A Fate Worse Than Death
Chapter 3
It was about three weeks after my encounter with the inbreeds that I ran
into Elijah 47. It was the first time I had been in contact with the male zombie
version, and had to admit that he was a formidable sight, especially wearing
that high density composite battle armor. It would have been impossible for a
normal human to carry around over 200 pounds of body and head protection, but to
the Elijah class this was like toting a bandolier of small caliber depleted
uranium cartridges.
We acknowledged each other and exchanged information concerning the
terrain and the location of Red state settlements in the vicinity. He also
informed me that he was the sole survivor of an ambush that had taken place two
days ago to the east. The other three members of Phalanx C, a new battle
concept, had either been destroyed or taken captive by a large band of heavily
armed Red state militia. Based on my limited knowledge of what I'd seen in the
line of firepower from the enemy I found this information to be difficult to
process.
It was then that I got the first inkling that the enemy had found our
weakness, a weakness that was a closely guarded secret. Our fatal flaw had been
revealed to the Red state military by a sympathizer who had managed to work his
way into the zombie manufacturing facility and gained this carefully guarded
knowledge that he carried back to Red state territory. The ambush of Phalanx C
could never have been successfully carried out without the knowledge of our
weakness.
It was a well-coordinated attack that separated the quartet of zombies,
using camouflaged pits to trap them individually. Once the zombie clambered from
the trap, it was picked off with depleted uranium shells fired from modified
shoulder launched platforms. Those shells that struck their targets removed the
head from the zombie, in most cases sending them well over 50 yards from the
body. Special teams of men raced in and captured the head, removing it from the
field of battle, causing the protoplasm to be effectively neutralized. Elijah 47
had sustained some partial damage, but managed to retreat into the woods
surrounding the ambush area. The militia chose not to follow him for obvious
reasons.
For reasons that our creators still do not understand, but finally
accepted in light of the need to get us into the field, the zombie head created
from the same protoplasm that forms the zombie's body cannot operate with any
other zombie body. Each zombie is a unique combination, its parts are not
interchangeable. I wonder what the religious folks in the Red states would say
about this little fact. On second thought, they'd still call us the devil's
spawn and do their level best to do the same thing I was trying to do to them.
Was it possible that we were all God's children after all? So this little
weakness, a tiny flaw in the DNA we carried, had the potential to ultimately
spell our own demise, now that the secret was revealed to the enemy.
For the better part of two weeks we roamed the woods, finding very
little prey. The few Red staters we did eliminate were a scruffy lot, much like
the inbreeds that had captured me. We had little to go on, since our prime
instruction was to get rid of as many Red state folk as we could find. We were
not aware that for all extents and purposes the civil war was over and the Blue
states had been almost totally eliminated, the remaining population left to die
of radiation poisoning and diseases contracted during the various biological
warfare campaigns.
Even more importantly for our survival we did not know that the zombie
terrorists like ourselves had been pretty much wiped out by Red state kill
squads armed with the kind of weaponry that made zombies very vulnerable and
thus very "killable", now that our little secret was out in the open so they
could capitalize on it. Had Elijah 47 and myself been given a little more
autonomy by our creators, we might have escaped and made our way ultimately into
central America or even further south, despite the presence of the Army of
Freedom that was waging war in South America. That however was not an option for
we zombie terrorists, so we soldiered on and the law of averages caught up with
us.
It was broad daylight, and we were moving through rough, wooded terrain.
Suddenly I was hanging in midair by one ankle, watching as a line of heavily
armed folks converged on Elijah 47. He was holding his own until he was struck
by a depleted uranium shell fired from one of those shoulder mounted launchers
he had warned me about. It hit him in the chest, blew through and forced him off
his feet for a few seconds. That was all that was required. A pair of men
carrying flame throwers set Elijah 47 afire and he tried to escape into the
woods, but had a great deal of difficulty making progress due to the huge hole
in his upper torso and the fire that was melting his body armor and impeding his
vision to a significant degree. Within a few seconds he was struck by three more
shells, blowing his body into numerous chunks and totally separating his head
from the rest of his body. I knew that he was finished. As I began to extricate
myself from the noose holding me aloft they turned their weapons on me and
everything went black until I awoke in a small concrete bunker, surrounded by
members of the local Red state militia.
I immediately realized that my head had been detatched from my body,
which was nowhere to be seen. What was left of me was mounted on some kind of
fixture that held my head firmly in its grip. The commander of this group smiled
at me and gave me a mocking salute. "Glad to see that you're alive and kicking;
that's not exactly true since we've taken the liberty of separating you from
that bundle of muscle and nerves that has caused us no end of trouble. If you're
a good little zombie and agree to certain demands I will place upon you, I'll
allow you to be reunited with that killer body. I have to admit that it's killer
in more than one way. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for me, I'm not
tempted by your body any longer thanks to a little injury I sustained in an
earlier campaign."
There was very little I could do at the moment but listen and try to use
the information to my advantage. What I heard and saw was almost unacceptable.
The civil war between the Red and Blue states had been decided in favor of the
enemy. At first I refused to accept this as truth, but as more and more evidence
was brought forward, there was no other logical conclusion. During the past
months I had become more and more uneasy about our situation; the enemy appeared
to be much stronger now and their tactics and weapons were becoming even more
sophisticated based on the encounters I'd been having with them. The added
information I received from Elijah 47 only confirmed my feelings. In order to
develop a strategy that would allow me, as a minimum, to escape and continue my
assignment, I had to assume the worse, that I was on my own for the duration.
When they showed me how they were disposing of the captured zombies, and
there were more than I imagined, it failed to evoke the response that the
commander had hoped. We zombies have no particular feelings towards anyone,
thanks to the programming we received after being formed. We have a function to
perform, which is to eliminate Red state people in any manner suitable as long
as it maximizes our probability to survive for further combat. We have no such
sentiment as loyalty, honor, fair play and the other baggage that might get in
the way of our prime function. I was however disappointed to see other zombies
being destroyed, since that lowered my probablity of surviving, which in turn
lowered my chances of carrying out my prime function. However the manner in
which they were destroyed was of no consequence.
The fact that every zombie that was shown being destroyed had its arms
and legs detached prior to the process brought back memories of my encounter
with the inbreeds. I was quick to notice that in almost all cases, especially
when it involved the Mariah class, which is the female version, the genitals
were a prime target for mutilation as the first step in ultimately destroying
the zombie. Most zombies were unified; for some strange reason the enemy thought
that having both the head and body available at the same time for destruction
made the zombie more sensitive to what was happening; nothing could be further
from the truth. I watched the reaction of the militia personnel who were
observing the screen upon which the elimination of the captured zombies was
occurring.
Their respiration increased dramatically and in nearly all cases they
became sexually aroused, especially when the Mariah zombies' genitals were being
mutilated by such means as having explosives inserted into the ersatz vagina and
detonated, being burned to ashes by flame throwers, a decidedly risky method
which more than likely resulted in some Red state casualties, and being sliced
up using machetes, Bowie knives and even axes. Breasts were also a prime target
and received similar treatment. To my way of looking at things this was a
needless waste of energy and a potential hazard to those involved. I was utterly
confused by the frequent use of various methods to hang the zombie. Breaking a
zombie's neck did nothing to really harm the zombie, it could still kill Red
staters with little inconvenience if it were relatively unscathed otherwise. I
did have to admit that decapitating the zombie by hanging it with razor or piano
wire did damage the combatant substantially since now the head and body were not
in sync.
