Living With the Dead: Year One (Books 1-2, Bonus Material)
Page 37
Will, Courtney and Steve are leading some strikes outside the wall as the attack drags on. Using hit and run tactics along with explosives and some clever traps that Jack's folks came up with, they are managing to draw enough attention away from the walls that there is little chance of them being overrun. Courtney spent a lot of this weekend with Will working on and perfect the defenses while Steve led patrol after patrol into the surrounding areas to take out as many clusters of smarties as possible.
Stakes, pits, caltrops, bladed traps...so many more traps and defenses have been put up over the last week, and it seems to be helping a lot. The zombies have been swarming for the last three hours, and it's been enough to keep the wall secure so far.
It isn't so much the numbers that are hitting them right now, but more the fear that so many at once might be a precursor to a much larger attack. What is even more frightening is that any surviving smarties will learn from it, and will avoid many of the pitfalls they are falling prey to right now.
I wish there was something we could do to help. It scares me to think that the numbers hitting Jack's have to be a small fraction of the total out there, because of the cold. It's twenty degrees colder there, which means that the zombies actually attacking are maybe the one in five that have managed to overcome the slowing effect the cold has on them.
I know that none of my friends would begrudge me a weekend off with my wife, but I feel bad that we have had such calm here while the others are facing incredible danger.
Speaking of which: Patrick and our volunteers have managed to leave out of the factory, on the way back here. A cold snap hit them last night, dropping below freezing and driving the milling crowd of zombies away. The few that were left made easy targets, and Pat reckons he knows where they went to get out of the bitter wind. Small copses of trees apparently make good windbreaks, which will be helpful when he and the others head back.
Today is going to be busy for reasons outside the usual. We are almost done with the annexes, done with harvesting for the most part, and the folks that butcher our meat for us have long since completed that, and are curing and salting as I type this.
Little remains to do but wait and worry about those that face threats far away from here. I will be spending my day with the phone close at hand, hoping for good news but preparing to give whatever advice I can in case of the opposite.
at 8:59 AM
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Fire Away
Posted by Josh Guess
Annexing of the two neighborhoods immediately next to us is complete. The walls are up if not all of the walkways and platforms, but the hardest part is done. With a little vigilance and some creative defensive measures, the new, larger compound will be almost impossible for zombies to attack come spring.
A big part of why we are calling it a job done is because of the drastic drop in zombie attacks since the wave of cold has come in. We are looking at maybe a fifth of the usual numbers if that, and they look to be dropping day by day. That means easier working conditions, faster work, all that good stuff. We will of course continue working on the annexes until they are totally done, but the folks from downtown are moving up here starting...oh, now or so.
Patrick and the others are about halfway home with the first load of turbines and related sundries from the factory. No news to report from them one way or the other, no attacks or odd sightings. He thinks they will be home tonight or early in the morning since the closer they get to here the safer and better traveled the roads are.
The biggest news today comes from up north at Jack's compound. Steve ran strikes all day yesterday against the massive swarm of zombies assaulting the place, and after the horde broke apart, he went out on his own. Not looking to kill an army of them all by his lonesome Ogami Itto style, but to try and sneak after some of the smarties and try to find out for certain where they are holing up when the cold gets really bad there.
He found them. Or at least, he found a huge grouping of them in a band of woods about two miles away from Jack's compound.
Some of Jack's people have been tinkering with ideas for weapons, and ways to take out large numbers of zombies at once. Fortunately, Will was crazy enough to try some of those untested weapons while leading a joint team of folks from both compounds.
Aerosolized gasoline sprayers, easily thrown a hundred feet or so to saturate the air around the inert zombies in their hiding place.
Bombs built into sharp pipes fired from an air-powered gun mounted on the back of a truck, loosing ten of them in one shot. The brilliance of this one is that the pipes jam into trees when fired at them, and when they blow up the trees fall, causing an amazing level of damage to anything that happens to be in its path.
So imagine what happened when they filled the woods the retreated zombies were hiding in with explosive fumes right before lobbing a hundred or so bombs at as many trees...
I am told it was almost beautiful to suddenly watch the air itself simply turn to flame. Trees blazing as their trunks exploded, fragmenting out into a thousand fiery splinters, great boughs crushing and rolling into crowds of nearly immobile undead...
The estimate right now is more than a thousand dead at one go. Perhaps not a tactic I would use during warmer times, since fire usually only makes zombies go from flesh-hungry corpses intent on eating you into flaming flesh hungry corpses intent on eating you, but the cold slows them down so much that the fire had time to disable them before they could even consider hurting a person even if the trees falling near them missed.
It isn't total victory, but it is a victory. It's a major blow to the numbers able to threaten Jack's place, and it makes the jobs of the defenders that much easier. I am proud of every person who took part in that raid, especially Will. I am proud of Courtney for having the intelligence to talk to every person she could, and finding out about some of the weapons they have been working on. Even more, I feel immense pride that she came up with the attack plan to use them. I admit that I probably expected that more of Will or Steve, but that's me being a huge sexist, isn't it?
I do sometimes forget that simply having lady parts does not preclude Courtney or any other woman from possessing fine tactical instincts. Forgive me.
Above all, I am relieved that some of the pressure is off the folks up there. Every life lost is a lessening of the chances the human race has to survive. I am fairly brimming with satisfaction that Will and the others are managing to work together so well, to a common purpose. Hell, Will was beating himself up that he didn't come up with the idea first, that he hadn't asked around about weapons like Courtney did. He actually hugged her when she told him her plan.
Considering that she didn't kick him in the balls for doing so, I take it to mean that my dear Cortz now has a more positive opinion about Will. If nothing else, that makes my day.
at 11:37 AM
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Counterstrike
Posted by Josh Guess
Pat and the people the people that left with him to raid the factory have returned. They have brought a lot of equipment and parts with them, enough that we can start work on some new wind turbines to supplement the power we have now. The big stuff will have to wait until we have everything we need to construct a small power plant. If I seem to rush through this amazing and awesome news, I apologize.
It's because of some bad news, vitally important.
Most of us sort of thought that there had to be a lot more zombies around Jack's compound than were actually attacking it. This line of thinking springs from the fact that it has been very cold up there lately, and the cold seems to slow down about eighty percent of zombies to the point of incapacitation. So, since about two thousand of them have been attacking....
Today started off a lot warmer than yesterday. While we suspect that once temperatures get below forty most of the time, the zombies will begin to go inert altogether, when it warms up they come back with a vengeance.
Jack's compound has bee
n under assault from all sides today. Estimates are that at least six thousand of them are swarming, perhaps six to eight hundred of them smarties. The cold seems to affect both types equally, though the smarties might actually figure out that clothing will help shield them at some point.
Every person capable of holding the wall there is doing so. Anything that works as a weapon is being used. I was told that some of the defenders are actually having to fight atop piles of dead zombies (as in, finally really dead) that have built up against the wall in some of the areas with the heaviest concentrations of attackers. Will and Steve are leading strikes out into the hordes beyond the walls, mowing down and blowing up the undead when and where they can. It's terribly risky, but Courtney, who has been asked to stay out of the fight to try and coordinate help and resources, assures me that they are very safe in the armored pickups they are tearing around in.
I don't know what I can do to help, but I will wait all day for any instructions Courtney wants to send this way. We couldn't possibly get there in time to do any good, but if we can send aid to help the wounded or additional ammunition...damn it, I wish I could do something! FUCK!
If there were ever better proof that all survivors who want to live in peace and safety should band together and form a support network, this is it. We have to create some kind of safety net so that none of us are left without help in times of severe crisis and extreme need. If anyone out there is reading this and you are in southern Michigan and are willing to help, contact me. I will be glad to point the way.
Otherwise, hope for them. They are holding, but living bodies need rest and sustenance. It's like fighting machines--the only way to win is for willpower to hold out over numbers.
at 10:16 AM
Fire, Ice, and the Science of War
Posted by Courtney
(Courtney, checking in.) Nonstop activity here, weapon building, supplies being run from Point A to Point B, shouting orders, words of encouragement, people hustling to their next station, the steady hum of industry becoming the dull roar of warfare. My brain is buzzing, and it feels like I've been plugged into a computer to aid with the processing of data, the solving of problems. Strikes and counter-strikes to coordinate, wounded to tend, gotta say the right words to the right people to keep morale up, feed and water the fighters, rest them, then send them out again. Reload the weapons, recharge the fighters. Time and resource management game to the Nth degree, pixels streaming past and navigating by instinct alone. I've honestly never felt a high like this before. I'm in the zone, woefully inadequate as that phrase may be at conveying the rapture and, I suspect, had I time to sufficiently contemplate it, horror, of the situation. Jack gives me a knowing, almost-smiling look from time to time, as if sharing some inside joke, and I smirk back as an automatic reply, sometimes varying it by rolling my eyes slightly, but truthfully I can only speculate as to the intended meaning of this exchange. Data in, data out. This missive is no respite, it's just another checkmark I can make on my never-ending mental to-do list, another tiny increase in the progress bar. Let everyone know we're okay, move on to next project. Ping? Pong.
We've been burning and blasting those rotting bastards for hours or days now, but we'll soon be adding a new element to our repertoire: ice. That's right, we plan to freeze them, and though this may have limited success in the short run, when are we going to have such a wonderful chance to test these new weapons against such large numbers? Area effects deal extra damage to swarms, you know. Liquid nitrogen, dry ice, these guys have been working on this as an alternate form of food preservation, when refrigeration isn't an option, but there are these machines like sandblasters, except they fire little pellets of dry ice, being modified for maximum portability. Dry ice bombs, sadly not as effective yet as they will be soon, are filling the battlefield with a lingering fog that is so melodramatic and perfect, I can't help but laugh, despite the daunting numbers of our foes. Enough liquid nitrogen and we'd reduce our enemies to powder, but that's a bit of a fantasy as well. There are endless waves of zombies, which means endless waves of test subjects, which means as soon as one prototype fails of succeeds, adjustments can be made, and it can be immediately tested again. We've been trying to take out as many of those smart ghoulish types as we can, so they don't get the benefit of a learning curve in relation to our newer tactics, but I'm sure a few have slipped through the cracks, so to speak.
Will and Steve are fighting together like they've trained to do it for years, or at least months. Their assaults are coordinated, fluid, and, dare I say it? beautiful to watch. Vehicles zigzagging across the battlefield, the crack of weapons fired, the thwacking impact of a pipe and the ensuing whoosh of flames, the trails of smoke...it's like some over-budget blockbuster being shot all around the compound. The two of them come back thoroughly fatigued, but EXULTANT. Their eyes gleam, they high-five and leap and cheer, and Kimiko looks worried as she hands them water and urges them to rest, but this bravado is what's powering them and so many others right now, and I'm not going to be the one that tells them to stop.
Jack briefs them on the modifications we've made to the weaponry, shows them how to properly handle our little chemical grenades so they don't get frostbite on their hands, and the two of them are enthralled. Will has no doubt been privately longing for an opportunity for his abilities to really shine, and, I suspect, is genuinely relieved to be following orders again. Steve was running messages, tinkering in the lab, backing up the medics, and manning the wall, and running at insane speeds to fill in whatever position needed an extra bonus Steve. Once he saw Will gearing up to go outside the compound, though, he didn't hesitate even a moment to volunteer. Jack somehow knows just what to say to get the two of them fired up, which they pass on to the other warriors. Amadi smirkingly warns me that he thinks Steve and Will might both propose marriage to Jack at any second. I quip back that they'll have to beat me to it, but they're welcome to try. Amadi is an utter genius at chemistry who has been helping translate some of my half-baked plans and strategies into innovations that will actually work in a universe that operates according to the laws of physics. I say, "We need to do this," and he says, "Here's how."
Some part of my mind is screaming at me to get everyone to safety, to pull my people off the battlefield, to keep Steve far away from such a hideously dangerous position, but I, too, am caught up in the moment. It's as though the difference in setting between a residential neighborhood and a factory has flipped some switch in all our brains. Everyone is where he or she needs to be, everyone is doing more than seems possible. The compound in Kentucky is full of people, and feels like a living entity, a child that we are nurturing and teaching so that it will grow up strong and brave and free. The compound here is full of machines, and feels like a machine. Each weapon we build is a part of that machine, and we ourselves are spinning, whirring components in this machine as well. This is the heart of it, then, the part that enraptures and terrifies me. Is that what Jack was trying to get across? A chill is doing its best to work its way through me, giving me goosebumps, but I have no time for chills. Any one of us has plenty of reason to be afraid; any one of us may die in this unprecedentedly vicious battle. But the compound will not fall. We are smarter, faster, better prepared. The ghouls can adapt to our strategies, but we adapt faster. We will prevail.
The last time I checked outside (funny world where "getting some air" necessarily includes shooting shambling corpses from atop a wall) the smoke from various explosive devices and the fog from dissipating dry ice covered much of the battlefield in a haze so perfectly befitting a zombie movie, I had to make a concerted effort to stop laughing, lest I disturb my more stoic fellow combatants, or bungle a crucial shot. It's too cinematic. My ears keep straining, I think, to hear the orchestral score triumphantly playing in the background.
Oh, yes, one last thing. We could really use some ammunition. As we've proven over and over again today, practically anything can be a projectile weapon with the proper preparation, but a v
ictory with fewer casualties would be so much more desirable.
I need to go. Lisa has been pacing back and forth across the room, waiting for me to finish, though only now she tells me it's because she has a few contacts who might be able to help us out. Cryptic, but hopeful. Also, it seems she neglected to mention that Jack wanted to see me for something. (she wanted to go with the group that was testing weapons, and has been somewhat sulky since Jack told her no. Not really sure what is going on with that power dynamic, except that Jack is a bit protective and old-fashioned about women in some ways, though progressive in others...) In a moment I'll leap up in a way that is hopefully not too reminiscent of an eager puppy, and see what it is that he needs. Love to everyone back home. We're going to win this fight, but I apologize in advance for the pain our losses are likely to bring. Later, guys.
at 1:55 PM
Friday, October 8, 2010
Siege Mentality