by Joshua Guess
But here you have it. Sixteen men and women who feel as though their lungs are in a vice. We're treating them, of course, but it's a new twist in a situation we thought we were beginning to understand. The only significant factors I can think of off hand are the zombie attack--meaning widespread exposure to a possible mutation in the plague itself--and the weather, which has been crazy. Was the dust storm part of it?
I fucking hate that we don't know. Not simply for my own curiosity, but because being able to work out why might give us somewhere to work from. Maybe a way to predict how the plague changes and spreads.
What worries me the most is that we'll get a group of newcomers in here (and there are a group of them hitting the gates sometime in the next few days--the workmen for our plumbers) that will bring a variant of the plague that will hit us all over again. One that may not be vulnerable to heat, or be more damaging to human tissue, or any number of other problems. Or, god help us, many of them at once.
And what happens when we bring people in here who don't have any resistance to our own strain of the new plague? My brain hurts just trying to lay out the lines of probability.
I know that in the end all of our problems fall under two categories, which are 'things we can affect and change' and 'things we can't'. I know intellectually that human creativity and ingenuity have upper limits. I can wrap my head around the concept. It just doesn't make my heart any lighter, though. It doesn't heal the sting of knowing that somewhere down the line, chancy fate is going to start the cycle spinning all over again like some giant wheel of fortune and it could land on 'unsolvable problem'.
We've done well so far. Two and a half years in, and we've weathered worse than I would have imagined possible. I mean, come on: the apocalypse happened. Most of humanity is dead. We're alive and thriving. I just hate that we have to continue to face such terrifying and potentially deadly threats constantly. It's hard and wearing on the soul. Especially right in the middle of the largest project we've ever attempted. We're too invested in the expansion to stop, and so far none of the people who are moving here have voiced objections because of the new plague claiming more victims.
They say they could get sick and die where they are, so they might as well go where they want to be. Can't argue with the logic, though I'm disheartened that circumstances force us to be so fatalistically honest. All I can do is hope that eventually fate will stop spinning the merry-go-round and let us move on to a safer and less volatile future.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Out of Action
Posted by Josh Guess
Hey, this is Kincaid again. Josh is away for the day. He said he was out of action, but the opposite is true. He's in the field this morning with one of the attack groups. There's a big congregation of zombies nestled inside a stand of trees that butts up against the bottom of a cliff. It isn't that far away, and he needs eyes on the target to decide how many people to dedicate to wiping out the group.
So here I am again, filling in and without much to say. Guess I could mention that the treatments for the plumbers went well. They're resting up now. It's looking like the large convoy of workers will be here tomorrow at the latest. That means we can get a start on the new infrastructure. I'm excited about that since I've been sponging myself clean for the last month. Even minimal running water will make that job a lot less work.
I've been assigned to the plumbers, by the way. Me and a small team of men are providing most of the protection until the support convoy gets here. Since the people I'm watching out for are safely inside while they get their strength back, I don't have much to do.
But I guess I can share some of what I've picked up while on guard duty. The coolest thing so far is the reservoir they want to build here. At first the idea was to daisy-chain a dozen or so large tanks from fuel or milk trucks together and wall them up. Then put a lot of tarp and canvas out to act as a huge funnel for rain. It's still something worth doing, I think. The plumbers have another idea that goes along with it. They want to dig a huge underground reservoir, a big open pit. Line it with sand on the bottom and fuse it into glass. Maybe do the same with the walls if they can figure out out. Then just top it with some custom-made materials and use it as a cistern.
It's a good idea, I guess. But I'd be worried about the glass parts breaking under the weight of all that water. There are some other problems that seem likely, but I don't want to piss in anyone's cereal. Some of these people are experienced civil engineers. They know what they're doing better than me.
I should probably mention to them that not far from here is an abandoned train with about twenty tanker cars on it. That might make a difference. Doesn't mean getting them here would be easy or even possible, but they need to know. I think tankers of whatever type would be a better idea. We know they work for sure. I'd rather not risk my own drinking water on any wild ideas.
One thing I learned out on the road was to keep things as modular as possible. Made sense then, we were always moving around to stay safe...and for other reasons. We had to be able to pick up and go at a moment's notice. Having to haul our own gear gave us a damn good reason to make sure it was all tough and reliable. Use a lot of small gas cans instead of one big tank and you don't risk the entire supply on one wild bullet. Put small bundles of food in varying locations in each vehicle and you don't starve if you and the group get separated. Just make sure the vehicles run well and can each last on their own without help. Armor them individually and don't solely rely on the camp to keep you safe.
Guess I'm babbling. Sorry about that. I haven't had much sleep. See, when my active job is on hold, everyone thinks what I wrote up there, that I don't have much to do. So a lot of folk ask me for help with this and that. I don't like to say no if I can help it. Writing here today has been a nice break from the busyness. But maybe some sleep is in order.
Unless my plumbers feel up to going out this morning. In that case I'm pretty much screwed all over.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Clustered
Posted by Josh Guess
I almost had to ask Kincaid to write another post today, because I really wanted to go out with the assault teams as they take on the big nest of zombies we found yesterday. They should be starting their attack within the next hour or so, but obviously I won't be joining them.
It's almost funny, because they want me to stay here for my safety. Seriously. Worse, after I talked to a few of the team leaders about it, I have to agree. I'm swiftly falling behind in training and experience. Basically as far as assault teams go, I'm a relic. Oh, I can defend the walls and fight like a bastard in a pinch, no doubt about that. But these people have been out fighting every other day, and training for eight hours on their off days. They've evolved new methods and techniquesand become very efficient and practiced with them. I can't hang with that unless I give up everything else I do and join the assault teams full-time.
It says something about how good they're getting at their job that they only held back from hitting the swarm of nearly five hundred zombies we found yesterday because I was there with a scout team. They didn't want to risk our safety. Keep in mind we were outnumbered ten-to-one, and those crazy bastards thought those were decent odds.
The speed with which they came up with a plan of attack was mind-boggling. Less than ten minutes after getting all the reports from the various teams, the leaders had hammered out a basic strategy. I couldn't find anything to criticize in their efforts, either. They had some ideas I'd have never considered.
And some weapons I didn't know we had. For example, small canisters of pressurized ammonia. We usually use empty propane tanks for that, but they're heavy and hard to carry around in a fight. At some point recently an enterprising person found some canisters that can be filled and refilled with pressurized ammonia and water. Basically a mister with some muscle in it, but that's awesome. It allows pinpoint control of where the ammonia goes, which means we--they--can herd the zombies exactly where they want.
That's
where the killing happens.
This isn't the first time I've been replaced. I mean, I've never really been the driving force in ground fighting or anything, but I've worked and led teams since New Haven was just the compound. It's just strange to know that there are people out there doing the fighting for me, and in ways I just can't compete with. It isn't bad. I don't feel depressed over it. Knowing me, I probably should.
But I just don't feel that way, which is really odd. Normally I take this kind of thing personally, but the team leaders didn't treat me like a kid or anything. They pointed out that I defend our home regularly. It's just that the assault teams are becoming more and more specialized and I would be risking everyone's safety by trying to fit in without the same training.
I'm fine with that. Which caught me off guard. I think it's because I'm really quite happy that we're finally at a place where we can specialize in things. There will be people whose main responsibility will be defenders of New Haven, out there on the walls or in the hills kicking ass and clearing out the undead. We'll have more than a handful of medical staff who have in-depth training on how to diagnose and treat patients.
I'm a generalist who has experience doing a lot of things, but because of that I can't focus on one long enough to become an expert at anything. I'm smiling as I type that. I used to have this hope that New Haven would turn into this huge community of people that can do every person's job and have all the skillsets they'd need to survive. I don't think that's feasible. I think every person should learn the basics about a lot of things, survival training included, but that idea is only good for starting over. For the simple things.
To move past where we are right now--and I'm deeply proud of what we've done in New Haven, our accomplishments go far beyond mere survival--we have to start specializing. Maybe I can learn a new skillset soon, once I'm totally redundant. I'd like to.
For bodies to grow, cells have to differentiate into muscle fibers, cardiac tissue, organs. For a complex living structure to exist long-term, this simply must happen. I think my eyes have been opened this morning.
Now, to wait for news from the teams. Full account of the assault tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Thresher
Posted by Josh Guess
Okay, I don't want to give a blow-by-blow on how the big fight went down yesterday, because I wasn't actually there. I know the generalities of the thing, and our people were brilliant and methodical.
The basic idea was to herd the zombies where we wanted them. That was actually pretty easy since they were butted up against a steep hill. Our folks slathered ammonia around the entire area, pushing the undead into a smaller and smaller area. Up the hill, in fact. Which was where the archers were waiting.
Firing down on the New Breed trying to climb the hill was the safest and most efficient way the team leaders could come up with to cut down a large number of them relatively quickly. Moving uphill slowed the zombies down quite a bit, and the fallen bodies of the front lines made it that much harder for those behind to trudge upward.
New Breed, not being stupid, will only walk into a death trap for so long before deciding to do something else. We've known for a while that the undead will travel through areas contaminated by ammonia if they have to. They did. Funny thing about the zombie sense of smell; when they move through areas they don't like, such as a cloud of ammonia, they invariably go where the smell is weakest.
We knew that, too.
Which was how the attack teams managed to get the undead to walk around in a section of woods liberally mined with small balloons filled with alcohol-laced gel. Well, some of them. Others were packed with thermite gel. Pretty much all of them burst when the zombies stepped on them. For the record, those fuckers still don't like fire at all.
The path was chosen carefully by our folks out of concern for starting a wildfire we couldn't control. When the flames hit, the undead panicked. Those that didn't have their legs burned to useless sticks by the rapid spread of the fire ran like hell through the areas of heavily-concentrated ammonia. That slowed them down and made them less sharp.
It helps that there were auxiliary units placed around the area for just that scenario. Turns out the workers that migrated to aid with building our infrastructure were quite happy to lend a hand.
It wasn't beautiful or perfect. Five people were seriously injured, and two died. More than five hundred zombies were killed, though. Not bad numbers, though of course we can never replace those we lost.
Efficiency could have been better. The whole deal took nearly three hours if you count the time spent performing coup-de-grace on the hundreds of injured zombies. The hard part wasn't making the situation less dangerous, our weaponry and planning did that. No, it was maintaining the patience to treat every zombie crawling toward our fighters as a true and deadly threat. Kill a few clawing their way across the dirt toward you and it starts to seem like an easy job. Until one bites you on the leg or manages to trip you. Our teams had to move in roughly circular groups to keep eyes all around for sneaky undead trying to do just that.
Of course there was a lot of hand-to-hand, but that's really not interesting to me at this point. Our people are practiced at fighting fully functional zombies in teams, which are easy to spot when they're moving about unhindered. It's almost funny to me that the injured undead were more of a threat, but it's the truth. Those not crisped below the knees were so dazed by the fire and sudden violence (not to mention the ammonia) that they could barely manage a straight line, much less a cohesive front.
It was a big victory. Our people cut them down like so much wheat. Wow, I totally wrote a blow-by-blow. Ha. I didn't mean to. I wanted to tell you about some other stuff going on, but that'll just have to wait until the day after tomorrow, as I'll be off as usual in the morning. I may be a little high on victory at the moment. I better go.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Rain Catcher
Posted by Josh Guess
For days on end we've had rain and storms, but yesterday morning they got bad. Not enough to knock down houses, but nearly enough rain to drown us out. Between clearing out as many zombies as possible from the local area and trying to get some groundwork laid for the big expansion, we've been busy. Our plumbers and the people helping them haven't been wasting any time, though.
The first of the giant cisterns is already filled. Instead of taking a long time to build one big enough to service all of New Haven, the decision was made to build smaller (but still big) reservoirs spread out over a large area. Several reasons: the water pressure inside the tanks will be less, which makes it more manageable. Losing one won't be as damaging.
It's also less work. Which means we can bring running water to sections of our home one at a time. For now the quick reservoirs will be pairs of tanker trailers buried underground and fed by catch basins. Depending on what sizes tanks we use, each site will hold between 10,000 and 20,000 gallons of water.
Filtration is something we're still working on, but most of us have systems at home if it comes down to that. In general, we're doing pretty well.
That's a lot more than I can say for the Exiles. In all the recent craziness I've drifted away from talking about them much. Partially because of how busy I've been, but also because they seem to be less of a threat than ever.
The lookouts tell us that the screens they erected in front of the fallback point to block our view have been shredded by the storms. That side of the river still has a lot of trees, unlike New Haven which has had all trees within a hundred yards cut down long ago. That means during heavy winds a lot of debris gets thrown around. We've had gusts up to seventy miles an hour lately.
Since killing Scar and his lieutenants, the Exiles seem to be aimless. Sure, they're still farming and trying to turn those buildings and their patch of land into a home, but there are signs that some vital thread that held them together is gone. Maybe it was fear of Scar that united them, made them work as a whole. It's a stark
reminder that while some of those people were once disciplined survivors from right here where I live, the majority were marauders. Many small groups grown set in their ways.
I hate to give the murderous fucker any credit, but Scar seemed to keep the Exiles focused and on task. Guard duty there used to be clockwork in its efficiency. Now we see a lot of erratic behavior, missed shifts, arguments between people, and, worst of all, some deaths at the hands (teeth) of wandering zombies. People over there are dying because no one has taken up the reins of leadership. At least, I assume that's the case. I don't know.
Strange as it is to say, I feel a little sorry for them. I don't feel less anger or hate toward them than I did, but there's tinge of pity now along with those emotions. It would be almost impossible not to. Those folks stood up to a tyrant and made the hard choice, the dangerous choice. They risked everything for a chance to make it on their own. They fought for freedom, twisted as it was.
Facing the daunting task in front of us, I remember sharply being where the Exiles are now. They're just beginning the massive work we started two and a half years ago. It's vivid in my mind, those days of workign breakneck speeds to make something better than I had. Being afraid of the chaos outside, not knowing where the future would take us and only having myself to blame for failures.
