Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Simplicity

I've had a rough few days, but no more so than anyone else in Haven. The sudden upward tick of the mercury, from a hard freeze and snow a week ago to eighty degrees out right now, has made life here sort of miserable all by itself. Our bodies are trying to keep up with the rapid changes, but we're all working so much it's all we can do to manage some sleep, much less feel better.

And we have it the easiest. 

On the front lines, our men and women deal with minor incursions regularly. The bulk of the UAS army is split up and hanging back--surprising and a little weird, but welcome--while smaller units filter through the wilderness between to cause havoc.

We're managing incursions here as well, but ours are just the dead people wandering across the state. The flow from the direction of Louisville is increasing as it always does this time of year, and added to that fun are a rather large number of zombies rolling up from the south. That poses a problem: our defenses in the county are already being tested. More undead will strain what we can manage, possibly past the breaking point.

Most of life's problems can be solved with a chainsaw. I've always said that.

Ten of us, including Kincaid and myself, spent all of yesterday making it much harder for the undead to work their way into the large area we've cordoned off for ourselves. I often say something about 'the county' when I'm writing on here, but that lacks accuracy. In truth we've set up a lot of choke points within Frankfort itself and around the edges of town, but most of the perimeter we've set up is centered to within a mile of Haven itself. We've always been careful not to harvest too much of our wood very close, choosing instead to haul it in from farther out. Yesterday that decision came in handy.

We cut down...well, not everything, but a hell of a lot of trees. They make an unholy mess when you drop three or four in a spot, branches breaking and tangling as they pile together. It makes for an excellent barrier against the undead, even the New Breed, and we didn't waste any time doing it. Oh, it isn't a perfect solution. But it's one that works. Reality constantly hammers home the point that every advantage, no matter how small, adds up in the final equation.

As it is with the undead, so it is with the UAS. We're working to keep our home safe, all of us, in on form or another.

It's a much muddier pond when it comes to our living enemies, nowhere near as easy to deal with them in a whole spectrum of ways. Not physically, psychologically, morally, or whatever. Zombies are dead things with no future and as sad as we may be for what they once were, killing them is an act of kindness as well as one of survival. Killing them in droves will almost assuredly be needed in the coming days or weeks, also as an act of survival. I'm really not trying to downplay how concerned we are about the resurgence of zombies.

Yet I don't want to downplay the importance of how the UAS differs from them, either. No one is sure why the main forces of the UAS are hanging so far back, but I want to use the lull in major combat operations to remind everyone that these actually are human beings we're dealing with. I'm not saying to hesitate should one of them start shooting at you. Do your duty. Rather I'm only reiterating that they're as unpredictable as human beings have always been, which means they could attack from a direction and in ways you can't possibly imagine.

Or, hell, some of them might choose to walk away. You never know. All I'm saying is to be cautious in all things, and keep aware of how circumstances change. Old hat to citizens of the Union, I know, but it's sort of my job to play mother hen and say these things.

Back to the ramparts, so to speak. More trees to cut, more references to Army of Darkness to make while I do it.

1 comment:

  1. I miss Arny of Darkness and The Evil Dead. I wish I had access to these wonderful titles. Not that I'd have time to watch them IF I had a way to watch them, but all the same I still miss them.

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