Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons

by Joshua Guess

  It's like we became a community full of my wife. If you've read this blog for a long time, you know that Jess has always had this weird but useful form of OCD where she gets obsessed with something and then does nothing else until she masters it. She did it with assembling computers, making chain mail, growing vegetables, sewing...the list goes on and on. She's sort of the template for us as a group.

  I can't help but wonder at the changes in all of us over the last eight months. I know many of us have had to do very bad things, but for today, I like to think about the positives we've also managed from this tragic set of circumstances.

  at 9:09 AM

  Monday, November 8, 2010

  At the end of the road

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I've been thinking about how we have been growing and changing as a community a lot lately, which has been reflected in my posts. I have talked about how we have done this, and why we have done it, but one thing I haven't really stated what we are growing toward.

  It's common knowledge that we want to be self- reliant for pretty much everything. It will take a long time to get there, but the reason for that is our desire to build a large and safe community where anyone can come and live in peace. My personal goal has always been to work toward Utopia, an impossible goal.

  My philosophy in life is a curious mix of idealism and realism. I feel that working toward an unreachable goal will generally increase how hard we work for that goal, and how far toward it we get. It also keeps people trying to improve everything they do. For now, we work toward continued survival in this world destroyed by the uncounted swarms of zombies. In the future, we will take this cluster of neighborhoods surrounded by simple and rough walls and turn it into an enormous fortification. Eventually we plan to have most of Frankfort enclosed, with enough people here to ensure the survival of the human race.

  I once read that every human alive comes from a surviving population of six thousand. I can't remember the exact circumstances that caused that catastrophe, but the details aren't important. Just think about it for a minute. Six thousand people into seven billion.

  I want to make the compound into a center of learning. And farming. Technology. Many things.

  Above all, a place of peace. Where families can come and be certain that they won't be abused and battered. Where the stupidities of the former world are dealt with on the spot, and harming others without cause won't be tolerated.

  We have a lot of hurdles to clear before we can begin to make that dream come true. It may never be possible to achieve that much autonomy and cooperation within our own walls. But if we don't aim high, we can never hope to create something worthwhile or lasting. I am determined to make sure that the zombies who destroyed society don't manage to make human beings a thing of the past.

  If you're with me, with us, I beg you to show your support in any way you can. Together we can change the world. It won't be easy and sometimes you will want to quit in frustration, but I can promise that in the final equation, it will be worth it. Maybe not for you, but for those that will hopefully come after.

  If I die tomorrow, I will be satisfied having said that. We live in a dangerous and unpredictable world now, and the time for skirting around what you feel and being timid has passed.

  at 8:57 AM

  Tuesday, November 9, 2010

  Impulse Control

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Not too many people just wake up and want to beat the hell out of someone, but there are always exceptions.

  On a related note, we don't have a dentist in house.

  One of our scouts, Jamie Packard, is sitting in isolation right now after getting into a fight with Dodger. To be accurate, I should say that Jamie and Dodger had a heated disagreement which the former tried to end by blindsiding the latter. Jamie sucker punched Dodger when the poor guy thought the argument was over and lost two teeth for his optimism.

  It's not the issue of the fight that makes me want to tell you about this incident, but rather why the fight happened in the first place.

  While on his daily run outside with the scouts, Dodger wanted to go searching for more groups of hibernating zombies beyond the patrol area. It was very cold this morning just as it was yesterday at that time, but yesterday got warm. Which means that some of the undead got up and started moving around. With that lovely bit of information, you might see why Dodger was so intent on finding a group of zombies while they were helpless.

  Jamie was fine with the idea, as were the other scouts. They have been making runs with Dodger regularly since last week and have come to mostly trust his judgement on this type of thing. Ahh, but that qualifier has to be put in: mostly. See, by the time they actually found a group of undead, it was already pushing fifty-five degrees. Dangerously close to the temperature they wake up at. Indeed, a few of the hardier zombies were stirring even as the discussion was going on whether to stay or go.

  Dodger wanted to go, Jamie wanted to stay. As the disagreement grew more heated and some insults were hurled at Dodger, he decided to pull rank and make the call to come back home, at which point Jamie called him a coward and slugged him while wearing his armored gloves.

  That brings us up to right now, I guess. Rich, our arbiter for all legal situations, is having to judge the attack on Dodger based on what happened today. Problem is, all of us know how Jamie feels. As I came to find out while hearing about this whole scenario, Jamie has had it harder than most of us. He managed to get his immediate family safe, only to watch some of them die in a brutal zombie attack. Acting as the leader of his small group long before he met us, he found himself alone after a while. Every person he loved was killed, leaving him no one. Imagine how badly that must have scarred him, and the anger those deaths must have stoked.

  To give some perspective, let me share something about myself I'm not especially proud of. It's short and not so sweet.

  A few weeks ago some people were over at the house taking my combat class. One of them left a bar of chocolate out. They must have saved it from Halloween. Anyway, one of my dogs got into it and ate the damn thing. Made him sick enough that I thought he was going to die. I went from house to house looking for who had done such a thoughtless thing, totally ignoring the fact that it was an accident in my rage, and when I finally got to the right house, the lady who did it admitted the truth. I lost it, screamed at her, and while she seemed a little worried that I was going to attack her (reasonable, since I was yelling in her face) she also took my outburst with a fair amount of calm.

  Of course, I eventually apologized. I overreacted. My only defense is that I love my dogs and all my other animals almost as much as I do my family and more than I do most people. They are sweet and loyal and unconditional with their love for me. I don't take the illness or death of my pets very well.

  I was almost on the point of violence for the sake of my sick dog. Jamie lost his entire world to the plague of zombies, so who among us can blame him for his intense desire, bordering on a need, to kill them? No one.

  We are, however, a community built on the idea of peaceful cooperation. We can disagree all day long, but at the end of it we have to do so with each other non-violently. Else we risk so many of the same mistakes that society made before. We have laws and punishments for that reason. There have to be consequences to actions.

  I'm not the one who got punched. Dodger is. He's a pretty reasonable guy, but who would blame him for wanting to see Jamie punished for his actions? Jamie was in the wrong. It's a shitty situation.

  There's a famous quote whose source escapes me. It says something to the effect that to achieve real compromise, you have to make both parties feel as though each of them got the best deal they could get, but leave them wishing for something a bit better.

  I don't know if that sort of wanting satisfaction can be reached here, but I really hope so. Not for the sake of a fistfight that the two men will probably both grunt out an apology to each other for (because that's what we men do, in cas
e you didn't know), but because all of us carry that fury around with us. All the damn time. We are bitter and frustrated animals struggling to fit within the cage we have built to contain us and keep us safe. We trust that our reason and self control will overcome the more impulsive and vengeful side of our nature.

  Not always possible. We all know that. This incident only underscores the truth that we are all capable of doing something stupid and destructive when our buttons are pushed. I hope that we can keep that sort of thing to a minimum, but I also hope that when outbursts do happen we can have some compassion and flexibility on both sides. A little understanding.

  It's personal for me.

  If my dog had died, I don't know if I would have had the self control not to lash out at that woman. Given how I feel about men who abuse women, that there is even a question in my heart about it is enough to make me worry about just how high my stress level has gotten. Again, not just me: all of us, at least every adult here, deals with similarly injured hearts. How do we deal? How can you heal the pain of a thousand cuts as this world of the dead continues to bleed us day after day?

  Help me out here, because I just don't know.

  at 11:01 AM

  Wednesday, November 10, 2010

  Obsession

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I wrote yesterday about the tension and anger built up in all of us. I guess it should be said that up until now that constant pressure built up inside wasn't too bad a problem. We had a common threat to make us get along better, and we fought almost constantly, which was sort of like flipping open a relief valve every other day or so.

  The constant threat of zombie attacks did a lot to keep that anger bubbling, though. It's hard to work through the emotional trauma of seeing your family and friends torn apart when you have to face creatures just like the ones that did the act every day.

  So, the current lack of large-scale violence is a blessing and a curse. We are people of strong wills and powerful self control. We might have occasional outbursts, but after thinking about it for a long time yesterday, I believe that in the end, we will manage to work through it all and be stronger for it.

  Will Price, though, is one person whose passions might overwhelm his capacity for logic. Oh, he isn't hostile to anyone. But he is still working on the defenses with obsessive and scary diligence. I don't think he sleeps in his room at Patrick's anymore, just curls up in his office between bouts of manic running across the compound.

  We have all tried to get him to pull back a little by inviting him over for dinner or a night of gaming, but nothing works. He comes over and eats or plays cards and then he misses sleep entirely to make up for lost time. So yeah, for his health we gave up on that. No one is going to physically try to stop him from making us safer, and if he burns himself out, then at least he has done so for good cause.

  I know that sounds callous, and it is. None of us can afford to lose his efforts, and short of tying him up we can't stop him. So best to look at realistically and admit the fact that he's a grown man who has to make his own choices.

  And now to completely contradict that statement...

  Patrick is back, and we aren't letting him leave. Not that he's really fighting us on that so much, but it does irk him that we won't let him go. He has to pass on his skills and knowledge as much as he can. It's way more important than him leading teams to the factory, which others can do in his place. Pat is the most skilled metalworker we have right now, and that means we can't risk him. I'll make up for the restrictions on his personal freedoms later, when we've spread around what he knows a bit. Silly libertarian.

  Part of why this is bugging him, as it turns out, is because he has wanted to make a run outside to look for his family for a long time. It isn't something many of us talk about, losing our loved ones and the constant pain of not knowing, but Pat got agitated enough to tell me this after I let him know he was basically grounded until further notice.

  Pat wasn't very close to his family. I mean, he loves them dearly. He went to visit as often as he could before The Fall, but when the drive takes fourteen hours, it's pretty hard to do so often. Phone calls and the internet were all he could manage most of the time, and I think that's why not knowing what has happened to them has been sawing away at him for so long.

  He hasn't said anything about it until now for many reasons, each of which just go to show you why Patrick is awesome. He felt important to our efforts here, which he is, a key person that had responsibilities. He felt that going out with a team all the way to Florida would be selfish, so he refused to ask. He was almost to the point of asking to go out when my mom died, and after that I think he was too worried about me to leave me alone.

  Now, though, he wants to go. He is willing to wait, because he does want us to be safe and productive here. He will teach pretty much non-stop for the next few weeks, and then maybe he will get the OK to leave. I know that he will be back. We're a place he was integral in helping to build. The compound is his home just as much as it is anyone else's, and we are family to him just as much as his own.

  I think that when he does go, no matter what he finds, it will help him. Even if the worst should happen and he find them dead, he will be able to purge himself of that gnawing wonder in the back of his head.

  If only more of us could do that...

  at 6:55 AM

  Thursday, November 11, 2010

  Loss of Focus

  Posted by Josh Guess

  It's a bit of a slow news day for us. Not a lot is going on, although we've gotten reports of groups of survivors in Alaska and possibly Seattle, but the contact with the folks in Alaska is tenuous right now, and info is thin.

  We really thought there would be an attack yesterday. It was warm for a very long time, which most of us believed would awaken the hibernating zombies around here and bring them hunting. Fortune seems to favor us, however. No attack came.

  The dramatic shifts in the temperature throughout the day are sapping morale around the compound. It's hard for a person to go from a beautiful sunny day to freezing cold when the dark comes. Many of us are kind of walking around in an irritated daze, waiting for the constant gloom of winter. At least then we'll have some consistency and maybe be able to get used to it.

  I've been experiencing some odd symptoms the last few days, including a similar haziness to the folks unable to get used to the weather. I wake up exhausted every morning, with a bad headache, and have a really hard time concentrating and thinking clearly. My first concern was that Jess was dosing me with something again, slipping some kind of pharmaceutical into my meals like she did a few months back. I asked her, though, and she swears that's not the case.

  It's not like I would get angry at her about it at this point. We've suffered a lot together, so trying to medicate me for my own good is far down on my list of shit to rage about. I accept her answer at face value, because she really has no reason to lie.

  So, I talked to Evans. Time was, I would have asked my mom, but she's gone now. Strange how the weirdest things can open up those wounds and remind you what you've lost.

  At any rate, I asked Evans about it since my lifelong healthcare coach has moved on, and he says that I have probably developed sleep apnea. Jess did tell me not long ago that my snores have begun to evolve from merely cute and gentle zzz's into the mighty rasp of a saw on a hard knot of wood. So yeah, looks like sleep apnea.

  Last year, that would have been no problem. This year, I really have no options. I mean, I can't use a CPAP or anything like that, since we don't have any. Not to mention that we can't spare the power to run such a machine all night. And the other solutions such as changing sleeping position and whatnot don't work. I tried those years ago when I had a previous bout of heavy snoring and tiredness, though I had no idea at the time what sleep apnea was...

  It sounds like I'm just bitching about my problem and to a degree I am. It sucks to be tired all day and feel like nothing makes sense when you read it. It frustrates a
nd irritates the hell out of me. Add to that the fact that I know there will be no easy relief, along with all the other stress of living in a world populated by hungry, walking corpses, and you get a cycle of exhaustion-fueled rage and despondence that goes nowhere good.

  That's one of my biggest fears. While I know from a lifetime of experience that I will always adapt and feel better regardless of how many times life kicks me in the balls, I don't know how many others around here can. We're a tougher lot than the average person who died in The Fall, surely, but everyone has their limits.