About fifty terrorist leaders had their heads blown off while talking into a mobile phone. After that they all refused to ever answer a phone call! Any time they received a call from anybody at all they would hand the phone to an underling and say, “You answer it!” Of course, it was not these little guys we were after, so we didn’t set the bombs off unless it was someone high up with the phone pressed to their ear.
We abandoned the technology at that time due to the terrorists wising up which then meant we were only ever catching low level terrorists using the phones. However, since the Zombie War we have started using this technology again. Now many Israeli soldiers have a detonation device inside their helmet if they are going into an area overrun with ghouls. A key feature of the Israeli combat helmet is that it has a camera on it with a live feed being watched by intelligence teams and of course supported by Edifice. It’s always better to have an extra set of eyes on a problem and the people manning the cameras can calmly pick up details in the environment that a soldier who is on edge and frightened might miss.
The other advantage of the military headgear is if the soldier dies we can just destroy their brain. In a lot of battles with the undead, or at least certainly in the early days, every conflict strengthened their numbers. Every person who died got back up again as a zombie. We’ve found an effective solution to that.
It is also more humane to our soldiers that if any of them are overwhelmed by the dead instead of just letting them be eaten alive we can end their suffering immediately. I have spoken to some of the teams that work with the head detonation gear and they swore to me they wait till the last possible second before throwing that switch. It is also every soldier’s choice whether or not he or she wants to have the detonation equipment inside their helmet. Some of them find it reassuring, that if they do get overwhelmed by the dead then they aren’t going to suffer. Other people don’t fully trust the technology. I get that, too.
What about reports of people being “tagged” with these head detonation devices? I’ve heard that refugees are only being allowed into Israel if they first agree to have an exploding device surgically installed into their brain.
Yeah, so? You think it’s an inhumane thing to do? Well, at least we’re giving them shelter. If they don’t like the conditions of entry to our country they are free to make their way to Sudan, which as you know is overrun with ghouls and warlords. When we first bowed to international pressure and started letting these “refugees” in the first thing they did was spread the zombie plague as much as they could. They were killing themselves in stadiums and schools and all kinds of places where people were packed together, just so they could come back as a zombie and start attacking people. They were convinced they were performing the will of God. Now we can put a stop to that type of activity from them immediately.
It was a very expensive lesson and I lost a lot of brothers to these terrorist attacks inside our borders. But at least now everyone fleeing Palestine or Egypt or any other Middle Eastern smoking nightmare can be implanted with a tracking device and a means of destroying their brain if they decide to misbehave.
Your government kills them?
No, they kill themselves. They know the risks. If they don’t want their heads blown off they won’t attack us, thereby forcing us to kill them. It’s as simple as that.
Surely that’s an abuse of power.
Not at all. Again, if they don’t like the terms and conditions of entering our safe and progressive country they shouldn’t come here. We did not invite them, it is they who need us, not the other way around.
Surely that is the very definition of the slippery slope argument? I mean, where does it end? When every political enemy, every person who even slightly disagrees with the government is tagged? It seems to me that one day this idea could lead to the state having absolute power over the whole population. No one would ever dare to speak out because they could be terminated instantly.
I see where you’re coming from. But you’re wrong. [Smiles.]
That’s all you’ve got to say? I’m wrong?
My friend, it is not you who was having your country attacked by people who wanted to not only wipe out your nation but every single member of your race throughout the entire world. That kind of ideology cannot be met with kindness and love. Instead, they need to be shown strength and guided with a firm hand.
Don’t you think that’s harsh?
[Sighs.] Apparently, you have forgotten Israel’s founding words, “Never again.” We are not going to passively wait for the world’s approval before defending ourselves. We’re facing an enemy that seeks to utterly destroy us, like they attempted in 1933 to 1945. We learned our lesson from World War II when every country in Europe refused to allow us refuge, even though we were being persecuted by the National Socialists, or Nazis as modern day socialists much prefer to call them. The new enemy is very much cut from the same cloth and ideologically no different from the enemy we faced in World War II.
We absolutely will always defend ourselves, despite how relentless our enemy is. Maybe one day that lesson will sink in for them. As Abba Eban, the Israeli statesman said, ‘History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.’
If it offends you that we are defending ourselves then so be it.
Some people would say its racist for Israel to occupy Palestinian territory, that Palestine has always belonged to the Palestinians. What would you say to those people?
I would say open a history book, preferably one that isn’t revisionist, leftist bullshit. I know according to the mainstream media that Palestine would have transformed itself into Silicon Valley by now if not for the Jewish occupation, but I can tell you first hand that although the West poured billions of dollars and euros into Palestine almost half of that was wasted by the Palestinian officials in embezzlement and outright corruption. If they genuinely wanted peace they could have had it any time. The fact that we consistently defended ourselves every time they attacked us does not make us the aggressor.
What about your methods to defend yourselves, as you put it? Don’t you think they are extreme?
Sure, our methods may seem harsh to you, but the consequence of us losing even once is the total annihilation of our people. Like all people we have a right to protect ourselves.
How did the Zombie War begin for Israel?
The Palestinian leader had been raging in front of the cameras, screeching that the hated Jews had found a new weapon of mind control –that’s what they thought the zombies were, a weapon of mind control devised by us. Even when reports were flooding in from all over the world that the zombie outbreaks were everywhere plenty of people on the Left still blamed Israel. The Palestinian leader was standing in the street preaching to the cameras when the reporter, I forget her name, was tackled to the ground and ripped apart by a ghoul. The cameraman swung the camera up again to show the Palestinian leader’s face, it was the expression of a man who is facing reality for the first time and does not like what he sees.
When the zombie hordes from the rest of the Middle East poured across the deserts and drove the Palestinian people to our doorsteps we did not turn those people away. We gave them refuge in their darkest hour. Some of them carried the zombie virus, of course, that was not their fault. I don’t hold any of those refugees responsible for those small outbreaks that occurred. They were frightened and fleeing the worst nightmare imaginable.
It was quite a sight, all those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing the millions strong zombie hordes that followed them. When the Palestinians crossed the Gaza strip they were protected by lines of Israeli soldiers, artillery and vehicles, who fought to keep the hordes at bay. I guess the irony was lost on many of the refugees that mere months before they had been petitioning for the destruction of Israel, the very country they were now running to for safety.
[Sips his tea.]
No, I don’t blame the refugees who unwittingly brought the z
ombie virus with them.
What I will not condone is the people who we let in here, not only our carefully defended haven but the only Jewish nation on earth, who then intentionally released the virus among us, obviously hoping to wipe us off the map. Those fanatics would beg for admission to a shelter or a hospital, waiting for the right opportunity to shoot or stab themselves to death just so they could come back as a zombie and try and spread the virus. We found terrorist cells inside our country where they had groups of zombies locked up, some of them former members of that very cell, ready to unleash upon our people. They even had plans to try and sabotage our drinking supply with the virus, in the hopes of turning everyone in Israel into a zombie. That was prevented by another spy, a guy I know who still works in that field.
In those dark days when outbreaks were popping up everywhere we had to enlist the help of every Israeli citizen who could fight. Old men who had long since retired from war were picking up arms again. Our women fought and still do. Even children who should have been playing with colouring books were made to pick up guns.
We fought them in the streets, ghouls which hours before had been our own people. There were many bitter lessons learned during that urban fighting. We learned, for example, it is better to use noise to draw zombies out of a building and face them on open ground instead of fighting them in close quarters where a zombie can be lurking anywhere in the darkness. The ghouls can even be led to areas where you have snipers and well protected fortifications, so you can destroy them in relative safety. Or they can be led away from areas where civilians are trying to hide. We used a lot of our armoured vehicles for exactly these purposes.
We even took our armoured vehicles over to Palestine to help draw away the zombies there that were besieging their buildings. As soon as we diverted crowds of zombies from the streets of Palestine the survivors there, mostly terrorists, immediately began attacking us again! All the while spurred on by the Palestinian leader.
Okay, when you talk about the terrorists you are talking about the actions of a few psychopathic individuals, not every refugee wants to destroy the Jewish state. And I’m sure there must have been retaliation from Israel, too.
What do you mean?
Well, the Palestinian leader, there are many who believe he was assassinated. There are stories that someone close to him killed the man.
He is still wandering around the Gaza strip as a zombie. It looks like he has a few bullets lodged right in his heart. No one knows what to do with him. If the IDF kill him it will cause uproar among the refugees in Israel, and the Palestinians aren’t going to kill a ghoul who used to be their leader.
Do you know anything about who might have killed him?
Who, me? No, not at all. [Ben-Ami leans forward to pour himself another cup of tea. Then he leans back in his chair and sips his drink.]
But I heard it might be the boy who used to bring him his coffee every day.
SOROCABA, BRAZIL
Interviewer: Mick Franklin
INTERVIEW 17:
I meet Lex Sobrinho outside a small bar. The beer bottles are large enough to serve several people and only one bottle at a time is put on a table so that it does not have a chance to become warm. When a group has almost finished a bottle they will motion for a waiter to bring them a new one. Most people wear shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. Nearby a group of young people play football in the street.
Brazil is characterised by several things. If you arrive here within ten minutes you will see people playing football in the street. Football is everywhere. Many people also wear football shirts. Not to be crude but another distinctive part of the Brazilian culture is the big asses. If someone wants to advertise virtually anything they are likely to include the Brazilian female bottom with the ad.
Violence is normal here. If someone says the word “thirty eight” everyone knows that this is a gun. Our chief of police went on record as saying that corruption is our default setting. It was common for police to arrest a prostitute and for the girl to then bribe the policeman with sex to avoid being charged.
Many people here wear shorts, flip-flops and a football shirt. Trainers are a luxury. Something like Reeboks are extremely expensive. We drink beer but don’t tend to binge. Brazilians love barbecues. We are also a nation that has a lot of holidays, sometimes running for a week at a time. There’s many carnivals, one of the most important being the four day carnival that usually happens in January. Not much gets done before this, as for us this carnival marks the start of the year.
The Brazilian people have low self-esteem and poor trust in our own identity. If something is made in America then it is assumed it must be a good product. If it is manufactured in Brazil then it is assumed to be substandard quality. For you to understand the Brazilian people you must understand what is called the “Brazilian way,” which is a reliance of life-hacks, always improvising, always finding the lazy way to get things done, always finding a solution.
We are very laid back. People are very physical here, often touching you soon after first meeting you. Everyone in Brazil has a nickname. Usually this is based on some event, some funny thing that happened. For example, if you ordered ten pizzas one time then your nickname might be ‘Pizza,’ or a friend of mine who was training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu would have his eyes popping out when he was being strangled so his nickname became “Frog Eyes.” That’s the other reason you will get a nickname, because of some physical trait you have. For me my nick name is “White Rat,” which I’m guessing is because I’m white.
The conversations are playful and cheeky, bordering on rude. If you were, say, lifting weights in the gym and doing it the wrong way people will approach you and either tell you that you are doing it wrong or laugh at you.
The majority of Brazilians have darker skin. The main religion is Catholicism although we’re now more diverse with Protestants, Paganism and even Satanism. I know there are some stories of the priests abusing their power during the War, for example running prostitutes and drug rings. I remember hearing about that gang who went and visited their local priest, asking them for his blessing to kill a rival gang in another town. Do you know what the priest’s response was? He said, “Yeah, sure, you can have my blessing to go kill them. While you’re here do you also need to hire some guns from me?”
Those are extreme examples, man. In general the people were united by our identity and part of that is religion. Brazilians are friendly people who don’t go out of their way to hurt anybody. But you have to understand that sometimes if someone is poor than they will rob people for easy money.
How did Brazil cope with the zombie invasion?
Brazil is a huge country. There is lots of different landscapes. The high hills, forests and jungles all provided natural barriers to the undead. This gave many of us time to prepare before the problem arrived on our doorsteps, although the truth is our corrupt government squandered most of this time that we could have used for building defences and learning what we were actually up against. Then there are various cities that are run by the criminals. Sao Paulo is a cyberpunk city, concrete everywhere, very industrial. Cubatao is very polluted with chimneys and smog everywhere as well as broken buildings and miles of fucked up concrete. The rebel group 9CC based their operations there, specialising in drugs and violent crime.
Before the war the criminals could run their operations from within the prisons because the guards were all bribed and paid for. Criminals would regularly order pizzas and have them delivered to their cells from the outside world. Criminals with a degree received better treatment, such as a better prison cell. Although the gangs had little to fear from the law they did have their own internal justice system, one that was very effective and quick.
There were plenty of “No Go Zones” in these cities before the War, with an incredibly high chance of being robbed if you wandered in there. When the War reached us the gangs fought hard to try and take the streets back from the undead and in some cases rival gangs who s
aw a huge opportunity to seize power with the military and law enforcement being occupied with fighting the ghouls at our borders. Many of these cities still have no go zones, although now it is because these areas are swarming with the undead that you are safer staying out of them.
Before the war people would visit places like Rio De Janeiro and comment on our safe it was, that you could even leave your hotel door open and go out all day and when you got back none of your belongings would be missing. What was really going on was that the criminals in the “favela,” or shanty town, were keeping the criminals in the city under control. The tourists brought in a lot of much needed money. When the undead arrived they swept through the favelas and suddenly the city was besieged by howling armies of the ghouls. A lot of tourists who had thought Rio De Janeiro was a safe holiday destination were hit in the face with this new reality. I heard of some hotels that were able to hold out against the onslaught, barricading the entrances and surviving off the kitchen supplies, but not all of them made it.
How did the Brazilian people defend yourselves?
Don’t get me wrong, there was no shortage of guns in Brazil. We produced, imported and smuggled lots of weapons, mainly things like assault rifles, pistols and shotguns. The problem for the common man was that the Left Wing government had made even owning a firearm illegal. If you were a criminal then it was fine to carry a gun because the criminals very much worked with the government.
Before the War you could hire people to kill someone you didn’t like. The killer would usually be some nobody who desperately needed money and the only firearm he could get a hold of was a rusty .38 or a damaged old gun from World War II. He would spend about two weeks following the target around, learning his routine, and then he would always shoot him from the back so that the target had no way to defend himself.
Zombie War: Interviews From The Frontline Page 13