Living With the Dead: Year One (Books 1-2, Bonus Material)

by Guess, Joshua; Ribken, Annetta; Ayers, Rachel; Whitwam, Lori

  Every one of them had on kevlar. I don't know where they got their gear, or where they came from, but all of us had a shared thought: we're fucked. Half of us had rifles easily capable of piercing body armor, but not one of us had more than a handgun ready to fire.

  My guess is that whoever these fucks are, they have been following the blog, and almost certainly watching us, and set a trap for us knowing we've been looking for deposits of fuel.

  Our group of people all raised our hands, slowly, as a dozen assault rifles and shotguns leveled at our chests. One of them moved toward us, and you could just see from the set of his shoulders that he was bracing himself for recoil. The way his feet planted, you knew he was ready for instant motion, pivoting to fire at a second target as soon as the first was down.

  Imagine my surprise when a dozen hard plastic helmets exploded like so many death stars, shards of black plastic and clear visor mixed with globs of brain and stark white chips of bone, all together in sprays of blood that washed over all of us from the compound.

  I don't know what made me do it, since we had clearly just had our lives by some people with rifles that we couldn't see, but the next thing I did was dive for our SUV to grab my shotgun.

  Glad I did. Just as I turned back to my companions, two more of those armored bastards came from around the building, weapons down. I guess they though we'd all been dropped. Both of them sort of froze when they saw the reality of the situation, but I didn't. The one on the right got two barrels of .00 buckshot to his visor. When the others with me saw me raise my weapon, all of them turned and saw the attackers, and fired just after me. The second guy got hit by dozens of rounds at once, and I think that vest stopped every one that hit his chest. But then, he didn't have much left in the way of arms, legs, or head, so I wouldn't call that a win for him.

  When our blood had cooled a little bit, we tried to look about for our saviors. It took a while, but finally one silhouette grew from the top of a building across the road. Walking to the edge of the roof he was on, we saw him wave at us. We shouted that he and his people could join us, but he shook his head and gestured around him with his arms wide. We pointed to the tankers (one full, the other half.), and he motioned for us to take them. Maybe they had all they could use. Maybe they were just being neighborly. I don't know.

  I wish I could tell you that we talked, and that those few (?) tenacious survivors in Shelbyville explained to us that they loved their home and had no plans to leave. That it was THEIR land, and those that came with hate would be treated like monsters. We didn't. We saw many others appear as the man walked away, at least twenty of them, all with long guns. Every one of them appeared to be Hispanic, which is interesting and sort of heartwarming to me all at once.

  They left without ever speaking a word, so I have my own theories to go on and little else. But I think that those people really did choose to make a stand of it there. That given how far many of them had come simply to live and work in this country, the trials and discrimination they had endured, they were unwilling to give up the place they had chosen to call home. They must have watched the armored men set up the alluring trap that caught us all, and stuck around or sent patrols to see what happened. Again, I don't know the facts or their motivation, but I can hope, and today I choose to make my theory positive.

  Funny that around here, so many people used to comment about how Shelbyville was going to the dogs because of all the Hispanic people coming there. I always wanted to smack the shit out of people who talked like that, but when you live in the south, you aren't surprised by stupid racism, or racist stupidity.

  It's just particularly funny to me that when all the other people either ran away or got killed, they were the ones to stay and be true to the place they call home. God bless them.

  at 2:39 PM

  Wednesday, September 29, 2010

  A Call to Arms

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I try to keep this blog personal, as close to a chronicle of our struggle--the victories as well as the failures--as I can make it. But today, I am going to ask every one of you out there for something, and I hope you will help.

  Yesterday's events have made a big impact on me. To know that there are probably a lot more people out there than we have any way to count is both uplifting and frightening. Patrick and the group of volunteers are still weathering the storm of zombies at the factory they are staying in, loading component after component into trucks that we might use them here to generate electricity. Are there people near him?

  Courtney, Steve, Will and dozens of others are now in Jack's compound in Michigan, leading kill teams to hunt down and eliminate the spreading plague of smart zombies, trying to slow the conversion rates and give Jack and his folks time to build more and better fortifications. Who knows if there are watchers camping out in safety, keeping an eye to help or hurt?

  There is the walled neighborhood in Carterville, Illinois that took shots at Steve and I a few months back, with which we have been totally unable to communicate. Who knows if there are survivors out there that know a way to contact them that we have been unable to discover.

  When I mentioned Patrick Rothfuss on my blog in a moment of reflection, I had no idea that it would bring a flood of people here for the first time, nor reveal that Mr. Rothfuss is indeed alive and safe.

  All too often lately, I have ignored the obvious. I have made it a point not to ask anyone that reads this to put out the word, because I know how dangerous it would be for some of them to go out and try to get in touch with people, or that those who can access computers may not know how to reach others that are still alive.

  But today, faced with friends far from home and in dangers we can't even imagine, that changes. If we are going to survive as a species, we need to unite and become aware of each other as far and wide as possible.

  I ask you to help me. To help us, all of us, everywhere. To give aid to each and every survivor that still lives.

  I want to make October the month that we contact more survivors than ever. So I beg you, share this blog with others. Post links on any website you can find that is still functional. Tell people, show people. Beg them to share it, to spread the word. It is my hope that on this blog we can begin to open the lines of communication between all survivors, to build a future of real hope based on the desire for mutual survival and improvement for all. But it's up to every one of you to help.

  I have done what I can, from here. The only way to reach as many people as possible is for every reader to help with the cause. Let's make the next month one for history: the month when mankind shook off the oppression of the zombie plague to bring its brother and sister survivors together as one large community.

  With your help, we can do it.

  at 12:09 PM

  Thursday, September 30, 2010

  Cold Fronts

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I am very serious about spreading the word between as many survivors as possible about this blog, about the fact that there are others out there. I want to build a network of communication and cooperation from here, and October is the month to do it for very good reason.

  Around here, the weather is somewhat predictable. October will be relatively mild until the last week or so, and by halloween it will be in the forties for a high, just getting worse from there. It is my hope that by spreading the word and finding each other, we can build supply lines to help those survivors that may not be able to make it through the winter on what they have. We here at the compound can take in quite a few people ourselves. Just keep it in mind when it starts to get cold where live.

  As for heating, Roger has been working on solutions that won't kill all of us with waste gases from burning wood, corn husks and the like. He's settled on an easy and basic design. It won't heat an entire house to perfect comfort, but it will keep most homes from getting deadly cold at night. It involves cutting holes in the walls to vent the gases through duct we will have to install. That's fine since most of u
s are spending some of our free time bolstering the insulation in our homes. We don't really need windows, so they are getting blocked off.

  The little prototype stove Roger showed me is cool. He modified a design from something he found online for heating homes in the developing world. The cool thing is, you can make them from pretty much any closed steel container. I am planning to build ours from a charcoal grill. We have extras of those, since we pilfered every one we could find to cook on. All I need to do is cut a hole in the wall, run duct through it, insulate it, put some stone down so my floor doesn't catch on fire, and viola! HEAT!

  At least, I hope it's that easy.

  In other news, it's apparently pretty damn cold at Jack's compound in Michigan. The constant patrolling has taken its toll on Will. He's taking the day off from running around shooting zombies from the bed of a truck. I can't blame him. Most people healing from a broken leg would still be sitting down most of the time and rehabbing. He's making the best of the downtime, though, studying the landscape around Jack's place and coming up with additional defenses. Since it's pretty much a huge square , he wants them to put raised walkways at right angles to the walls right in the middle of each, poking outside the perimeter. That way when zombies get right up to the wall, the people on the walkways can pick them off and the people on the walls don't have to lean over and put themselves at risk firing straight down. If that sounds familiar, it should. He wanted to do something very similar here, and we have started work on it, of slowly.

  I have talked to Courtney and Steve several times since they left, and I think that Courtney is getting to like Will a bit more. He's a likable guy, but Courtney still has reservations about where his loyalties will lie when and if the big group of soldiers from Richmond he came from come into conflict with us. But for my sanity and yours, I am going to stop beating that horse. It does get old worrying about a bunch of shit we can't affect, especially with so much we can affect going on right now.

  At least the low temperatures at night have kept us relatively zombie free the last few days. The cold is persisting until nine or ten most days, so we haven't had to worry about any nighttime attacks, or even any early ones. Not that we aren't keeping a close eye out there, but just the ability to sleep a night all the way through without having to respond to an alarm is wonderful.

  Work around here is coming along very quickly. This is exciting!

  at 10:22 AM

  Friday, October 1, 2010

  Here and There

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Not a lot to report today. The situations in both Michigan at Jack's compound and at the factory where Pat and his team are holed up are unchanged. Will is taking a second day off from patrolling to do an inventory of what Jack's people have that can be used to beef up the defenses there. Pat says that the trucks are about ready to roll out, they are just waiting for the zombies gathering around the factory to disperse. I don't know when I will hear from him again, since he has to sneak out and move about a mile from the factory to call...

  Here, things are going well. Work on the two adjoining neighborhoods is almost done. It has gone so quickly since the mornings started getting cold. Quite a sight, I promise you, to watch more than a hundred people hauling and hammering, working in unison to a common purpose. Six men with a pile of wood and panels (since the posts are all up already...) can put up a ten foot wide section of wall ten feet high in about twenty minutes. It doesn't work out that efficiently all the time, of course, but since we have people working on prepping lumber and supplies nearly around the clock, it goes fast.

  Roger has made a few wood stoves that seem to work pretty well. He has had to reinforce some of the extra charcoal grills, but much more importantly, he has made a form from which he can quickly produce a lot of stoves from scratch. He has his own team of people that are working on that, including Jess. She is learning to weld with the same amazing speed with which she acquires all new skills. He has some folks stripping cars of their paneling and prepping them to be turned into the pieces needed to make stoves.

  Jess is doing well, though I worry about her overexerting herself after the shooting. She tells me that she's tired of sitting about in bed, tired of being waited on. Tired of feeling useless. I can't say I blame her, really, and Roger is making sure that she is working with her still-healing wounds in mind, and not pushing too hard. The truly difficult work of pulling panels off so many of the abandoned cars out in town, reshaping them into flat pieces of metal, is left to those uninjured and better suited to it.

  And here I am, working at my computer all day. I haven't had the time to learn new things, join in on the classes I had hoped to attend regularly. Pat, Will, Courtney, Steve, even Jess, are out there doing things that will change our lives, keep us going, building bridges...while I am here crunching numbers and writing on this blog during my lunch break.

  I know that what I and my brother do is important. I know that someone has to coordinate and create the plans for our various projects...but at the same time, I think back to just seven months ago when all of this began, and I almost wish for that simplicity.

  Then again, I'm not an idiot. I might yearn for the simplicity of it, but not the danger. Not the uncertainty. Not the fear of living without walls. Not the loneliness.

  Too maudlin. I know when I'm getting too introspective.

  Finally...

  I have harped on this the last two days, but remember, October is the month in which we need to spread the word to anyone and everyone we can. It is vital that we all work together to locate survivors wherever they might be that we can help each other through the coming winter. It's going to be cold and hungry for many, and every person who finds this blog, which we hope to make the central point of communication for all survivors, is a person with options for survival during what is likely to be a hard winter.

  at 12:17 PM

  Saturday, October 2, 2010

  Picnic on the edge of the world

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Not much to go on about this morning, but I thought I would check in from habit if for no other reason. Jess and I have decided to have our day out together today rather than tomorrow, since she thinks I'm getting all emo (for those of you who are unfamiliar with this word; think "angst mixed with ridiculous self pity and a snazzy haircut") sitting here in the house all day.

  So, we're going to the old cemetery on the other side of the hill for a picnic.

  I know, it sounds very dark and mysterious. It's really not. The place has an amazing view of downtown and the river valley, and there is a perfect spot to see it that is also large and flat, so easy to lay out food and whatnot. Also, zombies don't really go there, which I attribute to the lack of strong people scent, and the fact that it's set on a massive hill that they would rather not climb. Add the fact that it's colder than a welldigger's ass right now, and I think we have a recipe for a safe outing.

  Some people don't agree, which is why a few folks have decided to go with us to act as lookouts. I tried to tell them that we would be fine, that we would keep our eyes open, and that they could do some good around the compound rather than waste hours watching out for us unnecessarily, but there was no arguing with them. They said it wasn't a waste given all we had done for them, and that we needed a day together after our recent troubles and tragedies, yada yada yada.

  I didn't start the process of gathering people here when the zombies spread like wildfire because I am some selfless hero. I did it because people needed a safe place, and because of the strength of numbers. And as far as our problems go, Jess and I have had it much easier than a lot of the other people here. We have lost much, much less. But if they want to go, I can't stop them short of staying home, and I need to get out of the house.

  So there you have it. An hour or so from now, I will be peacefully secluded with my lovely wife on a small plateau on top of a five hundred foot tall cliff, eating whatever we manage to scrounge together between now and then and talking abou
t things we both love. Sounds like a good day to me, however you cut it.

  at 8:10 AM

  Monday, October 4, 2010

  Northern Fights

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Bad news from up north.

  Jack's compound is under attack by hordes of zombies, hundreds of smarties and probably two thousand of the non-intelligent variety. This is actually much worse news for a place as large as theirs than one our size despite the greater number of people there. Here, we have one open wall that is easy to attack, two of moderate difficulty, and one that is almost impossible to attack in numbers, all set on rolling hills that make it easy for us to see them coming and hard for the zombies to approach.

  Jack's compound is on flat ground, and is mostly open all the way around. It means that while there are hundreds of people on the wall there at any time, the density of them along any length of it is much smaller than here.