Next Wave

I didn't even know they were coming, to be frank with you. Not that I would've said anything on here if I had, but it's still strange and different not to know these things. In this case sort of freeing in the sense that I didn't have to hold a secret back at all.

So, yes. The next wave of settlers arrived yesterday. This is a smaller group than the first wave--there were five hundred of them, you may remember--mostly because of the slow pace of the expansion relative to the speed we wanted to work at, and also because of the thick layer of undead now trundling around the county.

This group was about a hundred strong, and they came in yesterday. Knowing they were going to be dealing with a lot of zombies, they came prepared to fight. What impresses me most isn't the calm and capable way they did the fighting, but the adaptability and thoroughly planned method they fought with. I watched a lot of it happen from the walls. I was in a guardhouse, acting as a spotter. My little way of contributing to the fight without risking anyone else by panicking at the wrong time.

Dodger coordinated the assault, and it was impressive. For all their toughness and intelligence, the New Breed can't seem to overcome some basic biological facts. Fire is still something that throws them off and scares them. Massive confusion and overwhelming numbers do it, too. They trade off the mindlessness of the old school zombies and their relentless nature for cleverness but the many fears that come with intelligence.

Our people usually don't start fights with the New Breed. There are always a lot of them out there, and yesterday we made sure to draw in a good number of them with scouts acting as bait. The idea was to kill as many as possible as close to New Haven as we could, in order to leave behind whatever death-scent it is that drives them away for a time. That way we could bring in more waves after this one.

So our archers and riflemen (and riflewomen, as Jess and a few other ladies decided to kick off the rust and fire away from the watchtowers) let loose on the gathered dead. The archers fired over the buffer and into the bodies massed on the other side. things were getting heavy, the cables of the buffer starting to show strain when the scouts burst from the woods on their dirt bikes. Behind them came hundred of zombies, enough to overwhelm sections of the buffer.

All of this was happening at the north gate of central (original) New Haven. The walls are stone and strong, and we thought it would be a good idea to fight them where we're mighty.

The scouts shot away and scurried into hidey holes set up for them, and the mass of New Breed and old school zombies following them pressed into the hordes already in front of us. That was when a section of the buffer gave out, causing hundreds of them to spill into the space between the buffer and the wall.

Just like we planned.

One weakened section of buffer later, the zombies were trapped where we wanted them. It was dangerous as hell, and a constant fire from the walls was needed to keep them from overwhelming us. That, and the traps we'd placed in the night. Then the next wave came at them from behind, using the gap in the buffer as a bottleneck, and the fight moved our direction.

It was beautiful to watch. Lovely and terrible.

I didn't feel a moment of anxiety as I watched it happen, either. I don't know what that means, but I'll lean toward optimism and say it's a good thing.