World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

By then, yes, but I knew trying to explain it to them would be a hopeless cause. I just took their
money and sent them on their way. I was lucky. I never had to deal with the problems of sea
smuggling.
That was more difficult?
And dangerous. My associates from the coastal provinces were the ones who had to contend with
the possibility of an infected breaking its bonds and contaminating the entire hold.
What did they do?
I’ve heard of various “solutions.” Sometimes ships would pull up to a stretch of deserted coast—it
didn’t matter if it was the intended country, it could have been any coast—and “unload” the
infected renshe onto the beach. I’ve heard of some captains making for an empty stretch of open
sea and just tossing the whole writhing lot overboard. That might explain the early cases of
swimmers and divers starting to disappear without a trace, or why you’d hear of people all around
the world saying they saw them walking out of the surf. At least I never had to deal with that.
I did have one similar incident, the one that convinced me it was time to quit. There was this
truck, a beat-up old jalopy. You could hear the moans from the trailer. A lot of fists were slamming
against the aluminum. It was actually swaying back and forth. In the cab there was a very wealthy
investment banker from Xi’an. He’d made a lot of money buying up American credit card debt. He
had enough to pay for his entire extended family. The man’s Armani suit was rumpled and torn.
There were scratch marks down the side of his face, and his eyes had that frantic fire I was
starting to see more of every day. The driver’s eyes had a different look, the same one as me, the
look that maybe money wasn’t going to be much good for much longer. I slipped the man an extra
fifty and wished him luck. That was all I could do.
Where was the truck headed?
Kyrgyzstan.
METEORA, GREECE
[The monasteries are built into the steep, inaccessible rocks, some buildings
sitting perched atop high, almost vertical columns. While originally an attractive
refuge from the Ottoman Turks, it later proved just as secure from the living
dead. Postwar staircases, mostly metal or wood, and all easily retractable, cater
to the growing influx of both pilgrims and tourists. Meteora has become a
popular destination for both groups in recent years. Some seek wisdom and
spiritual enlightenment, some simply search for peace. Stanley MacDonald is one
of the latter. A veteran of almost every campaign across the expanse of his