The incident with Gill illustrates that Baedecker and I are in mortal danger. However, we are also in the good graces of the most powerful Bocor in the country, armed with Lugers, and now in command of our own personal zombie named Hans.
I, for one, like our chances.
Yours respectfully,
Oswaldt Gehrin
Communication 32
July 5, 1940
From: Gunter Knecht
To: Reinhard Heydrich
Obergruppenführer,
Zombies are real.
Zombies are real. Zombies are real. Zombies are real.
I stare up at the Haitian moon that illuminates the page as I write these words . . . and can scarcely credit their truth. And yet I know it to be so. I have seen the evidence myself.
My suspicions have been wrong all this time. For, my dear, dear Obergruppenführer, zombies are real!
What happened was this: I was deep in the jungle. I had been traveling for hours and was exhausted. For days I had been searching for any clue as to the whereabouts of Baedecker and Gehrin. I had found nothing. I questioned every farmer and villager I encountered. I bribed those who seemed receptive to it and threatened those who were not. Yet every lead took me nowhere. I found myself directed to white men who were not my colleagues, or else to empty places where I found nothing.
I was distraught and tired. My canteen had been empty for hours, and my feet ached terribly. I longed to return to my temporary headquarters.
Cutting through a swath of forest as dusk began to descend, I passed through a small village. I had previously surveyed it and found nothing of value—just a few straggling mud farmers and ramshackle homes. However, I discovered that by night the place changed remarkably. The settlement was a carnival of Voodooists cavorting here, there, and everywhere! Some danced in strange circles. Some sat together and spoke to one another quietly. Several were preparing an evening’s meal.
Then, in a lonely corner of the clearing, I saw them.
Gehrin and Baedecker. The former still wore the uniform of a butterfly catcher, and the latter sported a strange suit of feathers, drawings, and animal bones. They stood beside a group of five or so Haitians, who milled absently in front of them. Gehrin and Baedecker were acting like drill sergeants, spitting out commands in a strange guttural language. Some of the group appeared to be reacting to these barked orders, while others were less receptive.
Then a villager carrying a torch walked past the parading troops, and I saw that they were not Haitians at all . . . but the reanimated bodies of the dead!
There was no question about it. The ghastly figures had horrible, rotted skin that was falling from their bodies. Many lacked eyes, left with only empty soil-filled sockets. Worms crawled amidst what was left of their hair. They moved in a horrible shamble and often gnashed their teeth murderously. Indeed, their facial expressions seemed to indicate a ravenous madness that was barely being kept at bay.
I did not react rationally. I realize that now.
As an officer in the service of the Fatherland, I understand that I am expected to maintain my wits at all times. I must be unshakable. I know that. It is my responsibility. And yet the sight shook me utterly, to my core.
It was not only that these fools had been right all along about the existence of the walking dead. It was their arrogance. Their damned arrogance! The grins of confidence upon their idiot faces! These fools had stolen secrets that were rightfully the Reich’s, and they clearly reveled in it. They looked so pleased with themselves. So full of hubris.
The fools . . .
No, my instincts told me, they were something worse than fools.
Traitors.
It could not stand.
Before I knew what was I was doing, my hand had flown to the MP 40 that hung from the strap over my shoulder. I loosed my bullets upon the impostors and their zombie parade.
In a matter of moments, my clip was expended. Baedecker, Gehrin, and their undead horde still stood. Everyone in the village looked around in alarm. Several villagers gestured in my direction. I instantly understood that I had acted rashly. (Soon these people would be after me.) Suddenly, as I was considering this, Baedecker and Gehrin produced their Lugers and fired back. I turned and fled into the jungle.
I ran until I thought my lungs would give out. The Voodooists pursued me relentlessly, yet I was always the quicker and the stealthier. I secreted myself within a mossy bog and waited motionless until the last of them gave up the chase.
Now, secure inside my new headquarters, I am plotting the destruction of Gehrin and Baedecker. They are untrustworthy outlaws. This is known for certain. They must be eliminated, and our mission completed. I know where they are, and I know how to do it!
Prior experience—namely, Gehrin’s evening spent singing with the Mambo—has already shown that a properly motivated Voodoo priest can divulge all the secrets necessary for the creation of zombies. Thus, I shall execute the traitors Gehrin and Baedecker and capture my own Voodoo priest. (If a fool like Gehrin can accomplish this task, then it should give me little trouble.) I shall then surrender myself (and my captive) to a U-boat crew. The interrogation can take place in Berlin. I know what to ask the Voodooist, and the secrets should come quickly once the interrogation gets underway. (Again, if Gehrin can do it . . .)
But first things first.
I acted rashly in the earlier encounter, allowing myself to be overcome by anger. Later this evening, I shall instead employ the cool precision for which we Germans are known. Armed to the very teeth, I shall return to the village of Voodooists, kill my traitorous cohorts, and then find a suitable hostage.
Thank you for being patient with me these many months, Obergruppenführer. I intend that—in just a few hours—your patience should be rewarded.
Respectfully,
Gunter Knecht
Communication 33
July 6, 1940
From: Gunter Knecht
To: Reinhard Heydrich
Gehrin and Baedecker are dead. I have killed them.
I am sitting next to their bodies. Gehrin’s face has been smashed beyond recognition, and his brains dashed out across the dirt floor. Baedecker has had an entire MP 40 clip emptied into his considerable chest.
For all their SD and RSHA training, it was surprisingly easy.
Just before dawn, I retraced my steps and found the Voodoo village. It was wrapped in a strange, thick fog that gave the place a ghostly aspect. Many torches and cooking fires still burned, but it appeared that the residents had retired for the night (or departed from the village entirely). Neither man nor zombie moved. All was stillness. All was silence.
Concealing myself in the shadows, I crept to the place where I had seen Gehrin and Baedecker directing their zombie parade. Directly adjacent was a modest hut with a thatched roof. I moved in close and looked through the open doorway of the hovel. Inside, Gehrin and Baedecker slept peacefully on straw mattresses. I crept inside stealthily, intending to do the both of them in with my knife.
Suddenly, Gehrin’s eyes opened. He saw me, sat bolt upright, and exclaimed, “You!”
Instinct took over. I dropped my knife and readied my gun. Gehrin was quick, though, and pounced on me like a jungle cat. With an acrobatic move remembered from my combat training, I caught his blow and used his own momentum to send him careening to the ground. Then, before Baedecker could rise, I turned my MP 40 upon him and pulled the trigger. (I intended to shoot him only twice, but in the fury of the moment, I emptied the entire clip into his massive body!) I then turned back to Gehrin, who was only just righting himself. Gripping his head, I brought his face down on a wooden stool. It seemed to knock him unconscious. Taking no chances, I gripped the stool like a club and beat it against his head—again and again—until his brains were literally dashed out.
I then reloaded my submachine gun and prepared for the onrush of Voodooists certain to come. (My weapon’s blasting had been loud. Even a single shot should have been e
nough to awaken the village’s lighter sleepers.) I paused at the doorway to the hut, looking out into the dark village and flickering torches beyond.
But nothing stirred.
Was an attack building? Were the Voodooists coordinating a movement against me?
I waited, my MP 40 at the ready. Then I waited some more. Then more still.
Nothing.
Still hesitant, I knelt down in the hut next to the corpses of the traitors and considered my next move. Dawn broke slowly, but the fog stayed where it was. Though the sun was now upon the horizon, this ethereal mist—which was quite thick and dense—still made the village a strange and dream-like place.
Confident that if attacked I could simply disappear into the clouds all around me, I summoned the resolve to leave the hut. I still intended to kidnap a Bocor or Mambo as quickly as possible and then to make my way to a U-boat.
Yet something very strange had occurred.
The village—which I had seen populated by twenty or thirty people by day, and which was a veritable social gathering at night—was totally deserted. I moved from hovel to hovel and found every home empty. Stalking through the thick fog, I encountered neither man nor beast. Within thirty minutes’ time, I had made a thorough search of the entire place and found not one person. Signs of recent habitation were all around, but there were no people. It gave me the uneasy feeling of having accidentally wandered onto an empty theater stage just before a performance.
Though impossible, I began to feel as though I had dreamed the village as it had been—populated and lively.
I crept back through the smothering fog to the hut of Baedecker and Gehrin. I half-expected them to have disappeared too, but they were just as I had left them.
I am sitting now in the hut, preparing this message for you. The fog has abated slightly as the sun has moved higher in the sky, but the village remains deserted. I have resolved to take a quick nap here on the hut’s floor—I am very exhausted from the night’s work—and then to press on.
This was not a totally optimal outcome, and I admit that freely. However, the elimination of Gehrin and Baedecker is an important accomplishment (for which, I can only trust, I will find myself congratulated at a later date). I shall make it my mission in the coming hours and days to capture a Bocor or a Mambo capable of singing the zombie-creating song, and then return swiftly to Berlin.
I now know exactly what I must do. The power of the zombie will soon be within the grasp of the Reich!
I am, my dear Obergruppenführer, so very, very close.
Respectfully,
Gunter Knecht
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival Page 21