Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land by Joshua Guess

practice every week.

I hate the idea of forcing anyone to do that, but I've talked to the council about it and it just makes sense. Having trained archers is a great thing, but the most obvious thing to do is to try and make every single one of us that way. That way there is a much greater flexibility in our defenses and hunting, which means that we have greater flexibility with all of our duty assignments. I imagine a lot of people won't like the idea when we have the means to implement it.

I don't imagine anyone will get violent with me over it. After all, I'm a pretty good shot with an arrow.

Heh.
     
    Thursday, March 17, 2011
    Unintended Consequence
    Posted by Josh Guess
     
    I've thought about many aspects of humanity over the last year. When the zombie plague flashed into a worldwide catastrophe and destroyed the vast majority of the living population, many of us thought the world (and our place in it) was over. An afterthought. 
     
    Some of us struggled to survive, banding together to live and thrive, choosing to listen to the better angels of our nature and work with unity of purpose. I've said a lot of good about my  people here at the compound. About the people of North Jackson. About every survivor who doesn't go the path of the marauder. 
     
    I've said a lot of bad about the marauders themselves. The truth, as most of you know, is that nothing is really ever that black and white. We've told ourselves time and again that there are those who want to live in peace (us) and those who don't, and should have the threat they represent eliminated (them). 
     
    That's how many of us see the world now. Us versus Them. We, as the heroes in our own story, are always virtuous. Always right. That's how stories go, isn't it? There's always a clear villain, some evil that everyone can agree on. The zombies. Marauders. Hungry soldiers bent on taking over a better place to live. 
     
    I wish it were always so easy. 
     
    This morning, a vehicle approached the north gate. The windows were blackened, and it didn't respond to any of the commands our sentries shouted at it through the megaphone. When it got within the hundred foot mark and didn't show any signs of slowing as it moved toward the gate, two of our riflemen on the wall used precious bullets to take out the tires. Not terribly difficult shots from their position--dead on at ground level as the vehicle neared the gate. One advantage of having a wall partially made up of chain link fence. 
     
    The SUV stopped and a few people with guns jumped out. They weren't shy about them, either, pointing directly at our guards. The sentry in command shouted through his megaphone for them to drop their weapons, that they would be treated fairly if they would lower their guns. 
     
    He told them that they had five seconds to comply, or they would be fired on. Standard procedure in this kind of situation. 
     
    Unfortunately, the people outside the gate didn't listen. They raised their weapons as if to fire, and in a fraction of a second, they were mowed down. Bullets from one of the larger, mounted guns ripped through them as a careful burst was fired at the cluster of them in front of their vehicle. 
     
    It was only after the fact that we were able to figure out what had their hackles raised to the point that they would take on on overwhelmingly superior force. Inside the SUV--thin and sick, nearly starved--were two children, maybe twelve. Twin boys who looked as though they had been unable to eat for a long time. The adults didn't look much better on a closer inspection, rail thin and hollow-eyed. The sentry guessed that they were searching for food, and probably had no idea we were here. Starvation can do strange things to the human mind. It's possible they didn't even understand what our people were saying to them. The children were dead when our guards searched the SUV. The rounds from our big gun went through that vehicle like tissue paper. 
     
    Were they a threat