking it. What was something that many, many people could do at once, while being able to come and go at will? Just be able to drop in, talk to people, have some pie (there's pie!) and leave whenever?
Television Marathon.
Hell yeah! I don't want to come off looking like an excited kid at Christmas here, but I love this idea! I can sit here with my laptop plugged up, making an inventory list of all the stuff we found and where from the notes Jess and I took on our trip. I can also write this post while listening to the TV or talking to whoever happens to come up to me. I'm trying to get this work done so I can enjoy the show, because it's one of my favorites.
House, M.D.
I'm not going to go on a long rant about it or anything. I just realized when the word came down about the marathon that I really, really missed that show. I miss movies and TV in general, though I find the lack of them as a distraction to be very conducive in actually accomplishing things. House, though, was what I usually had on in the background when I was writing before The Fall, and hearing Hugh Laurie being so condescendingly logical really brings back the memories.
It's been fun. People have been in and out, sitting down to a meal and chatting in a comfortable way that has been missing until now. Quietly, for sure, but happily and easily. I think Susan will have to make this a regular thing. People love it.
The strangest thing about it is that I've heard some folks talk about Jack this morning. I guess some of them have been holding it in, going along with the crowd in trying to suppress their grief. Maybe the relaxed atmosphere in the room is bringing it out, I don't know. But I know that you only talk about something like his death because you really need to. I wonder if any of them will ask me about it, since I was there?
I'm here for them if they want to talk. I'll be here all day. Who'd have thought a show about a misanthropic doctor would, in itself, enable some small portion of healing? It's a funny world.
A terrible world, filled as it is with the walking dead. But all the more amazing for that, since we can still find happiness and comfort with one another.

at 
11:28 AM
 

Posted by Josh Guess

People are frightening in their stupidity sometimes. I've seen it time and again as those around me (and I) make horrible decisions, bad judgment calls that seem to have no rhyme or reason. I try to be smart about what choices I make, try to be logical.
Yesterday, just after sunset, we suffered an attack. It wasn't zombies, though they tend to attack the walls here often. It was a person. A single man. A man I don't know, but I know where he comes from.
The reality of living in a place like this is that there will be gaps in the defenses. The wall is just too large and too spread out to keep a single determined person out. He got in just as two guards passed each other on patrol along the wall, and he decided to bomb our fuel supplies. He took out a tanker that was almost full. The chaos was indescribable.
Thankfully the tanker was far away from the main building, but even where it was, the damage was bad enough. Fiery gasoline sprayed in every direction. It lit the wall on fire, caught some of the food supplies, and red-hot shards of metal killed twenty-three people. Twenty-three. Lost for no reason, in some sad attempt to hamstring us should we and the people of Jack's decide to come for them.
You know who I'm talking about. After we caught him, Mason took the guy into a small room for about ten minutes. I don't know what Mason did to him, but I hope it hurt him so badly it drove him nuts before we tossed him over the wall to be eaten. Mason got the guy to talk. He was one of the Richmond soldiers, the fuckers of took the compound from me and my people.
Apparently there has been growing concern among the soldiers that we were actively preparing for a push into Kentucky to take our home back. After some debate, it was decided that a soldier would be sent to wreak havoc and limit our ability to make war should we choose to.
Yesterday afternoon, the people of this place, which I have always called Jack's or Jack's compound, voted on a name. When he was alive, calling it Jack's was appropriate. It was his baby. He ran it, he solved the major problems. He organized it. He led the people. Now, though, leadership has changed. While they respect Susan, even like her, their loyalty has evolved from the charismatic leader to the community itself. To the place and the people in it. They gave it a name for that reason.
That name is "North Jackson".
Obvious but fitting. This place was Jack's creation, his child. The name Jackson comes from that. In a nod to the world that was, the people here wanted to acknowledge that the "Jackson" that Johnny Cash made famous existed. So they added "North" onto it. It's a simple name for complex and intelligent people, and a strong one. I like it.
The people of North Jackson were attacked. They are enraged to a degree that I've never seen, and it's every one of them. I lost three of my fellow refugees from the compound, two from the large group we brought from the hospital a few weeks ago. Right now, the general mood is one of total violence.
So this last part is for you, Richmond soldiers. I want you to read it very carefully.
You've made a mistake. You might have been trying to goad us into a fight, or possibly attempting to do what your (now zombie food) soldier claimed--reducing our capacity to come for you. Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. The consequence of that choice is the same.
We're not coming for you right now. We're not going to fly off the handle and do something stupid. We are going to tighten the defenses here, and undertake training from Mason with a renewed passion that you can't understand. We are going to make ourselves a force of death and destruction that you can't imagine. We're going to stockpile weapons and ammunition. We're going to recruit anyone we can find.
Then, we'll train them as well.
We'll build an army large enough to swarm over you and crush the breath from you. We will make sure to let as many of you live as possible, so that you can receive the justice you so richly deserve. This isn't a threat. It isn't a promise. It's not meant to intimidate you, because the world we live in has inoculated us against intimidation.
It's simply a statement of intent. We're telling you exactly what we are going to do. If you want to come here, outside of the defenses that keep you so safe, and try to stop us...go for it. On your ground, we'd need ten to one numbers to have a chance. On ours, you'd get slaughtered. Or wait. Sit there inside walls built with the sweat and blood of my friends and family.
As of this moment, my people and those of North Jackson must assume that you will hold the lives of the many left behind at the compound hostage. We have to expect that you will kill them to keep us from coming for you. Understand that if we learn that you have harmed one of them, we will make your eventual suffering the stuff that religions use to frighten people into being better people. Hell won't compare.
I've told you before that we're not ready to fight you, and that hasn't changed. We will need time to prepare. But that time will come, and when it does I promise each of you that you will come to regret the war you've made. You may only regret it for a few moments before death gives you that last kiss, but you will. I promise it.
Oh, and you failed. You only got one of our tankers. We keep them separated for exactly this reason. You won't get a second chance. Seems you started a war for nothing.
So...now that I've vented and said what I needed to say, I apologize to the rest of you. I don't want to come off overly dramatic, but I worked the clinic all last night, tending to the bodies of the fallen. I tried to ease the pain of men, women, and children that were badly hurt by flying metal and those burned by flaming gasoline. I saw the agony that gripped their bodies, the confused terror of the children. I watched good people suffer and die for hours on end.
So, I mean what I say. This won't be left unanswered.