The Essential Max Brooks: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z

by Max Brooks

  [He grins and rubs his hands together.]

  Confidence, it’s the fuel that drives the capitalist machine. Our economy can only run if people believe in it; like FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” My father wrote that for him. Well, he claimed he did.

  It’s already starting, slowly but surely. Every day we get a few more registered accounts with American banks, a few more private businesses opening up, a few more points on the Dow. Kind of like the weather. Every year the summer’s a little longer, the skies a little bluer. It’s getting better. Just wait and see.

  [He reaches into a cooler of ice, pulling out two brown bottles.]

  Root beer?

  KYOTO, JAPAN

  [It is a historic day for the Shield Society. They have finally been accepted as an independent branch of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Their main duty will be to teach Japanese civilians how to protect themselves from the living dead. Their ongoing mission will also involve learning both armed and unarmed techniques from non-Japanese organizations, and helping to foster those techniques around the world. The Society’s anti-firearm as well as prointernational message have already been hailed as an instant success, drawing journalists and dignitaries from almost all UN nations.

  Tomonaga Ijiro stands at the head of the receiving line, smiling and bowing as he greets his parade of guests. Kondo Tatsumi smiles as well, looking at his teacher from across the room.]

  You know I don’t really believe any of this spiritual “BS,” right? As far as I’m concerned, Tomonaga’s just a crazy old hibakusha, but he has started something wonderful, something I think is vital for the future of Japan. His generation wanted to rule the world, and mine was content to let the world, and by the world I mean your country, rule us. Both paths led to the near destruction of our homeland. There has to be a better way, a middle path where we take responsibility for our own protection, but not so much that it inspires anxiety and hatred among our fellow nations. I can’t tell you if this is the right path; the future is too mountainous to see too far ahead. But I will follow Sensei Tomonaga down this path, myself and the many others who join our ranks every day. Only “the gods” know what awaits us at its end.

  ARMAGH, IRELAND

  [Philip Adler finishes his drink, and rises to leave.]

  We lost a hell of a lot more than just people when we abandoned them to the dead. That’s all I’m going to say.

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  [We finish our lunch as Jurgen aggressively snatches the bill from my hand.]

  Please, my choice of food, my treat. I used to hate this stuff, thought it looked like a buffet of vomit. My staff had to drag me here one afternoon, these young Sabras with their exotic tastes. “Just try it, you old yekke,” they’d say. That’s what they called me, a “yekke.” It means tight ass, but the official definition is German Jew. They were right on both counts.

  I was in the “Kindertransport,” the last chance to get Jewish children out of Germany. That was the last time I saw any of my family alive. There’s a little pond, in a small town in Poland, where they used to dump the ashes. The pond is still gray, even half a century later.

  I’ve heard it said that the Holocaust has no survivors, that even those who managed to remain technically alive were so irreparably damaged, that their spirit, their soul, the person that they were supposed to be, was gone forever. I’d like to think that’s not true. But if it is, then no one on Earth survived this war.

  ABOARD USS TRACY BOWDEN

  [Michael Choi leans against the fantail’s railing, staring at the horizon.]

  You wanna know who lost World War Z? Whales. I guess they never really had much of a chance, not with several million hungry boat people and half the world’s navies converted to fishing fleets. It doesn’t take much, just one helo-dropped torp, not so close as to do any physical damage, but close enough to leave them deaf and dazed. They wouldn’t notice the factory ships until it was too late. You could hear it for miles away, the warhead detonations, the shrieks. Nothing conducts sound energy like water.

  Hell of a loss, and you don’t have to be some patchouli stinking crunch-head to appreciate it. My dad worked at Scripps, not the Claremont girl’s school, the oceanographic institute outside of San Diego. That’s why I joined the navy in the first place and how I first learned to love the ocean. You couldn’t help but see California grays. Majestic animals, they were finally making a comeback after almost being hunted to extinction. They’d stopped being afraid of us and sometimes you could paddle out close enough to touch them. They could have killed us in a heartbeat, one smack of a twelve-foot tail fluke, one lunge of a thirtysomething-ton body. Early whalers used to call them devilfish because of the fierce fights they’d put up when cornered. They knew we didn’t mean them any harm, though. They’d even let us pet them, or, maybe if they were feeling protective of a calf, just brush us gently away. So much power, so much potential for destruction. Amazing creatures, the California grays, and now they’re all gone, along with the blues, and finbacks, and humpbacks, and rights. I’ve heard of random sightings of a few belugas and narwhals that survived under the Arctic ice, but there probably aren’t enough for a sustainable gene pool. I know there are still a few intact pods of orcas, but with pollution levels the way they are, and less fish than an Arizona swimming pool, I wouldn’t be too optimistic about their odds. Even if Mama Nature does give those killers some kind of reprieve, adapt them like she did with some of the dinosaurs, the gentle giants are gone forever. Kinda like that movie Oh God where the All Mighty challenges Man to try and make a mackerel from scratch. “You can’t,” he says, and unless some genetic archivist got in there ahead of the torpedoes, you also can’t make a California gray.

  [The sun dips below the horizon. Michael sighs.]

  So the next time someone tries to tell you about how the true losses of this war are “our innocence” or “part of our humanity”…

  [He spits into the water.]

  Whatever, bro. Tell it to the whales.

  DENVER, COLORADO, USA

  [Todd Wainio walks me to the train, savoring the 100 percent tobacco Cuban cigarettes I’ve bought him as a parting gift.]

  Yeah, I lose it sometimes, for a few minutes, maybe an hour. Doctor Chandra told me it was cool though. He counsels right here at the VA. He told me once that it’s a totally healthy thing, like little earthquakes releasing pressure off of a fault. He says anyone who’s not having these “minor tremors” you really gotta watch out for.

  It doesn’t take much to set me off. Sometimes I’ll smell something, or somebody’s voice will sound really familiar. Last month at dinner, the radio was playing this song, I don’t think it was about my war, I don’t even think it was American. The accent and some of the terms were all different, but the chorus…“God help me, I was only nineteen.”

  [The chimes announce my train’s departure. People begin boarding around us.]

  Funny thing is, my most vivid memory kinda got turned into the national icon of the victory.

  [He motions behind us to the giant mural.]

  That was us, standing on the Jersey riverbank, watching the dawn over New York. We’d just got the word, it was VA Day. There was no cheering, no celebration. It just didn’t seem real. Peace? What the hell did that mean? I’d been afraid for so long, fighting and killing, and waiting to die, that I guess I just accepted it as normal for the rest of my life. I thought it was a dream, sometimes it still feels like one, remembering that day, that sunrise over the Hero City.

  I love you, Mom.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thank-you to my wife, Michelle, for all her love and support.

  To Ed Victor, for starting it all.

  To Steve Ross, Luke Dempsey, and the entire Crown Publishers team.

  To T. M. for watching my back.

  To Brad Graham at the Washington Post; Drs. Cohen, Whiteman, and Hayward; Professors Greenberger and Tongun; Rabbi Andy; Father Fraser; STS
2SS Bordeaux (USN fmr); “B” and “E”; Jim; Jon; Julie; Jessie; Gregg; Honupo; and Dad, for “the human factor.”

  And a final thank-you to the three men whose inspiration made this book possible: Studs Terkel, the late General Sir John Hackett, and, of course, the genius and terror of George A. Romero.

  NOTES

  1. From “Quotations from Chairman Maozedong,” originally from “The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan,” August 13, 1945.

  2. A prewar automobile manufactured in the People’s Republic.

  3. The Institute of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases of the First Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University.

  4. Guokia Anquan Bu: The prewar Ministry of State Security.

  5. Shetou: A “snake head,” the smuggler of “renshe” or “human snake” of refugees.

  6. Liudong renkou: China’s “floating population” of homeless labor.

  7. Bao: The debt many refugees incurred during their exodus.

  8. Bad Brown: A nickname for the type of opium grown in the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan.

  9. PTSD: Post-traumatic stress disorder.

  10. It has been alleged that, before the war, the sexual organs of Sudanese men convicted of adultery were severed and sold on the world black market.

  11. Children of Yassin: A youth-based terrorist organization named for the late Sheikh Yassin. Under strict recruitment codes, all martyrs could be no older than eighteen.

  12. “Sure the vilest of beasts in Allah’s sight are those who disbelieve, then they would not believe.” From the Holy Koran, part 8, Section 55.

  13. By this point, the Israeli government had completed operation “Moses II,” which transported the last of the Ethiopian “Falasha” into Israel.

  14. At the time, it was unsure whether the virus could survive in solid waste outside of the human body.

  15. Unlike most country’s main battle tanks, the Israeli “Merkava” contains rear hatches for troop deployment.

  16. The CIA, originally the OSS, was not created until June 1942, six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

  17. Before the war, an online “shooter game” known as “America’s Army” was made available, free of charge, by the U.S. government to the general public, some have alleged, to entice new recruits.

  18. Myth; although red M&Ms were removed from 1976 to 1985, they did not use Red Dye No. 2.

  19. The BMP is an armored personnel carrier invented and used by Soviet, and now Russian, military forces.

  20. Semnadstat was a Russian magazine aimed at teenage girls. It’s title, 17, was illegally copied from an American publication of the same name.

  21. Although this is an exaggeration, prewar records have shown Yonkers to have the largest press-to-military ratio than any other battlefield in history.

  22. The standard, prewar 40-mm canister cartridge held 115 flechettes.

  23. SAW: A light machine gun, short for Squad Automatic Weapon.

  24. JSF: Joint Strike Fighters.

  25. JSOW: Joint Standoff Weapon.

  26. Germany’s version of the Redeker Plan.

  27. BRO: The Border Roads Organization.

  28. “The Bear” was the Gulf War I nickname for the commandant of the NST program.

  29. Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonsson Quisling: The Nazi-installed president of Norway during World War II.

  30. California’s Inland Empire was one of the last zones to be declared secure.

  31. Malcolm Van Ryzin: One of the most successful cinematographers in Hollywood.

  32. DP: Director of Photography.

  33. Joint Standoff Weapons were used in concert with a variety of other air-launched ordnance at Yonkers.

  34. A slight exaggeration. The amount of combat aircraft “grounded” during World War Z does not equal those lost during World War II.

  35. AMARC: Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center outside of Tucson, Arizona.

  36. Meg: The pilot’s nickname for their standard issue .22 automatic pistol. It is suspected that the appearance of the weapon, its extended suppressor, folding stock, and telescopic sight, give it the appearance of the old Hasbro Transformers toy “Megatron.” This fact has yet to be confirmed.

  37. At this point in the war, the new battle dress uniforms (BDUs) were not in mass production.

  38. “Baby-Ls”: Officially a pain reliever but used by many military personnel as a sleep aid.

  39. Although Machu Picchu was quiet throughout the war, the survivors at Vilcabamba did see a minor, internal outbreak.

  40. The main British line of defense was fixed along the site of the old Roman Antonine Wall.

  41. Ubunye: a word of Zulu origin for Unity.

  42. Although opinion is divided on the subject, many prewar scientific studies have proven that the high oxygenation retention of the Ganges has been the source of its long-revered “miracle” cures.

  43. The Chang Doctrine: South Korea’s version of the Redeker Plan.

  44. There have been reports of alleged cannibalism during the famine of 1992 and that some of the victims were children.

  45. Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masatoshi Hamada were Japan’s most successful prewar improvisational comedians.

  46. “Siafu” is the nickname for the African driver ant. The term was first used by Doctor Komatsu Yukio in his address to the Diet.

  47. It has been established that Japan suffered the largest percentage of suicides during the Great Panic.

  48. Bosozoku: Japanese youth-oriented motorcycle gangs that reached their popular peak in the 1980s and 1990s.

  49. Onsen: A natural hot spring often used as a communal bath.

  50. Ikupasuy: The technical term for a small, Ainu prayer stick. When later questioned about this discrepancy, Mister Tomonaga answered that the name was given to him by his teacher, Mister Ota. Whether Ota intended to bestow some spiritual connection to this gardening implement or was simply so out of touch with his own culture (as many Ainu of his generation were), we will never know.

  51. Chi-tai: Zone.

  52. To this day, it is unknown how much the living dead depend on sight.

  53. Haya-ji: God of the wind.

  54. Oyamatsumi: Ruler of mountains and volcanoes.

  55. The exact number of allied and neutral ships that anchored in Cuban ports during the war is still unknown.

  56. The station’s reentry “lifeboat.”

  57. The ISS ceased using electrolysis to generate oxygen as a way of conserving water.

  58. Prewar specs put the ISS water recycling capability at 95 percent.

  59. ATV: Automated Transfer Vehicle.

  60. A secondary task of the disposable ATV was to use its booster to maintain the station’s orbit.

  61. ASTRO: Autonomous Space Transfer and Robotic Orbiter.

  62. PSA: Personal Satellite Assistance.

  63. To this day, no one knows why the Saudi royal family ordered the ignition of their kingdom’s oil fields.

  64. The reservoir of Lesotho’s Katse Dam was confirmed to cause numerous seismic disturbances since its completion in 1995.

  65. The International Space Station is equipped with a civilian ham radio, originally, to allow the crew to talk to schoolchildren.

  66. Mkunga Lalem: (The Eel and the Sword), the world’s premier antizombie martial art.

  67. It has been confirmed at least twenty-five million of this number include reanimated refugees from Latin America who were killed attempting to reach the Canadian north.

  68. It has been alleged that several members of the American military establishment openly supported the use of thermonuclear weapons during the Vietnam conflict.

  69. Tread jobs: wartime slang for vehicles that traveled on treads.

  70. M-trip-Seven: The Cadillac Gauge M1117 Armored Security Vehicle.

  71. The chemical composition of the army’s battle dress uniform (BDU) is still classified.

  72. BS:
Battlefield Sanitization.

  73. The assegai: An all-steel, multipurpose implement named after the traditional Zulu short spear.

  74. Noob: Short for “newbies,” zombies that have reanimated after the Great Panic.

  75. M43 Combat Observation Aid.

  76. I-Rations: short for Intelligent Rations, they were designed for maximum nutritional efficiency.

  77. KO: short for “Knock Out.”

  78. Concertainer: A prefabricated, hollow barrier constructed of Kevlar and filled with earth and/or debris.

  79. PT: Physical Training.

  80. AIT: Advanced Individual Training.

  81. AGN: Army Group North.

  82. China Lake weapons research facility.

  83. L (Lethal) pill: A term to describe any poison capsule and one of the options available to infected U.S. military combatants during World War Z.

  84. John Lethbridge, circa 1715.

  85. “The Sturgeon General”: The old civilian nickname for the present commander of the DSCC.

  86. Alan Hale, Senior.

  87. The highest fatality ratio of all allied forces is still hotly debated.

  88. Lion’s Roar, produced by Foreman Films for the BBC.

  89. Instrumental cover of “How Soon Is Now,” originally written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr and recorded by the Smiths.

  90. Pronounced “flies” mainly because their pouncing attacks gave the illusion of flight.