by Max Brooks
1762 A.D., CASTRIES, ST. LUCIA, THE CARIBBEAN
The story of this outbreak is still told today, both by Caribbean islanders and Caribbean immigrants in the United Kingdom. It serves as a powerful warning, not just of the power of the living dead but of humanity’s frustrating inability to unite against them. An outbreak of indeterminate source began in the poor white area of the small, overcrowded city of Castries on the island of St. Lucia. Several free black and mulatto residents realized the source of the “illness” and attempted to warn the authorities. They were ignored. The outbreak was diagnosed as a form of rabies. The first group of infected people were locked in the town jail. Those who suffered bites while trying to restrain them were sent home without treatment. Within forty-eight hours, all of Castries was in chaos. The local militia, not knowing how to stem the onslaught, was overrun and consumed. The remaining whites fled the city to the outlying plantations. Because many of them had already been bitten, they eventually spread the infection throughout the entire island. By the tenth day, 50 percent of the white population was dead. Forty percent, more than several hundred individuals, were prowling the island as reanimated zombies. The remainder had either escaped by whatever seacraft they could find or remained holed up in the two fortresses at Vieux Fort and Rodney Bay. This left a sizable force of black slaves who now found themselves “free” but at the mercy of the undead.
Unlike the white inhabitants, the former slaves possessed a deep cultural understanding of their enemy, an asset that replaced panic with determination. Slaves on every plantation organized themselves into tightly disciplined hunting teams. Armed with torches and machetes (all firearms had been taken by the fleeing whites) and allied with the remaining free blacks and mulattoes (St. Lucia contained small but prominent communities of both), they swept the island from north to south. Communicating by drum, the teams shared intelligence and coordinated battle tactics. In a slow, deliberate wave, they cleared St. Lucia in seven days. Those whites still within the forts refused to join the struggle, as their racial bigotry matched their cowardice. Ten days after the last zombie was dispatched, British and French colonial troops arrived. Instantly, all former slaves were placed back in chains. Any resisters were hanged. As the incident was recorded as a slave uprising, all free blacks and mulattoes were either enslaved or hanged for aiding in the supposed rebellion. Although no written records were kept, an oral account was passed down to the present day. A monument is rumored to exist somewhere on the island. No resident will testify to its location. If one can take a positive lesson from Castries, it is that a group of civilians, motivated and disciplined, with only the most primitive arms and basic communication, is a formidable match for any zombie attack.
1807 A.D., PARIS, FRANCE
A man was admitted to Château Robinet, a “hospital” for the criminally insane. The official report filed by Dr. Reynard Boise, chief administrator, states: “The patient appears incoherent, almost feral, with a insatiable lust for violence…. With jaws that snap like a rabid dog, he successfully wounded one of the other patients before being restrained.” The story that followed consists of the “wounded” inmate receiving minor treatment (bandaging his wounds and a dose of rum), then being placed back in a communal cell with more than fifty other men and women. What followed days later was an orgy of violence. Guards and doctors, too frightened by the screams emanating from the cell, refused to enter until a week had passed. By this time, all that remained were five infected, partially devoured zombies, and the scattered parts of several dozen corpses. Boise promptly resigned his position and retired to private life. Little is known of what happened to the walking dead, or the original zombie that was brought to the institution. Napoleon Bonaparte himself ordered the hospital to be closed, “purified,” and turned into a convalescent home for army veterans. Also, nothing is known of where the first zombie came from, how he contracted the disease, or, in fact, if he had infected anyone else before being sent to Château Robinet.
1824 A.D., SOUTHERN AFRICA
This excerpt was taken from the diary of H. F. Fynn, a member of the original British expedition to meet, travel, and negotiate with the great Zulu king Shaka.
The kraal was abuzz with life…. The young nobleman stepped forward into the center of the cattle pen…. Four of the king’s greatest warriors brought forth a figure, carried and restrained by the hands and feet … a bag fashioned of royal cowhide covered his head. This same hide covered the hands and forearms of his guards, so their flesh never touched that of the condemned…. The young nobleman grabbed his assegai [four-foot stabbing spear] and leapt into the pen…. The King shouted his order, commanding his warriors to hurl their charge into the kraal. The condemned struck the hard earth, flailing about like a drunken man. The leather bag slipped from his head … his face, to my horror, was frighteningly disfigured. A large knob of flesh had been gouged from his neck as if torn by some ungodly beast. His eyes had been plucked out, the remaining chasms staring into hell. From neither wound flowed the smallest drop of blood. The King raised his hand, silencing the frenzied multitude. A stillness hung over the kraal; a stillness so complete, the birds themselves appeared to obey the mighty King’s order…. The young nobleman raised his assegai to his chest and uttered a word. His voice was too meek, too soft to reach my ears. The man, the poor devil, however, must have heard the solitary voice. His head turned slowly, his mouth widened. From his bruised and torn lips came a howl so terrifying, it shook me to my very bones. The monster, for now I was convinced it was a monster, slouched slowly towards the nobleman. The young Zulu brandished his assegai. He stabbed forward, embedding the dark blade in the monster’s chest. The demon did not fall, did not expire, did not hint that its heart had been pierced. It simply continued its steady, unrelenting approach. The nobleman retreated, shaking like a leaf in the wind. He stumbled and fell, earth sticking to his perspiration-covered body. The crowd kept their silence, a thousand ebony statues staring down at the tragic scene…. And so Shaka leapt into the pen and bellowed “Sondela! Sondela!” The monster immediately turned from the prone nobleman to the King. With the speed of a musket ball, Shaka grabbed the assegai from the monster’s chest and drove it through one of the vacant eye pouches. He then twirled the weapon like a fencing champion, spinning the blade tip within the monster’s skull. The abomination dropped to its knees, then toppled forward, burying its abhorrent face in the red soil of Africa.
The narrative abruptly ends here. Fynn never explained what happened to the doomed nobleman or the slain zombie. Naturally, this rite of passage ceremony presents several burning questions: What is the origin of the use of zombies in this way? Did the Zulus have more than one ghoul on hand for this purpose? If so, by what means did they come by them?
1839 A.D., EAST AFRICA
The travel diary of Sir James Ashton-Hayes, one of the many incompetent Europeans seeking the source of the Nile, reveals the probability of a zombie attack, and an organized, culturally accepted response to it.
He came to the village early that morning, a young Negro with a wound in his arm. Obviously the little savage had missed his spear shot and the intended dinner had kissed him goodbye. As humorous as this was to behold, the events that followed struck me as utterly barbaric…. Both the village witch doctor and the tribal chief examined the wound, heard the young man’s story, and nodded some unspoken decision. The injured man, through tears, said goodbye to his wife and family … obviously in their custom, physical contact is not permitted, then knelt at the feet of the chief…. The old man took hold of a large, iron-tipped cudgel then brought it crashing down upon the doomed man’s head, stoving it in like a giant black egg. Almost immediately, ten of the tribe’s warriors flung down their spears, unsheathed their primitive cutlasses, and uttered a bizarre chant, “Nagamba ekwaga nah eereeah enge.” That said, they simply headed out across the Savanna. The body of the unfortunate savage was then, to my horror, dismembered and burned while the women of the tribe wailed t
o the pillar of smoke. When I asked our guide for some sort of explanation, he merely shrugged his diminutive frame and responded, “Do you want him to rise again, this night?” Queer sort of folk, these savages.
Hayes neglects to say exactly what tribe this was, and further study has revealed all his geographical data to be woefully inaccurate. (Small wonder he never found the Nile.) Fortunately, the battle cry was later identified as“Njamba egoaga na era enge,” a Gikuyu phrase meaning, “Together we fight, and together we win or die.” This gives historians a clue that he was at least in what is today modern Kenya.
1848 A.D., OWL CREEK MOUNTAINS, WYOMING
Although this is probably not the first U.S. zombie attack, it is the first to be recorded. A group of fifty-six pioneers, known as the Knudhansen Party, disappeared in the Central Rockies on their way to California. One year later, a second expedition discovered the remains of a base camp believed to be their last resting place.
Signs of a battle were obvious. All manner of broken gear lay strewn among charred wagons. We also discovered the remains of at least five and forty souls. Among their many wounds, each shared a common breakage of the skull. Some of these holes appeared to have been caused by bullets, others by blunt instruments such as hammers or even rocks…. Our guide, an experienced man with many years in these wilds, believed this not to be the work of wild Indians. After all, he argued, why would they have murdered our people without taking both horse and oxen? We counted skeletons of all animals and found him to be correct…. One other fact we found most distressing was the number of bite wounds found on each of the deceased. As no animals, from the
howling snow wolf to the tiny ant, touched the carcasses, we ruled out their complicity in this matter. Stories of cannibalism were ever present on the frontier, but we were horrified to believe such tales of godless savagery could be true, especially after such horrific tales of the Donner Party…. What we could not fathom, however, was why they would turn on each other so quickly when supplies of food had still not run out.
This passage came from Arne Svenson, a schoolteacher turned pioneer and farmer, of the second expedition. This story in itself does not necessarily prove there was a Solanum outbreak. Solid evidence would surface, but not for another forty years.
1852 A.D., CHIAPAS, MEXICO
A group of American treasure hunters from Boston, James Miller, Luke MacNamara, and Willard Douglass, traveled to this remote jungle province for the purpose of pillaging rumored Mayan ruins. While staying in the town of Tzinteel, they witnessed the burial of a man claimed to be “a drinker of Satan’s blood.” They saw that the man was bound, gagged, and still alive. Believing this to be some sort of barbaric execution, the North Americans succeeded in rescuing the condemned man. Once the chains and gag were removed, the pris-oner immediately attacked his liberators. Gunfire had no effect. MacNamara was killed; the other two were lightly wounded. One month later, their families received a letter dated the day after the attack. Within its pages, the two men related the details of their adventure, including a sworn statement that their murdered friend had “come back to life” following the attack. They also wrote that their superficial bite wounds were festering and that a horrible fever had set in. They promised to rest for a few weeks in Mexico City for medical treatment, then return to the United States as soon as possible. They were never heard from again.
1867 A.D., THE INDIAN OCEAN
An English mail steamer,RMS Rona, transporting 137 convicts to Australia, anchored off Bijourtier Island to aid an unidentified ship that appeared stranded on a sandbar. The shore party discovered a zombie whose back had been broken, dragging itself across the ship’s deserted decks. When they tried to offer help, the zombie lurched forward and bit off one of the sailor’s fingers. While another seaman sliced the zombie’s head off with his cutlass, the others took their injured comrade back to the ship. That night, the wounded sailor was placed in his bunk and given a draught of rum and a promise by the ship’s surgeon to check on him at dawn. That night, the fresh zombie reanimated and attacked his shipmates. The captain, in a panic, ordered the cargo hold boarded up,
sealing the convicts in with the ghoul, and continued on course for Australia. For the rest of the voyage, the hold echoed with screams that melted into moans. Several of the crew swore they could hear the agonizing squeaks of rats as they were eaten alive.
After six weeks at sea, the ship anchored at Perth. The officers and crew rowed ashore to inform the magistrate what had happened. Apparently, no one believed the stories of these sailors. A contingent of regular troops were sent for, if for no other reason than to escort the prisoners off.RMS Rona remained at anchor for five days, waiting for these troops to arrive. On the sixth day, a storm broke the ship’s anchor chain, carried it several miles up the coastline, and smashed it against a reef. Townspeople, and the ship’s former crew, found no evidence of the undead. All that remained were human bones and tracks leading inland. The story of theRona was common among sailors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Admiralty records list the ship as lost at sea.
1882 A.D., PIEDMONT, OREGON
Evidence of the attack comes from a relief party, sent to investigate the small silvermining town after two months of isolation. This group found Piedmont in shambles. Many houses had been burned. Those still standing were riddled with bullet holes. Strangely, these holes showed that all shots had been fired from inside the houses, as if the battles had all taken place within their walls. Even more shocking was the discovery of twenty-seven mangled and half-eaten skeletons. An early theory regarding cannibalism was discarded when the town’s warehouses were found to contain enough food supplies for an entire winter. When investigating the mine itself, the relief party made its final and most terrifying discovery. The entry shaft had been blasted shut from the inside. Fiftyeight men, women, and children were found, all dead from starvation. The rescuers determined that enough food to last several weeks had been stored and eaten, suggesting that these people had been entombed for much longer than that. Once a thorough count of all corpses, mangled and starved, had been made, at least thirty-two townsfolk could not be accounted for.
The most widely accepted theory is that, for some reason, a ghoul or group of ghouls emerged from the wilderness and attacked Piedmont. After a short, violent battle, the survivors carried what food they could to the mine. After sealing themselves in, these people presumably waited for a rescue that never came. It is suspected that, before the decision was made to retreat to the mine, one or more survivors attempted to trek through the wilderness to the closest outpost for help. Since no record of this exists and no bodies have ever been found, it is logical to assume that these proposed messengers either perished in the wild or were consumed by the undead. If zombies did exist, their remains have never been recovered. No official cover-up followed the Piedmont incident. Rumors ranged from plague, to avalanche, to infighting, to attacks by “wild Indians” (no Native Americans lived in or anywhere near Piedmont). The mine itself was never reopened.
The Patterson Mining Company (owner of the mine and the town) paid compensation of $20 to each relative of the residents of Piedmont in exchange for their silence. Evidence of this transaction appeared in the company’s accounting logs. These were discovered when the corporation declared bankruptcy in 1931. No subsequent investigation followed.
1888 A.D., HAYWARD, WASHINGTON
This passage describes the appearance of North America’s first professional zombie hunter. The incident began when a fur trapper named Gabriel Allens stumbled into town with a deep gash on his arm. “Allens spoke of a soul who wandered like a man possessed, his skin as gray as stone, his eyes fixed in a lifeless stare. When Allens approached the wretch, he let out a hideous moan and bit the trapper on his right forearm.” This passage comes from the journal of Jonathan Wilkes, the town doctor who treated Allens after his attack. Little is known about how the infestation spread from this first victim to the other members
of the town. Fragments of data suggest the next victim was Dr. Wilkes, followed by three men who attempted to restrain him. Six days after the initial attack, Hayward was a town under siege. Many hid themselves in private homes or the town church while the zombies relentlessly attacked their barricades. Although firearms were plentiful, no one recognized the need for a head shot. Food, water, and ammunition were rapidly consumed. No one expected to hold longer than another six days.
At dawn on the seventh day, a Lakota man named Elija Black arrived. On horseback, with a U.S. Army cavalry saber, he decapitated twelve ghouls within the first twenty minutes. Black then used a charred stick to draw a circle around the town’s water tower before climbing to the top. Between yells, an old army bugle, and his tethered horse for bait, he managed to attract every walking dead in town toward his position. Each one that entered the circle received a head shot from his Winchester repeater. In this careful, disciplined manner, Black eliminated the entire horde, fifty-nine zombies, in six hours. By the time the survivors realized what had happened, their savior was gone. Later accounts have pieced together the background of Elija Black. As a fifteen-year-old boy, he and his grandfather had been hunting when they came upon the Knudhansen Party massacre. At least one member had been infected earlier and, once turned, had attacked the rest of the group. Black and his grandfather destroyed the other zombies with tomahawk strikes to the head, decapitation, and fire. One of the “survivors,” a thirty-yearold woman, explained how the infestation spread and how over half of the nowreanimated party had wandered into the wilderness. She then confessed that her wounds and those of the others were an incurable curse. Unanimously, they begged for death.