Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land (34 page)

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Human Question

Posted by Josh Guess

I can't help but notice the remarkable rebound we've been able to make in the last few weeks. It's strange to think we've come from the edge of destruction to a state of growth and strengthening. What's most surprising is that I'm surprised.
The Fall gave us all the worst possible conditions to survive in. Indeed, the initial spread of the zombie plague killed most people and left behind a struggling and devastated population. We persevered, even prospered, in the wake of the near-extinction of the human race.
Once the zombies had killed out most of humanity, what was left were people who for one reason or another had managed the impossible--survival. I ask myself every day if Darwin had a hand in this: that is to say, was it the strongest of us who survived, or the smartest? Do each of us have qualities that set us above those who perished in the terrible onslaught of the living dead? Or was it luck, plain and simple? Could that have been the major factor, just being in the right place at the right time?
I don't know. Honestly, I don't think I want to. We're here, and we have suffered, and it's enough for most of us to enjoy the new energy flowing through New Haven. I used to read that people who've had brushes with death would find a new interest and zest for life. Each of us had been there before, but clearly the same works on a larger scale. Our community came as close to annihilation as it ever has, and we made it through. Damaged and starving, but we did it.
Then this miraculous thing happened where people began to look at the long term in ways we've never really done before. Not just the basics of food, water, shelter. No, some of our number, spearheaded by Gabrielle and her work on making new medicines and items for wound treatment, have looked toward what we'll need to truly rebuild.
I haven't had the energy of late to go off on one of my philosophical tangents, but today is a good day. I have this ever-changing view of people that occasionally needs an outlet, or my brain will explode, and nobody wants that.
See, the strongest and smartest animals out there right now have managed to avoid the zombies that grow more and more hungry as time goes by. Not only that, but they've learned to avoid us. They are the best of their various breeds, no doubt about it. Evolution is getting a hard test right now, and from what we can see, many species are passing, even as they suffer tremendous losses.
I think it says something amazing about my own species that any of us managed to live. The more I ponder, the more I believe it's not a matter of being strong or smart that did it. I think the baseline human, being self-aware and capable of rational thought, has what it takes to overcome most odds.
Frankly, I think we got lucky the first time. The Fall should have been the curtain call for our species. With a bang and a whimper, we should have been consumed by ourselves, or at least the dead versions of ourselves, like an Ouroboros devouring its own tail. If the zombie plague is a thing made by us, as many believe, then The Fall should have been our suicide as a species.
I say that not because I think humanity deserved such a fate, but by looking at the sheer numbers. There were almost seven billion people alive at the time of the outbreak. By our best estimates, the plague and the violence that followed left only one in a hundred alive. Think about that. Surrounded by such overwhelming odds, how in the world did we manage survival longer than a few days? It seems crazily impossible.
So yeah, I think our initial survival borders on the miraculous. But since then, I chalk it up to good old human nature. We want to live. We have a tremendous capacity for ingenuity, creative thinking, and learning from our mistakes. We've taken the horrible shit we've been through and turned it over in our minds, extracting all the data we can from our experiences and turning it into ideas for better survival. We've become a society of experts on the subject by virtue of necessity.
All that being said, I begin to see why we've begun such an upswing in our fortunes. With the help of friends and allies, we went from the worst conditions possible to better ones in small but fast improving increments. More than a dash of luck with out hunting helped out a lot there, I won't lie, but deciding on trading with others and innovating in the creation of new products has been a huge boost as well.
Hmm. We've come so far, so fast, by doing what people have always done: pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and putting the work in. It's so simple, yet so amazing.
People. Infinitely complex and always surprising.

Friday, August 19, 2011

A Moment in Time

Posted by Josh Guess

Have you ever felt like the world was holding its breath? Today's like that for me. Nothing is going on at present. No attacks by the exiles. Not even any sightings.
Not that we don't have some excitement to look forward to. There are people headed here for trade from several places, and we're setting up a section of the residential area of New Haven for them. Sort of a bazaar using the gathering area where our tiny theater resides. There are many interesting items coming that will surely prove useful for us over the long term. I'm jazzed to explore the possibilities.
We've been in touch with the folks in Shelbyville who left here a few weeks ago to settle in the small fortress there. They're doing well, and have discovered many more hidden caches of food and supplies. Their late-season crops are thriving, and as several of them are pregnant women, we've invited them here to receive as much prenatal care as Evans, Phil, Gabby and the medical staff are capable of providing. It goes without saying our docs and nurses will handle the births if at all possible.
Our visiting friends from North Jackson have received good news from home: large swathes of wild grain and other crops discovered near NJ. Well, relatively so. Within a hundred and fifty miles. NJ is doing well with food production and management considering the huge number of people they've got to provide for. They're looking to use this new boon of extra edibles for trade as well. The more, the merrier. I hope the representatives from NJ can harvest and get here in time. I'd hate to see such strong allies miss out.
Overall, the outlook is good. None of us have dismissed the threat the exiled homesteaders pose, but we won't live under constant worry, either. Well, yeah, we will be constantly worried about it. Hard not to be concerned with people who have guns, know how to use them, and think your head would look extra snazzy with a few new holes in it.
We just won't let them dictate the terms or our lives. The zombie swarms mean we already live in constant danger. We already worry about attack all the time. It's manageable if the proper attention is given to defense and keeping a keen eye open for danger. The exiles are just one more threat on top of a stupidly dangerous world.
So, life will go on. We'll deal with them when and if the time comes, but we won't let worry cloud our excitement over the ties we'll build with the other communities in on the trading. Not to mention the benefits of trading things we make for stuff we need. Until now, the barter system wasn't doing much for us. Transportation will be harder down the road, but we'll cross that bridge when it comes, too. For now we're happy to make friends, make profitable trades, and enjoy the sunshine while it's here.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Free Market

Posted by Josh Guess

Tomorrow we're expecting several of the envoys from other communities of survivors to arrive. We tried to plan everything out so that everyone arrives within a day and a half of each other. We've prepped the theater by putting up stalls for each set of representatives to operate from.
Of course, the whole thing is a huge pain in the ass. I mean, anything worth doing is usually difficult and frustrating to the point of driving you insane. Here we are, on the cusp of building a new system of trade for the betterment of mankind, and I'm having to help figure out how to keep everyone safe. It's detail work. I'm good at that.
We've got teams clearing the roads and sweeping zombies as we find them. It's not so bad right now, since the local undead have learned New Haven equals death. Real death, not the walking about type. We know eventually the locals will starve or wander away, and new ones will migrate in. That's long term. Right now we want to keep the roads safe for out incoming guests.
Our teams have seen a lot of fires around Frankfort as they've cleared the roads. Campfires, small ones. We've been idiots about our exiles. We assumed they were moving around in a large group, maybe two. It's like they don't care if we see their camps after they abandon them. From the tracks we've seen and the other signs they left behind, it looks like no more than four to a group.
And, they have vehicles. Big, heavy ones. Will and Dodger are certain they must have brought them into town very recently, or we'd have seen signs.
All in all, not very encouraging. No one in New haven is exactly thrilled to find out the exiles are still here, much less apparently escalating their activities. It's damn annoying.
So, I want to give them a message. Exiles, Homesteaders, this bit is for you:
I suggest you stay away. If you come after us, we won't hold back. We gave you a chance to live by forcing you out of New Haven, and you should take it. Walk away. Don't contact us, come near us, or threaten our allies. Do those things and there's no reason why we can't all continue with our lives, happily untouched by violence. 
If you come, the consequences are on you. Not us. You've been warned. 
So, yeah. That's going on. You'd think after all the shit we've had to put up with lately, the exiles' activities would be worrisome and frightening. Our recovery is still fragile and young.
It's just the opposite. We've seen hell, lived through it, and come out stronger. Anything short of actual violence is a background thought. An annoyance. Our thoughts are for the future, on building. Not on simply waiting always for the other shoe to drop. Prepare, train, and be ready for the fight.
The fight can't be our only reason anymore. Human beings have to become something better than that.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Convergence

Posted by Josh Guess

Today's the day. I could barely sleep for the excitement of knowing the lingering problems we've had since the major zombie attack many weeks back will be over. The representatives from the various groups of survivors will begin to arrive this morning, and everyone in New Haven is buzzing about the possibilities.
It's been a rough time lately even though things have gotten better. We've had enough to eat, or at least enough to keep us from hunger pains. Our hunts and luck finding small caches of food here and there have been enough to allow us to stockpile for the winter. Well, that's more of a best-case idea. Really, our stocks were put to the side in case our luck ran out before then. Plentiful game and good fishing in the streams and rivers aren't guarantees. We could have run out of luck any day and been forced to use the canned and cured food we've managed to build up.
Today is a turning point, though. We're going to play host to many people who wish to trade with us. Some of them want to trade food, others have supplies and pieces of technology we might be able to use. The first rounds of trading for us will mainly focus on food, and if we can get hold of some useful items that we need, so much the better. Or, we might trade them in the second round for more food, which I think most people in New Haven would prefer.
It should be several hours before the first of them begin to arrive, which gives our scouts and hunters a bit more time to make sure the ways into town are as safe as possible. The total count of zombies cleared from the various roads in yesterday was seven hundred thirty four. Most of them in ones and twos, though there were a few pockets of a dozen or more that had to be cleared carefully. The number seems so high, partially because we never see so many undead together unless they're attacking. We usually leave small groups of them alone, as it's not worth the risk to our people to kill a few of them.
I think our outlook on that is changing now, too. With five working vehicles outfitted specifically to kill zombies, taking them out is a lot easier. The idea floating around is to run regular sweeps around town to keep them from joining together into large swarms. They don't like the smell of their own kind burning, either, so pyres all over the place might do some good in the long term.
Today we're all on high alert. Though we haven't had any more signs of our exiles, we're keeping a watchful eye in case they try something with the incoming envoys. We're worried about that, but not consumed by it. We'll deal with what comes, if it comes, and not waste too much energy needlessly fretting beforehand.
In a few days' time, we'll be flush with edibles again, have trade agreements set up to keep that food coming, and will be able to start taking in the sick and injured to treat them. Gabby thinks we can do a lot of good by utilizing our medical personnel to work out trades, just like she, Evans, and Phil did during our own exile.
It's a beautiful morning outside. The sun is painting the clouds, the breeze is brisk and strong, and our futures all look a little brighter. You can't ask for better than that.
Funny. Today is my mom's birthday. A part of me is glad she missed so many of the awful things we've experienced. She was a strong woman, and to lose her as we did after she survived The Fall where so many others didn't was tragic. She made it through what should have been the worst, and a simple fire took her away from us.
The other half of me is sad that she isn't here to see how far we've come. I know she'd be proud of us, and would have been the first to congratulate everyone on our determination to stick together. She's laud Gabby's creativity and ingenuity and the craze for special projects it spawned.
She's gone, though. I know if she'd survived, my mother would have been so happy to see communities coming together like this. Her children survive, and their children. And because of our efforts, all of them will have better lives than they would without them. If she's watching right now, I know it's with a smile on her face.
That's enough for me.