Living With the Dead: Year One Page 5

  We tried to get them to come back as they ran away, but they started running before the arrow even hit my skin. That they didn't stay and try to kill us gives me small hope, but for now I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe we'll run into them in the future, in better circumstances.

  Mom and Gabby say that the wound isn't too bad. The girl that shot me was using a target point, So no barbs or blades to worry about. We use them as well, for the most part, because of the lower risk of arrow damage when we put one through the skull of a zombie. The bullet shape of the arrow head is great for piercing the brain, all of the force concentrated on a small point.

  They aren't too damaging against a person's limbs, by comparison to other arrowheads. This leads me to think that this group of folks might not be in the business of thinking how to kill living people, just zombies. Or, they could have limited access to weapons and ammo, and bad aim. The difference could be fatal, so caution will have to be the word.

  The extra run into town was to look for some sleeping bags, maybe some mattresses. Word came in right after my last post that a van full of survivors from northern Kentucky is heading this way. Seven of them, and their best guess is two days to get here, since so much of that area is destroyed. They will be clearing cars off the road and all the junk that comes with it, not to mention avoiding looters and hiding from large herds of zombies.

  I only know two of the people coming. One of them is my friend Al, and the other is the girl i lost my virginity to. Her name is Elizabeth, and I am sort of nervous about this. Jessica is not a jealous person at all, but any man would feel weird about an old flame coming to live next door to he and his wife. And in the circumstances we are in, it may get really, really strange.

  So without me, the work goes a little slower. I can still do some things, but my nurses are rather strongly suggesting that to avoid risking making the wound worse, I should take some days off...

  I admit to some concern over the five people coming that I don't know at all, but I have known Elizabeth and Al since middle school, and I trust their judgment of people enough to take the chance.

  Not that I won't be keeping my eyes open for anything and everything until I trust them myself.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 12:52 PM

  Reflections

  Patrick, Jess and I have been out and about since my last post, checking out some areas that we've missed for supplies. You might think that we are overstocked at this point, and you would be right. We're trying to amass as much food and fresh water as possible, and storing a lot of the extra in neighboring houses, but a lot of our searches are for other things than vittles.

  Construction materials are key. With all of the new folks around here the last week, we are working like mad to get suitable living spaces ready. While there are tons of empty houses around, none of them are very secure. So we work to make them like our home. We started with the houses on either side of ours, after we tore down the fences in between. I am trying to design a roof-to-roof catwalk between them, so keeping a guard on all of them will be easier.

  We are still trying to get in touch with anyone and everyone we know, because we still want to turn this neighborhood into a safe haven. The looters taught us the value of preparedness, so the massive amount of work ahead of us will continue, regardless of whether or not we get new bodies to help us do it.

  The pressure is getting pretty intense. When we are out in town, we see evidence that the group of looters we killed aren't the only ones around. Buildings that were untouched when we burned them out are suddenly tossed and stripped of goods. Other things, many things, and all of them worrying.

  But conflict teaches, and we are all determined students. We might weep and wail after the fact, but at this point I don't think there is much that we won't do to stay alive.

  Of course, the massive effort isn't just aimed at barely-seen survivors. I might not mention them in quite the tones of fear that I once did, but please remember that there are always zombies around. They have a hard time getting into our subdivision in small groups, but we still get herds of them fairly often. We're hoping that covering the front in cars will slow them down, but it remains to be tested.

  So much of our time is spent outside that it's pretty much necessary to keep one person free to watch out for the rest of us who are working, because they do make it up to us in ones and twos fairly often.

  Not a lot of news to speak of. The job of turning my entire block into one huge community continues. Jess tells me that her planting is going well, and that some of the tomatoes she planted have tiny sprouts showing. Pat mentions that our water capture and retention system is working very well, and that we have about a thousand gallons saved up. We're trying to find ways to retain as much as possible. Kentucky has little rain in the summer.

  I think that the hours of backbreaking labor, having to constantly be on guard while out in town among the swarms of zombies, and being forced to think in new and creative ways to safeguard our lives have been pretty key in keeping us from going crazy over killing all those looters. I can't seem to get it out of my head, but at least all of it keeps me from dwelling on it too deeply.

  If only they had been decent people, they might have been a great help here.

  I wonder how many more like them there are? Men and women who, when the thin veneer of civilization i burned away, become monsters by choice and lack of reprisal. We can't be the only decent folk around.

  But it feels like it, if you can call us decent.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 7:37 AM

  Tuesday, March 23, 2010

  Pizza, My Brother, and Zombies.

  I miss Chinese buffets. I miss ordering pizza. I miss sub sandwiches, pricey Italian food, and fifteen dollar steaks. God I miss dollar menus.

  I sit here with my stitches pulling as I write, eating my billionth meal of rice, canned pasta, and canned fruit. I want to be outside working, my mind able to shut out through sheer exhaustion the total lack of small comforts. I mean, I knew what was going to happen, but to suddenly be struck by an overpowering urge for any convenient food was a bit much for me. The knowledge that I will only have a real, brick-oven style deep dish if I build it myself.

  That's a thought...

  In other news:

  Al and Elizabeth are getting pretty close now. They encountered a lot less trouble than they expected. They think that they will be here this afternoon, while I am sleeping. Since I am kind of worthless for hard work at the moment, I am trying to make up for it by doing night shifts on the watch. I have actually been able to do some cleaning, since we still have an empty house to one side of us. Gabby and her family took the other one...Hopefully Elizabeth and the rest will be happy with what we have done. It's reasonably secure at this point.

  Pat, Jess, and Little David haven't seen the group of four we ran into yesterday, the ones that shot me. Our (their) trips out into town are becoming more frequent, as we think of new things we want or need to build. Pat is working on getting a backhoe here, so we can dig a cellar to store some of our food in.

  My brother Dave is thinking about coming here as well. He lives out in the boonies, and had enough time after everything started to fall apart to make his property safe. But looters in the surrounding towns have burned out a lot of the houses near him, and while he feels safe from zombies, he has no group there to help him defend against the terrible reality of what humans will do when there is no law or society to bind them.

  I am trying to convince him, as is my mother. We worry about him and his wife, their kids. I think he will come around and move camp to our subdivision. I only hope that it doesn't take something tragic to make him.

  Jess is beating on the roof. It isn't the steady beat of incoming friends, it's the frantic staccato that means "There are enough zombies coming that I don't have enough bullets to kill them all". She won't fire a shot, as that would draw them toward us very quickly. I am calling my mom as I write this, letting them know what is coming. Maybe
there was a gap in the wall somewhere...I guess it's time to grab a weapon and hope I don't hurt myself too much.

  Strange how normal this is starting to feel.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 9:49 AM

  It Adds Up

  A quick update--we are all OK, I think. Little David is still AWOL, but we think he is checking the streets to make sure we got them all. Nobody is dead, but we have a HUGE pile of zombies to burn. About forty of them.

  Jess started picking them off as soon as she saw the rest of us come outside. It wasn't especially difficult since most of us have rifles (not that I can use one at the moment), so we mowed a lot of them down from a distance. The last ten or so we had to get at close range, but between all of us, it was fairly easy.

  Now we're just waiting to see if the gunshots will bring more of them. Hated to risk it, but this herd pushed their way through a few cars to get to us. Not a quick group, but a damned determined one. They piled up into a space between two cars and just kept on pushing. One zombie, then two. Two became four, and so on. Once Little David gets back, we will form a group to go fix those cars. Maybe some chain to keep them still....

  Elizabeth called. ETA Five or so this afternoon.

  Let the awkward looks commence.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 12:22 PM

  Wednesday, March 24, 2010

  ...But Not Forgotten

  Little David is missing, and we are all getting really worried. We thought he was just out scouting the neighborhood, but he has not come back. We found the bicycle he was using to get around the area, left in the middle of the road. Pat found a little bit of blood spatter, which is good news, believe it or not.

  Zombies never leave a little bit of blood behind.

  So we have to assume that he has been taken by survivors, and probably alive. My fear is that the group of looters we killed may have only been part of a larger cell, and that they took David to get information on us. I sincerely hope I am wrong, but even if I am, it doesn't change the fact that one of my best friends is lost to us, and probably hurt.

  What can we do? I doubt that whoever took him will make it easy for us to find him. We don't have the resources or time to do a house-to-house search, and even if we did, whoever has him will have seen us coming long before we could reach them.

  Having Elizabeth, Al, and their friends (actually, Al brought her roommate and her boyfriend, Elizabeth brought three friends) around is speeding up our work tremendously, and given how much effort David was putting into making this place more of a compound than a subdivision, I can't feel bad for us keeping at the work. Mom is letting me do some light duty with my good arm...And I am spending a lot of time with David's dad, hoping to have a chance to console him, tell him how sorry I am.

  Of course, my one attempt to do so didn't quite turn out how I expected it.

  He told me that he could only worry for his son, but couldn't imagine that David was dead or even seriously injured, because of his incredible toughness. David has been my friend for several years, but I learned from his father what sort of character lay beneath the snarky, video game obsessed, generally cynical, and always joking exterior.

  I can't (or won't) relay all of it here, but the important bits really stuck out to me. David has a son, only a few years old, who he never gets (or...got, anyway. No word on that...) to see. The child's mother took him, moved far away. He never complained about it, never spoke ill of her, but spent his vacation time going to visit. He once took a beating from three boys in high school so bad that he had to be admitted to the hospital, and he never cried a tear. When he got back to school, he walked calmly to the boys in question (against whom he had declined to press charges) and spit in their faces.

  Tough son of a bitch.

  So while a part of me misses my friend, worries for him, and wishes for his safe return, another part feels a certain sort of pity for the people that have him. Because while he might appear docile, I think that any chance he has, the slightest sign of their guard being dropped, he will do what he has to do. Decisively, without pity, and with extreme prejudice.

  One can hope, anyway.

  Back to the salt mines. Elizabeth just walked in from outside, looking like she wants to talk. Jess is smiling at me like a Cheshire cat. She's really enjoying how much this situation makes me uncomfortable. Last night, she says to me, after meeting Elizabeth, "Now I can see why you lost your virginity to her." In a totally deadpan voice. She's not jealous a bit, but she really does love messing with me.

  God I love her.

  Jess, I mean, not Elizabeth. Though seeing her does bring back some memories...

  Posted by Josh Guess at 8:32 AM

  Thursday, March 25, 2010

  Social Evolution

  Not to be too dramatic, but we got something like a ransom note. It was left taped to a car left in the middle of the road at the only remaining entrance to the neighborhood. Several zombies lay around the car, and one of them had the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of its head. The contents of the note were simple--only telling us that David was captive, and if we wanted him back, we had to meet them at a certain hour, in a certain place.

  So, this afternoon we will be meeting some folks in the same store I got shot in. I'm hoping for good results.

  It's odd how the most extreme circumstances don't really faze any of us now. David being kidnapped is awful, but compared to how I would have viewed the news a little over a month ago, it doesn't seem at all outlandish. Other things are happening too, other discussions coming out that make me wonder just how different the world will have to be when it starts being rebuilt.

  For example...

  Jess and I have been married for almost a year, and have not take precautions to prevent pregnancy. As she is iffy about kids, the fact that she hasn't conceived yet hasn't been a problem. But now, she is starting to realize the true necessity of having children, propagating the species for not only its continued survival, but our own. Because, of course, we will get old eventually (hopefully...), and will need the security of a younger generation to stay alive.

  To that end, my darling wife, never one to be jealous or to really even understand the concept, wants me to have sex with Elizabeth. To impregnate her, specifically, but she made sure to emphasize that it's OK for me to enjoy it. Apparently she and Elizabeth have been talking about this as they work together. Like I'm just some piece of meat to be haggled about. I realize that most guys would really be enjoying this, but the reality is disconcerting. I haven't given a response, mainly because there are more men than women around here, and as a married guy, I haven't missed out on any, uh...private time.

  I have talked to Pat about it, and he doesn't think anyone will have a problem, and made the point that if we were discreet, no one would have to find out. But I still feel strange about it. I mean, I am truly in love with my wife, and while I don't have most of the idiotic social constraints about sex that most folks in our society once suffered from, I do feel strange about my...services being farmed out to make kids.

  Jeez, I am so done talking about this for now. Somehow, I find the possibility of a life and death struggle for the survival of one of my best friends preferable to this mess.

  More to come later today. I hope.

  Posted by Josh Guess at 9:54 AM

  The Context of Fear

  I was expecting something a little more complicated, but I will certainly take an easy win if it's handed to me.

  The meeting was something else. While I generally disapprove of kidnapping as a means of information gathering, I can't fault the reasoning of David's kidnappers. It's not like we're on Google or anything.

  As it turns out, the arrow stuck in that zombie's head was a good clue. I suspected we were about to run into the folks that shot me, and I was right. David is fine. They caught him because they wanted to know about us, see if we were safe. They seemed mighty impressed with the fact that they weren't shot down after the girl fired her bow at me.

&nb
sp; So now we have four more.

  They are actually all siblings, two brothers and two sisters, who were in a pretty tight spot. Every place they tried to stay ended up being attacked by either looters or zombies, and they were desperate for a spot to sleep that was safe. Jack, Edward, Ellen and Darlene are sleeping now, after their first solid meal in four days. Darlene, for the record, is the one that got me.

  David only suffered a bloody nose and some bruised pride. It was one of the girls that took him down. I'm betting Darlene, by the way they try not to let anyone see how they look at each other.

  It might seem like sex is an issue the last day or so, and I guess that's because it is. You out there probably understand. Used to be the stress we all lived under was consistent and of the low, background noise variety. But now, our blood gets pumping to dangerous levels a few times a day. It is in our nature as people to use sex as a release valve for it all...but that is so much harder for many people now. I can't fault anyone for finding some happiness where they may. David vanishing proved that point; it's not just zombies and looters that conspire against us.