by Max Brooks
And then there were psych casualties. More than anything else combined. Sometimes we’d march into barricaded zones and find nothing but rat-gnawed skeletons. I’m talking about the zones that weren’t overrun, the ones that fell to starvation or disease, or just a feeling that tomorrow wasn’t worth seeing. We once broke into a church in Kansas where it was clear the adults killed all the kids first. One guy in our platoon, an Amish guy, used to read all their suicide notes, commit them to memory, then give himself this little cut, this tiny half-inch nick somewhere on his body so he would “never forget.” Crazy bastard was sliced from his neck to the bottom of his toes. When the LT found out about it… sectioned eight his ass right outa there.
Most of the Eight Balls were later in the war. Not from the stress, though, you understand, but from the lack of it. We all knew it would be over soon, and I think a lot of people who’d been holding it together for so long must’ve had that little voice that said, “Hey, buddy, it’s cool now, you can let go.”
I knew this one guy, massive Yoidasaurus, he’d been a professional wrestler before the war. We were walking up the freeway near Pulaski, New York, when the wind picked up the scent of a jackknifed big rig. It’d been loaded with bottles of perfume, nothing fancy, just cheap, strip mall scent. He froze and started bawlin’ like a kid. Couldn’t stop. He was a monster with a two grand body count, an ogre who’d once picked up a G and used it as a club for hand-to-hand combat. Four of us had to carry him out on a stretcher. We figured the perfume must have reminded him of someone. We never found out who.
Another guy, nothing special about him, late forties, balding, bit of a paunch, as much as anyone could have back then, the kinda face you’d see in a prewar heartburn commercial. We were in Hammond, Indiana, scouting defenses for the siege of Chicago. He spied a house at the end of a deserted street, completely intact except for boarded-up windows and a crashed-in front door. He got a look on his face, a grin. We should have known way before he dropped out of formation, before we heard the shot. He was sitting in the living room, in this worn, old easy chair, SIR between his knees, that smile still on his face. I looked up at the pictures on the mantelpiece. It was his home.
Those were extreme examples, ones that even I could have guessed. A lot of the others, you just never knew. For me, it wasn’t just who was cracking up, but who wasn’t. Does that make sense?
One night in Portland, Maine, we were in Deering Oaks Park, policing piles of bleached bones that had been there since the Panic. Two grunts pick up these skulls and start doing a skit, the one from Free to Be, You and Me, the two babies. I only recognized it because my big brother had the record, it was a little before my time. Some of the older Grunts, the Xers, they loved it. A little crowd started gathering, everyone laughing and howling at these two skulls. “Hi-Hi-I’m a baby.-Well what do you think I am, a loaf a bread?” And when it was over, everyone spontaneously burst into song, “There’s a land that I see…” playing femurs like goddamn banjos. I looked across the crowd to one of our company shrinks. I could never pronounce his real name, Doctor Chandra-something. I made eye contact and gave him this look, like “Hey, Doc, they’re all nut jobs, right?” He must have known what my eyes were asking because he just smiled back and shook his head. That really spooked me; I mean, if the ones who were acting loopy weren’t, then how did you know who’d really lost it?
Our squad leader, you’d probably recognize her. She was in The Battle of the Five Colleges. Remember the tall, amazon chick with the ditch blade, the one who’d sung that song? She didn’t look like she used to in the movie. She’d burned off her curves and a crew cut replaced all that long, thick, shiny black hair. She was a good squad leader, “Sergeant Avalon.” One day we found a turtle in a field. Turtles were like unicorns back then, you hardly saw them anymore. Avalon got this look, I don’t know, like a kid. She smiled. She never smiled. I heard her whisper something to the turtle, I thought it was gibberish: “Mitakuye Oyasin.” I found out later that it was Lakota for “all my relations.” I didn’t even know she was part Sioux. She never talked about it, about anything about her. And suddenly, like a ghost, there was Doctor Chandra, with that arm he always put around their shoulders and that soft, no-big-deal offer of “C’mon, Sarge, let’s grab a cup of coffee.”
That was the same day the president died. He must have also heard that little voice. “Hey, buddy, it’s cool now, you can let go.” I know a lot of people weren’t so into the VP, like there was no way he could replace the Big Guy. I really felt for him, mainly ’cause I was now in the same position. With Avalon gone, I was squad leader.
It didn’t matter that the war was almost over. There were still so many battles along the way, so many good people to say good-bye to. By the time we reached Yonkers, I was the last of the old gang from Hope. I don’t know how I felt, passing all that rusting wreckage: the abandoned tanks, the crushed news vans, the human remains. I don’t think I felt much of anything. Too much to do when you’re squad leader, too many new faces to take care of. I could feel Doctor Chandra’s eyes boring into me. He never came over though, never let on that there was anything wrong. When we boarded the barges on the banks of the Hudson, we managed to lock eyes. He just smiled and shook his head. I’d made it.
GOOD-BYES
Burlington, Vermont
[Snow has begun falling. Reluctantly, “the Whacko” turns back for the house.]
You ever heard of Clement Attlee? Of course not, why should you? Man was a loser, a third-rate mediocrity who only slipped into the history books because he unseated Winston Churchill before World War II officially ended. The war in Europe was over, and to the British people, there was this feeling that they’d suffered enough, but Churchill kept pushing to help the United States against Japan, saying the fight wasn’t finished until it was finished everywhere. And look what happened to the Old Lion. That’s what we didn’t want to happen to our administration. That’s exactly why we decided to declare victory once the continental U.S. had been secured.
Everyone knew the war wasn’t really over. We still had to help out our allies and clear whole parts of the world that were entirely ruled by the dead. There was still so much work to do, but since our own house was in order, we had to give people the option to go home. That’s when the UN multinational force was created, and we were pleasantly surprised how many volunteers signed up in the first week. We actually had to turn some of them away, put them on the reserve list or assign them to train all the young bucks who missed the drive across America. I know I caught a lot of flak for going UN instead of making it an all-American crusade, and to be totally honest, I really couldn’t give a damn. America’s a fair country, her people expect a fair deal, and when that deal ends with the last boots on Atlantic beaches, you shake their hands, pay them off, and let anyone who wants to reclaim their private lives do so.
Maybe it’s made the overseas campaigns a little slower. Our allies are on their feet again, but we still have a few White Zones to clear: mountain ranges, snowline islands, the ocean floor, and then there’s Iceland… Iceland’s gonna be tough. I wish Ivan would let us help out in Siberia, but, hey, Ivan’s Ivan. And we still have attacks right here at home as well, every spring, or every so often near a lake or beach. The numbers are declining,
thank heavens, but it doesn’t mean people should let down their guard. We’re still at war, and until every trace is sponged, and purged, and, if need he, blasted from the surface of the Earth, everybody’s still gotta pitch in and do their job. Be nice if that was the lesson people took from all this misery. We’re all in this together, so pitch in and do your job.
[We stop by an old oak tree. My companion looks it up and down, taps it lightly with his cane. Then, to the tree …]
You’re doin’ a good job.
Khuzhir, Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, the Holy Russian Empire
[A nurse interrupts our interview to make sure Maria Zhuganova takes her prenatal vitamins. Maria is four months pregnant.
This will be her eighth child.]
My only regret was that I couldn’t remain in the army for the “liberation” of our former republics. We’d purged the motherland of the undead filth, and now it was time to carry the war beyond our borders. I wish I could have been there, the day we formally reabsorbed Belarus back into the empire. They say it will be the Ukraine soon, and after that, who knows. I wish I could still have been a participant, but I had “other duties”…
[Gently, she pats her womb.]
I don’t know how many clinics like this there are throughout the Ro-dtna. Not enough, I’m sure. So few of us, young, fertile women who didn’t succumb to drugs, or AIDS, or the stink of the living dead. Our leader says that the greatest weapon a Russian woman can wield now is her uterus. If that means not knowing my children’s fathers, or…
[Her eyes momentarily hit the floor.]
…my children, so be it. I serve the motherland, and I serve with all my heart.
[She catches my eye.]
You’re wondering how this “existence” can be reconciled with our new fundamentalist state? Well, stop wondering, it can’t. All that religious dogma, that’s for the masses. Give them their opium and keep them pacified. I don’t think anyone in the leadership, or even the Church, really believes what they’re preaching, maybe one man, old Father Ryzhkov before they chucked him out into the wilderness. He had nothing left to offer, unlike me. I’ve got at least a few more children to give the motherland. That’s why I’m treated so well, allowed to speak so freely.
[Maria glances at the one-way glass behind me.]
What are they going to do to me? By the time I’ve exhausted my usefulness, I will have already outlived the average woman.
[She presents the glass with an extremely rude finger gesture.]
And besides, they want you to hear this. That is why they’ve let you into our country, to hear our stories, to ask your questions. You’re being used, too, you know. Your mission is to tell your world of ours, to make them see what will happen if anyone ever tries to fuck with us. The war drove us back to our roots, made us remember what it means to be Russian. We are strong again, we are feared again, and to Russians, that only means one thing, we are finally safe again! For the first time in almost a hundred years, we can finally warm ourselves in the protective fist of a Caesar, and I’m sure you know the word for Caesar in Russian.
Bridgetown, Barbados, West Indies Federation
[The bar is almost empty. Most of the pations have either left by their own power, or been carried out by the police. The last of the night staff clean the broken chairs, broken glass, and pools of blood off the floor. In the corner, the last of the South Africans sings an emotional, inebriated version of Johnny Clegg’s wartime rendition of “Asimbonaga.” T. Sean Collins absentmindedly hums a few bars, then downs his shot of rum, and hurriedly signals for another.]
I’m addicted to murder, and that’s about the nicest way I can put it. You might say that’s not technically true, that since they’re already dead I’m not really killing. Horseshit; it’s murder, and it’s a rush like nothing else. Sure, I can dis those prewar mercenaries all I want, the ’Nam vets and Hell’s Angels, but at this point I’m no different from them, no different from those jungle humpers who never came home, even when they did, or those World War II fighter jocks who traded in their Mustangs for hogs.
You’re living on such a high, so keyed up all the time, that anything else seems like death.
I tried to fit in, settle down, make some friends, get a job and do my part to help put America back together. But not only was I dead, I couldn’t think about anything else but killing. I’d start to study people’s necks, their heads. I’d think, “Hmmmm, that dude’s probably got a thick frontal lobe, I gotta go in through the eye socket.” Or “hard blow to the occipital’d drop that chick pretty fast.” It was when the new prez, “the Whacko” — Jesus, who the hell am I to call anybody else that — when I heard him speak at a rally, I must have thought of at least fifty ways to bring him down. That’s when I got out, as much for everyone else’s sake as my own. I knew one day I’d hit my limit, get drunk, get in a fight, lose control. I knew once I started, I couldn’t stop, so I said good-bye and joined the Impisi, same name as the South African Special Forces. Impisi: Zulu for Hyena, the one who cleans up the dead.
We’re a private outfit, no rules, no red tape, which is why I chose them over a regular gig with the UN. We set our own hours, choose our own weapons.
[He motions to what looks like a sharpened steel paddle at his side.]
“Pouwhenua” — got it from a Maori brother who used to play for the All Blacks before the war. Bad motherfuckers, the Maori. That battle at One Tree Hill, five hundred of them versus half of reanimated Auckland. The pouwhenua’s a tough weapon to use, even if this one’s steel instead of wood. But that’s the other perk of being a soldier of fortune. Who can get a rush anymore from pulling a trigger? It’s gotta be hard, dangerous, and the more Gs you gotta take on, the better. Of course, sooner or later there’s not gonna be any of them left. And when that happens…
[At that point the Imfingo rings its cast-off bell.]
There’s my ride.
[T. Sean signals to the waiter, then flips a few silver zand on the table.]
I still got hope. Sounds crazy, but you never know. That’s why I save most of my fees instead of giving back to the host country or blowing it on who knows what. It can happen, finally getting the monkey off your back. A Canadian brother, “Mackee” Macdonald, right after clearing Baffin Island, he just decided he’d had enough. I hear he’s in Greece now, some monastery or something. It can happen. Maybe there’s still a life out there for me. Hey, a man can dream, right? Of course, if it doesn’t work out that way, if one day there’s still a monkey but no more Zack… [He rises to leave, shouldering his weapon.]
Then the last skull I crack’ll probably be my own.
Sand Lakes Provincial Wilderness Park, Manitoba, Canada
[Jesika Hendricks loads the last of the day’s “catch” into the sled, fifteen bodies and a mound of dismembered parts.]
I try not to be angry, bitter at the unfairness of it all. I wish I could make sense of it. I once met an ex-Iranian pilot who was traveling through Canada looking for a place to settle down. He said that Americans are the only people he’s ever met who just can’t accept that bad things can happen to good people. Maybe he’s right. Last week I was listening to the radio and just happened to hear [name withheld for legal reasons]. He was doing his usual thing-fart jokes and insults and adolescent sexuality-and I remember thinking, “This man survived and my parents didn’t.” No, I try not to be bitter.
Troy, Montana, USA
[Mrs. Miller and I stand on the back deck, above the children playing in the central courtyard.]
You can blame the politicians, the businessmen, the generals, the “machine” but really, if you’re looking to blame someone, blame me. I’m the American system, I’m the machine. That’s the price of living in a democracy; we all gotta take the rap. I can see why it took so long for China to finally embrace it, and why Russia just said “fuck it” and went back to whatever they call their system now. Nice to be able to say, “Hey, don’t look at me, it’s not my fault.” Well, it is. It is my fault, and the fault of everyone of my generation.
[She looks down at the children.]
I wonder what future generations will say about us. My grandparents suffered through the Depression, World War II, then came home to build the greatest middle class in human history. Lord knows they weren’t perfect, but they sure came closest to the American dream. Then my parents’ generation came along and fucked it all up-the baby boomers, the “me” generation. And then you got us. Yeah, we stopped the zombie menace, but we’re the ones who let it become a menace in the first place. At least we’re cleaning up our own mess, and maybe that’s the best epitaph to hope for. “Generation Z, they cleaned up their own mess.”
Ch
ongqing, China
[Kwang Jingshu does his final house call for the day, a little boy with some kind of respiratory illness. The mother fears it’s another case of tuberculosis. The color returns to her face when the doctor assures her it’s just a chest cold. Her tears and gratitude follow us down the dusty street.]
It’s comforting to see children again, I mean those who were born after the war, real children who know nothing but a world that includes the living dead. They know not to play near water, not to go out alone or after dark in the spring or summer. They don’t know to be afraid, and that is the greatest gift, the only gift we can leave to them.
Sometimes I think of that old woman at New Dachang, what she lived through, the seemingly unending upheaval that defined her generation. Now that’s me, an old man who’s seen his country torn to shreds many times over. And yet, every time, we’ve managed to pull ourselves together, to rebuild and renew our nation. And so we will again-China, and the world. I don’t really believe in an afterlife-the old revolutionary to the end-but if there is, I can imagine my old comrade Gu laughing down at me when I say, with all honesty, that everything’s going to be all right.
Wenatchee, Washington, USA
[Joe Muhammad has just finished his latest masterpiece, a thirteen-inch statuette of a man in midshuffle, wearing a torn Baby Bjorn, staring ahead with lifeless eyes.]
I’m not going to say the war was a good thing. I’m not that much of a sick fuck, but you’ve got to admit that it did bring people together. My parents never stopped talking about how much they missed the sense of community back in Pakistan. They never talked to their American neighbors, never invited them over, barely knew their names unless it was to complain about loud music or a barking dog. Can’t say that’s the kind of world we live in now. And it’s not just the neighborhood, or even the country. Anywhere around the world, anyone you talk to, all of us have this powerful shared experience. I went on a cruise two years ago, the Pan Pacific Line across the islands. We had people from everywhere, and even though the details might have been different, the stories themselves were all pretty much the same. I know I come off as a little too optimistic, because I’m sure that as soon as things really get back to “normal,” once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they’ll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were. But then again, can what we all went through really just go away? I once heard an African proverb, “One cannot cross a river without getting wet.” I’d like to believe that.
