Encampment

Just before dawn, I went out on a recon trip with a group of scouts. It wasn't part of any of the odd jobs I'm now responsible for. Just my own curiosity. The council isn't thrilled with my urge to gather information about the Exiles and they certainly seem to be getting tired of my opinions, but so far they're not stopping me or shutting me up. This is my home, and I can't help feeling responsible for it.

The warm (for winter) weather continues unabated, and the countryside is starting to fill in with zombies. There are only so many you can kill in a day, and the new breed are some clever bastards at staying out of sight. Not that I'm overly worried about clearing out zombies since we live in a walled fort. The more undead out there, the harder it is for the Exiles to move around. I just wish the council would see it from that perspective.

No, I went out this morning for a very specific reason: I wanted to see what the Exiles were up to. The scout team I went with was very efficient and quiet, we weren't spotted by the enemy despite the clump of zombies we had to cut down in order to get a good view of the Exile camp.

They've set up across the river, right at the base of the broken twin bridges. I have to assume they've taken over the entire fallback point, which means they've got a lot of room to stage their vehicles and more than enough room to allow everyone to sleep indoors. We spent a lot of time making that place comfortable.

The Exiles look like they're preparing for war. They've got men set up in a perimeter around the fallback point, guards walking the surrounding area with binoculars to keep an eye out for any incoming danger. I don't know what they're so worried about, really. It's not like we can fly over the river to attack them. And given my people's penchant for breathing regularly and keeping our blood inside our veins, we aren't likely to try any long-range assaults across the river. We lack the needed equipment to do more than irritate them that way.

Even the council, so bent on being proactive and going after any prize that presents itself, is smart enough to realize how hard it would be for us to make any kind of concerted assault on the Exiles. I feel a bit of strange pride that our reputation is apparently so good that we inspire this kind of unreasonable fear in our enemies.

I don't know if that was sarcasm or not.

Of course, I could be reading the entire situation wrong. Maybe they've spotted a big swarm of zombies coming from the east and want to be ready for it. New Haven might not even be a blip on their radar right now, since there's no easy passage across the river. Our guards at the remaining bridge tell us that the Exiles have posted their own a few hundred yards away. Stalemate.

For now, life in New Haven has to go on. We're keeping safe and trying to prepare for anything, but until more information reveals itself (or until we're attacked) there's no sense in letting the mere presence of the enemy stop us from living our lives. The zombie plague put us in a world where danger is constant; this is just the flavor of the month.

Damn it, that made me want ice cream. Stupid end of the world killed all the Baskin-Robbins.