Crazy Town

I have been trying to keep as regular as possible on here lately, but with winter comes illness. I don't usually get sick very often but this year seems to be a bad one for me. I'm not on death's door or anything but I do feel pretty weak and out of it right now. So if I get all wonky and make no sense before the end of this post, forgive me. I'm still trying to shake it off.

Courtney has managed to maintain civil contact with the group in Carterville. They are still asking for privacy at present, so I won't go into detail. I will say that things are going well on that front. We even got an apology from them for shooting at me and Steve, not that we could blame them. Oh, and Courtney also managed to find out some info on the crazy bastard that commented on the blog after our trip to Carterville.

You might not remember, but when we got close to there we encountered a wall made of all kinds of things. My brother Dave blew a giant hole in it so we could get where we needed to go. On the way back from that particular trip someone posted a comment on that blog entry, basically threatening all of us here at the compound for damaging their work and endangering their families.

It wasn't the Carterville folks that sent this. Remember, they didn't have access to the internet at all until a short while ago.

No, it was someone from another group of survivors in Marion, which is my hometown. That group is smaller and frankly scary from what I have been told. They didn't build the wall (it seems likely that the marauders that still control much of Carbondale, where we rescued Tree and his people from, are responsible there) but they did enjoy the protection it gave from zombies coming in from the north.

The people in Marion are crazy. They aren't like some survivors, like us and the Carterville group, who are merely cautious to a fault and fast on the trigger. Nor are they like marauders, who kidnap and murder in order to steal supplies and weapons as well as for fun. No, those people are actually nuts, it seems.

They are rational enough to want to live, and seem to be willing to do just about anything to achieve that goal. Marion is now a deathtrap from one end to the other, dotted with pits, rope snares, explosives...literally tons of deadliness wherever you go. The Carterville group lost a patrol finding that out.

Marion is basically off limits to anyone and everyone. They kill any human who isn't a part of their group on sight. I don't know what they have gone through to make them so afraid of everyone, but there it is. No one goes in and lives. There is no chance for useful communication.

The whole thing begs the question: when and if society stabilizes and we can finally destroy or at least manage the swarms of zombies across the earth, what do we do with people like this? Do we leave them be and only worry about them when they get low on food or medicine and come out, desperate and willing to kill on a whim? Do we take drastic measures to ensure that a group of murderers never has the chance to come after us? It's a bit much for me this morning.

It's looking likely that Courtney and Steve will be heading out before long. I hope that the positive trend with the Carterville compound grows on, but I will worry about them regardless. There is so much death and destruction in southern Illinois, and we know that large groups are still active as marauders, maybe more so since our trip there. Our tenuous friendship with Carterville has made us aware that somehow they have kept themselves safe from outside forces, but I still worry.

Maybe because of our recent group obsession around here with overwhelming forces...

Ok, that's it for me. I need to get some work done today and writing for a long time is only sapping what little concentration I've got. More tomorrow.