by Max Brooks
Well …
Well, it’s bullshit, okay? So what if everything she told me was information I’d already been briefed on, so what if the psych team “claim” my radio was knocked out before I hit the mud, and so the fuck what if Mets is short for Metis, the mother of Athena, the Greek goddess with the stormy gray eyes. Oh, the shrinks had a ball with that one, especially when they “discovered” that my mother grew up in the Bronx.
And that remark she made about your mother?
Who the hell doesn’t have mother issues? If Mets was a pilot, she was a natural gambler. She knew she had a good chance of scoring a hit with “mom.” She knew the risk, took her shot … Look, if they thought I’d cracked up, why didn’t I lose my flight status? Why did they let me have this job? Maybe she wasn’t a pilot herself, maybe she was married to one, maybe she’d wanted to be one but never made it as far as I did. Maybe she was just a scared, lonely voice that did what she could to help another scared lonely voice from ending up like her. Who cares who she was, or is? She was there when I needed her, and for the rest of my life, she’ll always be with me.
/
AROUND THE WORLD, AND ABOVE
PROVINCE OF BOHEMIA, THE EUROPEAN UNION
[It is called Kost, “the Bone,” and what it lacks in beauty it more than makes up for in strength. Appearing to grow out of its solid rock foundation, this fourteenth-century Gothic “Hrad” casts an intimidating shadow over the Plakanek Valley, an image David Allen Forbes is keen to capture with his pencil and paper. This will be his second book, Castles of the Zombie War: The Continent. The Englishman sits under a tree, his patchwork clothing and long Scottish sword already adding to this Arthurian setting. He abruptly switches gears as I arrive, from serene artist to painfully nervous storyteller.]
When I say that the New World doesn’t have our history of fixed fortifications, I’m only referring to North America. There are the Spanish coastal fortresses, naturally, along the Caribbean, and the ones we and the French built in the Lesser Antilles. Then there are the Inca ruins in the Andes, although they never experienced direct sieges.[*Although Machu Picchu was quiet throughout the war, the survivors at Vilcahamha did see a minor, internal outbreak.] Also, when I say “North America,” that does not include the Mayan and Aztec ruins in Mexico—that business with the Battle of Kukulcan, although I suppose that’s Toltec, now, isn’t it, when those chaps held off so many Zed Heads on the steps of that bloody great pyramid. So when I say “New World,” I’m really referring to the United States and Canada.
This isn’t an insult, you understand, please don’t take it as such. You’re both young countries, you don’t have the history of institutional anarchy we Europeans suffered after the fall of Rome. You’ve always had standing, national governments with the forces capable of enforcing law and order.
I know that wasn’t true during your westward expansion or your civil war, and please, I’m not discounting those pre-Civil War fortresses or the experiences of those defending them. I’d one day like to visit Fort Jefferson. I hear those who survived there had quite a time of it. All I’m saying is, in Europe’s history, we had almost a millennia of chaos where sometimes the concept of physical safety stopped at the battlements of your lord’s castle. Does that make sense? I’m not making sense; can we start again?
No, no, this is fine. Please, continue.
You’ll edit out all the daft bits.
You got it.
Right then. Castles. Well … I don’t want for a moment to overstate their importance for the general war effort. In fact, when you compare them to any other type of fixed fortification, modern, modified, and so forth, their contribution does seem quite negligible, unless you’re like me, and that contribution was what saved your life.
This doesn’t mean that a mighty fortress was naturally our God. For starters, you must understand the inherent difference between a castle and a palace. A lot of so-called castles were really nothing more than just great impressive homes, or else had been converted to such after their defensive value had become obsolete. These once impregnable bastions now had so many windows cut into the ground floor that it would have taken forever to brick them all up again. You’d be better off in a modern block of flats with the staircase removed. And as far as those palaces that were built as nothing more than status symbols, places like Chateau Ussé or Prague “Castle,” they were little more than death traps.
Just look at Versailles. That was a first-rate cock-up. Small wonder the French government chose to build their national memorial on its ashes. Did you ever read that poem by Renard, about the wild roses that now grow in the memorial garden, their petals stained red with the blood of the damned?
Not that a high wall was all you needed for long-term survival. Like any static defense, castles had as many internal as external dangers. Just look at Muiderslot in Holland. One case of pneumonia, that’s all it took. Throw in a wet, cold autumn, poor nutrition, and lack of any genuine medications … Imagine what that must have been like, trapped behind those high stone walls, those around you fatally ill, knowing your time was coming, knowing the only slim hope you had was to escape. The journals written by some of the dying tell of people going mad with desperation, leaping into that moat choked with Zed Heads.
And then there were fires like the ones at Braubach and Pierrefonds; hundreds trapped with nowhere to run, just waiting to be charred by the flames or asphyxiated by the smoke. There were also accidental explosions, civilians who somehow found themselves in possession of bombs but had no idea how to handle or even store them. At Miskolc Diosgyor in Hungary, as I understand it, someone got their hands on a cache of military-grade, sodium-based explosives. Don’t ask me what exactly it was or why they had it, but nobody seemed to know that water, not fire, was the catalytic agent. The story goes that someone was smoking in the armory, caused some small fire or whatnot. The stupid sods thought they were preventing an explosion by dousing the crates in water. It blew a hole right through the wall and the dead surged in like water through a breached dam.
At least that was a mistake based on ignorance. I can’t even begin to forgive what happened at Chateau de Fougeres. They were running low on supplies, thought that they could dig a tunnel under their undead attackers. What did they think this was, The Great Escape? Did they have any professional surveyors with them? Did they even understand the basics of trigonometry? The bloody tunnel exit fell short by over half a kilometer, came up right in a nest of the damn things. Stupid wankers hadn’t even thought to equip their tunnel with demolition charges.
Yes, there were cock-ups aplenty, but there were also some noteworthy triumphs. Many were subjected to only short-term sieges, the good fortune of being on the right side of the line. Some in Spain, Bavaria, or Scotland above the Antonine[*The main British line of defense was fixed along the site of the old Roman Antonine Wall] only had to hold out for weeks, or even days. For some, like Kisimul, it was only a question of getting through one rather dodgy night. But then there were the true tales of victory, like Chenonceau in France, a bizarre little Disneyesque castle built on a bridge over the Cher River. With both connections to land severed, and the right amount of strategic forethought, they managed to hold their position for years.
They had enough supplies for years?
Oh good lord, no. They simply waited for first snowfall, then raided the surrounding countryside. This was, I should imagine, standard procedure for almost anyone under siege, castle or not. I’m sure those in your strategic “Blue Zones,” at least those above the snowline, operated in much the same manner. In that way we were fortunate that most of Europe freezes in winter. Many of the defenders I’ve spoken to have agreed that the inevitable onset of winter, long and brutal as it was, became a lifesaving reprieve. As long as they didn’t freeze to death, many survivors took the opportunity of frozen Zed Heads to raid the surrounding countryside for everything they’d need for the warmer months.
It’s not surprising how many defend
ers chose to remain in their strongholds even with the opportunity to flee, be it Bouillon in Belgium or Spis in Slovakia or even back home like Beaumaris in Wales. Before the war, the place had been nothing but a museum piece, a hollow shell of roofless chambers and high concentric walls. The town council should be given the VC for their accomplishments, pooling resources, organizing citizens, restoring this ruin to its former glory. They had just a few months before the crisis engulfed their part of Britain. Even more dramatic is the story of Conwy, both a castle and medieval wall that protected the entire town. The inhabitants not only lived in safety and relative comfort during the stalemate years, their access to the sea allowed Conwy to become a springboard for our forces once we began to retake our country. Have you ever read Camelot Mine?
[I shake my head.]
You must find yourself a copy. It’s a cracking good novel, based on the author’s own experiences as one of the defenders of Caerphilly. He began the crisis on the second floor of his flat in Ludlow, Wales. As his supplies ran out and the first snow fell, he decided to strike out in search of more permanent lodgings. He came upon the abandoned ruin, which had already been the sight of a halfhearted, and ultimately fruitless, defense. He buried the bodies, smashed the frozen Zed Heads, and set about restoring the castle on his own. He worked tirelessly, in the most brutal winter on record. By May, Caerphilly was prepared for the summer siege, and by the following winter, it became a haven for several hundred other survivors.
[He shows me some of his sketches.]
A masterpiece, isn’t it, second largest in the British Isles.
What’s the first?
[He hesitates.]
Windsor.
Windsor was your castle.
Well, not mine personally.
I mean, you were there.
[Another pause.]
It was, from a defensive standpoint, as close as one could come to perfection. Before the war, it was the largest inhabited castle in Europe, almost thirteen acres. It had its own well for water, and enough storage space to house a decade’s worth of rations. The fire of 1992 led to a state-of-the-art suppression system, and the subsequent terrorist threats upgraded security measures to rival any in the UK. Not even the general public knew what their tax dollars were paying for: bulletproof glass, reinforced walls, retractable bars, and steel shutters hidden so cleverly in windowsills and door frames.
But of all our achievements at Windsor, nothing can rival the siphoning of crude oil and natural gas from the deposit several kilometers beneath the castle’s foundation. It had been discovered in the 1990s but never exploited for a variety of political and environmental reasons. You can believe we exploited it, though. Our contingent of royal engineers rigged a scaffolding up and over our wall, and extended it to the drilling site. It was quite an achievement, and you can see how it became the precursor to our fortified motorways. On a personal level, I was just grateful for the warm rooms, hot food, and, in a pinch … the Molotovs and flaming ditch. It’s not the most efficient way to stop a Zed Head, I know, but as long as you’ve got them stuck and can keep them in the fire … and besides, what else could we do when the bullets ran out and we were left with nothing else but an odd lot of medieval hand weapons?
There were quite a bit of those about, in museums, personal collections … and not a decorative dud among them. These were real, tough and tested. They became part of British life again, ordinary citizens traipsing about with a mace or halberd or double-bladed battle-axe. I myself became rather adept with this claymore, although you wouldn’t think of it to look at me.
[He gestures, slightly embarrassed, to the weapon almost as long as himself.]
It’s not really ideal, takes a lot of skill, but eventually you learn what you can do, what you never thought you were capable of, what others around you are capable of.
[David hesitates before speaking. He is clearly uncomfortable. I hold out my hand.]
Thank you so much for taking the time …
There’s … more.
If you’re not comfortable …
No, please, it’s quite all right.
[Takes a breath.] She … she wouldn’t leave, you see. She insisted, over the objections of Parliament, to remain at Windsor, as she put it, “for the duration.” I thought maybe it was misguided nobility, or maybe fear-based paralysis. I tried to make her see reason, begged her almost on my knees. Hadn’t she done enough with the Balmoral Decree, turning all her estates into protected zones for any who could reach and defend them? Why not join her family in Ireland or the Isle of Man, or, at least, if she was insisting on remaining in Britain, supreme command HQ north above the Antonine.
What did she say?
“The highest of distinctions is service to others.” [He clears his throat, his upper lip quivers for a second.] Her father had said that; it was the reason he had refused to run to Canada during the Second World War, the reason her mother had spent the blitz visiting civilians huddled in the tube stations beneath London, the same reason, to this day, we remain a United Kingdom. Their task, their mandate, is to personify all that is great in our national spirit. They must forever be an example to the rest of us, the strongest, and bravest, and absolute best of us. In a sense, it is they who are ruled by us, instead of the other way around, and they must sacrifice everything, everything, to shoulder the weight of this godlike burden. Otherwise what’s the flipping point? Just scrap the whole damn tradition, roll out the bloody guillotine, and be done with it altogether. They were viewed very much like castles, I suppose: as crumbling, obsolete relics, with no real modern function other than as tourist attractions. But when the skies darkened and the nation called, both reawoke to the meaning of their existence. One shielded our bodies, the other, our souls.
ULITHI ATOLL, FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
[During World War II, this vast coral atoll served as the main forward base for the United States Pacific Fleet. During World War Z, it sheltered not only American naval vessels, but hundreds of civilian ships as well. One of those ships was the UNS Ural, the first broadcast hub of Radio Free Earth. Now a museum to the achievements of the project, she is the focus of the British documentary Words at War. One of the subjects interviewed for this documentary is Barati Palshigar.]
Ignorance was the enemy. Lies and superstition, misinformation, disinformation. Sometimes, no information at all. Ignorance killed billions of people. Ignorance caused the Zombie War. Imagine if we had known then what we know now. Imagine if the undead virus had been as understood as, say, tuberculosis was. Imagine if the world’s citizens, or at least those charged with protecting those citizens, had known exactly what they were facing. Ignorance was the real enemy, and cold, hard facts were the weapons.
When I first joined Radio Free Earth, it was still called the International Program for Health and Safety Information. The title “Radio Free Earth” came from the individuals and communities who monitored our broadcasts.
It was the first real international venture, barely a few months after the South African Plan, and years before the conference at Honolulu. Just like the rest of the world based their survival strategies on Redeker, our genesis was routed in Radio Ubunye.[*a word of Zulu origin for Unity]
What was Radio Ubunye?
South Africa’s broadcasts to its isolated citizens. Because they didn’t have the resources for material aid, the only assistance the government could render was information. They were the first, at least, to my knowledge, to begin these regular, multilingual broadcasts. Not only did they offer practical survival skills, they went so far as to collect and address each and every falsehood circulating among their citizens. What we did was take the template of Radio Ubunye and adapt it for the global community.
I came aboard, literally, at the very beginning, as the Ural’s reactors were just being put back online. The Ural was a former vessel of the Soviet, then the Russian, Federal Navy. Back then the SSV-33 had been many things: a command and control ship, a missile tr
acking platform, an electronic surveillance vessel. Unfortunately, she was also a white elephant, because her systems, they tell me, were too complicated even for her own crew. She had spent the majority of her career tied to a pier at the Vladivostok naval base, providing additional electrical power for the facility. I am not an engineer, so I don’t how they managed to replace her spent fuel rods or convert her massive communication facilities to interface with the global satellite network. I specialize in languages, specifically those of the Indian Subcontinent. Myself and Mister Verma, just the two of us to cover a billion people … well … at that point it was still a billion.
Mister Verma had found me in the refugee camp in Sri Lanka. He was a translator, I was an interpreter. We had worked together several years before at our country’s embassy in London. We thought it had been hard work then; we had no idea. It was a maddening grind, eighteen, sometimes twenty hours a day. I don’t know when we slept. There was so much raw data, so many dispatches arriving every minute. Much of it had to do with basic survival: how to purify water, create an indoor greenhouse, culture and process mold spore for penicillin. This mind-numbing copy would often be punctuated with facts and terms that I had never heard of before. I’d never heard the term “quisling” or “feral”; I didn’t know what a “Lobo” was or the false miracle cure of Phalanx. All I knew was that suddenly there was a uniformed man shoving a collection of words before my eyes and telling me “We need this in Marathi, and ready to record in fifteen minutes.”
What kind of misinformation were you combating?
Where do you want me to begin? Medical? Scientific? Military? Spiritual? Psychological? The psychological aspect I found the most maddening. People wanted so badly to anthropomorphize the walking blight. In war, in a conventional war that is, we spend so much time trying to dehumanize the enemy, to create an emotional distance. We would make up stories or derogatory titles … when I think about what my father used to call Muslims … and now in this war it seemed that everyone was trying desperately to find some shred of a connection to their enemy, to put a human face on something that was so unmistakably inhuman.
