Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Kincaid, Part Two

Yeah, this is Kincaid again. Josh is still sick, worse off than he was yesterday. I feel kind of weird writing on here. I don't want to intrude on his space. I've read back through the archives and it makes me feel better knowing other people have done it before me.

Josh talks about a lot of stuff as he tries to keep everyone updated on life here in New Haven. I would try to do the same thing but there isn't a lot to talk about. The heat has been almost too much to handle lately, but the zombies outside are still feeling it too. We're not fighting them at the moment. I can't say it bothers me much.

I guess the most important thing happening at the moment, or at least what's stuck in my head, is Josh not being here. He's in the infirmary with his wife. I'm typing at his house. The big blacksmith is sitting across the desk right now. He doesn't like me. The eyeball-fucking I'm working under at present should come with hazard pay.

Not being liked. Heh. Used to that.

So many of you out there have no idea what life was like for people like me when the world came to an end. I can't defend the things I did and won't try. And don't get me wrong, the distrust for former marauders isn't something we haven't earned. We have. Guess I just think cooperation and integration would go smoother if there were more civility. Maybe some understanding.

The question I get asked most, at least when people aren't too afraid to ask, is why. Why did I do the things I did as a marauder and especially as a leader of a group? Notice that I don't say that people asked me how I could do it. In general, stupid and naive people didn't make it through The Fall, and it would take one of the two to have any genuine doubt that human beings are capable of being awful in a whole spectrum of ways.

No. 'Why' is the question. Why, knowing it was wrong on a fundamental level. Why, when my conscience eventually pushed me to give myself up during the amnesty. Why, a hundred varieties and angles. Why did I do it.

Because I was fucking scared. I was out of my mind with fear when I finally realized the military wasn't going to stop the plague of zombies. I was a good little sheep, herded into a big city and inside a giant ring of heavily-armed soldiers. I was there for nearly two weeks as the soldiers fought for us. Out of at least three thousand people, I was one of maybe twenty survivors.

While so many of you were planning and building the first parts of your communities, I did what the majority of people chose to do. I ran. I hid behind others better equipped to deal with the situation. I don't feel guilt or cowardice about it. It was a logical and reasonable decision. Hell, I was an IT guy at a credit card company before The Fall. I had never been in a fight, never fired a gun. I was thirty before I had a steady girlfriend.

The hardest thing I'd ever had to do was worry about sending my mom to a nursing home. I thought that decision would tear me apart. Honestly, how prepared was I mentally for what was going to happen?

I won't lie to you. I didn't go crazy or decide that the world was going to burn anyway and just give in to my base impulses. It's easy to think of myself as a bad person. I've done terrible and maybe unforgivable things. But it didn't all come at once. There were moments of choice, hard ones that required picking the lesser evil. Worry for those around me. The thought that keeping my people alive was more important than anything else.

Maybe if Josh is still too sick to write tomorrow, I'll tell you about them. I just realized how much I've written and how much time has passed. I have work to do.

1 comment:

  1. Mr. Kincaid, Everyone, even before the Fall, has done some things they are not proud of or have major remorse for. I don't condone the choices you have made, but I will not judge you, either. Remember how Will came to be at New Haven? And where is he now? What matters the most is learning from past deeds, evolving and changing who you are and liking who you have become. If you are sincere in your position in the new world, others will see that and begin to trust, maybe even respect, who you have become.

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