Living With the Dead: The Wild Country

by Joshua Guess

  I don't envy Will and Becky for today's meeting. They've got the unfortunate task of telling these people that we aren't going with them when they leave. Hell, we can't even stay long enough to see them go. We've been put so far behind our schedule on this trip that we could get stuck a thousand miles from home when the snows start to hit. We can't afford to miss our revised times for a few of the appointments we have.

  Honestly, I'd love to say that I want to stay and help these people. That I want to help them prepare and get to safety. Part of me wants to make that statement. The rest of me is already sick of them and irritated at how much most of them whine and complain, constantly moaning about the dangers they'll have to face. They've been locked up, I get it. I don't blame them for that. But you'd think, after explaining that the options are to deal with what's ahead rationally and decisively or to die, that more of them would get control of themselves and forge ahead.

  Nah. I certainly don't wish them any harm, but after all these months, after all the death and loss and struggle, I just can't bring myself to feel much real pity for their shock and anger. Part of that might be because I know if they don't knuckle under and work, they're going to die. Quickly. And we can't afford to grow attached to people who aren't likely to make it.

  Too many emotional traumas already. I'll check on our makeshift wagons in a bit. While I'm here, you can bet my team and I will do everything we can to get these people ready.

  Sunday, November 13, 2011

  Mob Rules

  Posted by Josh Guess

  The team and I are hiding. We had to make a run from the Bunker.

  When we told them we weren't going to make the trip with them, the leadership (such as it is) understood but weren't happy about it. When the news hit the general population, there was a lot of grumbling and some angry talk about keeping us there. My team and I can deal with a lot of threats, but hundreds of people to our five made us a little wary. So we made sure to keep our gear ready to go just in case.

  As it turns out, it takes about twelve hours for a group of twenty people to talk each other into doing something stupid. They tried to jump us in the night, while they thought it'd be easiest. All five of us were awake, and it was Rachel, the gentlest and least violent member of my group, that got her gun aimed at their faces first.

  I won't lie. I was pretty damned proud of her.

  Five armed veterans of the zombie plague are nothing to sneer at. Those people were, I have to assume, the most cowardly the Bunker had to offer. After all, they were the ones who decided it was fair to try and take us captive and steal our vehicle and supplies. Oh, sure, they tried to tell us they were coming to talk, to convince us to stay. I might have listened had they not all been carrying makeshift weapons. At two in the morning.

  The situation became too unstable when a few of them yelled out when they realized we were going to leave. We had them disarmed at that point, laying face down. A few people showed up, and then it was all a mess. We were holding guns on their people, who were lying through their teeth saying they were checking out a disturbance. The whole ordeal got heated, and Will decided to break the tension by firing his .45 into the air.

  Revolvers are loud. Definitely an attention grabber. He explained very calmly what the situation actually was, and when our erstwhile attackers tried to argue, he shot the sky a second time. Will told the second group of people to show up what happened, and that we were leaving.

  And we left. Becky and I covered the lot of them from the top of the trailer as we drove away. Thank god none of those idiots had a firearm.

  I don't feel bad about it. I wish I did, but any group of people so lax in discipline that they'd let guests who are trying to help them be threatened by their own people are probably doomed to die. I can't see them making the long trek across the flatlands out here. Period. If the Bunker's citizens leave as one group, I think they're going to fail. Unless they do the impossible and pull their heads out of their asses. If the more reasonable among them, especially the few who have made an effort to learn survival skills, splinter off into groups with each other, then they've got a shot.

  I hate to think in these terms, but the safety of the Bunker didn't do these people any favors. The zombie plague killed a lot of capable people, but it killed a lot of cowardly, stupid, and selfish ones with them. Though there are always exceptions, most survivors are pretty good at staying alive, and making the effort and hard choices that entails.

  The Bunker was an empty space, filled with locals who had no crucible to burn away the dross. Without the constant struggle, or even the initial shock of the zombie plague and the violence that swept across the world, these people have no...what's the word I'm looking for?

  Hmm. They haven't been inoculated. They've lived in a shelter that has made them safe and kept them from building up an immunity to the world around them. It isn't their fault. It's just sad. I hope the best for them, but I also don't feel any responsibility to make it happen. My life is my own, and I won't risk it or those of my friends for them.

  That might make me a bad person.

  Monday, November 14, 2011

  Finding Bill

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We've been traveling in the wrong direction for most of a day. The reason for our delay in heading toward our next stop, which we can afford since we left the Bunker much faster than anticipated, is that we got a call from Bill Friese of all people.

  Bill is holed up in a rest area. He carries a satellite phone, and we were the nearest people he knew of when he got injured. He said a trio of zombies chased him into the rest area, and he broke his ankle kicking the door shut on their faces. He's safe, but in pain. He has the food and water he carries with him, so he won't starve or die of thirst if we get to him relatively soon.

  We've got to be pretty close. All of the landmarks are exactly as Bill described them. From what we gather, we're not more than ten miles from his location. The problem may be getting to him. Since the last time we came through here, zombies have appeared. New breed zombies.

  There aren't a ton of them, but enough to make this a tricky day for us. If the ones we've seen on the road are any indication, the rest area will be a pain in the ass to assault.

  I'm not a fan of rest areas. Spending so much time on the road, I've been in many of them over the last year and a half. I've been trapped in one. They're damned convenient places to crash for a night, but zombies, even old-school stupid ones, seem to have some basic memory that they are places large numbers of people gather. It usually means trouble. I'm glad Bill was able to find a safe location. Just wish it wasn't a goddamn rest area. AGAIN.

  I suppose we'll have to scope out the situation when we get there. We've got no definite plan of attack. I'm hoping Bill will be able to give us more information about the zombies surrounding the place when we get closer. I don't like flying blind.

  Off to it, then.

  Tuesday, November 15, 2011

  Hell's Half Dozen

  Posted by Josh Guess

  New breed zombies are a bitch to kill. They're stronger, faster, tougher, smarter, and work in groups. In every conceivable way they're better than their less evolved counterparts.

  Fortunately, they have not yet developed an immunity to trucks hitting them at thirty miles an hour. Especially ones that have armored spikes mounted on the front.

  The rest area where Bill locked himself up wasn't quite swarming with the things, but there were enough that hand-to-hand wasn't an option. We had no desire to call every one of the damn things in the area with gunshots, so our options were limited. I couldn't help sharing the thought with the rest of the group that Mason, were he still with us, would have probably gone all action-hero on them and killed the lot single-handedly.

  He probably wouldn't have approved of us using the truck to mow down so many of them, but we didn't have a lot of options. Yeah, damage beyond our ability to repair would likely have been a death sentence for us, but the risk of that w
as pretty small. The old girl was modified to be light but tough as hell, and once we dropped the trailer off a few miles down the road she became a lot more agile.

  Rachel, as it turns out, is really good at combative driving. I think she might have some deep, unresolved rage issues.

  While she drove and Becky rode in the cab, Will, Steve, and I locked our legs into the supports for the extended walls of the bed. From there had a great view of the surrounding area. We shouted locations of zombies to the girls, making it much easier to kill them. It was great teamwork.

  When we'd drawn the majority of them from inside the rest area and thinned them out, we took the fight to them. About fifteen of them were left when Becky shut the back window, pulled the aluminum cover over the inside of it, and hit the release for the back gate.

  Will, Steve, and I have spent a lot of time working as a unit. We've trained to fight together, cover each other. Will and I Were using short spears, modified to use on zombies. Steve was our center man, and he had a slim, lightweight pick as his primary weapon. All of us were armored. All of us carried shields. The new breed zombies are tough, like I said, but most of the ones still moving had broken limbs or other severe damage. Only a handful were uninjured and fully mobile.

  It took us about ten minutes to kill them. Pretty simple tactics--block with shield, bash zombies in the face, piston weapon arm up toward the soft underside of the zombie's jaw as it reels back, stunned. The cross guard on our spears kept them from getting hung up. The points are just the right length the scramble brains, not long enough to go all the way through. Steve did his part, his smaller shield making him the obvious target, drawing the attention of the zombies. We worked together well, bodies close, shields locked.

  The armor kept us safe, and the girls kept the last of the zombies from mobbing us. There were three left beating on the door inside the rest area, but we boxed them into the hallway. Easy kills.

  Bill is with us now, and suddenly we're six again. He can't walk very well, and Becky is seeing to his broken ankle. Looks like he's going to be with us a while. He's enough of a realist to know we aren't dropping him off at the Bunker and don't have time to take him anywhere else. So he's coming with us to our next stop. If he wants to recuperate there, and they'll have him, then we'll part ways then. If he wants to come with us from there, I have no objection. Bill seems like a nice guy, and he's refreshing.

  Not to mention he's helped bring us out of a funk we didn't even know we were in. Mason's death has hit all of us harder than we imagined. Bill is filling that void a little.

  Wednesday, November 16, 2011

  Westward Ho!

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We decided to top off our fuel at the closest depot left by the good people of Sparta before we moved on to our next (and long delayed) stop. The consensus among the team is that we had little choice with the Bunker but to leave. We told Bill about it, and he agreed with us. That kind of surprised me, given his natural predilection toward compassion.

  I feel bad for the kids and the more reasonable adults at the Bunker, but the risk of staying there wasn't worth it. Bah. On to other things. I'm gonna get all guilty and maudlin otherwise.

  Our next stop is a little town on the edge of the desert that houses an impressive number of people. We've had pretty constant communication with them for a good long while, but never managed a visit. We're told they've got a population of better than a hundred, which doesn't sound like a lot until you remember the area we're in and how hard resources are to come by. I can't tell you the name, again for security reasons, as the folks there just use the actual name of the town. No cute nicknames like the rest of us.

  A few people have sent me messages expressing concern over us taking Bill on. They're saying we don't know him, asking how we can trust him, things like that. The simple answer is that no, we don't know him, and any man capable of surviving on foot on his own for any length of time against the zombies is someone to be reckoned with.

  That being said, his ankle is broken. He can barely walk. Give us a little credit--we took his weapons away. Bill seems like an upright kind of fella, but my suspicious nature leads me to believe that my best friend might, at some point, be inclined to stab me in the neck while sleeping.

  I've been known to bring that out in people.

  Bill is okay with our requirements. He had survived on his own, and had to fight his way out of some tight scrapes with other survivors. He knows what betrayal is, and how hot tempers can get in some situations. Our caution is as natural as breathing. He gets that.

  So he'll be traveling with us for a while. Bill has some interesting stories to tell, a few of which are a LOT more off-color than I'd expect from a man so devoted to god. That's one thing about him a enjoy: Bill lacks conceit about his faith. He isn't one of those guys (at least not anymore) that pushes the small details. His message is bigger, more sweeping. It's enough to make me remember why I chose to become born-again when I was in middle school.

  The others seem to get along with him as well. Will most of all. They've been huddled together in the trailer with me as I write this, and from the bits and pieces I've caught, Will seems to be telling Bill his story. How he came to be at the compound when it was still called that, and all that's happened since. There's been a lot of friendly pats on the shoulder and body language that says, "I understand". I think Will even teared up at one point. I know the poor guy still feels guilty over some of his decisions.

  If Bill can make him rest a little easier, I'm all for it.

  Friday, November 18, 2011

  Fistful of Iron

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We're finally at our next stop. I have to call it something, so I've nicknamed the place Georgetown. Lots of places are called that, right?

  So, the incredible thing about Georgetown is that it has a giant iron mine and plant to refine the raw ore into ingots, and both are being utilized. Yes, that's right. These folks have been putting in an enormous amount of work to pull raw metal from the earth and make it into something useful.

  Granted, they aren't putting out hundreds of tons of the stuff, but it's enough to get some very healthy trade going in this part of the country. Bill actually stopped in Georgetown a while back, though it's the only place on our planned route that intersects with our own. He tells us that the people here are tough, almost scarily clannish, and quiet about the things they've been through.

  He's right about the last, that's for sure. No one here really talks about the past. Some survivors see more combat, danger, and loss than others, and these folks must have been through hell. I don't want to push, but it makes me powerfully curious what could have happened here that was so bad none of them want to talk about it.

  One frightening clue is that there are no children. Absolutely none. The youngest person anyone knows of is in his early twenties. If something bad happened to a lot of kids...well, that's never easy for anyone. If they want to talk, I'll listen. But I won't press.

  There are also more people here than we originally thought. I can't go into details, just...a lot more. How they manage to feed, clothe, and supply themselves is beyond me. I wouldn't have thought a group of people as large as this one could subside wholly on trade, but that's the way it looks. There are a lot of communities this far west, and the need for raw metals to work is apparently high. No one in Georgetown is fat, but none of them look underfed, either.

  While the terrain is on the border between desert scrub and more verdant land, there isn't a lot of farming done. The mining takes too much time and effort, I suppose. The cluster of buildings everyone lives in has a high wall, mostly brick and block, though some sections are made of rocks and leavings from the mines. It's tall and daunting, and topped with wicked spikes. Not shocking, they're made of iron.

  Though the people here have been nothing but polite, they are distant. We're guests here, and while none of them have said anything, we are clearly not going to be looked at as friends or
family. There are lines drawn on where we can go and what we can say. They're invisible but startlingly obvious.

  Again, I'm reminded that not all places and people evolve the way my own home has. New Haven is more open and frankly happier. We trust easily, sometimes to our detriment. The zombie plague and the end of the world affected all of us differently, and if there's one thing about this trip that I'm glad for, it's the chance to see how many different kinds of people have adapted to it.

  The Fall has made us what we are, for better or worse. It's not something we can help, being broken by such awful events. It is, however, our responsibility to do the most we can with what the fates have given us.

  I'd say "for the kids" right here, but that's clearly not the motivation for some people.

  Saturday, November 19, 2011

  Sweep

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Georgetown may not have much in the way of variety when it comes to industry, but these people sure as hell know their defense. The wall is solid and strong, and because iron is so plentiful, they've got enough weapons to arm every citizen three times over. Every person is required to participate in combat drills several times a week.