Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land (23 page)

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Great Fiction

Posted by Josh Guess

There are many kinds of lies. Lies we tell ourselves, lies we tell others. Some of them are blatant and hurtful, some are in the form of fiction, a way to tell deeper truths through storytelling. 

We here at the compound tell ourselves a very specific and important lie: that inside the walls of our home, we are safe from harm. No matter how many times we see the truth of that one, when the danger is over we gloss over and start telling it anew. 

Each of us looks over the walls at the hordes of zombies that mill about, and we see different things. Some of us look at them with pity, and those people tell themselves that for all the sadness the undead bring to their hearts, that they are too dangerous to let live. Some view them as hateful monsters, with the internal mantra that all humanity must be gone. It would have to be in order to cut them down so brutally. 

I've been thinking about this pretty hard for a few days now, and the greatest fiction that we tell ourselves ends up being the same one that people have been selling for as long as there have been stories. It's the idea that we will live forever. That we will not die. 

In the world that was, a place decidedly not populated by the walking dead, a place where most people never encountered mortal danger, this lie was easy to tell. We trundled along from day to day, absently repeating it in our heads as we happily went about our routines. True, we shook our heads and muttered vague words of condolence when death came to visit others, but it was
never us.
 At least, it was never me. 

That great fiction has been outed for the lie it was. Every one of us has faced death not just a handful of times, or even many times, but routinely. Often. A fucking lot. 

Now the lies we tell ourselves are smaller, less obvious. I think we know for true that death is just one mistake, one bit of bad luck, away. The lies now just soften the edges, make the weight of death all around us seem less terrible. 

It sounds so dour and depressing, but for me that couldn't be farther from the truth. I find the visceral knowledge that I could die at any time strangely freeing. I don't fret about it or dwell on it. Instead I simply hope that if and when it happens, that I can make it a good death. I hope to accomplish something when I go, maybe save others or destroy an enemy. I'm not afraid to die. 

I just don't want to die in a stupid way.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Smiling Faces

Posted by Josh Guess

For once I'm going to skip talking about what's going on in the compound (not much this morning) and forgo going off on a philosophical bent like I did yesterday and will surely do again.

I woke up to a nice cool breeze coming in through the window this morning just before eight. I felt fairly rested, which is strange considering that I only had a few hours of sleep. There was a small attack at dusk last night, and I was on call for archery duty, so I went. 

Various other things kept me awake, including some detailed reports that needed to be given a detailed look. Since I had missed them somehow yesterday, I stayed up to work on them. 

But screw all that. This post isn't about news or zombies or anything but a wonderful morning. 

I woke up as I usually do to my lovely wife Jess sleeping next to me. Once removed in this case, since Becky was sprawled between the two of us. What actually woke me up was Becky turning over in her sleep and flopping her arm over onto my face. Both of them woke up shortly after I did, and the three of us made our way to the kitchen in our jammies. 

I've got this little barter system going with Pat's girls. Three days a week they come in and make breakfast on their way back from the farms after collecting eggs, and in return Jess and I make them things. Things that they'd have little to no chance to procure otherwise. Like armor in child's sizes, and weapons to match. We're working on those things in our spare time, but they're worthwhile projects. Anything that might save a kid's life should be seen as worthwhile, in my mind. 

So there was wonderful breakfast waiting for us. Due to the valley folks joining us, there is an abundance of pork that needs to be used up. The piggies were the last to go, and there wasn't time to properly preserve the meat. Most of it managed the trip alright, though I have no idea what the valley girls did to it to make it keep this long. So today I got not only eggs, but ham and a little bacon too. 

And Pat brought fresh bread. He had someone build a little oven right next to the forge, and the girls set the dough out to rise before they go to the farms. 

Oh, but the best part, aside from spending a wonderful breakfast with my favorite people? Strawberry jam. Someone must really love one of us. I don't know who left it on my doorstep, but GOD BLESS YOU. I was so excited that I even gave a slice of warm buttered bread with jam on it to Will when he did his morning stop for Dodger's paperwork. I'm feeling a little guilty about his current situation, seeing how he saved the lives of every person that made it back from Tennessee. 

I wrote yesterday that death is around us all the time. That we dance with it on a daily basis and know how easily our steps could falter at any moment. That's just as true today. 

But now, the corollary: life is that much sweeter. Living with the constant specter of doom over your shoulder has a wonderful way of making the thousand tiny beautiful things all the better. Pat's adopted girls are fierce and wonderful, and the fact that they've allowed Jess and I (and to increasing degrees, Becky) to get close to them is spectacular. Seeing Patrick happier than I've ever seen him is almost a miracle. Hell, seeing Becky alive after all this time is like finding out a twin I didn't know I had was alive, well, and missed me. 

Those are all big things. The important lesson here is that living with the dead, and death, makes even a simple pleasure like fresh strawberry jam all the better. 

Saturday, June 18, 2011

The Descent

Posted by Josh Guess

I cannot describe to you my sorrow. There just aren't words. 

This morning, during the early hours when many of the children within the compound go out to the farms to collect eggs and other food, an attack came. The estimates right now put the number of zombies at nearly five hundred. 

It was raining. 

Seven children lost their lives along with eleven adults who bravely tried to protect them. It must be said here that the safety policies put in place by Dodger and designed by Will Price are the reason why our losses weren't far worse. It's standard procedure to keep the kids at least a hundred yards away from the barriers that define the edges of our farms.

When the attack came, the first few dozen zombies fell into the trench, filling it and making an easy bridge for the rest of the pack to walk over. I say walk, but they were running. I have to assume that this was an attack planned by smart zombies, because the reports I've gotten state that the majority of the zombies that took part in it were very mobile. Not the shambling messes that are more commonplace, but something closer to fully functional people. We saw a lot of those in the early days. 

There were plans in place for such an attack, and equal credit must be given to the people who were at the farm during the attack for following them. We had set up fallback points at each farm, rough buildings with a single entrance designed to hold off zombies long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Most of the people at the farm that was attacked managed to get in, with the obvious exception of the people we lost in the attack. A few of the farmers actually climbed on top of the longhouse they live in, and pulled the ladders up behind them. They keep a store of weapons under oilcloth up there. Just in case. 

By the time word of the attack got to the compound, the damage had been done. We organized as quickly as we could and got to the farm in about twenty minutes. The zombies could see us coming, nearly a hundred armed men and women unloading from dozens of vehicles, several of which had the "tank" modifications Will designed. 

At the sight of us, the undead ran. What we found in their wake was terrible. The people they had killed, adult and child alike, were in the sort of state you would expect from a flesh-hungry mob of half starved zombies. We burned the remains and said a prayer. We assured the workers hidden behind the heavy door of the fallback that it was safe to come out. 

We assessed the damage, and it was severe. 

Aside from the emotional impact of losing children along with the adults, the practical impact of the attack on the farm is devastating. Row upon row of crops trampled to death by the march of hundreds of feet. Almost every potato plant, stalk of corn, lettuce leaf, squash, tomato, strawberry, and every other plant that produces food was destroyed. All around us floated the torn feathers of chickens, tiny bodies with broken wings scattered to the four corners. 

All of us saw the destruction, and I know that every other person there felt the same raw animal fury rise up in them. I could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices. My mistake, then, was not putting voice to reason. My error was not intervening and saying something to unite us, to calm that fury. 

Now, a few hours later, there are a hundred and fifty people simply gone from the compound. About half of those that came back with us from the farm went out and gathered others, told them what had happened. Against the council's orders, against my too-late pleas for common sense and caution, those hundred and fifty went out hunting for the party of undead that have damaged us so badly. 

They claim it is for the dead children. For the adults that died saving them. I'm sure that to some degree that's true. 

But I felt the same pain as they when I looked out across the ruined crops. I saw the same hard and bleak future of rationed food and hunger. It may have been the deaths of our young that sparked the flame inside them, throwing the entire compound into chaos as jobs were abandoned, but it was fear of the attack's consequences that fanned the fire. 

We've spent the last hour and a half working to cover the gaps on the wall where guards left. We've had to find coverage in the mess halls, for the construction crews, and half a dozen other places. It's been terrible chaos. 

And of course we've got every person with an iota of medical training on standby. With so many people fired up and out for the heads of the zombies that did this, I can only imagine the number of injured we'll be seeing. 

I've seen a lot of bad things happen since The Fall began, but this is by far the worst. 

It's all falling apart. 

Monday, June 20, 2011

Social Contract

Posted by Josh Guess

The last few days have been terrible ones. I can't even begin to explain the chaos in the compound to you. There's been so much going on that literally every aspect of our lives are out of whack. 

The mass exodus after the attack on the farm the other day didn't go as badly as we had expected. There were no fatalities, which is a miracle itself. The roughly hundred and fifty people that went out looking for the huge swarm that took the lives of some of our kids found their prey. The zombies were apparently concerned enough with such a large group coming after them without hesitation that they tried to run for it. 

That just made the folks hunting them even more angry. I'm told that they kept going after the undead, killing stragglers as they were overtaken, until there were only about three hundred left. Those zombies turned and fought, as our people had pursued them right into a particularly rough area in terms of terrain. The zombies were slaughtered to the last, as far as we know. 

Our people fought with tempers flaring hot, and they were damn lucky that they held it together well enough that they formed lines as they attacked. They didn't give any openings, and there were a lot of archers out there with them to thin the herd down. 

All that being said, I can't approve of what they did. It was irresponsible, reckless, and frankly put the rest of the compound in more danger than we've faced since the Richmond soldiers invaded. Even ignoring the fact that half the walls were left undefended, the basic social order of the compound was disrupted by this populist outburst of rage so much that we're going to be picking up the pieces for weeks. 

And the rest of us, the ones who kept their heads and didn't fly off the handle, can't do a goddamn thing about it. To rub salt in the wound, many dozens of people from the group that went out hunting have made it a point to tell those of us that run this place that we can't do anything to them for leaving. They're showing a high level of loyalty to one another, and once again threatening to strike if any retribution comes to even one of them over this.