Finale
WENATCHEE, WASHINGTON, USA
[Joe Muhammad has just finished his latest masterpiece, a thirteen-inch statuette of a man in midshuffle, wearing a torn Baby Bjorn, staring ahead with lifeless eyes.]
I confess, I don't completely understand "Zombie Kitsch" as a, like, type of thing people buy?
Lots of people do, obviously, but for me, I genuinely don't get the appeal. Why would you want the reminder, constantly?
Uncharitably, I could call it…
I'm not going to say the war was a good thing. I'm not that much of a sick fuck, but you've got to admit that it did bring people together.
… This sort of thing. Barely disguised nostalgia for the war that "brought people together".
People don't feel comfortable saying outright that the war was just straight up good, but they talk about how it brought us together, about how it made people talk to their neighbours again, how it gave a sense of community back to us.
Bearing in mind that these same people are maintaining the American suburbs that are inherently noxious towards any sense of community - and that's a feature, not a bug - and you realise just how much this is, like, a false concern they have? They don't give a shit about "community", they're just celebrating the ascendancy of this sort of curtain-twitching judgement of your neighbours.
Don't forget, Joe was one of the people shooting squatters in abandoned houses in Californian suburbs in America's darkest days of the war.
And it's not just the neighborhood, or even the country. Anywhere around the world, anyone you talk to, all of us have this powerful shared experience. I went on a cruise two years ago, the Pan Pacific Line across the islands. We had people from everywhere, and even though the details might have been different, the stories themselves were all pretty much the same.
Ahhh, nah though.
The thing is, he's not "right" that there was some universal "wow aren't people nicer now" but he's not wrong that like…
More than anything, outside of America, most places saw the demise of individual homeowning, outside of places of profound rurality. We all live in apartments now, or houseshares.
And so yes. In that situation, you will, in point of fact, have a greater sense of community. It isn't what he
meant but it is
true.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't miss some things about the old world, mainly just stuff, things I used to have or things I used to think I could have one day. Last week we had a bachelor party for one of the young guys on the block. We borrowed the only working DVD player and a few prewar skin flicks. There was one scene where Lusty Canyon was getting reamed by three guys on the hood of this pearl gray BMW Z4 convertible, and all I could think was Wow, they sure don't make cars like that anymore.
The joyless communist in me wants to ruminate on the fact that all he misses from before the war is base consumerism, the mindless sense of aspiration that capitalism inspired in the United States.
But like, I miss touchscreen cell phones. They were the technology "of the future", like little handheld computers, with cameras and everything? They were so cool. I didn't have one when everything went wrong, but I remember thinking I'd get one for my thirteenth birthday.
Which was silly - I had been pulled out of school for a month and a half by the time my birthday came up, and we certainly weren't going into the shops by then. Hell, I doubt there were even phones available, by then.
The point I am getting at is that we all remember things we wanted before the world changed, even if we recognise them as being both unattainable and undesirable now. It is a remarkably human condition.
TAOS, NEW MEXICO, USA
[The steaks are almost done. Arthur Sinclair flips the sizzling slabs, relishing the smoke.]
Of all the jobs I've done, being a money cop was best. When the new president asked me to step back into my role as SEC chairman, I practically kissed her on the spot.
This fucking spider, my word. Once he had secured his position good and well as the necessary point of contact for all military procurement and funding, he finagled his way into the same job but for civilian investment.
As SEC Chairman, he can, and does, control the budget and goals of various organs of the Security and Exchange Commission, which in turn control… basically everything within America outside of the Government itself?
There is not a pie in America in which you will not find this man's pallid and skeletal fingers.
There's still so many challenges ahead, still so much of the country on the "turnip standard." Getting people away from barter, and to trust the American dollar again…not easy. The Cuban peso is still king, and so many of our more affluent citizens still have their bank accounts in Havana.
Arguably I'm just quoting this to go "lol" and move on, but like… I do find some of the framing here really fucked up.
Cuba is not some fucking, like, Switzerland of the Americas, you know?
It's actually a moderately complex situation, but I'll give a sort of quick summary.
I've mentioned before about how America considers it seditious to fund a union without being a member, I think? They extend this also to other forms of mutual aid network, including like, minority rights groups, bail funds, even organisations that "just" run soup kitchens or what have you.
And they aren't remotely above seizing the funds of groups like this, and
especially groups that are more extreme than that.
So lets say you are the Chairperson of - to select a random example - the Savannah Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, and you've been gathering money from a variety of sources, which you can use to keep your members safe, homed and armed, but you're really worried than the Government will freeze your assets.
The Cuban Government is willing to set up a "bank account" to keep your money safe and un-seized, and release funds to you as and when you need them. It is more complicated than that, but this is essentially the system.
Framing this like Cuba is granting bank accounts to the American bourgeoisie is pretty rich, honestly.
Just trying to solve the surplus bill dilemma is enough for any administration. So much cash was scooped up after the war, in abandoned vaults, houses, on dead bodies. How do you tell those looters apart from the people who've actually kept their hard-earned greenbacks hidden, especially when records of ownership are about as rare as petroleum?
The American fetish for ownership here is crazy. Just let people have this money. More money being spent in your economy is good, actually, but they are so perpetually scared of people having more than they've "earnt" that they're deliberately stifling their own economic recovery.
Social mobility is one of the great promises of American capitalism, but also one of its greatest nightmares.
Hollow, evil country.
We have to nail the bastards who're preventing confidence from returning to the American economy, not just the penny-ante looters but the big fish as well, the sleazebags who're trying to buy up homes before survivors can reclaim them, or lobbying to deregulate food and other essential survival commodities…
This is absurd. Genuinely fucking absurd.
The fuck do you mean housing is on an open market? The fuck do you mean by saying the only thing stopping it is "reclaiming" houses you already owned?
By drawing the line here - by saying that any houses without previous
ownership being provable are available for wholesale purchase by sleazebag slumlords, but denying the sale of houses whose owners are known? They've completely fucked over the bulk of their population.
Because, I mean… who do you figure is more likely to have survived? Individual homeowners, or landlords.
Most pre-war rental property remains in the hands of its pre-war landlord, and most other property has been consolidated into the hands of either the same landlords, or new ones.
As to the people demanding the deregulation of food? "No" is a two letter word and a full sentence, but the Americans aren't even able to enforce their regulations, so I expect they'll be discontinuing them soon enough.
Breckinridge Scott, yes, the Phalanx king, still hiding like a rat in his Antarctic Fortress of Scumditude. He doesn't know it yet, but we've been in talks with Ivan not to renew his lease. A lot of people back home are waiting to see him, particularly the IRS.
This is incredibly naive.
"Renew his lease" - there hasn't been a Russian government with control over Vostok Station since before the collapse, and the evil little bastard has made the place self-sufficient.
Unless someone is going to send soldiers across hundreds of kilometres of frigid ice - they aren't - Breckinridge Scott is going to die in comfort, like he's lived in comfort.
It's almost funny; they've propped this man up as a sort of man of blood for American Capitalism, and they're about six months away from discovering that he has successfully skirted all consequences for his part in killing billions of people.
Truly, subtlety is a lost art.
[He grins and rubs his hands together.]
Confidence, it's the fuel that drives the capitalist machine. Our economy can only run if people believe in it; like FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." My father wrote that for him. Well, he claimed he did.
It's already starting, slowly but surely. Every day we get a few more registered accounts with American banks, a few more private businesses opening up, a few more points on the Dow. Kind of like the weather. Every year the summer's a little longer, the skies a little bluer. It's getting better. Just wait and see.
Generally speaking you will find people are more convinced by your desperate efforts to boost their confidence if you don't precede them by talking about how you need people to believe in the illusion of success to boost confidence.
America is exhausted and broke. His examples of it being totally on the mend are so overtly desperate, too, it's enough to make you almost feel sorry for them.
KYOTO, JAPAN
[It is a historic day for the Shield Society. They have finally been accepted as an independent branch of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Their main duty will be to teach Japanese civilians how to protect themselves from the living dead. Their ongoing mission will also involve learning both armed and unarmed techniques from non-Japanese organizations, and helping to foster those techniques around the world. The Society's anti-firearm as well as prointernational message have already been hailed as an instant success, drawing journalists and dignitaries from almost all UN nations.
Tomonaga Ijiro stands at the head of the receiving line, smiling and bowing as he greets his parade of guests. Kondo Tatsumi smiles as well, looking at his teacher from across the room.]
The Shield Society being brought into the actual-factual Japanese military came along with their deputisation of dozens of other fascist paramilitaries, and was an obvious sign - if one were needed - of how badly they were failing as a military, or to maintain their control over various leftist groups, or even like… the Yakuza, in some places.
The Japanese government being
surprised by the betrayal when it came from these various societies was pretty unexpected, I guess, but none of the rest of this was.
I should probably put more respect on Kondo Tatsumi's name, though - for all I've dismissed him as a, like, dime a dozen pathetic grifter, he did a pretty good job at gathering together various disparate fascist cliques under his banner, and he rode out the death of Tomonaga pretty well, where a "lesser" fascist might've seen his warrior cult splinter.
You know I don't really believe any of this spiritual "BS," right? As far as I'm concerned, Tomonaga's just a crazy old hibakusha, but he has started something wonderful, something I think is vital for the future of Japan.
This demarcates the creation of a line between the cult as existed during the clearance of the Home Islands and the cult as existed once it was part of the JSDF.
It moved away from the overtly eliminationist rhetoric of being "gardeners" who had been chosen by the gods to "cleanse" Japan, and towards more "normal" militarism.
It was not a lengthy turn; once they'd spent some time hollowing out the JSDF, spreading their little tendrils through the military, they abruptly changed gear again, and Kondo once again "found his spirituality".
His generation wanted to rule the world, and mine was content to let the world, and by the world I mean your country, rule us. Both paths led to the near destruction of our homeland. There has to be a better way, a middle path where we take responsibility for our own protection, but not so much that it inspires anxiety and hatred among our fellow nations.
Incredibly grim to say outright that the flaw with the Japanese Empire was that it "inspires anxiety and hatred" whilst the flaw with the post-war Japanese was they let the Americans rule them.
Like, truly just overt Japanese Nationalism? America selecting these people as their allies is one of the more obvious signs of their incredible desperation.
They split from the JSDF maybe three months after this book came out, which was just in time to shield them from the current crisis enveloping Japan.
Giving up Kamchatka without firing a shot was… not popular. The Red Brigades all rose up because they're expecting Soviet landings on the Home Islands any day now, the Yakuza have locked down what they can hold, and most of the JSDF has broken up to align with whichever fascist warrior cult they like the most.
The final vestige of the American post-WWII consensus has at last crashed and burnt.
Armagh, Ireland
[Philip Adler finishes his drink, and rises to leave.]
We lost a hell of a lot more than just people when we abandoned them to the dead. That's all I'm going to say.
Most honest interview in the book. I think Philip Adler is a reprehensible coward with blood dripping from his hands, but I mean… he agrees with me.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
[We finish our lunch as Jurgen aggressively snatches the bill from my hand.]
Please, my choice of food, my treat. I used to hate this stuff, thought it looked like a buffet of vomit. My staff had to drag me here one afternoon, these young Sabras with their exotic tastes.
There's something to talk about with who gets spoken to, I think, in this section, amongst others.
Like, he gives no interviews to Ethiopian Jews, despite their consistent unspoken presence in the background of these sections, despite the casual denigration of their cuisine as "looking like a buffet of vomit," despite the offhanded mentions earlier that they were being used as the troops in the most dangerous deployments earlier.
A lot of things about Israel/Palestine now are like this, and I should've maybe spoken more on this earlier - I wasn't an expert, and I'm still not, but I was a little flippant. No interviews are given to people with less positive experiences of those first few transformative years, because it muddies a neat narrative.
Israel was dragged kicking and screaming into granting citizenship to Palestinians, and it was a process of stages; no doubt had the war gone differently, it would not have happened, but this was all quietly excised in favour of only platforming people with pretty rosy views on that transitional period.
I've heard it said that the Holocaust has no survivors, that even those who managed to remain technically alive were so irreparably damaged, that their spirit, their soul, the person that they were supposed to be, was gone forever. I'd like to think that's not true. But if it is, then no one on Earth survived this war.
I profoundly reject this narrative, and the entire body of thought behind it. The concept that people who survive trauma of sufficient magnitude and severity "actually" did not survive it, are actually inherently made lesser by it? No. Hate that.
Survival is not a positive trait, sure, but it certainly, definitely, is not a negative one.
ABOARD USS TRACY BOWDEN
[Michael Choi leans against the fantail's railing, staring at the horizon.]
You wanna know who lost World War Z? Whales.
Michael Choi has grown on me, I have to say.
Of all the interviewees, he's the only one I feel has a genuinely clear-eyed vision of this war. He doesn't baulk from talking about American crimes in his first interview, and he shies away from the sort of misty-eyed fantasism that tempts so many people.
Hell of a loss, and you don't have to be some patchouli stinking crunch-head to appreciate it. My dad worked at Scripps, not the Claremont girl's school, the oceanographic institute outside of San Diego. That's why I joined the navy in the first place and how I first learned to love the ocean. You couldn't help but see California grays. Majestic animals, they were finally making a comeback after almost being hunted to extinction.
Whales are one of losses that most haunt me, when tallying up species' lost in the war.
Call it sentimentality, call it a double standard, but I can stomach some of the other losses, even the ones that hurt - Rhinos, Gorillas, and god knows how many other species - because they were killed by ghouls. Is that terrible? I think it is probably terrible, but I don't feel so profoundly that they were "our fault" - even though they were?
But Whales? Whales
we killed. Hunted them down, deafened them with explosives and dragged their bloody bodies to the surface to butcher them.
It haunts me.
I've heard of random sightings of a few belugas and narwhals that survived under the Arctic ice, but there probably aren't enough for a sustainable gene pool. I know there are still a few intact pods of orcas, but with pollution levels the way they are, and less fish than an Arizona swimming pool, I wouldn't be too optimistic about their odds. Even if Mama Nature does give those killers some kind of reprieve, adapt them like she did with some of the dinosaurs, the gentle giants are gone forever.
I will say, I do think he is more down on this than I am.
People still see Whales quite a lot - there were millions before the collapse, and there's still probably a good hundred thousand. Whether there's enough of various specific species to survive, I don't know, but some of them, I think - hope, maybe - will get through this.
Oceanic biodiversity in general is in a sufficiently rapid death-spiral that I might be totally wrong, but I'd like to hope.
Kinda like that movie Oh God where the All Mighty challenges Man to try and make a mackerel from scratch. "You can't," he says, and unless some genetic archivist got in there ahead of the torpedoes, you also can't make a California gray.
[The sun dips below the horizon. Michael sighs.]
This is true, though. There's no getting it back. No matter how hard some people want to shut their eyes and pretend, there are things Man cannot undo. We killed the whales, and we just have to live in the world where we did that. There's nothing more to it.
So the next time someone tries to tell you about how the true losses of this war are "our innocence" or "part of our humanity"…
[He spits into the water.]
Whatever, bro. Tell it to the whales.
This would've been such a strong way to end this book. Fuck the vanity of it all. People want to look at this war and make some grand sweeping statement on the human condition, but it was just a tragedy. The true losses of this war were the losses. Even "just" animals.
They deserve at least to be remembered as a loss, not just… swept under the carpet.
Denver, Colorado, USA
[Todd Wainio walks me to the train, savoring the 100 percent tobacco Cuban cigarettes I've bought him as a parting gift.]
But he doesn't end it on Michael Choi's last poetic rumination. Instead we get Todd Wainio's inane burbling.
Yeah, I lose it sometimes, for a few minutes, maybe an hour. Doctor Chandra told me it was cool though. He counsels right here at the VA. He told me once that it's a totally healthy thing, like little earthquakes releasing pressure off of a fault. He says anyone who's not having these "minor tremors" you really gotta watch out for.
What a wildly damaging stance for a doctor to take.
It is actually possible to receive treatment for PTSD. You do not have to suffer "little earthquakes" of retraumatisation. American mental health is in the absolute pits, and they are increasingly just, openly failing their veterans.
I actually don't think Todd is like… lying, here. I think he was sold this bill of goods by his Doctor, and I think he believes it.
That isn't to say I don't still have my own triggers, my own trauma, but I am allowed to accept that they're bad, that I'm still damaged, that I am a work in progress. No one is there telling me it is completely fine and healthy for me to be like this, telling me to stop wanting things to improve for me, mentally.
It doesn't take much to set me off. Sometimes I'll smell something, or somebody's voice will sound really familiar. Last month at dinner, the radio was playing this song, I don't think it was about my war, I don't even think it was American. The accent and some of the terms were all different, but the chorus…"God help me, I was only nineteen."
Like, I'm better off than this. I have triggers still, but I largely know what they are? And I'm working on them.
I can't believe I'm feeling bad for Todd fucking Wainio, but America has let him down really badly over this shit.
[The chimes announce my train's departure. People begin boarding around us.]
Funny thing is, my most vivid memory kinda got turned into the national icon of the victory.
[He motions behind us to the giant mural.]
But I mean, then he pulls shit like this, where he can't help but brag about how his most "vivid memory" is now "the national icon of victory".
His entire story has spun out from being one of the soldiers to raise that fucking flag for that photo op. It is a level of grift I can't imagine. Surely it corrodes the soul to be such an overt mouthpiece for the regime?
We'd just got the word, it was VA Day. There was no cheering, no celebration. It just didn't seem real. Peace? What the hell did that mean? I'd been afraid for so long, fighting and killing, and waiting to die, that I guess I just accepted it as normal for the rest of my life. I thought it was a dream, sometimes it still feels like one, remembering that day, that sunrise over the Hero City.
So that's it. The book ends not on an acknowledgement of the pointless, incomprehensible loss of it all, but on an American soldier waxing poetic about how the true loss of the war was part of our humanity, that peace feels like a dream now, and so on.
Whatever, bro. Tell it to the whales.
Alright, comrades, that's a wrap. I don't know when I'll have time for another project - everything's pretty up in the air now, obviously. I'm being called back for the day job giving presentations on "Urban Combat in a post-Zombie environment" which is probably going to take up more of my time, but obviously I'm not mad about it.
I won't say it has been a pleasure to read through this book with you, but I'm glad I've done it, and I'm glad it's done, if that makes sense? A really interesting read into the mind of the enemy, right?
Since this is the last update, I'm not going to post donation links on this one. You should know by now who needs the help, and I won't be keeping a close enough eye on this thread to keep any links I give current.
As a general rule, though - you want to donate to established groups. I know this is going to make supporting revolutionary action in some places harder than others, but it is the only way to be relatively sure you won't fund something you seriously object to.
Even if you're in America you shouldn't just be donating any more, though. There is an opportunity we mustn't squander.
AN: Jesus fucking Christ, I did it. It's taken a year and a bit, and I've repeatedly struggled with anxiety and writer's block, but I did it!
I'd love to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has participated in the thread, everyone who has supported me in this, and everyone I've spoken to about this project in DMs or on Discord.
If anyone has any questions about, like, my lore for this, you can feel free to ask in the thread, and if I get enough, I'll maybe make a Q&A, but other than that, I'm going to bask in having completed a project.
