World War Zed

17. Interview with: Alastair Klinsman

Nova Sofala, Mozambique, East Africa

Interview with: Alastair Klinsman

Due to the surroundings in which much of our little chat is conducted, it's not so much an interview as a shouting match. Alastair has taken me up in his little bubble-fronted helicopter, a vehicle that in times past was used to track the big game herds across the country of Mozambique. We sit in the cramped Perspex globe, the rotor buzzing noisily above our heads, our earplugs in place, and heads close together to facilitate conversation. Other than the swarm, there's not much else to see. As with much of the world following the Infection, there are few remaining wild species. Indeed, there are few animals left in Africa at all now, other than the domesticated few that survived in the various strongholds, or those that managed to survive at altitude or under the ground. Virtually every large mammal on the continent has disappeared, the only blessing perhaps that they were eaten rather than becoming Zombies themselves.

As is becoming more and more evident as we continue on, the only herds left now are the vast swarms of the Infected. Alastair talks me through the basics of his job as we hover over a swarm.

"I used to work as a Ranger for the government, tracking game, watching out for poachers, directing other Rangers and so on. Now, I think I'm one of only a couple of guys left on the whole continent with a helicopter license.

"Now, if you look out of the window there, you can see we're approaching the coast. You see now why we track them? This swarm is about to drop off the east coast of Africa and hence off the map. It'll probably head towards India, but that is by no means certain. We still don't know what, if anything, guides the swarms, how susceptible they are to ocean currents, deterioration due to the seawater, or anything else really. We do know they keep re-appearing though.

"Although the African military disposed of tens of thousands of them as they marched down through Africa, there aren't that many of the African people left to fight them, so all they could do was keep them moving, picking them off as they went through. It's a guerrilla tactic they use rather well. The military have a group of fast moving cars at the front of the swarm; these drive along in front of the swarm, occasionally racing back down the line to draw them on or change the direction, making a lot of noise and keeping the Zeds stumbling onwards. If they do it right, they can string out the swarm and give the snipers who are stationed along the route the chance to pick off the Zeds as they pass. Sometimes, they can separate off a smaller group too and lead them into a killing zone. They've even managed to dig some mass graves in preparation. With those, they lead the smaller groups of Zeds into them, killing them in-situ so they don't have to drag the corpse into the hole. Saves a bit of work, which in this heat is a blessing, and we haven't really got the facility to keep knocking them out at night as we haven't got many places back on the national grid yet.

"Once a swarm starts, they set up that God awful moaning and other Zeds start joining in, and before long you get a chain swarm, a continuously growing band of Zeds that just goes on and on as they attract their little friends to the party.

"It's a long, slow, dangerous, and tedious process. We lost a pilot the other day when his rotor failed; he'd not been paying attention and had drifted over the top of the swarm he was following. So, when he went down in the middle of them, he had no chance. I'd like to think he was dead on impact if you know what I mean. 

"If you notice our position here, we're close enough to see what they're doing, but not so close that if we have to ditch we won't be able to get away. Well, that's the idea anyway.

"If we get a bit closer to the edge of the coast here, you can see that the Zeds have found a low point in the cliffs. A bit further out, there's a boat there, just off the shore. That'll be playing a bit of Metallica or something through massive speakers, the boys like a bit of heavy metal, and Celine Dion just doesn't seem appropriate for some reason, not enough bass perhaps. It's there to lure them down into the water rather than entertain the troops though. I know it seems like we're passing the buck a little by letting them disappear into the waves, but we've tagged a huge number of them, so we'll be able to track them and see if any of them splinter off into smaller groups.