Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) (3 page)

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
I'm
writing this early in the morning, or from my perspective late at
night, because I've been unable to sleep. I feel...off balance right
now, given the last day's events. I don't know where to begin,
really.
At the beginning, I suppose. It's old wisdom, but it
works for a person in freefall.
Yesterday our woodsmen went
out to bring in loads of firewood again. The lumber yard is one of
the few places we have to go every day, and is apparently a favorite
target of the New Breed. They know we'll go there, that we have to.
When our teams arrived, though, there was not a stick of wood to be
found.
The New Breed had been busy throughout the night. Our
people moved in cautiously, stepping to the edge of the forest to
make certain that our supplies hadn't been dragged just a small
distance away. It smelled of a trap, a lure to pull my people into
the dangerous woods where they could be separated and more easily
brought down. The guards didn't allow anyone to make that
mistake.
Not that it mattered. As soon as the bulk of our
people had spread about the lumbering site, zombies popped out from
behind trees and bushes. A hail of thrown weapons came down on our
team, chunks of cut wood that knocked a few of them senseless and
distracted the rest.
More New Breed moved in, attacking in
numbers. Four men were lost immediately, though the guards managed to
rally a defense somehow. Several more of our folks were savaged badly
by the undead, only one of them surviving the trip home.
That
man was looked over by Evans, Gabrielle, and Phil. They agreed that
there was nothing to be done. The wounds he'd sustained were too
much, and he was going to die. Deep damage to his viscera by zombie
fingers would mean a slow, lingering death made worse by the fact
that our patient was conscious. I find myself ashamed to admit that I
was the one who brought up the point everyone in the room except our
patient was thinking about.
What an opportunity for study.
Terrible, and a loss to our people, but a chance to understand the
change as a person went through reanimation. How much could that
knowledge help us down the road?
So, we asked the patient for
his consent. We would put him under sedation with enough painkillers
to allow him quick passage from the pain of his injuries into
whatever lies beyond. I was surprised that he agreed.
What
happened next was surprising. I still can't quite wrap my head around
it.
We've always assumed that all people, when they die
without steps being taken to preclude reanimation, turn into what I
call 'old school' zombies. We know beyond doubt that the many
structures of the organism that brings us back in a state of undeath
already exist in our bodies. We've studied that, we know it to be
fact. The organism grows in the living, learning the systems of the
body, and after the heart stops and the brain goes cold, it takes
over. Usually this process takes a few hours, on rare occasions it
only takes a few minutes.
But the assumption has been that the
New Breed makes more of itself by turning standard zombies. By
infecting them with bites. We've seen many victims of the New Breed
rise.
That changed with our volunteer. His death was painless
and swift, and his resurrection came within a few minutes. We'd
secured him in a cell before even administering his medicines, of
course. We aren't stupid. I watched as the change came over him. I
had tears in my eyes as I took my notes, and a part of me felt a deep
disquiet at what I was doing. I noted every aspect of the change as
it came over the subject.
The subject. Jesus. His name was
Rick. He was a nice guy.
Rick changed quickly, but it didn't
stop. Over a period of several hours of observation, his skin began
to change color, losing pigment as it moved toward the tones that so
clearly mark the New Breed's tougher hide. It wasn't a complete
change, of course. The thick bands of fibrous material beneath the
skin will take time to grow as the organism within metabolizes
nutrients to fuel the change. But now we know for certain that the
New Breed truly is just that--they're capable of infecting living
people with their strain of the zombie plague. People can turn into
them straightaway.
We imagine it's airborne. There simply
wasn't enough time for Rick's organism to be co-opted by the New
Breed strain. He had to have already been carrying it.
Which
means most of us probably are. The medicos think that the New Breed
strain is likely far more hardy and invasive than the original zombie
plague. We've seen this thing evolve over the last two years, and
it's frightening to realize how we've had to evolve with it. I
watched a man die today, helped kill him in fact, so that we could
understand the enemy a little better.
I know all the
arguments, all the reasoning. I know he was going to die anyway. The
logic of the situation doesn't do anything for the hollow place in me
that wishes I hadn't agreed to this experiment. I had no idea it
would come so far, so quickly.
The damnable thing about the
whole situation is that it really 
is 
doing
a lot of good. I could almost wish that weren't the case, so I could
pack up and call it quits. I'm sick with myself that we lost people
yesterday, good men, and my first thought wasn't for them or their
friends and families.
No, I had to ask, 'How can we use this?'

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
We
can now confirm that the New Breed strain of the zombie plague is
airborne. The old school zombie we'd brought in to act study as a
control against our captive New Breed has made the change overnight
into a New Breed himself.
The change seems to happen faster in
zombies that have been reanimated for any length of time. Over at
least twelve hours, but possibly as long as eighteen since we didn't
look in on our old school zombie very much, the infection has done
the majority of its work. The skin is thick and gray, there are the
first signs of thickening around the neck and head. The fibrous armor
that grows beneath the skin has already made significant
progress.
That in and of itself is a change. At first those
bands of material weren't visible without removing the skin, but now
they're growing thicker and easier to see.
Since we have three
New Breed zombies in our holding area, Evans and I along with
Gabrielle have decided it's time to take our testing to another
level. I still don't feel right about what we're doing, but I'm
determined to go on until my conscience absolutely demands otherwise.
I could argue about the pros and cons all day, but you probably
already know them. The fact that I'm torn is a good sign. The warning
bells should only start to ring when I stop questioning the morality
of my own actions.
So, today, our newly made New Breed is
going to get cooked.
It sounds awful (and it is awful) but we
aren't actually going to cook him like a roast or anything. We've got
a large hot box set up that will allow us some degree of control over
the temperature in it. It looks a lot like a grill, but it really
isn't. The highest we'll allow the heat to get to is around a hundred
and thirty degrees. Hot, yes, but to a zombie that's not even
noticeable.
I can tell you that for sure. One interesting
discovery we've made is that zombies don't experience pain the way
you and I do. They recognize touch and extremes of hot and cold, but
there is no indication that such a thing as discomfort even exists
for them. When we were studying the effect of heat on the New Breed's
skin the other day, the mounting heat in the room caused no visible
reaction in the undead. Hell, we stripped some of his skin off (I
shudder at the memory) and got a grunt from him. That was it.
We're
going further today mainly to see if the underlying layers of
thickened tissue are effected by heat in the same way as their skin.
We'll be working in increments. I've got a knot of dread in my belly
even thinking about what I'm going to do, balanced out by the buzzing
excitement of curiosity.
I've been stuck on our experiments a
lot lately. I'm trying to move my focus away from them in my daily
life, because the stress of knowing what horrible things we have to
do is starting to seriously affect my routines. On that note, other
news.
We were hit by rainstorms all day long yesterday, though
it was moderately warm the entire time. Jess has doubled down on her
work, getting us ready for the planting. One step she's taken that
(thankfully) isn't dependent on the weather is sowing a new crop of
clover. That stuff is tough, even the seeds are hardy. We're going to
collect as many seeds as possible this year, but we've still got (and
are still finding) tons of them around the county and beyond.
Billions of little seeds.
I spent some time working with Jess
yesterday. We even went outside the walls to spread some of the
clover seed in the rain. It's strange how circumstances can change a
person, and how your perception of the person changes with the
circumstances.
Jess isn't a small woman, though in my mind I
used to see her that way. She's tall, actually a bit taller than me,
and she's very strong. My urge to call her my "little wife"
is still there, because only a few short years ago Jess was meek.
Quiet. So sensitive to how other saw her that she tried hard not to
draw anyone's attention. So sensitive to the cold that even mild
weather sent her diving into a pile of blankets to keep warm.  So
set in her unique brand of OCD that small changes to her routine
threw her completely off her game.
It was strange to watch her
wander in the rain, oblivious to the cold drops soaking her to the
skin. I watched her toss handfuls of seed out as I followed behind
with weapons in hand. When a stray zombie stepped out of the woods a
few yards from us, she didn't get scared or freak out. She drew its
attention while I circled around to put a few pounds of hatchet in
the back of its head.
This, from the woman who ran out of the
shower because a spider was up in the corner of the bathroom, yelling
at me to kill it, kill it, OMG KILL IT!
It's old news, I know.
I just can't help watching her, seeing the self-confidence with which
she moves and commands, and thinking about how different she is. We
all are, of course, but I'm not married to all of you. I'm not in
love with all of you. So I center on her.
Honestly, in the
early days of The Fall one of the things I worried about the most was
how Jess would manage without someone to watch out for her. I know
that sounds sexist or whatever, but at the time she was very much a
modern person, never in a fight, never fired a gun. She avoided
confrontation like it was herpes. She's a faster learner than I am,
though. Once she got over her initial shock and saw what needed to be
done, Jess set her jaw and did it.
Now look at her. Strong,
sure, and independent to a degree that most people in New Haven envy.
I don't worry about how she'd manage anymore even though my current
work is as dangerous as work can get inside New Haven's walls. If an
accident were to happen in our experiments, Jess would be fine. Hell,
I worry more about how I'd manage without her.
When I toss and
turn with worry about these experiments, she's the one soothing me.
She gives me the love and support I need to deal with...everything.
Before The Fall, I was the stable rock that she needed me to be. Now
the situation is reversed, and I begin to realize how much she really
does for me. I probably would have called it quits already with Evans
and Gabby if Jess hadn't been the voice of reason.
She gives
me strength when I need it most. I can't express in words how amazing
that feels. Now to hold on to that thought as I work with my test
subject today. That's the challenge.

Q&A

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
Someone
posted two very good and pertinent questions the other day, and I'd
like to take this post to answer them. I've been talking out a lot of
my stress and worry with people the last few days, and doing so has
helped me get a grip on our experiments, my other duties, and my
place in New Haven in general. I think airing out some things here
might do the same.
The first: What's the general feeling in
New Haven about keeping live zombies inside the walls?
The
general feeling is apprehension. I suppose I should say,
the 
initial 
feeling
was. New Haven is a fairly tight-knit group, and everyone knows that
their friends and neighbors will be careful for the good of the
group. That being said, I don't think there's anybody here that is
ecstatic with the idea that there are active zombies being held
inside New Haven.
And no matter how good the security around
our test subjects is (and it is) there will always be that buzzing
background awareness, a base level of discomfort and fear, that will
never be entirely eliminated while the test subjects are still alive.
In my opinion that's a good thing. Without a nice, healthy fear of
the undead none of us would be here.
The best thing about the
citizens of New Haven is that by and large they can intellectualize
their fears and reactions. Our people don't like the idea of keeping
live zombies here, but overall the feedback we've had is good. No
one, including Evans, Gabby, and myself, likes the things we have
been doing to our captive undead. No one likes having them here at
all. But most people recognize the potential for understanding and
gaining an advantage this situation creates. The average citizen
makes the conscious decision to deal with it, and moves on. It's
really that simple.
Of course, there are always dissenters. I
place no blame on them. Some people weigh the danger against the
possible information we might gather and decide the risk isn't worth
it. Those folks have completely valid viewpoints. It really is a
dangerous game to play, and they're right to be worried for the
safety of the community.
There isn't a right or wrong, just
differing opinions. Recognizing that reality is something most people
have a hard time with. We do a pretty good job here for the most
part, and that makes me happy.
The other question was: how do
people feel about someone they know volunteering to turn into a
zombie?
As I typed that out, an intense flash of nostalgia hit
me. For a second, I was the me I was before The Fall, just a nerd for
whom the present situation was just a thought exercise. The question
itself reminds me of all the times my friends and I would get into
discussions about comics and ask what superpowers we'd have, and all
other kinds of hypothetical situations based on whatever genre struck
our fancy.
Coming back to the present, I'm reminded that this
isn't a hypothetical.
The answer is simple: Rick made a
choice. A lot of people were upset by that choice, but not in the
sense that they were angry at him about it. More because they
themselves would never want to reanimate, and couldn't understand why
he would let it happen. That's where the ability to use logic begins
to fail, the fine distinctions of a person's reason faltering against
the onslaught of emotion tied to death.
As hard as it is for
people to understand Rick's decision (and I'm one of them, I don't
think I could have done the same) they don't seem to have any problem
accepting the fact that it was his to make. I haven't heard anyone
say that it's wrong or anything. I haven't been told we're evil
because we're using the resource of his body just as we use all other
available resources. Rick was in pain and only likely to stay hurting
until he died, and he understood the facts. He knew he wasn't going
to get better by some miracle. He was going to die.
Once we
started to explain to him the trove of information we might gain by
being able to observe the change as it happened, Rick connected the
dots. He knew that such an opportunity might not come along again
before the New Breed attacked in numbers, if ever. He saw the need,
and he rose to the occasion.
So, for the most part, people
aren't freaking out about it. It's definitely weird, and I'm
extremely uncomfortable working with what used to be Rick. His face
is familiar, but the man he was is completely gone. Sort of like
seeing a person you know have a brain injury, I guess.
I think
a huge part of why I'm able to work with him despite my discomfort is
that like most of New Haven's citizens, I know Rick is gone. Whatever
vital force was at work within his body, soul or Ka or whatever you
want to call it, is gone. What's left behind is a shell manipulated
by another living thing. It isn't him in any real sense.
That
recognition probably explains why people aren't more upset. While
they don't like having zombies "alive" inside the walls and
certainly don't think the idea of volunteering to become one is
ideal, they don't see Rick's remnant as him. Or as a person at all.
I'm not performing tests on someone we knew and respected. Public
opinion seems centered around the idea that I'm basically doing an
autopsy with an unusually mobile subject.
I'm really trying to
get away from focusing on these experiments too much, but I'm glad I
did this today. It really did make me feel better (and this is my
blog--I'm allowed to be a selfish bastard sometimes) and hopefully
gave the current situation a little balance. I hope this post has
made a difference with some of you out there who might think we're
going too far. I assure you, we're still people of
conscience.
Tomorrow, I'll be back with a few pieces of news.
All of them good, one of them very interesting.