Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) (7 page)

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
It's
a lucky thing our medical staff have a lot of experience handling
massive numbers of injured. Rereading that sentence, I recognize just
how weird a statement it is.
We expected more casualties, so
the numbers we have aren't stressing our resources to the limit or
anything. Most of the injuries aren't serious--I'm shocked we didn't
have any accidents with the gel bombs--and for the most part people
were able to tend to their own wounds.
Looks like a good
number of the Louisville crew will be heading home today, but
fourteen of them will be staying here. That's a mixed group; several
of them are injured, and a couple are sick. Their group doesn't have
access to the level of healthcare we do here, which is admittedly far
above the average. We're lucky that way. The very least we can do to
repay those folks for helping us out and for sacrificing for us is to
take care of them when they need it.
Not to downplay the
importance of striking against the New Breed or the loss of life that
occurred, but there are other things going on that I'd like to touch
on.
The most startling development came this morning: we got a
message from the Exiles. We know it came from them because our scouts
watched a couple of their sentries lob it over the river. Nice little
plastic capsule with a hand-written letter in it. They've accepted
the terms of the truce. They won't attack us or try to cross the
river. They've agreed not to attack anyone. The only burr in the
whole thing is their insistence that they accept any other group of
marauders that want to settle with them in the fallback point.
We're
not idiots, nor do we easily forget. The Exiles are made up of some
of our own people who betrayed the trust of New Haven as well as some
of the worst and least repentant marauders out there. We know the
kinds of things those people are capable of, and killing isn't the
most terrible example I can give. We sent word back that we'd abide
by those terms, but that if we learned they were keeping prisoners or
even catch them preparing to break the truce, all bets are off. So
far, no reply to that. We'll see how it works out.
Still, it's
breathing room. Communication is a step forward from the silence
we've had so far from across the river. I'm not going to hold my
breath that one day we won't have to deal with the Exiles again. I'd
love for that to never happen, but it's hard to imagine a world where
long-term coexistence with those people right next door is truly
possible.
On a similar note, we're taking steps to bolster New
Haven's population in a similar way. Over the last year or so we've
been on the ass end of some severe beatings. We've taken in most of
the folks from the smaller communities nearby that have cropped up,
but Will and the council want to shift gears and expand as much as
possible. The New Breed represent a much more serious threat than old
school zombies--despite our victory over them the other day, which
they'll likely adapt tactics against--and over the long haul we can't
afford to lose even an handful of people to those kinds of
battles.
There's a lot of work ahead for us in expanding New
Haven's borders again, but with enough people it won't be an
impossible goal. The Exiles have the advantage there, since the
fallback point has a huge capacity for sheltering a population. We
can cram in a lot more people than we currently house, but expansion
is going to happen. It has to. That means a new wall around the field
on the west side of New Haven, which is our only real option for
additional space. All new buildings inside it, which will be custom
designed and built. No more adapting pre-Fall houses. My brother has
ideas for the whole thing. It's going to be a huge undertaking.
The
scope of the project will be enormous. The materials required for
construction, defense, infrastructure, and all the million tiny
things...that's going to be a big order. We've got raw materials for
a lot of it. Just going to take time and effort to make them into
things.
I'm doing a few hours in the clinic each day until the
patient load goes back down. I'm going to do my best to find out what
kinds of ideas the Louisville folks have about defense, farming,
everything. Perspective is always good. Then I'm off to the cells to
run a few tests on our New Breed captives. Then four hours helping
Will work through some of the more important parts of planning the
construction, as he has final say in what gets priority. I'm guessing
the new wall will be first.
Then home for a bit to eat dinner
with the wife, and after a quick scout run. 
Damn 
I'm
busy. I'll have to find some time to sleep. Some day.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
I've
been especially wordy lately. It's not from a deep-seated desire to
run my mouth, but springs instead from a need to cover a lot of
continuing situations. From hated enemies to intra-community politics
to new threats from the zombie swarms.
Today, I will for once
keep it short. I always say that, but I really mean it. Today is the
seventh day in a row of temperatures above fifty degrees in the
morning. Jessica made the call last night: today is the
sowing.
That's a big deal for us. Today (and we've been at it
for hours. Lunch break for the win!) we plant the first round of
crops. Well, the first serious round. These aren't clover seeds or
other wild-growth foods. We're putting the seedlings Jess has been
cultivating so carefully into the earth.
It's one of the few
times almost all of us are working together at the same time. It's
not exactly a peaceful, hand-holding lovefest. There are people
standing around the area with weapons. Guards patrol the repaired
walls of the annex. The occasional shout can be heard, sometimes with
the sharp hum of a bow firing, as zombies come too close.
One
of the biggest problems people have with the world is what should be
easiest: getting along. Planting crops is a microcosm for the larger
situation. We gather together to do as a unit what we can't
accomplish alone. As we crawl across the rows of plowed dirt, we work
next to people we may not know. May not like. There might even be
harsh words or silent glares.
So it goes with the work and
with our lives. Despite rough edges, bad feelings, or any other
factors, we come together. Idealized songs and stories about working
together, love, and happiness always seemed empty to me, and far more
so now. Not because the sentiment is empty, but because they always
seemed to ignore the hard parts. Making things work is,
well,
work.
 And
honestly, the effort is what makes the rewards truly satisfying.
We
aren't singing songs about togetherness. Instead, we're 
living 
them.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
I've
spent what little free time I've had in the last several days (time
when I haven't been scrambling across the dirt in the cold, planting
food) at the clinic. I've put off my work with the captive New Breed
for the time being. There are too many people in need of medical
attention and too much agricultural work to justify spending any time
on the undead captives.
I've been trying to do what I can to
help out around the clinic. Most of my time has been spent with the
folks from the Louisville crew who have taken ill. One person can
basically take care of all of them--they aren't helpless. They've got
what looked like flu symptoms at first, but that has changed a
little. Their fevers have gone down, but they still have the body
aches and some difficulty breathing. Evans thinks it's pneumonia. I'm
not a doctor, but I tend to agree.
I spent a good portion of
the early hours at the clinic. I woke up halfway through the night
full of energy and decided to give whoever was on duty a break. The
night shift isn't so rough and it gave me a chance to do necessary
work that didn't occupy a lot of my brainpower.
Ha. You know
me. That shit never works.
I sat there with our ill guests,
and I was reminded of all the messages I've had from other survivors
since I started this blog. Most of my interactions with people
outside of New Haven are mundane: sharing information, planning trade
routes, status updates, that kind of thing. A good number of them
have been supportive of our efforts here. And then there are the ones
that just...aren't any of those things.
A few people have sent
me messages pointing out that I sometimes use entire posts examining
my motivations or those of my fellow citizens. They have a point, I
guess--I could have used that space and my limited time in a better
way, maybe. Like jotting down information that might be useful or
giving accounts of tactics that work. I can see the point of those
scattered critics. People can always do better.
But as I sat
there watching over people who were faceless contacts on an email
list a week before, I realized a few things. Examining what drives me
is important, as is looking at the direction we go as a community and
a society as a whole. I've been told in those very same messages that
I make some readers feel doubt about some of the hard choices we all
have to make. That I make them hesitate.
If that means I've
made them think, then I say that's a great thing. In the world as it
is now, being decisive is very important. But being aware that your
actions may be a matter of choosing a lesser of two evils is equally
vital, if not more so. Like ships on the open sea, our lives need
course correction and feedback or we risk losing our way completely.
If that means I take time now and then to dissect and analyze my
actions (and usually feel bad about them) then that's what I'm going
to do.
I've said recently that the time to worry about the
awful choices we make and actions that follow is when we no longer
question them. It wasn't very far into The Fall that I started to
lose perspective on what the stakes are. Survival is paramount, but I
lost sight on what the limits of my behavior should be.
How is
this relevant to sitting in a room lit by a single lumpy homemade
candle, keeping watch over sick people? Because I believe that if I
hadn't been set straight by the people who care about me, I'd have
turned into the kind of person that would have ignored the Louisville
crew when they asked for help with their sick. Even now, a small
voice whispers that we could be using the food, water, and medicine
they're allotted for our own people. That caring for them weakens us
ever so slightly.
A small voice, but persistent. The rest of
me recognizes the inherent truth in the situation: the Louisville
team sacrificed some of their number to help us in the fight against
the New Breed. They didn't shy away from danger, and that kind of
friendship must be repaid.
I talk about the Exiles sometimes
as if they're almost a different kind of being than the rest of us.
But those few hours alone in the quiet of the night were enough to
remind me that it's not at all hard to slide into that kind of
selfish barbarism. It's the same tribe mentality we have here, but on
a smaller scale and without compassion for outsiders.
Human
beings are animals. That's not a judgment, simply fact. It's our
nature to defend our close group and to be suspicious and violent
toward others. Compassion, cooperation, gratitude, mutual aid...these
things require effort of will. They are choices. And if we fail to
assess our choices, to see the awful things as awful even as the need
to do them is clear, then eventually we'll stop making the choice to
work together. To trust.
If I bore you or miss some piece of
errata to make sure we're still questioning our motives, then I
apologize. It's necessary and I have no plans to stop.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
The
sowing is being halted this morning, as the temperature has taken a
surprising turn toward freezing off the sensitive bits of every
person working in the dirt. We haven't had another frost, but it's
close. Jess doesn't want to risk putting anything else in the ground
just yet--just in case the thirty seven degree reading outside right
now is a harbinger of a deeper cold snap.
So, I find myself
with a little extra time to deal with the pile of work that's been
slowly accumulating as I've been busy with planting and working in
the clinic. One of the things about being Will's assistant is that
the papers tend to build up quickly. There are several projects and
reports that need multiple sets of eyes on them.
I've been so
busy with other things that I had no idea we were sending out groups
of people to repeat our performance with the New Breed. Not on the
same scale, of course, but no less surprising for that. The brilliant
thing about my brother's portable defenses is that you only need
three of them as a minimum to set up a working perimeter. Against
groups of twenty or thirty New Breed, three of the defensive diamonds
and ten solid fighters seem to be plenty.
The fighters are
being sent out after receiving word from our scouts. When a small
enough group is located, one of three teams will head out and set up,
the undead brought to them by the scout team. So far it's working
well. It's a bit heavy on manpower and resources, but most of the
folks volunteering to do it are using their free time. I can't
imagine how tired they must be, working the earth seven hours a day
and fighting for another three or four. It's damn impressive.
This
has been going on for days. the reports are here for me to see, and I
have to say--they look good. Sure, the New Breed will adapt to the
tactic eventually or just plain realize it's better for them not to
chase down small teams of scouts because of the pointy death waiting
for them, but in four days of these kinds of raids, our people have
managed to kill another three hundred New Breed here and in
surrounding counties.
All of that without the thermite gel
bombs. We're keeping the rest of those here at home for now.
Eventually we'll make a bunch more of them, but for now our supplies
are finite. Not small, by any means, but not easily replaceable in
the very short term. We've got some good signs that we'll be able to
trade pretty quickly, and there are other varieties of thermite we
could make that wouldn't be as effective, but still. Caution is the
best way to go.
The end result is that while we'll probably
never be able to clear the New Breed out of here, we're keeping their
numbers from reaching that critical mass where they feel certain they
can defeat us. By hitting them in small, dispersed attacks we're able
to maximize damage to them while minimizing risk to us.
Which
is awesome, because we need some stability and time to heal, as well
as time to build and gather more people here. And if the pile of work
waiting for me is any indication (and seeing my brother's handwriting
on a lot of it, I'm sure it is) then I have to start looking at ways
to make those future plans workable. No time like the present.