Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons (44 page)

Posted by Patrick

Well, looks like my trust in Jamie and Dodger's sneakiness might have been a little unfounded. After several attempts to lead the zombies away and double back failed Jamie and Dodger were in a real bad way. Though not all their fault, both had injuries that slowed them way down, they were low on ammo, hadn't had more than three hours sleep a day for weeks, or even a full belly in almost as long. All that, and were up against three smarties. Bastards learned real quick our effective firing distance after I put two of them down. So it was up to me and the girls to save the asses of the people coming to rescue us. Sometimes irony is funny, sometimes it's sad, this was a little of both.

Our basic problem was the warm weather. I know, weird for Florida, right? What was happening was that the temp never really dropped and stayed low for any period of time so no adaptation by our zombie friends. Any time the mercury dropped below fifty our friendly brain munchers slowed down enough to safely play tag with. Hell, that's the only thing that kept me and the girls alive before we found this place, a cold snap that lasted a couple of days.

Between the weather and the smarties, Jamie and Dodger were getting a little desperate. The smarties had a group of zombies just following those two, another group trying to box them in every time they swung back to us, and the largest group keeping us right where we were.

Our solution, brute strength and massive firepower!

One of the many little treasures that we found in hidden weapons bunker was an old WWII Browning M2 .50 Cal machine gun and belts and belts of ammo for it!

It was a very surreal situation, me trying to fire that massive weapon with one hand and a hook that I had fashioned out of a wire hanger held to my stump with leather belts, my 12 year old niece feeding in belts of ammo, the 10 year old waiting with more ammo boxes near by, while the little 6 year old sweating from the heat of the gun trying to collect the casings and clips as they flew from the gun.

In the end it worked. Though of course I probably used twice the ammo necessary than if I'd had both hands, but beggars can't be choosers. We cut a swath you could have driven a semi through right up to the wall. The fellas might have been injured but they still could move, and move they did right to the fire ladder we had hanging off the wall. Alysa, Kylie and I left the .50 cal for more accurate weapons to cover their dash to the wall.

I couldn't have been prouder of the girls as they shot anything that came with in inches of them. Their accuracy was amazing in itself but the fact that they didn't shoot Jamie or Dodger was what really impressed me. Even as late as the first shot out of the old Browning, they begged me to tell them to go away. They cried as they pleaded with me, saying that we would be o.k. by ourselves, that we've done well here and didn't need any one else. They had their reasons. Once I get it straight in my own head, Aaron has been helping me with it, I'll finish telling them to you. When if finally came time to do the deed they trusted me enough to do the job I set up for them, and made my heart sing with pride.

That is the biggest reason I'm in such a good mood as I type this, well that and Dodger managed to bring me a carton of cigarettes! I know that smoking is bad for you, hell I've already caught my nieces trying to hide the smokes, but the lord above knows that I have very few vices. I don't drink, I've lost close to a hundred pounds (guess fast food really does make you fat) and I haven't watched an hour of T.V. since I left the compound. All I have left to me is smokes. Until they run out, that is. The real sad thing is I hadn't had one in over a month, but god that first drag was almost better than sex! Well I think it was, it's been so long in that department I might even be a virgin again. See? No vices. All I need now are two miracles and I'm ready for sainthood, baby.

Sorry about the tangent there. All is well here, Dodger and Jamie have full bellies and slept the last ten hours. We managed to get their wounds treated with the few medical supplies we still have here. I used up most of them. Whenever they are feeling up to it we'll work out a plan to get out of this Nazi bunker compound and up to North Jackson. Hope to see you all soon, or at least get into better cell range.

at 
2:48 AM

Posted by Josh Guess

We're heading back to North Jackson now. The trip has been an interesting and successful one, but the one major thing we were after, food, has been pretty much a bust. Oh, we found a total of about four thousand cans of food in all the places Jess and I had tagged, but that's nothing compared to the trove we had to leave behind because of the chemical spill. Speaking of chemicals...
When we found all those canisters at the apartment complex, we looked around very carefully before we messed with them or the big drums the canisters were sitting on. In general, it's a good idea to be as meticulous and careful as possible when searching any habitat, especially those occupied at any point by survivors. A lot of people will build traps to protect their stuff. We didn't find any, thank god, because the stuff in that lab was STUPIDLY dangerous. Yeah, all caps on that one.
The notebooks and chemistry manuals we found gave us a pretty good idea of what we had discovered, and a call to NJ gave us an idea for testing the theory. So, we put one of the canisters on top of a pile of scrap metal, pulled off the cap, and lit the fuse. Yeah, fuse.
The light that came from the it was so bright that all of us looked away. The engineer we'd talked to warned us that we should get as far away as possible and not look, and we listened...mostly. Watching thermite burn is a good way to permanently damage your vision. Most of us did as we were told, but one unlucky camper is going to see spots for the near future.
That pile of scrap metal? Melted. Now a puddle of slag in the complex's courtyard. Thermite isn't a material you screw around with.
Anyway, we left our last stop about an hour ago. The trip has gone pretty quickly since my last post, not a whole lot of problems to speak of. At least, no major ones. We did run into a good sized group of zombies yesterday while we were heading to a big shipping depot that had bale after bale of chain link (which we've been in serious need of). We tried driving through them, but they just parted and followed. That happens sometimes. When you're in a car or other smallish vehicle it's not a big deal, you just pick up speed and take a bunch of turns. When you're in a group of eight very large trucks with smaller support vehicles, that's not really an option. So, we hunkered down to wait them out, or at worst set up a defensive perimeter inside the circle we made with the trucks and start killing until the way was clear.
Not many of us were excited about that prospect. Using a makeshift barrier when fighting the undead is always extremely risky. The trucks are pretty high off the ground, so a team would have had to be on the run, clearing out any zombies that got under them. It was Jess that suggested we try to scare them off with fire. Zombies have an innate respect and fear for it, as most of you know. Probably a leftover instinct from their days as people.
So, thinking we might be lucky enough to keep the zombies from following us if we made enough fire, Jess spilled out a bunch of thermite onto the road, making a line. It was a dangerous move, since she had to run out in front of the trucks in the direction we were going to go and pour the stuff out. She set one of the canisters at the end of the line, and we all got ready to drive as she lit it.
The zombies' reaction was...surprising. We managed to get ahead of the main crowd as the thermite lit up in the road, metals and oxides blazing like the sun. It was sheer luck that we didn't accidentally catch our vehicles on fire. That, and Jess having a good eye for distance. We passed the burning line with about a foot to spare, and the zombies that were milling about in the big group freaked out when they saw the flare of white-hot burning metal, and they ran way. Almost all of them.
It was strange. I've seen the undead do a lot of weird things that I thought beyond them. I know they're afraid of fire, or at least wary of it, but this reaction seemed too much even for that. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that most of them had some experience with similar flames, back at the apartment complex. We were only about thirty miles from the complex at that point. Seems reasonable to me that a large chunk of the zombies in the area had been that way at some point. By extension, it's also reasonable to assume that a bunch of them got the shit torched out of them by thermite, and it scared the rest of them enough that their dead little brains remembered it.
Which is totally speculative and not really helpful to us. We've got a bunch of the stuff with us, though we couldn't carry most of it, but we're going to use it to weld with in emergencies.
I'm really looking forward to getting back to NJ and seeing how everyone is doing. I've been in contact with some folks there off and on over the last few days, and the general feeling is that spirits are up. People seem to be recovering somewhat from the attack and the resulting deaths, which relieves me. I was getting worried that the terrible losses were the proverbial straw that would break their backs. I still worry that there are people who might have lost hope completely. I'd like to walk the floor, talking to folks and trying to make them smile. I'd hate to lose even one more person, especially to depression due to recent events.
You have to look hard for those people--they make it a point to be hard to see. To be small. Yet, they are the ones who need looking after the most. I try to look for the ones who stay apart from the rest, have few people to talk to, and focus on getting to know them. I've been that guy. I know that pain.
And there might be one or two back at NJ who still need a willing ear...So we're going home, full steam ahead.

at 
10:20 AM

Posted by Josh Guess

We've made it back to North Jackson. Actually, we got in yesterday afternoon, but I was busy overseeing the unloading of our supplies, so I didn't have time to post anything about making it home safely.
It turns out that my concern for the people here apparently outweighed my estimation of their hearts. I guess being away for a few days has given me some perspective, because I'm seeing a society in motion before me. The residents are so much more interactive with one another, going out of their way to include those who haven't been as social in the past as most. It's a hell of a thing to see such an outpouring of community spirit as it happens.
The warm weather is coming and going, but temperatures have been pretty steadily trending upward. That means we'll be able to start some of the work we've had to put off for a variety of reasons. Our very first effort is going to be building the fence that will protect us as we go back and forth between the main compound here and the building we're going to use as a hydroponics bay. A lot of work has been going on there, turning the roof into a water collector, altering and adding to the sprinkler system to carry the water in for irrigation. The biggest part has been the constant construction going on inside, creating levels of boxes and troughs to put soil in. It's huge and impressive. Now all we need is the soil (which is easy) and the fence (which isn't) and we're ready to roll.
Thought the zombie population has adapted to the cold, while it was here they were still a lot easier to kill. It made them sluggish and slow. Now that it's getting warmer, the same number of them poses a more serious threat. Not anything we can't handle and haven't dealt with before, but months of having it relatively easy worries me. Before you all start getting red in the face--I said "relatively" easy. I know it's been hard, but we have to face the reality that with the return of warm weather, the zombies are going to become just as dangerous as they were before the winter. I just don't want anyone falling prey to habit and getting killed.
I haven't heard anything from Patrick since he and the girls saved Dodger and Jamie's asses. I really can't wait to give them a hard time about that in person, being saved by a guy with one hand and three little girls. Big, bad survivors, aren't they. HA!
In seriousness, I understand why Dodger and Jamie left the rest of their group (which includes some of my family) behind when they went in to rescue Pat and the girls. The risks involved for a large group heading into an area writhing with zombies are just too high. That's totally ignoring the fact that their group has kids with them and that they are running low on ammo. I'm glad that things worked out, though I'm curious to see how Pat, his girls, and the gallant heroes that "saved" them are going to get out and join up with the my brother and the others.
Jeez, this is just kind of a newsy post, isn't it? Guess I've gotten so used to being upset and writing to get it out that I don't know what to do when things are actually OK. I really don't have much else to say today, other than this: I feel really positive right now. About the future, about the way things are going in NJ. About the steps we've taken to secure what we need to survive. I've been all over the place lately, but it's starting to feel like I have a path, a plan that I can follow. It's a good feeling, let me tell you.
It's a hard thing not knowing which way you're headed, always surrounded by uncertainty. I've got mine set...now it's just a matter of getting my feet moving.