Sunrays exploded through the window of a dimly lit room as a rather aggressive welco to the morning for Joshua. He and Dave had passed their nights watch on to Dillon and Devin so he was able to get a good nights sleep. He wasn't sure if he could trust anyone else besides the fire fighters to help keep watch at night for now. Laura and Natalie would co back exhausted after the grinding sessions that he and Nathan put them through. Nathan was a no go since if sothing bad happened or if soone acted out he would be nothing but a sitting duck. Thomas on the other hand had lost all his trust after Madalyn's story about her past with this town.
Knowing he had another full day ahead of him he forced his self out of bed and headed to the bathroom to clean himself up and get ready. Luckily he had gotten his suitcase the day before so he no longer had to walk around with plaid shirts and khaki pants. He wore a simple t-shirt that was lose on his fra and a pair of jeans. It was a bit too hot for any type of vest or Jacket so he left those alone. When he left the room he could tell a lot of people were already awake and moving about. It wasn't even seven in the morning yet everyone was already up and at it. Joshua thought it must be because this was a farr's town.
He headed down to the kitchen to get a quick breakfast before the eting that was supposed to start in half an hour. Last night they had decided to have similar etings every morning going forward. If there were a lot of things to talk about it might take a while, but on days where nothing major occurred then it would end in a few minutes, but no matter what there was always going to be a eting. Joshua finished his al quick before heading to the open entrance hall where people were starting to gather for the first eting of importance.
When Joshua arrived many people looked away from him with guilt ridden faces after the confrontation he had with them the previous day. Joshua simply shrugged it off and waited for everyone to join. The last people to get there were Devin with his lazy disposition, Laura who had slept in after yesterday's training and not to surprisingly the three hooligans who didn't seem to care to be there. Everyone seed a bit restless as no one knew who was going to start the discussion. Joshua looked around and notice that both the mayor and Thomas were looking his way in expectance. They still looked a bit regretful, but clearly wanted him to continue to lead everyone.
"I'm not going to stand here and say that I've forgotten what happened yesterday, but I do realize the situation we're in needs us to work together." Joshua said as he walked towards the center of the room and grabbed everyone's attention. "All I have left to say about yesterdays discussion is that if anyone of you look away from soone here causing troublethen you can expect a punch in the face from before being kicked out of here alongside the person causing problems in the first place. This isn't the ti for backstabbing. If you got a problem with soone bring it up in front of everyone so we can talk it out."
Joshua looked around at the people nodding towards him in agreent he could tell that he made the right choice in bringing up the subject. "Now we have a lot to discuss. I had Thomas and the Carsen brothers collect any information form everyone here so that we could put it all out on the table now. So, what do you guys have?"
Thomas and the three brothers looked between each other before Thomas stepped forward to speak. "Well we've asked people about the circumstances they went through before the ringing occurred. For the most part everyone was in town at the ti of the occurrence and they all state they passed out and woke up in a purple haze. An interesting thing we found out though was the age limit of the people here." Thomas pointed over to a rather older looking farr as he said this. "He's forty-nine years old and still here while his fifty year old brother disappeared after they t up in town."
Joshua simply nodded along since he had already learned this from Laura and Natalie, but he didn't want people to know that so he pretended to put the pieces together now. "Considering Nathan is the youngest one here and he's just recently turned seventeen then we can assu anyone younger than Nathan disappeared and the sa can be said for anyone older than him." Joshua said pointing towards the old farr. "That's good to hear, that ans all of them are most like away from this madness. So if any of you have a wife or child that fits the bill then you can feel relieved."
"That doesn't explain why all the won of the sa age range disappeared as well." Thomas stated as he looked towards Natalie for an answer.
"I don't know why either." She lied. "It seems for the most part most won disappeared as well, or were moved sowhere else. Maybe they were given a choice or sothing, but because I work as a police officer I might not have been given the choice." Everyone in the room was a bit confused, but most of them decided to put the matter aside and just be happy that their families were probably safe. So looked towards Laura to see if she had anything to add, but were only t with a shrug in reply.
"Anything else you guys find out?" Joshua said moving away from the subject.
"Yeah and it's not anything good." Dave said as he stepped towards the forefront of everyone.
"While scouting the houses in the area we have yet to find anyone else, but we have seen multiple signs of people vanishing with rooms left as if they were still in use. A lot of survivors might be heading towards big cities looking for help. We did find a lot of supplies we can use going forward, but there is a bit of a problem."
"What happened?" Joshua egged him on.
"About fifteen miles from here there is a relatively new factory that has been in use for a while. They make several different tal products for farm land and train railings. The problem is that the place was covered in a purple Haze." Dave said as he looked around the room and waited for that fact to sink in. Many people gasped and fearful looks sprouted up everywhere. "We couldn't really see inside it, but we could see a few of those creatures wondering near the edge of it. The place isn't nearly as big as the town, but it puts us in a bad spot being surrounded from both sides."
"That's not good, will have to get a better look at the place soon, but right now we have bigger problems." Joshua said getting confused looks from everyone. "Yesterday Laura, Natalie, Nathan, and I all went back towards town to scout for any changes since we left there. The haze is slowly spreading, but that's not our biggest concern at the mont seeing as at the pace it's moving it would take months to reach here. No the problem is the fact that a man that I saw die getting bitten to death at the gas station in town was wondering around outside like a walking corpse." The entire room grew panicked as discussion started to break out between groups. Joshua waited for them to finish before discussing the topic more.
"Was it like what we discussed back at the fire departnt?" Devin's voice was loud enough to hear over the crowd. His question making him the new magnet for attention. "I an was it like a zombie or sothing?"
"Yes it was, it not only could move around just fine outside of the haze, but also could run unlike the creatures. It was quite fast, faster than the average person for certain. It also was surprisingly strong as it took soone like to restrain it for any amount of ti." Joshua replied.
"Do they have any big weaknesses?" Dave said as he realized how dangerous these new zombies could be if even Joshua had to struggle in holding them down. Dave was a fit man and well built, but he knew if Joshua had grappled him into a hold he would have no chance of breaking it. For these creatures to make Joshua have to strain so much was not a good sign.
"Not in particular, but they are rather stupid. They aren't near blind like those haze creatures so if they see you they will co running. No amount of distractions will change that." Joshua explained as he thought back on how the zombie reacted to them when they ca within viewing range.
"Well what do you suggest we do about it?" Thomas questioned as everyone looked towards Joshua with hope that he had a plan. Nathan and Natalie were holding back their laughter at his predicant since to them it looked like a bunch of lost baby ducklings had spotted their mother and were racing to follow him again. Laura on the other hand ignored the crowd's reaction and was focused on what he had planned.
"The best thing to do would be to build so defenses, alarms, and traps around the area. We're not dealing with intelligent creatures so we can pretty much make the traps obvious to avoid hurting ourselves in the future. If we can get so barbed wire along the fence that would also be a big help in slowing them down long enough for us to take care of a group of them if necessary. Maybe so wire lines with noise makers in the forest around the area to wake every one up if one starts coming close. The last thing would probably be to dig so ditches around the fence with planks standing up in between each ditch. That way we can redirect them to fall into the ditches where we can kill them from a safe distance with arrows or spears." Joshua started to lay out ideas that could help defend the estate.
"Where can we get the supplies for that kind of stuff?" Dave interrupted as he thought they were so good ideas, but wasn't sure if they could pull it off. "I an the factory probably has a lot of the things we need, but that place is nothing but trouble now."
"Well you don't have to worry about that." The Mayor surprisingly interrupted the conversation. "I've known the Moran Family for quite so ti, so they have told about so of their plans for the farm in our conversations. They had been planning to start improving their fencing with wire sense they had been having trouble recently with wild hogs and other larger animals trying to break down their fence to get into the crops."
"So you think they already have a supply of the stuff we need in one of the storage houses." Joshua asked.
"Most likely, they had already gotten the order in a couple of weeks ago from the factory. Most of the stuff should already be here, they were just waiting on lining up the help to put it up." The mayor explained. "The question is do we have enough ti to do all of the work to put it up?"
"We have plenty of ti, the zombies wondering from town would probably take at least a week's ti to spread out this far away." Joshua said gaining sighs of relief from the crowd. "That's not the problem I would be worried about."
"Wait isn't that why we're going to set up defenses?" Dillon suddenly said. Joshua was surprised he was the one to ask since he always seed to be happy-go-lucky about things.
"Partially. In town there may have been a total of around forty to fifty people who died, aning only about fifty of those things could be roaming around. They won't even be moving in the sa direction, so they aren't much of a threat to bunch up and attack here." Joshua started to explain his reasoning. "That's not the sa case for larger towns, or in a worse scenario cities. If zombies start sprinkling out from places like that imagine how large the groups of zombies would be."
"They'd be in the thousands or even more." Dave said coming to a harsh realization.
"Right, so setting up defenses is more for the long term problems of coming across a herd of those things trying to move through the area. We would be flooded extrely quickly with those aggressive zombies without any obstacles in the way." Joshua concluded. Everyone in the room grew silent at the implications as a dark cloud started to hang over them. "I didn't say all that to break your spirit guys. I said it to light a fire and will to survive in everyone. Now let's get to work, if you want a shot at surviving and seeing your loved ones in the future."
The crowd grew determined as people started flooding out of the room to start on work for the day. Joshua watched on quietly for a mont before taking in a deep breath. With a clap of his hands and a quick stretch of his shoulders he ntally prepared his self for the many tasks ahead of him.
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