Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons (43 page)

I held their hands as they died, and that could have been Jackie. Could have been Jess. 

The thought makes the bottom drop out of my stomach. 

All of us are angry, but none of us are stupid. To attack the compound would be literal suicide--I know Will Price well enough to know that he has to have improved the defenses since we've left. And god knows how much firepower the Richmond soldiers brought with them. We're stuck with being pissed off to a degree that English doesn't have a word for and not being able to do anything about it. 

So, we stock up. We're going to make North Jackson as sturdy and defensible as we can, pack it with supplies, and plan. The soldiers know we're coming for them one day, that's no secret. All we have to do is figure out how and find a way to build an army to do it. We've got the moral support of so many of the other survivors Courtney met and worked with, but it's just that. None of them are going to organize massive efforts to help us take our home back and free our people. I get it, really. People have survived because they didn't risk their lives when the likelihood was almost certain that they would be killed. Only if you have to. That's how you keep on breathing. 

I don't mind talking about it now. The Richmond soldiers know that their unprovoked attack has had terrible repercussions for them. They can't expect us to just forget it and move on. They knew when my people fled the compound that we would eventually come back. Thats MY home. Our home. 

Now they have hundreds more equally ready to kill them with gusto. Far from being worried that they know we're planning, I WANT them to know. To think about it. To worry and fret over just what the details are. I want them afraid and jumping at shadows, thinking that the next random noise could be one of us sneaking in for the kill. 

I doubt it, though. That's how it's done in books, not in reality. These are trained soldiers, and while their moral fiber seems to have gone threadbare, I doubt that years of training and discipline will fail them when faced with threats and taunts from a group of seven hundred people that have about a hundred bullets between them. 

Well...maybe a bit more ammo than that. But not enough. Nowhere near. 

So...something else will have to take the place of guns. Like I said, this will be a long drive. Plenty of time to think about that problem. 

at 
11:39 AM

Posted by Josh Guess

NH3 is the formula for ammonia. I looked it up on the copy of the Ark that's stored on the massive external hard drive I tote around with me all the time. Yes, I have my own copy. No, I didn't steal it. I just spent a little time copying stuff...
We're taking a few hours to regroup and plan our next stop, because one of the towns Jess and I scouted isn't safe to go into any longer. I don't know how long ago the leak happened, but there's now a massive cloud of noxious chemicals all over the place. Thank god we realized it before we got to the cache of canned food and tools we had located on our last trip. We knew there was a big plant of some kind, though we didn't get close enough to identify it. Apparently it was a chemical company of some kind, and whatever fail safe measures were in place when it was abandoned...well, failed.
It was a blow to all of us. This cache was important, both in real terms and psychologically. The volume of canned food would have kept everyone at NJ fed for weeks--that's a huge deal to people who are used to living on fifteen hundred calories a day, mostly grains and rice. The tools were actually located in a small factory that produced them. So we would have had an abundance of hand tools, always useful, and access to the machines that made them if we ever wanted to come up here and take them.
Running away from that awful, choking cloud definitely hurt the morale of everyone that came with us. The last few weeks have been especially harsh for the people of NJ and my own refugees, and this collection run really seemed to pump them up. Knowing that we would be doing something worthwhile for the long-term survival of the group gave everyone a boost, not just those that came on the trip with us. It gave most people a project--those who planned the logistics, those who designed the upgrades to the trucks and those who did the upgrading, even the folks that prepared our food for the trip so we didn't have to make camp and cook, which saves us a lot of time.
Leaving that place behind wasn't devastating. We'll buck up when the next destination is in sight. Yeah, we wasted fuel getting here, but we've got plenty in the extra tanks to last us, not even considering what we can pilfer on the way. Yeah, we wasted time--but time is something that we have a lot of now. No worries about renewing our licenses or filing those taxes. Eat, drink, shelter, survival--all else is a luxury. I just hate to see all these people down, feeling defeated again so soon after taking such hard losses. I hate feeling that way too.
I know there's nothing we could have done about it. I get that. It's a situation beyond our control. We know that, but it might take a bit to really feel it. Until then we'll joke with one another and try to get confidence back up. After all, there are plenty more places where we can go to that have things we need. Chances are those places don't have giant clouds of ammonia and other dangerous substances boiling around them from terrible spills.
I don't take this setback as a total loss, though. I did notice one very interesting thing: lines of zombies moving away from the corrosive cloud. Zombies that, on any other day, would have come after us with furious hunger. Today, they didn't. They were escaping and even when they heard our trucks running and noticed that we were people (hence, food) they didn't come after us. They seemed to be incredibly put off by the touch of the corrosive gas. Interesting, because I've seen zombies lose limbs and set on fire yet still come after the living.
These zombies had obvious chemical burns all over them. I wonder if it was just the global discomfort of having their skin toasted by fumes, or if the plague that animates them had its fibrous structures damaged by the contact? There's no way for me to know, really, and it will be a long time before we can find out, if we ever can. It's nice to know that there is something out there that will affect the undead in such a way that they will leave us alone, even if it is a toxic substance that would hurt us as well.
Of course, this development is taken with the usual gain of salt. I've seen zombies evolve in at least two ways so far, some of them becoming more intelligent and later almost all of them becoming resistant to cold. I suspect that many of them are becoming less and less dependent on regular feeding, given that none of us have seen much drop in their numbers even though the number of living humans is probably at its lowest ebb in twenty thousand years. We knew that they were efficient in storing what they eat and using it sparingly, but unconfirmed reports from some other groups lead me to think that we know a lot less about the undead than we once thought. So, I wouldn't be surprised if, a few months down the road, we see zombies that can walk right through puddles of ammonia without batting a milky-white eye. They adapt to whatever problem seems to stand in their way far too easily for me to expect otherwise.
I just read over this post, and I have to say, I think this trip out is doing some good for me as well. Yes, we've had a big setback, but this is the first time in a week that I've written something that didn't sound morose to the point of depression. I feel better, being out and doing things. I think this is good therapy.
And yeah--the zombies might evolve. But to hell with them. I talk about the things that make me want to keep the tribe alive, the things that make me love humanity...and our capacity to evolve is near the top of the list. We can't do it genetically as fast as the plague seems to manage, but our minds can do it far better than any disease. Adapting to the situation, I guess, has made me feel a little more positive.
Or maybe I'm just psyching myself up. Either way, I'll take it. I needed a boost.

at 
9:54 AM

Posted by Josh Guess

Well, yesterday wasn't a loss in the end. Actually, we made out better than we hoped for.
When we drove away from the town flooded with chemical spills, I said that there was a glum feeling of failure among us. There was--right up until we hit our next target. The closest town that Jess and I had scouted last time we were up here was a good piece bigger than the one shrouded in chemicals. We considered it of less value, because there wasn't food to be found as there was in the place we had to abandon.
No surprise stock of canned goods, but upon closer inspection we did discover what appeared to be an abandoned stronghold. It was this big set of apartment buildings, looked like housing projects. The people that had lived there at one point erected walls and stockpiled all sorts of interesting things. We did find a little food, actually, maybe a few hundred cans of veggies and some sacks of dry pasta, but that isn't more than a day's worth for the residents of NJ. The great finds were more subtle but useful things.
All sorts of homemade items. Almost every apartment we went into (and there were about fifty of them) had a jet stove--one of those tiny stoves made from spare metal that are designed to burn wood with crazy efficiency. There was a lot of stock metal--round bar, flat bar, all sizes and shapes, which the people here used to make weapons, but also to fashion some very clever items that met specific needs.
For example--the wall there isn't as sound as others I've seen. Not because of poor craftsmanship, but because the complex is set on a steep hill, making it hard to build evenly. There were gaps where a determined zombie could probably work his way through or over. Solution? A sort of angled spike with a barb on it, attached to the weaker sections of wall. A heavy spring was linked to a section of wall, and when a zombie climbed it, the movement of the wall under the zombie triggered the release of the spike, impaling the zombie and filling the gap in the wall with its pinned body.
That's freaking creative! There were all sorts of things like that around. All of it made by hand, and the metal worked at, you guessed it, a small forge the folks here had set up. God knows how long it took them to figure out how to build one, get the supplies, and get it done. It didn't take us all that long at my own compound, but we had the advantage of having Patrick, who had grown up obsessed with learning to blacksmith. He knew all the details, all we had to do was give him supplies and people.
Aside from the apartment complex, the cache of building supplies that Jess and I marked were still there. We loaded up what we needed and headed back to the apartment complex. It seemed as good a place as any to rest. Too bad the people there seemed to have abandoned it--and it is abandoned, there were signs that no one had been there in a few months at the least. One thing that makes me wonder what happened there is the surprising amount of fuel left behind. I'd think that if you were picking up and making a run for it, you'd put every ounce of diesel and gas you could in spare tanks. Though we haven't found even one body, and no signs of forced entry (the place was locked up tight when we got to it), there are dozens of cars packed into the parking lot, all with fuel. Most with more than half a tank. Not to mention a giant plastic drum full of diesel, at least three hundred gallons of it.
One last thing we found here: some sort of lab. At first glance I thought it was a meth lab, but that was just because so much of it was slapped together from whatever the people that lived her could find. There are cannisters of stuff in there, and large drums that are sealed tight. We're going to look at it a lot more carefully before we leave out. Might be something useful.
There are three more big stops for us before we head back to North Jackson. A few minor stops along the way, but I think we can manage it all in a few days. The only real trouble we've run into so far is the chemical spill, though with the warm front that has moved in, the zombies around these parts have become a lot more active. No sluggish movements from exposure to extreme cold. Just as fast and dangerous as ever. There will undoubtedly be crowds of them, but the modifications to our trucks (gotta love cow-catchers) should make driving through them easy enough. We aren't planning on staying exposed long enough to attract groups of them at our stops, but we can run if we're suddenly set upon by the undead.
...I find myself feeling a powerful yearning to be back at NJ. It's funny how The Fall seemed to separate people into two basic categories, and helped those who wanted to live in peace get along with others of the same mindset. I always felt friendship toward the people at NJ, Jack's compound, whatever you want to call it. However, I didn't see them as more than that before our recent tragedy brought us together. I feel like I'm away from family right now, family in pain. I want to be there to hold their hands and keep them smiling. I don't know if that's weird to you, but it's both reassuring (that I can build new bonds) and frightening (because I am afraid to lose any more of them) to me.
I share the anger against our attackers. All of us do. And honestly, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the urge to do something disturbing and permanent to the Richmond soldiers. The desire to march home, back to Kentucky and to the compound, pulls at me all the time. To step right up and just lose control on those bastards for everything they've done...
Good thing I'm stuck on this run, no chance to give in, or I might. Just not today...

at 
10:09 AM