Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5)

by Joshua Guess

  For the last day small groups of New Breed have been assaulting different parts of New Haven. None of the attacks have, by themselves, been especially dangerous. Most of the actual zombies heading for the wall are old school, forced on us through whatever coercive means the New Breed has over them. Maybe it's something to do with the plague organism, or something as simple as fear that the New Breed will eat them if they don't.

  They've hit different spots each time, testing our defenses. We've seen it before. Only on one occasion has the same section of wall been assaulted twice, and that was the last time. The New Breed waits out of bow range and watches our people as they run out and reset the spear traps in the ground. Seems obvious they're trying to figure a way around them.

  We were working under the assumption that the New Breed would attack us in force when the time came. Given their enhanced mental capacity, it was a foregone conclusion that they'd test the defenses for weak spots. Guess I was just hoping for it to happen at a time when I wasn't laid up and helpless.

  There's no way of knowing when or if they'll hit us in earnest. Our people are on high alert but being ready is only the beginning of the fight. We've held some defenses in reserve so we can have surprises ready for them when they come, but no one feels totally confident about fighting them off. The peril of too much pride in our ability to defend ourselves is a lesson we've learned in our bones.

  Funny. I saw 'we' but I can't do a goddamn thing. So it goes. The bells are coming so regularly now that I've almost developed the ability to ignore them.

  Ah, there's one now.

  Friday, April 20, 2012

  Pathology

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Evans has released me and the others from isolation. Overnight the remaining three Louisville people had sudden and dramatic improvements. They're up, breathing well, and apparently on the mend. It's sudden but fits with the results of the autopsies he's been performing.

  Which I didn't get to hear the results of until this morning, because he didn't want to get my hopes up or scare me to death. That the line between the two was narrow enough for him to withhold information is pretty terrifying by itself.

  Because I'm free to move about (if gingerly since I still have a huge stitched-together wound in my belly) and because today is my wedding anniversary and I'd like to spend as much of it with Jess as possible, I'm going to have to keep it short. Again.

  Evans says that whatever hit these folks isn't likely to be transmissible anymore. I don't know what his reasoning is there, but he's the expert. The lung tissue of the people who died was badly damaged, as if a giant fist had squeezed them. The fibrous material threaded through them, the parts of the zombie plague that grow inside each of us, were brittle and withered. Evans thinks some pathogen began to attack the plague itself, at the lungs first because it was likely airborne. The last few weeks we've been seeing the Louisville crew acting as the battleground between the plague organism and whatever has been attacking it.

  That's his theory based on the evidence.

  Not that he can really look at the lungs (or most other parts of a person) who is still alive to confirm. So we'll just work on the operative idea that we can't do anything about it and hope that these folks were exposed to whatever this is before they came here to help us. Seems to have a long incubation period, which is a silver lining.

  Jess is doing a lot better. Her wounds are annoying the hell out of her, but she's keeping a positive attitude and frankly managing to get a lot more work done than I am. Don't know if we'll be able to do anything special today. Being alive, being together, is something wonderful all on its own. I cherish that even if nothing else happens today.

  One good thing is that the zombie attacks have stopped. Well, good in the short term. I don't imagine they've just given up. Maybe deterred considering the number of bodies we created during their test runs.

  Ahhh okay, I'm drifting. Time to give the wife some cuddles. Cuddles are manly. Don't judge me.

  Saturday, April 21, 2012

  Boxes

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Over the course of the last few years, there have been many occasions where our plans and reality had serious disagreements over who was right. Reality always wins. Once in a while that ends up in our favor. For example, the recent spate of zombie attacks on the walls seems to have made the New Breed unwilling to hit us with their main force. Our Beaters haven't found a trace of them in days.

  Then there's the news we got this morning. My brother was sitting with me in the clinic going over pieces and parts of our plans for the expansion when I got a message from a contact who lives relatively nearby. By sheer chance, Dave and I were looking at the estimates on how long the new wall was going to take to complete using the bricks our folks are shaping out of the local clay. The message came in, and our plans changed.

  The contact in question has asked that we not share any but the most general information about him. He lives on a river that connects to the Kentucky river. He's not that far away. He is the head of a group of people that we've been trying to persuade to join us for a few weeks now. They live in an area that did a lot of river trade before The Fall.

  Long story short, they're at the nexus where a train yard and a large river shipping company meet. They've got several barges small enough to traverse the Kentucky river and more shipping containers than they can fit on them. They've made the decision to join us because they've come up with an idea that will allow the new wall to be built in a period of days rather than months.

  I'm sure you've figured it out, but the contact (we'll call him George) and his folks are going to bring loads of those beautiful long metal boxes to us. From the spot on the river we'll be unloading them from it's just a five minute trip to New Haven. We've got everything we need to move the containers, though the process will be tricky. Getting them to New Haven will be the easy part. Making them into a wall will be marginally harder. Stacking them two high will require a crane, I think. That's the main issue we'll have to worry about.

  But hey, think about the positives. The expansion will have a wall twenty feet high, made of metal and with no chance of allowing the undead to climb them. If there is enough fuel to manage multiple trips to George's base, there are enough containers that we would have all the extra metal we'd need for years. We could armor the stone wall around New Haven with them, use them as raw materials, cut them up to make shields. The possibilities are wide open.

  There are a lot of details to work out. Looks like we'll have to send a team to George's place to coordinate and look for fuel supplies for the barges. But, you know. Train station next door. Sure to be some diesel fuel there.

  The Exiles will be an issue. They've got patrols going up and down the river. I think they'll abide by the truce, but George and his people could prove to be too tempting a target. We'll see, I suppose. For now I'm incredibly excited to see George and his crew finally decide to join up. We've had to play that low-key, and knowing now what resources they can bring to us makes the stakes that much higher.

  Jess is practically vibrating with the news. She's been laying on the cot next to me, tossing in her two cents here and there. She already has plans for the new wall, ideas that Dave and I might have come up with weeks down the road. She came up with them in minutes. Damn wife, showing me up.

  Ah, and our breakfast/lunch is here. Bit of a busy morning today, so the meals are erratic. Dave, Jess and I will need our minds on task, so we better eat. We've got an entire new community to redesign, and only a week or so to do it.

  Sunday, April 22, 2012

  Scar Tissue

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I keep poking myself in the tummy. The incision where Evans cut me open and played in my guts is healing up well, faster than I hoped for and better than my expectations. Thank god for small favors.

  It's really difficult not to fiddle with the lump of hardening scar tissue on my abdomen. It's like a loose tooth--there, and new,
and thus impossible to ignore. Doesn't help that my laptop bumps into it when I work.

  Still, I have a long road ahead of me. It's nice to be able to get some work done even if I can't go out and fight with the others. And they could have used me the last day, that's for sure. Every able hand would have been a huge help, but we couldn't risk fielding more than a handful.

  The New Breed are back, and they've come with friends. Will is guessing that their disappearance was only for as long as it took to gather all the numbers they could. Idiotically, we assumed that our scouts and beaters had been seeing the large group of them and that it was the majority of the New Breed in the county. Sure, there were small groups and our people attacked them, but all of those together never added up to the larger group we'd seen.

  Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to track movements and numbers in the field. We thought the New Breed were gathering in one mass and that the smaller groups were zombies that just hadn't been integrated yet. New arrivals, probably. We didn't consider the idea that the large swarm we saw was the one they were letting us see, and we should have. We should have known it based on every interaction we've had with them.

  Yesterday evening, a pair of our scouts came in at full speed, screaming for us to let them through the gate. They'd caught sight of a large group of New Breed less than a quarter mile away, at least two hundred of them. We had the lookouts on the tower scan all around, and what they saw was bone-chilling. Four such groups in total, spread out around us. Zombies on all sides.

  They haven't attacked us yet, and this morning when we sent out those volunteers, the nearest troupe of undead retreated. Our people aren't stupid, so they didn't chase. Getting drawn far from home and into the retreating center of a zombie swarm is a good way to get trapped as the arms of that swarm close in around you.

  No, they're just waiting out there. We keep taking warning shots at them, but they're just out of range of our air cannons, much less out arrows. Bullets would be a pointless waste. Two more teams have ridden out since that first one with the same results. Maybe if we had more people, and so many of us weren't injured, we could risk pushing a little harder and faster. Take the fight to them for real.

  Waiting is awful. Knowing you're about to fight for your life, for the lives of those you love. The anticipation is brutal. Sitting here, I can only hope that the undead hold decide that we aren't a prize worth the risk. I don't have much expectation of that. They wouldn't be out there in those numbers on a bluff. They've shown us they're smarter than that.

  I'm chalking it up to the funny little pill Evans made me swallow about two hours ago, but I'm not stressing out right now. I know I should be worried and fidgety about the possible death sentence waiting outside the walls to hit us like the fist of god, but I'm not. I mean, I feel it, but it isn't overpowering. I can be objective.

  The New Breed are dangerous as hell, that's a fact. Their many advantages over the original recipe zombies make each New Breed worth four of the old school ones in a fight. They're fast and tough and smart, and that's not good for us. More, they've got experience with our defenses and probably have plans to overcome them.

  Medication is kind of awesome, though. Because I feel a strange (and possibly false) sense of security. Yes, the New Breed are lethal. But they are zombies. Which were once people. Which means they have weaknesses and blind spots we can exploit.

  Ah, the sound of bells. Seems the time has come to see if some of our more clever plans will pay dividends. I really, really hope whatever this is doesn't wear off before the battle is done. Jess is here with me and I'm worried the blocked-off fear will overload me all at once and make me piss down my leg or something.

  Time to make myself scare. The clinic will be busy soon, and I don't want to be in the way. Wish us luck.

  Monday, April 23, 2012

  The Tide

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Today I'm without drugs in my system, but I'm happy about it. Evans made the right call in doping me up yesterday, because the bells just kept on coming. Eight of them, of course. Eight hundred New Breed hit us all at once.

  They came from all sides, and they were clever. The first wave, about fifty on each side of New Haven, rolled logs or carried heavy pieces of wood. The logs hit our traps, setting them off and creating safe routes through the outer defenses. Once the traps were no longer an issue, the remaining forces moved in behind them.

  I'm cobbling all this together from what Will and others have told me, so if it seems a little confusing you'll have to forgive me.

  Our archers took careful shots, no wild flights of arrows. Each target was chosen, shots taken only when an archer thought they could kill with a headshot. As you can imagine from our prior experience with the New Breed, they moved in loose ranks. Groups moved forward to pick up the logs and set them against the wall. The undead were clearly using logs and wood from our woodcutting site.

  As those zombies came forward with their logs, those with chunks of wood gave them cover by throwing their missiles at the people on the wall. Keep in mind this is going on all around New Haven. Every person we could spare carried weapons along the wall.

  New Breed can be mighty clever. They aren't quite a match for people scared for their lives, though.

  Everyone was kind of surprised that they came at us so hard. The New Breed know how dangerous arrows are, they knew we would take a toll on them. According to Dodger, their skin is tougher than the last time I fought them. Maybe it's the diet of other zombies or just a progression of their particular mutation, but it's harder to damage them.

  Which means it's harder to put arrows through their heads. Luckily, we evened the playing field with fire.

  It took a lot of effort and some losses on trades, but we managed to stockpile enough materials to make about half a ton of thermite. Some of which Becky worked into a thin gel. Which was carefully spread out across the field.

  So while it was hard for our folks to hold back until the New Breed got right up on the wall in one convenient mass (well, four convenient masses) it worked out very well. Because they'd been traipsing about in liquid death. They had rolled their logs through the stuff.

  It wasn't the crazy powerful kind of thermite Becky made before. This was simpler stuff, but we managed to get hold of a large amount of magnesium, shavings of which were mixed in. Makes it easier to ignite.

  Didn't kill most of them, but the logs went up like torches, ruining the hands of the zombies holding them. The feet and lower legs of others burned. We didn't take out many of them with arrows, but we crippled all but a hundred.

  Our people went out the gate and brought hell with them. Squads went out and methodically destroyed their brains. The Beaters took point, setting up diamonds to deal with still-mobile enemies. Others sprinted about in small groups, shields and spears and other killing tools at the ready as they finished off those zombies that couldn't move easily.

  Our folks took a lot of injuries, and fourteen people died. That's a smaller loss than we expected, but no one could have imagined the sheer panic we caused. Our people took the fight the them, used every trick they've learned, and wiped almost all of them.

  I know this is shaky and not up to my usual standard, but I wasn't there. That bothers me, of course. I know intellectually that there was no way for me to be there and do any kind of good but that doesn't change the fact that my heart feels heavy. For not being there. For knowing that people I've spent time with and shed blood beside are gone. Just like that.

  Wednesday, April 25, 2012

  In Good Company

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We of New Haven are fiercely protective of our home, but we need a break from fighting. Even though I haven't been able to do any actual fighting I include myself because we're all at risk. We've got enough able bodies to defend New Haven in a pinch, but that's manning the walls with people who'd be risking popped stitches.

  I'm keeping it short and sweet this morning as I've had virtually no sl
eep. I've done what I could to help around the clinic the last few days. There are a couple people who've taken injuries that have become infected, and many more taking up space as they're observed. Not much room at the clinic now, so I'm going home this morning. I'm still not allowed to do much in the way of heavy lifting, but I can not do that at my house. Still have to check in regularly and have my incision looked at, dressings changed and the like.

  We're a community of the walking wounded. It's a sight to see. I may have played it cool with the assault the other day, but it's not pretty. People are hurt and in need of quiet time to heal. If life were like the movies, we'd get just enough of it before the climactic final battle.

  But we've had to repel small zombie attacks even since the major assault. Spring brings increased zombie movement across the world, and the old school undead never really stop. They're not as dangerous as the New Breed, of course, but far more numerous. They drift across the landscape like dandelion fluff in a strong breeze, making our guards work in the process.

  I'm so tired. We're tired. There's no chance of respite from life. We have to keep manning the guns and defending our home. No way around it. Even as we work with George to finalize plans to bring his people here, which will be a huge help, we struggle. Knowing that help is coming doesn't change the work we have to do in the meantime.