Living With the Dead: The Wild Country

by Joshua Guess

  The sad thing is, I'm halfway considering asking Becky to check the water out.

  I've been lazing about the house enough since I've been back. Will is being seen to by Evans and Phil, and by Gabby all last night. I didn't get to see any of them because I'm a sex maniac, but I should get off my ass and go say hello to a few people. But before any of that, I have something very important to do.

  Will went with us on this trip of his own volition, even though he was still technically a prisoner. He risked his life time and again with no thought of escaping. I'm heading over to talk to a few people on the council, maybe even try to see Rich, our judge. Will has more than earned his freedom, and I intend to see he gets it.

  I admire Will more now than ever. He's faced the hordes of undead at my side and at times taking the lead. He has protected us all, thought creatively, and done his utmost to serve the needs of the group. He kept Rachel, one of my oldest friends, from despair when they were captured together. Enough is enough.

  There are a lot of things to look into, a dozen little mysteries to explore, people to catch up with, duties to resume, lost friends to mourn...

  But I'm home. We're home. And it's a sweeter homecoming than I thought possible.

  Wednesday, January 25, 2012

  The Flip

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Yesterday was sort of anticlimactic. I got put off the day before by Rich and the other people who now act as our court, instead being told to come in yesterday morning to talk to them.

  This is one of the small changes I've missed out on in the time we've been gone. Whereas before the team and I left we had a simple and flexible set of basic laws for offenses and punishment, now we don't. There are still guidelines and rules for people to live by, but Rich, Treesong, and a few others have been experimenting with the idea of a much more flexible system.

  The basic concept seems to be effective for a population as small and unified as ours. The basic rules are the same: no killing or rape, no stealing or infringing on anyone else's rights. The problem we had before was that too many people were afraid of the sole deciding power of judgment and sentencing residing in one person. So with this new system, the same laws exist but those who break them get a different experience. Now instead of just Rich playing the part of judge, there are five people acting as a court. Five citizen judges who are part of a pool of eleven people that are always on call to act.

  The really different part of it is that while the laws pertaining to daily life for citizens are the same, the rules for punishments have been totally revamped. Gone is the meticulously detailed chart describing specific punishments and duration times for offenses. Instead the court itself takes in all factors in an offense and sets whatever punishment is most fitting for the person.

  Seems dangerous to put that kind of power in the hands of a few people, and potentially at least, it is. But the intent here isn't a grab for power--it's to individualize punishments to maximize their effectiveness on the individual while maintaining security for the group. So if a mother of two is found guilty of stealing, she won't be sent away from her kids and her normal duties, which would weaken the group. Instead she might be forced to work double shifts, making amends to the wronged party with her work, but still able to care for her family. I'm fuzzy on a lot of the details, but from what I hear crime is virtually nonexistent at the moment. Even in our best times, New Haven had its fair share of rowdy hotheads and disagreements gone too far.

  Not anymore.

  The general lack of zombie attacks here in the recent months led to this decision. As it turns out, people used to spending their days worrying about the next wave of undead have a hard time adjusting back to relative peace. Energy can't be created or destroyed, and it has to go somewhere. Sometimes that means into drunken fistfights. The problem wasn't overwhelming but it was escalating slowly over a period of weeks, thus the change in how the judiciary works. Effective to say the least. And the whole thing runs with careful oversight by the council.

  I learned all that the day before yesterday, after I'd been told to come back in the morning. I was worried that I'd have to really fight to get Will's sentence revoked, or that Rich and the other judges had become a bit enamored with power. Months of constant vigilance for the slightest threat have made my natural caution kick it up a step into paranoia, as I've mentioned before.

  So imagine my surprise when, after giving the five people in charge of Will's fate my opening statement, they unanimously agreed to return him to full citizenship. It was easy, far too easy. There was a lot of bad blood between Will and many citizens of New Haven, and I didn't understand at first why my request had been immediately granted.

  Being paranoid, I dug into the background quite a bit. Turns out that Dodger, who you may remember is in charge of New Haven's defenses, is too important to be allowed out on long or dangerous trips. There is growing concern with the shadowy group that appears to be taunting our citizens, however, and something needs to be done. Whoever these strangers are that move around the area mostly unseen, they're dangerous and something needs to be done about them. So far they haven't done any major damage to us, but the council thinks it's only a matter of time. A few bridges out in the county, ones that lead to places where we hunt or gather food in the warm months, have been collapsed. Three large houses where we've set up caches of spare supplies have been ransacked.

  Which means they've been watching for a long time. Unseen, but over our shoulders. Will has been tasked with the job of finding them and figuring out exactly what needs to be done. Dodger is important to New Haven's defenses, even though Will designed most of them. Will is a full citizen again, but the politics of the move are clear--knowing he'd accept the job, he was asked to do something necessary yet incredibly dangerous. He's going to have to spend days at a time out there, dealing with hungry zombies, whoever these people are attacking our supply chain, and probably the odd marauder or two. Worse, he's got to start as soon as possible which will be very hard on him. His leg is healing but won't be of much use to him out there.

  Fortunately much of Will's value is in his brilliance rather than his strong arm. He'll have help, and as long as he doesn't have to move from the passenger seat of a vehicle, Evans thinks he'll be able to go out in a week or so. He sure as hell won't enjoy the experience, and the trips will have to be short at first, but he's going to do it.

  I, for one, am not happy about this. Will has done more than almost anyone here to safeguard New Haven, and for longer than most of them as well. Yeah, he's made mistakes, but I don't see that as good enough reason to send an injured man out there where, if he meets with an unfortunate end, the people back home who detest him won't be very upset. It reeks of political maneuvering, and it makes me sick.

  Bet your ass I'm going out with Will on every trip.

  Thursday, January 26, 2012

  Brotherly

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I spent a good chunk of this morning hanging out with Dave. One of the many, many accomplishments he's put under his belt since I've been gone is the construction of a safe building right on the river. I'm not going to say where it is exactly, but the location is very good for fishing.

  The only bad thing about the spot is that it's not far from a commonly used road that zombies like to shuffle down as they wander. Dave and I sat inside the enclosure while a handful of undead beat on the walls. It was futile, of course--my brother knows how to build things to last. But it was annoying.

  I was impressed with the building itself. It hangs out over the river a good twenty, twenty-five feet, and most of the floor is made of removable panels. You can sit with your feet dangling over the edge and fish in total safety. Of course most of the time teams of people use it as a safe place to net fish since New Haven has a pretty big appetite, but today it was empty. An ideal spot for two brothers who've missed each other to reconnect.

  One of the first things I asked him was how our people were managing to bring
in such large amounts of materials, and such a variety. He didn't have a detailed answer, as procurement was led by a small team under the direct supervision of the council. Dave gets a report every day detailing what we have, what we might have coming, and what the council would like to see built.

  It's a far cry from the way things were before I left. Then, Dave and I were mostly in charge of planning out those kinds of things. Now the process is more compartmentalized, though it seems to work. He mentioned in passing that procurement teams almost always stay out for days at a time, and that half of the members are from Kincaid's group of marauders.

  Which I find pretty damn interesting, but I won't speculate until I know more.

  Dave spent a few minutes showing me how he figured a way to put the fishing hut, for lack of a better term, out over the river. A load of large I-beams was brought in about two months ago. Dave was stumped on what he was going to do with them at first, so he just had the truck parked to store them. Then we lost a man out on a fishing trip, and the idea to build a safe spot to fish from was born.

  Pretty simple in execution: several of the I-beams form two long arms, with a few more acting as a cross-piece running right under the middle of the hut. The 'legs' of this thing extend sixty feet back on land, twenty or so over the water. Dave counterbalanced the weight of the building with many, many tons of concrete, making a very solid structure. This part of the river is about a foot of clay right over bedrock, so the I-beams have done all the sinking they're gonna do. It's clever. I like it.

  I don't like seeing Dave have to work under so much stress. Yeah, he's got a lot of help and does mostly large-scale planning and design, but he's used to being in charge of his own projects, setting his own time lines. He hates politics. He likes to build. In that way, my brother is a simple man.

  I've missed him more than I imagined possible. While Dave is satisfied with making things, he's anything but unintelligent. In fact, he's one of the smartest and most perceptive people I know. In the time I was away, I'd forgotten the simple pleasure of talking with him. With Dave, I don't have to explain my thinking. He's been my brother as long as I've been alive. He knows me and the way I work better than anyone living.

  It's not as though we had deep philosophical discussions every day, but siblings, at least my own, are unique people in life. My brother and I stopped being antagonistic toward each other sometime in my teens, and a genuine friendship grew. Having a friend who has known you for as long as you've existed creates a deep bond. Funny that the end of the world had to happen for us to see each other more often than every few months. Life used to get in the way so much.

  Sitting over the water with a fishing pole in my hand, seeing the pride in Dave's eyes as he explained the steps he took to make the building safe, to overcome a dozen small technical problems, made me realize how different things are for him now. Dave has always been a cool operator, taking in problems as they come, breaking them down into components and solving them six ways before acting. He isn't a control freak, but he does like being the one to make the calls. Not because he thinks he's better than anyone or from some desire for power, but because experience has shown him that he has the ability to make the right choices more often than other people.

  He's the driving force behind New Haven literally building the future. And from what I hear, he's being micromanaged by our council nearly to death.

  Wow. I just looked back to see how much I wrote. Funny that while I was on the road, constantly alert for zombies and marauders, that I didn't get to write much. Now I'm starting to realize how free I felt. No council, no drama, no overwhelming rules. Just life and death.

  Maybe I can talk to the council and see if they wouldn't mind backing off a little. Dave works best when he can operate with minimal oversight.

  And dammit, he's my brother. He's spent most of his days toiling for New Haven since shortly after The Fall, and he shouldn't have to do it in a way that stresses him out even more, makes him unhappy. He wants to work. I don't know what's been going on with the leadership here since we left, but I don't like the way things are heading. Too much manipulation, too little trust...I don't get it.

  Give me the open road and a hungry zombie any day. Dave and I cut down a few of them when we left the fishing hut, and it felt good. A clearly defined enemy is always the best option. Screw all this bullshit with the council. We didn't set it up to run every part of our lives.

  Something is gonna give. There's no other choice.

  Friday, January 27, 2012

  Easy Money

  Posted by Josh Guess

  The price you pay for living in a community of people is that you get sick. In the world as it was before The Fall, it was easier to stay clean and limit the transmission of viruses and bacteria from person to person. I've been sick more since the zombie plague came than in the previous decade. That's not the point of this post, just an observation. If I seem a little wonky, blame it on the stomach bug I seem to have picked up.

  I intended to spend a good portion of yesterday trying to talk to some of my friends on the council, but that didn't work out. There were votes while I was gone, replacing many of the key people I know I can trust on the council. Add to that the fact that I myself am not the most trusted person around, and begin to understand why appealing to the leadership to change their ways directly probably wouldn't have gone well.

  That being said, I never got the chance.

  While we've been away, the number of zombies that actually manage to make it to New Haven's wall have been few. Only recently have new breed zombies been spotted, and if ten have been seen I can't imagine less than five times that number are in hiding. It's easy to forget when you're away from home that the people you've left behind aren't experiencing new things with you--oh, they can read what I write, but there's universe of difference between reading accounts of fighting the new breed and actually doing it.

  So far, none of them have attacked New Haven, but it can only be a matter of time. In a moment of surprising competence, the council came to agree with my and Dodger's assessment that the new breed nearby are probably building numbers. The solution? Should be obvious. We rode out to see how much damage we could do.

  It was a small team, just me and Dodger in one truck, three scouts in another. One of the advancements Jess came up with while I was away was perfecting plastic armor. We'd tried before to mold some pellets of plastic from the factory Jess used to work at into armor, with disastrous results. She and Patrick have worked on the problem, and the result is a skin-tight, lightweight set of gear that will easily stop a zombie bite.

  It's a good thing I've lost so much weight over the last two years, or I'd look even more ridiculous wearing it.

  The good thing about the stuff is that all the plates are just small molded tiles, repeating over and over. Jess and Pat can make hundreds at a time, and Jess has her small group of ladies who make armor fabricate them into suits. A whole outfit is about ten man-hours (er, woman-hours in this case) of work, or about half a day from Jess's team.

  It's pretty cold right now, so Dodger and I decided to lead a strike on the one patch of hibernating new breed zombies our scouts had located. Not many of them--fourteen--but a good starting point. The scouts told us that three new breed were alert and guarding the others at any given time, so we figured the job would be easy.

  And the damnedest thing about it? It was easy, and that makes me very suspicious. We parked half a mile out, moved within a hundred feet of the group with our bows out, and watched. No sign we'd been seen. No reaction at all from the zombies guarding their sleeping brothers.

  We moved in. Ninety feet. Eighty. Sixty. Forty.

  We were being quiet, sure, but the undead seem to locate and communicate by something close to smell. We'd all taken the time to mask our scents as much as possible, but even then they should have reacted at that range. Dodger and I gave each other confused looks, but we weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, either.


  I gave the hand signal for a countdown, and three bows took careful aim. A few seconds later, three new breed zombies lay dead, arrows jutting from their skulls. From there it was all cleanup, as the remaining eleven zombies were still hibernating. We used the heavy, elongated machetes North Jackson made for us as their weight made cutting through tough new breed necks much easier.

  I'll be honest, the whole thing felt wrong. Dodger and I talked about it for a while, and we agree that the zombies seemed to want us to find them. If that's the case, why? They didn't have a trap set for us or anything. What was the purpose?

  Dodger and I are taking a trip back out to that killing ground today. Maybe a close look at the area will give us some clue what's going on.

  Saturday, January 28, 2012

  Sacrifice The Dead

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Dodger and I went back out to the small copse of trees where we killed those new breed zombies. I'm not sure what we expected to find, but what we walked away with was some valuable information.

  The first piece of really important knowledge we gathered from the second trip was that very close to that place, there was a camp. Not a hundred feet away, tucked in the crease of two hills that came together, was a small group of people and one vehicle. The SUV parked there matched the description our scouts gave of the one they saw the group of people pillaging our supplies driving. Dodger and I realized that the people we saw in that camp had to be a part of the group harassing New Haven.