Living With the Dead: Year One

by Joshua Guess

  Jess is yelling for me. Zombies coming in from the south, through the woods. I hate having to navigate through trees while fighting. It takes too much effort to stay safe and not bash my face on tree branches.

  Off to it, the wife is getting anxious.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 8:08 AM

  Tuesday, March 30, 2010

  Edges

  It was a small group, only about a dozen. Jess is a good enough shot with a rifle that I feel pretty safe out there in the crowd, swinging something that doesn't need reloading. Part of the reason I took up Aikido in the first place was so I could learn to use a katana effectively. I'm a nerd like that.

  Don't let me give you the wrong idea about the wife. She is a very good shot, but she's not a sniper or anything. She takes a few seconds to aim and fire, and she's pretty good at hitting the heads of zombies without very many misses. I tell you this because in the process of condensing a day's events into the bite-sized chunks I put out to read, I realize that sometimes I don't convey the real details to all of you. Jess is a good shot, but deals with nerves and imperfections like all of us. I am no Musashi with a blade, but where other folks find them too heavy or awkward, I am comfortable. Practice makes passable, I guess.

  There is no news on the looters, and that concerns all of us. That we haven't found any more of them means that either A) they are getting clever enough to avoid the crazy security measures we have taken or B) they no longer feel that they need to spy on us, because they have all the information they need, which scares the hell out of me. We have raided every store we can for walkie-talkies, and are trying to keep each other updated as often as possible.

  Mine is squawking at me right now, Pat calling in to let us know all's clear where he is.

  It's a bit of a job to keep people on their toes, due to the strikingly powerful need for the human mind to relax and blow off the tension in times of stress. When your life is nothing but stress, your brain tries to shut off any time you feel even remotely safe. It also does something to the libido. I can verify this personally, and corroborate through observation, since it seems like almost everyone here pairs off when not on guard duty and vanishes into bedrooms for long periods of time. Elizabeth is an exception to that, but she keeps eying me. Maybe it's because she isn't comfortable meeting new people, and she sees me as safe. Jess is the same way. I guess you could call them my type.

  I am doing what I can to keep everyone sharp, but it can be hard. Between guard duty, all the daily chores that are much harder without much of the technology we were so used to, attempting some basic training in various things, and sorting all the stuff we got from the hotel, I have virtually no time. Makes it pretty hard to stay sharp myself, to be honest.

  Jess is making it a pet project to find as many books on as many subjects as possible. She got a bunch of military field manuals from the flea market, and a huge load from the library, bookstores, and abandoned houses. She is obsessed with it, which sort of makes sense. The whole time we've been together, she has taken to gathering a huge variety of skills and the knowledge associated with them. She is an herbalist, she can make leather from scratch, a ton of stuff. But the most useful to us, in the long run, is probably that she can make chain mail. With enough people learning, and helping her make and set up rings, we will be able to make bite proof coverings for everyone. It will take a long time, but well worth the huge pain in the ass it was to find all that different wire. Especially the aluminum.

  Crap. Walkie-talkie is spitting beeps and static at me.

  No. No, no, no...It's an attack. The front of the compound is being attacked.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:57 AM

  Bleeding but alive

  We're still here. The attack hit us from the base of the neighborhood, from the road in front of the compound itself. We have no dead as of yet, but many wounded. I worry that the north side was all they hit, it feels to me like they are testing our defenses. They are still out there...I know it. I can see glints of reflected light now and then when I glance up at the hill.

  We are still taking random fire. Once every few minutes, just as we are starting to let our guard down, a rifle shot will pop off and make us all duck. I guess they are either trying some small psychological warfare, or are trying to keep our attention here. Or both. We are patrolling, though, and we are all pretty tough, so I have good hopes.

  More tomorrow, just wanted to let you all know we are still alive.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 4:27 PM

  Wednesday, March 31, 2010

  Under Siege

  There are a lot of them. They keep on coming, one after another, never seeming to stop.

  If not for the fact that we are the ones who have the defensive position, I think all of us would have been killed by now. As it is, almost all of us have taken injuries to one degree or another. Bullet grazes are a minor number, knife wounds and the bruises and broken bones that come with hand to hand fighting the vast majority. Most of the intense combat is taking place at the base of the compound, which is actually a blessing. There, the wall of cars slows down and breaks up their advancement, making it easier for us to take out the looters one by one as they get in between the houses. I am staying here, in the heaviest action, while Pat, David, and a few others are driving around looking for other places they might have tried to come through.

  Word so far is encouraging. Not too many of them have attempted it, and all of the ones who have entered through the other parts of the compound have ceased to be threats.

  There is a lull in the assault at present, one we desperately need. I don't know how many they are, but we have seen no sign that their numbers are lessening. I was hoping that one of us could sneak out and try our zombie luring tactic, but we had to disregard that idea, as the looters are too mobile to be done much damage by a large herd. It might give us a break as they would have to hop into vehicles to stay safe, but it would force us to retreat to fortified shelters, and that would be disastrous.

  Mom just called me on the walkie, she says that Elizabeth, Darlene, and Courtney are gone. She has no idea where they were heading off to, only that the three of them left a note saying they had an idea, and would be back soon. They left running east through the rich subdivision just on the other side of us. I hope the looters aren't staging over there, and if they are, I pray that they can't see very well this early in the day.

  I hope they succeed, because my arms are getting tired of the constant recoil from my pistol, the shock of my knife hitting flesh and bone, and the weight of my Iaito across my waist. Yeah, I know, why the hell am I carrying around a sword. Call it preparedness. I don't have infinite bullets, and my knife is a weapon made for very close fighting. I need something with me that is familiar and easy for me to use, should the need arise.

  The sky is being swept with actual rays of light now, not just the gray fog of pre-dawn. As I type this I keep glancing up and out the window, watching for more looters to come at us.

  A warning is coming in over the radios, attack heavily concentrated at the closed off second entrance to the compound, two hundred feet down the way. No guns, they attempted to sneak in and kill the sentries at a time they thought we would be at our least observant, but I guess they timed it wrong, and underestimated our people. Women who have suffered what the captives we rescued have suffered tend to be a forward lot with weapons, and stay on their toes. I am so proud of them.

  I wish I could run down there, but a few of us have to remain where we are, at this entrance, just in case they attack here too. I need to go, they could be here any second, and I need to keep ready.

  Wish us luck.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 7:28 AM

  The Space Between

  Another short update, since I have time. We are experiencing a forced break in the hostilities, because a huge swarm of zombies came at the looters over the hill, from the direction of the national guard armory. We took the extra minute that we had before the zombies came for us to pi
ck off a few looters while they were distracted.

  It has worked out well enough for us that now I wish I had gone out and brought some of them myself. I guess this group was attracted to all the gunfire, maybe stuck behind a fence, and beat it down when the smell of all the people gathered hit them. However it happened, we are lucky.

  We have had casualties, sadly. So far four women that came to us from the hotel have been killed, two of the friends that Elizabeth brought, and David's stepmother has fallen as well. She was bringing food down from mom's, so that none of us had to stop to make anything. She was a good woman, a brave woman, as all of them were, and they will all be remembered with pride.

  I am amazed that it took so long for any of us to die. I have to assume that the looters are trying to do minimal damage to the compound, so they can take it over should they manage to kill enough of us to make that possible. But our preparations and traps, along with the wall-o-cars, is slowing them down so much that cutting them to pieces is pretty easy. They seem to want to fight, like this is some schoolyard tussle. We only aim to kill, as quickly and efficiently as possible, to save our skins.

  Such has always been the difference between conquerors and those they wish to conquer.

  The zombies are starting to thin out. It won't be long before they start back on us, though now, at least, it seems their numbers are starting to get a little closer to ours. At a guess, I would say we've killed fifty of them. Too many dying for no reason, in this world where every chromosome counts.

  Still no news on the girls. Courtney, Elizabeth, and Darlene have been gone for a long time. I hope they are alright.

  It's looking like it will be a busy afternoon, and a long night to follow. Again, wish us luck.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 12:50 PM

  Thursday, April 1, 2010

  Heroic Acts

  There is something that looks sort of like a tank sitting at the main entrance to the compound. It has a .50 caliber machine gun and what appears to be a small cannon on it. I couldn't tell you what size the thing is, only that the barrel is much larger than the one on the machine gun.

  Let me rewind a little bit.

  Things were getting overwhelming. It's wasn't that we were in pitched combat without end, but that the looters were keeping us fairly penned in by finally getting strategic and sniping at us from concealed locations. We were fine if we stayed indoors or hidden, but no one could move openly without seriously risking a bullet. The point at which everything seemed destined to spiral into a world of shit was when Little David got shot.

  He we being stealthy, doing a good job of trying to stay out of the line of sight. But one of them must have caught a glimpse of him, and kept an eye out for a good shot. He was almost to my position when the round tore through his thigh. I wanted to run to him, to pull him in, but Steve kept a better head than I.

  Steve, you may remember, is the husband of Courtney, one of our wayward ladies. Steve is, like myself, a huge and proud nerd. He's also surprisingly quick, stealthy, and able in the areas required for good practice of martial arts. Before the cataclysm, Steve was taking some very interesting classes toward that end.

  Anyway, he stopped me from going after David, pointing out that he should be the one to go, not being as good a shot as the rest of the folks stationed in the house with us. He had the idea that we could provide covering fire, quite a lot of it if we needed to, while he zigged, zagged, and tumbled randomly out to David. No one seemed to think the idea was silly. Random movement. Seemed logical.

  Steve got to him while we covered, got them both to a safe spot, but not inside. Steve pulled him to the other side of the road, behind a house. Our covering fire was returned, and soon we were pretty much overwhelmed. My guess is that as the day wore on, the looters got impatient, and called in the rest of their numbers, to kill us all at once.

  Which was really helpful, as it turns out. After a few minutes of watching the drywall and bricks disintegrate around us, we were getting scared. After fifteen minutes, we were terrified. When we heard deafening gunfire, shaking the air around us like thunder, I peed a little.

  But in between bursts of this new and painful chatter, we could hear a new sound: Screaming. From the other side of the highway. I risked a very quick glance that direction, and what I saw took my breath away.

  When I found it again, I was laughing.

  The thing looked like a hummer, but heavily armored, with those big-ass guns I talked about earlier perched on it. Darlene drove, Courtney was visible in the back, working the cannon, and Elizabeth was crouched behind the bulletproof shield, waylaying the looters with the huge machine gun.

  Bodies fell all over, the looters being very tightly packed. Many of them escaped, fleeing in abject terror. I wanted to chase them down, make sure that the threat was ended. After less than a minute, we were free of them. Not one looter remained to fire at us, though enough had gotten away to keep fear pulsing in the back of my head.

  I wanted to chase them, but I had other things to occupy my time. David was bleeding badly, not to mention the other injured. There were details to be seen to, missed meals to be caught up on, and all the pesky details that come when you finally have the time to deal with them.

  Now, apparently, we have access to much of what was left at the guard base. The girls (women, I know, I'm such a typical man. Deal with it.) had apparently gone on quite an adventure, including but certainly not limited to aiming a big herd of zombies penned up at the base toward us. And since the looters were between the base and us...

  When they hopped out of the truck, Steve hugged Courtney, spinning her in a circle. Two of my best friends, saviors, and safe. Darlene ran to David, scared out of her mind, but he smiled at her with a gleam in his eye that was wonderful to behold.

  Elizabeth ran straight to me, grabbed my hair with both of her hands, and kissed me. Simply, deeply, and in ways that make me feel incredibly awkward.

  Jess was standing maybe three feet away from me. She was smiling.

  We are safe.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:02 AM

  Friday, April 2, 2010

  Better Angels

  Do you have any idea how hard it is to steal a fire truck?

  Admittedly, since my degree is actually in Fire/Rescue, having firefighting equipment at hand really should have been on my list. But we got to the fire station and back in time to keep the fire from spreading too far back.

  The looters have decided to burn us out, since they can't beat us. After we put out the row of homes on fire at the front of the compound, we saw some smoke coming from the next street over. Luckily we had hooked up to the hydrant on the corner and had a full tank, or we might have been in some deep trouble.

  As we rolled up to the next street, we saw that the smoke was actually coming from a dropped molotov cocktail, and that a group of men were running away from it. Our truck was of the pump-and-go variety, so we chased them down and pummeled them with the water cannon on the top.

  So now, prisoners. Not that I am terribly interested in more killing at present; too much blood for me, since all of this started. Maybe this bothers me because people had to die, or maybe it bothers me because it showed me just how many people only lived as civilized beings, with morals and codes of ethics, because society forced them to.

  So now we are faced with the dilemma of what to do with these people. I don't relish wasting my food or water on those that are bent on the death and destruction of what has become my entire world. But I tire of all the bloodshed, if for no other reason than the vast stupidity of it. If the looters had acted like men instead of monsters, we might have no issue with them. You might argue that group hysteria played a part, and while I might agree with you, I still say that a person is a thinking, reasoning creature, and that they always have choice, no matter what others around them may do.

  Just ask Oskar Schindler.

  We'll figure out what to do with them sometime soon. My inclination is to send them pac
king, with the message that any further hostilities toward us or their fellow man will be met with instant and complete obliteration, whatever the cost to us personally. For now, we will bury our dead, mend our injured, and mourn the loss of human decency around us.

  And start to rebuild. And improve.

  Because that urge, too, is powerful within us. Human beings are violent, hateful things, capable of atrocities that defy words. But just as powerfully, we can hope, and love, create and shape--above all of this, we can plan ahead, and set events into motion to define our future. Not at the whim of fate, but as clay in the hands of a master sculptor.