by Joshua Guess
I remember the hot, sick feeling I had so long ago when Patrick and I burned the first big group of marauders we found. We killed them in their sleep, and I thought then that I had become something other than a human being. It's been a long time since I was faced with a decision similar in size and scope. Then, I tortured myself with the knowledge of what I'd done. The world was still dying in those days.
Now that the world has long since fallen still from those final throes and something new has been born in its place, I have to wonder at what I've become. I think before this trip that everything I've ever said about hard-nosed practicality has just been buildup to this moment. I'm not some serial killer completely devoid of emotion on this. I hate that I had to do it. I hate that those people had to die. But I don't feel guilt about it, because I recognize the complete necessity of the act. I can say with complete honesty that I feel the world is a better and safer place because of my actions.
I don't know what that makes me, but the fact that I still ask the question is important, I think.
Now I'm off to tend to my wife and the others. Pat and the girls deserve a nice, long break after covering me so well.
Friday, June 22, 2012
The Shelter Swelter
Posted by Josh Guess
Yesterday was absolutely balls hot. Usually zombies aren't affected by the heat short of a fire, but apparently the New Breed sensitivity to variance in air temperature has increased. I did a short run along the walls to get some relief from the muggy swamp that is my house, and I saw it with my own eyes. The undead weren't as energetic, stayed back from the walls for the most part. Except for the lack of sweat, their reaction was eerily human.
I'm not complaining, mind you. Having to fight in hundred percent humidity is not my idea of a good time. I had a lot of free time to kill anyway, since Jess and the others have been temporarily removed from my house.
The heat is the culprit. While I was out of town, the decision was made to work on creating a space that would be cool and comfortable for the sick people. A few ideas were tossed around, but in the end it was my brother who finally engineered a solution. He got the idea from a technology he'd heard about before The Fall, but hadn't actually seen in action. It's a kind of air conditioning that uses a lot less power than a traditional system. It's complicated, but the whole thing runs on solar during the day.
Basically, the makeshift infirmary we set up in the expansion is being cooled by a big ass block of ice.
Dave made sure to close up all the holes and ran some rough ductwork through the whole place. The AC unit itself is a big metal box, waterproof, that is filled with water. There are copper pipes that run through it, and the solar panels power a compressor (condenser? I don't know, he built the damn thing) that freezes the water around the pipes into a big, solid block.
Then air is pushed through the pipes, cooling it down a hell of a lot, and it's blown into the infirmary.
It's not perfect, but it works. The actual freezing part happens mostly at night, by batteries. Those are mostly charged by the solar panels (there's excess during the day, as all they power is the fan and compressor) though apparently we've used generators as well. Weighing human life against fuel consumption isn't really even a discussion worth having, is it?
It's a slapped-together system, and ugly as hell to look at, but the damn thing works well enough to make the infirmary tolerably comfortable. The other measures we've taken to reduce the heat in there help a lot as well, but my hat is off to Dave and his nearly MacGyver level of ingenuity.
I'm gushing a little here, but I can't help it. This is a sustainable (at least until the solar panels give out or some part of Dave's hasty construction breaks) solution to the insane heat we're all dealing with. To keep the infirmary as cool as possible, they've limited the times that people can come in. Think of it as the end of the world version of your mom yelling at you to shut the front door because she's not paying to cool down the whole neighborhood.
Which means I can only visit Jess and my people during visiting hours or when I'm pulling a shift in there myself. That may not seem like a big deal, but I've been in an all-or-nothing situation at home for a bit now. I'm either around Jess and my other patients all the time, or I'm away on a trip. Granted, that only happened once since I've been caring for them, but it's hard to get used to being so close but unable to just swing in.
When Will told me all the sick people were being relocated, I was surprised at how much it really didn't bother me. Sure, I wanted to stay at home with them. But I'm healthy and mobile and the heat was nearly unbearable to me. I can't imagine how badly they were suffering.
Still feels like my world has been knocked off its axis, though. Days away helping out the folks at Clinton was enough of a disruption to my routine. Not seeing Jess by walking into another room is weird and disconcerting. She's only a few hundred feet away, but I miss her. A lot. I miss the others as well...though I admit to some small relief at not having to prepare food for half a dozen people at once. I'm not happy about the situation, but I won't lie and say there aren't silver linings here and there as well.
Now, if it would only get hot enough to kill the zombies outside instead of just making them lazy, we'd really be getting somewhere.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Burrow
Posted by Josh Guess
Not having a national weather service anymore, no one knows how long the heat is going to last. However, this being summer and New Haven not being full of idiots, we're taking a mental leap and assuming it's going to be hot for a good long while. I've decided to take rotating shifts in the infirmary, some days working in the morning, some evenings, some nights. It works out better for me since I'll get to see Jess more often, and at least nights will let me work when the air is coolest. That's one blessing, I guess--night time hasn't been as murderously hot as it has in previous years.
I can happily report that Jess is doing a little better. That took me by surprise, I have to admit, since few of our sick people show signs of incremental improvement. Most of the time they get worse and worse, then either wake up fine or don't wake up at all. Some small number improve slowly, and I can't tell you how happy I am that Jess is one of them.
I wish I felt a little better, myself. I've been keeping myself busy since yesterday, covering breaks for guards and sentries on the wall for a while, helping cook, giving Pat a hand (haha, I made a funny. Because he cut off one of his hands. Get it?) at the forge. Little things to help where I can and occupy my mind now that the house is empty. I won't say that I wish for a zombie attack because that's stupid, but I wouldn't mind having something to completely focus on for a while. Life-or-death struggles are good for that.
I'm just being crotchety and out of sorts, I know. Being home alone is still a new thing for me and I don't have a routine to take comfort in. I raced through all the work Will had for me yesterday in about two hours, which is why I went out to find other things to do. I kept so busy and wore myself out that I came home last night and curled up next to the escape hatch in the floor of our kitchen, burrowed up inside my tatty old comforter.
I really thought about just climbing under the house, which was very cool in the wee hours of the morning. I love being cold, but my stupid brain doesn't let me sleep comfortably without a blanket. There's a plastic-lined space to store food down there, one I could have fit in easily. As it is, sleeping on the floor left me tired and stiff. Probably better that I didn't add the potential stress of waking up in a cold grave underneath a house. I got over nightmares about that years ago. Goddamn obsession with movies about serial killers...
Damn, I'm out of it. Kind of zigzagging all over the place this morning, aren't I? The messenger from Will isn't here yet, so I don't know what my workload for today is going to look like. I'm awake and ready to go, but have nothing to do at the moment.
My neck is really, really sore though. I might go a few houses down and see if Dora is home. She's a nice lady,
somewhere in her fifties, and she used to work as a massage therapist. She might be willing to work out some of the knots. I'm never sleeping on the floor again, I swear. I'd rather fight a zombie than deal with this kind of discomfort all day.
Then work. Then a shift in the infirmary. Then, we'll see how much energy I have left.
Man, I didn't sleep enough. So light-headed and out of it...
Sunday, June 24, 2012
This Is Awkward
Posted by Josh Guess
Hi. I know this post says Josh on it, but this isn't him. My name is Stephen Kincaid, though no one calls me by my first name. You've read about me here and there. You're probably wondering why I'm writing this post. So am I.
Josh didn't name the teammates that went with him to Clinton to dig out the marauders that had set up there. He didn't want anyone bringing any scrutiny against us, especially given my history. Guess that makes it pretty clear that I was one of the other people. Not the marksman. I was the one who went with Josh into the marauder camp. I helped do the dirty work.
While we were away, I had a lot of time to get to know him better. I've read this blog here and there over the last two years or so. What he writes gives you an idea of what kind of guy Josh is, but just like anything else you can't really know someone just from letters on a screen.
During those days we were out, Josh got to know me too. He admitted that he hasn't put a lot of effort into getting to know me until now because of what I used to be. A marauder. A bad guy. I can't lay much blame on him for that. I didn't like being that person. I still have a hard time sleeping.
Danger and proximity have a way of building rapport between people. Days stuck together and mutually bitching about the scorching swamp our small tent was, moving at a moment's notice to avoid detection, and having to do...the things we did, all have a way of making our differences seem minor. It's hard to judge a man for the terrible choices he's had to make when you're having to make one just as bad together.
Sorry, I know this is strange and I'm not doing it right. I'm rambling. I'm trying to explain why I'm writing here and not getting very close to the mark. Josh is sick. Not the new plague. Just allergies leading to a plain old infection. He didn't even know he had caught something until yesterday. He just thought his neck was hurting because of how he slept. He'd been congested and feeling off for a few days, but that's what happens to people with allergies when trees are fucking all around them.
He's sleeping in the other room right now, and thought it would be a nice change of pace for someone else to put their voice out there. We've got each other's measure a lot better now, and Josh thought it would help the other former marauders out there gain some acceptance in their communities if one of us had a platform to speak from. I have a hard time feeling human some days, looking back on what I have done. I can understand how many of you have the same problem when you look at us.
I did promise to mention that there is some good news right now. Some report from the doctors here Josh got last night says that the worst of the new plague seems to be over. More people are getting better than are falling ill. Deaths have tapered off. And his wife Jess is improving.
I'm really happy about that. She has always been nice to me. Never looked at me funny because of my history, just treated me like a person. Which, when I think about it too hard, seems like maybe more than I deserve.
Okay. I'm ending this awkward mess. I told him I'm not much for writing. I had to read over a lot of his posts to get comfortable enough to even do this. Josh is going to take tomorrow off as always and if he's feeling better will be back Tuesday.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Kincaid, Part Two
Posted by Josh Guess
Yeah, this is Kincaid again. Josh is still sick, worse off than he was yesterday. I feel kind of weird writing on here. I don't want to intrude on his space. I've read back through the archives and it makes me feel better knowing other people have done it before me.
Josh talks about a lot of stuff as he tries to keep everyone updated on life here in New Haven. I would try to do the same thing but there isn't a lot to talk about. The heat has been almost too much to handle lately, but the zombies outside are still feeling it too. We're not fighting them at the moment. I can't say it bothers me much.
I guess the most important thing happening at the moment, or at least what's stuck in my head, is Josh not being here. He's in the infirmary with his wife. I'm typing at his house. The big blacksmith is sitting across the desk right now. He doesn't like me. The eyeball-fucking I'm working under at present should come with hazard pay.
Not being liked. Heh. Used to that.
So many of you out there have no idea what life was like for people like me when the world came to an end. I can't defend the things I did and won't try. And don't get me wrong, the distrust for former marauders isn't something we haven't earned. We have. Guess I just think cooperation and integration would go smoother if there were more civility. Maybe some understanding.
The question I get asked most, at least when people aren't too afraid to ask, is why. Why did I do the things I did as a marauder and especially as a leader of a group? Notice that I don't say that people asked me how I could do it. In general, stupid and naive people didn't make it through The Fall, and it would take one of the two to have any genuine doubt that human beings are capable of being awful in a whole spectrum of ways.
No. 'Why' is the question. Why, knowing it was wrong on a fundamental level. Why, when my conscience eventually pushed me to give myself up during the amnesty. Why, a hundred varieties and angles. Why did I do it.
Because I was fucking scared. I was out of my mind with fear when I finally realized the military wasn't going to stop the plague of zombies. I was a good little sheep, herded into a big city and inside a giant ring of heavily-armed soldiers. I was there for nearly two weeks as the soldiers fought for us. Out of at least three thousand people, I was one of maybe twenty survivors.
While so many of you were planning and building the first parts of your communities, I did what the majority of people chose to do. I ran. I hid behind others better equipped to deal with the situation. I don't feel guilt or cowardice about it. It was a logical and reasonable decision. Hell, I was an IT guy at a credit card company before The Fall. I had never been in a fight, never fired a gun. I was thirty before I had a steady girlfriend.
The hardest thing I'd ever had to do was worry about sending my mom to a nursing home. I thought that decision would tear me apart. Honestly, how prepared was I mentally for what was going to happen?
I won't lie to you. I didn't go crazy or decide that the world was going to burn anyway and just give in to my base impulses. It's easy to think of myself as a bad person. I've done terrible and maybe unforgivable things. But it didn't all come at once. There were moments of choice, hard ones that required picking the lesser evil. Worry for those around me. The thought that keeping my people alive was more important than anything else.
Maybe if Josh is still too sick to write tomorrow, I'll tell you about them. I just realized how much I've written and how much time has passed. I have work to do.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Meaning Well
Posted by Josh Guess
Josh is on the mend. He's fighting off whatever bug he caught, but I'm back one more time to cover for him on here. Yep, it's Kincaid again.
I should mention at the outset here that things are going well for us at the moment. There's no news from across the river. The Exiles have been quiet since their coup against Scar. I didn't know the guy personally, but word travels among marauders. He was one I wouldn't have messed with under any circumstances. Not because he was brutal--he was--but because we heard a lot of stories about him gathering followers. He had charisma and intelligence. Mixed with cruelty, that makes for one of the scariest kinds of people you can imagine.
There haven't been any zombie attacks to speak of, either. That's kind of surprising given t
he cool mornings we've had, and we're being watchful for any tricks on the part of the New Breed, but that isn't stopping us from enjoying the relative peace.
I said I'd talk about some of the things that put me on the wrong path after The Fall. I thought about it a lot last night, and I decided the rest of my bad decisions all followed the basic pattern of my first major error. That's the really important one. People sometimes make choices that seem like the best of a bad situation, and subsequent decisions based on them can become a slippery slope.
After the military encampment I was in was overrun, I set out with a few of my fellow survivors to find a new place to stay. Somewhere safe, secure. In those days we thought finding a hole to hide in was a far better idea than joining up with any established groups, or rather any groups that were trying to become established. Didn't much help that we had no communications to speak of, so everything we knew came from word of mouth.
