Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Fire in the sky

The temperatures up north started to drop this morning. Not to a really helpful level, but hopefully a sign of colder weather to come soon. 

But while the weather is important to us in the long run, it's not what I need to talk about today. 

At dawn today, the first rays of the sun at Jack's compound touched down on exactly the situation all of us feared. Several thousand zombies arrayed in loose ranks, split into one group for each gate. They held back just far enough that only rifles could reach them, and no one on the wall was going to waste any bullets. They stood for a long time, watching the wall and waiting for something. 

No one at Jack's was wasting that time. Sentries called in everyone possible, Will was hobbling along the wall shouting orders and trying to put together an effective defense for the gates. 

Just as the hordes began to move forward, a distant thumping was heard. 

Defenders and zombies alike paused, eerily alike in their reactions as all cocked their heads to hear better. It only took a few seconds for two helicopters to appear over the trees, low enough that the wind from their rotors buffeted the zombies where they stood. Courtney described them to me well enough that I can say they were military, though the fact that they unloaded a salvo of gunfire and rockets. Will says they were Apaches.

They didn't stick around after the zombies started to scatter. Maybe they were low on fuel, or simply didn't want anyone to know where they were from. Whatever the reason for leaving, their help was and is much appreciated. By themselves, those two machines cleared out about a quarter of the undead that were prepping to attack Jack's compound. Saved his people and ours from what was likely to be a long, drawn out battle, and gave them all time to prepare for what they now know will come again. 

If the zombies there are behaving in similar fashion to the ones here, then they are getting desperate. None of us are deluding ourselves that they will simply give up on cracking open one or both of our homes to get at the trove of people inside. 

Will, Courtney and Steve are working with Jack and his people to try and come up with a way to defend when the next attack comes. Ammo is getting tight and materials to make explosives are getting hard to scrape together. Hopefully someone will have a stroke of genius before the next attack, because no one is counting on outside help again. If whoever sent those choppers could have spared enough of them to wipe out more of the zombies, you think they would have, right?

Until and unless the weather turns bad enough to halt the majority of the zombies, this is a threat that will have to be dealt with. 

Given how easy we've had it here, I can only think that the other shoe has to drop at some point. When are we going to be hit in a similar manner? Can we be lucky enough to be spared such an enormous assault as Jack and our people have been dealt with? 

Time is our enemy and friend here. We have to hope that the attacks here and at Jack's will hold off until a cold front moves in, or that we can at least survive them until one does. We are strong, and our will to live is nearly unbreakable. 

But they are legion. 

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