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

  I've got my own preparations to make in addition to supervising some of the logistics, so I'm making this a short post. I know I usually take Sundays off, but if I live through today and the compound isn't overrun, I'll be back tomorrow for a full account.

  If there are thousands of them heading this way, it will probably end up being one hell of a story.

  Sunday, July 3, 2011

  Onslaught

  Posted by Josh Guess

  The view from the walls is the most frightening thing I've ever seen. We thought we had some idea of what we were facing. We were wrong. Completely.

  Will Price led a few sorties out into the streaming throngs of zombies when they started to show up yesterday. He and a small group of folks that have been training with our modified vehicles took some runs into the crowd of undead. The fact that there were a thousand or better in that first wave didn't really matter since most of the zombies heading toward the compound were spread out as they walked.

  Aside from Will, Dodger and four others took the risky course by plowing through them. In Will's case, it was literally plowing since that was the primary weapon on his vehicle. The goal wasn't to kill zombies necessarily, though it was a nice by-product. Breaking their legs and spines, rupturing their stomachs and spilling the stored nutrients there, those were our goals. Practicality means slowing them down or immobilizing as many as possible.

  At first it seemed like things were going well. Will and the others had worked out a game plan ahead of time to avoid running into each other and to maximize the amount of damage they could inflict. Each vehicle has a CB radio in it, the microphones rigged to be on all the time so they could talk hands-free. Those of us who were watching on the walls had our own so we could listen in, and we were running the commentary through a megaphone so the crowd of people behind us could listen.

  That was how we caught Will's observation that the force we faced was much larger than we'd originally thought. He took the position farthest from the compound, the most dangerous for how deep into the zombie hoard he went. Will was on the edge of the hill to the west, looking over. What he saw wasn't a waning trail of undead trying to catch up. His voice, magnified and echoing, had that tone of utter shock and terror that's never ignored in the world as it is now.

  He said, "Oh, Jesus."

  Then he called a general retreat, signaled the gates to be ready to open, and our sortie team came back home.

  Over the hill were thousands more zombies, as far as he could see. Right now, eighteen hours or so later, they still haven't attacked. They just keep coming in, standing and watching us. They're massing in a way I've never seen as they wait for some unknown signal to finally attack. They're all around us, every side of the compound facing numbers that could overwhelm us with ease.

  All of our people made it in from the farms except for the people we've got out in Bald Knob. They're far enough away that they're probably safe, and they represent the small if unlikely chance for outside help. I don't know if they'll be able to find anyone. I find myself praying, one of the rare instances of it in my adult life.

  I don't know how we can survive this assault. There are enough zombies out there right now to build a wall of bodies all the way around the walls. The ones left would be able to do as the zombies out at the farm we lost did, and walk over the corpses of their fellows to get inside the compound.

  I'm off to the third emergency council meeting since Will called the retreat yesterday. He's got a few ideas on how we can fight, how we can defend, but none of them are enough to defend against the onslaught waiting for us just a few hundred feet away.

  They're waiting. Just out of bow shot, too far for anything but bullets we're desperately short on, they're waiting.

  So are we.

  Monday, July 4, 2011

  Reborn on the 4th of July

  Posted by Josh Guess

  The sky overhead is slate gray, dark with what should be ominous portents. Thunder. Lightning. Clouds moving on winds that would knocks us down if they were at ground level. We should be afraid, but we're not. Not today.

  There's a sense of unity at the compound that has been missing since the other refugees and I returned. You'd have to see the men and women on the walls, working with matchless precision like the gears of some great and intricate clock to understand what I mean. Part of the energy we're feeling stems from the total shock of yesterday's events, the sheer joy of realizing that we might have a chance to survive this.

  We expected the horde outside, which is now estimated somewhere around five thousand, to attack as one. That seemed like the most logical thing, since a huge wave of zombies would certainly be enough to overwhelm us. We didn't get hit with that.

  Instead we watched with gleeful confusion as we were hit by small groups. Well, 'small' is a relative term here. They were coming in groups of 100-200 at a time. They never hit the same part of the wall twice. Most of the first five or six waves fell victim to the combination of defenses outside the walls. Many were impaled on the stakes, more fell into the trenches. Some actually made it to the base of the wall itself in a few places. My brother, in his infinite brilliance, has made sure to cut murder-holes here and there along the wall's surface.

  Small holes that a thin weapon can be thrust through. Wait for a zombie to get close, then jam a spear or similar weapon right into its head. Simple, effective, and the safest way to attack.

  We've got all sorts of traps set out, and as new sections of the walls are tested by the swarm outside, we observe and judge the effectiveness of the designs. It's tremendously useful.

  Yes, I said the walls were being tested. I've gotten reports of zombies staying back while the attack waves come in, watching with the cold, calculating gaze that only smarties have. I knew such a large gathering of the undead being brought against us couldn't just be chance. There's a probing caution in the attacks, and that can't mean anything good for us.

  Except that we're not being overwhelmed, which means we're alive. That's a plus.

  Will has a lot of little tricks and ideas for when the flood of undead does finally come. I've also got a few theories about the smarties themselves that sort of came to me fully-formed as I got the battle reports. None of that right now, though. I hear the bells ringing, and I'm due for archery duty at eight.

  Will has a few surprises ready, all right. I can hear the chatter of machine gun fire right now. Guess he managed to salvage at least one of the big guns we ruined retaking the compound. If we only had enough bullets for the rest of them...

  Tuesday, July 5, 2011

  Fire By Night

  Posted by Josh Guess

  It's been a while since I pulled an all-nighter, but this was worth it. Will and Dodger pulled out all the stops over the last six hours or so, and we're in a lull at the moment.

  My brother and some of his carpenters threw together several catapults yesterday. That sounds like a large saga explained in one sentence but it really isn't. They aren't terribly complicated examples of the old war machines, and it didn't take a lot of work to put them together. That being said, none of us are betting that they'll hold together for all that long, but for now they work. That's what matters.

  Why that matters is interesting.

  Right now, and for the last several hours, the trenches surrounding the compound have been on fire. We moved a lot of raw liquor from the distilleries to distill down into a purer form to mix with our gas. That left us thousands of gallons of the stuff sitting around. Will got a couple of our generators going, hooked hoses up to a few pumps, and fired away at the trenches. The trenches themselves have a lot of zombies in them, and the alcohol helped them get burning hot.

  So we've been safe for the night. The waves came and went yesterday, but they didn't slow down as night came. Our people fought as the light died, and then by torchlight. We have other lights to use, but the coverage isn't total while the zombies outside the walls are everywhere.

  The fire in the trenche
s won't last for long. The bodies there will eventually burn out. We have to ration how much alcohol we use, since we have no idea how long this siege will last. For now the blaze keeps the undead from attacking, but it doesn't do anything to reduce their numbers.

  That's where the catapults come in.

  We've been hurling small propane tanks out into the crowd. We've got a pretty good supply of them, and the large tanks we fill them from are still full from the last tanker we brought in. Thank god there's so many people around here who used the stuff, necessitating a number of storage facilities within easy driving range. But just like everything else we have in the compound right now, there's a limited supply. We can't go out to resupply.

  Again, though, if we die because we tried too hard to conserve supplies, there'll be egg on all our faces, right?

  My brother has been running around between each of the catapults all night, making sure they're not coming apart and the fittings are secure. He's also ferrying explosives around as well. We're running through our supplies pretty fast, but the propane tanks make very large explosions. The destruction has the nice side effect of driving the swarm into smaller areas, crowding them tightly together for the next shot. We're peppering them with arrows when we have to, but otherwise we've been careful about not use too many.

  Overall things are going better than I'd have expected, but we're running short on things. We aren't getting any food from the farms, and god only knows what's happened to our animals out there.

  Today will be a challenge even if we don't suffer a single attack. Still no word from our people in Bald Knob. I hope they're safe.

  If they are, I hope they find help soon.

  Thursday, July 7, 2011

  Lost Ground

  Posted by Josh Guess

  The last few days have been hell, and I'm not just saying that because of the fires we've been using to keep the undead back. Will has been working like a madman on the defenses, but eventually they'll fail completely.

  As it is we've already suffered some heavy damage. The annex, two smaller subdivisions we fenced in and connected to the larger original compound, has been partially overrun. That was actually intentional on our part, as we knew that the fire wouldn't hold them off forever.

  Will came up with the idea. He's spent a lot of time on the walls, and though he's been a busy guy he has also been observing. The smarties that are found in small clusters among the larger swarm of zombies, seem to be having a harder time commanding their less intelligent brethren. Even as the fires in the trenches burned you could see the hunger almost pushing the normal zombies to consider attacking despite the flames.

  So Will gave them an easy target. He suggested to Dodger (because Will is still a condemned man and thus has no actual authority) that we allow a section of trench to run out of fuel and let the zombies overrun it if they attacked. It was dangerous, but better to prepare a massive trap and tease them into attacking where we wanted them than risk a break in the defenses at a random place.

  One of the good things about how we built the walls in the annex is that each of the two smaller neighborhoods that make it up has its own complete fence surrounding it. We brought the undead into the older and smallest part, letting them fill the streets before we cut loose on them.

  We set fire to the wall where they'd come in. It was on the side farthest from the original compound, so we weren't worried about the main area going up in flames. That cut off the zombies' escape route.

  Then we pelted them with dozens of vials of ammonia. The smell is overpowering to them, and our observations make it very clear to us that zombie communication, such as it is, is based on smell. So much ammonia in such a small area confused them and made them lose focus.

  That's when we went for the kill.

  At one corner of the giant square killing zone were two dozen men and women, trained to fight in unison with homemade spears and shields. Those folks, our Spartans, took positions on the corner of the square most in need of defense--the intersection point between the original compound and the two parts of the annex. All along the wall between the two parts of the annex were archers with arrows of many types, all of them interesting.

  At the far side of that wall, a team of men working a catapult set on one of the raised platforms each corner used as a sentry post.

  Clear on the other end were fifty warriors. Some had cutting weapons, some homemade flamethrowers. They formed a line of death, pushing the swarming zombies staggering in confusion from the ammonia, right into the middle of the giant square formed by the roads and houses.

  We weren't worried for those fighters, though they were on foot and not heavily protected. The zombies were not able to get close to them at all because we used every drop of the secretions put out by a very special zombie to assure their safety. You remember, don't you? That zombie the folks in bald knob found, vomiting up a substance that made others of his kind run away?

  Turns out that being surrounded by them on all sides makes him a very sick boy. He's been vomiting all week in the cage we keep him chained in. It isn't hard to collect the stuff.

  On every rooftop, there were groups of three or four people raining down alcohol, heavy rocks, metal scraps, and anything else we could hit the zombies with. Not the least of which was a liberal dusting of magnesium dust and some leftover thermite.

  You can see where this is going, yes?

  It was a slaughter. Will planned the whole thing and it worked like a charm. Our people on foot escaped on the signal, which was only sent when the fire began to spread among the trapped swarm. Our folks on the rooftops used the walkways we've built between all our roofs to get out. Our archers and Spartans didn't have much to do but clean up the stragglers. Our catapult crew did all the hard work, dropping a few small explosives in just the right places.

  I don't know how many we killed, but there are noticeably less zombies outside the walls now. I'd say about a third of what we faced int he beginning died in the annex yesterday. Maybe half of the total number gone.

  That still leaves a hell of a lot of zombies, and us with a lot of problems. As soon as the fires died out in the annex, not more than a few hours after our people pulled back into the original compound, the killing ground was overrun again. The flaming section of wall had died out, and when it did the swarm hit it with their full might.

  That's about a quarter of all the homes we had, lost. The homesteaders are taking it hard, since the majority of them lived in that section. None of them are angry at us about it, you understand, which I find rather odd. But they've lost their homes and many possessions, not to mention the gardens that provided them at least some food.

  We're left with the same problems. We've conducted a masterful defense so far, but food is getting rationed hard and we'll begin to starve if we can't get out to hunt, especially with that part of the annex and its resources lost to us. We still haven't heard anything from our folks in Bald Knob, and no word about whether or not we'll be getting any help.

  I guess the good news is that we've got less area to defend.

  When I see the thin faces of the starving children around me, that doesn't seem much comfort.

  Friday, July 8, 2011

  Never-ending Battle

  Posted by Josh Guess

  We've lost the other part of the annex, and along with it a large chunk of hope. Even if we manage to keep the zombies out of the original compound, which is where our entire population is now, we'll starve.

  I should point out that the larger part of the annex is bigger than the portion we intentionally set on fire the other day. More than half of the compound as it was a week ago is overrun. The section we lost last night had a lot more open areas in it than any other part of the compound, and was farmed more. The break in the defenses came suddenly and from three sides, driving our people back with incredible speed.

  We lost almost forty people in the attack. Twenty-five of them were homesteaders that somehow managed to get caught betwe
en the three swarms of zombies that broke through the walls. They were farther away than I would have expected anyone to be. A few folks said that they were trying to bring food stores over, but the homesteaders weren't anywhere close to the buildings we stored food in over there. I imagine they got caught up in the confusion of the attack and lost their bearings.

  We're packed into the original compound pretty tightly. We've got enough food to last us for a little while, maybe a week, and then we start getting very hungry.

  I don't want to sound callous about losing so many people, but the reality we face right now is that they simply got to whatever is waiting for us on the other side a little ahead of us. We've got a chance to survive, but it isn't very high unless we can get some help.