by Joshua Guess
I mean, we protect each other as best we can, because no one can be on guard all the time. We watch out for one another not only in dangerous situations, but in every aspect of our lives--being there in whatever capacity is required of us. We survive as a baseline, every effort we make bent toward that effort. Hope was always more ephemeral to me, a bit of philosophy that had no real world application, other than it being better to hope fruitlessly than to despair.
After this morning, despair just isn't an option for me. I've seen Hope with a capital H, and it's every one of you that has taken up the cause we helped start. All of you out there have done something amazing, not just for the people you have helped directly or indirectly, but for the human race itself. You've set an example for cooperative survival and betterment that no one will ever be able to ignore or dismiss. You are heroes. You're amazing.
And you're all everyday people. That's the best part.
Hope.
You've made it real to me. Thank you.
at 8:37 AM
Friday, December 31, 2010
Slammed
Posted by Josh Guess
I've been awake for thirty-six hours. In that time I have taken part in more than a dozen coordinated attacks, most of them from large groups of undead. The zombies, it seems, have more than a few smarties among them.
For those of you just tuning in, smarties are my cute little nickname for the unusually intelligent zombies out there. Thank god that strain of the plague isn't as easily transmissible as the one for cold resistance is, or everyone here at the hospital would probably be dead. It also helps that we were already in the process of making sure the ground floor windows were all doubly secured with boards and steel, anything we could find to make them useless as means of entering our space.
The great thing about hospitals in general is that the first floor of most of them tends to be taken up with the ER, lab spaces, radiology, and the like. At least, that's how it has been in my experience, and the one we're holed up in now is no exception. There aren't a lot of ways for the undead to get in, and given that the attached parking lot most of us were staying is walled, we're pretty safe.
It was the sheer numbers that blew us away. We've killed at least a hundred of them over the last day and a half, most having gotten over the wall to the parking lot. We'd set up a defensive position at the door, though, so it wasn't that hard to hold them back. Given our currently limited supplies of ammunition, the majority of the work (see: killing) has by necessity been done with handheld weapons. I've been using an Iaito, one of the katana I took from home that is durable and very good for cutting. It's nicked and scratched all to hell now, but it still does the job.
A few other people are using some interesting weapons. Jess is manning her rifle, of course--she took to that particular weapon much faster than she did to blades. Gabby even joined the fight at one point, using a brush hook. Have you ever seen one of those things at a Lowe's or Home Depot? It looks sort of like a four foot long halberd, with a wide, flat blade that has a curved end to it for yanking brush out after you cut it. It's fucking scary to see in action, especially when a tiny woman is furiously screaming while chopping into the skulls of walking corpses...
There are a few other people using swords, but now that the main body of the zombie horde outside seems to have called it quits, they have put down their weapons in favor of sleep. I'm going to do the same before too long, but I felt the need to let everyone know what's been going on since I didn't have a chance to post yesterday due to the fighting.
I think I'll start offering basic weapons instruction in the next few days. We lost a few people because of their lack of practice or familiarity with their weapons. At the compound, we had the advantage of numbers and time, so that those of us who have spent years sweating it out in a dojo carefully learning how to use a blade could teach those who hadn't. I don't want to see another person get bitten and turn because they lost their grip on the hilt of their weapon, no one having prepared them for the sudden change in weight as the blade bit into the body of a man once-living.
There's been talk about trying to put up extensions to the parking lot wall. If we can find some plywood or other large materials to raise up, it seems like a good idea. Of course, without a walkway of some kind or a support structure it would simply be a defense that would blind us, but if it stopped the undead from getting over, I'd be ok with that. At least then we could safely use the parking lot again, for cooking or what have you.
OK, the level of sleepiness I'm feeling is beyond description. I need to catch some sleep while I can, and help with whatever search may go on for supplies in a few hours. Or, help defend if this place gets hit again before then...
at 6:37 AM
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Ark
Posted by Josh Guess
Yesterday was warm, far more so than any day in winter than I can ever remember. It hit sixty degrees here. Which happens to be the temperature around which even regular zombies become fully active.
Call it fate, luck, or god, but we didn't get pummeled with zombies again. Oh, there were always a few medium sized groups wandering around the hospital, but nothing too severe. We got lucky, and all of us know that no matter how great this location is, it simply isn't a long term solution as it is. We would need many more people than we have now to build a wall that would both keep out the zombies and give us enough area to farm.
One of the things that makes the compound such an ideal spot is that the surrounding landscape makes it very easy to see the undead coming and very hard for them to get you. Even at the farming areas we were running that held true. Maybe I'm just pining for home, but the more of the outside world I see, the less I think we'll find anything like home for us...
I'm on guard duty again at nine, so I'll get to the point of this post quickly. I've been in touch with the people at Google as often as possible over the last few weeks. They've been helping me and the other refugees out in a variety of ways, as well as providing tips and assistance to Courtney and her merry band on their trips around the country.
Now, Google is asking for our help. Apparently a team of people there have been working on something I touched on months ago as an idea, though they started doing it before I ever said a word. In fact, they've been working on it nearly since day one: Data backup.
Without hyping it up too much, a team of people have been working to collect and copy pretty much every piece of data they can find, to safely store and distribute. I'm talking library of congress times a thousand, here. Pretty much every piece of useful data is getting tagged and copied onto thousands of hard drives, Cd's, Dvd's, flash drives...any and every type of media. So far there are over a hundred total sets of copies made, with more to come. The folks at El Goog are sending out crews to farm info from data centers every day. I'm told one of them managed to bring in a truckload of hard drives he'd unplugged from the Wikipedia data center closest to Google HQ.
Google has asked us to find a place to hide several copies of the project. What they're going to give us isn't the completed product (I don't know that it will ever be "complete") but it is a vast array of knowledge in all the areas people will need to rebuild society to the level of technology it was at. Everything from agriculture to circuit diagrams...it's pretty huge. They are also giving us a copy of it, several actually, in hard drive, cd, and flash forms. I'm thrilled.
So, they are sending a courier sometime in the next few days, though how long it will take them to get near us from California is anyone's guess. I've been asked to find some trustworthy folks to go and meet up with him. I intend on going if possible. I know just the place to hide the ones we don't keep...
It's an amazing thing they're doing. In addition to the backups, the teams at Google are leaving laptops with each copy, wrapped and boxed to withstand pretty much any weather (I'm told that includes total submersion in water. Wow.) along with portable solar arrays to power the whole shebang. It's a big e
ffort, but the payoff would likely be something even bigger--like the continuation of the human race.
So...any volunteers out there with knowledge of safe hiding places? I'd be happy to put you in touch.
at 8:40 AM
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Are we there yet?
Posted by Aaron
This is Aaron again,
I figure I would send yet another update on my position for those that are reading. More so for Josh and Gabby and them than anyone else. I've not been able to reach Josh or Gabby or any of that whole group since yesterday morning. It has me pretty concerned. But it could just simply be lack of signal given that my own signal is coming and going, or they could be under siege again, or any number of things. I was supposed to have met up with Josh a few days ago, but unfortunately we've been held up by a few things.
We originally weren't going to leave, but I discovered rather quickly that most the food stores in the cafeteria had already spoiled or been taken by the previous group of raiders. Also the school just wasn't that defendable. It was already becoming a burden trying to keep everything boarded up and all the zombies out. Unfortunately, taking the bus wasn't an option. However, there was a couple of day care vans parked nearby. I don't want to dwell too much on why that was the case. It fills me with a great sadness to think about it. I took one, and Philip took the other. Fortunately Philip was one of those self-sufficient kids who had learned how to drive well before it was even legal before The Fall, so he seemed like a logical choice. Especially given that I'm not even sure the other kids could even reach the pedals.
The first problem we ran across was my frequent need for rest. My leg is still pretty badly messed up (though I've somehow managed to avoid infection thus far, though lord knows how), so it gets rather stiff and if I keep too much pressure on it, I'm liable to tear the stitches that we've managed to sew in there. This makes driving really slow.
Second, there is the condition of the roads. It's not great at all, and they don't exactly make all-terrain tires for day care vans, though in after-thought I probably could rig that relatively easily. Tires are tires. Maybe I'll do that later.
Third, is the bloody weather. It's been nice. Really REALLY nice out. This means that all the zombies I was hoping to avoid are out and about and hungry. Really hungry. Ravenously. Their ferocity is disconcerting. We've managed to avoid most of them, but hit a really nasty group of about 30 of them a few days ago. It took some really fancy driving and some really good shooting by our group to whittle the numbers down enough that we could get away.
Right now, we're camped out at a small camp ground and I'm taking another one of my breaks. I figure maybe another day of this and we should be able to reach Josh and them.
Or maybe not. Just got word from one of the kids that there's some people approaching our group.
Oh hell, I have to go, if you guys don't hear from me in the next couple of days, don't worry. We're safe.
at 4:43 PM
Monday, January 3, 2011
Secret Ingredient
Posted by Josh Guess
You'll have to forgive me if this post is a little sloppy and short. I'm not quite a hundred percent yet. See, a bunch of us were apparently poisoned.
It turns out that one of the people that came here last week to get treatment was actually one of the Richmond soldiers. We know this because he left us a damn note after he put something in the food to make us wish we had died. Not to actually kill us, you understand, but affect us just enough to let everyone here know we can still be targeted, and in ways we might never expect.
Thankfully the food he tampered with didn't get everyone. The people that were on sentry duty didn't eat, obviously, nor did most of the medical personnel since they were also working.
I hate being sick, and whatever he put in the stew did its job very well. Vomiting, fever, the runs, coughing...the whole flu experience compressed into a few days. It still feels like my head is going to roll off my shoulders and hit the floor.
At any rate, I don't have much else in me at the moment. We're OK if miserable, and even with a third of our numbers out of commission we've been pretty safe from the zombies ambling around outside, holed up as we are in the hospital...
Back tomorrow. I've only been up an hour, but I need a nap.
at 11:44 AM
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
P.O.W.
Posted by Josh Guess
I'm still recovering, but I wanted to update you all on the situation around here.
We've been sieged with constant, if small, groups of zombies. There hasn't been a lot of traffic in or out of here since we were poisoned until this morning. Gabby and Evans tell us that those of us who ate the tainted food should be OK since we're all getting better. I think that the idea wasn't to kill us, but only to drive home the point that we're vulnerable, that we can be reached and hurt by the Richmond soldiers if they want to.
It's a pretty clear message. Fortune has smiled on us, in that we are going to be able to send a message right back to them.
See, the guy who poisoned us ran. We didn't plan on trying to find him. I mean, with the zombies beating at the walls of the hospital and the weather taking a turn for the worse, not to mention the chaos created by two dozen deathly ill people, who would? Fate or coincidence or whatever you want to call it can be a cruel and hateful bitch at times, as our lives since March have shown.
Sometimes, though, she can hand you a gift-wrapped present, free of charge.
A carload of people were heading this way yesterday, and ended up colliding with the vehicle our escaped poisoner was driving. Not by accident, either--we sent out a lot of emails and calls describing his car, to warn anyone out and about to keep clear of him. The folks that hit him were given the heads up by whoever pointed them our way, and when they saw his car, they pushed him off the road.
And fought him to the ground. Tied him up. Brought him back here. Oh, yeah.
We've got a prisoner, and we intend to learn as much as we can from him before we send him back to the compound. Don't be surprised by that; he didn't kill any of us, so we aren't going to kill him. Not that the idea didn't get tossed around. We're going to send him back home in a few days, alive.
This is a golden opportunity for us to get a different perspective on what's going on inside the compound. We'll have a chance to get the viewpoint of one of the soldiers who took our home from us. We've set aside the urge for vengeance in favor of gathering intelligence. If we want to stay ahead of our enemies, stay alive, it's crucial that we know as much about them as possible.
I'll tell myself that every time I run to the bathroom, shitting my guts out from whatever it was he put in my food. Which I do about thirty times a day. I'm drinking about two gallons of water a day just to stay hydrated, which puts a dent in our water supplies since several dozen of us are having to do it. We've got reserves, and the weather lately has been generous with rain, and there's always creeks and whatnot...but it takes a lot of effort to do all of that, and this bastard has cost us that effort, and the time it takes.
It'll be weeks before any of us are back to full strength. Used to be that when you got sick, you had reserves of fat to draw on when you got better, general good health and decent living conditions. We've all been losing weight since The Fall began, our various injuries and illnesses taking their toll on us. Not to mention this hospital isn't heated since we can't afford to waste the propane it would take to run the generator that hard. We live in a building that's constantly fifty degrees on the inside, and that's just not helpful to getting better.
I'm off to ask some questions. I'm sort of worried that some of the Richmond soldiers might have gotten hold of Aaron--I've lost touch with him in the last day. Anything could have happened, of course, even just his phone losing signal, but the current situation makes my mind lean towards the bad guys by default.
Can't forget my crowbar. Those always help when trying to pry the truth from r
eluctant lips...
at 10:43 AM
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Spent
Posted by Josh Guess
The situation here is bad. Very bad.
Some might say dire, but those people are probably already dead from The Fall itself, having been unable to manage the rare achievement of surviving the apocalypse when it tore through society like lightning.
Early yesterday morning we sent out a small group of scouts to search for signs of any large swarms of zombies. They were back in less than fifteen minutes with extremely shitty news: a crowd of at least a thousand was heading our way. We didn't even bother trying to set up a defense inside the walls of the attached parking lot; we just locked ourselves in and double checked the barricades. Oh, and hoped. We hoped very hard.
