Living With the Dead: Year One

by Joshua Guess

  Mom and Gabby are working like crazy in our makeshift clinic. Everyday someone gets a cut, hits their head, or does some other thing to get hurt that requires a nurse to check out. We take our health very seriously around here, and to that end both of them are trying to locate a doctor, anywhere, that is still alive and is willing to relocate.

  Haven't seen much of Al, Elizabeth, or many of the others lately. I have been taking it easy, as my damn kidney is still tender (but healing well), and have been busy with almost daily committee meetings, trying to decide on all manner of things, and then trying to figure out how to get supplies to act on those decisions, and then how to budget our limited man-hours...you get the idea. This administration stuff has been going on since day one, but since we went and got ourselves an elected "government", seems like everyone has ideas. Problem is, we're a group made up of smart, realistic, and tough people--so the ideas are usually so good, we have to try and figure out a way to implement them.

  Which leaves me less time to work on other stuff. I still put in time building, chopping wood, and all the rest, but writing this is getting harder and harder. I want to--the urge to keep whoever is left to read this informed and hopeful that others are out there is too strong not to. I am getting so busy, in fact, that I may have to start getting others to cover this for times when I just can't, and may have to slow down how much I am doing, labor-wise. I'm getting about five hours of sleep right now, and more work to come.

  So, I'm off. Spent too much time here already. More tomorrow.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 8:34 AM

  Thursday, April 22, 2010

  The Will to Proceed

  Treesong posted some comments on a few posts, putting on the written record what he has already expressed in words, to the rest of us. A link to that post can be found here. I will reiterate why some of our positions on punishment have been chosen, because I feel very strongly about this. Also, because not a lot else is going on at the moment, as our normal routine hasn't been interrupted, and our (hopefully) new arrivals have yet to...arrive. Yeah.

  So:

  First, I ask this: what should be done to a person that rapes a woman, caught cold at it? A child? Under the laws that used to be enforced across this country, that person would go to prison. Possibly suffer chemical castration, but not actual castration. What should happen to a person that kills one of the few remaining people on earth in cold blood, not for self defense or defense of another? Again, the old idea was to stick them in a prison.

  It was basically the same solution to every crime. Because people, somewhere along the way, got this idea that criminals had rights just like everyone else. So prisons became places where criminals went to work out, get three squares a day, and learn from other criminals how to be better at committing crimes. I'm not saying that incarceration was a walk in the park, at all. But I am saying that such a system did not work then, and cannot possibly work now. So I'm open to suggestion.

  The system I have written about previously is one built on realistic needs, and from a strong desire to avoid many of the pitfalls of the old ways of doing business. Prisons were a huge drain on resources, and essentially allowed offenders to eat food provided by others while doing no work of value. We can't afford the manpower to run such a facility, and frankly, I am frightened of the mindset that thinks such an obviously broken system should be reinstated.

  I am all for individual liberty. I think that anything anyone wants to do that doesn't hurt anyone else (and in our case) doesn't endanger the group is fine. So no nitpicking here. But I most certainly do expect people to go right one being people, making mistakes to varying degrees. Honest mistakes can often be forgiven, but outright choosing to do wrong cannot.

  I am reminded of Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", a novel set in the future on the moon, during the Lunar revolution. Many of these same issues are at play. In that story, the citizens of Luna are both incredibly polite and willing to kill at the drop of a hat--both environmentally required to survive there, long term.

  We are in a similar scenario. Few of us left, compared to the vast population we once had, and faced with tough choices. Tree said in his comment that these ideas might be necessary in the short term, but long term, we need to build a society that does not need to use these punishments. In part, I agree. But I think we can only live in a society that does not need to use them by living in one that uses them as a deterrent.

  So, once more, I ask you; What to do to a man who rapes? Do you put him in a cell and feed him, locking him away from others, keeping him warm and safe, siphoning food from the mouths of those who did not commit an atrocious act? What do you do with him after his sentence is up? Can you release him back into the fold, thinking that his time alone has taught him the error of his ways? Please.

  The reason this system didn't work is because that is what you do to children. You put them in a corner. You give them a time out. The reason society was already fraying at the seams is because far too many children grew up and realized that for most crimes, the punishment had not changed. Look at history if you doubt me--true crime was much less common back when people were killed publicly, flogged, and given punishments that fit the crime.

  The difference is that we won't be accusing folks of crimes for political gain, or to control the populace, like so many governments and churches did before modern times. We want to combine the effectiveness of more brutal punishment that fits the crime with a modern view, that it should be used if for no other reason than to deter heinous acts.

  A man commits premeditated murder, he dies, because who among us wants to let a man who kills for revenge or from rage to go on living, risking others? I believe in basic human rights very strongly, but I also believe that certain acts remove those rights. You might call me arrogant for thinking that I have the right to judge this, and that's fine. You have your own views. But I will do anything I must to ensure that the most basic needs are met for those around me, and safety is number one.

  If needed, I will personally castrate a man who commits violent sexual acts against another. I will kill a man who does so to a child. What punishment seems right to you? Could you live with yourself knowing that you shut him away, hale and unharmed, for a period of years, only to let him out in the future, to do it all over again? Personally, I don't understand how juries, judges, and lawmakers could go on after making such a decision, knowing that they had only put a man's nose in the corner.

  People have to know that there are consequences, real ones, that are based on our need to keep living in this world. Instead of creating a system that has no real deterring effect for harming others, instead I choose, WE choose, to create one that will instill a healthy fear of consequences. Because sane, rational people will make one of two choices: either choose to act in their own interests and do no harm, or to knowingly commit such an act, and accept the results.

  I wouldn't want to live in a society where people think that there is a third option. If we harm none, no harm is brought upon us. If we harm others, we are harmed in equal turn. Living by any other code seems total madness to me.

  I'll let you decide.

  Comments?

  Posted by Josh Guess at 9:24 AM

  Friday, April 23, 2010

  Minor

  Another short post today, for two reasons. One is that I am feeling like crap, my head is killing me and I feel like I have the flu. The other is that while I am feeling really shitty, I am still working to cool heads about this whole crime and punishment argument. We are expecting the first new arrivals just after lunch, and we've been scrambling to make space, among the other preparations that come with accepting new people into the compound. A busy day.

  I feel very strongly that I am right about this. I just can't see any other ways to address some extreme behaviors, not any that seem moral to me. And of course, since my sense of right and wrong as well as my morals, are dynamic and now based in this zombie-filled nightmare. My main problem at t
his point is that no other reasonable options are being presented.

  So while we are getting busy today, let me know what your thoughts are.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 9:21 AM

  Saturday, April 24, 2010

  Beautiful Violence

  I have seen many things in my life that have taken my breath away. Sights that have given me hope, filled me with joy, and touched my heart. No experience I have ever had moved me the way yesterday did.

  A line of vehicles hundreds of feet long, packed and strapped all over with all manner of supplies, so dense with items that no one car had more than two people in it. They all had the hard look of people who had been through much, the deep lines around the eyes of folks who have spent a lot of time watching all corners of their world for threats.

  So imagine what it did for me to see the light suddenly bloom behind those thousand yard stares. It was beautiful beyond any description. Many of them wept openly at first sight of the compound, the work going on here, the tantalizing hints of normal life.

  And they bring children. Many of them are families, finding the strength to survive in each other. And all of them made the choice to come here.

  It was altogether another experience to see them fight off the large horde of zombies that followed them in. They had been picking them off for a while, and when they pulled up, we were all ready.

  You can say you know someone for any number of reasons. Time spent together, long time friendships, ideas shared late at night after your passion is spent. But no act compares to the bittersweet dance of violence in the name of survival. Once you join in the motions of death with a person for the purpose of mutual survival, you reach an understanding that cannot be matched.

  They are here now, and are doing their best to blend into our home. We are having some serious talks about some recent decisions around here, and doing what we can to reassure. It's stressful, but good. Most of us have redoubled our hope for the future with so many people joining us. The feeling that we are truly building something, an organic thing that grows and changes, is strong.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:39 AM

  Sunday, April 25, 2010

  Willie Nelson

  Because I'm on the road again. Sorry, call me a fool with a deep love of music, especially all the old-school country I used to hear on the radio when I rode in my dad's car as a kid. I'm on the way to a town called, I shit you not, Raven, Ky. Not a whole lot could have pulled me away from the compound when so much is going on, especially when new folks have joined us and with such a raging debate going on. But this particular task I just don't want to risk with anyone else. Call it ego if you will, but my accomplishments speak for themselves, and when it comes to retrieving people, I trust my core group.

  Pat is driving, Jess is up front with him. We're in a big SUV, trundling along at a stately twenty miles an hour. Damn zombies are crossing the road all over the place, and every so often we have to do some fancy driving to lose them. We're making this run to bring someone to us, a single person that thankfully, our contacts at Google were able to locate. He's an old army surgeon named Evans (a last name was all he would give us), and he wants to join us. He's been holed up in an old store almost since the beginning, living off the food there. I gather it's some sort of general store, since he tells us that it's all brick, and smack in the middle of town. And the middle of the town is packed tight with bodies. The moving, biting type.

  I said before that we needed a doctor. This is still true, especially if we are going to survive long term, build a new society. We need someone to teach us, to give us the ability to do more than first aid, more than wound treatment. Hopefully he can make some of us decent surgeons, effective diagnosticians. He may not be our only chance at this, but he is our first and therefore best shot.

  We're going to get in there, get him out, and bring him back with us. To do this, we will have to fight our way through hundreds if not thousands of zombies, get him out safely, and make it home without getting killed. That's a best case scenario, not even thinking about the possibility that there are marauders there, or any number of other possible threats. We'll get him out.

  But I have no idea how.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:41 AM

  Monday, April 26, 2010

  Stuck...again.

  We're stuck in Raven at the moment. We managed to get to Doctor Evans, but now we're trapped in the store with him.

  We thought we were being terribly clever. We drove through the town, me standing up out of the moonroof to get the attention of all the damn zombies following us. We wanted to draw them away and lose them, load up the doc and his supplies, and get the hell out of town. It was working, until the pothole.

  It has been raining, and we didn't realize that the puddle we were driving toward was a massive hole in the road, deep enough to bog down the whole front end. So there we were, a giant swarm of undead behind us about a hundred yards, and the store ahead about the same distance. We booked it, made it through the door, and now the road is packed with them.

  Evans is pissed. He's been trapped here for a long time, and from his point of view things are worse than ever. He's also really low on food, and we brought little to eat, enough for a few days at most. For us, this is just another challenge to face. We try to keep it positive-we're alive, unhurt, and still armed.

  Ok, Evans is looking at me like I'm an idiot, for tapping away at my phone for so long. I need to help them come up with some kind of plan. We don't have any power here, so I have no way to charge it. Ideally, we will be out of here before it runs out of juice, but if not, I think it will last until tomorrow.

  Wish us luck.

  Wish I didn't have to end so many posts that way, but luck is all we have sometimes.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 9:16 AM

  Tuesday, April 27, 2010

  One Man Gone

  Patrick has been gone for a long time. He left us when a small break in the crowd outside gave him a window. There's a ball of ice where my stomach used to be. After three hours, I have to start seriously considering that he may be dead.

  We thought about trying to draw them away again, but they apparently aren't going to take that bait, or they would have all followed Pat, instead of mulling around here. Hopefully their reluctance helped Pat to find a vehicle, or at least shelter.

  My phone is about to die.

  If this is my last communication until many of you back home see me, then please don't worry. Mom, please remember that we will be careful, and cautious. We will sit here and think about how to get out as long as it takes to figure out a plan. We might get lucky. We might die. But if we do, please, everyone at home remember to be human to each other. In a good way.

  But do not, under any circumstances, come here looking for us.

  I think we can do it. Shit. Ok, got to go. Hopefully see you all soon.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 2:04 PM

  Wednesday, April 28, 2010

  Breakout

  Pat made it back to us. Thank god that everyone and their mother had an iPhone, because the car he found had a charger in it. We're still in Raven at the moment, but we are sitting in the car, waiting to take off. Jess is driving, Evans and I are in the back seat, and Pat is going to do something really brave and extremely stupid. He's outside the car, dressed in so much clothing and what little armor he could salvage from the SUV that it's unlikely the zombies will be able to bite him.

  But he's still out there, running through the crowd trying to thin it out. He's never been the most gifted student of the sword (nor have I, to be honest...) but he is doing a fantastic job right now. I just worry that he will get swarmed and fall, because enough of them could eventually tear through all his stuff. It should be only a few more minutes, and he will have thinned the herd out enough for us to drive through.

  Cutting short here, need to be ready.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 12:07 PM

  Thursday, April 29, 2010

  Ran Dry
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  Super fast update, so that no one back home makes any hasty decisions to come after us.

  We're halfway home, but out of gas. We're in a little town whose name I didn't catch, and we had to push the car a quarter mile to get here. Not too many zombies around here, which is a surprise considering how dense this area has been packed. I think we'll have to spend another night here, as we're all bushed and the search for fuel is taking a lot of time. I really don't want to travel at night, and another day of rest will do us a lot of good.