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

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

  Best,

  Frank

  This is exactly what we've been shooting for. People coming forward to do what they can not because we tell them to or even ask them to, but because they understand that the only way we can keep going is to work as a team.

  We're on the road at the moment, so this is all I can manage for today. Back tomorrow for a good long update, when we get where we're trying to go.

  Fucking snowstorms...

  at 8:43 AM

  Monday, December 6, 2010

  Stopping Point

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Our group has found a place to stay for a while. I don't know how safe it is for a long term camp, but there are no tracks in the snow that we can find for miles around. We had to stop; the weather is getting so bad that traveling is almost impossible. We're also trying to conserve fuel. We have enough left to make a run for it if we are threatened, but we're going to have to find more if we intend to get very far.

  Our group hasn't gotten much bigger than the last time I posted. We picked up a pair of refugees from the compound yesterday whose vehicle had gone off the road when they hit a patch of ice. The front end was wrecked, so we siphoned off the gas and packed in their supplies with ours. Lucky for us that one of them knew the area we're in better than the rest of us (which is to say that they knew it at all, none of us have ever been here) because they found this spot for us. It's a nursing home, apparently forgotten after The Fall, still full of medical supplies, medications, blankets, and best of all, food. It even has a cistern below ground, and old fashioned hand pumps. Thank god we brought water purification tablets with us...

  Some of the others that escaped haven't had as much luck. Seems that many people escaped in groups, loosely based on where they were in the compound when the call to run came out. It's a damn good thing that it's winter, because I doubt that half of us would have survived if we'd had to fight our way through a crowd of zombies to get free.

  Gabrielle, Evans, and some of the other folks who worked at the clinic are together, though they apparently went the other direction when they ran. There are about a dozen of them, six of them Evans' students. Gabby sent me an email yesterday talking about what they've been up to, and it's pretty neat.

  Think of a sort of gypsy medical group. They've encountered a few other people since they left, small groups that none of us knew about. None of them larger than a few dozen people, most a lot smaller. Gabby and the rest have been trading their services for food and shelter. They aren't turning away folks that can't offer anything, but most people can give a little something. She went into a good amount of detail, and I'm going to have her post some stuff on here in the near future so you can read about it yourselves.

  I haven't heard from Patrick in a while. I hope he's OK, but to be honest I'm not all that worried about him. Pat is a survivor in the truest sense of the word--nothing can stop him. If it's possible to make it through, he will.

  Courtney and her entourage are still doing their thing, traveling from place to place trying to get supplies and other help to those survivors in need. Of course, now we won't be bringing any of them back to the compound to live and work, but we can still help them. Little David isn't faring so well, though...

  It hit him hard when he heard about Darlene. David is a lot like me--snarky, smart, and with a need to cover his sensitivity with a thick layer of sarcasm and a sharp tongue. I haven't had a chance to talk to him, but from what the others have said it took several people to hold him down when he heard the news. He was going to take a vehicle and make a run back to the compound. Little David isn't a big guy. He must have been more angry than I can even imagine.

  No, scratch that. I don't have to imagine it. I know what I felt when I saw Jess lying on the ground, her blood spreading under her. I know the rage that sits in the pit of your stomach like a ball of ice, sending cold hate through your veins and suffusing every part of your body. If I hadn't felt it then, I sure as hell would know what it feels like now that Will Price has handed our home and half our people over to the enemy. It's a struggle every second not to turn around and go back, picking off sentries from a distance. I imagine the scenarios over an over again, the many ways that I could weaken the Richmond soldiers.

  The certain knowledge of the horrible consequences of those acts keeps me from going, though. I know that our people still in the compound would pay the price for our actions. I worry about what those soldiers are capable of, who they would take revenge on just for sheltering us or giving us aid. That's why the few people from outside the compound that we've met so far remain nameless, and why the locations of everyone that has escaped will remain unknown for the time being. I won't bring destruction on anyone if I can help it. If I wasn't worried about that, I would simply have headed to Michigan, toward Jack's...

  For now I will settle for living still, happy for the cutting wind and heavy snows that mean that no zombies will come for me while I sleep. Being alive and moderately well supplied is about the best I could hope for in this situation, and I've even got the bonus of having my wife and some friends with me. We'll stay where we are for a bit, see if we can find some decent hunting, and explore the small town nearby for things we need. I will be posting when I have time to, but never fear--there are some other people that will be more than happy to fill in those gaps for me.

  Keep us in your hearts, and think warm thoughts for us.

  at 8:01 AM

  Tuesday, December 7, 2010

  Did you hear the one about the one-armed snowman?

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I'm happy to report that as early as tomorrow, Gabrielle is going to be posting on here. Just FYI.

  We saw something here this morning that makes me wonder how much we actually know about the zombie plague. Evans spent a good deal of time studying the bodies of ones we killed, and even had a chance to study a "living" zombie. He formed some theories that seemed pretty reasonable, but now all of us here are beginning to wonder if whatever disease or fungus causes the dead to walk can ever be understood by anyone. At least, with the resources we have available to study it...

  Several of us were out in the nearby town searching for supplies (I'll get back to that in a bit) when we saw someone walking. At first glance you might have assumed it was a person who was simply staggering from the cold, but long experience has taught us to expect the undead rather than people. It was about a hundred yards from our position, stumbling and crunching through the snow toward us. It was all alone, which is rare, so we let it keep on coming rather than announce our location to any possible company with a gunshot.

  The thing was missing an arm, and when it got close enough you could actually hear crackling and popping coming from its body, as if frozen parts inside its muscles and joints were breaking as it moved. It was one of the more disturbing moments I've ever encountered, I promise you that. We waited until it got pretty close and then spread out to make it harder for it to pick a target. When it finally did, the rest of us closed in and took it out as the zombie lunged at a lady named Judy, from the compound.

  It didn't move with a lot of accuracy or grace, even for a zombie. That it moved at all on a morning that is, if the thermometer outside the store we were looting is to be believed, below twenty degrees is frightening enough.

  We know that whatever the infection is that makes zombies work has to produce some sort of antifreeze, because we know that these things can freeze and get up again later to walk again. That means that while the tissues are frozen, that chemical has to be preventing major cell damage, or there wouldn't be any coming back from temperatures below freezing. What really sets my teeth on edge is knowing that this disease seems to mutate pretty quickly, much like the flu. We've seen as much with the smart zombies and their ability to infect a small percentage of normal zombies with their particular strain.

  Maybe this was an isolated incident. It's possible that the mutation was with that one straggler, some oddity of genetics that
caused his own plague-ridden cells to produce too much of whatever it is that protects them from the damage freezing has on tissues. I just don't know.

  As far as other concerns go...

  Nothing has really changed in the overall situation with the compound and the Richmond soldiers. When it does, this will be the first place I go.

  We've made the nursing home into a pretty comfortable place in the last day or so. The town nearby is pretty small, with a population around four thousand in days gone by if the sign at the edge of it is to be believed. It looks like most of the people left here before The Fall could really take its toll on the residents. Probably a mass exodus for the supposedly safe zones set up by the military in spots around the country.

  That being said, they left behind a lot of shit. The nursing home is virtually untouched, and had maybe three zombies in it when we found it. I guess the folks around here took the patients with them when they left. There are still clothes and all the other stuff I mentioned, enough food to last us for at least a month if we ration it out. The store had been ransacked before we got there, but there were still some items of use aside from the odd can of food and a few sacks of rice. Things like toothpaste and hand sanitizer, shampoo and some gas cans...but the best part was breaking the door off the storeroom in the back. It was loaded with winter gloves, coats, hats, and scarves. I guess when society fell apart back in March, the person that owned the place had a lot of stock left from winter. Now, we've got extras.

  We've only been through maybe a dozen of the houses closest to us, but what we've found fully reinforces the idea that almost all of these people left in a hurry. And, that most of them clearly expected to be back in short order. I know that when the government announcements came out, they were telling folks to bring what food with them they could. If the contents of most of the pantries we've looked through are any indication, most people around here thought the emergency would be over in a few days, maybe a week. They've left so much for us to take that we will have to see if we can find a truck to start making trips back and forth to ferry all of it.

  So food and supplies, we're pretty much set. There is snow six or seven inches deep everywhere, which means that even if the cistern under this place goes dry, we can always pack in snow and melt it. The only thing we're really having a problem with is heat. The nursing home is an old one and built thick, but that doesn't stop it from getting into the forties of lower in here. We are OK as far as actual surviving goes--plenty of blankets and clothes to keep us alive and relatively comfortable at night--but no actual comfort. We are constantly cold during the day, ceaselessly shivering. We are trying to figure out a way to get some heat in here without A) dying from smoke inhalation, or B) announcing our location for a mile in every direction with a huge plume of smoke.

  There's not a fireplace or anything here, but that's not a very big obstacle. Lucky for us that Roger, may god rest his genius soul, made sure that every single person watch him install some of the heating ducts and homemade stoves. We can find something to burn wood in, and cannibalize ductwork as needed. Tools might be a little harder, but we'll manage. Now, just to figure out how to make the smoke invisible.

  OK, Jess is shooting me dirty looks for writing instead of working on all the things we need to do. I need to hook up my laptop and phone to the solar charger anyway, juice is getting a bit low.

  Keep warm, if possible. If not, think warm thoughts. It helps, I swear.

  at 9:48 AM

  Wednesday, December 8, 2010

  M*A*S*H

  Posted by Gabrielle

  Josh asked me to write on here since he and the others are finding it difficult to make time to post. I don't notice any difference myself, since Josh has managed to write a lot since we all had to run from the compound. I guess he might be asking because he needs some extra time to get settled in. Any way you cut it, I'm glad to help. I am not a writer, though. So don't expect wonders of literary prose here.

  It wasn't made very clear to me exactly what I am supposed to write about. Many of you have probably read something about me on the blog before, but I guess the best way to start is to give you some background on me.

  I'm married and the mother of two boys. My husband and kids made it out of the compound with me and the group of people from the clinic that made a run for it together. My sons are old enough to learn the basics of first aid and patient care, so they worked shifts at the clinic just like the rest of us. My husband is disabled. His back causes him serious pain almost all the time, but he didn't let that stop him from being useful in so many ways that he became vital to the daily workings of the clinic. He did a little bit of everything, from changing dressings to repairing the various electronics we used in our daily routine.

  I guess that leaves me. I'm an RN with fifteen years experience. I've worked everything from emergency rooms to long term care, which is where I met Josh. I was his supervisor on the weekends, in addition to being the wound care specialist at our facility. I don't want to brag too much about myself, but there isn't a lot about the human body that I can't diagnose. Chalk that up to being curious my entire career mixed evenly with a passion for books and learning.

  Josh already mentioned that we've been running a sort of mobile medical unit. The vehicles we took out of the compound were the ones we kept parked right at the clinic as storage units for extra supplies and ambulances if the need came up. Lucky for us, or we would be out here in the cold with little to eat or drink and nothing to trade for.

  When we left, we focused on getting away above anything else. We did manage to find two of the vehicles stashed away from the compound, packed with enough supplies to keep us going for a few days at least. The idea for our little band of gypsy doctors (as I like to think of them) came from Evans. It was only our second day away from home when we were flagged down by a group of people who came pouring out of a big farmhouse set on a hill. We figured they had to be either really trusting or in desperate need of help. Probably didn't do any harm that there are big red crosses set on white painted on the side of three of our vehicles. We were either medical personnel or Knights Templar...

  The people holed up at the farm were two families who had stuck together through the worst of the zombie plague. They had hundreds of acres of food to live from, and managed to catch water and store it. They were all old-school farmers who knew how to make do, but the one thing they didn't have was access to people with my particular skills, or Evans'.

  One of the kids with them had slipped on the ice when he was bringing in a load of firewood, broken his leg. It wasn't a terrible break, and the cuts he suffered in the fall weren't too bad except for the one on his head which needed stitches. He'd been laid up for most of a day, the family doing what they could to care for him. I was willing to help without thinking twice, but Evans was the one who made the rest of us realize that without some sort of trade, we would be out of food and medical supplies in no time if we just handed out help to people with no payment.

  The families weren't too thrilled to be asked to pay, but after a bit of grumbling they did admit that it was fair. Evans and I set the bone and put together a splint, stitched the head wound, and patched the kid up as best we could. To the surprise of the boy's parents we also gave them some antibiotics and pain medicine. I guess they didn't think we'd be stocked up that well. Don't think I just ran from the compound without snatching a few things first. First thing I picked up was the huge pair of suitcases we use as a pharmacy.

  There was a definite moment of pure greed in the eyes of the people we'd helped when they saw how well stocked we were. All of us were armed in some way or another, and I think the fact that we had helped their son was the deciding factor in why a few of them didn't just go for it and try to take our supplies. I can't blame them for having the thought. Who in the world right now isn't desperate to do everything they can for their families?

  In the end we drove away with a large stock of extra food (mostly potatoes, some corn an
d two live chickens...well, not live anymore.) and a good lead on where to get a safe rest for the night. That last bit we ignored. I don't think they would have come after us at the place they suggested we stop for the night, but none of us was so certain that we were willing to risk it. In the end we camped out in an abandoned clothing store, covered in layers expensive ladies' wear to ward off the chill night.

  Wow, I didn't think I would write quite so much. I will send this off to Josh to be edited, since it's his blog this is going on. I'll try to write again soon.

  [Editor's note: Josh here. I had to trim some bits and pieces from this post that might have given the soldiers back at the compound an idea of where Gabby and her people are. I did do a little cleaning up and made a few of the sentences flow a little better, but the above is pretty much as she wrote it. All in all, I have no complaints.]