Living With the Dead: The Wild Country

by Joshua Guess

This particular band of marauders must have been vicious as well as prepared, because we went through eight of those little cars before we were certain there weren't any more mines waiting for us. Well, reasonably certain. The actual space their camp was in is pretty bare, and we'd be able to see if they dug fresh holes to hide mines in. It was getting over the lip that marked where my team and the volunteers from block were almost all killed that was the tricky part.

  There isn't much to tell about the camp site. The marauders left no clues for us to follow, cleaning up after themselves seems to be ingrained in their behavior. All we saw apart from the leftover mines, clearly meant to kill anyone who came snooping around, was a filled in latrine pit and tire tracks. A few footprints, but those don't do us any good.

  One thing the scouts noticed that might be of interest is the lack of zombies here. There's not a one of them around, and at first it was a complete mystery. Maybe the marauders were here long enough to make the local zombies afraid to come near? No. Those kinds of tricks don't work for long against the new breed, and there are plenty of them around. Then we started wondering if there were traps left behind that we'd missed.

  Then one of the scouts noticed that there were quite a few different kinds of evergreen shrubs in the area. He noticed because they smelled so strongly. I'm not sure if that would be enough to keep zombies away, but we know that some sharp smells interfere with their own olfactory senses, which seem to be part of how they communicate. Maybe enough of these shrubs together combined with the wind are making the smell hereabouts unpleasant enough to nudge the zombies away. I doubt very seriously that the undead would stay away for anything short of fire or ammonia if they knew people were in this little nest, but the theory seems reasonable.

  While I'm disappointed we didn't find anything of value here as far as the marauders go, I can't say I'm upset with the trip outside overall. I wish the others could have come with me, and I do feel guilty that they couldn't but they encouraged me to go. Even Will, whose leg looks better but still closely resembles one of Dr. Frankenstein's less ambitious experiments.

  We're still not sure when we'll be heading home, and I probably won't say when we're leaving until we're already on the road. Security is first and foremost now. Getting home safely is paramount to me. I know the team wants to keep on and finish what we've put so much time into, but it isn't in the cards. I know it and they do as well--knowing you can't protect your teammate properly is a big incentive for making the hard choice and retreating. I'm immensely proud that my people can make that decision, difficult as it is.

  For now, we wait, and hopefully we'll stop imposing on Block soon. It's a beautiful day, and I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

  Sunday, January 8, 2012

  Undaunted

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I'm happy to report that Becky is now allowed to move about with some limited freedom. She still has to hang about the clinic due to the nature of her wounds and how often they need to be checked, but she's smiling and wandering around in a wheelchair.

  The days of being immobile and fading in and out of consciousness with all the work being done on her have left her looking pretty frail. She hasn't been able to keep a lot of food down, and even before The Fall Becky wasn't known for being overly full-figured. Now she's almost frighteningly skinny, her cheekbones starkly jutting from her face.

  Then again, she's been eating like it's her last meal most of the morning, so I'm not that worried.

  Getting her nutrition in check is going to do a lot to help her heal faster. I've been worried about her more than I can explain, so much that I've had to leave off focusing on her too much when I post. I already worry, writing about it would just drive me nuts. Maybe now I won't feel the need to sit next to her bed most nights and hold her hand as I watch over her. Sometimes I pet her face or stroke her hair.

  It's not nearly as creepy and stalkerish as it sounds. Really. I just love my Becky.

  Still, I'm shocked at how well she's dealing with the our situation at present. She knows we're heading home soon, and that we'll be heading through some areas we've never seen before. The warmer climes down south mean more zombies up and about during the day, and until now she's only been peripherally aware of the nearly constant attacks on Block. I didn't want to wipe the smile off her face with bad news, but she asked me for an update on our status. So I gave it.

  And she took it well. Becky as she was when she appeared at the gates all those months ago is a totally different person. She still has moments of darkness, times when she needs to be held while she wails at the ghosts of her memories. She's suffered more than almost anyone I know. She's also tougher than most people who survived The Fall. She soldiers on.

  This morning the news that we'd soon be making our way north was met with a simple nod from her, and she helped the rest of us (sans Will, who slept in. Another small surgery last night) work on a plan for our imminent travel. There's not a lot known about the route we'll need to take to make it home quickly, but Becky was asking all the right questions. She even pointed out that we've got the fuel to backtrack quite a ways and take the longer but safer route home.

  We'll see. A lot of it's gonna depend on Will and how long he can go without supervised medical care by someone who knows what the hell they're doing much better than I do. The rest of the day is dedicated to more planning. It's going to be a long one, but not too bad.

  I've got my friends.

  Monday, January 9, 2012

  Heart of Winter

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We've had such nice weather lately that when an incredible spike of cold hit Block early this morning, it caught us all off guard. Yesterday it got into the fifties by mid-morning. Today it's in the teens and snow is starting to sputter in.

  We've had word from some folks in the east, and it isn't good. There's snow coming down hard all over the place. Looks like winter is on it's way. That makes things difficult for the team. Faced with the possibility that we'd be stuck here for a long while or having to face the snowy roads, we've made a choice.

  We're leaving. Soon. I won't say when we're heading out exactly, but it isn't going to be long.

  The cold snap has, thankfully, driven many of the zombies away. The new breed are as hardy in the cold as most other undead, but it still slows them down and requires more energy for them to move about. Scouts here report clusters of them grouping together and going into the strange hibernation zombies use to conserve energy. The difference between the new breed and the old school zombies is that the newbies don't risk getting cut to ribbons by enterprising survivors when they go inert this way. Some in their group stay awake, watching for danger.

  They're faster, stronger, more durable, and work together better than the old school zombies. And damn it, they're all as smart or smarter than the smarties, who only had intelligence going for them. While I'm thrilled that we'll have a break from the swarms if it stays this cold when we leave, I can't help but worry about the threat such highly adapted enemies pose to us.

  The trick is going to be leaving while it's still cold enough to slow down the undead, but not snowing badly enough to make the roads too dangerous to drive on. We didn't come totally unprepared for this situation, though, as we've got the parts stored on top of the trailer to make a plow for the truck. It's all aluminum, and honestly pretty roughly made, but it fits on the brackets our mechanics back in New Haven put on. Whether or not it works properly hasn't been tested. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

  Hate to cut it short today, but there are some things I need to deal with before we can make plans to leave. Tons of details to work out in order for the team to have a good chance at making it home with all members intact. If the staff here don't think Will can travel, we may have to consider leaving him here. I don't like the possibility, but there it is. The unspoken worry that's been gnawing at me for the last day or two. Will may not survive the trip home. Part of what I need to do right now is try to figure out
all the ins and outs of Will's care to see if taking him with us is going to be manageable. I hope so.

  Shit. It's starting to snow heavily.

  Tuesday, January 10, 2012

  Snowbound

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Well, it's official: we're trapped by the snow. Oh, not at Block. No, no. We left out yesterday in an attempt to get back home before the real winter came in and schooled us all on what the season is supposed to be.

  Fortunately it's not cold on a biblical level, staying in the high twenties right now. We drove most of yesterday and finally had to pull over for the night when the snow hit about six inches. Driving in the dark during heavy snow showers is just too dangerous. Imagine my surprise when I woke up a little while ago to find another three inches had fallen while we slept.

  There isn't any zombie activity nearby that we can tell, but we're going to keep our eyes open. We've got to dig the truck and trailer out of the drift that built up overnight, and we'll head out soon. Slow going doesn't even begin to describe this trip right now, and while we have huge stockpiles of fuel with us, if the weather doesn't let up we're gonna burn through it fast.

  The weather used to be the stuff of small talk and idle conversation. How funny is it that we're back to it being a serious threat to be worried over? Not that it wasn't that way last year, but I can't help chuckling at the fact that we're stuck here until we dig ourselves out. I miss snow plows.

  This is going to be another short post, but I should be back tomorrow. I've been taking one day off from writing here every fifth day, but in the near future I'll probably change that up. Right now I need to strap some armor on and take watch for a bit while Steve, Rachel, and Bill do their turns digging. I'll give each of them breaks and eventually switch off with them. Right now I smell breakfast cooking outside. Steve got a little propane-powered griddle while we were in Block, and our hosts were nice enough to send some fresh bacon and eggs with us.

  I was surprised, too. I guess my emotions really were on super high settings considering I spent virtually no time thinking about what all those floors of the buildings that make up Block were filled with. Turns out some farm animals are totally cool with living inside. With a little redecorating, chickens and pigs do just fine.

  Okay, I'm rambling. I don't want to go out into the cold. I'm comfy right where I am. Still, we've got to get home as fast as possible, and lollygagging on here isn't moving us there. I'll be back tomorrow.

  Wednesday, January 11, 2012

  Fortune

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We got lucky today. This morning it got much warmer, into the high thirties by eight or so. Rain started to fall pretty hard, and that helped clear away a lot of the snow. Well, it made the snow into slush, but for our needs that was fine.

  It took a while to dig ourselves out yesterday, and the going was terribly slow. I think we managed about seventy miles before we stopped to camp again. It was just too dangerous to go more than ten miles an hour most of the time and there were spots where we had to stop and scrape the road clear to make sure the irregularities we saw in the snow cover weren't missing sections of road or hidden pieces of debris that would cripple the truck.

  That being said, today we've had to take several detours off the main roads we're using to try to get home. The first came about ten minutes after we got rolling this morning, in the form of about two dozen new breed zombies waiting in the road for us. The truck makes a lot of noise, so I can't say I'm surprised that they heard us coming.

  That was a fun little diversion. We saw the undead, immediately went off onto the nearest side road, and Bill drove like mad to lose the swarm before it could catch and overwhelm us. He maybe hit a top speed of twenty MPH. In the end, Steve and I climbed up through the hatch in the trailer's roof and picked off the faster zombies chasing after us. Eventually we lost them, but it was a tense few minutes.

  Our other major detour came not long after we got onto the main road. We ran into a downed tree we couldn't drive around, but it seemed a bit suspicious to us. It was right in the middle of a swath of overgrown bushes and trees that hugged the sides of the road. None of us wanted to get close enough to cut through the tree. The whole thing screamed 'obvious trap' to the team.

  So we backed the hell up and took another side road, trusting Bill yet again to steer us back toward the highway eventually. I'm up to drive next, so I haven't a lot of time, but I'll add here that one other fact has presented itself to us: the roads are suspiciously clear of abandoned vehicles. When survivors travel certain roads often, they tend to make paths through them. Sometimes they just drive heavy vehicles that can take a beating and nudge cars and trucks out of the way. Less often they'll take a shot at driving what vehicles they can off the roads. Sometimes we'll even fiddle with the steering wheel if we don't have keys to use, put them in neutral, and push them out of the way with sheer muscle.

  There are tools for that kind of thing. Our mechanic back home is brilliant that way. Makes it easy for us to move cars we can't start. Many survivors do it.

  Thing is, no one uses this route for trade. Yet all of the main roadways are very clean. The side roads are even relatively so. If trade doesn't explain this, the remaining options are far from happy ones. I'm trying not to worry about marauders right now. Especially since I have to drive.

  Friday, January 13, 2012

  Bare Bones

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I'm writing this offline and firing up the transmitter just long enough to send it. We're not in mortal danger yet, but things are not good for us.

  We've been struggling with downed trees and other roadblocks for days. Our rate of travel is somewhere around what a baby is capable of if it were wearing a lead onesie. The cold has gotten truly bone-chilling, which has sent the zombies into retreat mode. That's about all the good I can see in the weather, since I imagine the cold is what keeps on snapping trees.

  We've been stuck in a small town for the last day and a half. Always productive, we've spent a good portion of that time gathering what supplies we can find and siphoning fuel. I'm pretty sure we'll have to begin figuring a way to give the gasoline we find a bit of pep, as most of it is going on two years old now. I remember trying to start a lawnmower with year-old gas once, and that was a task to reckon with.

  We've made camp in an old house. A really, really old house. I think it was a historical site before The Fall, because the place looks Victorian at least. We spend our waking hours in the house itself or out in the cutting wind searching for supplies, but we're actually sleeping in the small servant's quarters built just off the main house. It's small and made of heavy brick, and has been very well preserved or refurbished with a wood stove and even a pile of firewood. It's a tight fit for all of us at once, but we need to keep Will somewhere we can keep heated at all times. He's still so weak...

  The trip from Block to here has been a rough one for all of us, but especially for him. He's tough as old leather, but I can see the cold and travel have taken their toll on him. I'm praying for a break in the weather so we can get him home safely. Maybe I should add a postscript onto that message to god, asking that He kindly stop slowing us down with detours around trees.

  We're a pretty experienced crew, used to getting along under less than prime conditions, but the cold is making all of us irritable and muzzy. Steve's eye socket is still healing, and it apparently hurts like ten kinds of bastard when the wind gets under his patch. He's been putting dressings on it the last day, but has to be careful how many he uses, as Will requires a lot of supplies for his leg. Becky isn't much easier on our rolls of gauze, though thankfully most of her wounds were stitched early on and have healed up enough not to bleed.

  Rachel and Bill are working together, and they get along famously. Bill is up and about, limping heavily but able to walk on his own. He and Rachel seem to be handling the incessant biting winds better than the rest of us, so they're doing most of the supply hunting farther out
into town. Not that they can go more than a hundred yards without frost forming on their skin.

  We still don't know why the roads have been so relatively free of cars, but I haven't seen any tracks in the snow that would indicate other travelers out here with us. For the moment, at least, it feels like the road is ours and ours alone. It's relieving because that means we probably aren't in much danger and the feeling of dread is baseless and just shows that I'm a needless worrier. It's also sad because being on the road, no matter how bad the conditions, feels lonely. Empty. Highways should bustle with other drivers. It's not like I haven't been driving all over the country for months and from time to time before that. You'd think the feeling would be something I'd encountered before. Maybe it's just the urgency of our trip or how the pristine snow around us makes it so starkly obvious that no one else is out there. I don't know. I just find myself sharply missing people a lot. All people. Any people. Even asshole drivers that cut you off because they're on their phones.

  Ugh. Getting maudlin again. That's my cue to go. I need to make some breakfast anyway. Steve brought down a deer last night, and there's stew left over. We need all the calories we can manage. I should heat that up while the others are out stomping around in the snow. Maybe I'll break out my emergency stash of hot cocoa mix, that might lift our spirits.