P.O.W.

I'm still recovering, but I wanted to update you all on the situation around here.

We've been sieged with constant, if small, groups of zombies. There hasn't been a lot of traffic in or out of here since we were poisoned until this morning. Gabby and Evans tell us that those of us who ate the tainted food should be OK since we're all getting better. I think that the idea wasn't to kill us, but only to drive home the point that we're vulnerable, that we can be reached and hurt by the Richmond soldiers if they want to.

It's a pretty clear message. Fortune has smiled on us, in that we are going to be able to send a message right back to them.

See, the guy who poisoned us ran. We didn't plan on trying to find him. I mean, with the zombies beating at the walls of the hospital and the weather taking a turn for the worse, not to mention the chaos created by two dozen deathly ill people, who would? Fate or coincidence or whatever you want to call it can be a cruel and hateful bitch at times, as our lives since March have shown.

Sometimes, though, she can hand you a gift-wrapped present, free of charge.

A carload of people were heading this way yesterday, and ended up colliding with the vehicle our escaped poisoner was driving. Not by accident, either--we sent out a lot of emails and calls describing his car, to warn anyone out and about to keep clear of him. The folks that hit him were given the heads up by whoever pointed them our way, and when they saw his car, they pushed him off the road.

And fought him to the ground. Tied him up. Brought him back here. Oh, yeah.

We've got a prisoner, and we intend to learn as much as we can from him before we send him back to the compound. Don't be surprised by that; he didn't kill any of us, so we aren't going to kill him. Not that the idea didn't get tossed around. We're going to send him back home in a few days, alive.

This is a golden opportunity for us to get a different perspective on what's going on inside the compound. We'll have a chance to get the viewpoint of one of the soldiers who took our home from us. We've set aside the urge for vengeance in favor of gathering intelligence. If we want to stay ahead of our enemies, stay alive, it's crucial that we know as much about them as possible.

I'll tell myself that every time I run to the bathroom, shitting my guts out from whatever it was he put in my food. Which I do about thirty times a day. I'm drinking about two gallons of water a day just to stay hydrated, which puts a dent in our water supplies since several dozen of us are having to do it. We've got reserves, and the weather lately has been generous with rain, and there's always creeks and whatnot...but it takes a lot of effort to do all of that, and this bastard has cost us that effort, and the time it takes.

It'll be weeks before any of us are back to full strength. Used to be that when you got sick, you had reserves of fat to draw on when you got better, general good health and decent living conditions. We've all been losing weight since The Fall began, our various injuries and illnesses taking their toll on us. Not to mention this hospital isn't heated since we can't afford to waste the propane it would take to run the generator that hard. We live in a building that's constantly fifty degrees on the inside, and that's just not helpful to getting better.

I'm off to ask some questions. I'm sort of worried that some of the Richmond soldiers might have gotten hold of Aaron--I've lost touch with him in the last day. Anything could have happened, of course, even just his phone losing signal, but the current situation makes my mind lean towards the bad guys by default.

Can't forget my crowbar. Those always help when trying to pry the truth from reluctant lips...