Alex McGrail

Paris, France

Snow is falling in Paris, side effects of the radioactive fallout from the Arab nations. Sitting at a table in a café in front of the cracked and shattered glass pyramids of the Louvre, Lieutenant Jacques Bernard is a hardened veteran of World War Z. He offers me some coffee. I decline. He orders a cappuccino, and sips it regularly during our interview.

It began in France a few months after the outbreaks in Russia. Huge swarms almost overwhelmed Poland and Germany, and eventually came here. It was springtime. The streets were wet with rain. I remember that night.

What happened?

I was standing guard in front of a police station. I had a Heckler and Koch G36, brand-new. I was inexperienced. I figured any zombie I hit would just explode.

It didn’t work?

Of course not! Haven’t you ever fought a zombie? Automatic weapons are worse than useless against these monsters!

[He regains his composure.]

That night, it happened. About twenty of them came, versus five of us. We aimed for the torso. I remember hitting one of them square in the chest. He crumpled, and kept dragging himself towards me. Another blast shattered his eye socket, killing him. We dispatched about ten of the monsters before another wave arrived, attracted by the creatures’ moans. Now there were hundreds of them, all swarming down the street towards us. We had already used up our ammunition. Nothing seemed to work. We threw grenades, which had no effect. I remember Sergeant Augustin. He drew his combat knife, and stabbed one of them in the temple. As it died, he tried to wrench it out, but another one of the creatures bit into his arm. Augustin screamed. Eventually they all piled on top of him, a writhing, groaning mass that pulled our sergeant apart. Nothing was left of the man but some bones, picked clean of flesh, and a torso with one arm.

Did he reanimate?

Yes. It happened later that night. We had fled from the swarm, and lost them. We went back to the office building, and found Augustin, dragging himself with one arm across the streets. He came towards us, moaning. I used the last of the ammunition in the G36 to put him out of his misery. The burst split his head in two. I remember his brains spilling onto my boots. We fled the area. They had evacuated the police station. So we had no ammo, no food or water, and no way of knowing where we were. We had not been born in Paris. I’m from Normandy. We came across little sporting goods store on the outskirts of town. The windows had been smashed, and corpses littered the street in front of it. We quickly went inside, and gathered up some weapons.

What kind?

We all had hunting rifles. Ammunition was plentiful. We took all of the weapons, and went back to the police station. Augustin’s corpse was still there. We “requisitioned” ourselves an armored car.

Isn’t that considered looting?

[He shrugs]

There was no order. We were no longer needed. The city had been overrun. It was either take what was available or die.

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