With Spring Comes the Fall (22 page)

Zombies are hitting us in groups almost daily at this point. The attacks are pretty well focused on the main gate, which is where we are putting in the greatest effort on the wall. Construction is going well, and the northern face is almost done.
In all the madness of the last week, I forgot to relay to all of you that our latest group of survivors finally made it here. If I did mention it, then I promise you that I didn't do any sort of justice to them. These people are great--hardcore survivors with a huge variety of skills and knowledge among them. They didn't 
need 
to come here, not for any reason other than companionship, they could have gone anywhere and prospered. But they chose us, and we are glad to have them.
There is going to be a vote next week for a new leader. There is also a discussion going on among the council, who are collectively acting as our leadership at the moment, as to what role I will play. Mom apparently suggested before she died that should I ever step down, Dave and I should be put in charge of long term planning and projects, which makes sense given that we were doing that anyway. I like the idea of getting to come up with realistic and creative solutions to problems without dealing with a ton of red tape. Since we run a minimalist sort of machine here, we pretty much go from planning to action in one step. Mom certainly knew her boys, and the practicality that was hardwired into her has passed on to us, making us ideal for the job.
Courtney has really been keen on the idea of reaching out in a more concrete way to other pockets of survivors. We have talked a lot the last few days about a group of us going on an extended trip around the country, visiting and sharing with other communities that have managed to keep going like we have.
It's an exciting time here, and I feel like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I hope that we can compartmentalize our various governmental needs enough that our next leader doesn't have to carry as heavy a load as I did.
And in a bit of random news, my sister's small school is doing very well. Jackie was trained as a special education teacher, and has an amazing ability to connect with people, especially kids. She has taken the idea that we have to start teaching from scratch and run with it, creating a very unique and interesting curriculum. More on that soon, I want to do it justice. After all, learning and using that knowledge is what separates us from the other animals, isn't it?

Posted by Josh Guess at 
9:13 AM

The council has decided that my brother and I are to remain in charge of long term planning and construction. I chalk this up to the fact that we have had two zombie attacks this morning, and the main gate held nicely. Nothing proves that you should be kept doing what you are good at like the concrete results you get from multiple attacks by the living dead.
We are actually looking at making people in all these desk jobs work in pairs. See, before the fall, my brother pretty much did this for a living. But he is teaching me as we go, how to look at all the logistics and planning, which he is expert at. But a lot of his time is spent out on the wall, teaching people how to build. Redundancy is going to be key in the long term, so that we don't lose someone critical should something happen. Always have a backup.

We have managed to repel the attacks thanks to the determination and quick responses of our lookouts and workers on the wall. For many of us, learning to adapt to new patterns and habits has been a trying experience, but I give full credit to everyone here for being flexible and supremely able.
But it does raise interesting questions, and gives us valuable examples of how we must change our basic way of thinking in order to better survive. I have been talking to my sister about this, as have a few other people, since she is in charge of education. So we have asked ourselves what it is we should be teaching the kids, to prepare them for the future they will face as we progress.
So we are working on a curriculum based on practicality. Self defense is a part of it, including unarmed and armed combat, how to aim, fire, and care for a gun, gun and general weapon safety, etc. Mathematics and basic engineering are integrated, which seems like a good idea as the engineering element will serve to make math much more interesting for the kids. Of course reading is in there as well, and social studies, though we want to make sure that the next generation understands the way the world used to work, and why it failed in so many ways, that they might better avoid repeating those errors. One planned field trip is a visit to the wall, to give them a real understanding of what the zombies are, what they are capable of.
Our aim is to give the next generation a wide variety of skills before adulthood. They need to know how to fix a roof and survive in the wild. How to build a house and farm the land. We want each of them to be able to approach any problem with enough realistic knowledge to have a chance at solving it.
It's not just kids that are still learning.
I have been in touch with the folks at Google, as well. Many of the engineers there are actively researching long term energy solutions, and are going to be sending us some detailed instructions on how to build wind turbines and other sustainable energy devices. They tell me they are working very hard on coming up with grid-level energy storage as well, though they are skeptical on getting anything prototyped in the near future. But I hold out hope. I mean, if companies a few months ago could figure out how to harvest hydrogen from urine, and to power batteries with urine, then I think that with the proper motivation, these guys will come up with a solution using better materials than pee.
That's all for now. Have to go talk to Cortney about some interesting contacts we have been in touch with, and maybe plan another trip.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
10:46 AM

Evans and I are going out with a small group today to try and catch a zombie. Beyond wanting to understand what is causing the dead to rise, we are very interested in seeing if we can observe them long enough without being seen to possibly understand the recent changes in their behavior. Today is going to be a busy one, and I have just enough time before we head out to post this, letting you know. 

It's gonna be tricky. But with any luck, we will have a subject to study that fits Evans' fairly strict criteria. Jess is pissed that she can't go, but in her condition, I am not planning on letting her take any unnecessary risks. If that sounds sexist or whatever, good. It is. She is carrying a life, and that makes her much more important than me. So she stays safe. 

Off we go. 

Posted by Josh Guess at 
9:16 AM

We caught a zombie. It took forever to find one that met Evans' rather strict criteria, but we got there. It was a bit like hunting, sitting around in a blind waiting and waiting and waiting. Wish I had taken my phone with me, so I could have gotten some writing done while I was so bored.
The zombie we have penned up is an adult male, somewhere between the ages of 24-38. He is without obvious injury, and appears freshly dead. He has no odor of decomposition, which is good. It means we have a great place to start.
We want to observe him for as long as we can, seeing what changes occur physically over time. Evans plans to dissect him eventually, so that we can try to understand what is causing this to happen. One thing that I can tell you for sure; when they first come back, zombies are clumsy and stupid. The one we have is not, so we have to assume that he has been this way for a while.
Enough of my morbid interest in necroscience.

Jess is really pissed that she isn't going out into town. She has gotten so used to being free to take risks, to be right there next to everyone else while bad mojo is going down. But now all I hear about night and day is that she's stuck on light duty, watched wherever she goes. So "we" talked about it, by which I mean that she told me and I had no choice but to agree, and she is going to be doing tower duty.
The watchtower is a bit of a masterpiece, and we have my brother to thank. We managed to squeeze in enough people on it to finish it quickly, and since we harvested almost all the trees in the north half of the compound, it has a clear view down the hill, and over the wall. It sits at the highest point, right in the middle, so we keep four riflemen, one for each direction, up there at all times as lookouts.
Jess is going to be the dayshift north rifleman. Riflewoman. Person. Whatever. She's a very good shot and Patrick got her an amazing 30.06 with a ridiculous scope on it as a strange sort of baby shower gift, though we haven't had one. I worry about her being so high up, being so exposed should living enemies show up and try to snipe us out. But she isn't to be denied, and I like my bits and pieces right where they are, so I won't argue.
She's up there right now, and I can hear the occasional crack as she tests her aim from five hundred feet. Glad she's on our side, she likes one shot kills way too much for her own good.
I am off to work with Dave on some designs for additional defensive structures we want to add to the wall when we get it done. Best to plan these things out ahead of time, so that we can be ready to go as soon as possible.
Things are going well.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
10:11 AM

If you are heading this way, STAY AWAY for right now. We are under continuous attack, and have been all morning. Zombies are swarming us in droves, and this is the first minor lull in the attacks. We are trying to contain and eliminate, but we cannot assure the safety of anyone trying to make it in at this time. Repeat, for the time being, DO NOT COME HERE.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
10:32 AM

What a day. We've been cleaning up the bodies from the massive assault yesterday, burning zombies in huge piles. We managed to get by with few injuries and no fatalities, but it was a close thing. The saving grace this go round was the wall and the defensive structures we have in place. Stakes and trenches are awesome precautions.
It also helps that we piled a lot of debris up around the compound, just past where the wall will be when we complete the other parts of it. It discouraged large groups from getting through those areas, but the front is the only easily accessible part anyway.
We can't take another like it anytime soon. We had to pull every person to fight, and it went on for hours. Everyone is exhausted and scared shitless, afraid that more hordes will come today. We have three groups of people out in town and on the interstate looking out for large groups.
Jackie and a few of her kids made us all proud. While the rest of us were running around and fighting, thinking only of staying alive and searching for the next kill, she and a few of her older students made runs back and forth to bring us jugs of water, dense and simple foods to keep up our energy. And between runs, they waited inside the wall , one group on each edge to quickly kill any stragglers that made it through. My sister is a bit of a girly girl, and I can't tell you the amazement that ran through me when I saw her kill a zombie with a hammer, acting with a violence and certainty that I have never seen from her before. I have this weird mix of pride and deep disquiet running through me. People do change, no matter what doctor House used to say.
Back to the hauling and lifting. It's too damn hot to be burning so much, but we don't have any other choice.
The way in is open for you if you want to come. We're safe for today.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
11:38 AM
 

A quick post today.

We have made a breakthrough contact. There is a large group of survivors in southern Michigan that have managed to get in touch with us. Courtney has spent all morning talking with them, and what she has passed on to the rest of us makes it clear that we have to gain the trust of these people, and build a lasting relationship.
The reasons for this are many. The first is that there are more than three hundred of them, a greater number of living people than any of us have yet encountered, with maybe the exception of the team at Google, though they are very tight-lipped about their numbers. The second reason is that they are almost all automotive workers--among them many skilled die-makers, machinists, welders, and mechanical engineers. A few chemists from a nearby Dow plant have joined them, and the vast amount of abandoned raw materials at the factory they have set up camp in, as well as the surrounding plants, means that with time, they can start making things that many of us believed would never be produced again.
They are making things now, though most of it very basic and crude; farming implements, wind turbines, linkable defense frames that you can snap together in sections and put outside a wall to act as a zombie deterrent (sort of like our pointy stakes, but better). But the lack of serious agriculture in that area is a huge problem for them, and though they were wise to raid many food manufacturing warehouses in that area, they need help with farming. They have the manpower and the know-how, but they need seedlings, seeds, and the like, as they have planted all they could find. We are hoping that we can help them, and maybe set up some a trade system and a safe route between here and there.
So it goes without saying: we are getting the bus ready to go. Time is vital for planting, and we are going to be on the road by morning, loaded up with what we can spare. This time we have had a lot of time to prepare for our next big trip, and the bus is an armored beast, trailer in tow. I am excited, and Courtney is ready and eager to engage her role as our diplomat face to face. This is exciting!