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

by Joshua Guess

  Friday, May 11, 2012

  Secondary Infection

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We've long theorized about the zombie plague. We've studied it as much as our limited technology will allow. It's incredibly strange to look at on the whole, combining elements of a fungus, a bacteria, a virus, and even complex parasites. We know it grows inside most living people, though there have been some cases where kids and even a couple of adults have been autopsied after death and found without a trace of the plague. Given the rate of transmission, which seems close to total, we're pretty sure it's airborne. Really, it would almost have to be to spread so far and wide.

  And here's an interesting idea: not all of the mutations of the plague have been beneficial ones. While the general trend for these lightning-fast evolutionary leaps has been positive for the organism (New Breed, Smarties, the development of cold resistance, etc) we've also seen some examples of incompatibility between variations of it. The New Breed can infect normal zombies with their strain, but it doesn't take in all of them. Sometimes the only thing the New Breed has to do is be near old school zombies to infect them with the more advanced version of the disease, and sometimes they seem to need to bite to make the infection work.

  Today, we've got some pretty strong evidence that some kind of defective version of the plague organism is spreading around.

  We thought it was pneumonia, you see.

  Four people are currently laid up in the clinic with the same symptoms the Louisville folks we kept here had. This supports the idea that the plague spores or whatever you want to call them are airborne. It makes sense that they would lodge in the lungs and spread from there, after all. The lungs are the gateway to the bloodstream, which obviously permeates the entire body. What we thought was pneumonia in our people appears to be another version of the zombie plague, the first version we've seen that affects living people directly. It causes respiratory problems--not good mojo for an organism that takes you over. Bad to kill the host before you can override and replace the existing version of the plague within, right?

  Evans and the other brainy medical folks have been looking over their notes and throwing ideas around for the last few days, trying to figure out exactly what is happening. One of the patients has zombie wounds, but the other three don't. Two are male, two female. One is a child, the rest adults. Whatever this thing is, if it's really a strain of the plague that's gone off the evolutionary rails, it's bad. We saw half the Louisville crew that were sick die from this. A fifty percent mortality rate is terrifying beyond rational thought.

  The reason Evans is sure this is another version of the plague is simple, by the way--he did a lung biopsy on one of our newly ill patients. Risky as things are now, but the patient volunteered. Under a microscope, he could see a slightly altered version of the plague organism next to perfect examples of the New Breed strain. Though it wasn't as interesting to watch as mixed martial arts, Evans says the two varieties acted like a host and disease as one tried to invade and destroy while the other defended.

  Survival is hard enough, but this changes the whole game. My desperate hope was that the six people from Louisville that got sick--who represented about one in ten of the people in the Louisville group that came here--were indicative of how virulent this thing is. If only one in ten catches it when exposed, and only half those succumb, then we may be alright. Hurting for the losses of those unfortunate people who might die, but secure in the knowledge that the actual fatality rate is only five percent instead of the apparent fifty it looks like right now.

  I really hate feeling helpless, and I've never felt more so in my life than right now. I can fight an enemy. I can defend my home or run away. If my crops fail I can hunt for dinner and eat wild foods. I can even handle more abstract threats by making my home so defensible that bad people would think it too hard a target.

  We can't fight this. We can only hope to survive. I'll be following it closely, have no doubt.

  Saturday, May 12, 2012

  Realism

  Posted by Josh Guess

  There was a comment on yesterday's post that made me angry. The person that wrote it seemed to wonder if my mention of the numbers and my hope that that we were seeing a fatality rate of five percent instead of fifty was somehow a coping mechanism. The author seemed upset that I was talking about numbers and asked how I would feel if one of the people in those statistics was someone I love.

  They also said that our focus in New Haven is defense and food, which to them represents survival but not sustainability. So let me just clear up a few things right now.

  First off, I've spent a lot of time and energy since the zombie plague killed my entire extended family worrying that the handful I was able to convince of the danger and save might be next. When I write about things like this new plague that could affect all of us, do I think of my friends and family being killed by it? Yes, absolutely. I worry about it all the time. I'm terrified that my wife is going to start coughing next to me at night, or that Patrick's nieces will get sick before they've had a chance to discover that first love and the pain of heartbreak. I fear for my loved ones greatly, and for the rest of New Haven almost as much.

  So, in short--don't ever think I don't understand the personal consequences of the things going on around here. I've watched loved ones die. I need no reminders. In fact, I don't want anyone to suffer from this, but reality is a mean bitch at times. We face numerous threats on a constant basis. If we didn't have the capacity to shove that fear to the back of our heads and learn to deal with things as they happen, we'd never get anything done. The zombie swarms would have picked our bones clean two years ago.

  As for survival and sustainability...well, if you don't think we're building sustainable long-term conditions, you haven't been paying much attention. We've got the basic things we need for survival for an indefinite period--food, water, shelter--and we're planning or actively working on a lot of stuff to improve our lives. I don't know what other folks might mean by sustainability, but as far as resources go we can keep up with population growth here for a long, long time.

  Ultimately, though, my hope that this new infection won't kill half our people is just as much about hard fact and numbers as it is about not wanting to lose those who mean so much to us. We would be emotionally devastated to see so many people fall, but the practical side of the equation is clear: missing half our population, we could not sustain New Haven as it is. There are too many things that need doing, too many tasks from guarding against the undead to pulling up radishes that can't be done without each other. We couldn't leave the walls without sentries or guards to plant or harvest food, and without food no one would have the strength to fight. It's a numbers game, yes, and one I don't like playing.

  It's about people, too. If I'm going to be brutally honest about it, I could stand to lose my loved ones. That's cold, I know, but I've done it before. I would be emotionally crippled to see Jess or Pat or any of them die, but I know from experience that I could live and continue on. I might not find much joy in life after that but I could do it.

  I know this not only because it has already happened, but because even now I live and work more for others than I do for myself. I've got enough knowledge, skills, and practical experience applying both to leave here with a small group if I wanted, strike out into some remote and zombie-free corner of the world and live in peace. It wouldn't be hard to do from a technical standpoint. Emotionally? It's impossible. I love what we've built here, I love the people. I love working to make our lives better, and while that love could never replace the intense personal love I feel for those close to me, it would see me through the worst of the pain. Give me a damn good reason not to give in to despair.

  Conversely, I couldn't leave here with that hypothetical small group of people even if they were all close friends for exactly the same reason. I couldn't abandon my home and the folks who've shed so many tears and drops of sweat (and blood) to make it what it is. I love my wife
more than any single thing on earth, but I couldn't abandon New Haven. It's a weird symbiosis but one I have no desire to escape. If this disease takes a turn for the worse, it's going to hurt any way you cut it.

  So you'll forgive me if I try to push those painful possibilities away with the dry recitation of numbers. They aren't dead yet, may not be, and I can't work efficiently constantly worried that the kids playing down the street are going to be laid up in the clinic and dead within a month. Similarly, I can't maintain a happy relationship with my wife if I burst into tears every time I go to kiss her. Chicks hate that. Yeah, I worry about what may happen down the road. But right now?

  Right now the only thing I can do is be thankful she's here, that most people are doing reasonably well, and work with that in mind.

  Sunday, May 13, 2012

  Black Sunday

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Three more people are sick. One of them is a small child. Her name is Lindsey, and she's just five years old.

  You know, there are any number of small bits of good news. The constant rain over the last few days has filled our cisterns and reservoirs--many of them very new and large--to a point that gives us months of water in case of drought. The clover we've seeded all over the place grows back within a week of us cutting it for food. We've got lots of extra food. Work on the expansion is coming along nicely, faster than we planned for. George and his team are back with no incidents. Their cargo was unloaded yesterday afternoon.

  I've got a laundry list of positive things in front of me but not one can stop me from drifting back to the yellow post-it note on my desk. There are seven names on it, and my eyes lock on to hers every time I lose my focus. Lindsey. Five years old.

  It's a blessing that we've been able to beat the New Breed zombies back for a time. The lack of attacks means a time of relative peace and calm. Unfortunate that the quiet means it's much easier to dwell on the new strain of the plague that's taking our people.

  I've been to visit her. She's a small thing, thin but wiry with the soft muscles children always seem to have. She's got lovely caramel skin, bright green eyes, and mocha hair cut short to her head. Her parents died in The Fall, no one is sure what her background is. Lindsey came here from Lexington last year with the group we pulled from Rupp Arena. She's an orphan. She has parents of a sort, two women that took her in and cared for her, love her. I've seen both of them come visit her several times with tears in their eyes.

  So tiny and frail, but not alone. Not in body or spirit or heart.

  A part of me wants to rant against the universe for seeing anyone face what these people are facing. The slow agony of having your breath choked off, never quite able to pull in enough air. The rest of me is past that childish reaction. No amount of shouting at the heavens will change a thing. All we can do is our very best, but we don't have the resources or time to try anything like a cure. In the movies some brilliant biologist or chemist comes up with a solution and saves the day.

  The real world, even before The Fall, has never functioned that way. Because of that truth, that breakthroughs take time and knowledge and technology, it's possible that a small girl will die. I can't blame anyone for it. It's no one's responsibility. It's just sad

  Monday, May 14, 2012

  Guesswork

  Posted by Josh Guess

  There's something going on at the fallback point. We're not sure what the Exiles are up to because of the screens they erected all over the place, but the sounds drifting across the river are of heavy machinery and a lot of construction. Saws rasping through wood, hammers driving nails, trucks backing up. It's unnerving to know they're working in the rain, that whatever they're doing is important enough to get soaked to the skin to do it.

  Could just be building shelter, but since the fallback point has a hotel that's six or seven stories high as well as a twenty-story office building, I can't see them needing the space. Thing is, we have zero clue what it is and that's the really bothersome part. Maybe it's catapults? But why would they need them given the huge amount of weaponry at their disposal? Ugh. My brain hurts.

  The timing is a little scary as well. We're going through an extended lull between zombie attacks at the moment. Not many come together at once even though a lot of old school zombies as well as New Breed are out and about. We pick them off as we find them, but that's not a huge imposition. It's lucky for us since this illness has begun to spread, but that's why we're worried. The Exiles have to know about our people getting sick, and all of a sudden they've got a construction project that just can't wait.

  Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. If the Exiles are planning on breaking the truce, I'd have thought they would wait until more of us were too sick to fight. If they're going to hit us, this is too obvious. The construction has raised our hackles, made us ready for a fight.

  But we won't throw the first punch.

  Because every day we can put off any kind of battle is a day for our injured to regain their strength. It's time we can use to tinker with new ideas, work on the expansion, do any number of things that will help us in the long run.

  Not that we're going to ignore the activity going on over the river. Will is calling a council meeting this morning that I'll be attending. We're going to throw around ideas about what the Exiles are building. Our watchers can't see much past the screens, but they're moving around to find a better vantage point. The cliffs on our side of the river are huge and dangerous, some parts almost impossible to navigate. If they have any success by the time the meeting starts they'll send word.

  So far no more people have developed symptoms. That's a small miracle as far as I'm concerned. We've threaded the needle of disease for more than two years now. There are so few people and contact with outsiders is so limited that the usual suspects don't make many appearances. The flu isn't as prevalent as it once was, though I've fallen ill with various problems several times. On a longer time scale we're bound to run into outbreaks of disease. I don't think any of us expected it to be this. Maybe something like measles, which people tend to forget is a really awful and dangerous illness, but not a variation of the zombie plague. Dealing with zombies (and turning into them when we die) is bad enough without having to lose people to them because of the organism that makes them go.

  ...Damn. Just got word that I'm wrong. Two more people found sick this morning when they didn't show up for work. I'll update again tomorrow. This meeting and trying to plan for the worst in the face of possibly seeing an epidemic hit us has me frazzled. Damn.

  Tuesday, May 15, 2012

  Pirates

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Since my post yesterday morning, six more people have come up ill. The disease is spreading. Strange thing is, a few of the newly infected don't have symptoms as sever as the others. I'm trying not to get my hopes up that this is a good sign, but I'll take any good news even if it's just not-as-bad-as-I-thought news.

  A few people around New Haven have asked what we'll do to quarantine people once the clinic runs out of space. The simple answer is: nothing. Based on the disparity between all the infected so far it's safe to say that the illness has spread to every corner of our home. People seem to develop symptoms at different rates, but no evidence thus far indicates a snowball's chance we could slow it down if we tried. Not that we're encouraging people to spend time with sick people or anything.

  Our meeting yesterday was, given the circumstances, pretty chaotic. The number of people trying to fight off the new strain of the zombie plague grows, making it harder to get things done. So far we're not in dire trouble from lack of manpower, but a lot of our focus right now is on trying to keep those folks as healthy as possible. Many ideas have been floated around, some of them...extreme.

  Will wants Evans to work on finding some kind of treatment. Given our near total lack of facilities and technology, that's a tall order. Evans doesn't like being given impossible jobs. They make him swear a lot and mumble about how things were in the jungle
back in the day. Crusty old man might give us a hard time but his heart is in the right place. He's as worried about the infected as anyone.

  Aside from keeping our people alive and as healthy as we can make them, we're working on contingency plans for the possibility that too many of us fall ill to properly defend New Haven. For obvious reasons I can't explain what those plans are. We're on the job, let's leave it at that.

  One of those obvious reasons is the project the Exiles are working on. Our watchers finally managed a look inside the fallback point yesterday, though one of them nearly fell off the sheer face of Devil's Hollow to manage it. No one is quite sure why, but the Exiles are building a boat. Pretty big, too. My first thought was that they were going to go pirate and start hitting communities downriver, but that would break the truce. Maybe they're hoping no one would hear about it or be able to prove they did it. It's also possible they're going to use it for fishing or something, but my spidey-sense is tingling. I'm paranoid as hell, I know. I also lean heavily against the idea that the Exiles are ever up to anything innocent.

  No idea what the boat is for, but I don't think it's anything good. Until and unless we see them actually do something bad with it, though, we can't do much but wonder. There's always the possibility they're going to use it to attack us. Pleasant thoughts, I know.