Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hey, It's Beckley.  Been keeping busy and at the same time being lazy about posting.  I feel like I'm starting to lose touch with the need for technology.  I look at this laptop and I just don't see the point in firing it up most of the time.  The same extensive internet no longer exists, the same resources are no longer available.  This machine and the series of tubes it used to connect with have become anachronistic in today's society.  Still, it can be used for communication so I've got to keep up with it.

Lately I've been going out on beater missions.  Now normally there's a skilled group of soldiers who go out and re-kill zombies.  That said, we needed larger numbers to take advantage of the weather.  We've all seen the death of the Old School Zombies and the rise of the New Breed.  And we all know that the New Breed are deadly.  They're fast, they're clever, they're resilient, and they're patient.  The New Breed watching Haven are spread out over a lot of distance, trying to watch us from every angle, herding their less intelligent brethren, and just in general lying in wait for a meal.  They're always a danger to travelers and traders.  And we just had the chance to clear out most of them.  At least I hope it's most of them.

See, we got an early Christmas present a week or so ago.  Freezing rain and sleet and snow.  It was disgusting out.  The kind of nasty weather that would make you call off work in The World That Was.  Weather like this used to incapacitate the zombies, but the New Breed handle the cold better.  But here's the thing: Even though they handle the cold, they will keep still in the cold to save energy until there's something worth doing.  So they got rained on, then sleeted on, then snowed on, then sleeted on again.  Layer after layer of ice built up out there while the New Breed just stood there and took it.  The result is that the hidden packs of New Breed got frozen over.

I wish that it was like the cartoons, where a character can get completely immobilized in a block of ice, but unfortunately we had to deal with the reality.  Maybe a few New Breed got their feet iced completely to the ground.  The vast majority were still mobile, but forced to shamble across icy ground while wearing tattered clothes that had been turned to sheets of ice.  They were all moving like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz while flakes of ice fell from their limbs and joints.  And that made them easier targets.

So the call went out for volunteers since the people heading up Haven security wanted to cast as wide a net as possible.  Teams of civilians, headed up by professional beaters, went out from Haven in all directions and laid waste to any iced up zombie they could find.  It was a slaughter.  No casualties on our end and innumerable undead were put down.  Spirits are riding high in Haven right now.  The people are planning a huge midwinter/Christmas celebration.  Everyone is just so happy.  I'm just happy I got to help out.  The change of scenery helps to keep me out of my head.  I really need that sometimes.  I know, I keep referring to the past then not sharing about it.  It must be kind of annoying.  Still, the things that happened, that I've done, they stay with me.  I don't know if it's something I ever will get over.  I don't know if I deserve to get over it.  No that's not true.  I do know whether I deserve to get over it.  I know very clearly.  I don't.  The things I've done can't be undone and I owe it to the ones that are gone to remember why they had to die.  I might stand by my actions, but that doesn't make me feel any better about myself.

I'm being pointlessly vague and I apologize.  The point of all of this is lots of zombies are dead and people are celebrating.  And I got to put down a large number of undead.  That's what really matters in this world.  Happiness and zombie death.

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