[The room is bare except for a table, two chairs, and a large wall mirror, which is almost sure to be one-way glass. I sit across from my subject, writing on the pad provided for me (my transcriber has been forbidden for “security reasons”).
Maria Zhuganova’s face is worn, her hair is graying, her body strains the seams
of the fraying uniform she insists on wearing for this interview. Technically we are alone, although I sense watching eyes behind the room’s one-way glass.]
We’ll be returning to this setting to later find out what’s actually going on here, but naturally there’s no context because the claim this is an oral history is getting flimsier by the minute. To spoil it, here’s the reason why we’re finally getting interviews with female character who got anything done: because they’re now imprisoned broodmares to repopulate Russia.
But hey, at least the interviews are no longer totally unbalanced genderwise and at least women can be seen to do things other than be homemakers or infants.
We didn’t know that there was a Great Panic. We were completely isolated. About a month before it began, about the same time as that American newswoman broke the story, our camp was placed on indefinite communication blackout.
So apparently somehow a drug pushed through in America using our shoddy idiot government was enough to convince the entire rest of the world it worked and so the “Great Panic” totally hit them all together. How did this go down in Europe? Were they just all “hot damn apparently we already approved this wonderdrug let’s buy lots?” or something?
Anyway, so, they’re cut off and no one will tell them why, including a plain-clothed civilian who just seemed to appear one day out of nowhere. He was a mean little bastard, with a thin, rat face. That’s what we called him: “Rat Face.”
“Rat Face” will actually be a pretty reasonable guy.
So, they’re sent to question everyone in the mountains about zombies only without knowing if they’re zombies because it’s just self-evident every single government would want to keep the zombies thing under control. The medics do know what they’re looking for, and somehow Russia’s amazing discipline keeps them from talking. Because Russia totally has that thing.
It didn’t make sense, nothing did. We once found a whole cache of weapons, 74s, a few older 47s, plenty of ammo, probably bought from some corrupt opportunist right in our battalion. We didn’t know who the weapons belonged to; drug runners, or the local gangsters, maybe even those supposed “Reprisal Squads” that were the reason for our deployment in the first place. And what did we do? We left it all. That little civilian, “Rat Face,” he had a private meeting with some of the village elders.
And Russia seems to actually know what they’re doing. They know people need weapons to keep the zombie plague back and they let them keep it. So why the fuck are they lying to their soldiers, or actually, why the fuck are they failing to tell their soldiers more productive lies than dead silence? And of course morale plummets and everyone gets jumpy.
Suddenly this child, this little girl came running down the only road in town. She was crying, obviously terrified. She was chattering to her parents…I wish I could have taken the time to learn their language…and pointing across the field. There was a tiny figure, another little girl, staggering across the mud toward us.
So evil Rat Face orders the zombie shot and the soldier refuses. Instead of blowing the guy’s head off to show how Russia handles refusal, he just goes out and shoots the zombie himself.
Then they still don’t tell anyone anything, because clearly, that’s helpful.
the only thing I could feel was fear. I kept thinking about what Baburin had said, that something bad was going to happen. I just wanted to go home, see my parents. What if there’d been some horrible terrorist attack? What if it was a war? My family lived in Bikin, almost within sight of the Chinese border.
“These are zombies, not people. To protect the actual civilians and actual little girls and the rest of Russia where your friends and family are, it must be stopped here. We don’t want anyone else finding out, so we took your phones to prevent you from telling other people about this secret that is only in this area.”
There. That’s all they needed to say. Diseases can start anywhere and it’d be totally plausible that this disease had popped up in some out of the way place and needed stopping before it hit populated areas. Instead, everyone naturally worries it’s even worse elsewhere.
She in particular is so terrified she gets so sick even Russia cares and misses patrol, so she also misses her patrol dragging a zombie back to base and only sees it at the end. The author seems to really like not showing a complete picture of anything, come to think.
“No more lies! No more orders to shoot civilians on sight! he shouts, despite the fact he’s about to announce that actually they were being told to shoot undead, because hey, since when has sense been present here. He stabbs the zombie lots and shows she’s undead.
“What if these things are everywhere? What if they’re back home, with our families right now!”
See, lying would’ve solved this. When you keep information from people, this is exactly where their fears go.
Right as he does this they’re attacked and shackled so their revolt doesn’t really go anywhere.
Was that the Decimation?
No, that was the beginning. We weren’t the first army unit to rebel. It had actually started about the time the MPs first closed down the base. About the time we staged our little “demonstration,” the government had decided how to restore order.
[She straightens her uniform, composes herself before speaking.]
To “decimate”…I used to think it meant just to wipe out, cause horrible damage, destroy…it actually means to kill by a percentage of ten, one out of every ten must die…and that’s exactly what they did to us.
Really? Because Russia has done the traditional Roman decimation to their troops within living memory. (Hell, that factoid is presumably what gave the author the idea.) Also, I’m just generally suspicious that the Russian word had exactly the same meaning drift as the English version.
So anyway they were lectured on not being selfish and disobedient and then told to vote on which member of their group they’d kill by stoning them to death if they liked free will so much.
[She sighs softly, glancing over her shoulder at the one-way glass.]
Brilliance. Sheer fucking brilliance. Conventional executions might have reinforced discipline, might have restored order from the top down, but by making us all accomplices, they held us together not just by fear, but by guilt as well. We could have said no, could have refused and been shot ourselves, but we didn’t. We went right along with it. We all made a conscious choice and because that choice carried such a high price, I don’t think anyone ever wanted to make another one again. We relinquished our freedom that day, and we were more than happy to see it go. From that moment on we lived in true freedom, the freedom to point to someone else and say “They told me to do it! It’s their fault, not mine.” The freedom, God help us, to say “I was only following orders.”
Wow, it’s like all of military history is wrong and abusing your troops makes them super loyal.
Also, apparently none of them just drew straws despite that being the traditional way to pick who dies – hell, it’s even traditional for decimations.