We saw the trenches in use today. There was an attack on the southwestern wall later in the morning where about 50 to 70 leathers tried crossing the trench to get up the wall. They were piling on top of each other, something the guards never seen them do. They opened the sluice gate at Hanson Lake where it unleashed a roaring torrent of water storming the trenches. It plowed into them with the force of a train hitting a snowdrift, clearing the tracks with its cowcatcher. The zombies were swept away so swiftly, we lost sight of them in the roaring froth of the water as it emptied into the Wisconsin River and dumped them off as undead flotsam. After the flushing of the trench, the sluice gate was closed, and the trench slowly drained.
Teresa was on call and arrived at the wall to make sure everything was operating smoothly after the attack. I asked her how often Rhinelander gets attacked, and she told me usually once or twice every other day. She was almost certain that they were coming from Stephen's Point, which is why they believed there was some kind of nest there. Her theory was leathers were sent out to find draggers or other humans, infect them and bring them back to Stephens Point where they would group together and try another attack on Rhinelander. They've been attacked at other points along the wall as well, and it was always in waves. They said they haven't seen a single lone zombie approach the town in months. I asked why they kept trying to attack, and she looked kind of puzzled as to why I didn't already know the answer. I guess I did. They zombies know that beyond this wall, there's a massive food source.
Thaddeus paid us another visit today and began talking to us about vocation. He said no one gets paid for the work they do, as currency hasn't really served a purpose for quite some time, but everyone has to pull their weight in Rhinelander somehow. I told him I used to DJ when lived in Maine and to my surprise, he informed me that Rhinelander has a radio station. He said, though, that if I wanted to get it up and running, it would take a lot of work. Anyone who used to know how to operate the equipment had long since past. Just thinking of DJing again had me incredibly excited! Not only would I be DJing, but he said that the station would actually be mine if I got it working! My very own station! I actually dropped by the station which was on a small hill just up north, and he wasn't kidding. It would take a lot of work. Kat and I only stayed up there for about an hour just dusting things off. I'll take a look at the electronics tomorrow.
Kat didn't have much to offer skills wise. There was no need for an artist or any kind of web designer, but the one thing she said would love to do is help out in the daycare center. She had plenty of experience watching children, so Thaddeus got her in touch with Margaret Steinholme, the owner of Bright Eyes Daycare. She starts her job tomorrow.
On the topic of Kat, she had her first bout of morning sickness during the night. I somehow slept through it, and I felt awful about it. Something like that, you're supposed to get up with your partner and hold their hair back while they vomit. Speaking of hair, it's starting to grow a little long again. I'll have to give her a trim tomorrow, not to mention myself. I've got a pretty scruffy beard by now and I mentioned to Kat that I wanted to chop it off, but she said, "Don't you fucking dare!" She finds beards sexy, and well, if your woman finds something sexy about you, you don't change it!
Also, Saint Anthony examined her leg, and found that her ankle still has a slight hairline fracture, so it isn't fully healed. She said she's walking just fine, but he played the persuasive doctor role and put a new cast on her, although this one did allow for full mobility. Shock would simply be absorbed through the cast instead of up her foot. She wasn't happy to have a cast on her again and suddenly, she remembered Sandra and how she decorated her cast. Kat started crying and I shed a few tears as I held her to comfort her.
I remembered Hector, Wallace and Temperance back in Terre Huate, and I thought maybe we should try to head back and grab them. The electric car we rode in also had solar panels on the top, so it would be the perfect thing to travel in. I forgot to bring that subject up when I last spoke to Thaddeus, so I'll have to remember to talk to him tomorrow about seeing if we can use it, or at least if there's another car like it. We can get them back here in a day, two at most. Temperance is nearly seven months along now. I don't want her having that baby in the dead of winter. It's obviously safer for her to be here to have it.
I met Javier today, Rhinelander's civil engineer. Not only did he help with the installation of all the solar panels for the roads and parking lots, but he also designed the trench system. He loves to tinker as well, claiming to be a serious inventor. He was the one that came up with the idea of tazer arrows. They were swift, accurate and had far greater range than tazer guns. He also showed me a prototype that he was working on. He called it the Man-o-War, after the Portuguese man o' war. It looked like a pill-shaped boat with nodes sticking out from underneath, just like the tentacles of a man o' war. The Man-o-War would float around the edge of lakes, or even down flooded trenches, and it would release a burst of electricity into the water when anything came near its proximity.
I had never thought electricity worked on zombies. Javier said it worked just as well on them as us, if not better. I asked how it could work better, and in turn he asked if I knew that zombie blood is flammable. Without telling him exactly how I discovered that fact, I simply answered yes. He said, "Well, if you shock a zombie long enough or with enough voltage, they burst into flames. He had a theory that if you caught a bunch of zombies in the water and electrocuted them, their blood would catch on fire and they would spontaneously combust. I asked where he got that theory. He smirked and said from the Zombie Slayer 5 video game. See? Video games aren't pointless!
Kat and I were also formally welcomed to Rhinelander by an impromptu meeting at their town hall. About 100 people showed up, and the one thing I noticed right off the bat was the high level of diversity. I recognized people from just about every nationality, culture and creed. Japanese, African, Hindu, Muslim, German, Native American, Australian, Spanish, Chinese, Nordic. They all seemed like great people and very welcoming to us. This is what I like to see. So many different people living as actual people, not isolating themselves because of differences in culture and race. This is how it should have been, everywhere, before the apocalypse. I hate how the end of the world has to come about to make us appreciate that were are, after all, members of that same world.
I also noticed something on my tablet just now while writing this entry, something that I never noticed before. It was a Wi-Fi signal. Does this town actually have internet? I tried to get on, but it's passkey locked. I'll need to talk to Thaddeus tomorrow about seeing if I can get on. If there is internet, though, I'd be surprised. I haven't been on in at least a year, not since I last had my cellphone. As far as I know, there aren't working cellphone towers anymore, and the internet itself suffered a massive hack back in 2019 that disabled just about every local hub. The hack was only exacerbated by the fact that ISP personnel was dropping at an alarming rate. Nevermind that the world was being overrun with zombies. People were freaking out because they couldn't get on their fucking Facebook and Twitter.
Oh yeah, we made snowmen today at West Side Park. A few of the children were playing with us, and we made a scene where human snowmen were killing zombie snowmen. It was so much fun to actually play in the snow again, with children no less. It made us feel like children ourselves. After their parents came and got them, Kat and I made snow angels, individual ones at first, and then we made a joint snow angel, laying on our sides kissing. We got up carefully and admired our work. Then Kat had me close my eyes to get ready for a big surprise, and SPLAT! Snowball to my face! I yelled at her playfully, "You bitch!" and she hit me in the nuts with another. It didn't hurt much, but I milked it for what it was worth, grabbing my crotch and falling over. She ran over to me to check if I was alright, and that's when I stopped playing possum and grabbed and pulled her down on the snow and started filling her shirt with the cold white stuff. God, we had so much fun! We laughed so much, the sound of true genuine laughter felt alien to us.
Today was such a good day. I had similar feelings when I first arrived at Lock Haven, like this could be a place where I could finally settle in and rest at, but unlike Lock Haven, this place felt so much safer. Kat and I talked about how awesome it would be to actually live here. It has everything we need. Food, water, schools, a library (by the way, I finally checked out a book today called Rise of the Fallen King, which I haven't started reading yet), and such an impressive defense system. I honestly can't see anything happening that would threaten this town. ... And I feel like just typing that out, I've somehow cursed this place. I really hope not.
Until tomorow.
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