Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land (Book 3)

by Joshua Guess

  Now look at us. We used to take such pride that we as a people had avoided the worst the zombies could do to us--death. Not so long ago we were damned happy to put in a long day on the wall with the knowledge that our foresight and hard work had prevented us from falling into the desperate situations so many other survivors have faced. We weren't starving waifs huddling in darkened houses. We weren't suffering. We were strong.

  Even a few weeks ago things were still relatively intact. Sure, there were tensions and trouble, but we were still a viable community that believed in itself.

  And now, doubt chips away at the compound. First small flakes of the mortar that holds us together, and now larger chunks are falling. We have fallen into desperately chaotic struggle to survive that we've avoided for so long. I find myself getting angry when I realize the small bowl of stew I've finished will be my only food for twelve hours.

  I look around me and see so many thin faces, so many haunted looks, and I realize that The Fall has happened to us all over again. I used to wonder what drove men and women to become marauders, and I had a hard time seeing the cause from my comfortable perch in front of my computer, safe behind my principles and sedated by a full belly.

  Now, I understand. What fools we've been.

  The cracks are getting deeper.

  Friday, July 22, 2011

  Babel

  Posted by Josh Guess

  When men and women come together to build something, it can be a glorious thing. As you can guess from the title of this post, I can't help but liken the compound to the tower of Babel. If you don't know the story, a brief synopsis: after the great flood, humanity came together in a single place and spoke a single language. People lived and worked together in harmony toward common goals and needs.

  God didn't like that, so he came on down and scattered them to the four corners of the Earth and confused their languages. There was no reason given for this--God simply did a thing, and the parable is meant to give origin to the diversity of human language.

  I'm not one to blame unseen powers that be, but I can't help seeing the parallels between what we've tried to do here and the eventual fate of Babel.

  As I type these words, men and women are slaving over deer and other kills, trimming every scrap for the stew pots, though we are saving some choice bits for our pets. A few people suggested eating the compound's dogs and cats, even my ferrets. I argued hard on that one: the cats keep vermin down to a minimum, my ferrets keep my garden and Pat's free of bugs.

  The dogs are coming in handier than we'd have thought. So many of us are weak from hunger that it's becoming difficult to man sentry posts and guard rotations. The solution was simple, and another of Will's many ideas. So now we have dogs trotting along the walkways on the walls. They bark like mad when they see zombies getting close, and the zombies go nuts when they hear dogs barking so close to them. It must be reptile-brain instinct. One of the dogs jumped off the wall and even went after a few of the undead, and they ran like scared little bitches instead of trying to kill the pup.

  All of that is nice, but no matter how much I might wish it, there's no distracting from the hard truth that the compound as a community is falling to pieces. All the recent troubles might not have savaged us so badly if we hadn't been made weak by hunger. It's damn hard to concentrate when your stomach feels like it's eating itself all the time.

  I don't know if some of our social issues would have been easier to manage, even salvageable, if we weren't going hungry all the time. It's possible. Brings to mind the old saying that any civilization is only a few missed meals away from barbarism. We're not quite to that point yet, but it's getting harder to muster people to do anything other than hunt.

  We've even expended the last of our bullets. Jess brought down several animals this morning, but now that she's used up the last few bullets for her rifle she's down to archery like the rest of us.

  There are more people talking about leaving, but no one seems to have definitive plans other than the folks from Tennessee. I don't know how any of them are going to manage without food to eat on the road, and we have nothing left over. Nothing at all.

  Not everything is awful, though. I've been in touch with North Jackson off and on over the last few days. Their soldiers returned home without incident, and they're talking about sending a caravan out to meet our friends from out west who are gathering a shipment of food for us.

  It's good to know that even as the social order here at home unravels, others are taking up the challenge of being leaders. Of being unified.

  They're good people.

  I've been using my free time, of which I have a lot now that basic social order has broken down (there has to be a silver lining to that, doesn't there?), by working on the abandoned project I started when the zombie plague began to fence in the block my house is on. It's not all that much work, since we got about half of it done before we started in on the big wall. The rest of my block is open, and Pat and I have been bringing in pieces of debris from the destruction going on over in the annex to make a wall. It's just another safeguard in case the main wall is breached. A fallback point, if we need it.

  I don't know if there will be enough usable materials from the annex to finish it. My brother is pretty thorough with his demolition, but Dave knows we want the raw materials, so maybe he'll actually tamp down the urge to break everything and come through for us.

  I have to build. I have to accomplish something. If not, if I waste the little energy I gather from the small portions of food I get by sitting around and moping, then I've lost. I might as well open up my wrists. I'm not blaming the folks that can't muster the strength to do much else but breathe--this is a personal thing, and I'm only talking about myself. I can't stay idle. Even if I fall over and die from the insane heat outside right now, it'll be worth it. Because I know that I'd done something right up until that last second.

  For me, the way things are right now, that would be enough to set my soul at ease.

  Monday, July 25, 2011

  Cornering the Market

  Posted by Josh Guess

  It's been a long and trying weekend. No major battles or anything, just the humdrum activities of daily life: the oppressive heat, ceaseless hunting trips. and helping the people from Tennessee prepare to leave.

  As it turns out, they aren't going far. The departing group have decided to go to Shelbyville. They're going to use the facilities left behind by the poor souls who lost their lives to disease there. There is ample hunting available, and I'm sure patches of crops we haven't found yet. I'm glad to know they'll be close, especially considering a few of the women going are very pregnant. We may not have much in the way of food, but we've still got two doctors on staff and a good amount of medical supplies.

  As a matter of fact, Gabby and Phil have had an idea that seems too good to pass up.

  You may remember that during our exile, Evans and Gabrielle met Phil while they were running a traveling clinic. Most of our homeless medical personnel managed to survive by trading their services and supplies for food and other vital goods. Gabrielle, as it turns out, has not been idle lately.

  She's had her nose buried in my copy of the Ark, the huge collection of information furnished to us by the people out at Google. I'm sure she's been indulging her endless curiosity to some extent, but mostly she's been learning how to do some very important things from scratch. Like making gauze and bandages among many other useful things. The most important?

  Antibiotics.

  She's even gotten started. Didn't want to get anyone's hopes up until she had some kind of results, so it came as a surprise to all of us. Granted, they're simple and probably not as effective as the pills we've all gotten used to, but she has done it. As far as I know, Gabrielle is the first person to manufacture new medicine since The Fall. She claims that with enough materials and time, she can make literally tons of the stuff. She's going to be focusing on this right now, because she's been in touch with a few other grou
ps of survivors.

  Funny how people swear they don't have any food to give you when you're begging for help, but when you have access to a commodity that will save lives suddenly there are hundreds of pounds of the stuff just lying around for trade.

  You might be able to tell, but just to be clear--I'm smiling right now.

  Just when things seemed darkest, there is this spark of hope. If Gabby can produce medical supplies in sufficient quantity for us to trade, there is a good chance we'll be able to make it. I have many people with free time on their hands that would love nothing more than to help her. I'm not counting on this working, but I'll be damned if I keep a cynical outlook on it. Have to be positive sometime, right?

  Tuesday, July 26, 2011

  Trade Goods

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Gabrielle would like me to make it very clear that she has only been able to produce a very small amount of antibiotics so far, and that they're far inferior to the stuff we used to get back before the world went crazy. She's not even sure they'll work, and there are all sorts of kinks to work out.

  I want to assure you that I'm way more excited about some of the other stuff she's learned how to make. Yes, the possibility of Gabby turning her little lab experiment into useful medicine to fight disease would be awesome. Just as important is something she figured out along the way--how to make large quantities of topical antibiotics from natural sources. I was almost shocked at how easy it was once she explained it to me. The only problem we'd have is coming up with a material to act as a carrier, but Jess thinks she's got that covered.

  I may seem a little more upbeat today, and there is good reason: yesterday one of our hunting parties found a church about sixty miles from here that was absolutely packed with cans of soup. The place served as a community pantry of sorts, taking donations and handing them out to people in need. I guess they also bought in bulk from the good people at Campbell's, because our folks found two pallets stacked with the stuff.

  All told, there were almost eight thousand cans. That seems like a lot, and it is. One of the pallets was old, really, old. The cans stacked on it were expired by ten months, and we don't think chicken noodle soup is worth the risk...

  However, the other one still has a year to go, so we've got almost four thousand cans of tomato soup ready to roll. With the number of people we have right now, they'll go quick given how short we've been on food. Still, it's a good feeling to know we can regain some of our strength.

  The hunting parties have been doing fairly well, though it's getting difficult to find easy game around here that isn't fish. The woods south of the compound were stripped almost bare by the zombie swarm that nearly killed us. We've decided not to hunt in a wide area between here and Shelbyville, where our departing citizens will be taking up residence. The council, or at least the members we can gather at present, have a strong desire to see them succeed in building a place for themselves, so we're leaving off hunting in that direction if we can help it.

  Small victories, but we'll take them. We're only desperately hungry rather than teetering on the edge of starvation.

  I've got a meeting with the council in a few minutes. They have something important to discuss, and since I'm *technically* a member, I should be there. I haven't got the slightest idea what it might be, but it would have to be a big deal to pull even the dozen folks that will be there away from hunting. It seems as though some things are getting back to normal, or at least moseying toward it. It may not be long before we can get organized again, and have people working on projects like they used to. I know my protective equipment could use a little repair...

  Wednesday, July 27, 2011

  Specialism

  Posted by Josh Guess

  So...I had an interesting conversation with the rest of the council yesterday. With the chaos around here lately (the least of which was a small zombie assault on the northeastern corner of the compound yesterday. Thirty of them, which was a snap compared to what we've faced recently) many lines of communication have been fragmented. Everyone has been doing different jobs as they are needed, and there is no real organization. Aside from hunting, I've done a fair bit of construction work with my brother, spent a few shifts cooking in the mess, and picked more tomatoes than any man could count.

  The point being, I've been out and about. I'm usually the contact point between us and the other groups of survivors out there. Courtney does a lot of that as well, since she's our diplomat, but because until recently I was always working on my laptop, it was easier for me to keep in touch with other groups.

  In the last several days, other citizens, most of them on the council, have been doing that. Indeed, they've been organizing all kinds of trade agreements and arranging shipments for the basic, topical antibiotics Gabrielle is working on.

  I was asked to bend my efforts toward organizing the whole process. To coordinate workers to gather and process the base ingredients, schedule training sessions with Gabby so others can learn how to do it. I'm also to negotiate details for trade with some of the outside groups, mostly people that are used to dealing with me and are slightly distrustful of others.

  I can't say I'm overwhelmed with this idea. The way everyone in the council meeting was talking, they think we can become a viable presence in the trade between survivors. That we can manage to produce enough medical supplies to survive that way without having to produce anything else for ourselves. I'm not a fan of that. I've always liked being a generalist, and the compound has (so far) had the same attitude.

  Making our own weapons and armor, along with a hundred other things, gives us a degree of security that is truly significant. We didn't have to rely on others to arm our people or to supply our food. Specialization, as the wise man once said, is for ants.

  I do see the merit in it, though. Right now we've got some pretty useful items being made if on a smaller scale than you might think. There are people out there who are flush with extra food to trade, and while our windfall of slightly stale soup is helping a lot, it will only last a little while. We need to build up reserves, and right now we are barely eating enough to keep from losing more weight, much less put on the pounds all of us lost.

  It's against my inclination to focus on one item so deeply, but there are truths in front of us that can't be ignored: the zombies are attacking again, we're still dangerously close to the edge of starvation, and without some kind of trade we're going to stay there.

  For now, I'll just consider this an opportunity to make some seriously helpful gains in the short term, and let the long-term come as it may.

  Thursday, July 28, 2011

  Rebirth

  Posted by Josh Guess

  So much of the focus around the compound lately has been given to our food shortages, the large zombie attack that almost wiped us out, and the tension between so many of our people that some things have just been ignored. It's understandable considering how important all that has been, but for the moment we've got more than enough to eat, our rebellious faction has been exiled, and the undead are attacking only in small groups. So...

  There's been a debate going on for a long time now inside the compound. It's been a quiet one, talked about over dinner or in the spaces between work and off-time. The question has been raised time and again whether or not we should rename this place. We've been calling it "the compound" for so long that it's stuck as a name, but it still sounds to many of us (including me, and I named the damn place) like a place where cultists join together to challenge authority and drink kool-aid.

  I miss kool-aid.

  There have been a lot of names thrown into the hat, but none of them have struck a chord with anyone. It's hard enough to name a pet, much less something as big as a community. How can we come together as a group to choose a name that represents all of us and what we stand for? It's daunting, let me tell you.

  The thing is, we all really want to come up with a new name. "The Compound" works, but it doesn't describe us in any way.
We've evolved and changed, and we want a name that inspires.

  The other day I pointed out that our group has been relatively lucky in that we hadn't faced many of the privations that other groups of survivors have. I noted how that had all changed, and it has--we're dealing with every single problem that could have arisen pretty much all at once.

  Things are getting better. We've been teetering on the edge of starvation, and now we've working our way out of that hole. It's slow going, but several days of good hunting and great fishing means three full meals a day. Some of us are even starting to gain some weight back.

  Our walls, so sorely tested during the recent siege of zombies, are being rebuilt and reinforced. My brother Dave is even planning a HUGE project that I'll be shedding light on tomorrow. He's got to double check a few things first, but it's looking good...