1954 A.D., THAN HOA, FRENCH INDOCHINA
This passage is taken from a letter written by Jean Beart Lacoutour, a French businessman living in the former colony.
The game is called “Devil Dance.” A living human is placed in a cage with one of these creatures. Our human has with him only a small blade, perhaps eight centimeters at most. . . . Will he survive his waltz with the living corpse? If not, how long will it last? Bets are taken for these and all other variables. . . . We keep a stable of them, these fetid gladiators. Most are turned from the victims of a failed match. Some we take from the street . . . we pay their families well. . . . God have mercy on me for this unimaginable sin.
This letter, along with a sizable fortune, arrived in La Rochelle, France, three months after the fall of French Indochina to Ho Chi Minh’s Communist guerrillas. The fate of Lacoutour’s “Devil Dance” is unknown. No further information has been uncovered. One year later, Lacoutour’s body arrived in France, badly decomposed, with a bullet in the brain. The North Vietnamese coroner’s explanation was suicide.
1957 A.D., MOMBASA, KENYA
This excerpt was taken from an interrogation by a British Army officer of a captured Gikuyu rebel during the Mau Mau uprising (all answers come secondhand through a translator):
Q:How many did you see?
A:Five.
Q:Describe them.
A:White men, their skin gray and cracked. Some had wounds, bite marks on parts of their bodies. All had bullet holes in their chests. They stumbled, they groaned. Their eyes had no sight. Their teeth were stained with blood. The smell of carrion announced them. The animals fled.
An argument erupts between the prisoner and the Mosai interpreter. The prisoner grows silent.
Q:What happened?
A:They came for us. We drew our lalems (Mosai weapon, similar to a machete) and sliced off their heads, then buried them.
Q:You buried the heads?
A:Yes.
Q:Why?
A:Because a fire would have given us away.
Q:You were not wounded?
A:I would not be here.
Q:You were not afraid?
A:We only fear the living.
Q:So these were evil spirits?
The prisoner chuckles.
Q:Why are you laughing?
A:Evil spirits are invented to frighten children. These men were walking death.
The prisoner gave little information for the rest of his interrogation. When asked if there were more zombies out there, he remained silent. The entire transcript appeared in a British tabloid later that year. Nothing was made of it.
1960 A.D., BYELGORANSK, SOVIET UNION
It had been suspected, since the end of the Second World War, that the Soviet troops who invaded Manchuria captured most of the Japanese scientists, data, and test subjects (zombies) involved in Black Dragon’s special project. Recent revelations have confirmed these rumors to be true. The purpose of this new Soviet project was to create a secret army of walking dead to be used in the inevitable Third World War. “Cherry Blossom,” rechristened “Sturgeon,” was conducted near a small town in Eastern Siberia whose only other structure was a large prison for political dissidents. The location ensured not only total secrecy but also a ready supply of test subjects. Based on recent findings, we are able to determine that, for some reason, the experiments went awry, causing an outbreak of several hundred zombies. What few scientists were left managed to escape to the prison. Safe behind its walls, they settled down for what was believed to be a short siege until help arrived. None did. Some historians believe that the town’s remote nature (no roads existed, and supplies had to be airlifted) prevented an immediate response. Others believed that, since the project had been started by Josef Stalin, the KGB was reluctant to inform Pre-mier Nikita Khrushchev of its existence. A third theory holds that the Soviet leadership was aware of the disaster, had ringed the area with troops to prevent a breakout, and was watching and waiting to see the result of the siege. Inside the prison walls, a coalition of scientists, military personnel, and prisoners was surviving quite comfortably. Greenhouses were constructed; wells were dug; power was improvised both by windmills and human dynamos. Radio contact was even maintained on a daily basis. The survivors reported that, given their position, they could hold out until winter, when, hopefully, the undead would freeze solid. Three days before the first autumn frost, a Soviet aircraft dropped a crude thermonuclear device on Byelgoransk. The one-megaton blast obliterated the town, the prison, and the surrounding area.
For decades, the disaster was explained by the Soviet government as a routine nuclear test. The truth was not revealed until 1992, when information began leaking to the West. Rumors of the outbreak also surfaced among older Siberians, interviewed for the first time by Russia’s newly free press. Memoirs of senior Soviet officials hinted at the true nature of the devastation. Many acknowledge that the town of Byelgoransk did exist. Others confirm that it was both a political prison and biowarfare center. Some even go so far as to admit some kind of “outbreak,” although none describe exactly what broke out. The most damaging evidence came when Artiom Zenoviev, a Russian mobster and former KGB archivist, released all copies of the government’s official report to an anonymous Western source (an act for which he was paid handsomely). The report contains radio transcripts, aerial photographs (both before and after), and depositions of both ground troops and the bomber’s air crew, along with the signed confessions of those in command of project Sturgeon. Included with this report are 643 pages of laboratory data concerning the physiology and behavioral patterns of undead test subjects. The Russians discount the entire disclosure as a hoax. If this is true, and Zenoviev is nothing more than a brilliantly creative opportunist, then why does his list of those held responsible match official records of top scientists, military commanders, and Politburo members who were executed by the KGB one month to the day after Byelgoransk was incinerated?
1962 A.D., UNIDENTIFIED TOWN, NEVADA
Details of this outbreak are surprisingly sketchy, given that it occurred within a relatively settled part of the planet within the latter half of the twentieth century. According to fragments of secondhand eyewitness accounts, scraps of yellowed newsprint, and a suspiciously vague police report, a small outbreak of zombies attacked and besieged Hank Davis, a local farmer, and three hired hands in a barn for five days and nights. When state police dispatched the ghouls and entered the barn, they found all the occupants dead. A subsequent investigation determined that the four men killed one another. More specifically, three men were slain, while the fourth took his own life. No concrete reason is given for this occurrence. The barn was more than safe from attack, and a small stock of food and water was only half depleted. The present theory is that the zombie’s incessant moaning, coupled with feelings of total isolation and helplessness, led to a complete psychological breakdown. No official explanation was given for the outbreak. The case is “still under investigation.”