Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Deep Blue Need

The worst thing about making detailed plans is that the more dominoes you line up, the more pieces and parts you have to organize to make something big and awesome happen, the easier it is for something to come in and knock the whole thing over.

It has been very, very cold here the last few days. After cooking in our skins all summer long, we're not even a third the way into October and already we're getting frost. Kentucky has always had really strange weather, but this early cold snap is making everything harder. The zombies aren't being affected by the cold as much as we'd like, making defense of New Haven more difficult as well as hampering the last bit of repairs to the wall and buffer. Worse, our teams of people out at the schools are having to move about in near-freezing temperatures to fight the undead with little time to warm up and rest.

The worst part of all is that we're in the south. Granted it isn't the far south, but we aren't getting it nearly as bad as North Jackson is. Which brings me to the bad news.

The decision was made this morning to abandon our work on the schools for the time being. The effort required to make those buildings what we need them to be isn't overwhelming, but it would take longer than we have. The second wave was supposed to be coming this way in a matter of weeks. With the sudden, sharp turn toward winter conditions in the north, we have no choice but to bring in as many newcomers as possible, and quickly. Instead of jamming them into the schools which are single-story and dark (and will be until some modifications can be made to the windows) we're going to be turning our efforts to the local hospital.

Which is conveniently right across the street from the schools. The awesome thing about the hospital is that the ground floor isn't all glass or anything. There are a lot of windows, yeah, but we can cover most of them in a day or so if we put our task force on it. Plus they're super heavy-duty glass, which means as long as we cover the lower parts that a zombie might attack, there is no good reason we can't leave the upper quarter of the ground floor windows unprotected. At ten feet off the ground they'll let in very little light but will be safe from attack. Better than nothing.

It's a huge building and can hold a lot of people. We're not sure yet how it's all going to play out but our hope is to have it ready to go by the end of the week. We can't risk the next wave of settlers being snowed in up north. We have to move now.

And one last thing I should mention about the hospital. This bit goes out to the Exiles.

We caught the sniper you had camped out on the roof. He was watching our people for days, we know that based on the amount of trash we found in his little perch on top of the hospital. He is still alive. He didn't kill any of our people. Just watched. Maybe he was gathering information for you, maybe he's a plant to gain our trust or something. I don't have the slightest. I was told to mention it on here. You should know that we're desperate to get this project ready for our newcomers. No lies or subterfuge here. Just blunt honesty.

If you want a reminder of what we'll do when desperate actions are our only choice, then keep on with this kind of thing. You know roughly when the newcomers will be here. There will be a lot of us and a lot of them, we'll all be armed, and you might be able to hurt us. Just remember if you choose that path that we've been known to...overreact when our citizens are attacked.

Just saying, keep it in mind.

...As for me personally, I'm begging Will and the council to let me help out in some way with our work at the hospital. I mean, give me a hammer and nails, something! Don't just make me sit here and write about it. I don't need to do violence to do my part. I know it won't do any good, suppose I'm just feeling a bit constrained by the rules and such. Not mad about it, either. I'm being given a lot of leeway to do this thing, and if that comes with some basic requirements I won't break the trust of the people who gave me this literally life-saving project.

Doesn't mean I won't whine about it and hope for the best, though. Because all joking aside, we need to get the hospital ready for action ASAP. All hands on deck, right?

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