Zombies (6 page)
Like necromantic zombies, revenants do not need brains, their own or anyone else's. Many a novice zombie fighter has died after scoring a perfect zombie head shot on a revenant. In fact, guns are nearly useless against a revenant, unless the shooter can manage to completely blow the head off the creature or saw through its neck with automatic fire.
Decapitation remains a revenant's only weak point, and even then it is not fatal. The removal or destruction of the head of a revenant causes a temporary paralysis in the creature. This will usually last for no more than a few minutes, after which time all of the pieces of the body will again reanimate. Depending on the revenant, some will continue to operate in multiple pieces, while others will attempt to gather their pieces back together. One account even has the revenant sewing his severed head back onto the stump of his neck.
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There are only two ways to permanently stop a revenant. The first is appeasement. A revenant that has fulfilled its drive will eventually return to its grave and rest. Where the drive is in quest of a specific object, it is often best to just give the object to them. (After all, the irrational desire to possess it is what created the revenant in the first place.) Where a revenant is on a quest for blood, either for revenge or general anger, more drastic means must be used. To destroy a revenant, it must be totally obliterated. Certainly there are plenty of means to accomplish this â fire, acid, throwing them in volcanoes, and nuclear detonation all work, but rarely are these practical in the field. For that reason, experienced revenant hunters will either attempt to lure the target into some sort of holding cell or go for decapitation. Once decapitated, the creature can be bound in either chains or metal cable (rope is not strong enough), and then quickly transported to the nearest disposal facility, normally a crematorium.
In most ancient and medieval societies, discussions of the undead were considered taboo and in some cases heresy. For that reason more than any other, few tales of ancient zombies have survived to the present day in any complete form. However, the Vikings are a notable exception, and many of their stories contain encounters with various forms of undead. While the stories of the zombie-like
draugr
must be read with a skeptical eye, the similarities between these creatures and revenants seem too close to be coincidental.
Sometimes called
aptrgangr
, meaning “after-goer,” the
draugr
are literally walking corpses. While they tend to show few signs of decay, their skin is normally described as either “black as death” or “corpse-pale.”
Draugr
are also often described as giants or able to change their size at will. Some animate necrologists have argued that this could be the result of corpse bloating, but it is perhaps more likely a simple literary device to explain the strength and toughness of these creatures. Certainly there is no other corporeal undead that has ever shown such an ability.
In the sagas, the motivations of
draugr
are rarely explained, as they are often presented merely as a foil for the hero. That said, most have a tendency to haunt a specific area or continuously attack one family or village. Considering the commonality of blood feuds in medieval Norse society, it is easy to see these “hauntings” as the continuation of a feud from beyond the grave, an idea that fits well with the drive of most revenants.
There is one subvariety of
draugr
, the
haugbui
, or “mound-dweller,” that displays a very clear drive. These creatures always stay in, or very near to, their burial mound in order to guard their burial treasure. While it is nowhere stated in the sagas, it is likely that these
haugbui
were notably greedy or miserly individuals in life, persons who valued the accumulation of wealth above all other things. It is a sad but not uncommon formula still occasionally seen in modern revenants.
Despite their literary flourishes, the Norse were a practical people, and if they didn't always explain the origins or motivations of
draugr
, they were at least clear on how to dispose of them. Since normal weapons were mostly ineffective against
draugr
, the heroes of the sagas generally had to wrestle them into submission; a fine idea for your ancient Viking heroes, a particularly bad idea for any modern hunter. Once the
draugr
was subdued, the Vikings would cut the head off it, which seems to have caused temporary paralysis much as it does with modern revenants. The two pieces of the
draugr
would then be burned down to ashes and these ashes were then buried or tossed into the sea.
Complete incineration â it worked for the Vikings; it still works today.
In the animate necrology community, the terms “reanimate” and “reawaken” have distinct meanings. A corpse reanimates when it becomes a zombie through magical, chemical, or viral means. Revenants, on the other hand, are said to reawaken due to their greater intelligence and awareness.
Most revenants reawaken within a year of their death, but this is by no means a certainty. The record for the longest period of “initial death dormancy” is held by the World War II Japanese soldier, Tadamichi Giichi, who died on Okinawa in 1945 and returned to battle the Allies again in 1992.
Cremation also serves as the best form of prevention; ashes do not reanimate. Otherwise, preventing a revenant remains incredibly difficult. Despite vast amounts of research, predicting who will return as a revenant remains a fool's game. Even if you did know or suspect a specific person will return, if you aren't willing to cremate the body, then the next best thing is to wrap it in the strongest chains available, a rather tough sell to the next of kin.
In the final analysis, there is little that can be done to prevent revenants. Even if they are not fully understood, they seem to be a natural part of this world. We can only deal with each one individually as and when they claw their way up out of the ground.
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Many leading animate necrologists still argue that there is a metaphysical element to the process. However, discussions of Satan or other embodiments of evil are beyond this investigation.
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Despite many rumors and reports to the contrary, revenants are the only zombie type whose severed limbs often continue to move independently of the rest of the corpse for more than a few seconds.
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Found in Chapter 32 of L. Murdick's
Memoirs
. The unpublished manuscript is held in the special collections department of Appalachian University.
The world changed on July 16, 1945, the day that Robert J. Oppenheimer and his team test-fired the “Gadget” on the White Plains Proving Ground in New Mexico. The detonation of that first nuclear bomb heralded in an “Atomic Age” for mankind, but it also caused a subtle change in the chemical makeup of the planet. Through means that are still not clearly understood, the nuclear explosions of 1945 caused an “excitement” in the molecules of the atmosphere. This in turn excited the water vapor in the air,
which fell to earth, infecting the rivers and seas and eventually the ground itself. The effect was not a cataclysm as some had predicted, but a slight change to the physical and chemical laws of nature. It changed the boiling point and freezing point of water by one-hundredth of a degree. It made certain types of metal alloys impossible to cast. And perhaps most importantly, it brought about the birth of a new variety of zombie.
The term “atomic zombie” is slightly misleading. The explosion of the first atom bomb did not create any zombies, nor did the bombs dropped on Japan. Instead, they affected the world in such a way that future chemical processes would produce zombies. In fact, “chemical zombie” would probably be a
more accurate term. While radiation remains the most common stimulus for an atomic zombie outbreak, it is not necessary. Nor are most atomic zombies radioactive (see notes below on “
irradiated zombies
”). For example, the Amazon River basin has seen several atomic zombie outbreaks due to certain combinations of nonradioactive industrial sludge being dumped into the river. Still, perhaps the “Atomic Age” deserves its own zombie, and by now the term is in common usage and would be difficult to change.
There are many who argue that 1945 was the most important year in the war against the undead, as it marked a vital turning point. With the defeat of Nazi Germany, the forces of necromancy were scattered far and wide, and many of its premier practitioners were killed. Yet out of the ashes of World arose, a nightmare not born of human evil, but of the seemingly random misapplication of science. The zombie threat no longer hid in the shadows, but instead, it waited peacefully in graveyards and morgues. Its potential now hangs in the air all around us, waiting for a chemical spark to bring the dead back to their feet.
While various forms of radiation can play a hand in the creation of an atomic zombie, most of these undead are themselves inert. However, because zombies are immune to all but the most powerful forms of radiation, it is possible for them to become irradiated. Irradiated zombies, or “rad zombies” for short, are walking dead that have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and now carry that radiation inside their lifeless shell. Depending on the level of irradiation, these zombies can burn or blister flesh with their touch or even with their breath. Even low-level rad zombies are incredibly dangerous, as prolonged exposure in their vicinity can lead to radiation sickness, cancer, and death.
The first reports of rad zombies came from Russia during the Gulag Uprisings. Sensing crisis, the Soviet military attempted to employ targeted nuclear weapons to stop the threat. Although these weapons effectively fried zombies within a limited “lethal zone,” the fallout irradiated most of the rest. Since the military didn't realize this at the time, huge numbers of soldiers were exposed and died needless, painful deaths due to radiation poisoning. Since then, most countries have removed nuclear weapons from their anti-zombie arsenal. These days, rad zombies are most commonly found in the vicinity of nuclear power plants or nuclear waste dumps.
Becoming irradiated appears to have little or no effect on the zombie. It becomes neither stronger nor weaker. Theoretically, any type of zombie is capable of becoming irradiated, though to date there have been no reports of revenant or necromantic rad zombies.
Due to the ongoing possibility of rad zombies, most government-sponsored zombie-hunter teams now carry Geiger counters as standard equipment.
Looking back, it is now apparent that atomic zombie outbreaks began as early as 1946. These proved to be small, isolated incidents. Most were written off as the work of rogue necromancers and quickly forgotten. Then, in the 1950s, rumors began to leak through the Iron Curtain of massive uprisings in the eastern gulags of the Soviet Union. The underground press was filled with sensationalist tales of prisoners going wild, tearing their guards apart with their teeth and hands, and even turning to cannibalism. The Soviet Union called it Western propaganda; the Free World hoped it marked the beginnings of a revolution. Only a few knew the truth. In 1958, the Soviet military surrounded and closed off the city of Magadan as part of a special “military maneuver.” Only in the last year or two have a few accounts of the Magadan disaster made it to the Western world.