Living With the Dead: The Bitter Seasons Page 6

  The little prototype stove Roger showed me is cool. He modified a design from something he found online for heating homes in the developing world. The cool thing is, you can make them from pretty much any closed steel container. I am planning to build ours from a charcoal grill. We have extras of those, since we pilfered every one we could find to cook on. All I need to do is cut a hole in the wall, run duct through it, insulate it, put some stone down so my floor doesn't catch on fire, and viola! HEAT!

  At least, I hope it's that easy.

  In other news, it's apparently pretty damn cold at Jack's compound in Michigan. The constant patrolling has taken its toll on Will. He's taking the day off from running around shooting zombies from the bed of a truck. I can't blame him. Most people healing from a broken leg would still be sitting down most of the time and rehabbing. He's making the best of the downtime, though, studying the landscape around Jack's place and coming up with additional defenses. Since it's pretty much a huge square , he wants them to put raised walkways at right angles to the walls right in the middle of each, poking outside the perimeter. That way when zombies get right up to the wall, the people on the walkways can pick them off and the people on the walls don't have to lean over and put themselves at risk firing straight down. If that sounds familiar, it should. He wanted to do something very similar here, and we have started work on it, of slowly.

  I have talked to Courtney and Steve several times since they left, and I think that Courtney is getting to like Will a bit more. He's a likable guy, but Courtney still has reservations about where his loyalties will lie when and if the big group of soldiers from Richmond he came from come into conflict with us. But for my sanity and yours, I am going to stop beating that horse. It does get old worrying about a bunch of shit we can't affect, especially with so much we can affect going on right now.

  At least the low temperatures at night have kept us relatively zombie free the last few days. The cold is persisting until nine or ten most days, so we haven't had to worry about any nighttime attacks, or even any early ones. Not that we aren't keeping a close eye out there, but just the ability to sleep a night all the way through without having to respond to an alarm is wonderful.

  Work around here is coming along very quickly. This is exciting!

  at 10:22 AM

  Friday, October 1, 2010

  Here and There

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Not a lot to report today. The situations in both Michigan at Jack's compound and at the factory where Pat and his team are holed up are unchanged. Will is taking a second day off from patrolling to do an inventory of what Jack's people have that can be used to beef up the defenses there. Pat says that the trucks are about ready to roll out, they are just waiting for the zombies gathering around the factory to disperse. I don't know when I will hear from him again, since he has to sneak out and move about a mile from the factory to call...

  Here, things are going well. Work on the two adjoining neighborhoods is almost done. It has gone so quickly since the mornings started getting cold. Quite a sight, I promise you, to watch more than a hundred people hauling and hammering, working in unison to a common purpose. Six men with a pile of wood and panels (since the posts are all up already...) can put up a ten foot wide section of wall ten feet high in about twenty minutes. It doesn't work out that efficiently all the time, of course, but since we have people working on prepping lumber and supplies nearly around the clock, it goes fast.

  Roger has made a few wood stoves that seem to work pretty well. He has had to reinforce some of the extra charcoal grills, but much more importantly, he has made a form from which he can quickly produce a lot of stoves from scratch. He has his own team of people that are working on that, including Jess. She is learning to weld with the same amazing speed with which she acquires all new skills. He has some folks stripping cars of their paneling and prepping them to be turned into the pieces needed to make stoves.

  Jess is doing well, though I worry about her overexerting herself after the shooting. She tells me that she's tired of sitting about in bed, tired of being waited on. Tired of feeling useless. I can't say I blame her, really, and Roger is making sure that she is working with her still-healing wounds in mind, and not pushing too hard. The truly difficult work of pulling panels off so many of the abandoned cars out in town, reshaping them into flat pieces of metal, is left to those uninjured and better suited to it.

  And here I am, working at my computer all day. I haven't had the time to learn new things, join in on the classes I had hoped to attend regularly. Pat, Will, Courtney, Steve, even Jess, are out there doing things that will change our lives, keep us going, building bridges...while I am here crunching numbers and writing on this blog during my lunch break.

  I know that what I and my brother do is important. I know that someone has to coordinate and create the plans for our various projects...but at the same time, I think back to just seven months ago when all of this began, and I almost wish for that simplicity.

  Then again, I'm not an idiot. I might yearn for the simplicity of it, but not the danger. Not the uncertainty. Not the fear of living without walls. Not the loneliness.

  Too maudlin. I know when I'm getting too introspective.

  Finally...

  I have harped on this the last two days, but remember, October is the month in which we need to spread the word to anyone and everyone we can. It is vital that we all work together to locate survivors wherever they might be that we can help each other through the coming winter. It's going to be cold and hungry for many, and every person who finds this blog, which we hope to make the central point of communication for all survivors, is a person with options for survival during what is likely to be a hard winter.

  at 12:17 PM

  Saturday, October 2, 2010

  Picnic on the edge of the world

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Not much to go on about this morning, but I thought I would check in from habit if for no other reason. Jess and I have decided to have our day out together today rather than tomorrow, since she thinks I'm getting all emo (for those of you who are unfamiliar with this word; think "angst mixed with ridiculous self pity and a snazzy haircut") sitting here in the house all day.

  So, we're going to the old cemetery on the other side of the hill for a picnic.

  I know, it sounds very dark and mysterious. It's really not. The place has an amazing view of downtown and the river valley, and there is a perfect spot to see it that is also large and flat, so easy to lay out food and whatnot. Also, zombies don't really go there, which I attribute to the lack of strong people scent, and the fact that it's set on a massive hill that they would rather not climb. Add the fact that it's colder than a welldigger's ass right now, and I think we have a recipe for a safe outing.

  Some people don't agree, which is why a few folks have decided to go with us to act as lookouts. I tried to tell them that we would be fine, that we would keep our eyes open, and that they could do some good around the compound rather than waste hours watching out for us unnecessarily, but there was no arguing with them. They said it wasn't a waste given all we had done for them, and that we needed a day together after our recent troubles and tragedies, yada yada yada.

  I didn't start the process of gathering people here when the zombies spread like wildfire because I am some selfless hero. I did it because people needed a safe place, and because of the strength of numbers. And as far as our problems go, Jess and I have had it much easier than a lot of the other people here. We have lost much, much less. But if they want to go, I can't stop them short of staying home, and I need to get out of the house.

  So there you have it. An hour or so from now, I will be peacefully secluded with my lovely wife on a small plateau on top of a five hundred foot tall cliff, eating whatever we manage to scrounge together between now and then and talking about things we both love. Sounds like a good day to me, however you cut it.

  at 8:10 AM

  Monday, October 4
, 2010

  Northern Fights

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Bad news from up north.

  Jack's compound is under attack by hordes of zombies, hundreds of smarties and probably two thousand of the non-intelligent variety. This is actually much worse news for a place as large as theirs than one our size despite the greater number of people there. Here, we have one open wall that is easy to attack, two of moderate difficulty, and one that is almost impossible to attack in numbers, all set on rolling hills that make it easy for us to see them coming and hard for the zombies to approach.

  Jack's compound is on flat ground, and is mostly open all the way around. It means that while there are hundreds of people on the wall there at any time, the density of them along any length of it is much smaller than here.

  Will, Courtney and Steve are leading some strikes outside the wall as the attack drags on. Using hit and run tactics along with explosives and some clever traps that Jack's folks came up with, they are managing to draw enough attention away from the walls that there is little chance of them being overrun. Courtney spent a lot of this weekend with Will working on and perfect the defenses while Steve led patrol after patrol into the surrounding areas to take out as many clusters of smarties as possible.

  Stakes, pits, caltrops, bladed traps...so many more traps and defenses have been put up over the last week, and it seems to be helping a lot. The zombies have been swarming for the last three hours, and it's been enough to keep the wall secure so far.

  It isn't so much the numbers that are hitting them right now, but more the fear that so many at once might be a precursor to a much larger attack. What is even more frightening is that any surviving smarties will learn from it, and will avoid many of the pitfalls they are falling prey to right now.

  I wish there was something we could do to help. It scares me to think that the numbers hitting Jack's have to be a small fraction of the total out there, because of the cold. It's twenty degrees colder there, which means that the zombies actually attacking are maybe the one in five that have managed to overcome the slowing effect the cold has on them.

  I know that none of my friends would begrudge me a weekend off with my wife, but I feel bad that we have had such calm here while the others are facing incredible danger.

  Speaking of which: Patrick and our volunteers have managed to leave out of the factory, on the way back here. A cold snap hit them last night, dropping below freezing and driving the milling crowd of zombies away. The few that were left made easy targets, and Pat reckons he knows where they went to get out of the bitter wind. Small copses of trees apparently make good windbreaks, which will be helpful when he and the others head back.

  Today is going to be busy for reasons outside the usual. We are almost done with the annexes, done with harvesting for the most part, and the folks that butcher our meat for us have long since completed that, and are curing and salting as I type this.

  Little remains to do but wait and worry about those that face threats far away from here. I will be spending my day with the phone close at hand, hoping for good news but preparing to give whatever advice I can in case of the opposite.

  at 8:59 AM

  Tuesday, October 5, 2010

  Fire Away

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Annexing of the two neighborhoods immediately next to us is complete. The walls are up if not all of the walkways and platforms, but the hardest part is done. With a little vigilance and some creative defensive measures, the new, larger compound will be almost impossible for zombies to attack come spring.

  A big part of why we are calling it a job done is because of the drastic drop in zombie attacks since the wave of cold has come in. We are looking at maybe a fifth of the usual numbers if that, and they look to be dropping day by day. That means easier working conditions, faster work, all that good stuff. We will of course continue working on the annexes until they are totally done, but the folks from downtown are moving up here starting...oh, now or so.

  Patrick and the others are about halfway home with the first load of turbines and related sundries from the factory. No news to report from them one way or the other, no attacks or odd sightings. He thinks they will be home tonight or early in the morning since the closer they get to here the safer and better traveled the roads are.

  The biggest news today comes from up north at Jack's compound. Steve ran strikes all day yesterday against the massive swarm of zombies assaulting the place, and after the horde broke apart, he went out on his own. Not looking to kill an army of them all by his lonesome Ogami Itto style, but to try and sneak after some of the smarties and try to find out for certain where they are holing up when the cold gets really bad there.

  He found them. Or at least, he found a huge grouping of them in a band of woods about two miles away from Jack's compound.

  Some of Jack's people have been tinkering with ideas for weapons, and ways to take out large numbers of zombies at once. Fortunately, Will was crazy enough to try some of those untested weapons while leading a joint team of folks from both compounds.

  Aerosolized gasoline sprayers, easily thrown a hundred feet or so to saturate the air around the inert zombies in their hiding place.

  Bombs built into sharp pipes fired from an air-powered gun mounted on the back of a truck, loosing ten of them in one shot. The brilliance of this one is that the pipes jam into trees when fired at them, and when they blow up the trees fall, causing an amazing level of damage to anything that happens to be in its path.

  So imagine what happened when they filled the woods the retreated zombies were hiding in with explosive fumes right before lobbing a hundred or so bombs at as many trees...

  I am told it was almost beautiful to suddenly watch the air itself simply turn to flame. Trees blazing as their trunks exploded, fragmenting out into a thousand fiery splinters, great boughs crushing and rolling into crowds of nearly immobile undead...

  The estimate right now is more than a thousand dead at one go. Perhaps not a tactic I would use during warmer times, since fire usually only makes zombies go from flesh-hungry corpses intent on eating you into flaming flesh hungry corpses intent on eating you, but the cold slows them down so much that the fire had time to disable them before they could even consider hurting a person even if the trees falling near them missed.

  It isn't total victory, but it is a victory. It's a major blow to the numbers able to threaten Jack's place, and it makes the jobs of the defenders that much easier. I am proud of every person who took part in that raid, especially Will. I am proud of Courtney for having the intelligence to talk to every person she could, and finding out about some of the weapons they have been working on. Even more, I feel immense pride that she came up with the attack plan to use them. I admit that I probably expected that more of Will or Steve, but that's me being a huge sexist, isn't it?

  I do sometimes forget that simply having lady parts does not preclude Courtney or any other woman from possessing fine tactical instincts. Forgive me.

  Above all, I am relieved that some of the pressure is off the folks up there. Every life lost is a lessening of the chances the human race has to survive. I am fairly brimming with satisfaction that Will and the others are managing to work together so well, to a common purpose. Hell, Will was beating himself up that he didn't come up with the idea first, that he hadn't asked around about weapons like Courtney did. He actually hugged her when she told him her plan.

  Considering that she didn't kick him in the balls for doing so, I take it to mean that my dear Cortz now has a more positive opinion about Will. If nothing else, that makes my day.

  at 11:37 AM

  Wednesday, October 6, 2010

  Counterstrike

  Posted by Josh Guess

  Pat and the people that left with him to raid the factory have returned. They have brought a lot of equipment and parts with them, enough that we can start work on some new wind turbines to supplement the power we have now. The big stuff will have to
wait until we have everything we need to construct a small power plant. If I seem to rush through this amazing and awesome news, I apologize.

  It's because of some bad news, vitally important.

  Most of us sort of thought that there had to be a lot more zombies around Jack's compound than were actually attacking it. This line of thinking springs from the fact that it has been very cold up there lately, and the cold seems to slow down about eighty percent of zombies to the point of incapacitation. So, since about two thousand of them have been attacking....