by Max Brooks
1943 A.D., FRENCH NORTH AFRICA
This excerpt comes from the debriefing of P.F.C. Anthony Marno, tail-gunner on a U.S. Army B-24 bomber. Returning from a night raid against German troop concentrations in Italy, the aircraft found itself lost over the Algerian desert. Low on fuel, the pilot saw what looked like a human settlement below and ordered his crew to bail out. What they found was Fort Louis Philippe.
It looked like something out of a kiddie’s nightmare. . . . We open the gates, there wasn’t no bar on it or nothing. We walk into the courtyard, and there was all these skeletons. Mountains of them, no kidding! Just piled up everywhere, like a movie. Our skipper, he just kinda shakes his head and says, “Sorta feel like there should be buried treasure here, you know?” Good thing none of them bodies was in the well. We managed to fill up our canteens, grab some supplies. There wasn’t no food, but who’d want it anyway, you know?
Marno and the rest of his crew were rescued by an Arab caravan fifty miles from the fort. When questioned about the place, the Arabs would not respond. At the time, the U.S. Army had neither the resources nor the interest in investigating some abandoned ruin in the middle of the desert. No later expedition was ever mounted.
1947 A.D., JARVIE, BRITISH COLUMBIA
A series of articles in five separate newspapers recount the bloody events and individual heroism associated with this small Canadian hamlet. Little is known of the source of the outbreak. Historians suspect the carrier was Mathew Morgan, a local hunter who returned to town one night with a mysterious bite on his shoulder. By dawn of the next morning, twenty-one zombies were prowling the streets of Jarvie. Nine individuals were completely consumed. The remaining fifteen humans barricaded themselves in the sheriff’s office. A lucky shot by an embattled citizen had proved what a bullet to the brain could do. By this point, however, most of the windows were boarded up, so no one was able to aim their weapons. A plan was hatched to crawl out to the roof, make it to the telephone-telegraph office, and signal the authorities in Victoria. The survivors made it halfway across the street when the nearby ghouls noticed them and gave chase. One member of the group, Regina Clark, told the others to continue while she held off the undead. Clark, armed only with a U.S. M1 carbine, led the zombies into a blind alley. Eyewitnesses insist that Clark did this on purpose, herding the undead into a confined space to allow her no more than four targets at one time. With cool aim and an astounding reload time, Clark dispatched the entire mob. Several eyewitnesses observed her emptying one fifteen-round clip in twelve seconds without missing a single shot. Even more astounding is that the first zombie she dispatched was her own husband. Official sources label the event “an unexplainable display of public violence.” All newspaper articles are based on Jarvie’s citizens. Regina Clark declined to be interviewed. Her memoirs remain a guarded secret of her family.
1954 A.D., THAN HOA, FRENCH INDOCHINA
This passage is taken from a letter written by Jean Beart Lacoutour, a French businessman living in the former colony.
The game is called “Devil Dance.” A living human is placed in a cage with one of these creatures. Our human has with him only a small blade, perhaps eight centimeters at most. . . . Will he survive his waltz with the living corpse? If not, how long will it last? Bets are taken for these and all other variables. . . . We keep a stable of them, these fetid gladiators. Most are turned from the victims of a failed match. Some we take from the street . . . we pay their families well. . . . God have mercy on me for this unimaginable sin.
This letter, along with a sizable fortune, arrived in La Rochelle, France, three months after the fall of French Indochina to Ho Chi Minh’s Communist guerrillas. The fate of Lacoutour’s “Devil Dance” is unknown. No further information has been uncovered. One year later, Lacoutour’s body arrived in France, badly decomposed, with a bullet in the brain. The North Vietnamese coroner’s explanation was suicide.
1957 A.D., MOMBASA, KENYA
This excerpt was taken from an interrogation by a British Army officer of a captured Gikuyu rebel during the Mau Mau uprising (all answers come secondhand through a translator):
Q: How many did you see?
A: Five.
Q: Describe them.
A: White men, their skin gray and cracked. Some had wounds, bite marks on parts of their bodies. All had bullet holes in their chests. They stumbled, they groaned. Their eyes had no sight. Their teeth were stained with blood. The smell of carrion announced them. The animals fled.
An argument erupts between the prisoner and the Mosai interpreter. The prisoner grows silent.
Q: What happened?
A: They came for us. We drew our lalems (Mosai weapon, similar to a machete) and sliced off their heads, then buried them.
Q: You buried the heads?
A: Yes.
Q: Why?
A: Because a fire would have given us away.
Q: You were not wounded?
A: I would not be here.
Q: You were not afraid?
A: We only fear the living.
Q: So these were evil spirits?
The prisoner chuckles.
Q: Why are you laughing?
A: Evil spirits are invented to frighten children. These men were walking death.
The prisoner gave little information for the rest of his interrogation. When asked if there were more zombies out there, he remained silent. The entire transcript appeared in a British tabloid later that year. Nothing was made of it.
1960 A.D., BYELGORANSK, SOVIET UNION
It had been suspected, since the end of the Second World War, that the Soviet troops who invaded Manchuria captured most of the Japanese scientists, data, and test subjects (zombies) involved in Black Dragon’s special project. Recent revelations have confirmed these rumors to be true. The purpose of this new Soviet project was to create a secret army of walking dead to be used in the inevitable Third World War. “Cherry Blossom,” rechristened “Sturgeon,” was conducted near a small town in Eastern Siberia whose only other structure was a large prison for political dissidents. The location ensured not only total secrecy but also a ready supply of test subjects. Based on recent findings, we are able to determine that, for some reason, the experiments went awry, causing an outbreak of several hundred zombies. What few scientists were left managed to escape to the prison. Safe behind its walls, they settled down for what was believed to be a short siege until help arrived. None did. Some historians believe that the town’s remote nature (no roads existed, and supplies had to be airlifted) prevented an immediate response. Others believed that, since the project had been started by Josef Stalin, the KGB was reluctant to inform Pre-mier Nikita Khrushchev of its existence. A third theory holds that the Soviet leadership was aware of the disaster, had ringed the area with troops to prevent a breakout, and was watching and waiting to see the result of the siege. Inside the prison walls, a coalition of scientists, military personnel, and prisoners was surviving quite comfortably. Greenhouses were constructed; wells were dug; power was improvised both by windmills and human dynamos. Radio contact was even maintained on a daily basis. The survivors reported that, given their position, they could hold out until winter, when, hopefully, the undead would freeze solid. Three days before the first autumn frost, a Soviet aircraft dropped a crude thermonuclear device on Byelgoransk. The one-megaton blast obliterated the town, the prison, and the surrounding area.
For decades, the disaster was explained by the Soviet government as a routine nuclear test. The truth was not revealed until 1992, when information began leaking to the West. Rumors of the outbreak also surfaced among older Siberians, interviewed for the first time by Russia’s newly free press. Memoirs of senior Soviet officials hinted at the true nature of the devastation. Many acknowledge that the town of Byelgoransk did exist. Others confirm that it was both a political prison and biowarfare center. Some even go so far as to admit some kind of “outbreak,” although none describe exactly what broke out. The most damaging evidence
came when Artiom Zenoviev, a Russian mobster and former KGB archivist, released all copies of the government’s official report to an anonymous Western source (an act for which he was paid handsomely). The report contains radio transcripts, aerial photographs (both before and after), and depositions of both ground troops and the bomber’s air crew, along with the signed confessions of those in command of project Sturgeon. Included with this report are 643 pages of laboratory data concerning the physiology and behavioral patterns of undead test subjects. The Russians discount the entire disclosure as a hoax. If this is true, and Zenoviev is nothing more than a brilliantly creative opportunist, then why does his list of those held responsible match official records of top scientists, military commanders, and Politburo members who were executed by the KGB one month to the day after Byelgoransk was incinerated?
1962 A.D., UNIDENTIFIED TOWN, NEVADA
Details of this outbreak are surprisingly sketchy, given that it occurred within a relatively settled part of the planet within the latter half of the twentieth century. According to fragments of secondhand eyewitness accounts, scraps of yellowed newsprint, and a suspiciously vague police report, a small outbreak of zombies attacked and besieged Hank Davis, a local farmer, and three hired hands in a barn for five days and nights. When state police dispatched the ghouls and entered the barn, they found all the occupants dead. A subsequent investigation determined that the four men killed one another. More specifically, three men were slain, while the fourth took his own life. No concrete reason is given for this occurrence. The barn was more than safe from attack, and a small stock of food and water was only half depleted. The present theory is that the zombie’s incessant moaning, coupled with feelings of total isolation and helplessness, led to a complete psychological breakdown. No official explanation was given for the outbreak. The case is “still under investigation.”
1968 A.D., EASTERN LAOS
This story was related by Peter Stavros, a substance-abuse patient and former Special Forces sniper. In 1989, while under psychological evaluation at a V.A. hospital in Los Angeles, he related this story to the attending psychiatrist. Stavros stated that his team was on a routine search-and-destroy mission along the Vietnamese border. Their intended target was a village suspected of being a staging area of the Pathet Lao (Communist guerrillas). Upon entering the village, they discovered the inhabitants were in the midst of their own siege against several dozen walking dead. For unknown reasons, the team leader ordered his team to withdraw, then called in an air strike. Sky raiders armed with napalm plastered the area, destroying both the living dead and the human survivors. No documented evidence exists to corroborate Stavros’ story. The other members of his team are either dead, missing in action, missing within the United States, or simply declined to be interviewed.
1971 A.D., NONG’ONA VALLEY, RWANDA
Jane Massey, wildlife journalist for The Living Earth, was sent by her magazine to document the lives of endangered silverback gorillas. This excerpt ran as a small anecdote among the larger and more popular story of rare and exotic primates:
As we passed a steep valley, I saw the movement of something in the foliage below. Our guide saw it too and encouraged us to pick up the pace. At that moment I heard something pretty rare for that part of the world: complete silence. No birds, no animals, not even insects, and we’re talking some pretty loud insects. I asked Kengeri, and he just told me to keep it down. From down in the valley, I could hear this creepy moan. Kevin [the expedition’s photographer] turned even whiter than usual and kept saying it must be the wind. Now, I’ve heard wind in Sarawak, Sri Lanka, the Amazon, and even Nepal, and that was NOT the wind! Kengeri put a hand on his machete and encouraged us to shut up. I told him I wanted to go down into the valley to check it out. He refused. When I pushed, he said, “The dead walk there” and took off.
Massey never explored the valley or discovered the source of the moan. The guide’s story could have been local superstition. The moan could have simply been the wind. However, maps of the valley reveal it to be surrounded by sheer cliffs in all directions, making it impossible for ghouls to escape. Theoretically, this valley could serve as a receptacle for tribes wishing to trap but not destroy the walking dead.
1975 A.D., AL-MARQ, EGYPT
Information concerning this outbreak comes from a variety of sources: eyewitness interviews of the town’s inhabitants, nine depositions from low-ranking Egyptian military personnel, and the accounts of Gassim Farouk (a former Egyptian Air Force intelligence officer who recently emigrated to the United States), and several international journalists who have requested that their identities be kept secret. All these sources corroborate the story that an outbreak of unknown origin attacked and overran this small Egyptian village. Calls for help went unanswered, both from police from other towns and the base commander of Egypt’s Second Armored Division at Gabal Garib only thirty-five miles away. In a bizarre twist of fate, the telephone operator at Gabal Garib was also an Israeli Mossad agent who passed the information along to IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. The information was discounted as a hoax by both the Mossad and the Israeli General Staff and would have been forgotten had it not been for Colonel Jacob Korsunsky, an aide to Prime Minister Golda Meir. An American Jew and former colleague of the late David Shore, Korsunsky was well aware of the existence of zombies and what threat they posed if left unchecked. Amazingly, Korsunsky convinced Meir to assemble a reconnaissance mission to investigate Al-Marq. By now the infestation was in its fourteenth day. Nine survivors had barricaded themselves in the town mosque with little water and no food. A platoon of paratroopers, led by Korsunsky, dropped into the center of Al-Marq and, after a twelve-hour battle, eliminated all zombies. Wild speculation surrounds the ending of this story. Some believe that the Egyptian Army surrounded Al-Marq, captured the Israelis, and prepared to execute them on the spot. Only after pleading from the survivors, who showed the soldiers the zombie corpses, did the Egyptians allow the Israelis safe passage home. Others take this possibility further, believing it to be one of the reasons for the Egyptian-Israeli détente. No hard evidence exists to substantiate this story. Korsunsky died in 1991. His memoirs, personal accounts, army communiqués, subsequent newspaper articles, and even film of the battle purportedly shot by a Mossad cameraman, have been sealed by the Israeli government. If the story is true, it does present one interesting and possibly disturbing question. Why would the Egyptian Army be convinced of the living dead’s existence simply by eyewitness accounts and seemingly human corpses? Would not an intact, still-functioning specimen (or specimens) have to exist to prove such an incredible story? If so, where are those specimens now?
1979 A.D., SPERRY, ALABAMA
While on his daily rounds, Chuck Bernard, the local postal delivery man, stopped at the Henrichs farm to find that the previous day’s mail had not been collected. As this had never happened before, Bernard decided to carry the mail himself up to the house. Fifty feet from the front door, he heard what sounded like gunshots, cries of pain, and calls for help. Bernard fled the scene, drove ten miles to the nearest pay phone, and called the police. When two sheriff’s deputies and a paramedic team arrived, they found the Henrichs family brutally slaughtered. The only survivor, Freda Henrichs, was obviously experiencing the symptoms of advanced infection. She bit both paramedics before the deputies could restrain her. A third deputy, last to arrive and new to the force, panicked and shot her in the head. The two bitten men were brought to the county hospital for treatment and died soon afterward. Three hours later, they rose during their autopsy, attacked the coroner and his assistant, and moved out to the street. By midnight the entire town was in a panic. At least twenty-two zombies were now at large and had completely devoured fifteen people. Many survivors sought refuge in their homes. Others tried to flee the city. Three schoolchildren managed to climb to the top of a water tower. Although surrounded (several ghouls tried to scale the tower but were kicked back to the ground), these children remained safe until th
ey were rescued. One man, Harland Lee, left his home armed with a modified Uzi submachine gun, a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, and two .44 magnum pistols (one a revolver, the other an automatic). Witnesses reported seeing Lee attack a group of twelve zombies, firing first his Uzi then the other weapons in turn. Each time, Lee aimed for the zombie’s torso, causing extreme damage but no kills. Low on ammo, and backed against a mass of wrecked cars, Lee attempted head shots with a pistol in each hand. Because his hands were shaking too violently, Lee produced no hits whatsoever. The self-appointed town savior was quickly devoured. By morning, deputies from neighboring towns, along with state police and hastily assembled vigilante groups, had converged on Sperry. Armed with sighted hunting rifles and new knowledge of the fatal head shot (a local hunter had learned this defending his home), they quickly dispatched the threat. The official explanation (provided by the Department of Agriculture) was “mass hysteria from pesticide release in local water table.” All bodies were removed by the Centers for Disease Control before civilian autopsies could be performed. The majority of radio recordings, news footage, and private photographs was immediately confiscated. One hundred and seventy-five lawsuits were filed by various survivors. Ninety-two of these cases have been settled out of court, forty-eight are still pending, and the remainder have been mysteriously dropped. One lawsuit was recently filed for access to the confiscated media footage. A court decision is said to be years away.