The Grave: A Zombie Novel (5 page)

For
years, the country was known as Aotearoa. Then white men settled it and renamed it New Zealand. The country had to be given a new name, one more appropriate to its new standing in the world and one that would serve as a warning to anyone crazy enough to try to go there. So it was chosen as the place for the new race, the Deathless, to live. It is called The Grave.

There was worldwide condemnation and approval in equal measure, of course, but ultimately someone had to pay the
price, and unfortunately, it was the Kiwis. The Deathless were to be put on that island and kept quarantined from the rest of the world. It had abundant life, both vegetable and animal, and it was easy to protect from terrorists. Around five million New Zealanders were forcibly relocated; some to Asia, some to Europe and many to the US. Remember, Australia had been destroyed by this point, so there was no close brother to take them in. Australia - a dead land, devoid of life, and contaminated by the disease - was almost chosen as the new home for the Deathless, but its barren, dry land and powerful heat was deemed cruel and inappropriate by the liberals. If we weren’t going to kill the new race, then we had to put them on a land that would at least give them a chance to ‘live.’ This was spoken of without any irony.

Any inhabitants of the infected countries were deemed infected and killed. There was mass genocide, civil war, and rioting. Europe and parts of Asia escaped unscathed, as did North America. The sub-equatorial regions suffered the worst. Australia was decimated and genocide took place on a scale unheard of before. The Caribbean islands were wiped off the map with a tactical nuclear strike by the US who had been taking in countless boatloads of thousands of refugees. That was when, finally, the UN stepped in. Genocide could not be tolerated any longer, they said. Some observers raised a good question: why was it tolerated at all?

So where did the Deathless come from? Were they clones, aliens, some wicked little present from Mother Nature, or a scientific quirk from some previously undiscovered creature that had hitherto remained dormant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? No, unwittingly it was human intervention. With the best of intentions, man has nearly obliterated himself. Again. The Enola Gay still flies around the globe, dropping these little gifts from time to time.

There was a massive d
rought problem in many parts of the world and it was only increasing as the years went by. Between 2130 and 2150, it was conservatively estimated that as many as ten million people died due to a lack of access to clean water: too many. A solution to this water famine was to create artificial water using the new genetic science that was shaping medical advances at that time. Electrolyte particles were allied to a new chemical substance created in 2149, commonly referred to as ‘Aqua-Gene 119.’ The resulting fusion led to a substance that had 99% of the properties of water. It looked like water, tasted like water, and yes, it even
felt
like water. It was far cheaper than desalinisation or mass migration. The only issue was that it wasn’t actual water. Pumping the human body full of chemicals has never been a good idea.

It was decided to press ahead though. Only five years
ago, millions were dying and so Aqua-Gene 119 was given the go-ahead, rushed through the testing phases, and distributed worldwide. In the driest areas, lakes and reservoirs were pumped full of the new wonder chemical. Three days is all it took to wipe out Australia forever. The African continent fell next. The central and western areas died out and much of the rest of the continent descended into war and chaos. Any survivors who had consumed the water had three days to live. That was the incubation period for the disease. It could gestate in the human intestinal tract without even being detected. It would then erupt like a volcano that had been tightly shut up for a thousand years.

The main problem with the infected
is that they cannot die, which is to say, they are already dead. And you cannot kill something that is already dead. You can nuke them certainly; obliterate them, turns their atoms inside out and wipe their very existence from the surface of the Earth. However, guns, knives, and bombs are all useless. You can chop off an arm, but they will keep fighting you. You can blow off their legs, but they will crawl on their bloody stumps to get to you. You can even take off a head, and its jaws will keep biting. With the infection, the human body became an organism designed to kill. Stopping it was achieved only by total annihilation. That is why there was so much death, and something had to be done. Corpses were walking the Earth.

S
o here we are today. The end result of man’s interference with the natural order of things is The Grave. If you want to try taking a positive out of killing nearly fifty per cent of the earth’s population, I suppose you could say it meant four billion less mouths to feed. That certainly alleviated the problem of the food mountain and the millions starving in the Third World. Unemployment was non-existent afterwards. The world had bankrupted itself, but humankind had been saved.

A
small country at the bottom of the world, thousands of miles away from the nearest living human being and cut off by vast oceans, became the new home for almost two million walking dead people. Most were dumped in Te Ika-a-Maui. The lower part of the country, Te Waipounamu, was mostly left alone, deemed unsafe for human inhabitation and too dangerous for the Deathless. Around the borders of the whole country, a peacekeeping unit was established. There is a permanent naval base with a flotilla of around fifty ships patrolling the water to make sure nobody gets in or out. Beaches were laid with mines and trip wires, and three billion miles of barbed wire were laid out along New Zealand’s borders where its once green land had met the oceans.

The fences and soldiers
are still there to keep people out. Naturally, some demanded to see their loved ones. Some wanted to kill them. Some just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. After a few incursions, nobody tried again. Lethal force is mandatory for anyone trying to enter or leave the islands. No questions are asked. No warning shots are fired. Anyone foolish enough to try to get to The Grave is executed immediately. The world cannot risk the infection getting out again. One scratch or bite from the infected is enough to turn you into one of them very,
very
quickly. A scratch or a bite allows the infection direct access into the bloodstream and the infected person has approximately thirty seconds before they die and reanimate. However, by ingesting Aqua-Gene 119 through contaminated food or water, it takes the human body between two to three days to turn: for some reason the infection lays dormant before causing death and reanimation. A drop of water, just one drop, is all it takes. There is no current method to detect if a person is infected or not, and it is not known why the death and reanimation process is so much longer. There is much work to be done on realising the damage this does to the human body.

If anyone from that island
escaped and contaminated a water supply in the Northern hemisphere, the results would be catastrophic. It was sheer luck that five years earlier, the US had erected the 500 meter wall between itself and Mexico, otherwise North America would not be here today.’

Kelly was horrified.
She had only a cursory knowledge of The Grave. It was marked on every map in every schoolroom in America and it was referred to as another country, although it had no flag. On the globe in her office, it was just two small, black triangles that she paid no attention to. To think that people had been dumped there like trash made her feel sick. And this had happened in her father’s lifetime? She struggled to imagine how horrible it must have been at that time. New York had its problems, crimes and poverty, but this was a whole new level. She looked over at Rasmus who was still asleep. She was worried that their flight path was taking them too close to the island, but surely, the pilots would account for that. The airspace would be closed and the military probably wouldn’t let them get within a hundred miles. Intrigued, she read on.

‘
The inhabitants of The Grave have been studied, but no one can agree exactly what they are. Once infected by Aqua-Gene 119, the body begins to die. Sufferers reported feeling as if they had the flu; that is until their final moments. Several subjects were monitored until the practise was deemed cruel. What we do know is that the heart withers away. It turns black, and at the last moment, contracts quickly and implodes. Those final few moments are torturous agony for anyone infected. A few seconds later though and the dead body will reanimate. Any semblance of a soul or humanity, of personality or character, is all gone; they are moving yet they are clinically dead. There are those who say that if the body is  moving, then there must be something of the person still alive. No. If the heart no longer beats, then it is no longer keeping the human body alive. If blood is no longer pumping around the body and the lungs are no longer inflating or deflating with air, then that person is no longer...well, a person. Whatever impulses and functions are operating within the body is perhaps a part of the decomposition process. Make no mistake; the Deathless are a race of people certainly, but they are not living human beings. We are dealing here with dead bodies that move around
as if they are living
. Perhaps the infection makes them act like humans so they can move amongst us and hunt us down. Perhaps it is simply a motor-neurone action, started by the infection once the body has died, and thereby enabling the body capable of seeking out food sources in order to replenish itself. Tests were briefly carried out on those subjects and the neural pathways in the brain showed no indication of life. So how do they move? How do they use their senses to find prey? All attempts at communication with the test subjects failed. They were, and still are, a mystery: a dead end.

The Deathless effectively
are rotting bodies and they can ingest only raw meat. They also take in water, preferably
infected
water it seems. The Aqua-Gene 119 chemical is like a drug to them. They cannot defecate or urinate, so it was surmised that whilst they appear dead on the outside, they are getting enough nutrients and minerals from the raw meat and water to sustain their bodies. The more they eat, the less they rot. Experts have testified that this infection almost acts like a retardation; reducing the mental power of anyone infected by Aqua-Gene 119. Instead of evolving, they are devolving. The Deathless are more akin to a prehistoric caveman, a primordial state of being, than a modern, civil human being. They show no sign of intellect or reasoning. They grunt and groan, but can’t communicate with living humans. They live with a constant need to eat. Raw meat of any kind is palatable to them, yet they cannot stomach anything else. They do not eat their own kind for their meat is already putrid, rotten and maggot-infested. Living humans are ideal.

Therefore,
these people now live in a forbidden zone where access is for highly ranked military officers only on official duties and a brave consort of scientists. They actually live on the island, buried away deep in a hidden bunker, surrounded by an impenetrable barrier, working desperately on a cure; trying to find something that will reverse the process and bring these diseased dead souls back to a more modern human state. The hope and aim is for one day to reintegrate these people back into society. I suspect it is too late for that. Nevertheless, a cure should be found. We cannot throw our arms up in the air and say, ‘Oh well, life goes on.’ For many millions, it never will again.

T
hese scientists are living in terrible danger, but their work is so important to the future of the world that they are willing to put their lives on the line. Such is the secrecy and security put around them that we might never learn the names of these people. Whoever they are, I salute them. Reliable sources have informed me that a helicopter frequently lands on the rooftop of this secretive complex and offloads supplies: boxes and crates of food, clean water, and essential equipment for the scientists. Indications are that they are quite safe. The US Embassy is believed to be the access point for this bunker. It is secure, well maintained, and able to withstand any terrorist attack. Wherever they are, God bless you. Our nation respects and believes in you.

The Grave
has been left unchecked for three years now and the ecology of the country will start to change and evolve. Without cultivation, wildlife will grow and the vegetation will flourish. We may see a very radical change to the land. Much of Te Ika-a-Maui has already begun to revert to its more natural, tropical vegetation that existed before, if reports are to be believed. Animal life, I’m sure will spread its wings far and wide. The sheep and cattle, so vital to men living there before, will die out. They are too domesticated to survive in the wild. Cattle’s stomachs will explode and nearly all bovine life will die within days or weeks of being abandoned. Some sheep might still roam free, but the majority will be dead by the time I write this report. Thirty million sheep carcasses will provide enough meat for the Deathless to live on for months if not years. Infected lakes and water supplies will mean they can live much longer than humans can. For how long, nobody truly knows yet.

As for the homes and houses, the shops and restaurants
, the cottages and power plants of this once proud nation, well they are all deserted now. The Deathless have no care or consideration for shelter. They have no need for sleep or rest. The land is but a shell, a pit to bury our dead and our secrets. Our children will be ashamed when they learn of what we have done to the world. Should we teach them everything? What, I wonder, should I tell my beautiful only child, my daughter who is barely six weeks old? We find ourselves at a crossroads. Our enemies are everywhere, terrorists are lurking in every town, and we destroy some of the most incredible places on Earth. You reap what you sow and humankind has planted the permanent seeds of death. That is the legacy of The Grave.’