My job involved me travelling around the UK visiting castle fortresses and settlements, analysing what the groups there had to work with, and then setting about improving their situation dramatically. I would start with the obvious stuff first, what walls needed to be built or shored up, where trenches should be dug, where security patrols needed to keep an eye on, where traps could be built.
Each settlement I visited, whether it was a village, a castle, people occupying a lighthouse, a city or whatever else the goal was always the same -help them to become as independent and secure as possible. Only in the direst conditions did I ever order the dismantlement of a settlement.
I also trained the volunteer army, the massive group of people who combed the countryside putting down zombies and also fought huge armies of ghouls in the cities. Initially we were short on ammunition, having to rely on hit and run tactics, trying to make the enemy come to us, retrieving arrows from corpses whenever we could, fighting with absolutely anything we had at hand. We took some heavy losses when it came to close combat, mostly because it is terrifying having a ghoul that close to you, and seeing over his shoulder about a million more of his brothers waiting in line to devour you.
Later when the war machine was in full gear we were much better equipped. I have to say I am really impressed with the patriotism of the British people. When the country was facing its darkest hour they really stepped up.
Of course, I have the utmost respect for our military. They faced a logistical nightmare during those early days, needing to be everywhere at once. We were being overrun. The military had the unenviable task of not only having to defend our border but also tackling the larger hordes sweeping the countryside and also liberating the cities. I know the civilians saw a lot of hell during the war, but the soldiers really did have it worse. Our military was much better armed than the common man but that only meant that much more was expected from our soldiers.
How was the UK ruled during the Zombie War?
Well, I’m pro individual freedom and pro free speech so I guess that’s what we have now. I’m not a politician but some people call our new system Anarchy. A lot of people used to freak out at that word, probably associating it with total chaos. But apparently what it means is no government, whatsoever. As it turns out we’ve done a far better job of managing ourselves than the government ever could. Now we live in a truly free society where people can choose how they want to live, as long as they don’t forcibly interfere with others. There are thousands of towns and settlements all over the UK that are managing themselves independently. The military still exists, mainly to destroy the remaining zombie hordes and defend our borders, but essentially the military now serves the people instead of going off to fight wars on the state’s behalf.
If you ask me it was a good thing the government fell when it did.
Do you know what happened to the UK Government?
What do you mean?
Someone killed them. Many of the UK’s former politicians have been seen as zombies. Was it you who did that to them?
[Pauses.] No. It wasn’t me.
Okay, can you speculate on why someone would want the UK government dead, and why they would punish them in such a way?
Oh, sure, I can speculate on that. The UK government were corrupt at the best of times. Before the War many of them were under investigation for paedophilia and child murder. See, they weren’t just snatching little kids and fucking them and then releasing them back into the public. No. They also had to kill them as well.
When the War came our so-called leaders took bribes from every direction, allowing refugees in from countries that were swarming with the living dead, without even ordering the performing of cursory inspections upon them, all so they could get rich. These “refugees” brought the infection with them. That’s a big reason why we were almost completely overwhelmed so soon. Our political class was really a traitor class out to make themselves filthy rich while the public were literally eaten alive.
Sure, we would have had some problems with the living dead anyway, but the way it turned out we were swamped with the ghouls before we had any real chance to respond. The refugees were put up in beautiful mansions in London, our nation’s capital. When they turned there were suddenly thousands of them on the streets, spreading the infection like wildfire. Our politicians of course were driven around in armoured cars with private security, watching the chaos on the streets through bullet proof glass as they were safely driven home. They lived in walled communities where they were protected from the horror that was consuming the rest of the nation.
So, to answer your original question, if some highly dangerous and knowledgeable person did visit the government and then set about torturing them, skinning them alive and cutting bits off them and burning them and them leaving them to wander as zombies forever then I can see why such a person would be motivated to make that happen.
[Bares his teeth.] Some of the very worst from the traitor class, the real decision makers, are locked up in a dark room beneath parliament, or so I’ve heard. You know, it is possible to keep a human being alive for months with no arms, no legs, and no face, if you know what you are doing. Then to just leave them as a ghoul.
After the tens of millions of people who died in this country I can see why a man would want justice.
I can see why a man, after all the years he had spent serving and protecting his country and what he had witnessed it reduced to, would feel compelled towards righteous vengeance.
Why, he probably did our nation a favour.
[Derek sits back with a grin of deep satisfaction on his face. Above him, mounted on his living room wall, is the ceremonial Mace only ever seen in parliament. It is silver gilt and about five feet in length, being used in Pre-War years to open parliament each day. I don’t ask Derek how it came to be in his possession.]
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
Interviewer: Mick Franklin
INTERVIEW 29:
It’s difficult to convince a man to kill someone. There’s all types of hardwiring to prevent you from doing that, we’re talking two million years of evolution which holds you back from killing anyone in your own group, or even someone who is from your own species. In tribal times if you killed a person you could be expelled from the tribe which was almost certainly a death sentence. That’s why it is so difficult for a human being to kill another human being. Even for a criminal there is usually a huge build up to the event, he needs to get himself angry; he needs to challenge the target, almost as though he is convincing himself, or maybe his hindbrain, that what he is doing is self-defence.
However, you never see a guy who is going to slaughter a cow have a conversation with the cow first do you? You never see someone who is going to kill a chicken challenge it or try to convince himself that killing that chicken is necessary to protect himself. Of course not. He will just take a knife and go and kill that animal. Simple. It’s not his own species so he doesn’t care.
You know, during the American Civil War there were stories of groups of men lining up at close range and then shooting at each other but when the smoke cleared not a single person had been shot –many soldiers would intentionally miss because when he looked at his enemy he saw himself, someone who was just like him, tired and scared, a victim of a war he didn’t want to be a part of.
This type of reaction was common in wars throughout history.
Could this reaction be attributed to cowardice?
No! Quite often these same people who would not fire at the enemy, or who would deliberately and proudly miss, would be the same people who would risk their lives running forward under enemy fire to rescue a fallen comrade. Or they would deliver a message and have to run across open ground being fired upon to do it. They weren’t cowards; they just genuinely did not want to hurt another human being.
Far from this being a criticism of humanity I think it is a real compliment –most people don’t want to hurt anyone e
lse.
That’s one of the biggest problems we had with fighting back against the undead. They were us. Or at least, that was still the popular perception among many citizens. Remember, in those early days many people refused to terminate their own family members who had become zombies. That accounted for the widespread outbreaks of ghouls even in well-armed countries like America. People just didn’t have the right mind-set to kill an enemy who for all intents and purposes was the same as them.
We needed to change that perception.
How did you manage that?
The research done after World War II was extremely helpful. To get around the mental block of killing your own kind people had to ‘other’ the enemy, they had to be convinced he wasn’t like them. You would see this in propaganda campaigns in wars, but the real magic was in target shooting. When targets went from being round bullseyes to outlines of human beings this was a huge leap forward in warfare. People shooting at these human-like targets were gradually rewiring themselves; they were training themselves through repetition to shoot at another human being.
Of course, a shooting range is a different setting from a live battlefield. A soldier could still hold in his heart the conviction that he would “always miss,” because he never wanted to hurt any person. The ancient Romans had a solution for this. They had a strong hierarchy with officers the soldiers were trained to respect and obey at all times. It was a huge motivation for the soldiers to succeed in battle when the officers were walking back and forth directly behind them, shouting orders and encouragement, letting them know they were being observed. That changed the dynamic for the individual soldier. He didn’t want to disappoint an officer, someone who it had been instilled in him to always obey.
A similar idea was used by Alexander the Great in his “dragon tooth” formation. The concept was that the frontline was made up of one man, then the next man on the frontline was about ten metres back, then the next man on the frontline was in line with the first man, then the next man was about ten metres back, and so on, which creates a line much like a ridge of teeth with gaps in it. This made all the men accountable to each other. The way it worked was that the guys right at the front did not want to look like cowards to the men who were ten metres back. They also knew that once they clashed with the enemy, they would only be fighting for a few seconds before they were reinforced by their battle brothers immediately behind them. The guys who were ten metres behind did not want to disappoint their brothers either on the frontline. They would be dying to get to grips with the enemy, and their desire to help their endangered brothers driving them forwards. Remember, Alexander the Great conquered the known world with just forty thousand soldiers. The man had a grasp of human psychology.
You see a similar effect with sniper teams. There is a spotter who sets up the shot, calculating the distance, wind speed and so on, and then you have a separate man actually taking the shot. What would happen if you just sent one man to kill a target? Well, his fear might get the better of him. He might run away and make up any excuse when he got back to base. By sending two men and having them rely upon each other it also made them accountable to each other.
We put ideas like that into effect too when we fought the undead. It was extremely unnerving for a small group of militia to confront an army of undead, maybe stretching back dozens of kilometres. In those early days the zombies were perceived as an enemy that could not lose; they were difficult to kill because only a headshot would stop them, they weren’t afraid of anything at all, they were utterly relentless.
Compare that to our side. We were frightened and had been almost beaten into submission by this enemy. Many of us had personal experiences dealing with them, having seen friends and family become zombies. Most people had limited options when facing the undead –either hide or run. Now we were asking them to help us fight back, we were asking them to do the complete opposite of what their instincts were screaming at them to do.
Before battle we had plenty of training at the shooting range, making sure that people were given lots of practice at shooting human-looking targets. I know of some training stations that used actual chained zombies as targets, making people begin with paintball guns first and eventually finishing the captive ghoul off with a real bullet. In any case, people got used to shooting at ghouls.
Then we would have some classroom time. We brought in experts to tell people everything we knew about the ghouls, trying to demystify them for the common man as much as possible. I sat in on a lot of those lectures and it was surprising to me just how much false information was out there. We had people turning up to join the militias who didn’t even know how to kill a zombie or didn’t realise that any person who dies comes back as a ghoul. All those misunderstandings had to be dealt with. By the time our people left basic training they knew everything we knew about the strengths and weaknesses of our enemy.
When we arrived at the battlefield our side was armed with knowledge and had good fighting habits ingrained in them. I think there is a soldiers saying, something like ‘train hard, fight easy.’ That’s what we did with our people. We made sure they were well prepared before they ever confronted the enemy.
Immediately before the fighting we would make sure everyone heard from the officers. These men were chosen for the role not just because they were competent leaders but also because they could put the team at ease. The way the officers did this was up to the individual, some people were truly charismatic and inspired people with their mere presence, other officers would show concern for the weakest member of the group, someone else might offer people a cigarette and a joke to break the tension, I saw some officers who never said a word –the very definition of the strong silent type –whose body language and composure kept everyone else calm.
During the fighting we used all the strategies I’ve already told you about as well as making sure there were dedicated teams keeping an eye on the soldiers’ mental wellbeing. Part of killing a person is curiosity. It is extremely common on the battlefield for a soldier to want to see up close the person he has shot dead. That’s fine. We didn’t discourage that after the battle was over, but if someone was becoming visibly upset during the fighting they may need to be taken off the frontline for a few minutes. Not much longer, mind you –we needed every gun we had pointed at the enemy. But we could usually spare a few minutes to help a comrade who wasn’t coping.
Were there any battles you were a part of?
Yes, I was there in the battle for London. We had snipers stationed on the Tower Bridge in the chambers above the road on the bridge, which was easily defendable. Enormous concert speakers were left on the bridge playing sixties pop songs, drawing hordes of zombies with the noise. The bridge itself seemed to function as a funnel and group all the zombies together. You’ll have to ask the officers about the actual military strategies involved –my involvement is just the psychological side. I was in a helicopter flying over the city when the snipers were shooting the zombies on the bridge beneath them. I was in radio contact with the two psychologists who were stationed up there with the snipers. You know, the mounds of dead bodies on the bridge became so high that the soldiers actually raised the bridge to dump the bodies out into the water just to make room for more zombies to enter the kill zone.
There were also snipers and lookouts posted on the London eye, which is a huge Ferris wheel.
A lot of the fighting took place in the Shard which is a thousand foot tall building near the Thames River. We had soldiers stationed on every floor, using the windows and excellent views to gun down all the zombies that were approaching. Our engineers had taken great care to seal off the entrances to the building so that the only real danger we had was running out of ammunition and having to wait while reinforcements arrived. The soldiers managed to finish the job with the bullets they had.
After that it was a matter of going door to door with search and destroy teams to catch any stragglers, usually zombies that for some reason were trapped in a bui
lding or were too injured to stay with the main hordes. I stayed long enough to see some of the survivors emerge from hiding. There were people waving at us from the old Battersea power station, the Old Royal Naval College, and of course Buckingham Palace.
Similar scenes were playing out around the Western world. We found it most useful to combine military strategy with a scientific understanding of human nature. Not every country in the rest of the world was receptive to our ideas or was still standing to even implement them. The War … it really cost us a lot, you know.
How did you help the survivors to recover?
I was told that the survivors had the highest suicide rate in history. Never before had people been forced to watch their loved ones die . . . only to have them return as zombies and either have to kill them or run away from them. I thought it would be mainly religious groups who killed themselves, expecting to fast track themselves to heaven or something. What usually happened was that religious people came closer to God, praying more and supporting each other, while people who had no religion either became religious in a hurry or else chose extinction.
The rescue teams saw it all the time, entire families who had committed suicide together. There would be families that chose to die, opting for the easy way out, only they had chosen some method that wouldn’t guarantee they stay dead, so when we burst into their house we would find a family of ghouls who had died from a deliberate drug overdose, or had suffocated themselves by turning the gas from the oven on. I saw first-hand one family that had killed themselves with plastic bags over their heads. They kind of looked like astronauts or something when they came out the bedroom and crossed the sunny lounge room towards us, still with the bags tied on their heads.
Zombie War: Interviews From The Frontline Page 23
