World War Z_An Oral History of the Zombie War

by Max Brooks

  [He rises from the table to show me something on his mantelpiece. The weapon’s handle is encased in a semicircular steel ball. Protruding from this ball are two 8-inch steel spikes at right angles from each other.]

  You see why, eh? No room to swing a blade. Quick, through the eye, or over the top of the head.

  [He demonstrates with a quick punch and stab combination.]

  My own design, a modern version of my great-grandfather’s at Verdun, eh? You know Verdun—“On ne passé pas”—They shall not pass!

  [He resumes his lunch.]

  No room, no warning, suddenly they are upon you, perhaps right in front of your eyes, or grabbing from a side passage you didn’t know was there. Everyone was armored in some way … chain mail or heavy leather … almost always it was too heavy, too suffocating, wet leather jackets and trousers, heavy metal chain-link shirts. You try to fight, you are already exhausted, men would tear off their masks, gasping for air, inhaling the stink. Many died before you could get them to the surface.

  I used greaves, protection here (gestures to his forearms) and gloves, chain-covered leather, easy to remove when not in combat. They were my own design. We didn’t have the American battle uniforms, but we did have your marsh covers, the long, high waterproof boots with the bite-proof fiber sewn into the lining. We needed those.

  The water was high that summer; the rains were coming hard and the Seine was a raging torrent. It was always wet. There was rot between your fingers, your toes, in your crotch. The water was up to your ankles almost all the time, sometimes up to your knees or waist. You would be on point, walking, or crawling—sometimes we had to crawl in the stinking fluid up to our elbows. And suddenly the ground would just fall away. You would splash, headfirst, into one of those unmapped holes. You only had a few seconds to right yourself before your gas mask flooded. You kicked and thrashed, your comrades would grab you and haul fast. Drowning was the least of your worries. Men would be splashing, struggling to stay afloat with all that heavy gear, and suddenly their eyes would bulge, and you’d hear their muffled cries. You might feel the moment they attacked: the snap or tear and suddenly you fall over with the poor bastard on top of you. If he wasn’t wearing the marsh covers … a foot is gone, the whole leg; if he had been crawling and went in face-first … sometimes that face would be gone.

  Those were times when we called a full retreat to a defensive position and waited for the Cousteaus, the scuba divers trained to work and fight specifically in those flooded tunnels. With only a searchlight and a shark suit, if they were lucky to get one, and, at most, two hours of air. They were supposed to wear a safety line, but most of them refused to do so. The lines tended to get tangled and slow up the diver’s progress. Those men, and women, had a one in twenty chance of survival, the lowest ratio of any branch of any army, I don’t care what anyone says.[*The highest fatality ratio of all allied forces is still hotly debated.] Is it any wonder they received an automatic Legion of Honor?

  And what was it all for? Fifteen thousand dead or missing. Not just the Cousteaus, all of us, the entire core. Fifteen thousand souls in just three months. Fifteen thousand at a time when the war was winding down all over the world. “Go! Go! Fight! Fight!” It didn’t have to be that way. How long did it take the English to clear all of London? Five years, three years after the war was officially over? They went slow and safe, one section at a time, low speed, low intensity, low casualty rate. Slow and safe, like most major cities. Why us? That English general, what he said about “Enough dead heroes for the end of time … ”

  “Heroes,” that’s what we were, that’s what our leaders wanted, that’s what our people felt they needed. After all that has happened, not just in this war, but in so many wars before: Algeria, Indochina, the Nazis … you understand what I am saying … you see the sorrow and pity? We understood what the American president said about “reclaiming our confidence”; we understood it more than most. We needed heroes, new names and places to restore our pride.

  The Ossuary, Port-Mahon Quarry, the Hospital … that was our shining moment … the Hospital. The Nazis had built it to house mental patients, so the legend goes, letting them starve to death behind the concrete walls. During our war it had been an infirmary for the recently bitten. Later, as more began to reanimate and the survivors’ humanity faded like their electric lamps, they began throwing the infected, and who knows who else, into that undead vault. An advance team broke through without realizing what was on the other side. They could have withdrawn, blown the tunnel, sealed them in again … One squad against three hundred zombies. One squad led by my baby brother. His voice was the last thing we heard before their radio went silent. His last words: “On ne passé pas!”

  DENVER, COLORADO

  [The weather is perfect for the neighborhood picnic in Victory Park. The fact that not one sighting has been recorded this spring gives everyone even more reason to celebrate. Todd Wainio stands in the outfield, waiting for a high fly ball that he claims “will never come.” Perhaps he’s right, as no one seems to mind me standing next to him.]

  They called it “the road to New York” and it was a long, long road. We had three main Army Groups: North, Center, and South. The grand strategy was to advance as one across the Great Plains, across the Midwest, then break off at the Appalachians, the wings sweeping north and south, shoot for Maine and Florida, then grind across the coast and link up with AG Center as they slogged it over the mountains. It took three years.

  Why so slow?

  Dude, take your pick: foot transport, terrain, weather, enemies, battle doctrine … Doctrine was to advance as two solid lines, one behind the other, stretching from Canada to Aztlan … No, Mexico, it wasn’t Aztlan yet. You know when a plane goes down, how all these firemen or whoever would check a field for pieces of wreckage? They’d all go in a line, real slow, making sure not one inch of ground was missed. That was us. We didn’t skip one damn inch between the Rockies and the Atlantic. Whenever you spotted Zack, either in a group or just on his own, a FAR unit would halt …

  FAR?

  Force Appropriate Response. You couldn’t stop, like, the whole Army Group, for one or two zombies. A lot of the older Gs, the ones infected early in the war, they were starting to get pretty grody, all deflated, parts of their skulls starting to show, some bone poking through the flesh. Some of them couldn’t even stand anymore, and those are the ones you really had to watch for. They’d be crawling on their bellies toward you, or just thrashing facedown in the mud. You’d halt a section, a platoon, maybe even a company depending on how many you encountered, just enough to take ’em down and sanitize the battlefield. The hole your FAR unit left in the battle line was replaced by an equal force from the secondary line a click and a half behind you. That way the front was never broken. We leapfrogged this way all the way across the country. It worked, no doubt, but man, it took its time. Night also put the brakes on. Once the sun dipped, no matter how confident you felt or how safe the area seemed, the show was over till dawn the next morning.

  And there was fog. I didn’t know fog could be so thick that far inland. I always wanted to ask a climatologist or someone about that. The whole front might get slammed, sometimes for days. Just sitting there in zero visibility, occasionally one of your Ks would start barking or a man down the line would shout “Contact!” You’d hear the moan and then the shapes would appear. Hard enough just standing still and waiting for them. I saw a movie once,[*Lion's Roar, produced by Foreman Films tor the BBC] this BBC documentary about how because the UK was so foggy, the British army would never stop. There was a scene, where the cameras caught a real firefight, just sparks from their weapons and hazy silhouettes going down. They didn’t need that extra creepy soundtrack.[*Instrumental cover of "How Soon Is Now," originally written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr and recorded by the Smiths.] It freaked me out just to watch.

  It also slowed us down to have to keep pace with the other countries, the Mexicans and Canucks. Neither army h
ad the manpower to liberate their entire country. The deal was that they’d keep our borders clear while we get our house in order. Once the U.S. was secure, we’d give them everything they need. That was the start of the UN multinational force, but I was discharged long before those days. For me, it always felt like hurry up and wait, creeping along through rough terrain or built-up areas. Oh, and you wanna talk about speed bumps, try urban combat.

  The strategy was always to surround the target area. We’d set up semi-permanent defenses, recon with everything from satellites to sniffer Ks, do whatever we could to call Zack out, and go in only after we were sure no more of them were coming. Smart and safe and relatively easy. Yeah, right!

  As far as surrounding the “area,” someone wanna tell me where that area actually begins? Cities weren’t cities anymore, you know, they just grew out into this suburban sprawl. Mrs. Ruiz, one of our medics, called it “in-fill.” She was in real estate before the war and explained that the hottest properties were always the land between two existing cities. Freakin’ “in-fill,” we all learned to hate that term. For us, it meant clearing block after block of burbland before we could even think of establishing a quarantine perimeter. Fast-food joints, shopping centers, endless miles of cheap, cookie-cutter housing.

  Even in winter, it’s not like everything was safe and snuggly. I was in Army Group North. At first I thought we were golden, you know. Six months out of the year, I wouldn’t have to see a live G, eight months actually, given what wartime weather was like. I thought, hey, once the temp drops, we’re little more than garbage men: find ’em, Lobo ’em, mark ’em for burial once the ground begins to thaw, no problem. But I should be Lobo’d for thinking that Zack was the only bad guy out there.

  We had quislings, just like the real thing, but winterized. We had these Human Reclamation units, pretty much just glorified animal control. They’d do their best to dart any quislings we came across, tie ’em down, ship ’em to rehabilitation clinics, back when we thought we could rehabilitate them.

  Ferals were a much more dangerous threat. A lot of them weren’t kids anymore, some were teenagers, some full grown. They were fast, smart, and if they chose fight instead of flight, they could really mess up your day. Of course, HR would always try and dart them, and, of course, that didn’t always work. When a two-hundred-pound feral bull is charging balls out for your ass, a couple CCs of tranq ain’t gonna drop him before he hits home. A lot of HRs got pretty badly smashed up, a few had to be tagged and bagged. The brass had to step in and assign a squad of grunts for escort. If a dart didn’t stop a feral, we sure as hell did. Nothing screams as high as a feral with a PIE round burning in his gut. The HR pukes had a real problem with that. They were all volunteers, all sticking to this code that human life, any human’s life, was worth trying to save. I guess history sorta backed them up now, you know, seeing all those people that they managed to rehabilitate, all the ones we just woulda shot on sight. If they had had the resources, they might have been able to do the same for animals.

  Man, feral packs, that freaked me out more than anything else. I’m not just talking dogs. Dogs you knew how to deal with. Dogs always telegraphed their attacks. I’m talking “Flies”[*Pronounced "flies" mainly because their pouncing attacks gave the illusion of flight.]: F-Lions, cats, like part mountain lion, part ice age saberfuck. Maybe they were mountain lions, some sure looked like them, or maybe just the spawn of house cats that had to be super badass just to make it. I’ve heard that they grew bigger up north, some law of nature or evolution.[*At present, no scientific data exist to substantiate the application of Bergmann's Rule during the war]. I don’t really get the whole ecology thing, not past a few prewar nature shows. I hear it’s because rats were, like, the new cows; fast and smart enough to get away from Zack, livin’ on corpses, breeding by the millions in trees and ruins. They’d gotten pretty badass themselves, so anything tough enough to hunt them has to be a whole lot badder. That’s an F-lion for you, about twice the size of a prewar puffball, teeth, claws, and a real, real jonesing for warm blood.

  That must have been a hazard for the sniffer dogs.

  Are you kidding? They loved it, even the little dachmutts, made ’em feel like dogs again. I’m talking about us, getting jumped from a tree limb, or a roof. They didn’t charge you like F-hounds, they just waited, took their sweet time until you were too close to raise a weapon.

  Outside of Minneapolis, my squad was clearing a strip mall. I was stepping through the window of a Starbucks and suddenly three of them leap at me from behind the counter. They knock me over, start tearing at my arms, my face. How do you think I got this?

  [He refers to the scar on his cheek.]

  I guess the only real casualty that day was my shorts. Between the bite-proof BDUs and body armor we’d started wearing, the vest, the helmet … I hadn’t worn a hard cover in so long, you forget how uncomfortable it is when you’re used to going soft top.

  Did ferals, feral people that is, know how to use firearms?

  They didn’t know how to do anything human, that’s why they were ferals. No, the body armor was for protection against some of the regular people we found. I’m not talking organized rebels, just the odd LaMOE,[pronounced Lay-moh with a silent e] Last Man on Earth. There was always one or two in every town, some dude, or chick, who managed to survive. I read somewhere that the United States had the highest number of them in the world, something about our individualistic nature or something. They hadn’t seen real people in so long, a lot of the initial shooting was just accidental or reflex. Most of the time we managed to talk them down. Those we actually called RCs, Robinson Crusoes—that was the polite term for the ones who were cool.

  The ones we called LaMOEs, those were the ones who were a little too used to being king. King of what, I don’t know, Gs and quislings and crazy F-critters, but I guess in their mind they were living the good life, and here we were to take it all away. That’s how I got nailed.

  We were closing on the Sears Tower in Chicago. Chicago, that was enough nightmares for three lifetimes. It was the middle of winter, wind whipping off the lake so hard you could barely stand, and suddenly I felt Thor’s hammer smash me in the head. Slug from a high-powered hunting rifle. I never complained about our hard covers anymore after that. The gang in the tower, they had their little kingdom, and they weren’t giving it up for anyone. That was one of the few times we went full convent; SAWs, nades, that’s when the Bradleys started making a comeback.

  After Chicago, the brass knew we were now in a full, multithreat environment. It was back to hard covers and body armor, even in summer. Thanks, Windy City. Each squad was issued pamphlets with the “Threat Pyramid.”

  It was ranked according to probability, not lethality. Zack at the bottom, then F-critters, ferals, quislings, and finally LaMOEs. I know a lot of guys from AG South like to bitch about how they always had it tougher on their end, ’cause, for us, winter took care of Zack’s whole threat level. Yeah, sure, and replaced it with another one: winter!

  What do they say the average temperature’s dropped, ten degrees, fifteen in some areas?[*Figures on wartime weather patterns have yet to be officially determined.] Yeah, we had it real easy, up to our ass in gray snow, knowing that for every five Zacksicles you cracked there’d be at least as many up and at ’em at first thaw. At least the guys down south knew that once they swept an area, it stayed swept. They didn’t have to worry about rear area attacks like us. We swept every area at least three times. We used everything from ramrods and sniffer Ks to high-tech ground radar. Over and over again, and all of this in the dead of winter. We lost more guys to frostbite than to anything else. And still, every spring, you knew, you just knew … it’d be like, “oh shit, here we go again.” I mean, even today, with all the sweeps and civilian volunteer groups, spring’s like winter used to be, nature letting us know the good life’s over for now.

  Tell me about liberating the isolated zones.

  Always a hard fight, ev
ery single one. Remember these zones were still under siege, hundreds, maybe even thousands. The people holed up in the twin forts of Comerica Park/Ford Field, they must have had a combined moat—that’s what we called them, moats—of at least a million Gs. That was a three-day slugfest, made Hope look like a minor skirmish. That was the only time I ever really thought we were gonna be overrun. They piled up so high I thought we’d be buried, literally, in a landslide of corpses. Battles like that, they’d leave you so fried, just wasted, body and mind. You’d want to sleep, nothing more, not eat or bathe or even fuck. You’d just want to find someplace warm and dry, close your eyes, forget everything.

  What were the reactions of the people who you liberated?

  Kind of a mix. The military zones, that was pretty low-key. A lot of formal ceremonies, raising and lowering of flags, “I relieve you, sir—I stand relieved,” shit like that. There was also a little bit of wienie wagging. You know “we didn’t need any rescuing” and all. I understand. Every grunt wants to be the one riding over the hill, no one likes to be the one in the fort. Sure you didn’t need rescuing, buddy.

  Sometimes it was true. Like the zoomies outside of Omaha. They were a strategic hub for airdrops, regular flights almost on the hour. They were actually living better than us, fresh chow, hot showers, soft beds. It almost felt like we were being rescued. On the other hand, you had the jarheads at Rock Island. They wouldn’t let on how rough they had it, and that was cool with us. For what they went through, bragging rights was the least we could give them. Never met any of them personally, but I’ve heard the stories.