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

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

  I said it before, and for anyone out there who thinks of us as a target rather than as a potential ally: DO. NOT. FUCK. WITH. US.

  Will Price is going to be a bit more of a spectacle. The people here who had to suffer through months of watching him walk freely along the roads of the home he had betrayed deserve to see his trial and punishment for themselves. Not today, though, because we have a lot of work to do. I do want to say one thing, something that unsettles me a little: My house, the home that Jess and I fled a few months ago, is untouched. It has been lived in, by Will himself from what I'm told, and it's been taken care of. I'm there now. Nothing taken other than food, nothing disturbed. Will's sleeping bag is in my living room with a small case for his toiletries. I don't know why he would live here or why he seemed to care what happened to my house, but there it is. Strange, but I'm thankful nonetheless. A small favor when placed before his betrayal, but I accept it anyway. My animals are certainly happy to see it, especially the cats.

  It's strange to be back here, but fighting for my home, going through the process of planning these events, has taught me something very valuable. When I was younger, I believed that most problems could be solved rationally and without violence. I thought that war was a last resort that should only be used when the stakes were too high for any other option. I was wrong. Even though the government is gone, I still identify myself as an American. Not because of where I was born geographically, but for the ideals for which the country was founded on. Never before have I understood that sense of community with my countrymen as I do now. The compound is its own community, and I feel as strongly about it as I do my identity as an American. We fought to take our home back, we did it in such a way that casualties were at a minimum, and we won.

  We killed the enemy because we had to. The risk of keeping the soldiers around for labor or sending them out to exile was just way too high. We did what was required to keep the people of this community safe along with any others they might have encountered in the future. It makes me feel sick inside when I relive the images of their deaths. But it also fills me with pride. We made the hard choice. It was also the right one.

  When there is time, we will mourn our fallen properly. Right now I'm too energized from victory and the chaos we're still trying to get under control to really touch on how deeply the last twenty four hours has affected us. There are a lot of fires both literal and figurative to put out, and many, many wounded to treat. That's part of the consequences that I just can't bring myself to get into: all the collateral damage. People being the largest part of that. It's almost too much for my brain to handle.

  Most important, the people here are free again. We refugees are home, and though there are a host of problems that need solutions, for now at least we can find some happiness in that.

  Once again, from my desk at last--I will be back tomorrow.

  at 10:52 AM

  Friday, February 25, 2011

  No Good Deed

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I haven't had much sleep in the last two days. I caught about a three hour nap tonight, but for the most part I've been restless. Most of yesterday was spent cleaning up and treating the injured--and there were a lot of them. Many people suffered minor burns trying to put out the fires, with a few more severe cases that need some careful TLC. Along with that, the soldiers fought like hell when the citizens took them down. There are some broken bones and a lot of black eyes, scrapes, and cuts.

  Gabby, Evans, and Phil worked along with their team through most of the day trying to treat all the injuries. Under normal circumstances, we'd be able to treat a dozen or so people with little fear for complication. As it is, there are more than fifty injured, and supplies are going to be thin by the time those treatments are done. There are reserves we can tap into down the road, but unless we find another big cache of medical supplies, the next year is going to be rough for anyone that gets injured.

  The single largest problem we're facing is the north wall. Our assault teams thought to bring as many extinguishers rated to put out metal fires as we could find, but by the time we got the blaze under control, the damage was done. There's a huge open section in the wall, and it's not going to be long before the zombies realize that they can come back this way now that the ammonia has cleared out. Teams have been working through the night to shore up the gap, packing it with cars and raw boards while others work on cutting new posts to rebuild. With the number of bodies we have working on it, the work will go quick. We've gotten extremely good at building walls efficiently.

  Though a big portion of our population is injured, and a smaller fraction dead, the surviving citizens of the compound, injured or not, seem happy. I can't imagine the frustration they dealt with, having to wait while they were gradually starved while those of us on the outside organized the attack. It's gratifying to see smiles on their faces...though some of them smiled while they were executing the Richmond soldiers.

  I feel a little callous saying this, but the thing that has bothered me the most since our victory yesterday is Will Price. Don't get me wrong, I feel awful that we had to lose any people, much less two dozen of them. I helped treat the wounded myself, and I winced in sympathy with their wounds, though they were earned honorably in defense of our home. It's just that I expected those things, and the last year has prepared me mentally to deal with them. What I didn't expect was to come home and learn that Will has been something of a positive force since his betrayal.

  I wanted to hate him, expected to come home and have a mob to deal with that would try to kill him at the first chance. I almost hoped for that, because it would have made it easy for me to accede to their demands and just let them have him. To be sure, if that had happened, I would have had doubts for the rest of my days about him. I would have let my thoughts wander, in odd moments, what the real story with Will Price had been. There would have been a guilty spot nestled firmly in my mind from then on out. But make no mistake--I would have let them do it in a heartbeat. They've earned their choice in justice.

  Several facts have come to my attention that begin to explain why that mob was nowhere to be found. When Will realized what was happening, he went down to the small theater my brother made, and sat there under the overhang in the dark. He just waited while the battles were fought, hidden in the small darkened corner. When all was said and done, he walked out and handed himself over.

  I mentioned yesterday that he stayed in my house, kept it safe. He did some things while I was gone that deserve to be looked into. Sharing his food with the hungry. Stopping some of the more deprived soldiers from having their way with women. Checking on people he was worried might be ill or injured if he hadn't seen them in a while.

  I want to hate him, I really do. He betrayed us to the soldiers, gave our home to the enemy. That's fact. Doing good deeds in the time his brother soldiers were here doesn't erase that crime. It does, for me at least, merit some investigation before we have his trial. I would have stood by as the people ripped him to shreds--but they didn't. His continued survival means that he will have a trial, and we'll do it right. All the facts will be taken into consideration.

  And what comes will come, as surely as the tides.

  at 6:18 AM

  Saturday, February 26, 2011

  Logistics

  Posted by Josh Guess

  There are a few trusted people looking into the facts about Will's actions over the last few months. I wanted to be a part of it, but old routines and responsibilities have resurfaced. As much as I'd like to learn the truth first hand, there are others who can do it. My skills are needed elsewhere.

  We had a lot of food stocked up here, enough canned goods and preserved foods to see us through the winter and spring. Not all of it is gone, but the majority is. If we were relying solely on the stores, we'd go hungry before any kind of harvest would be possible. Of course, that's ignoring flour and grain, rice and pastas. We've made a lot of pasta. It keeps forever and is easy to make. The soldiers
ignored the huge reserves of it, choosing instead to eat what was easy. It's good they did, because with what we have left along with hunting for game and slaughtering some of the animals out on the farms, we'll manage. Not to mention that while we were gone, some of the more clever farmers went out when they could and hunted for chickens. They've got a good number of them out there.

  We've got decent amounts of whole wheat, whole dent and table corn, and groats (the stuff that get smooshed into oats). That's awesome, because those things all last for...ever, really. We can make them into other foods, and though our flour will run out long before it can go bad, it's good to know we've got options.

  It's going to be tight, though. We should be okay until we can get some returns on the planting we're just starting. It helps that a lot of people have already started some food plants in their homes. I'm hoping that we can get enough yield of staple crops this year to ensure that we don't have to worry about coming up short next year.

  So, that's my morning. I'm trying to catch up with months of being away, gathering reports about how much of what things we have. I'm going to be heading out in a little bit to see the adjacent farms, find out what we can expect from them in on average. I hate to put the burden on the farmers, but they're the best at what we need--making food. It helps that most of them seem OK with this arrangement, but it feels a little weird expecting them to work so hard to feed others.

  I'm working on the food situation while also trying to get an idea of how our construction supplies look, how much water we have (it looks good, lots of rain in the last few days) and a hundred other tiny things that need managing. I'm not complaining, by any means--I love being back here doing my job, despite the horrible consequences we're having to deal with. It's just that I've spent the last few months trying to stay alive, then learning new skills as I went on to North Jackson. It's overwhelming to have to get back into the mindset that my job requires.

  Especially difficult given that every time I look up from my computer, I see the perfect stacks of books and supplies in my office that remind me that a man who gave us up to the bad guys also took pains to safeguard the very place I'm working. It's a distraction that I can't afford right now. That's part of why I'm heading to the farms.

  Oh, and the zombies started showing up again yesterday. Not a ton of them, but enough that we have to post a lot of extra guards at the gap in the north wall. No firearms--bullets are more valuable than gold at this point, so we're not using guns. An extra twenty people with bows are keeping an eye on the undead drifting by the north wall. An unexpected consequence of driving them off with ammonia seems to be a reluctance to gather too closely to that area. Which makes guarding the gap easier.

  Unfortunately, it means that the zombies are now wandering more on the farms. Which is another reason I need to head out there...

  Enough shop talk. I'll update everyone on what's going on with Will tomorrow. I need to get out and focus on figuring out just how threatened we are in our weakened state, and come up with solutions. Not alone, though. For the first time in months, we're all together again. My friends, my family, the people I love.

  Any amount of stress and worry is worth it for that.

  At 9:57 AM

  Sunday, February 27, 2011

  Eve of Judgment

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I've been pretty religious in making sure that there is something on this blog most days. I used to take Sundays off to spend with my wife, but that went out the window when we had to flee the compound. Now we're back, and I may take up that habit again. Not today, obviously, but I almost certainly won't be posting tomorrow.

  As I look back over the the last year, I think about how far we've come since the first days of The Fall. Our community along with many others of its kind have grown and strengthened in that time, we've built bonds with one another that will hopefully last for years. So, too, have the terrible marauders and violent takers banded together, using force when words and peaceful intent would likely have sufficed.

  We've changed and evolved. I'm a more realistic and frankly brutal person than I was when this began. Our shared view here at the compound that survival of the group has to be paramount has led us to see human lives in a different light than before society fell. It isn't that we don't value individuals, far from it. Rather, it's a learned willingness to sacrifice a few to save the many. To do what is needed regardless of how painful it might be for the good of the tribe.

  A single person might have the will to cut off a finger, a hand, or an entire arm to save their own life. This might be the first time in human history when an entire community would do the same--expect and allow for a large number of their own to perish that the majority may continue on. In that sense, all of us here see human lives as commodities. Numbers that need to balance with reality. The difference is that while each of us might be a figure in the grand equation of our little society, we still love one another, respect one another. We still weep when the loss of a brother or sister survivor comes. We honor our dead for their willingness to fight for the vision we all share.

  It's that steely core in us, that one guiding principle, which drives the people of the compound forward. We make summary judgments based on that criteria--hence Will Price's trial, which is happening tomorrow. See, with the Richmond soldiers, there was no other way we could have gone. Death was the answer. They had weakened us, stolen our home, eaten our reserves, and stifled the progress of our people. Invaders are to be dealt with quickly and with prejudice.

  With Will, though, things are different. People want to give him a public trial in order to make the facts clear for everyone. Yes, Will did an awful (unforgivable?) thing when he gave us up to the enemy. He allowed all of those things I wrote above to happen. He also probably saved a lot of lives by doing it, and during the occupation of the compound he went to great lengths to help people.

  I once wrote, "If what you are is what you do when crisis comes, then they were monsters, worse than the shambling dead that surround us at all times." It's that first part that I look at now, that makes me seriously consider how I have changed and how my perspective has altered over time.

  A crisis came, and Will handed us over to the enemy. His intent is the key to it all. Was it to give this place to the soldiers, or to save lives? Intent does matter. Actions matter. And for all the suffering Will caused, he spent a lot of time with us before. Fighting for our lives, protecting our allies. Saving Jessica's life. My wife lives because of this man.

  Will Price is one of us. I don't know if that simply makes things worse gives more weight to the act of betrayal, or if it means we should look harder at what he did and the consequences of it. I have the feeling that every avenue of discussion is going to be addressed at the trial tomorrow. Every angle of his actions will be examined. It will take all day, I'm sure, but eventually a decision will be reached, and consequences made clear.

  I will be testifying, as will many others. Because so many people (all of us, really) will be at the trial at one point or another, everyone who is physically capable of it will be pulling extra duties on the wall and at the farms while the rest are at the trial. We need it, too--the zombies have been showing up in more numbers at the farms since my post yesterday. They're going after the farmers as well as animals now, and judging by the two sheep they managed to get hold of yesterday while I was out there, we'll need constant eyes on our livestock.

  Tomorrow is going to be a rough day for everyone, and it's pretty much guaranteed that no one is going to walk away happy. Those that want Will dead will be furious if he isn't executed, those that want leniency will be furious if he lives, and everyone except the injured will be overworked, underfed, and pissed that it's still chilly outside. As one of the people who is looked at to set an example, I will run between my testimony, guard duty, and regular daily work with a smile nailed to may face so well that it might crack my bones.

  If what you are is what you do when crisis comes...I re-re
ad that line, and I can't help but shy away from thinking about that in terms of myself. The things I have done, though the reasons behind them were justified, have been terrible. Is there such a thing as a good monster? A man (or woman) who can do unspeakable wrongs to support the greater right, without falling onto the slippery slope toward becoming what he hates? I don't know, but it scares me. I feel good about that, at least--my own actions haven't scared me in a long time. Looking down the barrel of our judgement of Will, I can't help but reexamine the last year and see so much killing, so much pain at my hands that I wonder if I really have been on the side of the angels.

  I've got to get to it and try to get as much done today as possible. Tomorrow is going to be a beast for everyone. See you on March 1st.