Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land (35 page)

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Arrivals

Posted by Josh Guess

So far, three groups of envoys from other communities of survivors have made their way here. I have to assume our extra patrols and watches along the routes into town have done what we intended, as there have been no zombie sightings or attacks from the exiles. So far, so good.
Trading isn't going to begin until all parties have arrived. That's a change from what we'd planned on doing, but everyone we've talked to has agreed. We all feel that the interests of everyone are best served by creating as open and even a playing field as possible. After all, we're trying to establish some kind of economy here. It helps that we here in New Haven have more to offer than we originally thought--there are lots of calls for fuel trades, but not gasoline. They want ethanol to mix in. Turns out we aren't the only ones to use flex fuel vehicles.
Lucky for us we have way more of the stuff than we can use. In fact, we're even looking into different sorts of wild plants to ferment to make more. We've certainly got the facilities for it. Chalk one up for Frankfort being a huge booze capital of the south. That's long term, though. Right now there are tens of thousands of gallons of alcohol just waiting to be distilled down into a purer form. We won't run out any time soon.
In a world filled with the walking dead, the last thing you'd think we need is another daunting stress factor hanging over us. We've got one with these new trade agreements. It's a good stress, because we're innovating and encouraging others to do so, and everyone gets to walk away better than they started. The stark truth remains: the more you build, the more you have to lose.
Today is going to be an even busier one than yesterday, so this post will necessarily be short. We're in a short window between arrivals, but Jess and I are going out on scout duty in about twenty minutes. The soldiers from North Jackson are helping bolster our numbers, but the majority of them stay behind to protect the folks still working like mad on the outer wall. It's shaping up very well. We've run through an insane amount of diesel fuel managing it, and we've scoured every drop we could find in town, but we should have enough to finish the rest of the project. There are a lot of empty gas tanks out there now...
Guess we'll have to send people out to scout for more diesel. Not a priority, but we should at least plan for it. Fuel may grow to be a major trade item for us. That gives me ideas.
Fifteen minutes to go. I need to grab a snack and make sure my armor is sound. There might not be too many zombies out, but that's always when they hit you in the movies: when you least expect it! I won't be caught off guard.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Smoke

Posted by Josh Guess

Just as dawn broke, the traders from around the country who braved the open roads with their swarms of zombies and roving marauders came together in our theater. The start of the day was also the beginning a new era of cooperation and a new economy.
Naturally, that's when the exiles chose to attack.
I don't have a lot of time, but I'll give you the gist of it: they must have positioned themselves at night. They were close. They swept in driving their armored vehicles and firebombed the hell out of us. Oh, not the homes. That would have destroyed them. They hit the inner wall, the wooden one.
The North Jackson soldiers were inside, since work on the outer wall hadn't begun for the day. No time to react, no time to stop them.
The inner wall is still on fire. I don't know what the exiles used in their concoctions, but whatever was inside those bottles is almost impossible to put out with water. And we've used a lot of water.
It's brilliant, don't you see? They'll burn down the inner wall and have an open way in through the unfinished section of the outer one. They might kill some of us with the smoke that hangs inside New Haven like fog. Even if we put the fires out and escape choking to death on smoke, they know we'll have used up the majority of our water. Without rain, we'll dehydrate in days.
All they have to do is sit tight where we can't sight them through a rifle scope (not that it would do much good with them behind bulletproof glass...) and wait for us to come out.
That's the state of things.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Through the Fire and Flames

Posted by Josh Guess

We're in a lot of trouble here. One thing we honestly didn’t' think about was how badly the smoke has limited our visibility. We spent yesterday soaking the parts of the inner wall that hadn't caught fire yet as well as the ground around it. That would have been helpful if the exiles hadn't come back and hit us with a second round of firebombs. 

The inner wall is burning still. Slowly, but as inexorably as ice melting in the spring. I don't know how long we can stymie the process, but it's just a matter of time before it breaks down completely. 

So far everyone here, including our many guests, are taking the attack well. One good thing about dealing with other groups of survivors--they don't lose their heads easily. Nor do they blame us for this. They came of their own free will, knowing the exiles were out there. Really, the hardest part is keeping everyone from attempting to go out and find the exiles. We know they're staying close, since they've been able to hit us so very hard at a moment's notice. We didn't hear them until it was too late on this second round of attacks. Our spotters in the towers couldn't see where they came from or went.

Which sucks. 

There's no sense of despair here, which is amazing. Everyone's spirits are dim but not yet dark. We'll figure something out, it's just a matter of time. 

Oh, shit. I think we just got lucky. I'm pretty sure I just heard thunder. 

I don't know what the next few days will bring, but I'll do everything I can to stay in touch. I'll post when possible, and try to update all of you on how things are progressing. 

I can hear the patter of raindrops on the roof. Hopefully we'll get a good drenching, enough to put out the inner wall and maybe enough wind to give our spotters some ability to see outside the walls. This smoke is maddening. 

There are ideas being worked on. That's all I can say for now...

Friday, August 26, 2011

Blackened

Posted by Josh Guess

I write our lives here so much and so often that sometimes it's hard to remember that it's not a story. The heroes don't always win. The villains don't always get their just desserts. In fact, the line between the two is never as clear in reality as it is in my mind. We're not archetypes. We're people. 

We are each of us a curious mixture of good and bad, smart calls and rash decisions. We all have moments of selfishness and grace to varying degrees. None of us are perfect saints, and none of us soulless devils. We're complicated and layered, and that makes it hard to understand each other. It makes us regret some decisions. It's hard for us to kill those we once called family, but in the last day we've done it. We know the exiles were good folks at one point, which made it that much harder to do it. 

We also know they're capable of terrible acts, which makes it that much harder to deal with the fact that most of them got away. The survivors are out there. After the events of the last day, I don't know if they'll dare come here again, but the threat is there. 

Here's how it went down:

It wasn't like a video game. There was no definitive boss fight at the end. There wasn't really even a battle. 

As the inner wall was being put out by yesterday's rain, the smoke intensified. If you've ever put out a campfire with water (and if you read this blog, you almost certainly have) then you know what this means. The exiles saw the clouds roll in, same as we did. They knew it wouldn't be long before the fires were out. They knew their time to attack us was limited, since the rain would also replenish our dwindling water supplies. 

They came for us. About half of their armored vehicles moved for the weakest point, which was the unfinished section of outer wall. The inner wall there was hit hard, little more than a fragile shell. The exiles knew we'd defend it heavily, so they did the smart thing and formed a semicircle outside, their gunners taking aim at our folks inside. A few of them shot at the watchtowers, but we'd emptied them out. 

I imagine the circled exiles would have really cut loose on us then, but they suffered a small distraction as four of their assault vehicles exploded, killing all inside them. 

From there, it was pretty much a clusterfuck for the exiles. The circled vehicles backed away and fled when they realized we'd killed so many of their people, and our gunners lobbed explosives at them. They had to do it from far inside New Haven's walls, which made the shots inaccurate and wild, but that didn't matter. All the fleeing exiles saw behind them were massive bursts of fire and earth. 

We also had a few sharpshooters pinging them with bullets just to drive the point home. 

If you're wondering how we managed to blow up those four vehicles, it's not all that mysterious. Will is a fucking genius. He's been working on a lot of different ways to weaponize the dynamite Becky has been making round the clock for the last two weeks. The air-powered launchers work, but aren't all that accurate for firing in an arc with no line of sight. There are other, more secret things he's built I can't disclose, but the mines are okay. They were a stroke of genius. 

Will rigged up a bunch of explosives to be remote detonated. I don't know the details, but it involved walkie-talkies. Will and a few volunteers managed to sneak out in the middle of the night and place them. The tall grass helped there, since they didn't have time to bury them. Will marked the grass where they mines were, and tried to put them in areas we knew the vehicles would be likely to traverse. 

Not that it was hard. Will put a lot of those things out there, and all it took was a few watchful sentries with the detonation switches. The explosives themselves were carefully designed to funnel the force of the blast straight up, propelling shrapnel right into the undercarriages. 

So, the exiles lost some people. Not many, but it was devastating enough that the rest of them gave up the fight. 

For now. They didn't get the result they wanted, experienced losses worse than they expected and probably much sooner, and they retreated. They didn't flee in terror, though. All reports indicate a pre-planned, orderly retreat. 

That implies backup plans. We'll see what the future holds. We're all wondering when and if they'll come back. Today, though, is a lovely one. We've already resumed trading, even as we clean up the blackened remains of the inner wall. We'll rebuild it over time, better than it was before now that the outer wall will protect us as we do so. 

From every hurt, from every injury we sustain as a people, we'll rebuild better than before. Death is the only way to stop us. We'll never give up. Never again. 

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Nails

Posted by Josh Guess

Victories are relative, and almost never cut-and-dry. The day before yesterday was all we could have hoped for. The trades went well, and New Haven is stocked up for a long haul, with more food and supplies in the pipeline contingent on production of our medical supplies.
We're also getting more requests for medical treatment from survivors around the country. We'll take them, for the trades being offered in return as much as to help out. We'll take them despite the overload our medical personnel are under right now.
While the day before yesterday was good, yesterday was awful. The exiles left some surprises for us, and a group of our hunters paid the price of discovering one of them.
Six of the eighteen people that were hit by the bomb died instantly. Turns out Will wasn't the only one to experiment with building shrapnel bombs. Where his were made to destroy vehicles, these were designed to inflict maximum fatalities on a group of people.
The other twelve are being seen to right now, and they're a mess. A couple of them are probably going to die, and the rest of them could be months in recovery. God only knows what complications will hit those poor people.
We've got people out searching for more of these things. It's amazing the damage that can be done with a few pounds of explosives and some roofing nails. It's a blessing and a curse that human ingenuity for destruction has survived the end of the world. It keeps us alive, but keeps us killing one another.
I have an announcement to make, an important one, but I don't want to eclipse this tragedy. I'll pass it on tomorrow. For today, we care for the wounded.
Jess is one of them. I'm trying not to think about it.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Envoy Redux

Posted by Josh Guess

Jess is doing well, but she'll be a while in recovery. Her right leg took a brutal hit from the bomb, which is actually pretty lucky considering the damage other folks took. Two men in front of her died. I shudder to think what would have happened if she'd been leading the column...
Her injuries make this next part all the harder for me, but it can't be helped.
I'm leaving.
My duties in New Haven are redundant now, which is a good thing. Where before there were only two people to handle the logistics of running this place, now there are half a dozen and the number is growing. Gabrielle has someone specifically to manage the gathering of supplies for her projects, as do the other major groups of people inside NH who have moved toward manufacturing.
I have a wide variety of skills and talents, many of them honed in the last eighteen months of rigorous and practical use. Apparently my best and most useful one is surviving.
I've been asked by the council to lead a team in a cross-country journey. Late last year, Courtney did the same, moving across the remnants of America in a mission of mercy. To say her trip was a success would be to understate the issue to a huge degree. Courtney and her team kept going long after the original goal had been met, building ties and ferrying people and supplies all around the country. Every trader that came here was either a person she had worked with before or someone who'd heard of what she had accomplished. All of them gave her team's actions as a primary reason why they felt they could trust us.
The bazaar was so successful that the council wants to reach out to as many others as possible in order to keep trade going, and to build on what we have. We're in the harvest times now, and winter will be here before we know it. The idea is to personally meet and encourage as many people as possible to open themselves to trade. Not only to enrich themselves, but also to help others.
There's not much left of the human race, and every life counts. Every man, woman, and child is vital.
I get to pick my team, which is a relief. Ideally I'd take Jess with me, but she'll be weeks in recovery if not months. The council wants us to head out in the next week to ten days, so that's not a possibility. I can't take Courtney, either, which makes sense. She's our diplomat, and I'm going to be doing her job out in the field while she continues to build bridges at home. Risking both of us out there would be foolish.
I'd like to take Steve with me, but given how much I hate the idea of being away from Jess, I don't know that I have the heart to take him away from Courtney. Patrick is also a no-go, since he's vital to New Haven in his own job as a metalworker and blacksmith. Not to mention he's only got the one hand now. Unless it's a serious emergency, Pat's days as a front-line fighter and scout are long over.
I'll be picking my group in the next day, and I'll keep updating.
I feel a curious mixture of things when I think about being asked to make this long, long commitment. I've been asked, but really I was told. With the strengthening of our people, the politics of the place have begun to resurface. We took an awful hit from the homesteaders, and the council is worried about anyone who could be seen as a gathering point for opposition. Not that I'd do that, but I was the one who founded this place. If a faction of our people ever decided to do what the homesteaders who became exiles did, I could be used as a rallying point.
Not to mention...well, it was made clear to me during the council meeting the other day that some of the things I wrote on this blog about the homesteaders probably didn't help the situation with them. I think that's probably fair: I have a long history of shooting off at the mouth in anger.
The general idea is to get me away, let things solidify and calm down here, and at the same time accomplish a needed goal. I can't argue with the logic of it, though I hate to leave at such an exciting time. I'll miss this place. More than I will ever be able to say.
On the plus side, I'll be provisioned heavily, and I'll have plenty of time and opportunity to study zombies in the wild. I've put that to the side for a long time now, but my interest in the undead that blanket the land has never wavered. Silver linings and all that.