Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) (32 page)

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
Looking
back over the last few years, I've come to recognize how things go in
cycles for us. Hard times and good, one after the other. Starvation
and plenty, danger and safety. It's obvious on the large scale with,
say, the pattern of zombie activity. Staying relatively quiet in the
winter and active in the summer. Also on the small scale with swells
in attacks followed by short periods of calm.
That off-and-on
pattern seems to apply to most aspects of our lives. The most
important one at the moment is the new plague. It started off very
slowly and built to a dangerous crescendo, killing people and
weakening us as a community almost to the point of collapse. Then it
leveled out and we found a way to treat the illness, which has worked
so far. The numbers of sick people have dropped off as new cases
became sparse.
Today that pattern changed. It's so frustrating
to think you've got a problem solved only to see it spring up again.
This time it's our plumbers that are ill, and it's most of them.
We're trying to figure out why the majority of them would fall ill
all at once when our data so far implies that the new plague takes a
while to get working and that there seems to be no external factor
that causes it to attack.
But here you have it. Sixteen men
and women who feel as though their lungs are in a vice. We're
treating them, of course, but it's a new twist in a situation we
thought we were beginning to understand. The only significant factors
I can think of off hand are the zombie attack--meaning widespread
exposure to a possible mutation in the plague itself--and the
weather, which has been crazy. Was the dust storm part of it?
I
fucking hate that we don't know. Not simply for my own curiosity, but
because being able to work out why might give us somewhere to work
from. Maybe a way to predict how the plague changes and
spreads.
What worries me the most is that we'll get a group of
newcomers in here (and there are a group of them hitting the gates
sometime in the next few days--the workmen for our plumbers) that
will bring a variant of the plague that will hit us all over again.
One that may not be vulnerable to heat, or be more damaging to human
tissue, or any number of other problems. Or, god help us, many of
them at once.
And what happens when we bring people in here
who don't have any resistance to our own strain of the new plague? My
brain hurts just trying to lay out the lines of probability.
I
know that in the end all of our problems fall under two categories,
which are 'things we can affect and change' and 'things we can't'. I
know intellectually that human creativity and ingenuity have upper
limits. I can wrap my head around the concept. It just doesn't make
my heart any lighter, though. It doesn't heal the sting of knowing
that somewhere down the line, chancy fate is going to start the cycle
spinning all over again like some giant wheel of fortune and it could
land on 'unsolvable problem'.
We've done well so far. Two and
a half years in, and we've weathered worse than I would have imagined
possible. I mean, come on: the apocalypse happened. Most of humanity
is dead. We're alive and thriving. I just hate that we have to
continue to face such terrifying and potentially deadly threats
constantly. It's hard and wearing on the soul. Especially right in
the middle of the largest project we've ever attempted. We're too
invested in the expansion to stop, and so far none of the people who
are moving here have voiced objections because of the new plague
claiming more victims.
They say they could get sick and die
where they are, so they might as well go where they want to be. Can't
argue with the logic, though I'm disheartened that circumstances
force us to be so fatalistically honest. All I can do is hope that
eventually fate will stop spinning the merry-go-round and let us move
on to a safer and less volatile future.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
Hey,
this is Kincaid again. Josh is away for the day. He said he was out
of action, but the opposite is true. He's in the field this morning
with one of the attack groups. There's a big congregation of zombies
nestled inside a stand of trees that butts up against the bottom of a
cliff. It isn't that far away, and he needs eyes on the target to
decide how many people to dedicate to wiping out the group.
So
here I am again, filling in and without much to say. Guess I could
mention that the treatments for the plumbers went well. They're
resting up now. It's looking like the large convoy of workers will be
here tomorrow at the latest. That means we can get a start on the new
infrastructure. I'm excited about that since I've been sponging
myself clean for the last month. Even minimal running water will make
that job a lot less work.
I've been assigned to the plumbers,
by the way. Me and a small team of men are providing most of the
protection until the support convoy gets here. Since the people I'm
watching out for are safely inside while they get their strength
back, I don't have much to do.
But I guess I can share some of
what I've picked up while on guard duty. The coolest thing so far is
the reservoir they want to build here. At first the idea was to
daisy-chain a dozen or so large tanks from fuel or milk trucks
together and wall them up. Then put a lot of tarp and canvas out to
act as a huge funnel for rain. It's still something worth doing, I
think. The plumbers have another idea that goes along with it. They
want to dig a huge underground reservoir, a big open pit. Line it
with sand on the bottom and fuse it into glass. Maybe do the same
with the walls if they can figure out out. Then just top it with some
custom-made materials and use it as a cistern.
It's a good
idea, I guess. But I'd be worried about the glass parts breaking
under the weight of all that water. There are some other problems
that seem likely, but I don't want to piss in anyone's cereal. Some
of these people are experienced civil engineers. They know what
they're doing better than me.
I should probably mention to
them that not far from here is an abandoned train with about twenty
tanker cars on it. That might make a difference. Doesn't mean getting
them here would be easy or even possible, but they need to know. I
think tankers of whatever type would be a better idea. We know they
work for sure. I'd rather not risk my own drinking water on any wild
ideas.
One thing I learned out on the road was to keep things
as modular as possible. Made sense then, we were always moving around
to stay safe...and for other reasons. We had to be able to pick up
and go at a moment's notice. Having to haul our own gear gave us a
damn good reason to make sure it was all tough and reliable. Use a
lot of small gas cans instead of one big tank and you don't risk the
entire supply on one wild bullet. Put small bundles of food in
varying locations in each vehicle and you don't starve if you and the
group get separated. Just make sure the vehicles run well and can
each last on their own without help. Armor them individually and
don't solely rely on the camp to keep you safe.
Guess I'm
babbling. Sorry about that. I haven't had much sleep. See, when my
active job is on hold, everyone thinks what I wrote up there, that I
don't have much to do. So a lot of folk ask me for help with this and
that. I don't like to say no if I can help it. Writing here today has
been a nice break from the busyness. But maybe some sleep is in
order.
Unless my plumbers feel up to going out this morning.
In that case I'm pretty much screwed all over.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
I
almost had to ask Kincaid to write another post today, because I
really wanted to go out with the assault teams as they take on the
big nest of zombies we found yesterday. They should be starting their
attack within the next hour or so, but obviously I won't be joining
them.
It's almost funny, because they want me to stay here for
my safety. Seriously. Worse, after I talked to a few of the team
leaders about it, I have to agree. I'm swiftly falling behind in
training and experience. Basically as far as assault teams go, I'm a
relic. Oh, I can defend the walls and fight like a bastard in a
pinch, no doubt about that. But these people have been out fighting
every other day, and training for eight hours on their off days.
They've evolved new methods and techniques
and 
become
very efficient and practiced with them. I can't hang with that unless
I give up everything else I do and join the assault teams
full-time.
It says something about how good they're getting at
their job that they only held back from hitting the swarm of nearly
five hundred zombies we found yesterday because I was there with a
scout team. They didn't want to risk our safety. Keep in mind we were
outnumbered ten-to-one, and those crazy bastards thought those were
decent odds.
The speed with which they came up with a plan of
attack was mind-boggling. Less than ten minutes after getting all the
reports from the various teams, the leaders had hammered out a basic
strategy. I couldn't find anything to criticize in their efforts,
either. They had some ideas I'd have never considered.
And
some weapons I didn't know we had. For example, small canisters of
pressurized ammonia. We usually use empty propane tanks for that, but
they're heavy and hard to carry around in a fight. At some point
recently an enterprising person found some canisters that can be
filled and refilled with pressurized ammonia and water. Basically a
mister with some muscle in it, but that's awesome. It allows pinpoint
control of where the ammonia goes, which means we--they--can herd the
zombies exactly where they want.
That's where the killing
happens.
This isn't the first time I've been replaced. I mean,
I've never really been the driving force in ground fighting or
anything, but I've worked and led teams since New Haven was just the
compound. It's just strange to know that there are people out there
doing the fighting for me, and in ways I just can't compete with. It
isn't bad. I don't feel depressed over it. Knowing me, I probably
should.
But I just don't feel that way, which is really odd.
Normally I take this kind of thing personally, but the team leaders
didn't treat me like a kid or anything. They pointed out that I
defend our home regularly. It's just that the assault teams are
becoming more and more specialized and I would be risking everyone's
safety by trying to fit in without the same training.
I'm fine
with that. Which caught me off guard. I think it's because I'm really
quite happy that we're finally at a place where we 
can 
specialize
in things. There will be people whose main responsibility will be
defenders of New Haven, out there on the walls or in the hills
kicking ass and clearing out the undead. We'll have more than a
handful of medical staff who have in-depth training on how to
diagnose and treat patients.
I'm a generalist who has
experience doing a lot of things, but because of that I can't focus
on one long enough to become an expert at anything. I'm smiling as I
type that. I used to have this hope that New Haven would turn into
this huge community of people that can do every person's job and have
all the skillsets they'd need to survive. I don't think that's
feasible. I think every person should learn the basics about a lot of
things, survival training included, but that idea is only good for
starting over. For the simple things.
To move past where we
are right now--and I'm deeply proud of what we've done in New Haven,
our accomplishments go far beyond mere survival--we have to start
specializing. Maybe I can learn a new skillset soon, once I'm totally
redundant. I'd like to.
For bodies to grow, cells have to
differentiate into muscle fibers, cardiac tissue, organs. For a
complex living structure to exist long-term, this simply 
must 
happen.
I think my eyes have been opened this morning.
Now, to wait
for news from the teams. Full account of the assault tomorrow.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
Okay,
I don't want to give a blow-by-blow on how the big fight went down
yesterday, because I wasn't actually there. I know the generalities
of the thing, and our people were brilliant and methodical.
The
basic idea was to herd the zombies where we wanted them. That was
actually pretty easy since they were butted up against a steep hill.
Our folks slathered ammonia around the entire area, pushing the
undead into a smaller and smaller area. Up the hill, in fact. Which
was where the archers were waiting.
Firing down on the New
Breed trying to climb the hill was the safest and most efficient way
the team leaders could come up with to cut down a large number of
them relatively quickly. Moving uphill slowed the zombies down quite
a bit, and the fallen bodies of the front lines made it that much
harder for those behind to trudge upward.
New Breed, not being
stupid, will only walk into a death trap for so long before deciding
to do something else. We've known for a while that the undead will
travel through areas contaminated by ammonia if they have to. They
did. Funny thing about the zombie sense of smell; when they move
through areas they don't like, such as a cloud of ammonia, they
invariably go where the smell is weakest.
We knew that,
too.
Which was how the attack teams managed to get the undead
to walk around in a section of woods liberally mined with small
balloons filled with alcohol-laced gel. Well, some of them. Others
were packed with thermite gel. Pretty much all of them burst when the
zombies stepped on them. For the record, those fuckers still don't
like fire at all.
The path was chosen carefully by our folks
out of concern for starting a wildfire we couldn't control. When the
flames hit, the undead panicked. Those that didn't have their legs
burned to useless sticks by the rapid spread of the fire ran like
hell through the areas of heavily-concentrated ammonia. That slowed
them down and made them less sharp.
It helps that there were
auxiliary units placed around the area for just that scenario. Turns
out the workers that migrated to aid with building our infrastructure
were quite happy to lend a hand.
It wasn't beautiful or
perfect. Five people were seriously injured, and two died. More than
five hundred zombies were killed, though. Not bad numbers, though of
course we can never replace those we lost.
Efficiency could
have been better. The whole deal took nearly three hours if you count
the time spent performing coup-de-grace on the hundreds of injured
zombies. The hard part wasn't making the situation less dangerous,
our weaponry and planning did that. No, it was maintaining the
patience to treat every zombie crawling toward our fighters as a true
and deadly threat. Kill a few clawing their way across the dirt
toward you and it starts to seem like an easy job. Until one bites
you on the leg or manages to trip you. Our teams had to move in
roughly circular groups to keep eyes all around for sneaky undead
trying to do just that.
Of course there was a lot of
hand-to-hand, but that's really not interesting to me at this point.
Our people are practiced at fighting fully functional zombies in
teams, which are easy to spot when they're moving about unhindered.
It's almost funny to me that the injured undead were more of a
threat, but it's the truth. Those not crisped below the knees were so
dazed by the fire and sudden violence (not to mention the ammonia)
that they could barely manage a straight line, much less a cohesive
front.
It was a big victory. Our people cut them down like so
much wheat. Wow, I totally wrote a blow-by-blow. Ha. I didn't mean
to. I wanted to tell you about some other stuff going on, but that'll
just have to wait until the day after tomorrow, as I'll be off as
usual in the morning. I may be a little high on victory at the
moment. I better go.