Living With the Dead: Year One

by Joshua Guess

  I can't help but wonder what is going on back at the compound. I have managed to get a few calls off, but reception is pretty shoddy all around. I wish that the solar charger Evans was using for his phone would have worked on mine, I could have kept in touch much more easily.

  I hope you're all doing well, and that we will see you soon. We're safe, and secure in this little house we found. Keep an eye out for us in the morning.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:59 AM

  Friday, April 30, 2010

  Crash

  This is patrick, on josh's phone. We are outside of lexington, we have been in an accident. Evans is working on josh, he's hurt but evans doesn't think it's too bad. We have another car, just waiting for evans to get done.

  we have to make the drive through lexington, we were detoured by a group of marauders.

  keep watch for us, we will be on our way soon.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 10:45 AM

  Saturday, May 1, 2010

  Management

  Thanks to several tips, we were able to get through Lexington without too much trouble. I'm dealing with my injuries, which are not too bad, but will leave impressive scars. Mostly a few big cuts from broken glass. Two broken fingers.

  And I think my collarbone is broken. Again. This makes four times.

  I'm getting a lot of shit from a lot of people about going off to rescue someone, when I have responsibilities here, blah blah blah. Other folks are giving me shit for risking myself (Mom...). I have told the first group to shove it, mainly because I am unwilling to risk the life of the person in need of saving so we can have a long, drawn out talk about it. If someone needs help and wants to join us, I'll go. It's that simple.

  The second group is living under some illusion that we are ever safe. Life is a constant exercise in avoiding various sorts of death now, and if I am going to be at risk, I choose to do it in a way that at least creates the possibility of helping another, not to mention improving the lives of the others here. Yeah, you can argue that I can help others here and all that, but the fact is, not too many people were keen on going out to get Evans. Didn't seem to think risking a team of people was worth the life of one person.

  Lovely.

  So we're home, and it seems like Evans is pretty satisfied with our homemade clinic. At least, that is the impression I get, since he didn't belittle it. He's kind of a tough guy to read.

  It's looking like we're actually going to have to split some of us who are in leadership positions off into full-time administrators. By that I mean that we are facing so many massive logistics issues that just planning and managing all of the projects and resources is taking up a full day's worth of work time. So those of us that have been doing all of this and working shifts on the wall, farming, and all the rest are barely getting three hours of sleep. I really don't think we have other option, if we want to effectively manage our projects and keep our little society running.

  Let me know what you think.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 7:37 AM

  Sunday, May 2, 2010

  Division of Labor

  Leadership is a funny thing.

  In the current context, it is vital. When you are out in the world, not surrounded by walls that keep out the undead, it can mean everything. Having a cool head when confronted by a swarm of zombies is essential; you may understand why I have a select group of people that I choose to associate myself with in those types of situations.

  Many of us have never encountered the real thing. Maybe military folks have, but I think that for the most part the rest of us have only ever had "leaders" who were in charge of us because of a superior position at a job, being an elected official (which equated, I think, to being a better liar than the other candidates...) or some other factor that took the choice of who would lead away from those being led.

  I have always felt that being a leader of people meant more. That it was imperative to gain trust, to set an example for others, so that they would follow you by choice, from respect, and not because some arbitrary set of rules helped you get lucky.

  I was voted in, and by extension so was the committee that keeps me balanced. And soon, we might be voted out. It seems that our growing community has fallen victim to one of the oldest of society's stumbling blocks: a case of the have-nots.

  Need an explanation? No problem.

  You see, last night I fielded the idea to a great many folks about the possibility that those of us who have been actively coordinating all of the construction, farming, and other work going on around here doing that as full-time work. Or I should say, as our only full time work, since it takes up so much of our time. This was met with a pretty even split in opinion, with slightly more than half of the people in favor of it. But the problem I ran into wasn't whether or not John or Jane Doe was ok with this, it was that seemingly every person had some project or idea that they felt was vital to us.

  But none of them had any idea how to accomplish them. Well, a few had some thoughts on that, but most didn't. The prevailing opinion was that it seemed pretty easy to do what we have been doing, planning and executing it all, and most of the people thought that it would be no more difficult to fulfill their ideas as well. The logistical nightmares we have been dealing with did not occur to them, because we haven't been shouting about them from the rooftops. We encounter a problem, and we solve it, because we HAVE to.

  So now I have a ton of people getting pissed because I couldn't hand them promises, or because I had to explain why an idea they had wasn't feasible. Many grumbled, asking why we needed to have full-time jobs in running this place, if we weren't going to do what we were asked.

  Maybe they will vote us out, that would be a nice break.

  But we did make it official: I and my council (which is what the committee is now called; we have committees for individual projects now, the council oversees them all) are doing our jobs full-time. This pisses people off, but I really don't care. I won't allow the people that have been doing all of the work designing and implementing plans for our long-term survival to burn out from overwork. So we'll be busting ass to get as much done as we can in the shortest possible time, just in case they do kick us out of office.

  Cheers!

  Posted by Josh Guess at 8:38 AM

  Sunday, May 2, 2010

  YOUTUBE LIVES!

  ...exactly what it sounds like. The guys and gals at Google have outdone themselves. Holed up in Mountain View, the employees of Google and their families have managed to bring youtube up. It's apparently required a lot of Macguyvering to get this going, but their hope is to increase communication among survivors. I imagine that if society ever gets back to the point of having a stock market again, Google stock will be number two in the world, right behind zombie protection gear.

  We have started a channel, naturally. www.youtube.com/LivingWithTheDead

  First video to be posted later today. Hopefully, many more will follow.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 12:53 PM

  Monday, May 3, 2010

  Night Time Stroll

  Something is going on around here. I don't know who is doing it, but I will find out.

  This morning, about an hour ago, my dogs started barking. They only do that when someone comes pretty close to the house. I woke up and ran to look out one of the peepholes, but didn't see anyone there. No zombies, no people.

  I asked the lookouts if they had seen anything. One of them said he heard someone running, but the cloud cover was so dense that seeing anything was impossible.

  But now, we know that it wasn't a zombie, and likely wasn't a marauder. The clouds have broken and there is enough predawn light outside that we can see what happened. Someone has been going around, tagging houses. Writing horrible things on the the doors of a few of the people who are living in polygamous groups, scrawling threats on the doors of some folks who have expressed distaste for endorsing any decisions based on religion, and on my own door, a half finished swastika. Not the manji, mind you, w
hich is the same symbol but used by many cultures to represent many ideas throughout history, and none of them bad, but the actual swastika, circle and all.

  Apparently, someone thinks I am a nazi. I can see why this is happening, I knew that not everyone would be on board with some of our decisions. But at no point did I think this sort of childish baiting would happen. Silly me.

  I will find you. This is not acceptable.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 6:20 AM

  More Dialogue, Less Spray Paint, Please

  So, there's this whole "hateful graffiti" thing going on... We have GOT to work out a more efficient and calm way of voicing opinions. Maybe some sort of press/publication? Though isn't that sort of what we have going on here? A blog isn't much, but it's SOMETHING, at least. Anybody can make one, for anybody to read. Maybe a message board? Would anonymity help, or hurt? See what I'm doing here, is trying to think of solutions, because whoever did this is probably feeling scared, like they have no voice, or something like that. But their actions are themselves helping to create a culture of fear. Inside the compound, we are supposed to be safe. We are neighbors, friends, and family. We can disagree, and even despise one another at times, but in this crazy B-movie gorefest of a world, we need to have safe havens, where we know we at least aren't going to hurt one another. Whoever you are that did this, if you're feeling sad, or scared, or just frustrated, please understand, we ALL are. I know things aren't perfect here, but we're really trying to make our world the kind of place we want to live in, and that we'll be proud to have our children live in.

  Josh keeps saying there's room enough for everyone here, and physically that's true, to a large extent, but what do we gain by making others feel unwelcome, like there's not enough space emotionally? A hostile, tense collection of heavily-armed individuals? We have the seeds planted to grow a thriving community; please bear with us for a while while we tend these seeds.

  But, hey, let's get something straight. You have beef with the way things are being run, okay. We can work this out. We HAVE to. It's no big secret that I disagree on some key issues, too. Dissent is an important part of keeping a society honest. But listen, there are ALREADY kids here. Do not for one second think that because we strive for diplomacy and moderation of disputes that we are cool with being trampled upon. Get wise to this, and please think of a more constructive way to voice your dissatisfaction next time. Because words like those are violence, too.

  ...sigh. This After-School Special has been brought to you by Courtney.

  Posted by Courtney at 7:59 PM

  Tuesday, May 4, 2010

  The First Stone

  I don't like anything about the current situation. I am dealing with people on all sides, who all demand that their ideas are the only way to go, I have people telling me that we have to enforce "moral living", essentially saying that we have to define a family unit in our community just like it was before the fall.

  My personal thoughts seem irrelevant to most of them. Moreover, facts and reason seem to be completely ignored. Add to that the necessity of pulling people off of work details to investigate the vandalism last night, which puts some projects behind schedule, and it adds up to a pretty bad day so far.

  I have taken care of most of our business for today, and delegated the rest. I need to get out for an hour, and luckily, my brother needs to go out and scout for some supplies we need for the wall. I am going with him, to ride shotgun, and we'll snag a few more people before we go.

  I would much rather deal with a direct threat, even zombies, than the headache that this place has been the last few days. I am starting to see where Courtney is coming from. A few closed-minded bad apples really can set a bad example for the kids, and that's not tolerable.

  Hopefully the folks I sent out to ask questions and see if anyone has paint on their hands will have something for me when I get back.

  It tickles me that people are attacking others in the dead of night for a supposed lack of morals, and really makes me chuckle that they apparently don't see the irony in that.

  Funny, huh?

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:47 AM

  Wednesday, May 5, 2010

  Reasonable

  Ok, for today, I am mostly going to leave out our ongoing investigation into whoever is trying to terrorize people around here that disagree with them. Because I don't want to let anything slip, and because the whole thing is pissing me off. So for this post, I am going to focus on some plans my brother and I have been working on for a bit now.

  One of the things that has been a concern for us is a stable and sizable water supply for the whole community. Frankfort has gravity-fed systems, but any system is vulnerable where it is most vital: delivery. So we had the idea to build a system of cisterns around the Compound, and basically have wells in them to draw water.

  We've already got some decent stuff for some of the houses, such as rain catchers and barrel storage, but we need to go large scale, because a time will surely come when we will need it.

  Next!

  We are, of course, working on the wall around the entire compound. This is a HUGE undertaking, and while some areas have sections under construction, many have nothing at all started, other than the rapidly disintegrating wall of cars.

  Zombies are impacting that wall of cars every day, in multiple places. We are shoring up where we have to, and hoping that we will be able to get major work done on the real wall before we get blindsided with a very large group.

  So you can see why I am so goddamn frustrated with this whole situation. I have to pull people off of work details to investigate, hurting our production on wall segments. It's bad for all of us.

  Just take Courtney's advice and come forward, talk to us about all of this. We can find a solution, and we can get back to helping each other instead of infighting.

  Please.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 10:44 AM

  Thursday, May 6, 2010

  Speechless

  Today is a bad day, for reasons that I lack the time to document in detail. Several things have happened, each making things worse.

  We have discovered who has been responsible for the recent bouts of graffiti and vandalism.

  In apprehending this group of people, five of them in all, we took ten people, which shortened our numbers for other projects.

  While we were in the process of arresting the offenders, they fought us with extreme violence, forcing us to call for additional help, depleting our numbers by another ten.

  It was during this fracas that the lookouts spotted a wave of zombies coming for us. The arrest and ensuing violence distracted many people on duty, and because of that violence, occupied more than ten percent of our population. Since we operate on a three shift schedule, this weakened our position terribly. Normally such a group would pose no threat. We take down several a week.

  The wave broke through, and we estimate the number of zombies to reach the second street back at around thirty. As a group, they broke through a partially constructed fence, and the result is that a girl of ten is dead. Her mother is, understandably, inconsolable.

  I have very hard decisions ahead of me, and I am trying to give my rage time to cool before I make them.

  Right now, I am not inclined to mercy.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 4:48 PM

  Hole

  I commented previously that I can't get these recent events out of my head. I guess I shouldn't even be trying to, what with having to come to Big Decisions soon about the fate of the offenders. Oh, how I wish I could feel self-righteously smug about them now depending on the compassion and tolerance they so vehemently derided, but it's all so hollow, and it just makes me feel even more queasy than before. I've had tears running down my face for what seems like forever now; no time for choking sobs or fetal positions, just rushing back and forth across the compound, trying to shore up the defenses, tend to the wounded, all while the tears fall, eerily detached from any other expression of sadness.

  Eva
ns couldn't save her. None of us could, but of course it falls upon the doctor to pronounce her dead. No technology that exists in the world could have saved what was left of her, but her mom carried the too-small, too-bloody bundle to Evans nevertheless, unwilling to give up hope. Evans said little on the matter, as usual, but he looked very tired. "THIS is why you brought me here?" is probably what I would ask, were I him, but as I say, he keeps his thoughts to himself.

  It's probably a small mercy that she was so far gone; I still don't exactly understand this whole zombie outbreak thing, how it started, how it spreads. I for one have not ruled out supernatural causes, but the truth is, I just plain lack sufficient knowledge of science, religion, or magic to figure out any real answers. Some people have had some rather cynical assessments of the responses of our fellow man in the time after the outbreak, but I still wonder if the Marauders weren't somewhat affected by whatever made the zombies, too, like it warped their minds somehow? I don't even know whether I want this to be true or not, because it would sort of excuse their actions, but if they're tainted, they might not be redeemable... Anyway, I know they're probably just scared, angry people who lack or suppress basic empathy, but I'm hesitant to rule out other answers. We may never know what really happened, but that doesn't mean we will stop trying to puzzle it out.