Rise Of The Smart Zombies

"Life sucks, and then you die, and then you come back," Russell Jackson III said to himself. The towering, dark-skinned and bald-headed African American man suppressed a shiver as he looked beyond the Rampart. The forty-meter wall was all that stood between The City and the rest of the world. In a world overrun by the flesh-eating dead, that's really saying something. Sighing, Russell lit a cigarette while looking at his surroundings. The word bleak doesn't even begin to describe the fuckery...

Behind the Rampart stood the City, and at this hour it was bustling with activity. Ordinary men and women of all hues went about their day, taking care of business. Merchants, traders, artisans, builders, and more. Each was doing his or her part to keep the City functioning. In a world overrun by the flesh-eating dead, the City is basically all that they have left. Out there in the world, there was nothing but death and desolation. The City must be protected at all costs...

Every resident of the City has his or her duties, whether it's working the fields, cleaning the streets or doing menial work in the factories. The Administration, whose members are elected from each Sector, have their say in the day to day running of the City. Above them is the Supreme Council, six men and six women who are the final decision makers when it comes to the City itself. Russell loathes the Council for deciding that he would be a Guardsman for the rest of his life. He has grown tired of the damn Rampart and staring at zombies all day.

The Rampart has guards on patrol at all times. Since the dead never sleep, neither do the Wall Guards. Russell looked at his colleague Amina Shariff, who watched the dead masses through binoculars. The tall, dark-skinned Somali woman wore military fatigues with a matching Hijab. Behind the binoculars, Amina's lovely face was twisted in grim determination. Russell and Amina have known each other for years. The Wall Guard tend to be close, since they're tasked with the safety of all. Theirs is an unenviable yet necessary task.

"There's got to be millions of them surrounding the City," Amina said, shaking her head. She looked at Russell and offered the binoculars but the older black man declined. Russell has seen enough of the Undead to last a lifetime, and then some. After a while, all of these walking, and in some cases, crawling corpses, tended to look the same. Those damned things decayed but only withered to a certain point. Whatever reanimated them in the first place saw to that. They were an eternal threat, what Mankind could not outlast. The Rampart was the City's main protection against the dead.

The City is thus called because, for all everyone knows, it is the Last City of the Living. Three million people call it home, and it is located on an island, somewhere in what used to be the United States of America. The rest of the world might have already fallen, or perhaps people continue to survive among the Undead, somewhere. The residents of The City have no way of knowing. Satellites are a thing of the past, and the same can be said for the Internet, email, cell phones, reliable radio communications, Wi-Fi and the like. Those luxuries are throwbacks to a bygone age.

"Anything interesting happening out there?" Russell asked, more out of boredom than curiosity. Amina bit her lip and took a long pause before answering. Clearly, something out there caught her attention. Shaking her head, Amina put down the binoculars and looked at Russell. There was an uncertain, almost troubled look on the young woman's face. Russell took a deep breath. Whatever had Amina spooked might be cause for concern. They ran drills and trained together. Amina didn't spook easily. Not by a long shot. Russell had utmost confidence in Amina's skills and fortitude...

"Thought I saw something," Amina said at last, and when Russell gave her a curious look, she casually shrugged. The two of them continued walking along the Rampart, saluting fellow guardsmen and guardswomen on their tour of duty. At the end of their eight-hour shift, Russell and Amina went down to the lower level. They ate supper, showered and left after giving their progress report to the incoming shift. Russell and Amina parted ways. The older man headed to Sector 7, where he lived with his wife Sybil and their son Matthew. Amina headed to her building, located in Sector 11.

Amina returned to her apartment, where her dog Harriet awaited. Smiling, Amina greeted the excitable little dog. A white-coated jack Russell and terrier mix with a black ear, Harriet the dog has been part of Amina's life for almost four years. Man's, or in this case, woman's best friend continues to be a soothing presence even during the zombie apocalypse. Amina fed Harriet some beef jerky, roast pork and then refilled her three water bowls. Tired, Amina went straight to bed. It wasn't long before she was fast asleep. The life of a post-apocalyptic soldier is far from easy...

Beyond the Rampart, the hordes of the living dead shambled, going about their day. The creatures could sense the presence of the living beyond the Rampart. The flesh of the living is the most delicious thing in the world and the Undead cannot get enough of it. Forty years after the fall of global civilization, the Undead are everywhere. The slow-moving, dull-witted dead things have somehow conquered every country. From America to Canada, from South Africa to Brazil, from Nicaragua to Cuba, from Kenya to Argentina, from China to India, the dead are everywhere. The world belongs to them now.

The Undead are strange things. They don't chase animals and ignore them for the most part. The hungry dead will ignore sheep, dogs and even wolves, paying no more attention to them than they do to trees. Once the dead see living humans, however, a frenzy comes over them. The dead don't eat animals. They eat living humans. Those things are the embodiment of Mankind's extinction level event. They've conquered every nation, every continent, every island. All that remains is the City, and the three million, four hundred thousand and seventy-seven living humans who call it home...

As the zombies shambled, eternally grasping at the Rampart and yet too dull-witted to even think of climbing it, one of them observed the wall silently. This particular zombie didn't look much different than the others. It was a fresh corpse, likely one that was human mere days ago and got infected and turned quite recently. While the others shambled, it walked with a deliberate stride, not unlike that of a living man. The thing watched the uniformed and well-armed men and women on the Rampart, and was careful to stay out of range of their weapons.

"You will fall," grumbled the thing that looked like a fresh zombie. The voice emanating from its throat was guttural yet could still pass for human. Zombies don't speak. They growl, they moan and sometimes roar. The dead feel no pain or joy, only hunger. In the deserts, under the rain and the snow, the zombies march, searching for living folk to devour. This thing has seen all of that. It watched the Rampart as the changing of the guard occurred. The evening shift replaced the day shift. Men and women with guns and night vision binoculars. The bane of the zombie world...for now.

Earlier, the thing made the mistake of walking separately from the rest of the zombie horde. On the Rampart, one of the humans spotted it. Conscious of its mistake, the thing vanished within the zombie horde. Under cover of night, the thing walked between the zombies and headed away from the City and the Rampart that protected it. The thing returned to its lair. An abandoned shopping center located in a former suburb of the City served as its dwelling and base of operations. The thing announced its presence...

"Welcome back," said a guttural yet slightly high pitch voice. The thing was greeted by something very much like itself. A tall, fresh-looking female zombie approached the thing. The two things looked at each other. They were dead...and yet, not dead. Unlike the rest of the shambling hordes of the Undead, they retained intelligence and the power of speech. The rate of decay in their bodies was significantly slower than that of their fellow Undead, resulting in their 'fresh' look.

"I found the Feeding Ground," said the thing. The female zombie's ghastly face twisted into an approximation of a smile. She flashed her fangs at her kindred. The two turned to face more of their brethren as they emerged from the shadows. Three dozen of them came forward. Male and female, young and old, fat and thin, pale-skinned and dark-skinned. All of the flavors of their former human existence, now transformed into the ageless, deathless state of the Undead.

"We shall feed," said the female zombie. The others pumped their fists into the air while shouting in exultation. The thing looked at the female zombie and the others. Four decades after the zombie apocalypse brought about the end of the world, the virus which turned humans into zombies has changed...again. A few zombies are now much smarter and quicker than the rest of the slow-moving, dull-witted hordes. Those smarter, quicker zombies were responsible for destroying most of the other human settlements.

The residents of The City lost contact with the rest of the world. They didn't know what happened to humans hiding inside bunkers or in remote islands, or underneath burning deserts. They had no idea what happened to humans who fled the infested lands in ships big and small, trying their luck in the ocean. They knew nothing of what fate befell those people living in oil rigs or men and women in submarines. Well, the smarter zombies got to them.

"We prepare," said the thing, and the female zombie nodded at him. They had no names, since names are for humans. If they bothered with names, the thing and the female zombie might have been the Adam and Eve of the smarter, faster type of Undead. They gathered weapons, ranging from rifles, pistols and knives to baseball bats, makeshift spears and more. They marched toward the City, intent on toppling the Rampart and feeding on the last remnants of Homo Sapiens. The world belongs to the smart zombies, and humans are simply in the way...