Friday, June 8, 2012

Awake

This morning has been a good one for the people suffering from the new plague. Nine of them woke up feeling tired and weak, but otherwise well. All of them were folks that hadn't been hit particularly hard by the symptoms, which is the first time we've seen any uniformity in the progression or resolution of the illness.

There were a few good comments on yesterday's post, and we actually used one of them as part of a solution for keeping the makeshift hospital cooler. I'm a moron for not thinking of it myself, because there's a great example of it right across the river: sun screens. The Exiles have big-ass swaths of fabric to block our watchers from easily seeing what they're doing (which still isn't a lot) but they also help create shade for the fallback point.

We did the same, though ours are far more makeshift. We've got a big pile of pipes marked for eventual use, and slapping them together and sewing lots of fabric didn't take very long. We had a dozen people doing the work, two teams of six, and they went on for hours and hours. Made enough surface area to help a great deal, especially since Dave cut some more ventilation in the things.

My contribution was less useful. I suggested that we use some of our extra tanks of compressed air to move the muggy air inside around. It's not ideal, but it helps a little. This is a problem that will get worse as we get closer to July, so it's not like we're done working on it. But progress is progress.

The zombies outside have taken to attacking weakly guarded areas of the wall. At first our traps took a toll on them, but we can't risk sending people out to reset and rearm them, so there are more places in the perimeter where the undead can get close to the wall. It has the same feeling as previous assaults, as though they're testing us to gauge our reactions. I'm sure it isn't good news, but for the time being the New Breed aren't making any real effort to get over the wall. If they were, they'd be bringing in logs to use as scaling ladders or climbing over each other to get our people.

Since they can't really hurt us without those tactics, our guards and sentries have been ordered not to attack. We save every arrow, bullet, and moment of risk for a time when we can't help using them. We're in too precarious a position to be goaded into another offensive like the one we put on a few weeks ago.

More people are getting sick, but not in large numbers at any given time. Jess is still in an in-between state, not fully functional and healthy but still able to move around and get things done. I almost wish there would be some kind of change, just so the tension of waiting for the other shoe to drop, constant and pounding in the back of my head, would go away. Mind you, I want that to be for the better, so I need to knock on wood or dance to the moon spirits or something.

She is taking it easier, though. With so many people ill and workloads reduced by necessity, there's less for her to do. I can't help feeling a strange variety of relief for that. It's terrible that we have to trim the number of projects we're working on to keep our healthy people from overtaxing themselves, but if it makes my wife feel the burdens of her responsibilities less, I'll take that silver lining.

Ah, she's awake. I hear her moving around in there. Going to go check on her and the others before I start their breakfast.

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