Living With the Dead: Year One (Books 1-2, Bonus Material)
Page 59
Which goes to show you what kinds of stress people are under, and how the constant fear and danger can warp a person. Or maybe...maybe it doesn't. Before The Fall, nice men still did things like this. In the world that was, good people lost control on a depressingly regular basis and ruined lives with the consequences. It's nothing new, nothing original. Yesterday was just another example of the human beast acting in accordance with its nature.
I don't want to believe that. I want to hope that it was the terrible months of devastation we've endured that pushed him to his limits. Like most people who are faced with senseless and inexplicable acts of violence, I just. Don't. Know.
I have a lot of faith in the survivors of the world. There are violent men and women out there, but it's been easy for us to think of them as simply our enemies, the raiders and marauders, even the Richmond soldiers. It's much harder to deal with the stark reality that within the best of us there might be something just as dark and violent waiting for the wrong moment.
Self control is what keeps us alive, by making us cautious and thoughtful. People who lose it are a liability, and people who harm others by losing it are a danger that can't be ignored. I hate that this has happened more than I will ever be able to describe. The wounds that woman carry on top of what she has already endured are more than any person should be expected to shoulder. It's unfair, and I feel despair in its truest form at the thought of what she must be feeling.
I'm babbling now. I'm going. This is too much to deal with.
at 10:01 AM
Monday, January 17, 2011
Rising Stars
Posted by Josh Guess
All the refugees in my group are still reeling from the brutal assault on one of our own. For the sake of discussion, we'll call her Nora. That isn't her name, but it works.
Nora is still recovering. The physical damaged she took was shocking even to people that have spent the better part of a year watching friends die at the hands and teeth of the plague of zombies outside our walls. She's going to be a long time recovering from her wounds, but that isn't why I'm still talking about her.
Nora is an amazing woman. Jess has spent most of the last two days with her, guarding her and giving her a shoulder to cry on and someone to talk to. I've visited her as well, sparsely at first and more often as I realized that she wasn't afraid of me because I was a man.
I've talked to her a quite a bit, actually. That's how I know just how tough and strong she really is. When Nora heard that we were getting to work on building our little home inside the storage building, all she could talk about was how she wanted to get up from the bed Gabby and Evans are making her stay in and help. She hates laying down and feeling useless. She hates being treated like a victim.
Rape is one of the most devastating events a person can endure. I've known victims of it that spent years living with uncontrollable fear and anxiety. Not Nora. She's angry as hell, but not afraid. She's hurting and sad, but she's eager to move on. To heal.
I don't know how anyone can be that resilient. Oh, she's got a lot of emotions boiling just under the surface, and she breaks out into tears at random times. She's suffering the effects that anyone would. She isn't allowing them to control her, though. She cries, but she forces herself to be calm and gain control. She makes the tears go away after shorter and shorter lengths of time. I don't know if what she's doing is healthy, to be honest. It's natural and necessary to grieve and hurt, it's our way of processing pain and healing from it. Nora is determined to get back to normal life as quickly as possible.
I don't know if it's healthy, but it is certainly impressive. Many months ago, we rescued a group of women from a hotel. Most of them had gotten the same treatment that Nora had. I had the good fortune to be a part of the team that helped them, and none of those women went two days without getting a visit from me if I could manage it. Call me old-school or sexist, but I have this urge to care for women, to help them and keep them safe. It was that urge that lead me to check in on each of them, to worry about how they were dealing with the horrific trials they had endured. It took most of them a very long time to be able to find comfort around groups of people, especially men. It took months for them to smile without an edge of terror to it.
As far as I know, most of them still carry weapons at all times. Blame it on zombies if you want--I know better.
Nora is doing as well as could be expected. Better, I would have to say. She says that the last ten months have changed her, made her stronger. I hope that's true. I hope that this isn't just a brave face put on for the people that worry about her.
One thing that she said to me stuck with me, and made me think that maybe she's genuinely dealing with this whole ordeal as well as she seems. She told me that she felt sorry for the man that did it to her. That she wished he hadn't been killed. She doesn't remember much of the attack, but she said that there are flashes of him after the fact, tears streaming down his face when he realized what he'd done. She still hates him, and the rage in her is obvious to see whenever she talks about him. She just doesn't let it blind her to the facts.
Still...on my part, I am glad that he's gone. The bloody hamburger that was made out of his skin by those thin rods (I asked later--they were giant lengths of metal file stock, uncut and roughened specifically for the purpse they were used for...Jack's people are a little scary. I like that.) was the least he deserved. Nora might have some degree of pity for the man who did this to her, but I think of him as the guy who did it, and maybe wept, but still tried to hide the evidence. Still acted normal afterwards.
If she were healthy, I would take her with me in a second when I leave out tomorrow. I always like having tough and resourceful people with me when I go on runs to the outside, and this trip will be a long one.
I'd love to take her with us to meet the courier of the Ark, have her at my back when we lead a team to the hiding place where several copies of what is essentially the collected knowledge of humanity will be secured.
Maybe she'll be hale and hearty by the time we get back, at least enough to join the team that's going to go out and look for Patrick. I hope so.
When I look at her, I should see darkness and shadow. Any person in her situation might fall into depression and constant negativity. I can't see that. The clouds that veil her eyes and heart are there, but there is sunshine also. There is laughter trying to get out. In her eyes, I see pain and the reflections of wounds that will one day scar.
But in them, I also see dazzling stars rising to the surface, shining and hopeful.
at 8:43 AM
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Patient Ratio Blues
Posted by Gabrielle
Hey all, long time no see. As you may have read yesterday, Josh and a small group of people are left this morning to see to a few matters, combining their trip to meet with the courier from Google with some long-term scouting. Josh asked me to post today since he's going to be busy trying to help the courier get to the hiding spot where some copies of the Ark will be secured.
I'm just as upset at what happened to Nora as the rest of the group, but as one of the people treating her injuries I sort of have to push back my feelings about it. It's not easy. No woman could see what happened to her and not become angry. I've had my share of troubles in the past, and seeing the bruises and cuts made put me in a place mentally that I haven't been to for a long time.
Ok, getting away from that line of thought. It doesn't go anywhere good, and I have a lot of work to do today.
I guess that's the only really hard thing about living here at Jack's compound. There are so many people, and so much work for those of us with medical training. Keep in mind that they still manufacture a lot of stuff here, and people get hurt in the process all the time. There are also a lot of pregnant women here in various phases, from 'just found out' to 'my shoes could be soaked from my water breaking any minute'. That's an excellent problem to have, pregnant women, but it means that Evans, who is pretty strict
about very frequent examinations for the fairer sex, is pushing them to come in every day if possible. The medical staff are outnumbered a hundred to one by the population here.
I spend most of my days working on wounds and diagnosing sick people. Evans and Phil work on the exams and do stitches, set bones, whatever needs done. I've gained a lot of skills and knowledge since I've been working with Evans, but some stuff is still doctors-only for now. Not because I don't have the ability (I can sew a wound better than either of them, to be frank) but because there has to be a division of labor that works for all of us. I'm a wound care specialist, and though Phil and Evans are doctors, I've seen WAY more infectious disease than either of them. Which means that when someone comes in with a set of symptoms that could be a cold, the flu, strep throat, or a host of other things, I get to look at them. I am the one whose face gets coughed in. I'm the one that gets vomited on, or has to collect the stool sample.
It's always been that way between doctors and nurses. They collect the glory, we catch all the shit. Haha. See what I did there?
It works out well, though. I like what I do, and though it keeps me pretty busy, I wouldn't change a thing. The only real problem is going to be medical supplies and the like. We've got a sizable population to take care of, and they are burning through what we took from the hospitals with alarming speed. We need to do some scout runs to look for new sources of supplies. Not only supplies, but Jack had the idea that since this place has access to a lot of electricity (and more every day--one of the things they're making is more wind turbines and solar panels. The only thing they're short on is batteries to store up the extra.) he thinks it would be an excellent idea to truck in as much advanced medical equipment as possible. Some things are so large that there's no way we could bring them, but we'll be making our own run sometime real soon to see what we can find.
Evans and Phil want to set up a small lab if we can swing it, for them to study whatever it is that makes people into zombies. We did that at our own compound, but the lack of equipment and supplies for running a lab made limited what we could learn.
I want a damn x-ray machine. It doesn't have to be big or fancy, but something that puts out a digital image in high def would be amazing. Of course, if it were possible, an MRI would be great, but I don't think that one is gonna happen.
I have a full day ahead of me, people coming in for follow-ups and a few really sick folks to keep an eye on when I take over the shift. Thankfully, Jessica stayed home from this trip to stay with Nora, so that I wouldn't have to sacrifice myself or one of my staff to do it. It's not that we would have minded doing it, but we've got a full patient load at the moment, and doing so would have strained our personnel to the breaking point.
Hopefully the people that are sick and injured now will get well without complication, and with luck no new ones will get ill or hurt for a while. With this many people, the size of the medical staff is vital. We've got to get people trained quickly so that we don't have to push ourselves so hard. I feel like I haven't really seen my kids in a week, and you can forget sleeping with my husband. I usually just curl up in the corner of our work area and nap. I need to get laid.
Wow, I can't believe I wrote that. I'll leave it there, though, because while it might be uncomfortable to read (especially for my kids, HA! Mom has SEX!) it's also true. I think all of us need to find some time to unwind and relax, to enjoy the company of others.
Recent events have proven that.
at 8:15 AM
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Nightmares
Posted by Patrick
Some things are a blessing in disguise, like the beep of a cellphone at 3 in the morning. Most of my life that would have been enough to drive me through a wall at being woken up in the middle of the night, yet tonight it was more than welcome. Tonight it brought me out of my pain killer induced coma and reprieve from the nightmares that I haven't been able to escape whenever I sleep.
Forgive my rambling but I'm still groggy and typing away is helping me stay awake. Funny the things you can get used to. Not even the booming sound of undead hands on the security gate keep me up any more.
Now, I don't want to brag but I have killed hundreds of zombies, thousands if you count the traps and counter measures used in big swarms, but hundreds face to face. And not once have I hesitated because of recognition of features or some sign of humanity. Not once did I think that one of the shambling corpses used to be a father, mother, son, daughter, friend, or really even a human. That has changed and is the cause of many of my current nightmares.
It's been close to two months now since I went out looking for my family and just over a month since I found what was left of them, yet every time I close my eyes I feel the emotions of those memories just as clearly as when they happened. The excitement I felt when pulling my bike into my parents neighborhood and seeing all the changes and precautions my family had made to the house. The pride I had felt that they had listened to me and trusted me enough to do what I'd asked of them with little or no proof. The relief when I saw that other houses had followed suite.
End the good emotions. The worry of no dead walking around or even rotting in the streets. The dread of seeing scorch marks on the locks of metal door gates, or seeing them pulled from their hinges lying on the lawns.
I pulled into my parents house and went right to the front door. Where I saw that the security gate was still intact but open, there was dried blood on the front step and wall by the door. The bars over the windows were also still intact yet the windows were all broken, from the inside.
I knew before I left that odds weren't good but I came anyway because I had to know. Yet I stood in front of that house for over an hour. Straining my ears for any sign of life, praying that I wouldn't open the door to find a horror movie scene like I have in so many houses when out scavenging.
Finally the sound came that told me it was time to move my ass, the low moan of the undead with prey sighted. I turned and found that three zombies had come closer to me than was safe to go unnoticed. Others were further away but headed straight for me, must have heard the motorcycle. I quickly dispatched the three with my sword so not to announce myself to any others in the area.
I lifted a quick prayer to heaven, nutted up and went to get my crowbar off the bike. Went quickly to the door and tried to open it, it was locked. I rammed the pry bar into the door frame with long practiced motions and had the door open in moments. A quick scan of the front room showed no signs of life but of a hasty packing job. I went back out and brought my bike into the house with me, something that has saved my life more than once on this trip. Then I started to look around, trying to find where my family had gone.
I found it right off. Written in big black letters on the fridge in block letters was a quick note that read " WENT TO MO'S DAD HAD HEART ATTACK THEN BIT MOM ARE IN ROOM COULDN'T DO IT KATIE." I see that note every time I close my eyes, feel the horror of what it meant. I tried to feel happy knowing that my sister and her children had gone to my oldest friend living only a few towns away. That when I called to tell him about the zombie outbreak he'd already figured it out and started to fortify his house. But I couldn't focus on that, only that my parents were dead or rather undead and that I couldn't leave them that way.
I did what I had to, but no amount of time will wash away the last images of my parents, bodies shrunken from being trapped for months without food. Their cloudy eyes only seeing me as meat, the stink of death. My final image of my mother, wheelchair bound for the last twenty years, shambling at me in hunger, her face sunken and dry. Lips pulled back in a snarl that showed her empty gums. Guess she didn't die with her teeth in. Dad had a few contusions on his head, guess Katie tried to save mom but couldn't bring herself to do it right.
I've never been a great shot but I have gotten much better over the last ten months. It still took a full clip to put them down, guess I kept closing my eyes.
Since then my instincts have kept me
alive when coming against the undead, instincts hard won in many battles, but I will never again see them just as the mindless monsters that need to be put down.
My signal is starting to fade so I'm going to post this before it's gone altogether, will try to post again when I can. Thank you for playing the part of my shrink and listening to me even if I don't make sense. Finally thank you to google for trying to find me using my phone signal.
at 3:12 AM
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Meat Locker
Posted by Josh Guess
I couldn't be more happy that Pat is alive and safe. It kills me to hear that he had to suffer through so much, he's like my brother.