Year of the Dead

by Jack J. Lee

  We quickly figured out the most efficient way to kill zombies. As long as you had back-up and could run faster than a zombie, it wasn’t a big deal to take a zombie down in close quarters. The four of us became zombie killing machines.

  Whenever we saw a small group of zombies—say, fewer than ten or so—we would draw them back to an area where we knew they were isolated and where we wouldn’t be surprised by more zombies. I would charge them and cut off their left legs at the thigh. The zombies were almost always facing me, so their left thighs were the easiest to cut through with a forehand strike. Watanabe’s sword cut through their thighs like butter. Once a zombie’s leg was cut off, it always did the same thing. It would get on its two hands and one remaining knee and crawl to the nearest human. The other guys would stay back till the zombie reached for them and then stomp on the zombie’s hand.

  When the zombie’s fingers were broken, it couldn’t grab you. It’s disturbing at first to feel the small bones of a zombie’s hand and fingers snap and pop under your boot but you get used to it. Once the zombie was down to just one leg and had at least one hand smashed, it was really easy to bash in its head. All of us liked this division of labor. I chopped off legs. They bashed in heads. I still used my bow occasionally but most of the time I used Watanabe’s sword.

  You might be wondering why I was always the guy on-point. When I was in college, I took a History of WWII class. I remember having a lecture about how the US government first started researching war psychology during this period. Psychologists interviewed every man who survived the successful US invasion of a Japanese-held Pacific Island (I can’t remember which) and found out over 90% of US soldiers had never aimed a single bullet at an enemy soldier. They stayed under cover as much as possible and they fired their weapons without aiming. These soldiers’ entire focus was to not get shot; they had no interest in killing the enemy. Less than 10% of the US soldiers were there to kill the enemy. Even back then, when I was 18, I knew I’d be one of the guys out to kill someone.

  The lesson I learned in that WWII class stuck with me because it made sense and helped explain how the world worked. John, Alan, and Todd were all good citizens. They weren’t killers; I was. Don’t get me wrong; they weren’t cowards. It takes courage to do something you’re afraid of. All these guys were willing to do what was necessary to protect themselves, their friends and family, but it wasn’t natural for them. And because it wasn’t natural for them to be on-point, they were more likely to make unforced errors that would get them and the rest of us in trouble.

  I was good with being in front. To tell you the truth, it was a lot of fun. I used to take 25 foot jumps on my bike for fun. Killing zombies with backup wasn’t that much more dangerous than what I used to do on skis or bikes before the outbreak. Dave’s sword was just long enough that I could take off a zombie’s leg without being so close the zombie could grab me. On the few occasions I came across a zombie with really long arms, I cut off the arms first.

  Killing zombies was a rush. Even though I’m more of a loner than most, I’m still human, and humans are social animals. Going out to bars, watching sports, skiing, and mountain biking is always more fun in a group. It turns out that taking out zombies with a group of friends is more fun than killing them on your own.

  It helped a lot that zombies didn’t wander much. Unless they were actively following someone or being drawn by a loud noise, they tended to stay close to where they lived or worked when they were alive. Once we cleared out a new area, it typically stayed clear. When we weren’t killing zombies, we spent time making zombie habitrails. The four of us made as many habitrails as possible.

  One of the things that had fascinated me about zombies was that when they were killed they didn’t rot. Even though I and other humans couldn’t smell dead zombies, live zombies could. When I started using Dave’s sword, I ended up with a bunch of severed legs. As an experiment, I stuffed some of the smaller legs into garbage bags and quickly tied them shut to see if zombies could still smell the legs. They couldn’t. I noticed no other animal was willing to eat dead zombies. For the first couple of days after the 11th, there had been a huge number of stray dogs and cats. None of them were being fed by their owners. I had expected them to start feeding on the dead zombies; they didn’t. The usual scavengers, like rats or ravens, didn’t feed on them either. Only zombies ate dead zombies.

  I’m not an animal lover, but it was sad what happened to dogs and cats after the outbreak. Most cats and dogs, when they were healthy and well-fed, were able to outrun a zombie. Without humans to feed them, most pampered pets started starving. Zombies were able to catch animals weakened by hunger. Within a few weeks most of the pets that survived the initial outbreak were gone.

  Once we figured out all you had to do was to put a dead zombie into a garbage bag and then tie it to stop live zombies from smelling it, it wasn’t a big deal to use some of Dave’s lesser-quality swords to cut off the arms, legs, and heads and stuff them into garbage bags. I never used my sword for this because it was easy to cut completely through the body and hit the ground underneath it; this was bad for the blade.

  We found out if you threw some lighter fluid on a dead zombie, you didn’t even have to take it out of the garbage bag. Zombies could smell the burning flesh and come around like humans would if they smelled a really good barbecue. We stuffed zombie parts in garbage bags and left them all over our habitrails so we could use them as bait if we wanted or needed.

  It was clear these zombies were not caused by accident. They were too well-designed for wiping out humans and all aspects of human civilization to be an accident. Wild animals had nothing to fear from them. They would be too fast for zombies to catch and the zombies would not affect their food supply. They were designed to wipe out humans and domesticated animals. Dogs, cats, even horses and cattle that were fenced in, all animals that depended on humans to survive would be easy prey for them. Somebody designed zombies just to wipe out humans and their pets without harming wild animals.

  I was in high school during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In those days, everybody thought there was a good chance the US would lose the Cold War to the Soviets. All the experts thought the Soviets had a better army than the US and its allies. During the Carter and Reagan years, there was a controversy whether US-led NATO forces should deploy neutron bombs between Western and Eastern Europe. Neutron bombs were nuclear weapons that would do minimal physical damage. They pump out radiation that would kill enemy soldiers without harming roads, vehicles, or buildings. The radiation produced by neutron bombs was short-acting; within weeks of use, the radiation would be down to safe levels. The experts were wrong about the Soviet Union’s strength; the Cold War ended with a whimper and neutron bombs were never used.

  I was convinced someone was using zombies and vampires as their own version of the neutron bomb. Somebody wanted to preferentially kill humans and their pets while leaving all the other nondomesticated animals alone. Within hours of a zombie outbreak, all power and communication infrastructures were taken out. If my goal was to wipe out human technology, I would use an EMP.

  I learned about EMPs in a documentary I saw on the History Channel. In 1962, the US set off a high altitude nuclear bomb 900 miles from Hawaii. The blast set off an EMP that destroyed three percent of all the light bulbs in Hawaii. Since then, technology has improved and electronic devices have gotten smaller and more vulnerable to. If that same nuclear bomb was set off today, it is likely every electronic device and light in Hawaii would be destroyed. Initially the only way to get an EMP was through a nuclear explosion. The documentary said there were rumors the US military had found a way to create EMPs without a nuclear explosion.

  Up until now I had always been reacting to what was happening. I hadn’t had a chance to proactively defend myself against whatever, whoever, was trying to wipe us out. If I prepared for an EMP attack and it didn’t happen, I would have just wasted time. If an EMP attack occurred and I wasn’t prepared, I
would probably die. I would start by proactively preparing for the next attack. Eventually I would find out who was responsible for these attacks and then I would kick their ass.

  The only way to block an electromagnetic pulse is with a Faraday cage. A Faraday cage is simple—no moving parts required. It’s just a cage made of conductive metal that is attached to a ground. An EMP is so strong any conductive metal exposed to it develops an electrical current. Pieces of metal, such as my sword or your typical electric cord, wouldn’t suffer any adverse consequences from this, but extremely thin and small electrical wires and connections, such as the filaments in light bulbs and/or copper connections in computer chips, would blow out. If an electrical circuit is completely surrounded by metal and separated from the surrounding metal by air or other electrically-resistant material that electrical circuit is protected from the EMP. Every modern refrigerator is a Faraday cage. It is completely surrounded by metal, the inside is entirely covered by plastic, and the electrical cord is three pronged and has a ground.

  I looked closely at my house and, after discussing it with Sara and Todd, decided it would be impossible to protect it with a Faraday cage. We didn’t have enough time, metal, or the equipment to cover my entire house. On the other hand, my garage was already a Faraday cage. It had aluminum siding and a metal roof. I used contact cement to glue tin foil over the entire floor and then covered the foil with carpet I had salvaged from my neighbors’ homes. My vehicles had rubber tires to help insulate them from the metal on the floor and I made sure the rest of the electronic equipment I stored in the garage rested on top of wooden pallets or plastic shelves. My freight elevator was made of metal and I had already installed a rubber mat on top of it to protect the metal, so I didn’t have to do anything to it.

  We took all the bikes, skis, and sporting equipment I had in my garage and put them in a neighbor’s garage. I took out my Prius and motorcycle and put Todd’s full-sized SUV in the garage next to my truck. I then filled my garage with as many computers, generators, and refrigerators as I could fit in there. There were two other garages close to my house—one a two-car and the other a one-car, similar to mine—that could easily be converted into Faraday cages. We cleaned them out and filled them up with three full-size four-wheel-drive trucks with extended cabs and as many electrical power tools and as much equipment as we could find.

  You would think someone would have squawked or complained about all the work I was asking them to do, but no one did. Before I had come around, all they had been doing was waiting to run out of food and water and then die. I had given them a plan and some hope. They may have thought I was paranoid when I told them I was worried about an EMP, but they didn’t argue with me.

  I considered warning the wards about the possibility of an EMP but decided not to. Why warn the wards about something they couldn’t do anything about and might not happen? I decided instead to tell them to put as many unused flashlights, batteries, laptops, and walkie-talkies they had into their refrigerators. I used the urban myth that putting batteries in refrigerators prolonged their usefulness. I wanted the wards to think I was infallible. I was worried about an EMP, but I wasn’t convinced we would be hit by one. If I was wrong about the EMP, I wouldn’t look infallible.

  The only other group of humans that could possibly make Faraday cages was Helen Hansen’s family in Nebraska. I got their contact information from Helen and then skyped Eric Hansen. It took only a few minutes of conversation to figure out that he was a wily old bird. It would have been interesting to play poker with him.

  I got straight to the point. “Mr. Hansen, I believe there is a probability that we might be subject to an EMP attack.”

  He grinned. “Director Jones, you just convinced me that you are the first competent Fed I’ve ever met. I’m glad my daughter has you around. I’ve been preparing for an EMP attack for the past month.”

  “Have you told her about this possibility?”

  “No. Have you?”

  We both laughed. Talking to Eric Hansen was like talking to a mirror image of me, only twenty years older.

  Once my house was properly fortified and supplied, I decided to bring in Jim, Frank, and Ryan. I probably could have brought them in weeks earlier but I felt reluctant. I trust my instincts, so I had left them alone until it felt right. After a while, I figured out what my subconscious had been trying to tell me, “No one is ever a prophet in his own land” because first impressions are hard to break and no leader is ever really respected by people who knew him before he was a leader.

  Jim, Frank, and Ryan knew me as a drinking buddy who never had a job and lived off a trust fund. Everyone else knew me as the Federal Director of Emergency Services in Utah. I had known Todd Bloom before, but we had never been close or talked much. Before the 11th, I hadn’t known he was a widower, or that he had been a structural engineer prior to retiring. He hadn’t known anything much about me, either. He didn’t have a prior impression of me that needed to be changed. My subconscious wanted everybody else’s impression of me to be fully-formed before they met Jim and his roommates.

  It felt right to contact Jim on October 8th, so I did. Just before dusk on the 9th, I picked him and his roommates up. We were all having a party to welcome them when the EMP struck.

  Chapter 22: Jim Wright, October 9th, Year 1

  As soon as we’d all agreed to help Mark, he got a call from a walkie-talkie. We listened to the conversation. This Helen Hansen sounded like a pissed off spitfire. After talking to the ward, Mark gave us all large duffle bags and told us to put in a couple of changes of clothes and enough other things for a few days or weeks including our high-powered rifles and enough ammo for at least a dozen reloads in the bag. He gave each of us a walkie-talkie and told us the channel he was going to use.

  It was weird as hell. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. I’ve known Mark for three years. All it takes is a zombie outbreak for a laid-back couldn’t-give-a-shit-about-anything guy to turn into General Patton.

  While we were packing our bags, I heard Mark talking to Lisa and John. They were to be in charge while he was gone. He told them to get to work hooking up one of the replacement generators in the garage in order to get the lights working again. He also instructed them to turn on a walkie-talkie for an hour at first light, noon, and dusk, but at all other times to keep them off and in a refrigerator. He told them there was no way to be sure this was the last EMP attack. He told them to stay in the house until he got back into contact with them. I had expected them to get into a conversation, with some give-and-take and ideas from everyone. It wasn’t a conversation. It was just Mark giving orders. They acted like they were in the military.

  While we had been showering, the pickup truck had been unloaded and put back in the garage, so it had been protected from the EMP. While we had been packing, the others had already loaded a generator on the back. He had us climb into the back of the pickup truck with our bag. He also threw in a bundle of what looked like spears. I wondered why he would bring spears to a gun fight. He kept the back window open to be able to talk to us. He asked us to speak in a quiet voice and to avoid whispering. He said whispering was actually easier to overhear. If he pointed somewhere with his fingers like a gun, he wanted us to shoot at whatever he was pointing at.

  It was dark, so Mark drove five miles an hour at most. He kept the lights off as he drove. Again he had to often go off-road. We were only a quarter mile from the ward so it didn’t take long. Mark stopped just out of sight of the ward and stepped out of the truck, leaving it running. He said he was going to contact the ward to let them know we were here. He told us to make sure all the zombies were following him before we drove the truck closer to the ward.

  He went to his duffle bag and got out his samurai sword and a backpack. The sword was strapped under the backpack, across his back with the hilt coming up over his right shoulder. He put on a head strap that had an LED headlight on it, but didn’t turn on the light.

  He turned to
us. “Guys, when you get into the ward can you bring in my duffle bag and the bundle of spears?”

  I nodded.

  He turned on his walkie-talkie. “Director Jones calling ward.”

  “This is Art Bingham.”

  “Art, good to hear you. Please have everyone stay inside the ward out of view of the zombies but also keep an eye out on the fence. In a few minutes, I will be leading all the zombies away from you. As soon as all the zombies are drawn away, a truck with three of my men will come close to your gate and flash its headlights. The abandoned vehicles in front of your gates will prevent them from being able to drive into your enclosure. We have a replacement generator in the back of the truck. My men will need at least four of you to help carry the generator. I will be back in about 45 minutes or so, hopefully without the zombies, and you will need to let me in.”

  “Mark, uh Director Jones, did I hear right? You’re going to draw away all the zombies? You, personally?”

  Mark chuckled, “Yes, Art, you heard me right. Wish me luck. Over.”

  “Good luck, Director Jones!”

  Mark then waved to us and took off running toward the ward. Once he got close to the zombies, he started shouting and waving his arms in the air. He got the zombies’ attention. He started running up 900 East. We could see he was trying to stay about a hundred feet ahead of the closest zombie. I have no idea how long it took. It was one of those weird instances where time seems to go slow and fast simultaneously. Eventually all the zombies around the ward took out after Mark and disappeared from sight.

  I started up the truck and headed toward the front gate. This is the first time since I’ve been divorced that I’d been back to the ward. One of the reasons I got divorced was because my wife was unhappy that I didn’t want to go to Sunday services.