American Recovery

by Joshua Guess

  I'm not saying we shouldn't have attacked. We absolutely had to. This was not an optional thing at all. Doesn't mean I'm not disgusted and angry about the results. I am. You can do a terrible thing and know that it was required, and know that you would do it all over again. Ultimately the Hunters knew that we would have left them in peace if they had done so to us and the other communities they attacked.

  There's not much left to say. It hurts so much, knowing so many people died to preserve even more lives. It's shitty and makes me want to punch something as a distraction, but I can't sit here and try to justify the whole thing over and over again. It was awful, and truly terrible. It was also the right choice.

  Goddamn it.

  Sunday, November 4, 2012

  Rubble

  Posted by Josh Guess

  If there is any irony to be found in the coordinated annihilation of the Hunters, it's that when our people were done searching the ashes for survivors, they found supplies. And I'm not talking a few things here or there. A fucking lot of supplies.

  The whole place was built on top of a huge storage bunker. The attack was too rapid and devastating to allow anyone to get in there. The only entrance was right next to the front gate, so it took a while to clear away the mess that covered it.

  So much food, so many weapons, and metric tons of other items were cataloged that we had to split it all up among the groups that participated in the raid. No single group of volunteers could have hauled even half of it.

  I don't mention this to imply that we've been rewarded for what we've done. I just can't help but see the black comedy in the fact that the Hunters destroyed whole communities specifically to raid for supplies. We destroyed them for those acts, but in the end we did the same thing for different reasons. Still, the mood here in New Haven since my last post has grown somber. When you get news like that, it's inevitable that you start questioning your motives and choices. Lacking any context, New Haven as a group can be labeled killers of children and it's not an unfair statement.

  There is context, of course, but any decent person in our position doesn't use that as an excuse. Better to admit that what our people did was both terrible and necessary move on. Second-guessing and running ourselves through possible scenarios won't bring those kids back. It won't do any good at all except distract at a time when complete focus is required.

  I should point out that one person close to me is very upset about the whole thing, much more than the average citizen. You could attribute it to having a small child and caring for his nieces, and maybe the fact that he hasn't seen combat in a long while plays into it. Patrick has been over here a lot the last few days, and he's...despondent is the best word I can think of.

  I'm so used to seeing him deal with problems pragmatically that it's really off-putting watching him mope around. I don't mean to sound dismissive in saying that, but Pat is usually such a loud and boisterous guy that having to ask him to speak up when you're conversing and needing to push him to speak about what's bothering him is completely alien. He hasn't said so outright, but I get the strong impression that he has become disillusioned with New Haven. The place, the people who make it up, the leadership, even me.

  A republican from way back, Patrick has never had a problem advocating a fight when one is called for. But this one seems to have taken something from him. He keeps coming over here at odd times, putting his apprentices and assistants in his place at the forge and just sitting around with me. We eventually get around to his problems, and I understand where he's coming from. I was there very recently. Truth be told, some mornings I still wake up with the monkey on my back. The depression/anxiety double-team takes it out of you in every way.

  It isn't that he thinks what we did was intentionally vicious. He isn't under the impression New Haven and Will as our leader have become warmongering movie villains. It's much more broad than that. Pat thinks we've drifted away from the balance point when we used violence as a last resort. That we're allowing ourselves to sink to the level of those attacking us and losing something vital from our character in the process. I remember that feeling very well, having gone through it many times over the last few years.

  I've asked him if he sees another way to have done it. Some method by which we could defend ourselves completely from further damage without committing to total destruction of our enemies. The damnedest thing, Pat says, is that he can't. He knows what we did was the only viable option (or at least the only one within our capabilities) but he can't reconcile that with the feeling that it was wrong on every level. The deep-down reaction Patrick has to all those people being burned alive is that it was somehow avoidable.

  I see his point. To a degree, I'm there with him. But I can't allow myself to fall back into the old mental habits that nearly broke me beyond repair. I'm still fragile in that sense. I begin to think about all those dead people and feel the overwhelming sadness rise up, the frantic sensation of self-hate forcing me to consider what might have been. If I let myself zone out and walk that mental road, I know where it will lead. So I do what I've done for weeks now. I cut it off, I repeat the facts to myself in a mantra. I distract my brain to save it from itself.

  Probably not the healthiest way of coping, and that's why Pat is stronger than I am. He doesn't have to shy away from his thoughts. He suffers them and deals with it. I wish I were that kind of man, but much more I wish Patrick wasn't going through this anguish. Reminds me of a quote from a book I read when I was a kid.

  My best friend is worried that we've lost our soul, and I'd like to remind him of that quote:

  "Only those with souls fear for their existence."

  You're a good man, Pat. My brother from a different mother. I'm here for you.

  Monday, November 5, 2012

  Fawkes

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Today is November the fifth. In the UK this is known as Guy Fawkes Day. I won't bore you with a history lesson this early in the day, and it isn't important anyway. What does matter is that it's also Patrick's birthday. There's a bit of rhyme about Fawkes that kids in Britain learn almost universally somewhere along the way that starts, "Remember, Remember, the fifth of November..."

  Chances are some of you saw V for Vendetta or read the old comic by the same name and have heard the rhyme. It's how I remember Pat's birthday every year. For a long time I made a point of sending him a message with that rhyme in it, sort of as an inside joke. In fact, I made him breakfast this morning and took it over to his house, piping out the rhyme as I came through the door.

  Pat wasn't feeling very festive. He's still frustrated and upset about the recent developments. I offered to spend the day hanging out with him, even if that included working at the forge doing his grunt work. Turns out his assistants conspired to give him the day off. Too bad there isn't any cake to be had. I've seldom seen Patrick stay in a bad mood when there are baked goods to be had.

  Yes, that was a fat joke. And no, I don't feel bad about it. Pat is my best friend, and we've spent a lot of time over the years giving each other as much shit as possible. I think the best way I can help him deal with the things he's going through is to treat him as normally as possible. Personal upheavals that involve powerful ethical conundrums, moral outrage, a vague sense of hopelessness and wrongness, topped with depression and with a side order of anger aren't helped by people catering to your bad moods. Pat is at his best when he sees others around him being themselves. He can't help rising above the hurt when you're smiling at him, at least a little. And let's be honest: sometimes all we can do to cope with the pain nowadays is to just keep our metaphorical heads above water. It might not make us happy, but it's enough.

  So imagine how surprised I was that Pat asked me to go out zombie hunting with him. Normally he isn't allowed to do that at all--even when he's just going to do work outside of New Haven he gets an armed escort that hovers around him at all times. There have been a few exceptions, very sparse and that make the higher-ups very nervous--but
Pat generally doesn't rock the boat. He knows his skills are valuable to our community. Others have learned on the job much as he did, but so far no one has managed to sharpen their skills with metal from rough and patchy to fine and smooth the way he has.

  But man, it's his birthday. And we weren't alone. A bus was heading out to the schools anyway, which Pat knew. It was only a short trip, just a quick twenty minute run around the place to keep the number of zombies gathering there at a minimum. For the most part the huge group of people living at the hospital do a good job keeping the area clear, and that includes the schools since they're right across the street. But twice a week we send people over to give them a break from having to do it.

  I was surprised that Will agreed, but Pat wasn't really taking no for an answer. Pat himself caught me off guard twice in one morning by hauling out this leather and steel contraption that looked like a weird leg brace. Turns out he's been pretty upset that he hasn't been able to fight for so long because of his missing hand, so he made something to even up his odds. It's a sleeve that goes almost all the way to his shoulder, made of two layers of really thick leather and covered in small aluminum plates, each one sewn in. There are thin aluminum rods that run down it in two sections so he can still bend his arm. It's capped off by...well, a fitted piece of aluminum over his nub. There's a bit of memory foam cut from an old pillow inside there to absorb shock.

  So we went out killing, which is another thing Pat and I have done together over the years. Though he did some fighting not too long ago, it wasn't like this. I'd forgotten the kind of primal dread he can inspire when he's angry. Pat is a big guy--six foot three--and while I joke about him being fat, the last few years have whittled his barrel chest and heavy frame into shape. He's heavy and strong as hell, which made me very glad it wasn't me he was angry with.

  With his good hand he swung a hatchet he made for himself, a single piece of metal nearly two feet long. It's lightweight and thin, with a narrow head that pierces skulls easily. I've picked it up, and the thing is pretty easy to use two-handed. One hand would be awkward for me. Not for Pat. Hundreds of hours of swinging a hammer makes him a holy terror in a fight. I watched him move up to the front of our group, block a zombie with his makeshift armored sleeve, and drive that thing clean through a skull. You've heard people mention splitting their head open? It was like that. Like watching someone cut boiled eggs in two with a knife.

  He got into it, and I think it was a good thing. Patrick let out a lot of frustration, and it was only as I covered his weak side and watched that I began to understand how much pent-up emotion the guy really has. He can't really vent as well verbally as other people, or at least is isn't as effective for him as it is for me. He needed to blow off steam physically before he could even start getting it together emotionally.

  The only bad part in our little hop into the danger zone was right at the end. Our group had cleaned up maybe forty zombies total, all swept up in our neat little line of fighters working together, when we reached the end of our assigned section. There were three more undead in front of us, and the line leader had just called out orders to move in when Pat let out a yell and jumped out of line.

  For a fraction of a second, I thought he was committing suicide by zombie. Every sad moment in his life flashed in front of my eyes. I remembered the tears in his eyes that I pretended not to see when we burned that group of murderers and rapists to death inside my old doctor's office. The ache in his voice when he first joined us here, only days after The Fall, when he still believed his entire family was gone. In a flash I believed all those scars had opened at once and broken him. I think that's because of my own experiences. My own memories nearly killed me, after all.

  But as I watched him fight those zombies, I remembered that Patrick is stronger and tougher than I can ever hope to be. Life and the universe have tried to beat him down time and again. He survived more before The Fall than a lot of people have since. There is a core of greatness in him, a pillar of strength and love and grit that nothing will ever be able to damage. There's laughter and hope in there too, though it's hard for him to see.

  I watched him easily cut down two of those undead in as many seconds. The third he killed by smashing that metal cap on his wrist into its face. I swear I saw metal come out of the back of its head. It was really super gross. Also a powerful reminder not to get into a fistfight with him. He was out of breath when it was all over, and seeing the set of his shoulders and the way his eyes scanned our surroundings for other signs of danger, I felt like an idiot for thinking even for a second that he would abandon the people he loves. Pat is so much more dedicated than that. He loves others more than he loves himself.

  I think that fact has given me more hope over the last few years than almost anything else. Few of us have heroes left in this world. I'm damn lucky to still have one of mine.

  Tuesday, November 6, 2012

  Letters From Raven

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Today's post isn't by me. It's by a survivor named Raven McQuade. Given the recent destruction in the northeast, I thought it important to share her message with anyone who may need the information within. I've left it unaltered from the original. Instead of bogging you down with more from me, let's let Raven take the stage:

  I've been debating on sending this, we didn't want to give out our location due to the problems going on with the now-deceased Hunters. We didn't want anyone to get ideas that we would be an easy target. Far from it.

  I guess all of this sounds sketchy. Sorry for the disjointed ramble, I haven't been sleeping. We're working around the clock here to repair lives of those that were displaced by the storm that ripped through the NorthEast. I felt that I should write for two reasons.

  1. To inform everyone of the devastation.

  2. To offer anyone still able to see this, that we are taking in storm victims.

  Our community is unique. We have an almost unlimited amount of room. Our location is hours from New York city in the Southern Tier of Western New York. We're almost two hours out of Buffalo. Our exact location is secret and only Josh and those in charge out their way know where we are now. We have been watching this blog, but with all of the human problems they have had, we felt it prudent to keep a low profile.

  We were hit by the storm, not as bad as those on the coast, though. The stories related to us from victims...horrendous. I grew up in a hurricane prone area, so when the victims began describing how the storm hit, I knew something was terribly wrong. One survivor from near New York City told of water rushing into Battery Park higher than his head. If memory serves me correctly, the last time anything similar happened was in the 1800's.

  I guess we should be thankful that most of the bodies thrown about by the surge were already dead. Then again, the few people left there are most likely dead. Pulled under the water by cold, dead hands. Devoured. Our new friend had been living along the coast on a boat he'd 'liberated'. Thanks to his lifestyle, we learned of other communities along the East Coast. We have no idea how many were impacted by this storm, though we have heard from people in North Carolina and in Maine.

  Everywhere else between there has been no contact. Our boating friend used a HAM radio for contact. He says that at least 15 communities between those two states have not answered his contact requests. If his estimates are correct, then this was a storm on the magnitude we have not seen. I'm frightened for those communities.

  For those of you out there – we have food. We have clean water. We have room. Our community is a chain of farmers and hunters through the Allegheny Mountains. Zombies are at a minimum here, we patrol the entire countryside, we had a low population to start with. Before this tragedy, strangers were not welcome. We'd had too many run-ins with those that would kill for what we have worked so hard to gain. Now, we are ready to take in anyone from the storm damaged areas. We have people on their way to the coastal communities to look for possible survivors.

  As a word of warning to those tha
t would attack us under false pretenses:

  We are not kind to those that would harm us or our kin. Everyone in our community we consider family. Our justice is swift. There are no bleeding hearts here, you threaten us and we will kill you.

  Wednesday, November 7, 2012

  Havens

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I want to touch on Raven's message yesterday, because I think it's important in a lot of ways. The first thing that struck me about her words was how effortlessly she revealed the depth of our ignorance here in New Haven. Communication is often spotty and almost always difficult now, but we thought we had a pretty good handle on it. With a few paragraphs, Raven showed us that our knowledge of the wider world is still missing huge pieces. The few communities in the east we're in touch with are apparently just the tip of the population iceberg in that region of the country. There appear to be many more survivors than we imagined in that third of the country.

  Also fascinating was her offer to take in victims of that massive storm. I understand the devastation on the east coast was worst on the actual shorelines, but from a few messages we've had it's clear that what happened further inland was pretty close behind. Raven's community has spent a lot of time and effort making sure they're secure from outsiders. They've cleaned their local area free of zombies and are lucky enough to live somewhere that doesn't see a lot of undead traffic. Her offer of safe haven to survivors of the storm who need a place to go is amazing to me.

  It's the same mentality that brings my own people together. We get a lot of low-level zombie attacks here, not bad enough to require calling in people like me who are only used in case of an emergency. But when the shit hits the fan and we have to go, every unites as one. We become a united front in defending our home and each other from the hungry swarms. To a lesser degree we try to do right by other communities, but time and again we've proven (as have many of our allies) that there are limits. We will risk ourselves for others, but we won't go further than we think we can handle. It's survival at its most basic: dying for a stranger isn't a good trade for the people back home.