Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land (12 page)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Protection

Posted by Josh Guess

There has yet to be a point where I'm not surprised at the ingenuity and creative force of those who have survived along with me. Granted, some out-of-the-box thinking is a downright requirement for surviving as long as we have. More and more lately people are coming up with better or new ideas to solve problems.
One big issue we've run into is armor. At first we started cobbling together anything we could find to keep the people that had to go out into the open safe. We've used heavy martial arts Gi, chainmail, baseball pads...anything and everything we could find that worked.
Since it's a slow news day, I thought I'd share an idea that Jamie had. Jamie is our lead scout, and lately he and the scout units have had to travel pretty far and wide to look for useful items. One place that we've pretty much left alone was the small industrial complex on the other side of town. Most of what's there are factories that don't really have anything we can easily use. We've been over that way a few times to salvage metal from some of the machines along with plexiglass (which always comes in handy).
Jamie went over the the factory where Jess (and myself, years ago) used to work, before The Fall. The place was pretty empty of zombies, so Jamie and his crew had a look around.
He found a hundred little things we could use at the compound. Not because the rest of us didn't notice them, but because his mind was looking at otherwise normal objects from a totally different point of view. Where the rest of us ignored the dozens of boxes of plastic granules, Jamie saw a trove of incredibly useful materials.
Those tiny bits of plastic, ignored by the rest of us, might mean life for many of us.
Jamie hauled back a truck full of them, along with all of the technical manuals he could find. In them are everything we need to know about the materials in question. Jamie isn't a specialist in designing armor, but after a year of doing it and teaching others to...Jess is.
She and all her students are buzzing about it. All of them are in the other room right now, chattering ideas at one another about how best to design the molds. Jess knows a lot about this stuff--she worked with it a lot longer than I did. She knows how strong it is, how light it is, and how much more versatile it is than the bulky chainmail we've been using.
That's the big one. Being able to make molds to mass-produce identical blanks for the various shapes we'll need is critical. We can outfit a lot of people with armor that will be lighter, protect better, and best of all...it won't look idiotic.
To understand why this is important to me, look back at my post titled "Homemade Hero". Once you've armored your body with toilet paper and parts of toilets, you get an appreciation for good looking gear.
I'm rambling. I know this is a bit out of the blue and chaotic, but I had to share. We're all really excited about it. That alone should tell you how eager for a distraction we are.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Splashback

Posted by Josh Guess

One constant that seems to follow human beings through their lives is that we make mistakes. Whether we're victims of overconfidence or just pure error, there's no way to avoid it. Yesterday was a sad day for a few of the 
girls
 women that work with Jess. This time, it was overconfidence that played us for fools.
Most of Saturday afternoon and early Sunday, a small group of us worked like mad to make molds for the plastic granules. Me, Jess, Pat and his girls, and Jess's students spent hours working on designs and comparing materials. In the end we decided on using a stock of clay we'd refined and stockpiled from the tons we've had to move around as we farmed the compound. The good thing about clay is that it's abundant and we can make new molds from a master easily.
In the end we made three clay molds. One for small medallions of plastic that we could work into scale mail. One for long plates to cover the limbs. One for wide plates of various sizes to cover the torso. Everything was going fine until we took the full molds out of the fire.
Three of Jess's students went to take the torso mold out of the fire (we had to use the makeshift forge we built for Patrick) when the thing disintegrated, showing them with molten plastic. I've never seen anything so awful in all my life, and I include watching people being ripped to shreds by zombies in that statement. I had heard stories from old friends at the factory about people who had gotten the stuff on their skin. I've even seen scars on one guy who had it happen.
Seeing it happen right in front of me was so much more than I was prepared for. I could smell the flesh and hair burn as the plastic washed across them, breaking into droplets. Not being total idiots, we'd gotten buckets of water ready in case something bad happened, and it was only a few seconds before we'd doused them.
The damage had been done at that point. One of them lost an eye as a drop of scalding plastic burned right through it. All of them screamed as Gabby and Phil pulled the cooling stuff from them, wide swaths of skin coming with it.
I'm told that if the medical staff can keep them from getting infections, the students will live. They'll carry scars with them for the rest of their lives, however long or short they may be. From something as simple as a clay vessel and melted beads of plastic.
We've become so used to making our ideas work that we've sort of gotten tunnel vision. We don't think about the consequences of our failure sometimes. It's a grim reminder that caution has to be our constant companion. Even then, we'll still fail.
I see those women every day as they work with Jess. I'll be reminded every time they come into my home the price of working too quickly. In their faces all of us will see the need to be thorough and careful. There just aren't enough people left for us to be anything less.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Progression

Posted by Josh Guess

All three of Jess's students are still under Gabby's care at the clinic, none of them showing signs of infection yet. Gabby is a wound specialist, and that training includes dealing with burns. It's actually lucky that none of the burns are over large areas. The biggest is about the size of a quarter. That's important because it means that each burn only has to heal itself. The prognosis is just on the positive side at the moment.
I'll try to keep you updated on their condition, but the world spins on...
I've gotten updated and more detailed information about the earthquake in Japan. It happened quite a lot longer ago than I was originally told. There's some good news to be had out of that situation, however: a large number of survivors there have been confirmed alive in several of the smaller communities on the main island. They've managed to set up a transmitter powerful enough to talk with others in the area. I'm still sifting through the details, but it looks good for them right now.
Every morning when I go through my messages, I hope to find something game-changing. I couldn't tell you what that might be, but it's sort of like the high-strung expectation you got as a kid on Christmas morning. The sense of potential and anticipation I feel when I open my mail or check my phone is powerful. I've yet to get that piece of mail that could have life-altering ramifications for all of us...but this morning I got some interesting news that has more potential than most.
The news about the soldiers that joined forces with the people of North Jackson has predictably spread among the known groups of survivors like wildfire. NJ is now the largest known group of survivors anywhere, and their leadership is putting out daily reports via email about how things are working out there.
I have to say, the news is pretty cool. It's awesome to read about so many half-finished (or barely started) projects that were going on while I and the other refugees stayed there finally having the manpower to get finished. The fence to the hydroponics bay? It'll be done in a few days. Clearing out several more acres adjacent to the main complex? A week, tops. With so many soldiers willing and eager to get on the walls and defend in order to give the civilians of NJ a chance to work on other things, just about every idea and pet project is getting some attention.
Of course, it doesn't take four hundred people to guard the wall. Even split into three shifts, it doesn't take that many. They post a hundred guards per shift three times a day, leaving about a hundred of them left to work on improving defenses, constructing new walls, and the like. NJ is going to quickly turn into a very interesting place to live, I bet.
I'm a little envious of them. I think of all we could have accomplished if the Richmond soldiers had taken the path of reason and just asked to come live here, and it rubs me the wrong way. The proof of what could have been is in stark black and white on my screen.
That's life in this new world, though. It's impossible to predict how fortune will favor you, or fate cheat you. All you can do when life gives you challenges is meet them or fail. Other options just don't exist. Pining away at lost opportunities just wastes time and effort. I remember how hard I used to wish to win the lottery--and now I wish that I'd spent that time in pleasant imagining learning some skill that I currently lack. Oh, yes, I would trade millions of dollars for the ability to properly dress a deer. I'm still not good at that.
I don't know if the changes going on in NJ are going to be the game-changers I hope for them to be. My imagination is pretty good, and I see a lot of possibilities. With such dedicated protectors, maybe NJ will become a center of trade and commerce. I can see them becoming a society that trades technology to many smaller communities.
Maybe they'll become a highly militarized group, and work tirelessly to produce technology that will help them expand in order to make room for ever more citizens.
Maybe they'll become evil marauders who rape and pillage. I doubt that one.
Really, my best guess is that for the time being, the people of NJ new and old alike will struggle and scratch to get by. There will be hungry times and moments of plenty with so many mouths to feed. But people are a resource like any other, and they've got a nice surplus. If anyone can make that work to their advantage, the people that Jack gathered together can. I know that.
We'll be here to help them in any way we can. Just as they would do for us.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tempest

Posted by Josh Guess

I  thought the storms we had last week were bad, but the one we had overnight was the worst I've seen in a long time. Admittedly, it wasn't whole magnitudes worse than last week's, but it did more damage.
At least a dozen houses have large swaths of shingles missing. Many of the additions we've built onto some of the houses, like enclosed porches, have had their walls broken. The worst of it is the observation tower that rises from the middle of the big hill. It got hit by lightning. Not damaged enough that it fell, thank god, and there was obviously no one in it when the strike hit, but it isn't usable right now.
One of the main legs of the tower is cracked and splintered about three-fourths the way through. If it breaks and comes apart, the whole thing will fall and probably topple onto a house. We've evacuated the surrounding homes for the time being, which makes for tighter quarters than usual.
My brother estimates that with a team of decent carpenters he can completely repair the tower in about three days. That's not so long for the folks that live nearby to hunker down and double up in beds. The problem is that there are other, more vital fixes that need to be seen to.
The tower took the worst damage, but the largest threat is the beating the wall took. The storm came in from the west, and that section of the wall is riddled with small breaks and missing boards. At first glance none of them are large enough for a zombie to get through, but now that it's daylight a better look can be taken at the integrity of the thing. My guess is that for every obvious gap, there's probably a cracked board or loose log that couldn't be seen in the dark. I'm wondering if we didn't get hit by the edge of a tornado given how much debris is laying around.
It's a lot of work, and I seem to be saying that a lot lately. The spring storms here are stronger than most years, and that's causing us a lot of grief. As always, we'll put forth some extra effort and get the repairs done as best we can.
I'm just hoping the April showers are nearly over. Our people need a nice, long period of calm to rest up.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

A Strand of Web

Posted by Josh Guess

I saw a piece of dandelion fluff this morning. It was stuck to a single strand of spiderweb, tenuously strewn between two walls of my enclosed porch. As I noticed it thrumming back and forth in the breeze, a powerful thought struck me.
Life is just as precious and fragile. Though circumstances have changed in a way that dramatically shows this by contrast, it's as true as it has always been. The zombie plague has thrown the eventual survival of humanity into question. Those of us left behind are like the piece of dandelion fluff, a seed that holds the possibility of survival for humankind.
The dead walk among us, hungry and terrible. They are to be pitied as much as they are to be feared. They are the breeze that shakes us, one of many things that threatens all we have worked toward. The recent storms and the damage they've wrought serve to show us that there are many things to fear beside the undead. The rage of nature is always an obvious terror, as are the zombies themselves. But just as dangerous are more subtle threats--disease, despair, darkness of the human soul.
What we are and what we face are two of the more obvious parts of this weird realization. The fluff, a piece of potential that faces the wind which threatens it. The most powerful part of that single moment for me wasn't seeing the struggle of we human survivors against powerful forces in that one image. It was realizing that what kept the fluff safe, what held it aloft in defiance of the wind, was a strand of something so thin that it was invisible yet so strong that it couldn't be broken.
What is it that keeps us going? What is the name of the force inside all of us that has driven humanity to survive through all of the horrors and disasters throughout our history? I once said on this blog that I had read somewhere that all the billions of people alive had come from a near-extinction event that left a mere six thousand of us alive. My god--what sheer force of will it must have taken those six thousand to struggle on. to hunt and farm, to make the awful choices they likely faced. Where did it come from? Where did they find the strength?
An animal will, if injured badly enough, lay down and die. Some people will too. So many of us, however, will choose to fight. Clawing and scratching for every moment of existence. We do it for ourselves on one level, and for those we love on another. I think that deep down, below all that, we find wells of determination and grit that spring from the simple urge to see our species survive. I don't know if that makes us unique in the animal kingdom, but it does make me proud.
It's almost profound in its simplicity, and enormously complex in its implications. Life is persistent and powerful in all its many forms. Human life is difficult and frightening, especially now, yet we do not lay down and accept that it can overwhelm us.
What holds people together is impossible to see until something comes along and shakes us. When we are under strain from something awful, the edges of what binds us can just be glimpsed. It is that resistance that shows us that our bonds are real. Call it hope or determination or whatever you like--it's something that all of us share with each other, making a net so strong that only total destruction of our species could break it.
Only a day after the last storm, and that single strand of web was there. Did it survive the wind and rain? Did some enterprising spider decide to rebuild it so quickly?
We have rebuilt. We have survived storms.
A thought, from a single strand of web.