Zombie War: Interviews From The Frontline

by Lambdin, Susanne

  I did have some success with the military guns that used computer assisted guidance, the Aegis and Edifice technology developed by the Israelis. In the hands of my Reanimated Mercenaries or “Re-Mercs” they could be very effective. I also persisted with training and found the ghouls could reach a basic level of proficiency with weapons if they had the right weapon, something that was only meant to be used at point blank range and which required very little technical knowledge to use. There’s no way, for instance, that I could rely on a Re-Merc to clear a jam in the field. I mean, I was often surprised at what they could do, and some of the things they seemed to remember from their previous lives. I’ve seen Re-Mercs filling cars with petrol (although not very well) and I had one that always used to keep a cigar in his mouth, I even lit it one time for a joke but he didn’t seem able to inhale the smoke.

  In any case, I’m making the Re-Mercs sound like they are inefficient, like they are just not worth the massive amounts of time and money I have invested in them, but that’s not the case. While it’s true that Re-Mercs are much slower and clumsier than a human soldier they do have one golden advantage which to my mind puts them light years ahead of human soldiers …at least in some situations. And that is that Re-Mercs can’t be sensed by other zombies!

  [Sits back triumphantly in his chair.] I could send a squad of Re-Mercs in to a group of zombies and they would start attacking the enemy zombies, using standard marine k-bar knives and hatchets to cut ghouls down, always going for the head like they’d been trained. The results were slow and messy, but my Re-Mercs are effective in a role like that. Now sure, you might say there are quicker ways to kill a group of zombies, but I would argue that my group, my Re-Mercs, were never in any danger. If I deployed Re-Mercs that means that no human soldier has to get killed. It was one of my founding goals, one of the reasons I created the Re-Mercs in the first place, that no American soldier should ever have to be killed by a ghoul again.

  And that’s not the only advantage . . . although that’s a huge one. I could also send my Re-Merc teams in to inhospitable environments, I mean they had little to fear from a land mine field and I was all for fitting them with prosthetic limbs after the mission. I also sent them to other locations like that team of scientists that got stranded in that sea bed laboratory. It was difficult at that time to find a team of divers that could go that far down and even more difficult to source the equipment they needed to get down there, but it was no problem for my Re-Mercs. They needed some basic training drilled in to them about how to open the water locks from the outside, then they helped to evacuate a group of very surprised scientists [laughs.] I kept radio transmitters and video cameras on every Re-Merc for that reason, just in case they ran into a human I could explain to that person through the radio not to freak out because the zombie soldier in front of them was there to help them.

  I was employed to use the Re-Mercs in a whole bunch of different situations. There was that mansion estate in Switzerland where the rich guy who owned it had been away from home when the War broke out, but his family had managed to make it into the basement and survive there. That guy paid me a fortune to drop a team of Re-Mercs in and destroy every last one of the servants and guests who had become zombies and were roaming the mansion. Apparently the wife had been having a party when the zombie plague reached them. Anyway once we were satisfied that all the threats had been put down we broadcast through the zombies’ speakers that we were the rescue party, we were there to save them.

  The wife of the house still refused to open the door to the basement, even when I explained we had a helicopter just outside waiting for her and the kids. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was terrified of my zombie soldiers. It wasn’t until I put her husband on the speaker and he spoke to her that she finally agreed to open the door. Even then she kept herself between the zombie soldiers and her children, and she refused to fly back in the same helicopter as my boys. So ungrateful.

  [Grins as the waiter brings him another long island iced tea.]

  Did you ever have to use your zombie soldiers against any humans?

  [Studies his drink for a minute.] Not against any Americans. I was adamant right from the start that no American would ever be harmed, not on my watch. But sometimes, yes, I had to deploy my Re-Mercs against living targets. They would normally be terrorists of some kind, or perhaps a gang that had really prospered in the wasteland. You’d be surprised just how well some groups do out there and just how well organised and self-sufficient they became.

  If the price was right and if I had no ethical objections to a certain group being exterminated then I was happy to deploy my Re-Mercs as an assassination squad. Hell, those missions could be a great way of recruiting new soldiers! I did that once, you know, I was tasked with bringing down a terrorist group in Afghanistan, actually led by the leader of Al-Quaeda, Zawahiri. So I had a team of zombie soldiers dropped close to the cave where the second in command was hiding. He had improvised explosive devices outside and he had some guys protecting him, firing AK-47s at my troops, mostly ineffective shots partly because his guys didn’t have much marksmanship training and partly because I was very strict about all my soldiers having bulletproof headgear.

  Sure, the AK-47 rounds did some damage to my boys’ bodies, ripping them open and slowing them down a bit, but most of them made it through all those defences, minus a limb or two. Then . . . then it was a blood bath. My zombies turned that cave in to an abattoir. The men who weren’t ripped apart ran outside screaming, straight across the minefields and booby traps that hadn’t been set off by soldiers.

  The second in command was found in the back of the cave, hiding in a toilet. I gave my troops the go ahead to eat him, but I also called them off part way through, so that he was allowed to turn. I tell you, when I was patched through to Zawahiri and showed him his former second in command, now a zombie obedient to me, you should have seen the look on his face! [Laughs and takes a swig of his drink.]

  Zawahiri thought he had met the devil himself, that I was determined to steal his soul or something, and keep him trapped forever. Initially he put up some resistance but I repeated the lesson again, this time showing him a zombie version of one of his sons, and it was only then that he was willing to surrender to me.

  [Places his empty drink back on the table.]

  Too bad for him my contract was not to take any prisoners. When he surrendered to me, alone and unarmed, begging on his knees in the Afghan dirt, I gave the order for the Re-Mercs to eat him alive. I didn’t stand and watch, but as I got in to my own chopper to leave, after a job well done and pay cheque well earned, I could still hear his screaming as he was ripped apart, even over all that noise of the helicopter blades. From then on I knew I could always use my soldiers for a terror campaign against almost any enemy. Most people are terrified of being eaten alive, and I make it clear to any humans I am paid to go up against that if they don’t surrender immediately then pretty soon they will be serving as a new addition in my zombie force.

  How do you keep your zombies obedient?

  What do you mean?

  I mean that zombies normally attack the living on sight. Not only do your zombies never harm you they never harm anyone that you don’t want them to . . .

  Well, there were one or two accidents. Boy, scientists sure don’t come cheap these days!

  But in general your zombies do exactly what you order them to. How are you able to control them?

  Is that tape recorder still on?

  [I lean forward and switch it off. My host does not know there is a second tape recorder in my pocket which is still recording.]

  Well, you’re exactly right. The zombies’ whole entire purpose is to feed on humans. They are relentless, they cannot be reasoned with, and that’s why billions of people are dead now. My solution was not to fight the natural order, like all the scientists and governments who tried to tame the zombies and make them not want to eat us anymore. No. My solution is quite simple. My
zombies will do what I tell them. They will always do what I told them. Because they know I will look after them. I feed them well. They’ve been taught to behave.

  But you said you didn’t want to hurt anyone.

  I said I didn’t want to harm any American citizens, and true to my word I never have. Anyone else . . . well, I certainly won’t object to sacrificing them for the greater good. One live human being can feed an entire unit of zombies and keep them obedient for two weeks.

  Do you know how many prisons are overflowing, how many serious criminals are out there, gang leaders, people who refuse to work or contribute and are just consuming huge amounts of resources? You may not like what I do but I can tell you there are many town leaders who practically beg me to take those ‘people’ away from them and off their hands, and I provide a permanent solution.

  Well, it’s been fun, but I need to go now. My next job awaits.

  [As he puts on his hat and stands up his two bodyguards watch me carefully. I cannot see their faces due to the masked helmets they are wearing.]

  Easy, boys [he tells his bodyguards. Then he lifts the visor on one of the helmets and I recoil in my chair in horror –the bodyguard is a ghoul.]

  You would be well advised leaving out how I make my zombies behave. But if anyone really has a problem with my methods they can find me, if they really want to. And I’ll be ready for them.

  [A helicopter lands on the rooftop and he boards it, followed by his two zombie soldiers.]

  WARSAW, POLAND

  Interviewer: Mick Franklin

  INTERVIEW 27:

  Beata Burchard sits opposite me. Nearby her children Duncan and Ankanna are studying. They were home schooled even before the War.

  Kurt Vonnegut described Poland as the “unwilling clown of Europe.” This is because no one would help us in World War II when the Nazis were busy invading our country. However, we learned a lesson from that experience that we would never forget; we could only rely on ourselves. When the European nations were clamouring for everybody to take in refugees from the Zombie War Poland refused. A number of European leaders scolded us, complaining that we had not taken in enough refugees and that we needed to do our part and take in the seemingly endless number of refugees pouring out of Africa and the Middle East.

  At that time the Ukraine was still at war with Russia, despite the worldwide crisis of the Zombie War. We did our best to accommodate the Ukrainian refugees. [Smiles.] Later it was the rest of Europe that was knocking on our front door, begging to be let in.

  Did you accept European refugees?

  We had absolutely no obligation to do so. The treatment and indifference we were given during World War II was still in living memory. But yes, we did accept European refugees. We kept them quarantined in detention centres. Back in those early days we weren’t even sure how the infection was spread. We had no intention of letting refugees out among our own people if they were going to cause problems.

  Don’t you think it’s your country’s moral duty to help refugees? From distant countries, I mean.

  Personally? No, I don’t. And if you are going to help them then you could have helped them in their own countries. For the cost of removing one person from Syria and placing him in the UK you could have helped one hundred and eighty five people if you had just left them in Syria. Bringing them to your country wasn’t about them; it was about your self-loathing Western European politicians who wanted to parade their consciences on the world stage. Besides, it’s cruel to a man to yank him out of the country he is familiar with, where he understands the culture and the language, and then place him in an alien land where everything is different to him.

  If your government really wanted to help they could have established safe zones in those countries, instead of filling Western Europe with refugees who only brought the virus with them.

  Many people credit Poland’s intervention as the turning point for the battle for Europe. What do you have to say about that?

  Yes, it’s true. After the Zombie War crippled most of Europe we were probably the strongest nation left there. Because we hadn’t flooded our country with millions of infected people from other parts of the world we were able to prepare defences. We were able to protect our own people. It was not only Western Europe’s pathological altruism in accepting any and every refugee that made their way to their doorstep that almost destroyed them. The other major problem was the infected refugees pouring out of Palermo in Sicily and being ferried directly into Europe.

  Word quickly got around that if you had the money and wanted safe passage to Europe all you needed to do was make it to Sicily. The Mafia oversaw the operation to ship hundreds of thousands of refugees to Europe. To the best of my knowledge they didn’t even check if any of them had bites. The Mafia just took the payment and shipped these people over to Europe. I am told that the boats were practically overflowing with people.

  Poland didn’t have the problems that all of Western Europe was facing. We kept our borders strong. Later, we led the battle to take back Europe from the living dead. We mobilised our forces, trained up huge armies of soldiers, and then took the fighting to the ghouls.

  We had done the same thing before, back in 1683 when the Ottoman hordes threatened to conquer the Gates of Vienna. If that strategic point had fallen then all of Europe would have been open to attack and would probably have fallen. Instead, the Polish King Sobieski arrived in time to save the day. It was a spectacular victory as he smashed the Turkish hordes.

  I suppose you could say that once again Poland has saved Europe.

  [Behind us Beata’s husband Rafal is training students in combat. He teaches a wide range of skills, from unarmed combat to fighting with a katana to using bows and rifles. His students all train eagerly, all of them understanding the value of being able to fight and protect their homeland.]

  KILLING PARTY

  GLASGOW, UNITED KINGDOM

  Interviewer: Mick Franklin

  INTERVIEW 28:

  Derek Robertson is a half Colonel in the Special Forces. Before the War he was a patriot who served Britain in a number of battle fronts. He also trained many soldiers, police and undercover agents in combat and interrogation skills. During the Zombie War he was instrumental not only in training civilians and soldiers throughout Europe but was also directly involved in taking back the continent.

  Anyone can kill a man. But very few people can kill someone without leaving a trace that you were ever there. I’m talking about filtering urine, shitting in a bag, and leaving no sign at all you ever existed. I used to have to befriend and then kill IRA operatives. Later it was terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every single item I carried had to be calculated for weight. The more you carry the more you need to eat, and the more food you therefore need to carry.

  A lot of these so-called tough guys were pretty brave when they were cutting people’s heads off. They would pump those hostages full of drugs and then saw their heads off on camera. Poor bastards. When I got a grip on those terrorists it was a different matter. They would cry and piss themselves. Mate, to me I didn’t care if they were Al Quaeda or Columbian drug dealers, when I took them into my interrogation room that was always a one way journey for them. When my country told me to torture these people for information I did it. I’d have duct tape over their mouths so even though they were trying to give me information they couldn’t do it! [Laughs.] I would cut out people’s eyes and cut their fingers off and have metal objects sticking out their heads and I never lost a wink of sleep over it. It was always just a job to me. And one I enjoyed very much.

  Most people choke up when there’s going to be violence. They think ahead, wondering, “what if the guy comes back for revenge, what happens when the police get here, when the lawyers get here, what if I lose my job, what if I go to prison.” They get caught up in the details and worried about the future. Me, I deal with problems immediately. If someone is going to be a problem I kill him there and then. Already my mind is working
on how I’m going to get rid of the body, I’m already thinking that I’m going to freeze his corpse for three days then put him through a wood chipper then dump the remains in a river.

  Another part of what I do is recruiting people to get certain jobs done. We have the expression, “use them, bruise them and lose them.”

  How did you survive the War?

  Mate, I didn’t have a problem during the War. My house is two stories and in a remote area. There is a huge wall around my property and open fields all around it, so I can see very easily who is approaching. I could sit with a sniper rifle in one of the upstairs windows and take out any attackers long before they reached the wall. There were security cameras all around the property. I always kept an ‘apocalypse cache’ full of medications, food and equipment. I chose to live off grid most of the time. I also had more than one safe house I could run to, as well as close friends I could rely on.

  When the War hit I sat at home with my loved ones. We were never really worried at all.

  How did you contribute to the rebuilding of your nation?

  Training, mostly. The country needed guys like me, Special Forces veterans, to teach the new army and normal civilians how to survive. I did a lot of weapons training with these people. They learned not only marksmanship and weapon handling but also how to work together, how to live off the land, how to survive with almost nothing. Before the War I operated a training compound, teaching guys like the FBI and SAS how to survive gunfights and perform raids on buildings occupied with terrorists. During the War I had to teach a lot of civilians how to fight. It wasn’t easy - the UK wasn’t really a gun culture back then.