Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons

by Joshua Guess

  In the wait before the swarm could get to us I sent out call after call, shot emails to people, and generally did everything I could to all of the folks headed this way to warn them off. I even contacted Google to make sure they warned the courier carrying the copies of the Ark to stay away if he was anywhere near, though I strongly doubt he could be this early in his trip.

  Long story short? Messages received. Patrick and Aaron's group were the only ones to not eventually get back to me, and I desperately hope that they were holed up somewhere safe and not anywhere close to here in hopes of getting in.

  The attack went badly from start to finish. We had a lot of ammo here, or at least a lot for the way we fight. Our philosophy is to conserve as much as possible, the way my survival instructors (bless them for having such a dim student but trying anyway) taught me. Primarily we have used our firearms as long-range weapons and backups in close combat, instead relying on edged weapons, crowbars, makeshift clubs, and the like.

  We really didn't have a lot of options when the swarm hit the wall of the parking lot, zombies trampling their own kind and piling up until the back ranks could just walk to the top of the wall. Not to mention the hundreds beating on the barricaded and boarded windows on the ground floor of the hospital, few as they are. We started picking off those that we could, Jess up on the roof using her rifle along with others who had long guns. The rest of us, including those with shotguns, used the windows on the second floor as our firing platforms. I hung halfway out of one for most of an hour, a kid reloading my magazines for me and handing them up. It was insanely difficult to fire accurately that way for me. I'm right handed but have a dominant left eye for sighting when I shoot, so I have to angle my head sharply to even get the ironsights to line up.

  That was pretty stressful. I pretty much stuck to firing at the ones coming over the wall, and I tried to take headshots whenever one of them came over the section closest to me. The sad truth is that with the number that got over and into the parking lot, it was only a matter of time before they beat their way through the heavy stuff we put in front of the doors. Most of us using handguns decided to get down to the ground floor and set up a killzone there before that happened.

  When the inevitable happened, every single person with a firearms was needed.

  We formed lines in a V shape near the door, the point of the V away from the doorway. The front row of us (myself included) were kneeling, a helper behind us reloading our magazines and speedloaders. Behind them, riflemen and women stood, popping off shots and aiming at distant zombies through the shattered remains of the door.

  It actually worked out a lot better than we'd hoped for. There didn't have to be a lot of us in the V at one time. It took the zombies a while to get in, which gave us a bit of time to set up a sequence for us to fire in so that no one wasted bullets. The undead had to fight the heavy vending machines and other junk we'd piled in front of the door out of the way. Then when they crowded the way in, we let loose with a salvo to drop as many of them in one place as possible.

  For a while it was a simple matter of people on the right of the V firing at the right side of the double doors, and those on the left shooting at the left. In order according to the simple sequence we'd put together. It was simple to maintain that, and it took the zombies time to move the still bodies of their fallen out of the way enough to get in.

  It went that way for a while. Pile up dead zombies, watch as zombies became visible and tried to move them, pick off the movers to make the pile bigger. We were methodical, thorough, and calm, at least on the outside. Those that weren't actively in lines patrolled around the rest of the ground floor, making sure no breaches popped up. The main door to the parking lot was our big worry, since that was the one portal to the outside we used, and we hadn't taken the herculean efforts to keep it closed that we had on the rest of the building.

  No breaches. But the swarm pushed us to our limits; it was only the narrow entryway combined with coordinated effort that kept us from breaking and getting slaughtered. Bless my firearms instructor (my brother David) for helping me to learn my favored shooting stance, for teaching me the right way to hold my arms. And bless all the people with me for keeping cool heads during an attack that, by all rights, should have killed us.

  We managed to stay alive. We took down a LOT of zombies. My .40 caliber Glock 27 has been my constant companion right along with my wife, and it performed beautifully yesterday.

  But guns are just clunky rocks without bullets. And we're out.

  Not totally. We've got a few left for the odd small caliber weapons here and there, a handful of deer slugs for a couple shotguns. Jess has five rounds left for her 30.06. That's about it.Thank god we were using old ammo that came boxed, and not the homemade rounds. I've been told that using hard cast bullets would eventually cause my Glock to go...boom. We went through virtually every round we had, though the constant hail of gunfire was apparently enough to send the remains of that swarm away looking for an easier meal. Or maybe it's the smell of zombies made finally dead that overpowers their hunger in situations like this. I don't know. Never did figure that out.

  Because we have no other choice, we're leaving. Not in a few days or when we get a chance. Before lunch. We knew there were circumstances that might make us leave, and this is one of them. We can't defend this place against a similar attack again and hope to survive it, so we're heading out for our next destination. Where we're headed, I'm not worried about not having much ammunition. We've got some locals (Well, they live within an hour of here, anyway) willing to shepherd us out of the area in return for what will be left of the medical supplies here after we take what we need. It isn't great, but we planned for it.

  Oh, and sometime during the attack, the soldier we had tied up got himself loose and escaped. We managed to interrogate him before he got away, but the information he gave us was virtually worthless. Given the state we left him in, I doubt he'll get far. I don't really care if he does get back to the compound at this point. We'll be gone for a new location before he gets halfway there.

  He's on foot. Since he didn't want to respond to us asking nicely, we had to take very drastic measures. When I say he's on foot, I mean it in the most singular way possible. We tossed the one Evans cut off him out into the parking lot. Guess a zombie ate it.

  Time to finish packing, load up the dogs, and hit the highway for a while.

  at 9:43 AM

  Friday, January 7, 2011

  A Pause

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Posting this from the road, though we aren't moving at present. There's been a flat tire up the way in our gigantic convoy, so we've got a bit of a break at the moment.

  Fuel is going to be a problem. We are probably going to have to stop somewhere soon and try to siphon what we can from parked cars, because we're getting low on what's in our tanks and all our extra cans are empty. Other than logistical problems, our trip away from the hospital has been uneventful. No raiders out on the roads, and few enough zombies that we didn't bat an eye at driving right through the ones we did see.

  We're OK on food and water. Rationing has been a part of our lives for so long that none of us even really notice the hunger pangs anymore. It helps that when we stopped last night to camp, Jess was able to take down a buck. Only took her about twenty minutes, which was surprising. And she did it with one of the bows we brought instead of wasting one of her last bullets. Lucky for us that this part of the country is a lot like Kentucky in that it's swarming with whitetail, more so since The Fall and the decimation of the majority of hunters. If it weren't for survivors thinning the numbers, I'm sure that there would be so many deer that we'd be stepping on them to get into our tents.

  None of us are happy about leaving the hospital. It was a great location with a lot of positives to it, but knowing that our prisoner found us in the first place was reason enough to leave. Add to that his escape and our spent ammunition stores, and it was just a disaster waiting to happen
. Leaving was the only sane choice.

  Luckily, Gabby and the other medical folks built up a lot of good will in their time at the hospital. There are people as far as two hundred miles toward where we're going who are willing to let us camp on their land or know a safe place. One of them even has a big hoard of fuel he's willing to let us trade for, though he's far enough away that we'll have to find gas soon to have a chance at getting to him.

  Not much else to report at the moment. We're about a hundred miles away from the hospital, and if we can avoid accidents and any more flat tires, we can be there by night time tomorrow. It's a long drive, and we're out of the way of the major highways that lead to it, but in the end it will be worth the trip, I guarantee.

  For now, I have to go. Looks like snow coming in, and while we're stopped I want to check to make sure the tire chains are where they're supposed to be. If the snow gets bad, we can always camp, but I would prefer to be closer to our goal than we are right now...

  at 8:49 AM

  Saturday, January 8, 2011

  Public Opinion

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We're not very far from our destination, but we've called a halt for a while. We would be getting there several hours early, but we have to stop yet again to pull one of our convoy from a ditch and to look for some fuel. With the insanely cold winds, we're having to run our heaters at full blast to keep from freezing inside our cars. It eats fuel, and the cold hurts our fuel efficiency as well.

  I've been trying my best to keep in touch with people every chance I get, to make sure everyone who's outside the compound and headed in the same direction we are is OK during their travels. Patrick is still missing in action along with the kids he picked up in Florida, no word from him in a long while. I keep sending him text messages letting him know what's going on with us, so hopefully he'll get them at some point and meet us at our destination.

  Aaron and his kids are still out of contact as well. It worries me, but I know they will get in touch when they can...

  Courtney and the big group with her is still trucking along, but now they're done with their relief efforts and heading toward us. It's been a long and fruitful trip for them, and they will be bringing with them much in the way of supplies and food. More on that in a minute. First, some news.

  Dodger and Jamie Packard have been trying to gather up as many refugees from the compound as possible. Both of their groups were helping, and now they're done. Except for those named above and my group, every other refugee from the compound is now with them. They, too, are heading to the rendezvous point we discussed, and with any luck sometime in the very near future every refugee will be together. The email I got from Dodger detailing his and Jamie's efforts to gather and transport everyone was interesting, I might pass it along tomorrow, or at least summarize for you.

  If you're looking for a complete list of the people who got out, sorry for you. I don't know most of them by name, and those that I do know have asked me not to use their names. The folks that don't mind have already been named--Me, Jess, Patrick, Courtney and her bunch, Evans, Gabby and her family, Phil and his, Dodger, Jamie...maybe a few others. I wish that I could add more names to that list. Rachel is still, as far as I know, at the compound. Al and Elizabeth are there, and a few others that I haven't mentioned in a while. Too many left behind in the panic to avoid conflict. Too many away from home because of Will Price's speed in selling us out.

  I haven't talked about him in a while. I've tried to stay clear of talking too negatively about the Richmond soldiers in general, so as not to antagonize them. But from the communications I've been able to glean from inside the compound, how I or anyone else feels about them is of least concern. Right now the soldiers are doing everything they can to quiet a fractious and unruly subjugated populace without killing anyone and inciting a riot.

  I don't know what the hell they expected. I mean. you don't show up in overwhelming force and think that the natives will welcome you with open arms. You certainly don't expect a group of survivors, hardened killers all, to meekly allow you to have your way with their personal freedoms. It just doesn't make sense.

  Will swore that the reason he gave us up to the Richmond soldiers was to keep us alive. I don't believe it for a second, and for one simple reason: if that was his only intent, he would have tried to drag out his conversation with the soldiers' leader for as long as possible. We would have started the evacuation if he had just told us he was going to delay them with talk. Another twenty minutes might have given us another fifty people out of the compound.

  He didn't. And as a result, there are now somewhere around 250 people still living there, compound citizens who stayed behind. I've been slowly feeling them out for information, trying to figure out from what they've been able to tell me what the soldiers would do in reaction to a variety of things...

  So, tomorrow I'll tell you where we're going. After we've gotten there. I'll let the reaction of the fuckers who took my home from me be the guiding factor behind where we go from there, and what steps we take. If this sounds annoyingly vague, I apologize. I still have to get there first, and talk to the others still on their way. Just the IDEA of our destination is enough to make me worry what might happen to the people back at the compound, but the consensus back home is to stick it to the bastards, make them get worried.

  So I will. Tomorrow.

  We'll let them sweat a bit over it first.

  at 10:12 AM

  Sunday, January 9, 2011

  Onward To Ragnarok

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Sometimes it's easy to forget that people read this blog and find hope in it. I began Living With the Dead as a warning when I and others around me saw the violence around the country for what it was. We hoped we were wrong, we hoped that we would be made fun of in a few days when the whole thing blew over. We didn't expect it to happen. We were right.

  In the time I've been writing this, it has transformed from a basic log of my life, my perspective, during The Fall into something else. Many of you have been there from early on, reading about the lives of the handful of people who formed what would become the compound. You followed along as we struggled to wall in our home, to bring in more people. You watched as many others chose to join us and lend their strength to ours. It took months to make our home secure, and more cooperative effort than I had thought we were capable of. Eventually, though, we did it. We became a unified community, efficient and powerful in the needs that arose to ensure our survival.

  We lost it all in a single day.

  We've fought the undead in the thousands. Killed and outsmarted marauders and raiders time and time again. The citizens of the compound have always struggled to retain the hope for peaceful coexistence during the violent times that define us. We've been practical and sacrificing when necessary. Today is the day when that gets put to the test.

  I've told you that I have been in contact with numerous people still inside the compound and under the thumb of the Richmond soldiers who took it from us. I've been talking with them at every opportunity to feel out their views on what the next move of those who escaped should be. All of us on the outside have been cautious to the extreme, doing everything we can to make sure that our actions don't put those left at home in danger.

  The overwhelming response I've gotten from our trapped citizens whose safety has been paramount for we refugees?

  "Take back the compound. By any means necessary."

  Understand what I'm telling you here: our folks at home are willing to risk everything to oust the Richmond soldiers from our home. And they want the soldiers to know it. To see it coming. To know that they will be reaping the consequences of taking our home.

  I wish it were that simple. I don't have a personal army to call on, no troops to send at them to reclaim what's ours. However, I am done with pussyfooting around the issue. Every refugee is now clear on the facts. The folks back home want their oppressors to know that somewhere down the road, there will b
e a fight. We're fine with them knowing that.

  Now that the majority of survivor groups we've worked with or been in contact with have agreed to embargo the Richmond soldiers, the situation has changed. Now there are 250 hostages back home as the only barrier for us taking the place back. There won't be anyone joining the soldiers in the fight when it begins. They will be a little less than a hundred against whatever we can throw at them.

  Someday, we'll have the weapons and people, transports and fuel needed to make that happen. Because this blog represents who we are as a community. It represents the mindset and desires of the people who made the compound, who helped it grow. It gives hope to some people out there that people still exist who listen to the voices of the better angels of their nature.

  The message is clear: We will allow no tyrants. Though the soldiers might kill every last person left at the compound, the only purpose such an act would serve would be to make us angry and remove the last barriers for us to level the place around them. We will teach them someday that death is better than enslavement.