Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) (34 page)

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
You
know as well as I do that the world as it is requires hard, sometimes
terrible choices. I don't have to give you examples. You understand.
Survival is the bedrock element upon which everything we do is based.
Without that as our driving force, we would make mistakes too large
to live through. Pretty much every other thing going on in New Haven
at the moment--the expansion, the Exiles, food struggles, and even
the new plague--is out of my thoughts. Instead I'm focused on a
tragic situation that nearly took my breath away when I learned of
it.
And I am not alone in this. Most of the citizens here are
heartbroken at the moment. Not just because of the bad news at the
root of our sadness, but at the necessary decision that came as a
consequence of it.
About an hour before dawn, a messenger
arrived from Louisville. I've been negligent in mentioning the
Louisville crew for a while now. They've been trying to grow much as
we have, taking in people from the outside and working to build a
serious central location for everyone to live in. Somewhere they can
farm and defend, somewhere rock solid and safe.
It was going
well enough until the new plague hit them. The Louisville group
suffered some harsh losses, but managed to keep attracting newcomers.
After all, the plague was everywhere. No harm in bringing people in
when everyone is already getting sick.
After Kincaid's idea to
burn the illness away with saunas spread, our friends in Louisville
began to improve, then prosper. They treated their ill and moved into
their new home, a location I still plan to keep secret. The messenger
this morning brought dire news, a quick and mournful shift in their
fortune.
Much as we've seen here on a very small scale, the
people in Louisville have come through the new plague more prone to
catching an illness. Someone must have carried a nasty bug in with
them, because in a matter of days more than three quarters of their
population have developed serious symptoms. Maybe not so bad in a
world with hospitals, abundant doctors, and facilities to produce
medicine...but in the world that is, bad enough to cause a lot of
worry. Vomiting and diarrhea, sharp fevers and profuse sweating,
weakness and a few others. Very, very easy to spread, and with all
the hallmarks of an outbreak of a nasty flu.
Their community
has gone from growing to a grinding halt in half a week. Without the
kind of infrastructure we've built here and with so many people sick,
life in Louisville has become nearly impossible. The sick people rely
on those still well to make them food, keep them hydrated. Water
there is easy to get from the river, but needs to be filtered and
purified to drink. That takes time and energy, and when three of four
people are on their backs, the rest become overwhelmed
quickly.
Naturally the messenger asked for our help. We had to
turn him away. While we have extra people here, probably enough to
see them through this crisis, we simply can't risk it. Sure, putting
off our expansion plans to give some help wouldn't be the end of the
world (again) but our immune systems are likely just as compromised
as theirs are. Anyone we might send to Louisville would probably end
up sick, and would bring that home to us.
I was with Will when
he gave the messenger the council's decision. No one from New Haven
would be sent to help. Any citizen could choose to go of their own
free will, of course, but they would not be allowed back through our
gates for at least sixty days. A long time to make sure that any
sickness wouldn't be carried back here, but again a needed
precaution. So far, no one has volunteered to go.
I don't like
it. No one likes it. I know that we might be consigning good men and
women, people who have fought by our side, to a slow and painful
death. Tears keep trying to form in my eyes as I write this, because
I know that many of them probably hate us for this. I would hate us,
too, even knowing how hard this decision is.
I'm reminded of a
very early lesson back in college. My primary teacher in my
Fire/Rescue classes told us that the first duty of a firefighter is
to survive. The job, he said, was to save lives if possible but also
to manage risk. Danger is an acceptable part of the situation, but
there are degrees. You might go into a burning building to try to
rescue a person, but when the floor ahead of you falls away, it's
time to back out and cut your losses. Your life isn't less important
than those of the people you're trying to help.
Risk is fine.
Every day we live is filled with it. But something like this,
something so potentially deadly to so many of our people, isn't
acceptable. I write that with a heavy heart and more sadness than I
can express in words, but also with resolve. I hope the Louisville
folks pull through, and if we can think of ways to help that don't
expose us to the disease rampaging through their ranks then I'll be
the first to volunteer to go.
Until and unless that happens,
I'll keep them in my thoughts. Because for now, that's about all I
can do.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
The
fucked up thing about forward momentum is that the faster you go, the
more damage is done when you get that small nudge from one direction
or another. We're working our asses of trying to make a go of this
expansion, and so far we've been lucky enough to avoid major
conflicts with the Exiles, no crushing defeats at the hands and teeth
of the undead.
Just goes to show you that it doesn't take a
supervillain to derail a train moving at speed. Sometimes trains
collide.
Enough beating around the bush, I guess. We're in
trouble. Our decision to withhold aid to Louisville wasn't an easy
one to make and to be blunt it hasn't been popular with some of our
allies. A few of them have made it plain that they think we've made
the wrong choice, that we should "risk much to save much."
I understand that point of view--it's one I've wrestled with over and
over again recently--but ultimately the safety of our people trumps
any other consideration.
It isn't pretty or nice. It's
actually pretty fucking terrible. But those of you out there who
aren't happy with us at the moment...well, you're about to get a
whole lot unhappier.
I don't have the heart to get into a long
post about it today, but some of the Louisville people are planning
to come here if things get much worse there. We're sending out scout
parties to make sure they don't get close enough to infect us with
whatever version of the plague is devastating their people.
I
understand desperation pushing people to do things like this, but
we'll shoot the tires out from under their vehicles and lay traps if
we have to. This isn't up for debate. Causing a ton of division and
hard feelings both inside New Haven and beyond, but as policy goes
it's pretty much concrete.

Posted
by 
Josh
Guess
Yesterday's
post brought on the expected onslaught of comments and messages. Most
of you out there aren't happy with the leadership's position on how
we should deal with the people from Louisville. I understand your
anger. I get that many of you think that in our position you would do
the 'right' thing, and set up some kind of quarantine at the least.
Denying help to our friends is not a thing that sits well with any of
us.
But let me set some things straight for you so there is
absolutely zero confusion as to why we've come to this decision. And
why as of this morning only a handful of people have volunteered to
go help.
First: the Louisville crew aren't being hit with some
mutation of the new plague. Or, rather, if they are it isn't
susceptible to heat the way the versions we've dealt with have been.
It's either something new and more resilient than any form of the
plague we have experience with, or it's a plain old vanilla disease
taking advantage of our weakened immune systems. Do you people really
think that if a solution was available like using our saunas that we
wouldn't at least help them set something like that up? It was the
very first thing they tried. It failed.
Second: as fast and
hard as this disease has hit, coming into contact with the Louisville
group is almost a guaranteed vector for the illness they carry. Seven
or eight people from here volunteered to help after I posted
yesterday, and they rode out together. Those people can't come back
here for a long time, and that was their choice. So, please, all of
you out there who're haranguing us for making a heart-wrenching
decisions that 
you
don't have to make
,
allowing you an easy moral high ground: would you abandon your
friends and family for months to go help people whose illness stands
a three in four chance of infecting and maybe killing you? If you
helped and somehow managed not to get sick, would you be willing to
stay away long enough to show that you were no longer a carrier?
I
don't know that I could. And I 
still 
wish
I could go help.
Third: I do logistics, and this isn't just a
matter of isolating people and giving them, food. Sure, we could set
up a quarantine area and feed people, even send in a very small group
of dedicated people in hazmat suits to carry in goods.
If that
were it, I'd be the first to say hell yeah and bring people in. If
you think it's that easy and you're judging us harshly, then it only
goes to show that you don't have enough information. I hate sounding
like a condescending prick, but you've made your negative statements
about our choice as if you know all the factors. Instead of trusting
the fact that we've always tried to help people in the past, that
we've been stalwart friends to those in need, you assume we've
changed.
Here's the deal, people: there are more than two
hundred sick people in Louisville. They need constant,
round-the-clock care. They need to be fed, have fluids constantly
pushed on them. They're vomiting, nauseous, and what little
nourishment they keep down comes out of them in liquid form, meaning
they need to be cleaned up.
And they don't have much in the
way of resources. We do, but we're also feeding a larger number of
extra mouths than normal and keeping much of what we grow in the form
of preserves. You may or may not recall that there are a few thousand
people moving here soon, and while they have a good reserve of food
saved up, well, as Ned Stark said in Martin's classic work, "Winter
is coming." We can't spare the huge amount of food it would take
to care for all those sick people. We're already gonna be skirting
the edge of starvation and making an enormous dent in the local
edible critter population by Spring.
I get why you're all so
angry. I get why you think we're being cold and heartless. You think
we're being selfish by choosing to protect our own people and the
huge positive change we're working on. You think we're choosing to go
the safe route and continue on toward the expansion and migration
rather than risk everything we've built to save human lives.
And
you're right.
But do you seriously think we would just say no
without measuring the risks? We fucking 
want 
to
help, but the resources and manpower required would take half of all
the people we have to manage it. Yes, I've done the math. Even with
caregivers running with fifteen people apiece to care for--which is
way too many for one person to handle when they're all total
care--you've still got three shifts of people working nonstop in
support positions, doing everything from preparing food to providing
safety. Limiting the number of people contacting the sick people only
reduces the exposure risk, it wouldn't eliminate it.
As for
you specifically, Aaron...we haven't changed. We've had to make hard
decisions before, as all survivors have. You might be glossing over
the fact that all of us are killers. We've taken human lives before.
None of us are innocent, fluffy little bunnies. You damn well know
we're pragmatic and will ultimately protect ourselves. I don't want
to hurt anyone if it can be helped, but the risks are too high. You
don't run into a fully engulfed building with no fire gear on to
rescue a person.
Yeah, it seems heroic and amazing, and it
might be. But it's also suicidal and stupid. Risk assessment is a
daily part of our lives, now. If the odds were even that we could
pull this off without the Louisville sickness rampaging through here
and risking everything and maybe killing more of us than we'd save in
Louisville...well, I'd do it. We have to operate on what we can
observe. This sickness seems to hit the majority of people it
touches. Tackling it would weaken us and almost certainly kill a
large number of the people trying to help.
So any of you out
there who want to keep on being pissed, I sincerely support you in
that. I'm mad at us about it too, and at the universe for putting us
in this position. I don't blame you in the least for being
angry.
But you know what? I don't see any of you running away
from your families and communities to head to Louisville to practice
what you preach, either. What, we should risk nearly certain
destruction because we're 
close
?
If it's so wrong that we want to live and don't see any way to help
and survive, then maybe you shouldn't let mere geography stop
you.
No? Yeah, I noticed that yesterday. You're allies and
friends, and I don't want to say these things. But you judge us, yet
you don't suggest traveling here to do anything to help yourselves.
I'm sorry, but it's the truth. I know this has gone on long as a
post, but we 
are 
here.
We're in the thick of the situation. It's our call to make. It sucks,
no two ways about it.
And one last note, again to Aaron. You
say if you weren't 600 miles away you'd volunteer to go to Louisville
and help in a second. Funny how you accuse us of being selfish when
you abandoned the people who saved your life, your community, for a
wholly personal road trip. You were an integral part of New Haven. We
saved you from death by zombie, and you left us to pursue your
curiosity. Get off your goddamned high horse, because if you were
here you might have a different perspective. But don't be a
hypocrite.
All roads fork. We had two paths before us and we
chose one, for better or worse.