Monday, November 26, 2012

Reserves

Now that our people are moving out in force, I can tell you a few secrets. For the record, I've been given full permission to do this, because it's nearly impossible that the Strangers are unaware given the reports we've had of multiple groups of them spotting our people moving north.

For quite a long time now, we've been receiving large shipments of fuel from North Jackson. New Haven and NJ have taken great pains to hide that fact, because we didn't want people outside our group of allied communities realizing what we were doing.

Not long after Jack himself founded NJ and brought his people together, they began regular runs to a particular set of towns in the far northeast of the country. New England has very few people left, at least after that first brutal winter without the niceties of modern technology, and most of the people we've encountered there have chosen to move on. The reason NJ makes regular runs to that area is because of the Northeast Fuel Reserve.

Several million gallons of fuel, from gasoline to diesel to a particular kind of heating oil. We haven't made much of a dent in that supply, nor have the people who still manage to struggle through the harsh weather in the area. We've given them first call on the supply there, and from what I gather they've been trucking barrels of fuel out for days. I hope they've moved enough for their immediate needs, because even though what we've taken so far and what we plan to take very soon doesn't account for nearly a majority of the fuel, we're now certain that the Strangers are going to hit the reserve with everything they have.

The groups of Strangers we've seen have sometimes peeled away and retreated when faced with any kind of threat. Some have run back home, others merely falling back and finding different, safer routes. So far we've been fortunate; they haven't struck the reserve with great numbers. Now that NJ soldiers are nearly there with their trucks and tankers, we're hopeful that our own people will be able to join them soon and present too large a threat for the Strangers to handle. If all goes well, we should be able to move many tens of thousands of gallons of fuel with the huge fleet of vehicles we've put together.

I realize that by posting this blog I'm giving away one of our great secrets, but the truth is that the only people who matter that might not have known about this are the Strangers themselves. Our allies all knew because we were hiding shipments of fuel inside every trade caravan. And now that the...I hesitate to call the Strangers enemies, because they haven't attacked us, but they certainly aren't friends...

Now they clearly know about the reserve without my help. There's nothing for it but to move as much fuel as possible and hope for the best. My question is this: if they're so desperate for fuel, how and why are they travelling across so much of the damn continent to get it? They can't be so low on gas that they need it so badly, or they wouldn't be traversing a dozen states or more to steal it. It's curious, and only made worse by the fact that they're not desperate enough to fight for the prize.

They don't act like most survivors I know, and that bothers me. It's cold here and magnitudes colder in the north, which is slowing the zombies down all around. But even the thin bands of the undead able to combat the frigid air are enough to turn away the Strangers.

When you think that I went for a jog at dawn this morning, running outside the wall from the main gate of Central to the north secondary gate of East--killing two straggling zombies along the way--and no one found that odd or dangerous, you have to wonder at these people. I mean, sure, I was wearing light armor since I'm not an idiot, and I'd checked to make sure the way was relatively clear. But what kind of people in this world are so terrified of the undead that they won't drive their big-ass armored trucks anywhere close to them?

I've got theories, of course. But I'll save them for another post. I'm likely to go on for another thousand words on that subject alone of I don't stop now. It is extremely curious, though. Maybe I'll invite Will and a few others over for lunch and we'll have a palaver about it.

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