Living With the Dead: With Spring Comes the Fall (Book 1)

by Guess, Joshua; Hahn, Courtney; Treesong

  I am still listening to them, and even though the conversation I hear isn't world-shaking, it is heartening. My best friend and a man that is becoming something like a best friend, getting to know each other. Growing in understanding. Empathizing.

  Just talking.

  We should all be thankful for chances to do something so normal.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 10:16 AM

  Tuesday, July 20, 2010

  Office Space

  My tour of duty bringing in our new friends from out of town is done. Dave and I have spent so much time working on other things, going out on runs, that our everyday work is getting behind. We are still actively working on the wall, though we have made a lot of progress all things considered.

  We will be finished with it in less than two weeks. One week, if we get enough folks from the new wave of people that know how to swing a hammer. The zombies outside seem almost agitated, as if they know what we are on the verge of but can't do anything about it.

  Roger is still sort of shadowing me. I think his wife and kids are getting worried about the fact that by trying to keep me safe, he is putting himself in a lot more danger than he would normally be exposed to. I keep trying to explain to him that the whole thing is pointless, but now it's getting to the point where it's a little insulting. I mean, I chose to distract the zombies that had him cornered. I made the conscious decision to put myself in danger, and I got away clean, as I have done many times before. He thinks I need some kind of guardian angel? Jeez.

  Part of the problem is that he's older than me, I think. He sees me as a kid, and that seems to be coloring his attitude toward me a bit. Maybe he has some ultra-strong parental drive and his brain is treating me like his own kid. Not too far outside of the box as an idea; we have similar features. Both of us have dark hair (though his is salt and pepper), we're both broad shouldered and blue-eyed, fair skinned, and have small noses.

  But we're making good use of him. Dave and I are good with organization, Dave specialized in construction, and I am a good general engineer. I know a little about a lot of things. Roger hanging out in our office has been surprisingly helpful. His knowledge of metals is truly enormous, and he has the practical knowledge to correct and improve on a huge number of things that my brother and I are working on. If he's going to be around anyway, we might as well use his brain for the betterment of all of us.

  I don't want to make it seem like I don't like the guy. He's a great guy, used to be a minister in his spare time. Built houses for poor folks when he was younger. It's just that he has this infuriating sense of personal honor that happens to clash with my own need for personal space.

  Ok, I'm leaving it there. Too much work to do, and Jess is hollering at me to come help her pick tomatoes, which is about the most strenuous work any of us are willing to let her do. I'm out.

  Cross your fingers for a slow week for zombie attacks, so we can finally and totally enclose this place.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 10:42 AM

  Wednesday, July 21, 2010

  Storms

  It's been storming terribly for over an hour. We are beginning to worry that it's going to get very bad in the compound if it doesn't let up. The good is that our water gathering systems are working like a charm, and we have huge capacities to store it. The bad is that all of the work we've done around here, cutting down trees and altering the landscape, has drastically altered the way rain moves and gathers.

  It does keep zombies at bay for the most part--many of them will just stand still in the rain, seeming confused.

  Just got a call from some folks at the base of the neighborhood. Flooding along the creek is causing serious problems. We are heading out to lend a hand.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 6:48 AM

  Thursday, July 22, 2010

  The Waters

  The storms have let up over the last few hours. We've had to curtail almost all of our activities to keep up with the insane flood waters. We decided to be as proactive as we could, but we didn't have a firm grasp of just how much water we were dealing with.

  Since we clearcut all of the trees inside the compound, we weren't worried overmuch about wind or lightning. But the creek just kept getting bigger and bigger, which at first wasn't all that threatening. I mean, the folks that designed this neighborhood may not have had zombies in mind, but they certainly knew their business with drainage. But time makes fools of us all, and over the years and constant floods around here, the banks became more precarious and fragile. Our concern was for big sections of bank getting sheared away by the water and being swept down to the small bridge on the west side of the compound, and taking it out.

  So we were trying to keep that from happening, and as we worked and struggled, Roger came pelting up to us and made a very good point. That much rain had a very good chance of washing out our food gardens, and pretty much every spare foot of land not set aside for something has food on it.

  It was a long, wet, and tiring day. We ran around here for almost eighteen hours, trying to secure supplies, keep the banks stable, and cover our gardens. We did lose some gardens, and the bridge took enough damage that for now it is only a foot bridge, but nothing too disastrous. It's just lucky that we didn't get any tornadoes, though some insanely high winds did do a lot more damage than we would have thought possible, lacking trees as we are.

  So we are hoping this break in the weather will be long enough to go out and get another load of folks brought in from out of town. We're about halfway done, and I know that they all want to get here as soon as possible. The severe winds and floodwaters on the road seem to have temporarily driven off the zombies. Which makes going out that much easier.

  Anyone out there get slammed with storms as well? If you did, I hope that you managed to get through it safely. It'd be one hell of a joke if nature managed to do to us what a plague of zombies and merciless killers haven't.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 9:02 AM

  Friday, July 23, 2010

  Dear Abby: Clever Zombies

  We've had a good twenty four plus hours without rain, and that makes for strong efforts to start carting in more of the folks from out of town. We're about three quarters the way to having all of them here, and we've sent trucks with them to start bringing in the bulk of their supplies as well.

  Good weather also means zombies, and today was a bad one.

  Several dozen hit here about an hour ago, right after we let the vehicles out. These were fast moving, not at all the shambling husks we're used to. They all looked freshly dead, and they fought hard. They must have been lying in wait for us to open the doors, which is scary for a ton of reasons. It implies some sort of long term thinking, the ability to be cunning and bide their time...they waited until the last vehicle was just going out, and rushed in.

  Thank god we had some smart people on the gate and at the wall. Roger was doing a shift at the gatehouse, and his opposite number for the other gate door, a woman named Abby, both saw the threat and started cranking the gate doors shut. Twenty or so of them got in, but about the same number were shut out. It was quite a ruckus, I'm told, and while we managed to kill the ones that got in with minimal injuries, it took a while to ferret out the last few. The first thing they did when they made it through was split up into twos and threes. More planning. Fucking scary.

  Our folks on the wall came down to hunt the intruders, which is entirely according to the rules, but one straggler noted that as he was leaving the wall, he saw the zombies outside immediately run off, out of the line of sight. So they saw that they were vulnerable and unable to reach us, and they ran for it. I have to wonder if this means that they are rejoining a bigger group. We need to have a council meeting to discuss this, what the implications are. If we are dealing with zombies that are becoming smarter to this degree then we have a problem bigger than any we have faced so far.

  Opponents that can only be killed by head trauma, with the ability to think tactically? Major issue. Worse, what if they figure ou
t that their heads are the weak spot and start protecting them?

  Like I said, council meeting.

  Roger has been on my mind a lot lately, and not only because he made a point to watch out for me like I was his puppy. Which, by the way, he has eased up on considerably. I've been thinking about the kind of man he is, and how I have let myself once again become very distanced from most of the people around me. I've gotten to know him, as have you, because he made it a point to be around me. If he hadn't, I think that he'd probably be another nameless face I wave to when taking a walk. I need to change that.

  Abby, for example. She showed remarkable calm and dedication to duty in the face of immense danger. She acted in the best interest of all of us, even though the zombies ran within feet of her and had to be more frightening than anything we've seen yet. That deserves some attention. All of the residents here do, but today is her turn.

  Abby is tall, thin, and blonde. She takes a lot of pride in maintaining her appearance, which makes sense given that she used to be a model. Not a supermodel or anything, but a regional model that worked in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. She did catalog shoots and the like, stuff that appeared in newspapers. But she's also a mountain girl from eastern Kentucky. She's a miner's daughter, and knows her way around guns. Four older brothers taught her at a young age to be tough, and that toughness served her very well in dealing with photographers and agents that wanted to take advantage of her.

  Of course, it's doing pretty well by her nowadays, too.

  Abby is sitting here talking with me while I type. I am maintaining casual conversation with her, and I don't think that she knows I am writing about her. I don't know if any of this will interest you out there, but her actions saved lives today, and I think that deserves a little recognition. Even if it is just letting people know a little about her.

  She's not dating anyone, and she says its not from lack of trying. I'm not sure how that's possible, but there you have it. She's very patient with me while I take breaks from talking to type, and she laughs a little when I look up in confusion at something she said. Hard to listen to every word when you write.

  She's just finished her shift at the wall, so I think it's time for her to have an early lunch with Jess and I. Maybe the wife will try being matchmaker, I dunno. But after I let people know how her steady hand and bravery kept them safe today, I'm sure that she will get plenty of offers.

  I just wonder how she managed to work the gate wheel so fast without even chipping one of those long, pink nails.

  Abby: Zombie Hunter.

  Ha.

  'Till tomorrow.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 10:26 AM

  Saturday, July 24, 2010

  Far Too Clever

  Working at a desk means that there is a lot more going on than I ever get the chance to tell you about. Mostly due to the fact that there are several hundred people here now, I pass on a lot of stuff that I have to hear about rather than experience firsthand. Such is the case today.

  We sent out our trucks and buses again to pick up another round of new folks, and those smart zombies were out waiting down the road. Not close enough for anyone to see them from the compound, of course, but close enough that we could hear the brakes squeal when human instinct took over for the drivers and they tried not to run the zombies down.

  That encounter wasn't all that frightening. The zombies momentarily swarmed the vehicles, and I assume that they ran away shortly thereafter because they realized that there was no way in.

  So the convoy makes it to the destination, the place where all of our recent newcomers have been safely holed up. Scouts on the tops of our modified vehicles made sure that the area was clear before our crews disembarked. It was all routine, and folks were already moving toward the doors when disaster hit them.

  With no warning, there were half a dozen zombies right at our vehicles. Most folks had their backs turned except for the lookouts, but they couldn't see straight down the sides of the vehicles. In short, conditions were ideal for that half-dozen to deal us a terrible blow. Each of them managed to kill one of us before the lookouts could take them down. Well, all but one was killed. The sixth zombie managed to get away, moving with the speed this new type of undead all seem to have.

  The crews couldn't figure out how they were surprised, until they looked under the vehicles. Smudges and bits of seared skin made it pretty clear that they had to have distracted our drivers in order to get some stowaways lodged in the undercarriages.

  This level of sophistication means we need a council meeting now.

  I want to give you the names and stories of all six of our dead, give them their memorial, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. We have a serious threat that needs attention right now, and frankly it can wait until tomorrow.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 2:08 PM

  Sunday, July 25, 2010

  Recon

  Today isn't the day for pretty words.

  We had a very long and involved council meeting yesterday and most of last night. We finished in the wee hours of the morning, and I just woke up.

  Anyone who has been reading this blog at all in the last few days can skip this paragraph. If you are a survivor who has just now discovered it, keep reading, because this short recap is important. You already know that zombies have managed to destroy society in virtually no time, but you have to know: there are zombies in Frankfort, Kentucky that have developed some limited form of intelligence. Perhaps not intelligence as you would think of it, not human smart, but they are extremely clever and capable of planning ahead.

  So you know.

  The meeting lasted as long as it did not because we were just struck dumb as to what to do about them. After all, we have contingency plans in place to deal with human attackers, since so many of them appear around these parts to try and take our home and resources. No, the problems we were running into were far more mundane. We had to hash out our plans, and see to all the details. Also, the meeting was a lot bigger than usual, since we included many of the new folks that have recently joined us. Evans, our doctor, went over all of his research dealing with the outbreak and its pathology. It's easy to forget that not everyone hears what we do about how zombies seem to work.

  We're sending out some teams to start looking for these clever zombies, see if we can find out where they stay. The idea is to observe them, possibly capture one alive to study. That's as much detail as you need, I guess, since the rest is just logistics.

  Another meeting in a few minutes to pick teams. I can promise you, I won't be one of them this go round. My wife will stab me in the face if I run off again this soon. But it is important, and I wish I could go. The scientist in me (well, the science nerd, anyway) relishes the idea of taking in so much new and interesting data first hand.

  Damn, the bell is ringing. Meeting time.

  Tomorrow, an appropriate tribute to our most recent fallen. I promise.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 11:17 AM

  Tuesday, July 27, 2010

  The Honored and Clever Dead

  Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, but we have been too busy to do much else but worry. We sent out some groups to observe the new band of zombies, the smart ones. Most of them are still out, though a few came back when part of the band began to head this way yesterday.

  Since then, we have been dealing with these clever bastards non-stop.

  They have been testing our defenses all over the place. Some of them have taken to walking the perimeter of the compound, taking gunshots while another one farther away hides and watches. Some have managed to find weak spots in the wall, places where we haven't been able to close the place in all the way. They keep on coming, and from the early reports we've gotten, there are a fucking lot of them.

  That, we can deal with. Mounting extra patrols and keeping people who are off duty indoors pretty much manages the issue. It's annoying and definitely unnerving, but not an insurmountable problem. I can't say that I like the idea that thes
e things are smart enough to try and figure out our weak spots, but when you think about it, it's really no more than some animals can do. It's just creepy watching a dead body do it.

  The bigger issue is that Evans seems to think that whatever it is that inhabits the bodies of people to make them rise is almost certainly bacterial, and like many bacteria and viruses, it can mutate and spread to already infected hosts. What that boils down to is that he thinks that even one of these things can effectively spread whatever it is that makes these zombies smarter to other, large populations of them. Since one of our stowaways got away from us the other day when our folks were in Lexington (I can tell you now that we have finished moving everything all the folks from the group there, and all of their supplies) we might be in trouble. The good news is that Evans is of the opinion that whatever is in these zombies to make them smarter also needs a host of a certain quality.