World War Z

Robben Island, Cape Town Province, United States of Southern Africa

[Xolelwa Azania greets me at his wilting desk, inviting me to switch places with him so I can enjoy the cool ocean breeze from his window. He apologizes for the “mess” and insists on clearing the notes off his desk before we continue. Mister Azania is halfway through his third volume of Rainbow Fist: South Africa at War. This volume happens to be about the subject we are discussing, the turning point against the living dead, the moment when his country pulled itself back from the brink.]

Dispassionate, a rather mundane word to describe one of history’s most controversial figures. Some revere him as a savior, some revile him as a monster, but if you ever met Paul Redeker, ever discussed his views of the world and the problems, or more importantly, the solutions to the problems that plague the world, probably the one word that would always cling to your impression of the man is dispassionate.

Paul always believed, well, perhaps not always, but at least in his adult life, that humanity’s one fundamental flaw was emotion. He used to say that the heart should only exist to pump blood to the brain, that anything else was a waste of time and energy. His papers from university, all dealing with alternate “solutions” to historical, societal quandaries, were what first brought him to the attention of the apartheid government. Many psy-chobiographers have tried to label him a racist, but, in his own words, “racism is a regrettable by-product of irrational emotion.” Others have argued that, in order for a racist to hate one group, he must at least love another. Redeker believed both love and hate to be irrelevant. To him, they were “impediments of the human condition,” and, in his words again, “imagine what could be accomplished if the human race would only shed its humanity.” Evil? Most would call it that, while others, particularly that small cadre in the center of Pretoria’s power, believed it to be “an invaluable source of liberated intellect.”

It was the early 1980s, a critical time for the apartheid government. The country was resting on a bed of nails. You had the ANC, you had the Inkatha Freedom Party, you even had extremist, right-wing elements of the Afrikaner population that would have liked nothing better than open revolt in order to bring about a complete racial showdown. On her border, South Africa faced nothing but hostile nations, and, in the case of Angola, a Soviet backed, Cuban spearheaded civil war. Add to this mixture a growing isolation from the Western democracies (which included a critical arms embargo) and it was no surprise that a last-ditch fight for survival was never far from Pretoria’s mind.

This is why they enlisted the aid of Mister Redeker to revise the government’s ultrasecret “Plan Orange.” “Orange” had been in existence since the apartheid government first came to power in 1948. It was the dooms-day scenario for the country’s white minority, the plan to deal with an all-out uprising of its indigenous African population. Over the years it had been updated with the changing strategic outlook of the region. Every decade that situation grew more and more grim. With multiplying independence of her neighbor states, and multiplying voices for freedom from the majority of her own people, those in Pretoria realized that a full-blown confrontation might not just mean the end for the Afrikaner government, but the Afrikaners themselves.

This is where Redeker stepped in. His revised Plan Orange, appropriately completed in 1984, was the ultimate survival strategy for the Afrikaner people. No variable was ignored. Population figures, terrain, resources, logistics… Redeker not only updated the plan to include both Cuba’s chemical weapons and his own country’s nuclear option, but also, and this is what made “Orange Eighty-Four” so historic, the determination of which Afrikaners would be saved and which had to be sacrificed.

Sacrificed?

Redeker believed that to try to protect everyone would stretch the government’s resources to the breaking point, thus dooming the entire population. He compared it to survivors from a sinking ship capsizing a lifeboat that simply did not have room for them all. Redeker had even gone so far as to calculate who should be “brought aboard.” He included income, IQ, fertility, an entire checklist of “desirable qualities,” including the subject’s location to a potential crisis zone. “The first casualty of the conflict must be our own sentimentality” was the closing statement tor his proposal, “for its survival will mean our destruction.”

Orange Eighty-Four was a brilliant plan. It was clear, logical, efficient, and it made Paul Redeker one of the most hated men in South Africa. His first enemies were some of the more radical, fundamentalist Afrikaners, the racial ideologues and the ultrareligious. Later, after the fall of apartheid, his name began circulating among the general population. Of course he was invited to appear before the “Truth and Reconciliation” hearings, and, of course, he refused. “I won’t pretend to have a heart simply to save my skin,” he stated publicly, adding, “No matter what I do, I’m sure they will come for me anyway.”

And they did, although it probably was not in the manner Redeker could have expected. It was during our Great Panic, which began several weeks before yours. Redeker was holed up in the Drakensberg cabin he had bought with the accumulated profits of a business consultant. He liked business, you know. “One goal, no soul,” he used to say. He wasn’t surprised when the door blew off its hinges and agents of the National Intelligence Agency rushed in. They confirmed his name, his identity, his past actions. They asked him point-blank if he had been the author of Orange Eighty-Four. He answered without emotion, naturally. He suspected, and accepted, this intrusion as a last-minute revenge killing; the world was going to hell anyway, why not take a few “apartheid devils” down first. What he could have never predicted was the sudden lowering of their firearms, and the removal of the gas masks of the NIA agents. They were of all colors: black,

Asian, colored, and even a white man, a Tall Afrikaner who stepped forward, and without giving his name or rank, asked abruptly… “You’ve got a plan for this, man. Don’t you?”

Redeker had, indeed, been working on his own solution to the undead epidemic. What else could he do in this isolated hideaway? It had been an intellectual exercise; he never believed anyone would he left to read it. It had no name, as explained later “because names only exist to distinguish one from others,” and, until that moment, there had been no other plan like his. Once again, Redeker had taken every-thing into account, not only the strategic situation of the country, but also the physiology, behavior, and “combat doctrine” of the living dead. While you can research the details of the “Redeker Plan” in any public library around the world, here are some of the fundamental keys:

First of all, there was no way to save everyone. The outbreak was too far gone. The armed forces had already been too badly weakened to effectively isolate the threat, and, spread so thinly throughout the country, they could only grow weaker with each passing day. Our forces had to be consolidated, withdrawn to a special “safe zone,” which, hopefully, would he aided by some natural obstacle such as mountains, rivers, or even an offshore island. Once concentrated within this zone, the armed forces could eradicate the infestation within its borders, then use what resources were available to defend it against further onslaughts of the living dead. That was the first part of the plan and it made as much sense as any conventional military retreat.

The second part of the plan dealt with the evacuation of civilians, and this could not have been envisioned by anyone else but Redeker. In his mind, only a small fraction of the civilian population could be evacuated to the safe zone. These people would be saved not only to provide a labor pool for the eventual wartime economic restoration, but also to preserve the legitimacy and stability of the government, to prove to those already within the zone that their leaders were “looking out for them.”

There was another reason for this partial evacuation, an eminently logical and insidiously dark reason that, many believe, will forever ensure Redeker the tallest pedestal in the pantheon of hell. Those who were left behind were to be herded into special isolated zones. They were to be “human bait,” distracting the undead from following the retreating army to their safe zone. Redeker argued that these isolated, uninfected refugees must be kept alive, well defended and even resupplied, if possible, so as to keep the undead hordes firmly rooted to the spot. You see the genius, the sickness* Keeping people as prisoners because “every zombie besieging those survivors will be one less zombie throwing itself against our defenses.” That was the moment when the Afrikaner agent looked up at Redeker, crossed himself, and said, “God help you, man.” Another one said, “God help us all.” That was the black one who appeared to be in charge of the operation. “Now lets get him out of here.”

Within minutes they were on a helicopter for Kimberley, the very underground base where Redeker had first written Orange Eighty-Four. He was ushered into a meeting of the president’s surviving cabinet, where his report was read aloud to the room. You should have heard the uproar, with no voice louder than the defense ministers. He was a Zulu, a ferocious man who’d rather be fighting in the streets than cowering in a bunker.

The vice president was more concerned about public relations. He didn’t want to imagine what his backside would be worth if news of this plan ever leaked to the population.

The president looked almost personally insulted by Redeker. He physically grabbed the lapels of the safety and security minister and demanded why in hell he brought him this demented apartheid war criminal.

The minister stammered that he didn’t understand why the president was so upset, especially when it was he who gave the order to find Redeker.

The president threw his hands in the air and shouted that he never gave such an order, and then, from somewhere in the room, a faint voice said, “I did.”

He had been sitting against the back wall; now he stood, hunched over by age, and supported by canes, but with a spirit as strong and vital as it had ever been. The elder statesman, the father of our new democracy, the man whose birth name had been Rolihlahla, which some have translated simply into “Troublemaker.” As he stood, all others sat, all others except Paul Redeker. The old man locked eyes on him, smiled with that warm squint so famous the world over, and said, “Molo, mhlobo warn.” “Greetings, person of my region.” He walked slowly over to Paul, turned to the governing body of South Africa, then lifted the pages from the Afrikaner’s hand and said in a suddenly loud and youthful voice, “This plan will save our people.” Then, gesturing to Paul, he said, “This man will save our people.” And then came that moment, the one that historians will probably debate until the subject fades from memory. He embraced the white Afrikaner. To anyone else this was simply his signature bear hug, but to Paul Redeker… I know that the majority of psychobiographers continue to paint this man without a soul. That is the generally accepted notion. Paul Redeker: no feelings, no compassion, no heart. However, one of our most revered authors, Biko’s old friend and biographer, postulates that Redeker was actually a deeply sensitive man, too sensitive, in fact, for life in apartheid South Africa. He insists that Redeker’s lifelong jihad against emotion was the only way to protect his sanity from the hatred and brutality he witnessed on a daily basis. Not much is known about Redeker’s childhood, whether he even had parents, or was raised by the state, whether he had friends or was ever loved in any way. Those who knew him from work were hard-pressed to remember witnessing any social interaction or even any physical act of warmth. The embrace by our nation’s father, this genuine emotion piercing his impenetrable shell…

[Azania smiles sheepishly.]

Perhaps this is all too sentimental. For all we know he was a heartless monster, and the old man’s embrace had absolutely no impact. But I can tell you that that was the last day anyone ever saw Paul Redeker. Even now, no one knows what really happened to him. That is when I stepped in, in those chaotic weeks when the Redeker Plan was implemented throughout the country. It took some convincing to say the least, but once I’d convinced them that I’d worked for many years with Paul Redeker, and, more importantly, I understood his way of thinking better than anyone left alive in South Africa, how could they refuse? I worked on the retreat, then afterward, during the consolidation months, and right up until the end of the war. At least they were appreciative of my services, why else would they grant me such luxurious accommodations? [Smiles.] Paul Redeker, an angel and a devil. Some hate him, some worship him. Me, I just pity him. If he still exists, somewhere out there, I sincerely hope he’s found his peace.

[After a parting embrace from my guest, I am driven back to my ferry for the mainland. Security is tight as I sign out my entrance badge. The tall Afrikaner guard photographs me again. “Can’t be too careful, man,” he says, handing me the pen. “Lot of people out there want to send him to hell.” I sign next to my name, under the heading of Robben Island Psychiatric Institution. NAME OF PATIENT YOU ARE VISITING: PAUL REDEKER.]

Armagh, Ireland

[While not a Catholic himself, Philip Adlei has joined the throngs of visitors to the pope’s wartime refuge. “My wife is Bavarian,” he explains in the bar of our hotel. “She had to make the pilgrimage to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.” This is his first time away from Germany since the end of the war. Our meeting is accidental. He does not object to my recorder.]

Hamburg was heavily infested. They were in the streets, in the buildings, pouring out of the Neuer Elbtunnel. We’d tried to blockade it with civilian vehicles, bur they were squirming through any open space like bloated, bloody worms. Refugees were also all over. They’d come from as far away as Saxony, thinking they could escape by sea. The ships were long gone, the port was a mess. We had over a thousand crapped at the Reynolds Aluminiumwerk and at least triple that at the Eurokai terminal. No food, no clean water, just waiting to be rescued with the dead swarming outside, and I don’t know how many infected inside.

The harbor was choked with corpses, but corpses that were still moving. We’d blasted them into the harbor with antiriot water cannons; it saved ammo and it helped to keep the streets clear. It was a good idea, until the pressure in the hydrants died. We’d lost our commanding officer two days earlier… freak accident. One of our men had shot a zombie that was almost on top of him. The bullet had gone right through the creature’s head, taking bits of diseased brain tissue out the other end and into the colonel’s shoulder. Insane, eh? He turned over sector command to me before dying. My first official duty was to put him down.

I’d set up our command post in the Renaissance Hotel. It was a decent location, good fields of fire with enough space to house our own unit and several hundred refugees. My men, those not involved in holding the barricades, were attempting to perform these conversions on similar buildings. With the roads blocked and trains inoperative, I thought it best to sequester as many civilians as possible. Help would be coming, it was just a question of when it would arrive.

I was about to organize a detail to scrounge for converted hand-to-hand weapons, we were running low on ammunition, when the order came to retreat. This was not unusual. Our unit had been steadily withdrawing since the first days of the Panic. What was unusual, though, was the rally point. Division was using map-grid coordinates, the first time since the trouble began. Up until then they had simply used civilian designations on an open channel; this was so refugees could know where to assemble. Now it was a coded transmission from a map we hadn’t used since the end of the cold war. I had to check the coordinates three times to confirm. They put us at Schafstedt, just north of the Nord-Ostsee Kanal. Might as well be fucking Denmark!

We were also under strict orders not to move the civilians. Even worse, we were ordered not to inform them of our departure! This didn’t make any sense. They wanted us to pull back to Schleswig-Holstein but leave the refugees behind? They wanted us to just cut and run? There had to be some kind of mistake.

I asked for confirmation. I got it. I asked again. Maybe they got the map wrong, or had shifted codes without telling us. (It wouldn’t be their first mistake.)

I suddenly found myself speaking to General Lang, commander of the entire Northern Front. His voice was shaking. I could hear it even over the shooting. He told me the orders were not a mistake, that I was to rally what was left of the Hamburg Garrison and proceed immediately north. This isn’t happening, I told myself. Funny, eh? I could accept everything else that was happening, the fact that dead bodies were rising to consume the world, but this… following orders that would indirectly cause a mass murder.

Now, I am a good soldier, but I am also a West German. You understand the difference? In the East, they were told that they were not responsible for the atrocities of the Second World War, that as good communists, they were just as much victims of Hitler as anyone else. You understand why the skinheads and proto-fascists were mainly in the East? They did not feel the responsibility of the past, not like we did in the West. We were taught since birth to bear the burden of our grandfathers’ shame. We were taught that, even if we wore a uniform, That our first sworn duty was to our conscience, no matter what the consequences. That is how I was raised, that is how I responded. I told Lang that I could not, in good conscience, obey this order, that I could not leave these people without protection. At this, he exploded. He told me that I would carry out my instructions or I, and, more importantly, my men, would be charged with treason and prosecuted with “Russian efficiency.” And this is what we’ve come to, I thought. We’d all heard of what was happening in Russia … the mutinies, the crackdowns, the decimations. I looked around at all these boys, eighteen, nineteen years old, all tired and scared and fighting for their lives. I couldn’t do that to them. I gave the order to withdraw.

How did they take it?

There were no complaints, at least, not to me. They fought a little amongst themselves. I pretended not to notice. They did their duty.

What about the civilians?

[Pause.] We got everything we deserved. “Where are you going?” they shouted from buildings. “Come back, you cowards!” I tried to answer. “No, we’re coming back for you,” I said. “We’re coming back tomorrow with more men. Just stay where you are, we’ll be back tomorrow.” They didn’t believe me. “Fucking liar!” I heard one woman shout. “You’re letting my baby die!”

Most of them didn’t try to follow, too worried about the zombies in the streets. A few brave souls grabbed on to our armored personnel carriers. They tried to force their way down the hatches. We knocked them off. We had to button up as the ones trapped in buildings started throwing things, lamps, furniture, down on us. One of my men was hit with a bucket filled with human waste. I heard a bullet clang off the hatch of my Marder.

On our way out of the city we passed the last of our new Rapid Reaction Stabilization Units. They had been badly mauled earlier in the week. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were one of those units classified as expendable. They were detailed to cover our retreat, to prevent too many zombies, or refugees, from following us. They were ordered to hold to the end.

Their commander was standing through the cupola of his Leopard. I knew him. We’d served together as part of the NATO’s IFOR in Bosnia. Maybe it is melodramatic to say he saved my life, but he did take a Serbian’s bullet that I’m sure was meant for me. The last time I saw him was in a hospital in Sarajevo, joking about getting out of this madhouse those people called a country. Now here we were, passing on the shattered autobahn in the heart of our homeland. We locked eyes, traded salutes. I ducked back into the APC, and pretended to study my map so the driver wouldn’t see my tears. “When we get back,” I told myself, “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”

General Lang.

I had it all planned. I would not look angry, not give him any reason to worry. I’d submit my report and apologize for my behavior. Maybe he’d want to give me some kind of pep talk, try to explain or justify our retreat. Good, I thought, I’d listen patiently, put him at ease. Then, when he rose to shake my hand, I’d draw my weapon and blow his Eastern brains against the map of what used to be our country. Maybe his whole staff would be there, all the other little stooges who were “just following orders.” I’d get them all before they took me! It would be perfect. I wasn’t going to just goose-step my way into hell like some good little Hitler Jugend. I’d show him, and everyone else, what it meant to be a real Deutsche Soldat.

But that’s not what happened.

No. I did manage to make it into General Lang’s office. We were the last unit across the canal. He’d waited for that. As soon as the report came in, he’d sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders, addressed and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain.

Bastard. I hate him even more now than I did on the road from Hamburg.

Why is that?

Because I now understand why we did what we did, the details of the Prochnow Plan.

Wouldn’t this revelation engender sympathy for him?

Are you kidding? That’s exactly why I hate him! He knew that this was just the first step of a long war and we were going to need men like him to help win it. Fucking coward. Remember what I said about being beholden to your conscience? You can’t blame anyone else, not the plan’s architect, not your commanding officer, no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices. He knew this. That’s why he deserted us like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep, treacherous mountain road. We’d all have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what we’d done behind us. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t shoulder the weight.

Yevchenko Veterans’ Sanatorium, Odessa, Ukraine

[The room is windowless. Dim, fluorescent bulbs illuminate the concrete walls and unwashed cots. The patients here mainly suffer from respiratory disorders, many made worse by the lack of any usable medication. There are no doctors here, and understaffed nurses and orderlies can do little to ease the suffering. At least the room is warm and dry, and for this country in the dead of winter, that is a luxury beyond measure. Bohdan Taras Kondratiuk sits upright on his cot at the end of the room. As a war hero he rates a hung sheet for privacy. He coughs into his handkerchief before speaking.]

Chaos. I don’t know how else to describe it, a complete breakdown of organization, of order, of control. We’d just fought four brutal engagements: Luck, Rovno, Novograd, and Zhitomir. Goddamn Zhitomir. My men were exhausted, you understand. What they’d seen, what they’d had to do, and all the time pulling back, rearguard actions, running. Every day you heard about another town falling, another road closing, another unit overwhelmed.

Kiev was supposed to be safe, behind the lines. It was supposed to be the center of our new safety zone, well garrisoned, fully resupplied, quiet. And so what happens as soon as we arrive? Are my orders to rest and refit? Repair my vehicles, reconstitute my numbers, rehabilitate my wounded? No, of course not. Why should things be as they should be? They never have been before.

The safety zone was being shifted again, this time to the Crimea. The government had already moved… fled … to Sevastopol. Civil order had collapsed. Kiev was being fully evacuated. This was the task of the military, or what was left of it.

Our company was ordered to oversee the escape route at Patona Bridge. It was the first all electrically welded bridge in the world, and many foreigners used to compare its achievement to that of the Eiffel Tower. The city had planned a major restoration project, a dream to renew its former glory. But, like everything else in our country, that dream never came true. Even before the crisis, the bridge had been a nightmare of traffic jams. Now it was crammed with evacuees. The bridge was supposed to be closed to road traffic, but where were the barricades we were promised, the concrete and steel that would have made any forced entry impossible? Cars were everywhere, little Lags and old Zhigs, a few Mercedes, and a mammoth GAZ truck sitting right in the middle, just turned over on its side!

We tried to move it, get a chain around the axle and pull it free with one of the tanks. Not a chance. What could we do?

We were an armored platoon, you understand. Tanks, not military police. We never saw any MPs. We were assured they would be there, but we never saw or heard from them, neither did any of the other “units” along any of the other bridges. To even call them “units” is a joke. These were just mobs of men in uniforms, clerks and cooks; anyone who happened to be attached to the military suddenly became in charge of traffic control.

None of us were set up for this, weren’t trained for it, weren’t equipped… Where was the riot gear they promised us, the shields, the armor, where was the water cannon? Our orders were to “process” all evacuees. You understand “process,” to see if any of them had been tainted. But where were the goddamn sniffer dogs? How are you supposed to check for infection without dogs? What are you supposed to do, visually inspect each refugee? Yes! And yet, that is what we were told to do. [Shakes his head.] Did they really think that those terrified, frantic wretches, with death at their backs and safety-perceived safety-only meters away were going to form an orderly line and let us strip them naked to examine every centimeter of skin: Did they think men would just stand by while we examined their wives, their mothers, their little daughters? Can you imagine? And we actually tried to do it. What other alternative was there? They had to be separated if any of us were going to survive. What’s the point of even trying to evacuate people if they’re just going to bring the infection with them?

[Shakes his head, laughs bitterly.] It was a disaster! Some just refused, others tried to run by or even jump into the river. Fights broke out. Many of my men were beaten badly, three were stabbed, one was shot by a frightened grandfather with a rusty old Tokarev. I’m sure he was dead before hitting the water.

I wasn’t there, you understand. I was on the radio trying to call for support! Help is coming, they kept saying, do not break, do not despair, help is coming.

Across the Dnieper, Kiev burned. Black pillars rose from the city center. We were downwind, the stench was terrible, the wood and rubber and stink of burning flesh. We didn’t know how far they were now, maybe a kilometer, maybe less. Up on the hill, the fire had engulfed the monastery. Goddamn tragedy. With its high walls, its strategic location, we could have made a stand. Any first-year cadet could have turned it into an impregnable fortress-stocked the basements, sealed the gates, and mounted snipers in the towers. They could have covered the bridge for… fucking forever!

I thought I heard something, a sound from the other bank… that sound, you know, when they are all together, when they are close, that. . . even over the shouts, the curses, the honking horns, the distant sniper fire, you know that sound.

[He attempts to mimic their moan but collapses into uncontrolled coughs. He holds his handkerchief up to his face. It comes away bloody.]

That sound was what pulled me away from the radio. I looked over at the city. Something caught my eye, something above the rooftops and closing fast.

The jet streaked over us at treetop level. There were four of them, Sukhoi 25 “Rooks,” close, and low enough to identify by sight. What the hell, I thought, are they going to try to cover the bridge’s approach? Maybe bomb the area behind it? It had worked at Rovno, at least for a few minutes. The Rooks circled, as if confirming their targets, then banked low and came straight at us! Devil’s mother, I thought, they are going to bonib the bridge! They’d given up on the evacuation and were going to kill everyone!

“Off the bridge!” I started shouting. “Everyone get off!” Panic shot through the crowd. You could see it like a wave, like a current of electricity. People started screaming, trying to push forward, back, into one another. Dozens were jumping into the water with heavy clothes and shoes that prevented them from swimming.

I was pulling people across, telling them to run. I saw the bombs released, thought maybe I could dive at the last moment, shield myself from the blast. Then the parachutes opened, and I knew. In a split second, I was up and dashing like a frightened rabbit. “Button up!” I screamed. “Button up!” I leapt onto the nearest tank, slammed the hatch down, and ordered the crew to check the seals! The tank was an obsolete T-72. We couldn’t know if the overpressure system still worked, hadn’t tested it in years. All we could do was hope and pray while cringing in our steel coffin. The gunner was sobbing, the driver was frozen, the commander, a junior sergeant just twenty years old, was balled up on the floor, clutching the little cross he had around his neck. I put my hand on the top of his head, assured him we would be fine while keeping my eyes glued to the periscope.

RVX doesn’t start out as a gas, you see. It starts out as rain: tiny, oily droplets that cling to whatever they contact. It enters through the pores, the eyes, the lungs. Depending on the dosage, the effects can be instantaneous. I could see the evacuees’ limbs begin to tremble, arms falling to their sides as the agent worked its way through their central nervous system. They rubbed their eyes, fought to speak, move, breathe. I was glad I couldn’t smell the contents of their undergarments, the sudden discharge of bladder and bowels.

Why would they do it? I couldn’t understand. Didn’t the high command know that chemical weapons had no effect on the undead? Didn’t they learn anything from Zhitomir?

The first corpse to move was a woman, just a second or more before the others, a twitching hand groping across the back of a man who looked like he’d been trying to shield her. He slipped off as she rose on uncertain knees. Her face was mottled and webbed with blackened veins. I think she saw me, or our tank. Her jaw dropped, her arms rose. I could see the others coming to life, every fortieth or fiftieth person, everyone who had been bitten and had previously tried to conceal it.

And then I understood. Yes, they’d learned from Zhitomir, and now they found a better use for their cold war stockpiles. How do you effectively separate the infected from the others? How do you keep evacuees from spreading the infection behind the lines? That’s one way.

They were starting to fully reanimate, regaining their footing, shuffling slowly across the bridge toward us. I called for the gunner. He could barely stutter a response. 1 kicked him in the back, barked the order to sight his targets! It took a few seconds but he settled his crosshairs on the first woman and squeezed the trigger. I held my ears as the Coax belched. The other tanks followed suit.

Twenty minutes later, it was over. I know I should have waited for orders, at least reported our status or the effects of the strike. I could see six more flights of Rooks streaking over, five heading for the other bridges, the last for the city center. 1 ordered our company to withdraw, to head south-west and just keep going. There were a lot of bodies around us, the ones who’d just made it over the bridge before the gas hit. They popped as we ran over them.

Have you been to the Great Patriotic War Museum Complex? It was one of the most impressive buildings in Kiev. The courtyard was filled with machines: tanks, guns, every class and size, from the Revolution to the modern day. Two tanks faced each other at the museum’s entrance. They were decorated with colorful drawings now, and children were allowed to climb and play on them. There was an Iron Cross, a full meter in size, made from the hundreds of real Iron Crosses taken from dead Hitlerites. There was a mural, from floor to ceiling, showing a grand battle. Our soldiers were all connected, in a seething wave of strength and courage that crashed upon the Germans, that drove them from our homeland. So many symbols of our national defense and none more spectacular than the statue of the Rodina Mat (Motherland). She was the tallest building in the city, a more than sixty-meter masterpiece of pure stainless steel. She was the last thing I saw in Kiev, her shield and sword held high in everlasting triumph, her cold, bright eyes looking down at us as we ran.

Sand Lakes Provincial Wilderness Park, Manitoba, Canada

[Jesika Hendricks gestures to the expanse of subarctic waste-land. The natural beauty has been replaced by wreckage: abandoned vehicles, debris, and human corpses remain partially frozen into the gray snow and ice. Originally from Waukesha, Wisconsin, the now naturalized Canadian is part of this region’s Wilderness Restoration Project. Along with several hundred other volunteers, she has come here every summer since the end of official hostilities. Although WRP claims to have made substantial progress, none can claim to see any end in sight.]

I don’t blame them, the government, the people who were supposed to protect us. Objectively, I guess I can understand. They couldn’t have everyone following the army west behind the Rocky Mountains. How were they going to feed all of us, how were they going to screen us, and how could they ever hope to stop the armies of undead that almost certainly would have been following us? I can understand why they would want to divert as many refugees north as possible. What else could they do, stop us at the Rockies with armed troops, gas us like the Ukrainians? At least if we went north, we might have a chance. Once the temperature dropped and the undead froze, some us might be able to survive. That was happening all around the rest of the world, people fleeing north hoping to stay alive until winter came. No, I don’t blame them for wanting to divert us, I can forgive that. But the irresponsible way they did it, the lack of vital information that would have helped so many to stay alive… that I can never forgive.

It was August, two weeks after Yonkers and just three days after the government had started withdrawing west. We hadn’t had too many outbreaks in our neighborhood. I’d only seen one, a collection of six feeding on a homeless man. The cops had put them down quickly. It happened three blocks from our house and that was when my father decided to leave.

We were in the living room; my father was learning how to load his new-rifle while Mom finished nailing up the windows. You couldn’t find a channel with anything but zombie news, either live images, or recorded footage from Yonkers. Looking back, I still can’t believe how unprofessional the news media was. So much spin, so few hard facts. All those digestible sound bites from an army of “experts” all contradicting one another, all trying to seem more “shocking” and “in depth” than the last one. It was all so confusing, nobody seemed to know what to do. The only thing any of them could agree on was that all private citizens should “go north.” Because the living dead freeze solid, extreme cold is our only hope. That’s all we heard. No more instructions on where to head north, what to bring with us, how to survive, just that damn catchphrase you’d hear from every talking head, or just crawling over and over across the bottom of the TV. “Go north. Go north. Go north.”

“That’s it,” Dad said, “we’re getting out of here tonight and heading north.” He tried to sound determined, slapping his rifle. He’d never touched a gun in his life. He was a gentleman in the most literal sense-he was a gentle man. Short, bald, a pudgy face that turned red when he laughed, he was the king of the bad jokes and cheesy one-liners. He always had something for you, a compliment or a smile, or a little extension to my allowance that Mom wasn’t supposed to know about. He was the good cop in the family, he left all the big decisions to Mom.

Now Mom tried to argue, tried to make him see reason. We lived above the snowline, we had all we needed. Why trek into the unknown when we could just stock up on supplies, continue to fortify the house, and just wait until the first fall frost? Dad wouldn’t hear it. We could be dead by the fall, we could be dead by next week! He was so caught up in the Great Panic. He told us it would be like an extended camping trip. We’d live on moose-burgers and wild berry desserts. He promised to teach me how to fish and asked me what I wanted to name my pet rabbit when I caught it. He’d lived in Waukesha his whole life. He’d never been camping.

[She shows me something in the ice, a collection of cracked DVDs.]

This is what people brought with them: hair dryers, GameCubes, laptops by the dozen. I don’t think they were stupid enough to think they could use them. Maybe some did. I think most people were just afraid of losing them, that they’d come home after six months and find their homes looted. We actually thought we were packing sensibly. Warm clothes, cooking utensils, things from the medicine cabinet, and all the canned food we could carry. It looked like enough food for a couple of years. We finished half of it on the way up. That didn’t bother me. It was like an adventure, the trek north.

All those stories you hear about the clogged roads and violence, that wasn’t us. We were in the first wave. The only people ahead of us were the Canadians, and most of them were already long gone. There was still a lot of traffic on the road, more cars than I’d ever seen, but it all moved pretty quickly, and only really snarled in places like roadside towns or parks.

Parks?

Parks, designated campgrounds, any place where people thought they’d gone far enough. Dad used to look down on those people, calling them shortsighted and irrational. He said that we were still way too close to population centers and the only way to really make it was to head as far north as we could. Mom would always argue that it wasn’t their fault, that most of them had simply run out of gas. “And whose fault is that,” Dad would say. We had a lot of spare gas cans on the roof of the minivan. Dad had been stocking up since the first days of the Panic. We’d pass a lot of traffic snarls around roadside gas stations, most of which already had these giant signs outside that said NO MORE GAS. Dad drove by them really fast. He drove fast by a lot of things, the stalled cars that needed a jump, or hitchhikers who needed a ride. There were a lot of those, in some cases, walking in lines by the side of the road, looking like the way you think refugees are supposed to look. Every now and then a car would stop to pick up a couple, and suddenly everyone wanted a ride. “See what they got themselves into?” That was Dad.

We did pick up one woman, walking by herself and pulling one of those wheeled airline bags. She looked pretty harmless, all alone in the rain. That’s probably why Mom made Dad stop to pick her up. Her name was Patty, she was from Winnipeg. She didn’t tell us how she got out here and we didn’t ask. She was really grateful and tried to give my parents all the money she had. Mom wouldn’t let her and promised to take her as far as we were going. She started crying, thanking us. I was proud of my parents for doing the right thing, until she sneezed and brought up a handkerchief to blow her nose. Her left hand had been in her pocket since we picked her up. We could see that it was wrapped in a cloth and had a dark stain that looked like blood. She saw that we saw and suddenly looked nervous. She told us not to worry and that she’d just cut it by accident. Dad looked at Mom, and they both got very quiet. They wouldn’t look at me, they didn’t say anything. That night I woke up when I heard the passenger door slam shut. I didn’t think it was anything unusual. We were always stopping for bathroom breaks. They always woke me up just in case I had to go, but this time I didn’t know what had happened until the minivan was already moving. I looked around for Patty, but she was gone. I asked my parents what had happened and they told me she’d asked them to drop her off. I looked behind us and thought I could just make her out, this little spec getting smaller each second. I thought she looked like she was running after us, but I was so tired and confused I couldn’t be sure. I probably just didn’t want to know. I shut a lot out during that drive north.

Like what?

Like the other “hitchhikers,” the ones who didn’t run. There weren’t a lot, remember, we’re talking about the first wave. We encountered half a dozen at most, wandering down the middle of the road, raising their arms when we got close. Dad would weave around them and Mom would tell me to get my head down. I never saw them too close. I had my face against the seat and my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see them. I just kept thinking about mooseburgers and wild berries. It was like heading to the Promised Land. I knew once we headed far enough north, everything would be all right.

For a little while it was. We had this great campsite right on the shore of a lake, not too many people around, but just enough to make us feel “safe,” you know, if any of the dead showed up. Everyone was real friendly, this big, collective vibe of relief. It was kind of like a party at first. There were these big cookouts every night, people all throwing in what they’d hunted or fished, mostly fished. Some guys would throw dynamite in the lake and there’d be this huge bang and all these fish would come floating to the surface. I’ll never forget those sounds, the explosions or the chainsaws as people cut down trees, or the music of car radios and instruments families had brought. We all sang around the campfires at night, these giant bonfires of logs stacked up on one another.

That was when we still had trees, before the second and third waves starting showing up, when people were down to burning leaves and stumps, then finally whatever they could get their hands on. The smell of plastic and rubber got really bad, in your mouth, in your hair. By that time the fish were all gone, and anything left for people to hunt. No one seemed to worry. Everyone was counting on winter freezing the dead.

But once the dead were frozen, how were you going to survive the winter?

Good question. I don’t think most people thought that far ahead. Maybe they figured that the “authorities” would come rescue us or that they could just pack up and head home. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t think about anything except the day in front of them, just grateful that they were finally safe and confident that things would work themselves out. “We’ll all be home before you know it,” people would say. “It’ll all be over by Christmas.”

[She draws my attention to another object in the ice, a Sponge-Bob SquarePants sleeping bag. It is small, and stained brown.]

What do you think this is rated to, a heated bedroom at a sleepover party? Okay, maybe they couldn’t get a proper bag-camping stores were always the first bought out or knocked off-but you can’t believe how ignorant some of these people were. A lot of them were from Sunbelt states, some as far away as southern Mexico. You’d see people getting into their sleeping bags with their boots on, not realizing that it was cutting off their circulation. You’d see them drinking to get warm, not realizing it was actually lowering their temperature by releasing more body heat. You’d see them wearing these big heavy coats with nothing but a T-shirt underneath. They’d do something physical, overheat, take off the coat. Their bodies’d be coated in sweat, a lot of cotton cloth holding in the moisture. The breeze’d come up … a lot of people got sick that first September. Cold and flu. They gave it to the rest of us.

In the beginning everyone was friendly. We cooperated. We traded or even bought what we needed from other families. Money was still worth something. Everyone thought the banks would be reopening soon. When-ever Mom and Dad would go looking for food, they’d always leave me with a neighbor. I had this little survival radio, the kind you cranked for power, so we could listen to the news every night. It was all stories of the pullout, army units leaving people stranded. We’d listen with our road map of the United States, pointing to the cities and towns where the reports were coming from. I’d sit on Dad’s lap. “See,” he’d say, “they didn’t get out in time. They weren’t smart like us.” He’d try to force a smile. For a little while, I thought he was right.

But after the first month, when the food started running out, and the days got colder and darker, people started getting mean. There were no more communal fires, no more cookouts or singing. The camp became a mess, nobody picking up their trash anymore. A couple times I stepped in human shit. Nobody was even bothering to bury it.

I wasn’t left alone with neighbors anymore, my parents didn’t trust anyone. Things got dangerous, you’d see a lot of fights. I saw two women wrestling over a fur coat, tore it right down the middle. I saw one guy catching another guy trying to steal some stuff out of his car and beat his head in with a tire iron. A lot of it took place at night, scuffling and shouts. Every now and then you’d hear a gunshot, and somebody crying. One time we heard someone moving outside the makeshift tent we’d draped over the minivan. Mom told me to put my head down and cover my ears. Dad went outside. Through my hands I heard shouts. Dad’s gun went off. Someone screamed. Dad came back in, his face was white. I never asked him what happened.

The only time anyone ever came together was when one of the dead showed up. These were the ones who’d followed the third wave, coming alone or in small packs. It happened every couple of days. Someone would sound an alarm and everyone would rally to take them out. And then, as soon as it was over, we’d all turn on each other again.

When it got cold enough to freeze the lake, when the last of the dead stopped showing up, a lot of people thought it was safe enough to try to walk home.

Walk? Not drive?

No more gas. They’d used it all up for cooking fuel or just to keep their car heaters running. Every day there’d be these groups of half-starved, ragged wretches, all loaded down with all this useless stuff they’d brought with them, all with this look of desperate hope on their faces.

“Where do they think they’re going?” Dad would say. “Don’t they know-that it hasn’t gotten cold enough farther south? Don’t they know what’s still waiting for them back there?” He was convinced that if we just held out long enough, sooner or later things would get better. That was in October, when I still looked like a human being.

[We come upon a collection of bones, too many to count. They lie in a pit, half covered in ice.]

I was a pretty heavy kid. I never played sports, I lived on fast food and snacks. I was only a little bit thinner when we arrived in August. By November, I was like a skeleton. Mom and Dad didn’t look much better. Dad’s tummy was gone, Mom had these narrow cheekbones. They were fighting a lot, fighting about everything. That scared me more than anything. They’d never raised their voices at home. They were schoolteachers, “progressives.” There might have been a tense, quiet dinner every now and then, but nothing like this. They went for each other every chance they had. One time, around Thanksgiving … I couldn’t get out of my sleeping bag. My belly was swollen and I had these sores on my mouth and nose. There was this smell coming from the neighbor’s RV. They were cooking something, meat, it smelled really good. Mom and Dad were outside arguing. Mom said “it” was the only way. I didn’t know what “it” was. She said “it” wasn’t “that bad” because the neighbors, not us, had been the ones to actually “do it.” Dad said that we weren’t going to stoop to that level and that Mom should be ashamed of herself. Mom really laid into Dad, screeching that it was all his fault that we were here, that I was dying. Mom told him that a real man would know what to do. She called him a wimp and said he wanted us to die so then he could run away and live like the “faggot” she always knew he was. Dad told her to shut the fuck up. Dad never swore. I heard something, a crack from outside. Mom came back in, holding a clump of snow over her right eye. Dad followed her. He didn’t say anything. He had this look on his face. I’d never seen before, like he was a different person. He grabbed my survival radio, the one people’d try to buy … or steal, for a long time, and went back out toward the RV. He came back ten minutes later, without the radio but with a big bucket of this steaming hot stew. It was so good! Mom told me not to eat too fast. She fed me in little spoonfuls. She looked relieved. She was crying a little. Dad still had that look. The look I had myself in a few months, when Mom and Dad both got sick and I had to feed them.

[I kneel to examine the bone pile. They have all been broken, the marrow extracted.]

Winter really hit us in early December. The snow was over our heads, literally, mountains of it, thick and gray from the pollution. The camp got silent. No more fights, no more shooting. By Christmas Day there was plenty of food.

[She holds up what looks like a miniature femur. It has been scraped clean by a knife.]

They say eleven million people died that winter, and that’s just in North America. That doesn’t count the other places: Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia. I don’t want to think about Siberia, all those refugees from southern China, the ones from Japan who’d never been outside a city, and all those poor people from India. That was the first Gray Winter, when the filth in the sky started changing the weather. They say that a part of that filth, I don’t know how much, was ash from human remains.

[She plants a marker above the pit.]

It took a lot of time, but eventually the sun did come out, the weather began to warm, the snow finally began to melt. By mid-July, spring was finally here, and so were the living dead.

[One of the other team members calls us over. A zombie is half buried, frozen from the waist down in the ice. The head, arms, and upper torso are very much alive, thrashing and moaning, and trying to claw toward us.]

Why do they come back after freezing? All human cells contain water, right? And when that water freezes, it expands and bursts the cell walls. That’s why you can’t just freeze people in suspended animation, so then why does it work for the living dead?

[The zombie makes one great lunge in our direction; its frozen lower torso begins to snap. Jesika raises her weapon, a long iron crowbar, and casually smashes the creature’s skull.]

Udaipur Lake Palace, Lake Pichola, Rajasthan, India

[Completely covering its foundation of lagniwas Island, this idyllic, almost fairy-tale structure was once a maharaja’s residence, then a luxury hotel, then a haven to several hundred refugees, until an outbreak of cholera killed them all. Under the direction of Project Manager Sardar Khan, the hotel, like the lake and surrounding city, is finally beginning to return to life. During his recollections. Mister Khan sounds less like a battle-hardened, highly educated civilian engineer, and more like a young, frightened lance corporal who once found himself on a chaotic mountain road.]

I remember the monkeys, hundreds of them, climbing and skittering among the vehicles, even over the tops of people’s heads. I’d watched them as far back as Chandigarh, leaping from roofs and balconies as the living dead filled the street. I remember them scattering, chattering, scrambling straight up telephone poles to escape the zombies’ grasping arms. Some didn’t even wait to be attacked; they knew. And now they were here, on this narrow, twisting Himalayan goat track. They called it a road, but even in peacetime it had been a notorious death trap. Thousands of refugees were streaming past, or climbing over the stalled and abandoned vehicles. People were still trying to struggle with suitcases, boxes; one man was stubbornly holding on to the monitor for a desktop PC. A monkey landed on his head, trying to use it as a stepping-stone, but the man was too close to the edge and the two of them went tumbling over the side. It seemed like every second someone would lose their footing. There were just too many people. The road didn’t even have a guardrail. I saw a whole bus go over, I don’t even know how, it wasn’t even moving. Passengers were climbing out of the windows because the doors of the bus had been jammed by foot traffic. One woman was halfway out the window when the bus tipped over. Some-thing was in her arms, something clutched tightly to her. I tell myself that it wasn’t moving, or crying, that it was just a bundle of clothes. No one within arm’s reach tried to help her. No one even looked, they just kept streaming by. Sometimes when I dream about that moment, I can’t tell the difference between them and the monkeys.

I wasn’t supposed to be there, I wasn’t even a combat engineer. I was with the BRO ; my job was to build roads, not blow them up. I’d just been wandering through the assembly area at Shimla, trying to find what re-mained of my unit, when this engineer, Sergeant Mukherjee, grabbed me by the arm and said, “You, soldier, you know how to drive?”

I think I stammered something to the affirmative, and suddenly he was shoving me into the driver’s side of a jeep while he jumped in next to me with some kind of radiolike device on his lap. “Get back to the pass! Go! Go!” I took off down the road, screeching and skidding and crying desperately to explain that I was actually a steamroller driver, and not even fully qualified at that. Mukherjee didn’t hear me. He was too busy fiddling with the device on his lap. “The charges are already set,” he explained. “All we have to do is wait for the order!”

“What charges?” I asked. “What order?”

“To blow the pass, you arse head!” he yelled, motioning to what I now-recognized as a detonator on his lap. “How the hell else are we going to stop them’”

I knew, vaguely, that our retreat into the Himalayas had something to do with some kind of master plan, and that part of that plan meant closing all the mountain passes to the living dead. I never dreamed, however, that I would be such a vital participant! For the sake of civil conversation, I will not repeat my profane reaction to Mukherjee, nor Mukherjee’s equally profane reaction when we arrived at the pass and found it still full of refugees.

“It’s supposed to be clear!” he shouted. “No more refugees!”

We noticed a soldier from the Rashtriya Rifles, the outfit that was supposed to be securing the road’s mountain entrance, come running past the jeep. Mukherjee jumped out and grabbed the man. “What the hell is this?” he asked; he was a big man, tough and angry. “You were supposed to keep the road clear.” The other man was just as angry, just as scared. “You want to shoot your grandmother, go ahead!” He shoved the sergeant aside and kept going.

Mukherjee keyed his radio and reported that the road was still highly active. A voice came back to him, a high-pitched, frantic younger voice of an officer screaming that his orders were to blow the road no matter how-many people were on it. Mukherjee responded angrily that he had to wait till it was clear. If we blew it now, not only would we be sending dozens of people hurtling to their deaths, but we would be trapping thousands on the other side. The voice shot back that the road would never be clear, that the only thing behind those people was a raging swarm of God knows how-many million zombies. Mukherjee answered that he would blow it when the zombies got here, and not a second before. He wasn’t about to commit murder no matter what some pissant lieutenant…

But then Mukherjee stopped in midsentence and looked at something over my head. I whipped around, and suddenly found myself staring into the face of General Raj’Singh! I don’t know where he came from, why he was there … to this day no one believes me, not that he wasn’t there, but that I was. I was inches away from him, from the Tiger of Delhi! I’ve heard that people tend to view those they respect as appearing physically taller than they actually are. In my mind, he appears as a virtual giant. Even with his torn uniform, his bloody turban, the patch on his right eye and the bandage on his nose (one of his men had smashed him in the face to get him on the last chopper out of Gandhi Park). General Raj-Singh…

[Khan takes a deep breath, his chest filling with pride.]

“Gentlemen,” he began … he called us “Gentlemen” and explained, very carefully, that the road had to be destroyed immediately. The air force, what was left of it, had its own orders concerning the closure of all mountain passes. At this moment, a single Shamsher fighter bomber was already on station above our position. If we found ourselves unable, or unwilling, to accomplish our mission, then the Jaguar’s pilot was ordered to execute “Shiva’s Wrath.” “Do you know what that means?” Raj-Singh asked. Maybe he thought I was too young to understand, or maybe he must have guessed, somehow, that I was Muslim, but even if I’d known absolutely nothing about the Hindu deity of destruction, everyone in uniform had heard rumors about the “secret” code name for the use of thermonuclear weapons.

Wouldn’t that have destroyed the pass?

Yes, and half the mountain as well! Instead of a narrow choke point hemmed in by sheer cliff walls, you would have had little more than a massive, gently sloping ramp. The whole point of destroying these roads was to create a barrier inaccessible to the living dead, and now some ignorant air force general with an atomic erection was going to give them the perfect entrance right into the safe zone]

Mukherjee gulped, not sure of what to do, until the Tiger held out his hand for the detonator. Ever the hero, he was now willing to accept the burden of mass murderer. The sergeant handed it over, close to tears. General Raj-Singh thanked him, thanked us both, whispered a prayer, then pressed his thumbs down on the firing buttons. Nothing happened, he tried again, no response. He checked the batteries, all the connections, and tried a third time. Nothing. The problem wasn’t the detonator. Something had gone wrong with the charges that were buried half a kilometer down the road, set right in the middle of the refugees.

This is the end, I thought, we’re all going to die. All I could think of was getting out of there, far enough away to maybe avoid the nuclear blast. I still feel guilty about those thoughts, caring only for myself in a moment like that.

Thank God for General Raj-Singh. He reacted… exactly how you would expect a living legend to react. He ordered us to get out of here, save ourselves and get to Shimla, then Turned and ran right into crowd. Mukherjee and I looked at each other, without much hesitation, I’m happy to say, and took oft after him.

Now we wanted to be heroes, too, to protect our general and shield him from the crowd. What a joke. We never even saw him once the masses enveloped us like a raging river. I was pushed and shoved from all directions. I don’t know when I was punched in the eye. I shouted that I needed to get past, that this was army business. No one listened. I fired several shots in the air. No one noticed. I considered actually firing into the crowd. I was becoming as desperate as them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mukherjee go tumbling over the side with another man still fighting for his rifle. I turned to tell General Raj-Singh but couldn’t find him in the crowd. I called his name, tried to spot him above the other heads. I climbed onto the roof of a microbus, trying to get my bearings. Then the wind came up; it brought the stink and moan whipping through the valley. In front of me, about half a kilometer ahead, the crowd began running. I strained my eyes… squinted. The dead were coming. Slow and deliberate, and just as tightly packed as the refugees they were devouring.

The microbus shook and I fell. First I was floating on a sea of human bodies, then suddenly I was beneath them, shoes and bare feet trampling on my flesh. I felt my ribs crack, I coughed and tasted blood. I pulled myself under the microbus. My body was aching, burning. I couldn’t speak. I could barely see. I heard the sound of the approaching zombies. I guessed that they couldn’t be more than two hundred meters away I swore I wouldn’t die like the others, all those victims torn to pieces, that cow I saw struggling and bleeding on the banks of the Satluj River in Rupnagar. I fumbled for my sidearm, my hand wouldn’t work. I cursed and cried. I thought I’d be religious at that point, but I was just so scared and angry I started beating my head against the underside of the van. I thought if I hit it hard enough I could bash in my own skull. Suddenly there was a deafening roar and the ground rose up underneath me. A wave of screams and moans mixed with this powerful blast of pressurized dust. My face slammed into the machinery above, knocking me cold.

The first thing I remember when I came to was a very faint sound. At first I thought it was water. It sounded like a fast drip… tap-tap-tap, like that. The tap became clearer, and I suddenly became aware of two other sounds, the crackle of my radio… how that wasn’t smashed I’ll never know… and the ever-present howling of the living dead. I crawled out from under the microbus. At least my legs were still working well enough to stand. I realized that I was alone, no refugees, no General Raj-Singh. I was standing among a collection of discarded personal belongings in the middle of a deserted mountain path. In front of me was a charred cliff wall. Beyond it was the other side of the severed road.

That’s where the moan was coming from. The living dead were still coming for me. With eyes front and arms outstretched, they were falling in droves off the shattered edge. That was the tapping sound: their bodies smashing on the valley floor far below.

The Tiger must have set the demolition charges off by hand. I guessed he must have reached them the same time as the living dead. I hope they didn’t get their teeth in him first. I hope he’s pleased with his statue that now stands over a modern, four-lane mountain freeway. I wasn’t thinking about his sacrifice at that moment. I wasn’t even sure if any of this was real. Staring silently at this undead waterfall, listening to my radio report from the other units:

“Vikasnagar: Secure.”

“Bilaspur: Secure.”

“Jawala Mukhi: Secure.”

“All passes report secure: Over!”

Am I dreaming, I thought, am I insane?

The monkey didn’t help matters any. He was sitting on top of the microbus, just watching the undead plunge to their end. His face appeared so serene, so intelligent, as if he truly understood the situation. I almost wanted him to turn to me and say, “This is the turning point of the war! We’ve finally stopped them! We’re finally safe!” But instead his little penis popped out and he peed in my face.