by Joshua Guess
Thank you.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Another Year
Posted by Josh Guess
The holidays still hold some kind of vestigial meaning to me. Nothing incredibly deep, but that sense of warm togetherness from when I was a child. We don't celebrate like we used to, and the calender is now just a way for us to find points of reference rather than a time line of special days. The new year begins tomorrow, but aside from a slight urge to get drunk and dance naughtily with my wife (who is hundreds of miles away), I don't really have feelings about it either way.
A big part of why this doesn't worry me is due to the zombie attack going on right now. It's a little distracting.
Since I can't divulge any information of importance about the people we're staying with or the community they share, I've decided to call this place Block. Yeah, it's a weird name, but if you saw the sheer concrete faces of the office buildings that make up this fortress, you'd understand how fitting it is. So, back to those attacking zombies...
The team and I, as well as the injured volunteers who came back from our aborted attack on the marauders, have been told straight-up that we can't fight. I tried to wheedle my way into at least a support position. I argued that even if the stitches and dressings on my side wouldn't allow me to fire a weapon or pull a bowstring back safely, at least I could run water to the people fighting or tote ammunition around.
Block has a strict policy of not allowing the injured to be combatants, and the leadership gives the medical staff discretion on whether people in their care are allowed to participate at all. Certainly a few of us are well enough to help in some small ways, but our physical injuries are only part of our nurse practitioner's concern. Her name is Gina, and she takes our well being very seriously.
It's as much the psychological damage she's worried about. Gina thinks we need time to sort through our experience with the marauders, deal with the mental trauma of seeing people die around us while getting hurt ourselves. I can see her point of view, even agree with it to a certain extent, but it's not entirely justified. I think her idea of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) makes her think that we're fragile creatures who could snap at any moment. I don't think I'm suffering from such a thing, and frankly I don't know that Gina thinks so either. She truly is worried that there's some recovery needed for our psyches, and I understand that.
She hasn't seen a tenth of the combat we have, though. So I think her opinion is flawed.
I'm sitting here writing this while I hear the undead outside bashing the exterior doors with what I'm guessing are rocks. It's deafeningly loud and really, really annoying. I'm not afraid or anxious, taken with worry that the zombies will break the heavy steel doors from their heavy steel frames and somehow shatter all the reinforcing braces the residents of Block have added onto them. At worst, I feel the urge to put something sharp in that zombie's brain merely to stop the noise, like yelling at a loudly barking dog keeping you awake.
I've been hurt seriously before. I've been in danger. I can stomach those things with ease and move on. Hell, I even have a fair amount of practice sitting quietly while injured as others do the fighting for me. It sucks, but that's reality. I have no desire to die to prove a point.
What irks me right now is that we brought those zombies here, and I can't contribute at all. Nothing. We're not allowed to leave the medical wing. My brain knows that the buildings here are tough, the windows on the bottom two floors filled in with reinforced concrete and the doors stronger than the walls themselves. I know that the weak points, the spaces between the buildings clustered together here, are narrow corridors filled with debris and riddled with traps. They're killing zones where the number of zombies becomes irrelevant, as only three or four at a time can move through them. I know these things, and that knowledge does bring a small bit of comfort.
It's just my nature to protect people. I want to prove to these folks that I'm willing to fight for them, especially considering my team's role in bringing this swarm down on them. Yeah, I really do want to prove a point, but not with a suicidal attempt to fight. I just need to do something to help. Anything.
Gina is staring me down, though, and she has a taser. She looks like she means business with that thing, which is hilarious since it's one of those bright pink ladies' models. I'm a little surprised Hello Kitty isn't on it. Having no desire to be electrocuted by a woman old enough to be my mother (and subsequently nagged about it afterward, also like my mother...) I suppose I'll be a good boy and sit pretty. No wonder the people of Block do what she tells them to.
She cheats!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Wire
Posted by Josh Guess
Like most survivors, the people of Block have hoarded huge quantities of supplies since The Fall began. There is a lot of room to spare, so they've had little reason not to bring in stuff that doesn't have a clear use. I spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon wandering around the storage areas, seeing if there was anything there I could use to make weapons but mostly to relieve the boredom.
I saw a few coats of chain mail, and I asked about them. My guide was a guy named Ron, who does double duty as a scout and nurse's aide. Ron told me the mail coats were abandoned early on, as they are very heavy and can reduce mobility. He explained that the added protection wasn't enough to justify moving slowly and tiring much faster.
When I picked up one of the things, I understood why. They'd had to use steel rings instead of aluminum. Back home, we rarely use full coats of them, either. It's too time intensive to make an entire coat. Better to layer very thick and strong fabrics over the torso and add some type of tactical or other kind of nylon vest over it, then use chain mail to protect the neck and head. Some areas of the body especially vulnerable to zombie bites might have sections of mail sandwiched in between layers of fabric.
Most people in New Haven have this type of armor, homemade and simple as it is. I don't know that it will hold up to an extended beating from the new breed of zombies, them being stronger and smarter than their predecessors, but historically it's worked well. Here in block, they don't use it. Partly because it's not really needed on a large scale as there aren't extensive walls to patrol, and partly because the weight really is just too much.
In my nosing around, however, I found some aluminum wire. It's very fine, much too thin to make decent chain mail (or at least, I don't have good enough vision to work on rings that small) but perfect for another use. I've been thinking about a project for a while now, in fact for about the last year, but lacked access to the materials to work on it. That, and I've been busy.
Right now I've got nothing but time, and the wire I found will work perfectly. There's a ton of it--and that may not be just a figure of speech, either--so I have plenty to work with.
I'm gonna weave some aluminum cloth. I don't know how well it'll work, but I want to give it a try. I think I'm gonna try several configurations, see what has the best combination of strength and flexibility, and go from there. My first project once the testing phase is done, after I get a rough loom set up, is to make a protective sheath for Will's leg.
The leg that looks like he's going to keep. God only knows how.
The damage was severe. I spent a lot of time in healthcare facilities growing up, and I was never one to shy away from injuries or wounds. I've seen a lot more of them since The Fall, and I can say with reasonable certainty that Will's leg shouldn't be doing as well as it is. He took terrible lacerations, messy and jagged, all across the thing. He lost circulation for a long time, and much of the tissue should have suffered for it, but it seems he got very lucky.
That's not to say it's going to be dandy. There was a lot of damage to the structures of his leg. Muscles are resilient things, but ligaments and tendons not so much. Even if the deep injuries don't sour and rot, it's unlikely that Will is going to be able to manage more than a fast walk ever again. I don't like to think about it, but I can take some c
onsolation in knowing that Will's value has always rested in his mind and creativity, not the speed of his legs or strength of his body.
I intend to see that leg protected while it heals. So I'm gonna get to work. I'm so happy to have a project that I'm humming as I type. I hum when I'm excited. When I work on a project, I sing and hum to myself. It's sort of an "all systems green" sign.
I'm ready to do something useful.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
To Laugh is Human
Posted by Josh Guess
My wounds are doing well, but the others aren't going to be mobile any time soon. If I were to give my own humble assessment, I'd say continuing this trip is right on the edge of impossible. If it were safe to move everyone, we'd probably be heading back to New Haven right now. Sadly, even going back to Kentucky isn't in the cards at present, as two of my team are still dealing with minor surgeries and a lot of pain.
I've recruited Steve, Rachel, and Bill to work with me on weaving all this aluminum wire into usable armor. So far the results are ugly but functional. We'll get better as we practice. I hope.
One interesting thing that happened yesterday while we were all working was a conversation. It was strange and memorable, but not a discussion I ever thought I could have so casually. It started out with Steve musing aloud about how many other communities both large and small might be out there, totally unconnected to the rest of the world and unknown to us. That's not an uncommon topic for us, as we've discovered a few of them on this trip, but it went to strange places from there.
Somewhere in the discussion one of us (I think it was Rachel) put forward the idea that many celebrities and wealthy people are probably still alive out there. Her logic was hard to argue with--during The Fall, people with wealth had the best ability to purchase and stockpile supplies. Money still meant something then, and I can't believe that some of them didn't buy a lot of weapons, food, medical supplies, and the like and just hole up behind the walls of their expensive homes. It seems reasonable, doesn't it?
You know how some really long conversations can meander their way from one topic to another in mysterious and funny ways? That was us yesterday. We found ourselves wondering if the zombie swarms had passed by Burbank to leave Jay Leno and his wife telling jokes to one another while wondering what they were gonna do with all those cars. We all agreed that Ted Nugent, he of "Cat Scratch Fever" fame, was probably doing nothing different with his life except taking insane joy in being able to shoot people as well as animals.
It all came so easily. We didn't share guilty looks or get quiet in reverence for the subject matter. It was black humor, true, but nothing so terrible that we felt bad about it.
But should we have? I mean, this is the world we're talking about. The real world. The zombie plague has destroyed most of humanity, and we were cracking wise about it. I feel bad that I don't feel bad, but to me it's the same as making a joke at a funeral. It's just a natural reaction.
Just a strange musing this morning, as all else is quiet.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Field Test
Posted by Josh Guess
In the realm of interesting ways to start my day, watching Steve purposefully lure in a few zombies goes down as one of the most nerve-wracking. We finished a wrist guard made of small squares of our aluminum weave, backed by canvas and covered with leather. Deer leather, actually, which is pretty easy to find around Block.
No one put their wrist in the thing, of course. We rigged the bracer up to a piece of wood and hung it over the lip of one of the blockades, but we made sure to saturate it with blood. Deer blood. Also not hard to get.
The zombie was one of the old school undead, dumb and lacking the other mutations that makes the new breed so dangerous. They've been slowly dwindling around here as the new breed feeds from some of them and converts others. The zombie gnawed on our prototype armor pretty hard for about thirty seconds, then Steve shot it in the head with an arrow.
Well, he got it with the second shot. Having one eye pretty much screws your depth perception. He's doing his best.
The results were encouraging. The leather was ragged and full of holes when we pulled the faux arm back in, and the metal weave had some severe dents and gaps in it. The canvas was held to the weave with thick threads sewn through both of them, and a lot of those snapped. The canvas itself was undamaged, proving the design works fairly well. We're working on making a larger loom armature so bigger squares are easier to fabricate.
It feels good to have added something positive to the world, small as it may be. There are enough awful things out there that making people feel safer gives me a boost I can't really put into words. It's especially helpful right now, because we're facing a reality that just can't be avoided anymore: we have to give up the rest of the trip.
The team and I have talked it over between us, and I've been on the horn to New Haven's leadership. The consensus is what you'd expect with injuries to the team being what they are, so we're going home. Not today or even in the next few, as Will and Becky still need time to stabilize and heal before we can risk such a long drive. But soon. The last leg of our trade mission will go unfinished.
I'd have thought the idea would bother me, but it doesn't in the least. I look back over the last months and remember the places we've been, the people we've seen, and the goodwill we've shared, and I can feel nothing but pride. We've made mistakes, screwed up badly at times, and good people have suffered for it. Those are unavoidable truths. But we're as human as the next group, and our actions were never malicious toward those trying to live peaceful lives. That's important.
In the final equation, the good we've accomplished and the bonds we've built far outweigh the errors in judgment and the losses accrued. The choice is between allowing myself some pride for this team or dwelling endlessly on the ways in which we weren't perfect. I choose to celebrate the good while remembering the bad and learning from those mistakes. Steve's lesson to us, all over again.
It's not all sunshine and butterflies, I know. There are still many problems we and the other survivors in this country have to face. The good mojo I'm feeling doesn't protect anyone from the threat of the remaining (and likely more dangerous) marauders, nor does it do the first thing to protect us from the new breed of zombies. I know this. We have challenges, huge ones, and they're going to cause us heartache. For the team and I, that might be sooner than we think given the long hours we'll be spending on the road in the near future. I don't relish the thought of limping home on unknown roads with a crew of injured friends barely capable of defending themselves. Two of them might not be capable of it at all.
Still, it needs to be done. The injuries the team has suffered need long-term treatment and rehab, and New Haven is much better suited to the task than Block, though I have nothing but praise for the people here.
All that other stuff aside, ignoring the logic and the reasoning of it, we're hurt. And we miss our home. Like most animals, we'll head home when wounded even if the way is dangerous. Going on from here with the mission would be suicide. Staying isn't feasible.
Soon enough we'll be homeward bound.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Empty Nest
Posted by Josh Guess
I've finally been cleared to leave the clinic, and I've even been allowed to go out with a scout team and look around the area. The proviso there was that I didn't put myself into a combat situation, retreating to safety if the scouts saw any signs of danger.
Naturally, the first place we went was back to the spot where the marauders nearly killed me. Yeah, I know, it sounds incredibly stupid, but it wasn't. Long-range observation showed the marauders vacating their hiding spot less than ten hours after we assaulted it. The reports are patchy since most of the people of Block were needed for defense since we brought a swarm of undead in with us, but we know they've left the immediate area. No clue whether they've camped out ten miles away or a hundred. Honestly, as long as th
ey leave us be, I don't much care at the moment.
And before you start cursing my stupidity, no, we didn't just march in looking for clues. Among the many, many items located in the caches gathered by the people of Block were three cases of those cheap remote control cars you used to be able to get at big department stores. No one seems to know who bothered to grab them, since they don't really seem useful, but my guess is that it was someone with a kid. Not that it really matters.
Batteries that work are hard to find, but there were rechargeable ones in with the cars. Our generator did the work there, and suddenly you've got handy little mine detectors.
