by Max Brooks
All men were equipped with a full supply of water and what little food remained. All ladders and staircases leading up to the parapets were destroyed. . . . We assembled on the south wall and began to call to our tormentors, gathering almost all right at our gates. Colonel Drax, with the courage of a man possessed, was lowered into the parade ground, where he lifted the bolt himself. Suddenly, the stinking multitude swarmed into our fortress. The colonel made sure he provided them with enough bait, leading the wretches across the parade ground, through the barracks and mess hall, across the infirmary . . . he was hoisted to safety just in time, a severed, rotting hand clasped tightly to his boot. We continued to call to the creatures, booing and hissing, jumping about like wild monkeys, only now we were calling to those creatures within our own fort! . . . Dorset and O’Toole were lowered to the north wall . . . they sprinted to the gate and pulled it shut! . . . The creatures inside, in their mindless rage, did not think to simply pull them open again! Pushing as they did against the inward opening gates, they only succeeded in trapping themselves further!
The legionnaires then dropped to the desert floor, dispatched the few zombies outside the walls in vicious hand-to-hand combat, then marched over 240 miles to the nearest oasis, at Bir Ounane. Army records do not tell of this siege. No explanation is given why, when regular dispatches stopped arriving from Fort Louis Philippe, no investigative forces were sent. The only official nod to anyone involved in the incident is the court-martial and imprisonment of Colonel Drax. Transcripts of his trial, including the charges, remain sealed. Rumors of the outbreak continued to populate the Legion, the Army, and French society for decades. Many fictional accounts were written about “the Devil’s Siege.” Despite their denial of the incident, the French Foreign Legion never sent another expedition to Fort Louis Philippe.
1901 A.D., LU SHAN, FORMOSA
According to Bill Wakowski, an American sailor serving with the Asiatic fleet, several peasants from Lu Shan rose from their beds and proceeded to attack the village. Because of Lu Shan’s remoteness and lack of wire communication (telephone/telegraph), word did not reach Taipei until seven days later.
These American missionaries, Pastor Alfred’s flock, they thought that it was God’s punishment on the Chinamen for not taking in His word. They knew faith, and the Holy Father would chase the devil out of them. Our skipper, he ordered them to stay put until he could muster an armed escort. Pastor Alfred wouldn’t hear of it. While the old man wired for help, they headed up the river. . . . Our shore party and a platoon of Nationalist Troops reached the village just about midday . . . bodies, or pieces of them, were everywhere. The ground was all sticky. And the smell, God almighty, that smell! . . . When those things came out of the mist, disgusting creatures, human devils. We plugged them at less than a hundred yards. Nothing worked. Not our Krags, not our Gattling . . . Riley just kind of lost his marbles, I guess. Fixed his bayonet and tried to skewer one of the beasties. About a dozen others swarmed around him. Quick like lightning they tore my buddy limb from limb. They gnawed his flesh right down to the bone! It was a grisly sight! . . . And here he comes, little bald witch doctor or monk, or whatever you call him . . . swinging what looked like a flat shovel with a quarter moon blade on the back . . . must have been ten, twenty corpses at his feet . . . he runs over, chattering all crazy, pointing to his head then theirs. The Old Man, Lord knows how he reckoned what the Chinaman was babbling about, ordered us to aim for the beasties’ heads. . . . We drilled them point blank. . . . Picking through the bodies, we discovered among the Chinamen were a few white men, our missionaries. One of our guys found a monster whose spine had been snapped by a round. It was still alive, flapping its arms, snapping its bloody teeth, letting out that God Awful moan! The Old Man recognized it as Pastor Alfred. He said the Lord’s Prayer, then shot the padre in the temple.
Wakowski sold his full account to the pulp magazine Tales of the Macabre, an act that resulted in his immediate discharge and imprisonment. Upon release, Wakowski refused any further interviews. To this day, the U.S. Navy denies the story.
1905 A.D., TABORA, TANGANYIKA, GERMAN EAST AFRICA
Trial transcripts state that a native guide referred to only as “Simon” was arrested and charged with the decapitation of a famous white hunter, Karl Seekt. Simon’s defense counsel, a Dutch planter named Guy Voorster, explained that his client believed he had actually committed a heroic act. According to Voorster:
Simon’s people believe that a malady exists that robs the life force from a man. In its place is left the body, dead yet still living, without sense of self or surroundings and with only cannibalism as its drive. . . . Furthermore, the victims of this undead monster will rise from their own graves to devour even more victims. This cycle will be repeated, again and again, until none is left upon our Earth but these horrible flesh-eating monstrosities. . . . My client tells that the victim in question returned to his base camp two days behind schedule, his mind delirious and an unexplained wound on his arm. Later that day he expired. . . . My client then describes Herr Seekt rising from his deathbed to set his teeth upon the rest of his party. My client used his native blade to decapitate Herr Seekt and incinerate his head in the campfire.
Mr. Voorster quickly added that he was not in agreement with Simon’s testimony and submitted it only to prove that the man was insane and should not be executed. As an insanity defense applied only to white men and not Africans, Simon was sentenced to death by hanging. All records of the trial still exist, albeit in terrible condition, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
1911 A.D., VITRE, LOUISIANA
This common American legend, told in bars and high school locker rooms throughout the Deep South, has its roots in documented historical fact. On Halloween night, several Cajun youths took part in a “dare” to stay in the bayou from midnight till dawn. Local custom told of zombies originally descended from a plantation family that prowled the swamp, consuming or reanimating any humans who crossed their path. By noon the next day, none of the teenagers had returned from their dare. A search party was formed to comb the swamp. They were attacked by at least thirty ghouls, their ranks including the youths. The searchers retreated, unwittingly leading the undead back to Vitre. While townsfolk barricaded themselves in their homes, one citizen, Henri De La Croix, believed that dousing the undead with molasses would bring millions of insects to devour their flesh. The scheme failed, and De La Croix barely escaped with his life. The undead were doused again, this time with kerosene, and set ablaze. Without realizing the full consequences of their actions, Vitre residents watched in horror as the burning ghouls set fire to everything they touched. Several victims, trapped in barricaded buildings, burned to death while the others fled into the swamp. Several days later, rescue volunteers counted a total of fifty-eight survivors (the town’s previous population being 114). Vitre itself had completely burned to the ground. Figures vary as to the number of undead versus human casualties. When Vitre casualties were added to the amount of zombie corpses found, at least fifteen bodies are unaccounted for. Official government records in Baton Rouge explain the attack as “riotous behavior from the Negro population,” a curious explanation as the town of Vitre was entirely white. Any proof of a zombie outbreak comes from private letters and diaries that exist among the survivors’ descendants.
1913 A.D., PARAMARIBO, SURINAM
While Dr. Ibrahim Obeidallah might have been the first to expand humanity’s scientific knowledge of the undead, he was (thankfully) not the last. Dr. Jan Vanderhaven, already respected in Europe for his study of leprosy, arrived in the South American colony to study a bizarre outbreak of this familiar disease.
The infected souls show symptoms similar to those around the globe: festering sores, mottled skin, flesh decomposing in its appearance. However, all similarities with the conventional affliction end here. These poor souls appear to have gone completely mad. . . . They display no signs of rational thought nor even recognition of anything familiar. . . . T
hey neither sleep nor take water. They reject all food except that which is alive. . . . Yesterday a hospital orderly, for sheer sport, and against my orders, flung an injured rat into the patients’ holding cell. One of them promptly grabbed the vermin and swallowed it whole. . . . The infected display almost rabid hostility. . . . They snap at all who approach, teeth bared like animals. . . . One patient’s visitor, an influential woman who defied all hospital protocols, was subsequently bitten by her infected husband. Despite all known methods of treatment, she succumbed rapidly to the wound, passing later that day. . . . The body was returned to the family plantation. . . . Against my pleadings, an autopsy was denied out of concern for decorum. . . . That night the corpse was reported stolen. . . . Experiments with alcohol, formalin, and heating tissue to 90 degrees centigrade have erased the possibility of bacteria. . . . I must therefore deduce that the agent can only be contagious living fluid . . . dubbed “Solanum.”
(“Contagious living fluid” was a common term before the later adoption of the Latin word virus.) These excerpts come from a 200-page, yearlong study done by Dr. Vanderhaven on this new discovery. In this study, he documents a zombie’s tolerance to pain, apparent lack of respiration, slow rate of decomposition, lack of speed, limited agility, and absence of healing. Because of the violent nature of his subjects and the apparent fear of the hospital orderlies, Vanderhaven was never able to get close enough to do a full autopsy. For this reason, he was unable to discover that the living dead were just that. In 1914, he returned to Holland and published his work. Ironically, it earned him neither praise nor ridicule in the scientific community. His story, like many others of the day, was eclipsed by the outbreak of the First World War. Copies of the work lay forgotten in Amsterdam. Vanderhaven returned to practicing conventional medicine in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), where he subsequently died of malaria. Vanderhaven’s major breakthrough was the discovery of a virus as the culprit behind a zombie’s creation and he was, notably, the first person to ascribe the name “Solanum” to the virus. Why he chose this term is unknown. Although his work was not celebrated by his European contemporaries, it is now widely read all over the world. Unfortunately, one country put the good doctor’s findings to devastating use. (See “1942–45 A.D., Harbin.”)
1923 A.D., COLOMBO, CEYLON
This account comes from The Oriental, an expatriate newspaper for Britons living in the Indian Ocean colony. Christopher Wells, a copilot for British Imperial Airways, was rescued from a life raft after fourteen days at sea. Before dying of exposure, Wells explained that he had been transporting a corpse discovered by a British expedition to Mount Everest. The corpse had been a European, his clothing of a century earlier, with no identifying documents. As he was frozen solid, the expedition leader had decided to fly him to Colombo for further study. While en route, the corpse thawed, reanimated, and attacked the airplane’s crew. The three men managed to destroy their assailant by crushing his skull with a fire extinguisher (as they did not realize what they were dealing with, the attempt may have been to simply incapacitate the zombie). While safe from this immediate danger, they now had to contend with a damaged aircraft. The pilot radioed a distress signal but had no time to send a position report. The three men parachuted into the ocean, the crew-chief not realizing that a bite he sustained would have dire consequences later. The following day, he expired, reanimated several hours later, and immediately attacked the other two men. While the pilot wrestled with the undead assailant, Wells, in a panic, kicked both of them overboard. After relating—some would say confessing—his story to the authorities, Wells lapsed into unconsciousness and died the next day. His story was reported as the ravings of a sunstroke maniac. A subsequent investigation produced no evidence of the plane, the crew, or the alleged zombie.
1942 A.D., THE CENTRAL PACIFIC
During Japan’s initial advance, a platoon of Imperial Marines was sent to garrison Atuk, an island in the Caroline chain. Several days after landing, the platoon was attacked by a swarm of zombies from the inland jungle. Initial casualties were high. Without any information about the nature of their attackers or the correct means of destruction, the marines were driven to a fortified mountaintop on the north end of the island. Ironically, as the wounded were left to die, the surviving marines spared themselves the danger of taking infected comrades with them. The platoon remained stranded in their mountaintop fortress for several days, lacking food, low on water, and cut off from the outside world. All this time, the ghouls were besieging their position, unable to scale the steep cliffs but preventing any chance of escape. After two weeks of imprisonment, Ashi Nakamura, the platoon sniper, discovered that a head shot was fatal to a zombie. This knowledge allowed the Japanese to finally combat their attackers. After dispatching the surrounding ghouls with rifle fire, they advanced into the jungle for a complete sweep of the island. Eyewitness accounts have the commanding officer, Lieutenant Hiroshi Tomonaga, decapitating eleven zombies with nothing but his officer’s Katana (an argument for the use of this weapon). A postwar examination and comparison of records have shown that Atuk is in all probability the same island that Sir Francis Drake described as “the Isle of the Damned.” Tomonaga’s own testimony, given to American authorities after the war, states that once radio communication with Tokyo had been reestablished, the Japanese High Command sent specific instructions to capture, not kill, any remaining zombies. Once this was accomplished (four ghouls had been successfully bound and gagged), the Imperial Submarine I-58 was dispatched to retrieve the undead prisoners. Tomonaga confessed his lack of knowledge of what happened to the four zombies. He and his men were ordered not to discuss their experience, under penalty of death.
1942–45 A.D., HARBIN, JAPANESE PUPPET STATE OF MANCHUKUO (MANCHURIA)
In his 1951 book The Sun Rose on Hell, former U.S. Army Intelligence officer David Shore details a series of wartime biological experiments conducted by a unit of the Japanese military known as “Black Dragon.” One experiment, dubbed “Cherry Blossom,” was organized specifically for the breeding and training of zombies into an army. According to Shore, when Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies in 1941–42, a copy of Jan Vanderhaven’s work was discovered in a medical library in Surabaya. The work was sent to Black Dragon headquarters in Harbin for further study. Although a theoretical plan was ordered, no sample of Solanum could be found (proof that the ancient zombie-killing “Brotherhood of Life” had done its job too well). All this changed six months later with the incident on Atuk Island. The four restrained zombies were delivered to Harbin. Experiments were performed on three of them, and one was used specifically to breed other zombies. Shore states that Japanese “dissidents” (anyone who disagreed with the military regime) were used as guinea pigs. Once a “platoon” of forty zombies had been reanimated, Black Dragon operatives attempted to train them like obedient drones. This met with dismal results: Bites turned ten of the sixteen instructors into zombies. After two years of fruitless attempts, the decision was made to release the force of the now fifty zombies against the enemy no matter what condition they were in. Ten ghouls were to be parachuted over British forces in Burma. The plane was hit by antiaircraft fire before reaching its target, exploding into a fireball that destroyed all traces of its undead cargo. A second attempt was made to deliver ten zombies by submarine to the American-held Panama Canal zone (it was hoped that the ensuing chaos would interrupt Atlantic-built, Pacific-bound American warships). The submarine was sunk en route. A third attempt was made (again by submarine) to release twenty zombies into the ocean off the West Coast of the United States. Halfway across the Northern Pacific, the submarine’s captain radioed that the zombies had broken free of their restraints and were attacking the crew, and that he had no choice but to scuttle the boat. As the war drew to a close, a fourth and final attempt was made to parachute the remaining zombies onto a nest of Chinese guerrillas in Yonnan Province. Nine of the parachuted zombies were dispatched by head shots from Chinese snipers
. The sharpshooters did not realize the importance of their shots. Their orders had always been to go for the head. The final zombie was captured, restrained, and taken to Mao Zedong’s personal headquarters for further study. When the Soviet Union invaded Manchukuo in 1945, all records and evidence of the “Cherry Blossom” project disappeared.
Shore states that his book is based on the eyewitness accounts of two Black Dragon operatives, men whom he personally debriefed after they surrendered to the U.S. Army in South Korea at the end of the war. At first Shore found a publisher for his book, a small, independent company known as Green Brothers Press. Before it reached the shelves, the government ordered all copies confiscated. Green Brothers Press was directly charged by Senator Joseph McCarthy with publishing “obscene and subversive material.” Under the weight of legal fees, the company filed for bankruptcy. David Shore was charged with violating national security and sentenced to life imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was pardoned in 1961 but died of a heart attack two months after his release. His widow, Sara Shore, retained a secret and illegal copy of his manuscript until her death in 1984. Their daughter, Hannah, just recently won a lawsuit for the right to republish it.
