by Joshua Guess
I have no desire to sow distrust of anyone. Not survivors, not the scattered military around the nation. I didn't want to ruin anyone's Christmas with this, but it had to be said at some point, and I see no reason to make anyone reading this blog curious enough about Colorado to go looking. Especially since now all you'd find in that location is a smoking ruin and cars on fire.
Weapons of mass destruction should be left in the past right along with all the other horrible things we lost in The Fall. Consider this matter closed, because I am. Also, if you're looking to acquire those kinds of weapons, consider this a warning.
Don't.
Monday, December 26, 2011
The Path Before Us
Posted by Josh Guess
We've moved on yet again. The places we're visiting now are more familiar to us, the people having met Steve before. This portion of the trip is mostly his ball game, given his previous encounters with many of the communities in the south. It's a bit difficult to write anything of importance at present, mainly due to the overwhelming requests for privacy by those we visit and the short duration of our stay at each stop.
Right now we're between communities. We stopped to have lunch, and Will decided this would be a good chance to help Rachel hone her hunting and forestry skills. He's more experienced than she is, and they both thought a little practice would be a good thing.
Here's a tip: always walk as quietly as possible. It helps keep from scaring away animals, and if you happen upon a camp of marauders it could save your life.
For obvious reasons, I'm not mentioning where we are. Because that quip about marauders isn't a hypothetical. Rachel and Will spotted the smoke from their fire about an eighth of a mile away, and Will made his way toward their camp alone. It was only sheer luck he wasn't spotted by their sentries, who were clearly not looking Will's direction from their perches in the trees surrounding the camp.
Will saw them first, and ducked under a shelf of rock. He observed them from there for almost half an hour, until the sentries changed shifts and he took the chance to leave.
From what he tells me, these people are almost professional. They keep strict order in their camp, constant watch duty, and discipline among them seems tight. We would probably be leaving them alone completely except for one thing--Will saw captives being moved from one vehicle to another. They weren't the ragged, emaciated lot that marauders usually make out of their victims over time. These must have been freshly captured, some of them still had blood on their clothes.
Will estimated their numbers. He thinks we have a shot at taking out this camp. Those people could well be from our next stop, maybe our last. Either way, if there's a chance we can help them, we'll try. I'm hoping to get some volunteers from our next stop to come meet us nearby and give us some backup. I don't like the odds, even with the element of surprise.
The choice is to do nothing or to risk our lives. The more time I spend away from home, seeing people I've never met struggle and triumph even as they suffer, the more convinced I become that being pragmatic can only take you so far. Some people will always try to take and take. There has to be a time when someone says "Enough", and takes action. If enough people fight back, eventually intelligent enemies will learn to be wary of attacking.
Taking a stand is always risky. That's their nature. We can't leave these people in good conscience, so there really isn't a choice at all.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Damage Done
Posted by Josh Guess
We were wrong to attack that group of marauders. The last day and a half have been awful, each of us full of guilt and self-recrimination.
We managed to get some help from some locals. All told, twenty of us attacked the fortified camp the marauders were staying in. Bill stayed back with the truck and trailer, as he's healed up enough now to drive. Our volunteers from the nearby community did the same, leaving getaway drivers ready to peel out if need be.
If we hadn't taken precautions, all of us would be dead right now. They may have known we were coming, they may not have. Either way, those marauders were ready for anything. We hit them from two directions, but their sentries were wearing some kind of dense plastic body armor. I only know this because one of the arrows we fired into the trees caught a sentry in the throat, and Will saw the armor. The rest of them took chest shots, which pretty much just pissed them off. Not having a yard of arrow through their lungs gave them the chance to sound an alarm.
Even then, we thought we'd be safe. Will had managed to get close to their camp the other day, and he drew us detailed maps of the area. Our idea was to take out the sentries, get in close, and rain arrows down on the unsuspecting bad guys.
They must have seen Will's tracks after he came back to camp, because the defenses were much better this go round. Two of the volunteers with my attack group were moving about thirty feet in front of the rest of us, and when they got within a dozen yards of the location we were to fire from, the ground beneath them exploded.
Fucking land mines. Though I couldn't hear it at the time as my eardrums felt shattered, the other assault team encountered mines at almost the same time. When those explosions hit, it was game over. We rushed forward to see if the volunteers were alive, and when we saw that they were clearly dead we ran like hell. Everyone on my team had sustained some kind of injury from the blast. The whole escape was unimaginably chaotic, running while trying to keep the more seriously injured on their feet.
We'd moved a few hundred feet when the gunshots started. I was leaning on Rachel when I took a graze to my thigh. She got a bullet right through her shoulder, and I ended up being her support. Some people fell as we ran, and I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't slow to see who they were or if they lived. In shock from the explosion, running in what felt like a hail of gunfire, the only thought in my head was to keep moving. To get away.
You can guess the rest. We hit the vehicles and told our drivers to go. I took enough time to note that my team wasn't missing any members before passing out. I wasn't really aware of it at the time, but I had a chunk of wood embedded in my side. I lost a fair amount of blood.
Seven volunteers died. They took the lead in the assault, chose to do it, because of their familiarity with the area. This was their home, they said. They had the right to lead. Seven people who can't be replaced. The toll on the team isn't as bad as that, but the damage done is severe enough that we're considering heading home if that's even possible.
We're staying with the volunteers in their home right now. It's relatively safe, as the population of their community is in the hundreds. More than enough to deal with the zombies beating at the doors. The massive complex of buildings that make up this stronghold are thick-walled and the spaces between the buildings clogged with cars and heavy debris, making an effective barrier to the undead. But the zombies followed us in, smelling our blood, and they aren't going anywhere.
There's a few competent medical personnel here, but no surgeons. The nurse practitioner that sees to the needs of these people has had to learn as she goes, and her skills so far have been enough to keep my side from killing me, and to manage Rachel's wound, though that's a touchy injury.
Steve took a spray of gravel to the face, tearing his cheek open and destroying his right eye.
Becky was standing in front of him, and was peppered with the same gravel and wood. They're still working on her. This is round three of trying to removed the splinters from almost her entire front. She heard the click as the mine was stepped on, and her hands were already up since she was holding her bow ready to fire. Covering her face probably saved her life, though she's got some terrible damage to her arms.
Will was closer to the blast. He didn't step on the mine, but he took an enormous amount of damage to his right leg. My respect for his resourcefulness and presence of mind has increased a hundred times over: he used his belt to tourniquet his own leg, saving his own life while also shouting orders at the others. Get away, he told them.
Run. Reach safety.
Will kept his head, and because of that two of my other friends are still alive, along with eight volunteers. He's one hell of a man.
And he's probably going to lose that leg. He says it's more than worth the trade. As I sit here watching Steve smile as he tries on eye patches, his flesh torn but his spirit whole, I can't find it in me to disagree with Will. I'd trade my leg to save so many. In a heartbeat.
I don't know where we go from here.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Spirit
Posted by Josh Guess
I woke up this morning feeling lower than any time in my life. Too many thoughts hit me as soon as I opened my eyes--the nightmares forcing me to relive the horror of the explosions we barely lived through among them--and for the first time, I genuinely considered suicide.
Though we work together, ultimately this is my team. The decisions are my responsibility. What happens to my people is on my shoulders. I took that job knowing the risks, just as I asked the people of this community with full awareness of the fact that any or all of them could die.
The difference between knowing a thing might happen and experiencing it first hand is probably the most important lesson we can learn. My team has had a lot of victories both on the road these last months and before that, back in New Haven. We've struggled and won time and again. It's not that I feel defeated (though in truth those marauders handed us an abject beating) but more humbled, almost broken. Overconfidence led us to decide to attack, made us sloppy in our execution if not in our planning. As the leader, I should have been the voice of caution. I wasn't.
Those were the thoughts I woke to. The sounds of the zombies angrily beating on the heavy steel doors that lead directly outside the protective confines of this community were my alarm clock. Zombies we led here. It took me a long time to gather the willpower to sit up, longer still to dress. The pain of my injuries didn't even register to me. I was too lost in thought, seeing the terrible wounds my friends and allies in my mind, to feel anything for myself.
I made it to the small communal area set aside in the clinic here, where I saw Rachel sitting in a chair. She was reading. Her bandages hadn't soaked through with blood, which I took as a good sign. She didn't look up as I came in, and I tried my best to be unobtrusive. The two of us got off easier than the others. Becky and Will were both under close supervision, not allowed to move from their beds. I didn't have the slightest idea where Steve was. Last I'd seen him, he was trying to decide if he should sleep with his eye patch on.
I sat across from Rachel, not looking at her directly as she read but certainly aware of her. I did glance over now and then, looking for a sign that she wanted to talk. I tried to get a sense of how she was doing, but her body language when reading was pretty much the same as mine--blank. She was truly absorbed into the world before her.
Good for her, I thought. Anything to take her mind off things...
For a while I just sat there, hoping that one of the medical staff would come in with news about Becky and Will, maybe to tell me they were awake and wanted to see the rest of us. Will was in and out of consciousness yesterday as they worked on his leg, trying to save it.
Long minutes passed, but Rachel didn't say a word. Just when I was about to finally give up and go lay back in the bed, certain that Rachel was so upset with me she couldn't bring herself to talk, she looked up at the main door leading to the interior of the main compound. Steve came through it a moment later, holding a spear.
The patch over his eye was black, but he'd drawn a little smiley face on it in yellow. It was...well, it was cute. He gave me a wink with his remaining eye and gestured at me with the spear. He then said something I'll never forget, something that has fundamentally changed my point of view forever.
"I think you should start calling me Odin."
I laughed. I laughed so goddamn hard I cried. Just the sheer silliness of it struck me stupid. My friend and his damaged face, half the light of the world denied to him, and he was making jokes about ancient Norse mythology. There wasn't any sadness on his face, no pain of loss. Steve made us laugh, and set his spear up against a wall before plopping down in a chair like nothing had happened. He watched Rachel and I shake off the last of our chuckles with a satisfied look on his face.
The part of me that felt, that feels, guilt about what happened the other day is still there. I can't help those emotions. But even as the guilt began to reassert itself, pressing me to ask Steve how he was dealing with his injuries, begging me to ask a thousand other questions to try to see if he blamed me, I got control of myself. The intellectual part of me stepped in and kicked my guilt in the face, really making me look at the situation.
Steve has no guile. He isn't a deceptive person. He rarely lies, and tries not to argue. If you harm him, he'll stab you even if he feels bad about doing it. If you betray him, disappoint him, or otherwise treat him in a negative way, he'll calmly explain how you've done wrong.
He told us a joke. That was how he started his day with Rachel and I. His attitude said more than he himself would have: he chose to come on this mission. He chose to fight those marauders. He made the same mistake the rest of us did, and he paid for it just as we have. Steve is damn hard to keep down, and his wisdom is profound and amazingly simple. What I took from his attitude was...
Well, shit. It was life-changing. And the damnedest thing is that it wasn't some new lesson. I knew it already. We all do. Every one of us has had to take some terrible damage. All survivors have had to learn to live with it and move on. We acclimate and evolve ourselves, and those mental and physical scars become just another part of who we are. Steve reminded me of that fact just by being himself after such a traumatic and life-changing injury.
I can't fully shake the guilt, but I won't wallow in it either. Steve really is just naturally wise, and it rubs off. He's dealing with the reality he's in and not looking back. He isn't focusing on what he lost, but keeping an...eye on the future.
I laughed out loud just there.
We are where we are, and we can only learn from our mistakes and move on. That we're still alive to regret them is the important bit, as Steve's humor showed. His injury and ours act as warning that life is far too short and risky to waste with a burden of guilt too heavy to bear.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Prayer For the Fallen
Posted by Josh Guess
I've spent the last few days talking about the injuries the team and I have taken. I want to take today to give my thanks to the seven volunteers from this community who gave their lives in the attack.
Jerome: survived by his wife and daughter. He was the man who first started securing this massive complex by blocking off the spaces between the buildings. Because of him, the children here have a safe place to play, the adults a space to meet outdoors without fear of attack.
Micheal: Jerome's brother, a bachelor. Mike, I've learned, was a fantastic cook who enjoyed making people's favorite meals when the opportunity presented itself. Food is such a basic need, but this guy knew a beloved dish could satisfy the innate need for little pleasures in life, giving his people a needed boost.
Amelia: A quiet woman who lost her family to The Fall. She was one of a group that started gardening on the rooftops, working alone for hours on end to lovingly make green things grow atop these concrete monoliths.
Keshia: Survived by her two sons. Middle-aged, Keshia was, before The Fall, a combat instructor for the state police. She passed on her vast knowledge of armed and unarmed fighting to her children and the entire community here, giving them the tools to save themselves and the confidence to use them.
Jordan: A scout who spent almost all his waking hours outside the safety of the buildings. He relentlessly searched out food and supplies. From what I understand, Jordan was not a very likable man. He was abrasive and loud, yet very well respected for the risks he took and the returns he brought home.
"Sparky": No one knew his
real name. In a community predominantly made up of people of color, Sparky stood out. He was old, at least in his early sixties, and he looked a bit like Santa Claus with his shaggy white hair and beard. He wasn't fat (who could be, anymore?) and I'm told that early on he felt very out of his element. Sparky grew to be loved deeply by the people who knew him, and he always had a story to tell any kids that sat around him.
Adam: One of the co-founders of this community, Adam was a freshman in college when The Fall came about. Almost from day one, Adam led people in the right direction, saving lives and giving hope. His candle burned out far too soon, but his legacy among these survivors will endure for a very long time--his girlfriend is pregnant with their child.
Words can never be enough to express the gratitude I feel toward these seven people. Their bravery was total, their commitment absolute. In a world where self-preservation is the most important instinct to cultivate, they gave of themselves instead.
And so, I say this to their departed spirits as a thank-you:
I may not have a god to call my own, but in each of you I see a sliver of the divine. For my life and that of my friends, I thank you. Each of you chose to be a positive force, to help others, and in so doing did tangible good. But your actions go far beyond that, teaching the young by example to care for others. You showed adults jaded by the horrors of experience that doing the right thing is possible and fulfilling even in a world like this one. You were, and are, heroes. For your deaths, brought about in an attempt to save others through action, and for your lives, which were testaments to strength of character and determination. I live to write these words because of you, and if there is justice in the universe, you can feel the love in them.
