With Spring Comes the Fall (23 page)

Posted by Josh Guess at 
12:32 PM

We're on the road right now, headed to Michigan. I won't be telling you where we are going specifically, for security reasons, but it is in the southern (ish) part of the state.
The people we are going to see are overseen by a sort of city council, similar to what we have here. Like us, they started with a leader, but after some bothersome events decided that major policy should be decided in a group. Just like us.
They expressed some doubts that we would be able to make it there, and when I told them about the alterations my brother has made to our bus, they plain didn't believe me. Since the last time we took it out of state, my brother Dave has made something of a project out of the thing. He's extended parts of it, added some clever slide out cots, and managed to hook a big trailer to  it. He also pulled out the engine, beefed it up, and armored the whole thing in some pretty creative ways.
It goes without saying that he added some more gas tanks.
Courtney is in charge of this trip, once we get where we are going. We are all acting on her calls, because the situation is too important and too delicate to leave up to committee. She's the boss, Tony Danza style.
I am somewhat concerned about leaving the compound with the recent flare-up in Zombie attacks, but the opportunity before us is just too good. There was a bit of an argument about my brother and I both leaving, but he has managed to teach several trustworthy people a great deal about construction, and our future projects. Enough, anyway, that with the start we have given them and the plans we have left, they can survive without us indefinitely. But it is vital to this trip that we have a group with proven nerves of steel, that has traveled into similar circumstances before.
Me, Courtney, Steve, Dave, Darlene, and Little David. Jess is staying put this time out, as I am still not keen on the idea of her risking our kid. I wanted Patrick to come, very very badly, but I trust him to watch out for Jess above anyone else outside my family. He's also a person that can talk comfortably with pretty much anyone in the compound, and everyone knows he's fair. So he will keep things calm.
Our load of plants and seeds is slowing us down, so I don't know how long this trip will take. We will definitely need to gas up for the trip back, because our giant reserve tank will just barely get us there. We're told that our hosts have a plentiful supply of fuel.
That's all for now, so far all signs are good, all roads are clear. That crew from Lexington must have drifted through here recently, and worked on the roads. Bless them.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
8:37 AM
 

We camped out last night on the Kentucky side of the river, looking toward Ohio. We have been told that the bridges were impassable, possibly destroyed, but neither is the case. We made it across with no problems, and just a few minutes ago we left Cincinnati.
Some of you might not know, or might not remember (though I can't see how anyone could forget) that this city was ground zero for the zombie outbreak. It's one thing to see news reports, to hear the stories, and another experience entirely to see the results first hand.
There were bodies everywhere. It looked like something from a nightmare, seeing great piles of human beings strewn about, people half-eaten laying in the streets. The number of zombies roaming around was incredible, and as far as we could tell, there were no living souls left. We've had to get pretty sharp at recognizing the subtle signs of covert human habitation, but none of us saw a thing. From what we could see, Cinci is a wasteland.
The buildings are mostly broken and burned, the streets lined with abandoned cars and shattered masonry. A big fire hit this place at some point, and it went through here unchecked. It looks like the national guard did a real number right before the end, given the number of obvious mortar impacts scattered around.
In all, it was pretty depressing. Not for the first time, I wish that more people had seen this for what it was early enough to stop the spread of the zombies, but if wishes were fishes...
Onward as far as the clear roads will take us, and hopefully into Michigan by nightfall.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
9:33 AM

Northern Indiana is not a fun place to be. But then, we wouldn't have taken this gigantic detour had northern Ohio been passable.
We hit the largest horde of zombies I have ever seen about an hour and a half shy of the Michigan state line. As we came over a hill, we saw a crowd of milling people so vast that we couldn't see the road under them anymore. There had to be a hundred thousand of them. We bolted, of course, as quickly as the bus could turn, and not knowing the area well, we got a bit lost trying to find an alternate route.
We are back on track now, but while only bigger places in Ohio looked truly devastated, Indiana looks like shit pretty much everywhere. Looks like riots and arson destroyed most stuff before the zombies had a chance.
Holy shit, there are some people on the road ahead of us, and they have some big ass guns. Dave is yelling, saying something about holding on...

Posted by Josh Guess at 
10:57 AM

Still in Indiana, no way to charge phone. Hiding from gunmen all yesterday and this morning, bus is well concealed. Zombies everywhere here, so not much chance of being seen. Just waiting for a break in the crowd. Will post again when I can charge my phone, which won't be until the bus is on and generating power.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
12:36 PM

Finally made it. I fucking hate hiding, whether it's from zombies or people with guns.
We managed to get on the road late yesterday afternoon, and we carefully marked that town's location as a possible place to go back and take a careful look at in the future. They didn't fire on us outright, which is a good sign, but they did chase us for a long while. If we weren't on a timeline here, we might have gone back.
We are surrounded by people here, at our intended destination. I still won't be telling you exactly where in southern Michigan we are, but for the sake of having a name to call this place, let's call it Diego. That will work as well as any other random name, I reckon.
Diego is a fair sized town, perhaps forty thousand people before the fall. But clearly not a place that, before the zombies hit, had a lot of economic diversity. It reminds me pretty sharply in appearance of the old labor towns that used to be built to house workers around major projects like the hoover dam. This place is packed with factories and plants of one type or another, machine shops to supply them with repairs and custom parts, and all the supporting businesses that you would expect from an industrial town.
I am sitting at a table in a well-lit room. It's all stainless steel around me, and there is a big plate of steamed brown rice in front or me. They have a lot of power here, for reasons that excite the hell out of me.
See, the zombie apocalypse came right when a lot of things were going on in government to try and fix many of the problems in the economy. Michigan got a lot of help, some funds to help businesses get started to create more green energy, and tax breaks for them. So you have the building I am in right now, which was a plant that employed about a hundred people, that made solar panels, and the chemists here were working on some exciting new ways to make and store energy.
I'm thrilled at the possibilities.
Courtney is in her third meeting with their leader, an older man named Jack. He was a supervising research scientist here, and he has more degrees than I can count. He's also a damned good leader, to have managed to save so many of his fellow employees, and so many from the surrounding factories.
But he also hedged his bets a little as well. I admit that I was somewhat confused as to how three hundred or so people could be running low on food so quickly, but Jack was masking the true numbers here. It's breathtaking to see so many in one spot, more than seven hundred in total.
I can see why he wanted to keep this secret, but his reasoning in this case is faulty. I know of no groups even half his size, and none of them well equipped or with enough manpower to try and get here to capture any of his folks. The sheer numbers that he can put out as watchers and guards are his est protection, and now that he is more aware of how things in the outer world are going, he's very happy to know just how safe they are.
But it does make clear just how desperate the food situation is going to be around here before too long. There is a lot of canned stuff, and literally tons of rice and grains, but all of that will last maybe six months. Just long enough to run out before winter. And since this giant factory is in the middle of an industrial park, there isn't a lot of bare earth to work with. But we have plans, never fear, and the helpful part is that what they lack in food and landscape, they more than make up for in manpower and equipment. Give us time and machines, and we southerners will gladly help you make a farm.
We begin tomorrow.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
12:07 PM

Lunch break, and no zombies in sight. Apparently the walking dead got the idea a few weeks ago that not too many people were around here, likely because of the lack of smells. Got to love the industrial park being filled with all manner of chemicals, makes for a nice if unintentional zombie repellent.
So we got to work on turning as much of the area as possible into farmland...and it's going a lot faster than I would have thought. See, here there are a ton more people to do the work, and no need to mount heavy guards. So almost all of the adults have been helping us out.
Jack has been working on this for a while now, but only the preparation. He has had people going out in groups to gather heavy equipment, hauling in many loads of dirt and fertilizer, but there just weren't enough seeds and plants, especially foodstuffs that had already started sending up shoots.
We have a lot of parking lot to tear up, but we will make fast work of it. The hard part is getting it broken up into chunks, but once that's done we just send in the backhoes and pile it up. Sort of makes a nice wall, and I've seen some people walking it, keeping an eye peeled outside.
So we figure two or three days of this, and the first parking lot, which is huge, will be bare soil again. They have some equipment that we can modify to help dig furrows, so it won't actually take that long to get going. The trick is to find some source of more plants and whatnot within a reasonable distance. I mean, we brought everything we could spare from the compound, and everything we could find about town, but these folks will need a lot more.
One good thing, though, is that there are a lot of seed potatoes here. As in, literally about a ton. Ask the Irish, if you find any alive, how that worked out. Hopefully another potato famine won't hit, because they are stupidly easy to cultivate, and they grow most of the year. I think that they will be the staple food here.
After watching these people work and solve problems, I begin to wonder why they hadn't already started this project. I mean, it's not like they needed us to do it, though we are bringing many things that they can seed off and breed new plants from. I wonder if it could be something as simple as not wanting to screw it up? It's a small mystery, and one that I am not too worried about, but it's like a loose tooth I keep running my tongue over.
Meh, screw it. I'm just being stupid. After all, they were planning on breaking up the parking lots and roads, they had all the gear to do it. Now, we just have to hope that all this human activity doesn't bring a swarm of zombies down on us while we work.
Back to it, and I hope to be back to all of you at the compound soon.
I miss you, Jess. And I love you.

Posted by Josh Guess at 
12:16 PM

The people here have done so much.
Three massive parking lots are now clear patches of earth, and more are being worked on. My estimation of what our time frame would be didn't take into account the huge number of people willing to work all hours. There are already furrows being plowed, and seeds getting ready to hit the dirt.
So far we haven't drawn the attention of any zombies. I doubt that our luck will hold out in that area, but at the same time, given the large number of people here, I don't see anything short of a huge herd of them causing any problems.
I am getting ready to leave with a team that Jack put together, and we'll be going pretty far afield in search of foodstuffs to plant. Wish us a safe journey, and I hope all is going well at home.
As I write this, I am sitting on the roof of a factory, and the whole roof has been turned into a water-catcher. Clever design funnels the rainwater down into barrels that used to contain needed fluids for a factory to work. Now they hold the stuff that makes people work, and in great quantity. I imagine that other buildings have been similarly altered.
Below me, I see people bent over amid the peaks and valleys in the newly turned earth, a huge square of fertile possibility in a drab and gray monument to repetitive and dreary sadness. I see the sweat gleam on their brows, and I can imagine what this land will look like when it grow and blooms.
Maybe the zombies did us a favor.