Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land

by Joshua Guess

  What you have before you is a book, but it's not a novel. Living With the Dead is an experiment in writing, a story told in real time, as if the author (me) were living the events day by day. That makes it a different experience than you might be used to. There is little to no dialog. Really, there are few aspects of this story that match the standard method of storytelling.

  As you read, instead think of LWtD as a lost journal, which should be easy since it's written in blog format. You're reading the words of people who wrote about a world as they experienced it, mainly from the perspective of one person. The blog format gives a very in-depth and detailed examination of the world after The Fall. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then travel on. I think you'll enjoy yourself.

  Joshua Guess

  Visit JoshuaGuess.com for the latest updates on my work.

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  Also feel free to check out some of these Stellar authors on their repsective pages:

  Author, editor, and word-doctor extraordinaire Annetta Ribken (who provides the introduction for this volume) can be found at WordWebbing.

  Joesph Paul Haines, author of many short stories and the upcoming YA novel Marooned hangs his hat at JosephPaulHaines.com

  Lori Whitwam, author of the upcoming Romance Novel Make or Break, published by Etopia Press, is located at LoriWhitwam.com

  Eden Baylee's first book, the erotic collection Fall into Winter, is available now. You can follow her on Twitter or check her out at EdenBaylee.com

  The Hungry Land

  Book Three of

  Living With the Dead

  Joshua Guess

  This, the third installment of the historical document (called a 'blog' in the setting of the document itself) called Living With the Dead, is of particular note. Preserved and unaltered, the archives show that this section of the author's narrative begins a year after the release of the plague, almost to the day. The two previous collections, each in six month increments as this one is, each present different aspects of the challenges faced by the survivors of The Fall.

  It is important to remember that during the first year of The Fall, the author and his fellow survivors faced many outside threats. This volume should be considered an integral part of the histories for one reason if for no other.

  Herein, the survivors see the potential threat they are to themselves.

  --Addendum attached to the third six month cycle of Living With the Dead, attributed to the lead archivist, initials AJG

  Tuesday, March 1, 2011

  Chains of Karma

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Yesterday was brutal for everyone. The process of switching out guards so that every person would have a chance to make an appearance at Will Price's trial was way more demanding than I expected. That being said, we did manage it. Trial concluded, verdict read to the populace.

  I won't leave you in suspense. Will is alive.

  Rich did an amazing job in his capacity as our judge. He listened patiently to every piece of testimony, every argument and reason why Will should be allowed to live or put to death, depending on the person talking. Hell, in the four hours I was there, Rich didn't even get up to take a leak, and he was drinking water pretty steadily all day.

  I have to say, I'm actually pretty happy with this result. I heard so much about Will's actions while the compound was occupied by the Richmond soldiers that it's hard to remember it all. Many, many accounts of him helping people steal food so their families wouldn't starve, or standing up to one of the soldiers when they'd try to intimidate one of our people. He did a lot of good, but the unavoidable reality that it was his actions that brought the soldiers here in the first place couldn't be ignored.

  His reasoning for doing so was sound. Will explained, again, that when the burden of leadership fell to him, he made the choice to allow the soldiers in if the other option was all-out war. Will was in the best position to know exactly how well our defenses would have held up to the enemy, and according to his own testimony, we'd have basically been fucked from the get-go.

  The Richmond soldiers were desperate for food. That's the entire reason they came here. See, at first they stayed at the base, guarding the truly epic amount of incredibly dangerous weaponry there against theft from dangerous groups. After so many months, though, their supplies started to get low. Hunting wasn't doing the trick, and they hadn't the time or knowledge to farm effectively. Will, in the brief time he talked to Frank Cardwell, the man who led the soldiers, learned that they were going to give us three chances to surrender. For each refusal, they would drop a mortar on us. They'd scouted the land around the compound and found a hill that would have let them do that with ease.

  So, Will gave us up to save us. I believe that, I think, even though I feel he went about it in the wrong way. A lot of people agree with me. The problem is, about half of them don't think his good deeds during the occupation quite make up for causing the occupation itself. One last act that I haven't told you about was what changed the minds of some the people who wanted him to get a death sentence.

  Over the last few months, discipline among the soldiers grew lax. Surrounded by a good number of women, some of the boys from Richmond started getting very...forward. Most of them took getting shot down and moved on, but at least three men actually attempted to rape our women. The first time, the lady fought off the soldier. The second time, the act was interrupted by another soldier who stopped it. That was when Will let his former brethren that if another woman was assaulted, he would personally kill that man. In front of people.

  The third attack came, and it succeeded. When the news got to Will, he hunted down the man in question and without warning came up behind him and cut his hamstrings. He pulled the crippled soldier across the compound, right up to the theater, people following the spectacle. Will announced the man's crime in front of the crowd, and then castrated him right there, leaving him to bleed to death.

  For that act, Rich ultimately decided that Will should be allowed to live. Not as a free man, mind you, but a life in chains is better than no life at all. Will's primary duties will be dangerous ones--ferrying people back and forth between the compound and the nearby farms (the zombies are causing a lot of problems at the farms now, more on that tomorrow) as well as doing whatever life-threatening work we need done, such as repairing the roof of the sniper tower. That kind of thing.

  Rich's decision, however, came with a strange set of conditions: Will is not allowed to eat at any communal meal like those we serve at the house we use as a mess hall. He's allowed to drink from the creek, but any food must explicitly be given to him by a citizen of the compound in good standing. Similarly, a citizen in good standing may ask him to perform any task that does not directly injure him, so long as it accomplishes useful work, and Will must obey. Think about all the things that even we, the citizens of the compound, take for granted--food, clothes, shelter, even a haircut. Will must be given anything by a citizen. He simply isn't allowed to receive communal goods or services. Only help from individuals.

  His Karma will be the shackles that hold him. He has done a terrible wrong to the people here, but his intent was to save lives. I believe that Will Price is a good person who has made bad decisions. His life, from here on out, will be in service to the very people he betrayed with those good intentions. Last night it got very, very cold, yet he slept outdoors because no one offered him shelter. I wonder how long people will watch him suffer before they offer help? I didn't, honestly, because a part of me wanted to see what fate did to him. You can die from exposure when it's twenty degrees warmer out than it was last
night. Yet, he lives.

  Oh, and before you start berating us for not having him in literal chains--he is, when not on active duty at a regular assignment. Anything he has to do for a citizen, he wears chains for. If he's on compound business, there are people with him, guards that would be there anyway, to watch him. It's not a pleasant existence, but it's living. Can't say that I'd turn it down if it was offered to me in his situation.

  You know, I've been so wrapped up in the liberation of the compound, Will's trial, and a million other things that I almost forgot that tomorrow is a big day...do you realize what it is?

  Wednesday, March 2, 2011

  Loadbearing

  Posted by Josh Guess

  As it turns out, Will is going to be given the shittiest job possible, and that description is as literal as it's possible to be. He will be part of the detail that ferries people to and from the farms, workers and guards alike, but Will gets the job of driving the honey wagon.

  One of the many details that get overlooked by most of us is how we deal with our waste. There isn't such a thing as trash anymore, as we recycle every scrap of what we use. Cans from canned food get sent to the rough building we use to house all scrap metal. Bags emptied of their grain or rice get re-purposed to hold other things. Packaging from dry foods, supplies, anything you can think of is saved for future use.

  Since we couldn't waste water to remove our bodily wastes even if we still had running water most of the time (the system here in Frankfort is half gravity, half pump, and we've got running water when the reservoir down the road gets filled by the rain) we wouldn't waste it on toilets. We stock water up for the hard times when we don't have rain. No, our refuse is separated into two parts, solid and liquid. Urine goes into buckets, the buckets emptied out into barrels, and the barrels are distilled. The water we get from that distillation is saved for plants. The concentrated remains are stored, as I'm told that eventually we'll be able to break it down into something more useful. Chemistry isn't my strong point, so I just take it on faith.

  Solid refuse gets composted. Some here, for the food gardens we have planted all over the compound, but the majority of it goes out to the farms. I know that other groups of survivors out there don't go that far, but we do. It's really gross to think about saving up all of our own excrement to feed the plants that will eventually feed us, but it's necessary. We've got a lot of livestock that we could draw on for this purpose, but frankly it's much easier to use human waste. So, once a day, the honey wagon goes out to take a load (ha!) to one of the farms. The person driving that cart has to sit right in front of it, which isn't fun. It's actually horse-drawn, since during the occupation the soldiers made a point of gathering horses to use (this is about the only useful thing they did--we had been doing this before, but it wasn't regularly scheduled. Not enough horses).

  So Will gets the honey wagon, and will be going out at least once a day to deliver the goods. He gets to shovel it out, and help the farmers mix it with the other stuff that goes into the compost heaps.

  I mentioned yesterday that there was a lot more trouble on the farms than we expected. It's nothing shocking, really, but it does cause a few logistical problems for us. Since we lost a bit less than ten percent of our workforce taking back the compound, many people that came with us from North Jackson have stayed around to help. That's only a temporary solution until we finish repairing the gap in the north wall, though many of the people Gabby and the others gathered along the way have decided to take permanent residence here. Some are still up north, waiting to come to the compound along with a convoy of supplies and other sundries collected while we were refugees. Mason, to my delight, has opted to stay here as a citizen of the compound for the time being, though he has asked to be one of the people that makes trade runs to North Jackson. He has a fondness for that place. So do I.

  Without the support of the NJ folks that are here, we'd be hard pressed to keep the farms safe. Zombies have been trying to raid the livestock, them being an easier target than wild animals out in the woods or humans that can shoot them full or arrows from a distance. Don't get me wrong--people are still food choice number one. But human flesh is hard to come by thanks to the monumental efforts we go to in order to safeguard the lives of our people. So, they settle for other animals, and bump against our walls from time to time in hungry frustration.

  We're having to field a lot of guards at the farms to keep the number of zombies on our lands manageable. It's a huge resource drain, not to mention the dozen other details that go into just having the guards there. Making sure they have food, for one, and water. Making sure they have transport there and back. Rotating them out in shifts, providing weapons, setting up quarters so we don't have to rotate them so often between here and there. It's a nightmare, and thinking about it makes my head hurt.

  I wish we could just build a wall around the farms, but that's never going to happen. Or at least not any time in the next few years. Even if we had the manpower, which we don't, we just don't have enough supplies to make that happen. While we were able to procure machinery that will turn trees into rough boards and posts last year, and we even found someone to modify it to work on an electric motor backed with batteries and solar power, it wouldn't be able to produce enough in a month to cover even ten percent of the area we need protected. We worked it almost to death just working on the compound and the annex next door. It's been working nonstop for days trying to make a stock of boards for the wall repairs.

  Even at full capacity, it wasn't enough for the wall we already have. I don't think I've ever really described it in detail, but it isn't like the old wooden walls of 18th century forts. It isn't a bunch of uniform logs put together by skilled craftsmen. It's a messy jumble in most places. Posts, many of them cannibalized telephone and power poles, make up the basic structure. Between them we've run a mixture of raw logs, rough boards, and every foot of chain link fence we could get hold of. That's actually a hell of a lot, because we used all the stuff we pulled up from the neighborhood that has become the compound, as well as the annex and anywhere else we could find it. The chain link is extremely useful for covering the gaps that are inevitable in a wooden wall, so we've plastered it all over it. Hell, there are parts of cars, pieces of demolished houses, and whatever else we could find to make the thing zombie-proof. It isn't pretty, but we made it work.

  But it did take a phenomenal coordinated effort to get it done. One I just don't think we can replicate. Things here aren't terrible, but the rift between the people who wanted the death penalty from Will and those of us who didn't is there. Not violent, not even really hateful, but a curtain between the two groups as deep and dividing as any religion or political difference has ever been. Add to that the strained food supplies, extra work details out on the farms, and the huge number of injured that can't yet do physical labor to help out, and you end up with an overall bad mojo. It's annoying but not yet dangerous. One of the good things about living with a bunch of survivors is that we tend to be a tough lot. We can put up with just about anything. Just living through the last year is a testament to that.

  So, while there are struggles and effort beyond the norm, we've at least got a handle on them. We see the problems and are working to address them. It's not an ideal situation, but the hallmark of the people that live here is that they will always try to fix what's broken, work until the job is done, and above all take care of each other no matter what their differences might be. It sucks that the situation here is such that we have to use those deep reserves of character to get through our daily needs, but it's also rewarding to see people manage it.

  I think I hear the honey wagon coming up the road. Those makeshift axles squeak like a bastard. I've got a present for Will. In his official capacity, of course...

  Hey, I'm glad the guy's alive. I never said I didn't think he deserves the punishment.

  Thursday, March 3, 2011

  The End of Time

  Posted by Josh Guess

&nbs
p; Yesterday was one year to the day of my first post. I can't say that it marks a full year of The Fall, because society took a bit to really crumble. I've tried to make it a point to mark the passing of holidays and events since the zombie plague swept across the earth and broke humanity, but it's getting harder to hold on to old things. I've seen a change in human behavior and civilization that can only be described in orders of magnitude, so trying to mention all the things that used to matter when they come up seems like so much crying over spilled milk.

  People have pointed out many times since The Fall that at least here at the compound, we've taken dangerous steps toward repeating the very mistakes we'd sworn to avoid. I look at how things are done right this second, with no single leader in charge but orders from the council being obeyed absolutely, and I wonder about democracy. Is it the best choice for us at this point? I've seen with my own eyes how well a benign dictatorship can work. The people of North Jackson have that, and it's kept them alive and prosperous. Then again, the people here lean more toward individualism. The difference being that most of the folks that live in NJ have been there almost from the start. Ours have been all over the place, and most of them had to fight like nine kinds of hell to get here.