Living With the Dead: The Wild Country

by Joshua Guess

  Shift change will come at four, when the people in the fields will come to relieve us, and the people clearing now will head out to finish whatever's left of the picking, watering, and hauling before coming back to make dinner and help in whatever way is needed. Everyone but my team have their jobs laid out--we just clean up, sixteen hours a day. Which isn't all that bad, to be honest.

  As soon as the cleanup is done, we'll be heading to our next stop. We've managed to get a lot done in our off hours since the attack, because the leadership of the surrounding communities came here to help. They stayed, saving us from running the circuit to them, and in a few short hours the team and I have managed to get all the deals we were going to offer to them hammered out and done.

  That's saved us weeks, in all likelihood. I'm glad this attack happened, which sounds strange. It saved us a lot of time and taught the team and I some brilliant defensive ideas. New Haven will be well served by them, as will everyone else that can use them.

  I'm thrilled we managed to get the other local leaders to hang around. Not having to visit them and getting it all done now is perfect. Yeah, the team and I lost a lot of sleep, but we can now make an uninterrupted run for Mountain View. It's a long drive, but our next stop will take us to Google HQ.

  Finally, I can thank them in person. We won't be staying there long, but the few hours of our visit will be...game-changing.

  I went too long. I hear the bell telling me I'm late for work.

  Sunday, December 4, 2011

  Amnesty Day

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Wow. Not being home has its disadvantages. I've grown used to the fact that I'm not in the middle of all the command decisions around New Haven anymore, but I still usually get a heads-up when big things are going down behind the scenes. What with all the zombies attacking and various outbreaks of crazy shit over the last few weeks, I've been out of the loop.

  Part of this is because I have a big mouth, and I probably wouldn't have been able to keep this news to myself. Starting today, for one week, all marauders will be granted amnesty at any of the communities within the trade network we've established. Any prisoners they may have can be released peacefully with no questions asked, and the captors will be allowed three days of grace to move toward any distant community that will take them. For seven days communities all over the country will be allowing marauders an avenue to escape the horrible cycle they're locked in.

  I have to admit, I'm kind of excited to see how it works. Word from home is that Kincaid and his people have adapted well to New Haven even with the restrictions they've been given. It's nearly impossible to live with the kind of group psychosis it takes to do the things the marauders have done. It must take a toll, and I imagine that many communities will impose punishments or restrictions of their own in exchange for taking in these men and women. I've also been led to believe that most marauders will accept them.

  There will be a darker side to this. I don't see how it can be avoided. There will certainly be people who will not choose to accept a place with other survivors under any circumstances. I imagine this amnesty will cause a huge wave of turmoil among the more hardcore marauders. I can't begin to guess how that's going to play out. Hopefully without bloodshed...

  I'm going to cut this short. There's still cleanup to do, and it looks like we'll be finished by early afternoon. The team and I want to get moving as quickly as possible, so it's time to finish up the job at hand, then pack. We'll be on the road by dinner.

  Monday, December 5, 2011

  The Waves

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We're in California right now, and what I'm seeing is truly incredible. I'm on a beach, sitting back on a towel. I'm eating a hamburger. It's hot and fresh.

  We're not in a major metropolitan area, but the folks back in Harlen were nice enough to send us toward a small group of people that act as intermediaries between the Harlen area communities and Google (and the survivors who live nearby) to the north.

  I even went swimming. Granted, the water is about sixty degrees, so it wasn't for long, but I went. The world is a darker and more scary place than it was two years ago, but I'll be damned if my first trip to the west coast was going to be made without a dip in the ocean.

  It's funny to me that we've faced zombies and other threats, fought for our lives time after time and scrabbled in the dirt to make our own food grow...yet when presented with a safe section of beach and a hot meal, I can fall right back into the old comfortable feeling of the way things were. Right now we're being fueled up to head north (since our last stop was further east and much more southerly than where Google is) and the locals told us to take a load off, enjoy some relaxation.

  Can't say it was a bad idea at all.

  In talking with our hosts, I've learned quite a bit about this area of the country. A lot of people have survived around here, and the zombie population is nowhere near as bad as you'd expect. The sheer numbers of people in places like Los Angeles, for example, kept the zombie population down even as the outbreaks spread. One person would turn, and six would kill the new zombie. Then five. Then four, and so on until the zombies were thinned out to small numbers and the remaining survivors had learned to steer clear of them. Fighting the undead is sometimes necessary, but successfully hiding from them is always smart.

  It helps that California is huge and capable of supporting many different kinds of crops. Yeah, it gets fairly cold here, but nothing close to what we deal with back home. It's about fifty degrees out right now, and it feels good to me. No rain. The guy cooking the burgers (there's a huge cattle farm about an hour from here) is wearing a winter coat. It's unzipped, but still...

  There are also several different industries being kept up in this state aside from the work the good people at Google are carrying out. Estimates are that nearly half a million people are still alive in this state, though I have to think that's probably a very high guess. I'd say realistically about half that, since two hundred thousand is the last number put together by any kind of census. It's enough people to manage large-scale farming all over the state, work metals, even build new structures and vehicles if there are parts available.

  In fact, there is way more than enough being produced here than the various communities need. Moving any of it on a large scale to those of us who want to trade for it, especially as far away as my old Kentucky home, is the problem. Fuel will only last so long. Google is hopefully going to help us come up with a solution.

  I have a few ideas of my own. We should be there by tomorrow night if all goes well.

  Tuesday, December 6, 2011

  Stranded

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Will is not my preferred driver. It's not that he's bad, just that he doesn't pay attention as well as he should sometimes. Take this morning, for example: we decided to take it slow yesterday, camp out someplace cozy and spend some time enjoying the scenery on the last leg up to the Google campus. Naturally, when we hit the road, Will had to slam us into a pothole roughly the size of Jupiter, which had some debris in it. Pointy metal debris.

  We lost both tires on the rear driver side of the truck. Now we've got to go searching for replacements somewhere, which is going to eat up a lot of time. Not to mention the area has a zombie population, though how much of one I couldn't say. It's lucky we're driving a truck that's not uncommon, even though it's the heavy duty six-tire version.

  I'm at the camp we set up next to the truck and trailer. Bill is with me, since he still can't get around very well. He's walking, though, which is a good sign. The crutches look good on him.

  The others are working in one team. Rachel and Becky will provide cover for Will and Steve if they find a suitable vehicle. The girls have proven to be a very strong team, and they seem to have an almost instinctive ability to watch out for each other with little to no prompting. Will and Steve are good, but they are both pretty confident as fighters, maybe a bit too confident. I'm glad they'll be doing the heavy lif
ting portion of the trip. Will and Steve are more suited to it, while the girls are faster and more responsive.

  Yeah. This is me trying to keep myself sane as we're hit with another delay and an avoidable one at that. It's gonna be a long day, even if the first vehicle they come to has what we need. Of course, if the team happens to run across such a thing, we might spend a bit more time stripping spare parts off it.

  Hmm. There are a couple of zombies roaming around the edge of the woods a few hundred feet away. Even from here I can see they're original flavor, shuffling around clumsily and without purpose. We'll keep an eye on them, and put arrows through their heads if they get too close.

  Damn, a few more just followed them out of the woods. I think we've been spotted.

  Thursday, December 8, 2011

  The Slammer

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Those zombies we saw were playing possum with us. They were new breed, pretending to be slow and weak to throw us off. Bill and I had to make the choice on whether to fire at them with guns and risk drawing more of them down on us, or use our bows and maybe get killed. So I made a command decision.

  I tucked Bill into the trailer, as his bad leg wouldn't have let him go anywhere, and I drew them off by running down the road like a madman.

  I know, it sounds stupid and careless, but it really wasn't. We haven't survived on the road for this long by being idiots who don't plan ahead. I snagged my backpack when I left, which holds food for several days, canteens and water purification tabs, and a small battery powered transmitter that gives me about twenty minutes of cell use. More, since my solar charger is with me as well.

  Would have been nice to remember my gloves, but at least I'm wearing my winter coat. It's a bit chilly.

  The portable transmitter was a gift from Harlen, one I hoped never to need. It fits the plans the team and I came up with for search and rescue very well, and while I don't like having to use it, I'm happy to report that I've just been on the phone with Will and the others, who have the truck up and running. They're probably outside my hiding place right now, trying to figure out how to set me free without getting me killed. There's a little town about three miles north of where we were stranded, and the team knew to search in very specific parameters for me. Luckily the transmitter allowed me to save them time and just tell them where I was...

  Hell, I might as well come out and say it. I'm in jail.

  When you have a swarm of thirty undead behind you (I picked up a few on the run here) any secure location is a good location. The doors to the police station were barred and locked, the place looked like no one had been in it since The Fall began. So I dug in my pocket for one of the best survival tools in the world--shavings from the ceramic on a spark plug--and flung it at the glass double doors of the station. They shattered as if I'd put a bullet in them, and I ducked in.

  The zombies were right behind me, maybe twenty feet. The cells were all open, and they were old ones. No electronic locks that I could see. Not that I had a lot of time to look. I grabbed a set of cuffs off the floor as I ran, just in case, and slipped into a cell. I threw the bars shut and locked the cuffs on the door and the stationary portion of the bars, making my own lock. Not that I needed it, as it turns out. The click I heard as I closed the thing was indeed the door lock engaging.

  The zombies came into the station behind me, having been slowed by the doors a little. Guess it took them a minute to figure out how to duck through. They just crowded around the door, watching me. They didn't try to stick their hands in to grab and I wasn't stupid enough to get close enough to tempt them.

  Look at me, talking in the past tense. I'm still locked in here, and they're still out there. I've had a good long time to study this little station house. There are guns here, and what looks like a good supply of ammo. I think I saw a gas pump through the back door as I ran in. Maybe there's still fuel to be had. Got to love these little old police stations, having their own gas delivered. Bless them.

  Bill isn't very happy we made a plan to keep him safe without telling him. He didn't like being left behind, but a sustained attack on the truck and trailer would have led to us getting killed and the team left without a vehicle. I had to run because he couldn't, had to draw off the enemy. Done it before, will probably have to do it again one day.

  I'm irritated that it took so long for the others to get the truck mobile, but apparently there's a real scarcity of giant truck tires that will fit our rig. They got there in the end. They'll get here soon if they aren't already. I just wonder how they're going to kill all these zombies with any kind of safety. Can't fire guns without risking a ricochet hitting me. Even if they manage it, don't know how this door is going to open.

  I'm really hoping there's a key around this place somewhere.

  Friday, December 9, 2011

  Jailhouse Rocked

  Posted by Josh Guess

  When it comes to scaring off zombies, fire usually works really well. When those same zombies have set up a relatively clever defensive position inside a building, something with a little more subtlety is called for.

  God, did I pick the wrong team for subtle.

  You'll be happy to know that I'm no longer trapped in a cell with hungry new breed zombies waiting for me to make a mistake. Will, Rachel, Steve, and Becky tried a frontal assault yesterday, but I shouted at them before they could breach the front doors. They might have cleared the token force of undead left outside to guard, but the majority were in with me. Waiting. About half of them hiding in clever little spots, waiting to drop down on one of my friends, or to snag an ankle from under a desk.

  Becky's idea of subtlety was yelling for me to flip the bunk if possible and cover myself in the mattress to block debris from the explosion.

  Yes. The explosion.

  She's scary at times. Becky had a bit of her homemade dynamite left. We used all the big sticks, but she made some smaller ones for occasions when a whole lot of boom wasn't needed. Three massive waves of compressed air slamming me against the wall later, and the zombies were in a panic. Those that hadn't been incapacitated or outright killed by the blasts (more numerous than you'd think. The explosions weren't that large) were scared out of their minds by the light and noise. They lost all cohesion as a unit, running to escape careless of the dangers.

  My people were ready for them. It was a slaughter.

  We've learned something very important about the new breed with this incident. Old school zombies, excepting smarties, were mindless and unafraid of most things. Fire scared them, and ammonia drove them off. Their sense of smell is a key element to how they operate, I think that's obvious now. But loud noise and brief flashes of light were not the sort of things that ran them off, much less drove them crazy.

  And it wasn't a brief sort of madness the new breed was showing. A human being, when hit with a flash/bang grenade, will have his senses of sight and hearing overwhelmed for a short while. People, living people, have the intellectual capacity to override the panic and confusion that such a device creates. New breed zombies clearly don't.

  That's HUGE. If sound can affect them so strongly, if overwhelming their senses can drive them to mindless fear, then we've got weapons to use against them. I have to assume that ammonia will still work on them since they use their noses like all zombies. I wish I could take the time to test some of the ideas I have. Damn the zombie apocalypse for making me feel like a mad scientist!

  I suppose I should mention that we made it to the Google campus safely. We'll be here the day, then off again tomorrow. I'm going to take tomorrow's post to tell you about a project the engineers here want to attempt on a small scale to see if it's viable. It's neat. I'm eager to tell you!

  But not today.

  Saturday, December 10, 2011

  Trains

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I told you yesterday that the good folks at Google were working on a project. It's a potential game changer. The largest single problem we face as a societ
y is that we aren't one single society anymore. We're a scattering of survivors, most of whom want to trade and deal with each other but limited by the fuel we can find or have stockpiled. Once that's gone, we're back to horse-and-buggy days. Which doesn't do much for sending perishable goods thousands of miles.

  While we're using the massive fuel reserves from Sparta, they won't last forever. There are doubtless millions of gallons of fuel out there, and pretty much everyone has people looking for and gathering it. Again--once those reserves are gone, we're in trouble.

  So the lads and ladies here are working on a solution. They're building a hybrid engine for a train that basically uses alcohol to power a generator to run the electric engine of the train. It's the same thing many trains have done for years with diesel fuel, but this is a fuel we can make ourselves reliably. The really hard part is (apparently, since I'm not a mechanical engineer) getting the efficiency high enough to make long trips. Remember, back home in Kentucky we've got access to tens of thousands of gallons of the stuff, and we've got stills set up to reduce it to pure ethanol.