Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) (15 page)

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
The
first blush of dawn is rolling across the hills. The morning is just
chill enough to refresh, not cold enough to cause discomfort. Birds
are chirping. I almost expect a clever talking animal to show up with
a Disneyesque voice over narrating our improbably
meeting.
It's 
that 
nice
a morning. Made more so by the fact that from my roof, which is where
I'm sitting as I type this, I can see hints of dull metal glinting
against the darkness. The walls of the expansion are up, and the
whole thing done in less than ten hours. It was a bitch of a ten
hours, mind you, but breathtaking to watch. It was hard enough on
everyone that a few people had to be kept overnight at the clinic for
observation. Exhaustion can do funny things to the body.
Not
everything went perfectly. The dock we used was old and in disrepair,
and about halfway through the day the damn thing started cracking
under the weight of all the shipping boxes. Fortunately Dave decided
that he would spend his day overseeing the most dangerous part,
transferring from the boats to dry land. He knew the dock was risky
to use, and the makeshift repairs he'd made in preparation weren't
enough. Dave is like MacGyver when it comes to fixing things. I don't
know what sorcery he used to reinforce the dock, but it only took him
twenty minutes.
By the end of the day the dock was basically
trashed, but still holding together. The awesome thing about rivers
is that you have an infinite space to haul stuff behind you. George
and his folks pulled those barges along, small for barges but a lot
more of them than he initially planned to bring. The place they moved
from had big reserves of diesel fuel, most of which they brought with
them. They brought some portable machinery to make moving the
containers easier. Without that and the fuel we'd probably still be
there.
Seeing the light hitting the expansion is invigorating.
The walls are four hundred feet on a side, each ten containers long.
Most of the wall is two containers tall, though a few places aren't.
Not because we didn't have enough, but because we're making them
assault points for any zombie attacks. The idea is to anchor tall
pieces of metal across them, welded to the box below. Slits between
these shield pieces about six inches to a foot wide will allow
defenders to fire down on the enemy without giving them a way in.
A
good chunk of George's people (I guess now that they live here we can
call George by his real name...which is George, actually. See how
clever I am? I lied by telling the truth) are already living in the
expansion. Mainly because the volunteers who came to help us prepare
are still taking up most of our extra houseroom. It hasn't been too
cold lately, so they aren't suffering. Most of them are staying
inside the wall itself. There are holes cut into the sides of the
containers to allow entry.
Jess wants to use the inside of the
new wall to farm in, though I don't know if we'd be able to get
enough sunlight in them to manage that. It's a fair point,
though--they're hollow. We should really use that space for
something.
It's kind of amazing to see so much work suddenly
done. We were planning on a long process of making bricks and
building a new wall by hand. The main building we planned in the
middle of the expansion is the first thing to go up, and even that's
had a lot of work done on it. The base is made up of five giant metal
boxes.
Weird how so much of our lives before The Fall were
affected by these things. A simple piece of transportation gear being
shuttled across oceans, bringing us mp3 players, blenders, feminine
hygiene products, and a million other bits of material to make our
modern lives easier. Now they're trash. I use the definition of trash
in its most basic meaning--an object no longer useful for its
original purpose. Recycling is fun.
We've had a hard time
lately, no doubt about it. Things are certainly better right now than
they were at this time last year, but life is always throwing
curveballs at you. That's the way the world has always been. It's
refreshing to see new faces, new blood. As far as I'm concerned,
George and his people are family now. They've done a lot of work in a
very short time to get here, taken a lot of risks, and are going to
do it all over again. A few days to rest and George will lead his
boats back up the river with a mix of his people and ours to bring
back every last piece of useful material from his camp. Hopefully
that means more shipping containers. There are more left, of course.
Those things are so damn useful.
I shouldn't say 'his' people
or ours anymore. We're all in this together, now. I guess that's why
my mood is so light this morning. There's a lot of hard work ahead of
us as always, but seeing our numbers grow after so many heartbreaking
setbacks makes Josh's heart grow three sizes this day.
I'm
feeling pretty good. This is the first morning since my surgery that
I've awakened without pain. My gut's tight and stiff, but it doesn't
just hurt for no reason right now. The air feels great blowing across
me, bringing with it the smell of breakfast cooking. If not for the
distant moans and groans of the undead, it would be a perfect
morning.
I think even those pained echos from over the barrier
that separates us from them are appropriate. No matter how beautiful
the morning or how positive our outlook may grow to be we need those
reminders. We have to always carry with us that we could die at any
time. That forgetting the danger we live in for a moment of relieved
bliss at a perfect dawn can cost us everything. It's a slippery slope
from discipline to self-delusion, and it ends with us crossing the
Rubicon of death and joining the undead on the other side. Maybe a
little harsh given how good my mood is, but I've got a lot of
practice finding the cloud in every silver lining. That's probably
why I'm still alive.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
A
couple people from smaller and less communicative bands of survivors
have been asking me questions lately. Some of these folks only have
contact with the wider world through word of mouth, making it
difficult for them to gain much outside information. Since things are
calm and relatively boring today, I thought I'd take the time to
answer a few of those questions.
Are
we still using chain-link fence for parts of our wall or
boundaries?
Not
so much. This question makes a lot of sense. Early in The Fall, an
easy way to keep zombies out was to use this stuff. It's easy to
install and plentiful. Old school zombies have a hard time taking
down a good long stretch of chain-link, assuming you've put it up
properly and made sure to strengthen it as much as possible. Not as
much help against swarms, of course.
Unfortunately most of
them come in swarms now. A few dozen bodies pushing on a small enough
section will topple it. We used a lot of the stuff in our original
wall to span small gaps here and there, but we made sure to back it
with a lot of metal piping and anything else we could use. Now, with
the coming of the New Breed, it's too risky to use it to protect our
home. Not a bad solution for outside farming, though. I'll have to
look into it. Our scouts probably know if there's a large supply out
there.
We've
found a large supply of tazers and don't want to risk finding out if
they work on zombies first-hand. Do you know?
I
do not, though my best guess is that they won't do much. We've seen
raw electricity used against the undead before, but there's a big
difference between a device intended to incapacitate but not harm a
living person and the juice it takes to run a small factory. Tazers
put out a lot of volts but at a relatively low wattage, and the power
coming from them isn't nearly enough to cook the parasite controlling
the undead. When the folks at North Jackson fried a bunch of zombies
with their bottled lightning, they did it with nets of copper wire
carrying massive voltages at the wattage needed to power large
machinery. The difference is like the light from the moon versus the
light from the sun.
And the last question is also the biggest
and most important to me, because it matters.
Do
you hear from the rest of the world? Do you know what's going on in
Europe or Asia? Is there anyone over there still alive?
This
one hurts, I won't lie. We don't have much direct communication
outside of North America. The bits and pieces we do hear--such as the
tsunami that hit Japan a while back--are usually from the handful of
brave souls willing to travel and share news that eventually spreads.
Becky saw a large portion of Europe and the middle east as she made
her way back to America, but the news isn't great. They face many of
the same problems we do and on even larger scales--there are a lot
more people on that side of the world. those continents are all
connected and suffer accordingly. Becky has stories about the chaos
and destruction, though there are (or at least, 
were
)
good people over there trying to manage just as we are.
The
reason this question bothers me is many-layered. I've been busy a lot
lately, then not nearly as much once I had my surgery. I could have
spent some of my free time thinking about those people so far away,
maybe trying to ferret out information and build relationships with
anyone over there who might be able to access what remains of the
internet. They're human beings, after all, and worthy of
consideration and friendship just like anyone else.
But I
didn't do that. In fact, I've put very little thought into the world
outside of what I can reach by land for the very simple reason that I
can't do a goddamn thing for them. There are probably people who
would be happy to hear a new voice, to commiserate and share news. I
haven't done it because I spend enough time worrying about my own
people that I'm probably going to have a heart attack by the time I'm
thirty-five. If I don't get killed long before then.
The idea
of growing close to someone so far away, learning their nuances, the
trials they go through, making friends, has some appeal. Enough that
the practical side of me wavers a little when I think about it. I
make the conscious decision not to pursue that desire because none of
us can afford to use time and energy worrying about people we can
never do a thing to help. Which is awful.
Not just the people,
either. Europe, Asia, Africa, the middle east, India...the continents
and countries that make up the eastern hemisphere are packed with
human history. We began there and spread, learning and growing on the
move. Technology, philosophy, art, religion, and every other element
that is part of the human mind and soul springs from there. Countless
works of thought and beauty, written words and paintings and
architecture, are probably gone. I'm sure some folks try to protect
them for future generations, but that's where the truth hits
home.
My job, everyone's job, is to make sure there 
are 
future
generations. Which means doing what we can and ignoring distractions
we have no control over. Hurts my heart to say it, but it needed to
be said.
If you've got any questions, leave them as comments
on this post and I'll do another one of these in a few weeks.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
I'm
almost afraid to say it for fear of urging the universe to make a
total dick move and ruin it, but things are...quiet. Good. Calm.
Relatively safe and happy.
Nothing? No sounds of battle or
sudden waves of zombies? Okay. Dodged a bullet that time.
The
only thing of significance going on right now other than Jess being
cleared to work some light duty and me being allowed the same is that
George and a group of folks are readying the boats to head back
upriver. This trip is more relaxed, and we've got scouts out
searching all the nooks and crannies they can find in order to locate
more supplies of diesel fuel. Eventually, I'm told, we will be able
to produce biodiesel, which can apparently be used in regular diesel
engines, or so I'm told. Our supplies are going to be low after this
trip, the subsequent unloading and transport of supplies, etc. We'll
need to stock back up.
But that's about it. Most things are
relaxed at the moment, I'm somehow caught up on my work, and Will
gave me the day off because he's making some runs out with Dodger to
inspect some of our distant hiding spots. Basically, I have the day
to write about anything I want, and nothing big is happening. So I'm
going to do a post I've been putting off for a long time due to its
speculative nature, because I've wanted to do it forever and I'm
pretty sure my guesses aren't far from the truth.
To that end:
some theories about the zombie plague, and what it has to do with my
favorite undersea creature.
The thing that really bugs me
about the evolution of the undead over the last two years is how damn
quick it happened. Natural evolution takes more years than we can
count. Just look at the wonderful, noble octopus. It's a fantastic
beast, able to change color and texture to match its surroundings
easily. Octopuses (which is an acceptable pluralization, I assure
you) have been observed in nature using logical tactics, utilizing
tools, and displaying a tremendous array of applications of
intellect.
In short, an octopus is a creature that has evolved
over thousands of centuries to be an intelligent survivor. So why has
the zombie plague adapted and changed so much in such a short time? I
think many of you probably have the same idea I've been knocking
around in my head for a long time. I think it was man-made.
Granted,
I doubt that the extreme adaptability of the plague was intentional.
I think someone, probably a government, wanted to make a super-bug to
do...something. Maybe kill people, maybe affect their higher brain
functions. I don't know. But whatever the case was, no one counted on
the thing mutating and spreading the way it did.
Rapid
mutations in pathogens aren't uncommon. The HIV microbe is probably
the most famous for that. The damn thing changed so much and so often
that teams of dedicated researchers around the globe were barely able
to keep up with tracking the new strains, much less combating them.
The zombie plague is far more complex than HIV, yet right up until
The Fall, conspiracy theorists still believed HIV was man-made. The
elegance of the disease--wiping out the immune system to let other
diseases wreak havoc--even made me wonder from time to time if those
folks weren't right.
If you want the bare-bones truth, I'm
surprised zombies aren't 
all 
smarter
than they are, New Breed and Smarties included. Think about it: the
plague infiltrates the body, builds tendrils in the brain to copy its
basic motor functions. You'd think a person who dies and comes back
under the plague's control would have access to the higher functions
like reasoning and problem solving. After all, the disease copies
what our brains can do, right?
Of course, that's an
oversimplification. The human brain works on very small scales and is
ridiculously complex. No man-made microbe could hope to capture the
totality of the thing. But we've seen it try. The new breed have
basic problem-solving skills and are learning to use tools.
The
learn. If an octopus can do it, surely the reanimated corpse of the
most intelligent animal on earth can manage the same. Maybe the virus
(or whatever the plague is) was designed to be limited and dumb in
the beginning, making it easier to control and only progressing after
several generations of cell division. That's not out of the realm of
scientific possibility, though it stretches the boundaries quite
far.
A simpler answer is that if someone really did make a
designer plague, then something went wrong. I think they meant the
thing to adapt to a given host, tiny variables from one person to the
next based on age, body chemistry, environment and lots of other
things. The thing about creating life is that once you let that genie
out of the lamp, you have a hell of a time putting it back in. Make a
disease that lurks within, growing and copying the host's functions,
give it a capacity to alter itself to fit circumstances. and you've
got a recipe for variables and insane alterations in the genetic
structure of the thing.
Am I right? I don't know. It makes
sense to me that something as pervasive and dynamic as the zombie
plague was designed and built by people with a very specific purpose.
Does it matter? I don't think it does. Nothing we can do about it now
and no one to hold accountable for it. Not that we'd have much urge
to do so. We have more important things to do, such as struggling to
survive and build again.
Just my two pennies.
If
zombies start to develop camouflage capabilities, we should
be 
really 
worried.
Then they'd be even more dangerous and harder to kill, PLUS they'd be
horning in on the octupus's territory. And we can't have that.