The organization founded in his honor maintains blood-drinking and flesh-eating rituals to this day.
Important religious works of art in his tradition have shown God endowing humanity with the gift of . . . brains.
He is known to have been “fathered” or “created” under mysterious, unnatural circumstances.
To this day, followers of Jebus are still known to congregate in malls.
Finally, the religion Jebus founded has a way of catching on. It gets passed from person to person. “Conversions” seem to be involved, and so forth. A member “infects” non-members, making them like himself. Then it spreads exponentially. Like a virus.
The late Gerald Ford is rumored to have been a zombie for the last several years of his “life.”
The famously “soft-spoken” Calvin Coolidge was actually a very talkative zombie.
Terrifying 1960s film actor Tor Johnson was, of course, a zombie—though atypical in at least one important way. (Most humans lose weight when zombified . . .)
Anna Nicole Smith . . . Towards the end . . . Yeah . . .
Actor and Republican political strategist Ben Stein has built his entire career aping the diction and tone of a zombie.
Al Gore has lulled many a political opponent into a false sense of calm using zombie-based speech patterns.
At least one “surviving” member of the Rolling Stones is a very high functioning zombie.
Rob Zombie is, however, not a zombie.
A Lost History of the Walking Dead
Several years ago, through a series of coincidences, a manuscript came into my possession which you will see excerpted in this chapter. (It has also been thoughtfully published in its entirety under the title Zombies vs. Nazis: A Lost History of the Walking Dead.)
While the annals of history are full of confirmed or likely instances of zombie attack, this account seems especially salient to students of the undead for several reasons.
That—at the height of their power—the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei might have sought to harness the awesome power of the zombie as a nefarious tool of warfare is hardly surprising. However, as this newly uncovered account makes clear, the remarkable missteps and hubris of the Nazis doomed their enterprise before it had even begun.
To approach zombies with anything other than the awe, respect, and fear they are inherently due is the height of folly. The German agents in this account failed to accord zombies anything approaching the appropriate level of deference, and so failed completely.
By seeking to subjugate zombies as servants of the Third Reich, the Nazis showed a complete lack of understanding of the very things that make zombies so great in the first place. Zombies will serve nobody. They will attack everybody. But they will especially attack those who attempt to subjugate or use them.
The Nazis had no excuse for not knowing this. Within the excerpted text, we see their familiarity with the 1932 film White Zombie, an excellent example of the problems that can arise when zombies are subjugated or used to further the desires of others.
What the Nazis did not see—as villains never do—is that zombies are an unstoppable force of individualism and self-reliance. Their goals and desires are their own. When zombies act in such a way that your own goals are furthered (like, maybe they eat one of your enemies or something), it is only ever by coincidence. Zombies cannot be induced to join your side, and they can never be forced to participate in anything they wouldn’t do anyway. One can hardly blame the Nazis for dreaming about controlling so powerful and awe-inspiring a force as the legion of the undead. But a dream it must remain.
This account, then, should make clear the implacable, unbending nature of the zombie. And the folly of those who—against all better judgement, and all the evidence of history—still insist upon trying to make zombies work for them.
Because, it’s like, dude, that’s never going to happen.
Communication 8
March 2, 1940
From: Oswaldt Gehrin
To: Reinhard Heydrich
My Obergruppenführer,
This letter contains details of our first encounter with an actual zombie. It verifies many hypotheses formulated at the outset of this mission, and disproves others. Most importantly (obviously), it verifies that zombies actually exist. Yet, as we saw that night on Bell’s Hill, it also potentially amends our definition of what a zombie actually is.
Perhaps, my dear Obergruppenführer, you are familiar with the popular filmed entertainment White Zombie? It was released by an American movie studio in 1932 and features Mr. Béla Lugosi. I must confess that I, like many Germans, first formed my impression of zombies from viewing this film. (I enjoyed it greatly, seeing it more than a few times at the theater in Baden-Baden.) In White Zombie, the reanimated bodies lorded over by Mr. Lugosi’s character were like robotic automatons. They stumbled forward slowly, their eyes unfocused, their senses numbed. Lugosi was able to command them, and they displayed perfect obedience to him. These zombies obeyed without question, like robots wearing the skins of dead men. (The application for such a perfectly obedient soldier in the cause of the Reich is, of course, easy to see.) These zombies would serve him, kill for him, or march themselves to certain doom at his bidding. They were frightening because they could be commanded to kill, and they could not be reasoned with once given this command.
I must report, however, that the actual zombie is even more troubling, alarming, and horrible to behold than those of Mr. Lugosi’s film!
Just as the first sightings of mermaids by explorers in the New World were in fact only charitable descriptions of sea cows, so have descriptions of the zombie been rosily colored by the lens of the fabulist (and the lens of the Hollywood movie camera). The zombie that accosted Inspector Baedecker and myself was very different than the well-appointed butlers, obedient footmen, and sturdy millworkers portrayed in American films. In truth, Obergruppenführer, when described in total, the nature of the zombie we encountered may be shocking to you. Prepare yourself.
To set the scene: Inspector Baedecker and I had been waiting for some time under cover of camouflage when two shadowy figures approached our position on the hill. One was an older man of curious mien. His hair was long and braided into thick strands. He wore a dark apron around his waist, and his feet were entirely bare. His chest was bare also, save for the adornment of several rope necklaces that held strange ebon talismans that dangled together in a cluster. The heavy clack of these wooden ornaments told of his approach even before he came into view. (They seemed to weigh him down. I guessed they could not be worn for aesthetic pleasure but doubtless served some other purpose.) The old man gripped a metal chain, by which he led his partner, who stumbled like a drunkard and moaned audibly.
Its eyes! My god, how can I describe the sight? There was no life in them. They rolled madly in their sockets in a way no living human’s do—and yet they saw! (My skin crawled when the zombie’s idiot stare chanced upon me. My blood chilled. My stomach knotted.) The zombie’s rotting cloak was worm-eaten and reeked of a lengthy internment beneath the soil. Odors wafted upward, and from my elevated perch I smelled the horrible fumes of rot and decay that do not accompany the living. Yet most disgusting of all was its mouth. Between hideous low moans, the thing gnashed its teeth and slavered strands of drool that glistened in the light of the gibbous moon. It was a mouth that no longer spoke coherently yet longed to express some inexpressible inner longing that made the zombie stagger on.
It was with some courage that I descended from my spot and engaged the pair. (Inspector Baedecker was closer to our visitors, but instead of revealing himself, he took to shaking quite violently as they neared. As the man and his zombie paused to examine the large oscillating bush, I was able to approach them.)
I emerged from the foliage and identified myself as a visiting lepidopterist, in search of nocturnal Monarch butterflies. The Haitian man’s first words, delivered in a thick accent, were an inquiry as to whether the vi
brating bush nearby had anything to do with my research. As carefully and clearly as I could, I assured him that this was the case, and explained that the odd vibrations were related to my scientific experiments.
As we spoke, the zombie—whom he held at the end of a chain like a dog—slavered and salivated in my direction. Several times, the thing extended its arms as if to snatch my clothing (or scratch my throat), and each time had to be restrained by its handler.
Feigning ignorance, I thanked him for his concern on my behalf. Then, cautiously, I asked after the “man” on the chain, inquiring as to whether he might be insane, a criminal, or suffering from a tropical brain fever.
My ignorance seemed genuine, and it was with some amusement that our guest cautioned me that some things were better left unprobed. I quickly convinced him that, as a man of science, I took an objective and detached interest in the man who gibbered and snarled next to us. Our guest soon relented and imparted in hushed tones that the thing on the chain was indeed a zombie.
At this, the bush next to us vibrated again, and it took additional efforts on my part to convincingly attribute the motions to a nocturnal butterfly mating ritual. When this was accomplished—and the vibrations had subsided somewhat—I asked our guest why it was that a zombie should be led through Bell’s Hill in the middle of the night. He smiled—even as the zombie bucked and strained in his grasp—and gave a sly reply, saying that an important religious event was to take place nearby. When I asked about the chain—wondering if the zombie was being punished (or was uncharacteristically aggressive)—the shirtless Haitian laughed and responded that if I was a man of science (as I claimed), I was not a very good one. Zombies, he explained, were known for an innate aggressiveness and propensity toward cannibalism upon the living.
“I have heard of zombies sent as agents of murder,” I explained to the man, “but you are saying that a zombie will attack humans in its . . . default state, without being directly ordered to do so?”
My visitor replied in the affirmative.
Yet when I pressed for more detail, his good-natured demeanor soured substantially, and he refused to speak further, hurrying away into the night (his wild-eyed, groaning zombie trailing after him).
Not wishing to abandon the constrained Inspector Baedecker, I elected to remain as our guests departed. Though no further surveillance was essayed that evening, several important and useful advances in our research have been made.
While it may be the case that the zombie we encountered was somehow atypical or anomalous in its aggressiveness, it is more likely that the aggressiveness of the zombie has gone underreported. This may be due to unreliable reporting, attempts at “cultural sensitivity,” or the simple fact that those who have encountered these creatures in their typically aggressive state have not survived the encounter. (Indeed, even as I prepare these very words for the encryption machine, I shudder to recall the horrible look on that zombie’s face. Its rolling, soulless eyes seemed to look into horrible distances beyond mortal imagining. Its teeth gnashed like a rabid animal’s. Its hands were like talons, and they gestured violently as if to rip the air. It seemed capable of anything.)
Other questions are also raised by our encounter. Why did the zombie not attack its handler? Did the zombie understand verbal commands? (If so, to what degree?) Was it like a dog, able to comprehend a few basic words, or was it more like a human? Did it follow our conversation, or did it understand nothing of what we said? Did the metal collar and chain restrain the zombie, or were they merely used so that passersby would not be alarmed?
Clearly, we have more to learn, and our investigations here must continue.
It is my cautious hypothesis that while zombies still maintain the potential to be of great use to the Reich, in light of these events, we may have to reevaluate the specific role we expect them to play.
Yours respectfully,
Oswaldt Gehrin
Communication 11
April 3, 1940
From: Oswaldt Gehrin
To: Reinhard Heydrich
My Obergruppenführer,
I am pleased to report that our team has made additional contact with Haitian zombies. The salient details of this encounter run thusly:
After the successful encounter of March the second, subsequent overnight watches on Bell’s Hill resulted in no less than three sightings in a four-week period. I write “sightings” because only in the final instance did I and Inspector Baedecker—who exudes a general reluctance to act hastily—interact with the zombies in question.
In the first encounter, we spied a team of armed men transporting what appeared to be a group of prisoners. The group was shackled in the manner of a work gang, and their chains rattled as they approached our hiding places. As they drew near, I amended my guess and wondered if it could be a group of insane being transported to an asylum. (Of course, my hope was that this guess would be wrong and we would see that they were in fact zombies!) The chained men gibbered and drooled like maniacs, and the guards urged them along with the butts of rifles—correcting their loping trajectories when they wandered off their path. At the rear of the phalanx, we saw a stout woman who fit the descriptions of one steeped in Voodoo. She wore a headdress of beads and feathers, and clothes embroidered with wild patterns and bright colors. Around her neck was a rope from which a carved wooden figure dangled and danced upon her duggardly chest. Though the men around her prodded the chained figures, I saw that it was her own verbal urgings (sometimes augmented by a cane bearing the freshly decapitated head of a chicken) that truly urged the shambling parade forward. It was then that I understood for certain that these were not conscripts or schizophrenics, but fifteen or twenty zombies who were being transported past Bell’s Hill (in, I noted, the same direction that our previous zombie had stumbled). I was intrigued, and strongly desired to interact with the group—as did Inspector Baedecker, or so I guessed from his excited vibrations—but we were outnumbered, both by zombies and armed guards. I reasoned that if the group should prove unfriendly, our Lugers might not be enough to protect us. Thus, we allowed the parade to pass unmolested. (Though there was a point when the Voodoo woman seemed to look directly at my position on the tree branch. Yet she did not acknowledge having seen me, and only smiled to herself . . .)
The second encounter occurred at the end of an evening’s watch that had yielded no zombies (or passersby of any kind). I had removed myself from my arboreal post, Inspector Baedecker had extricated himself from his complicated foliage costume, and we were in the process of departing from Bell’s Hill to return to our headquarters to sleep. Dawn was breaking around us as we walked, and this natural illumination allowed Inspector Baedecker to notice a group of five or six figures—who lumbered with the loosey-goosey gait of the zombie—silhouetted against the blue-gray dawn at the top of the hill. He alerted me to their presence with a more-than-adequate shriek. This allowed me to turn and follow his shaking finger as it reached, outstretched and trembling, toward the cavorting zombies. This group appeared at first to be unaccompanied, but upon closer inspection, we saw what has become a familiar sight: a human draped in the loud and unusual attire of the Voodoo practitioner bringing up the rear. Inspector Baedecker and I attempted to pursue this group, who soon lumbered out of sight; but by the time we reached the spot where they had been, all that remained were muddy footprints, a few scraps of torn clothing, and feathers from what must have been a very small bird. (Not a chicken.) Although it did not involve direct interaction with zombies, we felt this encounter was important because it established that the zombies can move about during daylight hours. The (presumably) mythological vampire, for example, is known to avoid sunlight on peril of destruction. Zombies are usually seen at night, but do they harbor similar nocturnal limitations? It appears that no, they do not. For as the morning sun fell on these undead subjects, they exhibited no discomfiture or alarm. Why, then, do we not see more zombies during the day? This is a question that remains to be solved. (I am conf
ident, however, that this means a zombie army in service of the Reich would be able to attack, say, France, as effectively during daylight hours as it could after the sun has gone down.)
The final encounter was the most remarkable, and hints at deeper things, which we may be on the cusp of discovering.
It happened near midnight on the night before last. Inspector Baedecker and I were observing Bell’s Hill from our customary positions when two figures came into view. The first was a hoary old man who waddled slowly and carefully. Around his neck were several of the totems of a Voodoo priest. He strode through the forest astern a single frail zombie who had sunken eyes and a great gaping mouth. On first spying them, I exchanged an excited glance with the bush that was Baedecker and readied my Luger. Here, finally, was a group we might overpower if we so wished. The older man was obviously unarmed, and the zombie looked as though it posed no threat that could not be contained by two hale Aryan men.
Unified in our purposes, Baedecker and I emerged from our covers at the same moment and confronted the figures, our weapons drawn. The waddling old shaman paused, and so did the zombie. (Near to the cadaverous thing, the horrible rot of the grave assailed my nostrils, and I wondered how the old man stood it.) Before anyone could speak, the old shaman began to remove something from his pocket. Mistaking this for a hostile gesture—for it was later revealed that he was merely reaching for a flask containing clarin, a native rum of crude distillation—Baedecker suddenly squeezed the trigger of his Luger, and the shaman fell to the ground, dead as a stone.
“Oh . . . ,” declared Baedecker when the consequences of his action became clear to us. “Whoops.”
Our human guest no longer with us, we turned our attention to the zombie. Its deep-set eyes were trained forward, unfocused, and it seemed not to regard us. It showed no aggression, and apparently failed even to notice that its handler had been executed.
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival Page 15
