#dyszombie

Alright.  Here's how you do it:

Make sure you read all that has been put out on the project, most importantly the milieu, the objective history and the character profile.  You can easily access the foundational documents by bookmarking this link.  Then when you understand all of that, start writing, and submit it, with the tag "Dyszombie".  It will go into the queue, and then, I'll review it.  If it fits the milieu well, and meets certain arbitrary quality standards, I will approve it for publication.  Or, I may ask you to resubmit it with revisions.  Or I may reject it outright.  The reasons that a submission may be rejected are 1. Because the account is irreconcilable with the milieu, 2.  the quality of writing is very poor, or 3.  It doesn't focus on the survival narrative, but instead fixates on graphic description of zombie violence.  If it can be saved, and is an interesting story, then I will ask you to revise and resubmit.

If it is approved for publication, you can feel free at that point to begin writing another account.  All accounts will bear your name, so you will get credit, and if we eventually do publish it into a book, I'll appoint an editorial staff from among the contributors, and we will do another round of selections, and whoever makes it into the book will be credited there, and will receive a share of the profits.  Until then, everything is published under IZA's CC license and you retain all your own rights as well.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  But if you want, after you read everything that is there, go ahead and put together an account of survival in a dyszombie world, and submit it.

Cheers,

ATTN potential Contributors.  The following is the dyszombie milieu.  This is "privileged" information, which means that you need to know it if you want to contribute, but your character will not necessarily know it.  (For what a Character knows outside of his or her own experiences, see the Field Report and the "Objective" History.)  Your writings must conform to these "physics", at the very least, and of course, I will have to judge whether some other ascertainment which is not covered here is in or out of the milieu.  Again, cannibalism is outside of the milieu unless it is an uninfected person eating an uninfected person.  The dyszombie will never do something like that.  If you base your story on traditional understanding of zombies, it will not meet the standard for publication and will be rejected.

The accounts themselves are all in the first person (or a modified version of the third person, where the main character is merely the narrator and is relating a story he or she witnessed.)  Similarly, the writing doesn't have to be perfect.  Few people who are writing for themselves, and fewer people who are writing for posterity, really make an effort to demonstrate that they care about spelling.  But your writing has to be clear enough to make sense.   Even fewer will care in a world where marauding hordes of undead are hunting people like animals.  The accounts should be between 2000 and 4000 words long.

1.  The accounts that you write are being "published" by a future archivist, who none of your characters will ever meet or are ever aware of.  How far in the future these accounts are collected has not been determined yet.  But at some point, someone collects these writings as he finds them, and stores them at the library where the "Objective history" was composed.  The archivist then later opens the library and discovers them. 

2.  Your characters will never refer to the infected as "Dyszombies".  That is a term coined by the author of the "objective" history.  Your character can call them whatever he or she likes, but the common term is "Z" or "Zed" or "Dead".  If you want to be respectful, call them "infected", as in the infected or an infected.  For all any of your characters know, these are zombies straight out of the movies, but they seem to violate a serious number of expectations.  Like they don't eat people.  They don't eat anything.  They kill by dismemberment or disembowelment of their target.  They don't "moan" or growl or hiss either.  They proceed, as if they are a robot gone awry, and mess up their target very quickly and very efficiently.  They are significantly more healthy and significantly stronger than the uninfected.  This means they can take a LOT more damage, feel zero pain, and never go into shock.  So they have many of the same immunities to human fighting tactics that regular zombies have, but for VERY different reasons.

3.  The Dyszombie is more or less the embodiment of the human conscience.  When a character is doing something that is morally questionable, like taking something or fighting with someone, even if necessity dictates that he do it to survive, the dyszombie will attack.  They make no distinction between someone who steals for sport and someone who steals out of necessity.  Conversely, things that we consider morally wicked behavior but aren't actually morally wicked, like gambling, will not set a dyszombie off.  The characters have zero idea, however, what sets a dyszombie off.  They labor under the paradigm that these zombies spend their days roaming, seemingly lifeless until they happen upon someone and randomly attack.  And our characters cannot understand anything other than that.  The accounts we write must present the attacks as apparently random, though they must be precipitated by some sort of anti-social behavior, like fighting, or not saying sorry to someone for pushing them.  Even if it is accidental, a dyszombie will not think of it.  They will simply attack.  The dyszombie can be defused, before the awakening, by an apology, or by dropping an item that the dyszombie thinks was stolen.

4.  There are obviously a higher concentration of dyszombies in urban areas than there are in the countryside.  And for the most part, some of the countryside has been completely cleared of dyszombie by the small handful of survivors who banded together out there.  It is from these strongholds that the combined assault that triggers the "Awakening" is launched.  If you want to set your story out in the country, chances are, you will come into contact with more uninfected than you will with dyszombie.  But in many other countryside settings, the entire country has gone over to dyszombie, as many of them have wandered out of the cities inadvertently, and just the sheer number of people who turned to dyszombie in the first place, and the VERY few number of uninfected who survived.  Overall, the population of the entire world is smaller, less dense, and more evenly spread across the face of the planet than it is before the plague.

5.  There is no way to transmit the disease from dyszombie to human.  The ones who survived did so because they possessed a genetic mutation that made them unsusceptible to the Airborne DZ.  This genetic mutation is not inheritable, by the way, so if a parent has it, it is still incredibly unlikely that a child will, and vice versa.  But your characters don't know this.  They labor under the paradigm that contact is to be avoided at all costs.

6.  Consequently, a bite will not infect them.  As a matter of fact, bites of dyszombies, if such ever occurred, would actually not become infected by anything at all, as the dyszombie cannot carry bacteria at all (they don't smell like anything, by the way, while survivors stick comparatively.)  If a Dyszombie were to bite a person, the bite would not get infected unless the survivor him or herself was filthy, which he/she is.

7.  The Dyszombie makes a key distinction between humans and animals.  They will only ever fight an animal if the animal is attacking them.  But most animals note that the dyszombie doesn't trigger their sense the same way a human does, and will mostly avoid the dyszombie completely.

8.  The only thing which will completely kill a dyszombie is to completely destroy the body, by fire, or by acid or complete dismemberment (meaning, chopping them up into little pieces) or something else.  A bullet to the head will heal, believe it or not.  Our survivors don't understand this.  The dyszombie who is shot in the head, as our zombie literature teaches us to do, will indeed fall to the ground, allowing the shooter the opportunity to escape.  Even fifty bullets to the brain will not be enough however, because in a day or so, the dyszombie, being a MUCH higher functioning organism, will have rejected the foreign objects and will begin repairing the damage.  The code to do so is genetic.  So the only way to keep the dyszombie from regenerating is to destroy the genetics or make it impossible for the genetics to actually work.  NO SURVIVOR knows this for sure, because they rarely ever meet the same dyszombie twice, and attribute the disappearance of any of the bodies they observe to the actions of the dyszombie who have been known to stash corpses in abandoned buildings.

9.  Your character can hold a conversation with a dyszombie, provided that it is very short, and incredibly simple.  It is true that the dyszombie, in its inert mode, has the attention span of a goldfish, and in its activated mode, has the focus of someone with severe OCD.  So if you want, your characters can talk to dyszombies, and they will answer him with one or two words, very clearly.  After that, the dyszombie will wander off.  And if your character becomes insistent and asks the same question over and over again, the dyszombie will turn on him.

10.  It is true that the dyszombie does not walk well on ice.  He lacks the attention necessary to take careful steps and will fall repeatedly.  If your character observes this and begins to laugh out loud, this will activate the dyszombie, who will get off the ice as soon as possible and then come after your character.  Additionally, if there are other dyszombies around at the time, they will also be activated at your character's failure to help someone in need.

11.  Your character must not be important.  These accounts are from run of the mill survivors, who have somehow lasted in this weird world, complete with a collapsed society, for years.  They are tough as nails, and they assume that it is only a matter of time and energy before the human race will return to prominence, and the last of the dyszombie will be extinguished.  Think like a quasi-optimistic Sarah Connor.  But they are wrong, and they have no idea how wrong they are.  But the one thing they are not is in control of anything larger than a band of two or three people

12.  Speaking about the "Awakening".  Before this event occurs, the dyszombies spend their days roaming very slowly across the face of the country.  They may run into some obstacle, but then they just change direction, and continue walking.  This is their inert state.  Before the "Awakening" it is also their default state.  When they are activated by some act of moral incorrectness, they become single minded and very deliberate in their moves.  They tend to anticipate the moves of their opponents, the same way expert martial artists do.  They can move significantly faster than they did in the inert state, though they will never run unless the target attempts to run away.  They become way more "Terminator" like (you'll have to forgive me for the comparisons.  I am currently making my way through the second season of the "Sarah Connor Chronicles" and it happens to be at the front of my mind.)  And they keep tracking until the target leaves their field of vision and senses.  At this point they immediately return to their inert state, and continue wandering in the same direction they were going when they lost contact.  They may eventually happen upon the target again, but they neither remember, nor care about the existence of that person, and do not re-engage automatically, the way a regular zombie would.  Unless the person was continuing in their wicked ways, and then the dyszombie treats it as a new encounter.

13.  AFTER the "Awakening" the dyszombie never disengages.  He kills every human who is not infected, regardless of what action that person is engaged in.  And his senses are heightened, due to his superior physical composition, so he can detect people hiding in places, and will come after them.  His nose smells the human, his ears hears breathing and heartbeat, and even blood circulation, his eyes pick up heat signatures, and he tastes the air around a person.  In short, the dyszombie can find humans even in the best hiding places.  And the assaults are relentless. 

14.  After the "Awakening" the dyszombies act more like one single collective organism.  If a dyszombie discovers a human in one area, every dyszombie literally in a four block radius will focus on that target, unless a more immediate one presents itself.  And unlike regular zombies, the dyszombie retains all the problem-solving abilities that he or she had before being infected.  So if there is a wall between the dyszombie and the target, and the dyszombie is able to acquire a ladder, he will use it, as will every single one behind him.  The uninfected perish because they are simply outnumbered by an unstoppable foe.

15.  The "Awakening" is caused by a coordinated effort around the globe by bands of survivors who have formed themselves into armies going and attempting to take back the cities from the dyszombie.  At first, the attackers are semi successful.  They put down a number of the dyszombie with firearms and etc.  The initial assault pretty much expends their ammunition.  Meanwhile, a switch in the dyszombie is flipped.  It is a "psychic" switch, which links the seemingly oblivious dyszombie into a single solitary mass bent on the destruction of the invaders.  The dyszombies eventually recover what was taken from them by the bands, who quickly run out of ammunition, and meanwhile, those put down regenerate and join their partners.  The "Awakening" signifies the acquiring of a universal consciousness by the dyszombie.  They awaken from their slumber, so to speak, and become the final cleansing of the planet of the old, faulty variety of humans.  What started as a decimation of the dyszombie population becomes nothing less than a genocide conducted by unthinking, unfeeling infected hordes.  And the dyszombies do not stop in their relentless pursuit of uninfected until they are at last all wiped out, to the last man, woman, and child.  The dyszombies ultimately win.

16.  Several years after the last survivors are abolished, the dyszombies still roam across the planet.  Slowly, the clouds in their minds are lifted, maybe over the space of a year, as the disease which infected them has run its course.  They have no memory of what has occurred, but the reason that the symptoms of the disease end is because there is no more "contagion" (or moral ambiguity in the world) anymore to which they were constantly exposed before and during the "Awakening".  It's as if they were allergic to amorality or immorality, and now that the allergen has finally been suppressed, their systems begin to recover.  it takes a few years for them to completely get over the symptoms.

17.  They view the world around them, destroyed as it is, and begin to rebuild society.  They of course begin to communicate with one another, remembering their respective languages.  But they have zero idea why the whole world is destroyed, nor do they remember anything about where they came from.  Eventually, families are formed, people begin to repopulate the planet, and children are all born with the modified genetic code.  The species can no longer be called human, though they retain many of the trappings of humanity, like the ability to read, write, and speak.  Some people adopt various professions that they seem to know, inexplicably, how to do (because they knew how to do it before the world was infected), others labor and learn trades.

18.  At some point, many decades after the events chronicled in our story, a historian, now well into his eighties, uncovers a trove of papers left in a library (they were left there by someone who compiled them before hand from various parts of the globe).  He is able to read these papers, and what he reads is the pre-history of his society. 

So you think you want to participate in this writing collective?  Here is the overview of this project:

THE IDEA

The idea is this. Take your standard post-apocalyptic story of the zombapoocolypse milieu, following the episodic format found in recent books like World War Z and the anecdotes accompanying the practical instructions in Zombie Combat Manual. Record the last days of the final survivors. But flip it. The standard zombie story presents a zombie archetype which is brainless, constantly searching for humans, who, upon receiving a bite, end up turning into the zombie, and joining the roving horde. Has anyone ever wondered WHY this happens? How is it that the zombie virus turns a human being, which has about an equal chance of being good or evil, constrained by his upbringing, into a ravenous cannibal? How is it that a person's actual moral character can change when one gets zombism? Has anyone ever really given any thought to this question? I mean, a person can die and come back to life, that is not too much of a stretch, but why is it that they come back as an automaton, dedicated either to eating the flesh of living humans, or interested in spreading the disease to those who don't have it. But the more interesting question is: why is that it can't go the other way? Why do zombies have to kill without any reason? Why are they completely amoral braindead... well, zombies? Wouldn't it be just as likely that they would become like paladins? Why wouldn't they become moralists?

Project: Dyszombie takes these questions seriously (because, to my knowledge, nobody has really asked them before now.)  The Project proposes a new archetype of zombie, the "dyszombie" or anti-zombie.

THE PROJECT

Here then is the project: suppose a standard zombapocolypse started, but instead of turning the dead into murderous cannibals, they turned into moralists. They would still hate the non-infected, because they would see these people as plagues in the world, preventing them from establishing a utopia, and would set about to kill the uninfected or turn them into dyszombies. In a sense, the disease was enlightenment, and the dyszombie sees the uninfected individual as a monster that needs to be exterminated. In the end it is the same as the regular zombapocolypse: a few survivors against the hordes of infected trying to kill them, in a world which no longer resembles "normalcy". But the story is that the survivors are actually the "bad" guys (though they don't know it, and certainly don't think of themselves in that way), and the dyszombies are the "good" guys (who kill to rid the world of wickedness, though they also most certainly do not know it...). This sort of flips the traditional zombie script upside down. The story would revolve around several episodes written by survivors (that is, the people who didn't turn for some reason or another), and compiled and edited by myself. The secret is, "I" (or the fictional editor of this collection) am one of the dyszombies that discovered this collection of accounts of the survivors after the last of them have been exterminated, a twist that will be revealed at the endof the compilation.  By the time this is revealed, the last of the uninfected had long been wiped out, and the disease which took hold of the dyszombie's mind has run its course, leaving a population of ultra-moral super healthy, but now conscientious and aware people who are confused and left without any sort of idea of how the world got this way, or what they are as a people.  Of course the uninfected don't know any of this will occur:  The last of them are wiped out long before this ever happens.

I (the real me) have provided the "official" history of the dyszombie apocalypse, which I will call "The awakening".  Each individual account flows from what little is actually known about the Dyszombie, including the Field Report on the Character of the ADZ infected human.  Each of the submitted accounts will tell the tale of the individual as the world they once knew collapsed around them and the dyszombies grew in number and began hunting the survivors one by one.

YOUR ROLE

If you join the project, your role is to submit accounts to this project.

First, read what has already been submitted on the milieu.

Second, begin writing.  These are tales of survival in a world which has gone completely bonkers.  Your writing should be with the aim of producing between 2000 and 4000 word account, in whatever style you like (could be like a set of journal entries, or a blood-soaked final account, or a tactical document outlining your character's initiative to take back a village which is written right before he/she dies in such an attempt...  The point is that people have different natural writing styles, and our goal is to tap into that, as well as provide content.  This is why a community based approach is necessary.) that covers your character's attempt to survive, and additionally, something that may lead to your character's ultimate death.

The tale should be first person, and should end shortly before your main character's imminent doom.  It also may be like in a modified third person, like "I once knew this fellow, and he wanted to make sure I put his story down on paper.  He is dead now, and I am keeping a promise." 

Make sure you follow the rules of the milieu.  Those submissions that fail to follow those guidelines will be rejected from publication.

Your account can be set anywhere in time (within the constraints of the milieu), but must end during the four or so years before and during the "Awakening" of the dyszombie and the ultimate end to the type of human we are (including maybe two years or so before the outbreak). 

It can also include tales of the "Awakening" where survivors have launched a coordinated assault on the dyszombie population, which subsequently caused the dyszombie to simultaneously switch into crazy mode and begin dismembering any human within a four block radius, and then hunt down whoever remains.

Your character(s) can be any kind of people, but the one thing they cannot be is a person with a lot of power.  Like, for example, a general of one of the squads that coordinates and launches the final attack on the centers of the dyszombie.  You can put your character in the army of one of those people, or even make him or her or them advisors to one of those people, but your character must not have the power to potentially determine the outcome of the story.  Basically, your character must be literary fodder, destined exclusively for a bloody, miserable, and/or unreknowned death, and must only come to the full realization of the odds truly stacked against him or her in the last moments of their lives, if ever.  (Sometimes, characters can and should be killed off randomly, mid story.  This is completely fine.)  It is not up to your character to get his or her story out.  I will take care of that in the "compilation" chapter at the end of the story.  Your job is simply to tell the story of your character's life, and ultimately allude to his or her death.

Remember:  Every non-infected human eventually dies.  There are no survivors.  Period.  Nobody gets to hold out, nobody gets to witness a society where the disease has run its course.  The reminiscences will be "found and compiled" by a dyszombie when they regain awareness of the world around them. By then all humans are long gone.

The stories can be kinda gory, but keep it PG-13.  The focus should be on the survival aspects of the narrative, not on the gore.  We can read about how your guy smashed in the head of a dyszombie without counting every piece of skull or drop of blood in detail.  The tales should also occasionally exhibit a sort of macabre humor, if possible.  People rarely spend their entire life in absolute dread.  Most of their time is spent trying to find something to smile about.  And in a situation as hopeless as this, that time is more important than ever, especially after the character gets over the initial shock of realizing that the world is over.  But no gross humor, please.  There is a fine line, and the kind of humor I am referring to crosses it pretty seriously.  Humor should be used as a juxtaposition to the end of the world.

Writers, take note!

From the creative mind of @docstodden comes Project Dyszombie:

The project is open to all serious writers who want to contribute to the milieu.  When enough quality content is generated, we will compile the work into a single, standalone volume.  There is a catch:  The dyszombie is NOT the same as your classic Zombie...

Field Report, Johanna Ellas:

Update 0.2

Commissioned by Dr. Frederich Hausen

Civilian Defensive Control, Z Task Force

January 18, 2021

Atlanta

Introduction:  The purpose of our field research and thus this short report on the nature of the person afflicted by "ADZ", or the airborne variant of Derivative Z was to study the nature and habits of the human who suffers its effects.  For brevity's sake, subjects will be essentialized, and refered to as Z, while those not affected by ADZ are refered to as "people" or "Unaffected".  This task force began its work in Atlanta in the summer of 2020 and observed Z for a period of six months.

Note1: 

Z appears to be every bit like a person, alike in all manners of physical appearance.  However, every aspect of the Z is static.  There is no evidence of additional hair growth or loss.  There is no evidence that fingernails grow either.  There is however, a healthier glow about Z previously only seen in those of excellent physical health and adequate nutrition.  Skin appears to be the normal color, there is no loss in pigment in skin, eyes, or hair, teeth remain precisely as they were at the outbreak.

Dissection of previously deceased Z reveals all internal organs to be in the correct locations and all of the right appearance.  No evidence of putridness, rot or decay indicated.  Genetically, Z are no longer human.  Upon testing blood at the start of the outbreak, Z cells demonstrated significant genetic alteration and damage.  It was hypothesized then that the damage arrested cellular metabolism, and caused Z to enter a state of biological stasis.

One defining characteristic of Z is his lumbering walk, which is not very efficient in its energy transfer, but serves him well to allow him to do what he normally does at all hours of the day.  Z spends his days and often nights walking aimlessly.  Tracking devices placed on the clothing of Z have demonstrated that Z moves mostly at random, though if unencumbered by obstacle he will continue to walk in a straight line.  Furthermore, during the early periods of the outbreak, Z was known to walk several hundreds of miles in a straight line before those tracking him lost contact with the device.  We presume the device fell into a lake or was in some other fashion destroyed, but it is just as likely that Z walked completely out of range of the electronic component.

The other defining characteristic is Z's blank but slightly depressed look on his face, which indicates a complete lack of interest in the world around him.

Note 2: 

Z possesses no interest in any benign activity whatsoever.  If an uninfected person is walking down a street, and is spotted by Z, Z makes no sign of recognition.  Nor does he deviate in his path, unless he comes to an obstacle, at which point, his direction will change, and his vector will carry him to a completely different location.  If a person stands in his way, Z will simply alter his course and head in a different direction, seeing the non-infected as one of many obstacles. 

Walking is slow paced, almost akin to aimless wandering, and it is nearly constant, though Z appears to sit in a place at random, without regard to his location, and for no apparent reason.  At some length he will stand again and continue wandering.

Note 3: 

Z appears to be in complete physical health in all respects except psychically.  In this realm, he appears to be utterly broken, demonstrating many of the same characteristics of someone who suffers from waking coma.  Z's demeanor can best be described, when he is inert, as dolorous or mournful, and when he is activated as insane, violent, and outrageous.

There is no sign that Z possesses a moral capacity at all, or that he shows and empathy.  His assult is ferocious and unrelenting.  Though they can be distracted from the attack, if the victim fails to do this, Z will tear the person apart with no sign of remorse or regret.  The Z is an absolute sociopath, and has no use for any living person or thing.  He is deaf to the cries of his victim, and attempts to defend one's self simply enrages him more.  And after the violent disposal of a person, he continues his walk as if nothing else happened. 

There is no sign of tissue or any other physical decomposition, despite the fact that we never witnessed Z eating anything, ever.  No one has ever reported seeing Z sleep either.

Not only is Z physically healthy, but he is also strong, and can move extraordinary weights without machines.  Z also known to be exceptionally violent, when his rage is inexplicably triggered.

Note 4: 

Z prefers to walk during the day, though he walks often at night too.  We presume that this means that Z cannot see very well in low light, though attacks against uninfected are also reported at night, perhaps because more of the uninfected use the cover of night for movement or for procuring goods to survive.

Note 5:  

Attacks by Z have been reported by people who witnessed others having a verbal or physical altercation.  Two or more people were fighting in public, and the commotion was enough to attract a nearby Z who settled the dispute.  The Z in this instance killed one, and the other one immediately apologized for the fight.  This caused the Z to completely lose interest and wander away.

There seems to be some coincidence between Z attacks and actions necessary for survival.  For example, most attacks are reported either when a person is looting and foraging, and Z comes upon him accidentally.  A vicious attack will ensue, and if the person fights back, Z will be completely enraged.  If a second Z comes upon the altercation he will join in, usually attacking the person, but sometimes attacking the first Z.  Several people have been saved from death by other Z's, especially in occurrences where there are more attackers than defenders.

On the other hand, people have been able to save themselves from death by relinquishing the objects they obtained, which caused the attack in the first place, backing away from the object slowly and deliberately, and apologizing for taking the object.  Attempting to reason with Z in this instance, if the goal is to keep the acquired object is fruitless, and at any rate, not sufficient to prevent further attack.  However, apology and a show of contrition usually calms Z down to the point where he simply loses interest and wanders away.  At that time, the person usually recollects the item or items and leaves the scene.  This behavior is completely inexplicable, given Z's absolute lack of moral and ethical facility.

Those without clear enough head to engage in this ritual, even if it isn't sincere, are frequently killed.

Note 6: 

Often Z is witnessed attempting to move dead bodies out of the streets and out of public view.  Caches of corpses, which are otherwise completely undisturbed, have been discovered in houses and buildings.  This apprears to be the only deliberate activity engaged in by Z on his own.

Note 7: 

Miraculously, Z is capable of speech.  Sporadically, reports have been made of hearing Z mumbling to himself.  There is never acknowledgement among other Z of any Z speech.  But if asked a direct question by a person, Z will respond clearly and intelligibly with an answer, and each answer is completely the truth.  Then Z will carry on with his walk.  If for instance, Z is asked if it is day out, he will respond "Yes".  If asked how to get to a certain location, Z will give general directions such as "Ahead, left, ahead".  At no time has Z demonstrated any interest in saying more than four words at a time.

Note 8: 

Z can also be enlisted in simple projects that require following one or two specific, one part directions.  People have reported asking Z if he will help perform some task, and Z will respond "Yes" and proceed to perform the task.  If a person issues anything resembling an order to Z, he will immediately be attacked.  If the person who asked for help doesn't participate in the action, he will be immediately attacked.  If the person requesting help doesn't say thank you, there is a strong probably of attack.  Several have reported being attacked until they offered the Z money, otherwise completely useless, for their help.  The Z did not take the money, but the attack ended. 

Once the simple task is finished, Z will continue his walk in whatever direction he was facing the moment he completed the task.

Reports have come in about Z saving lives of people who were in imminent danger, or trapped, or hurt in some way.  Once the person is out of imminent danger, they must remember to make an expression of gratitude, or they will be attacked by the Z who just saved their lives.

Note 9: 

It is believed that Z can breed, and Z who were pregnant at the time of the infection have been witnessed nursing babies, out of habit.  Often, however, most Z babies were given to people to raise by Z mothers, who had no interest in raising their children.  Two years into the crisis and Z children, born with the disease have still shown no sign of speaking or playing, but spend their time wandering around the homes of their adoptive parents.  There are often reports of Z children being sent out on the street at the age where they can become violent toward those who have adopted them.  These children are apparently capable of surviving because they do not want food or sleep, though they have never experienced socialization.  As feral children, they often attack with far less provocation, can be more difficult to de-activate, and are commonly killed by their victims due to their diminutive stature.  Adult Z who happen to be in the area respond viciously to such killings, and it is likely that a person who kills a juvenile Z will not survive the subsequent encounter.

Note 10: 

Z has been reported to be immune to the cold, and none have been reported to have died from exposure.  When Z is seen in the cold of winter, he is frequently reported to be steaming.  Z has a difficult time walking on ice.

Similarly, Z is also immune to the heat, and prefers the sun, even on the hottest days.  In the sun, Z walks a little more upright than normal, moves a little faster than normal, and responds to whatever it is that triggers rage a little more accutely.  Because of this, we believe that Z exists off of solar-activated Vitamin D.

Note 11: 

There have been no new reported cases of the disease since the worldwide outbreak two years ago, despite almost constant and direct contact with Z.  Either the virus has mutated and no longer spreads from Z to people, or the people who are left are for some reason completely immune to the effects of ADZ.

There have been no cases of animals being infected with Z.  Domesticated animals, however, have suffered greatly, because their owners either died or have lost interest in caring for them.  Ferel dogs and cats now roam the street and pose a constant threat to humanity, but they are also known to attack Z, who frequently kills them.

Note 12: 

Z is capable of using tools and even weapons.  If a task requires the use of a tool, Z can usually employ the tool proficiently.  We assume also that most Z remain proficient in the use of things they used before they became infected.  If Z is attacking a person, and that person employs a weapon, but somehow that weapon comes into Z's possession, he will use it on its former owner, usually with fatal consequences.  When Z is finished with the attack, he invariably leaves the tool on the ground and continues his walk.   

Lack of interest for the most part prevents Z from utilizing tools independently.

Note 13: 

It is unclear whether Z remembers anything for very long, let alone his former life.  If a person introduces himself, Z will not respond.  If it is clear that Z was a specialist of some sort before infected Z now shows no interest in resuming that activity. 

Nor is there any evidence that they remember attacking someone.

Note 14: 

We have not determined how Z dies.  There have been reports of Z being killed by being chopped into several pieces, but Z is more or less incapacitated rather than killed in these circumstances:  the component parts remain not dead.

Z themselves kill by tearing their target apart.  If their target is other Z, they will use their hands and will sever limbs from the trunk and eventually crush the skull.  They are frequently less destructive with human targets, likely because humans take far less shock to their systems to cause death.  Throttle is one of the prefered methods of killing, but disembowlment, eye gouging, massive hemmorage due to dismemberment and compound fractures have also been reported as causes of death for human victims of Z attack.

Based on these reports we assume that Z death occurs when the skull is crushed.  Massive brain damage or injury is probably necessary to incapacitate and finally kill Z.

Note 15: 

Perhaps the most ominous discovery with regard to Z, if Z is victim of unprovoked attack by a person, the density of Z in a given area increases dramatically.  It is almost as if they are drawn to the plight of their fellow sufferer.  The same does not hold true the other way:  if a person is attacked, this does not in and of itself attract other Z.  There have been reports of a Z hunting group attacking a Z in the street or in a trap, and suddenly Z for blocks around change direction and all head to the site of the attack where they set upon those people they find there.  We don't know if this ability is the result of a psychic link or something else, but it does seem to give a purpose to the otherwise aimless walk of the Z.

Recommendation:

Based on these few notes on the character of Z, we have issued policy advice to the government in exile, as well as all survivors:  It is probably best to avoid all contact with Z.  Any large scale attacks planned against Z would be misguided, as they have the ability to both withstand major trauma and to call other Z to the area of the attack.  Further, large scale attack, we think would put survivors in the cities at risk of Z reprisal.  Finally, humans are outnumbered about 100 to one by Z, and more humans die everyday, while Z numbers remain relatively stable.

Z is an unthinking, unfeeling machine of destruction.  Based on our observations, Z has no problem destroying human life, and will do so for unknown and unguessable reasons.  Z is deadly, and can be set off without any deliberate provocation.  He has no moral soul, and should not be treated as a relative or a loved one, because Z is fundamentally and genetically no longer human.  Z is only fit for avoidance until the time when they can be wiped out once and for all.

Every society has a foundation.  For some the foundation lies in the mists of time, way back before anyone can remember.  These societies often rely on myth to explain their foundation.  Other societies however have more recent and memorable foundations.  Sometimes people who were alive then reported on the founding moments of the society.

I guess this is sort of like that:  a report on the foundation of a new society, in the midst of the ashes and skeletons of the old.  But unlike most societies, in this society there never was any specific meeting of some people who declared "We are *a* people."  This society, which more or less came into being by default, like some unforeseen hand flipped a switch, is more defined by what it replaced.  Hopefully someone with a measure of intellectual curiosity will come along and find this account someday.  But it is highly doubtful that anyone will scratch their heads one day and ask "I wonder where we came from."  Not the way things are going.

That doesn't really matter, to be completely honest.  I write because I can.  Because I am one of the few left in this world that do.  And as long as I am holed up in this library, which was stocked with enough canned and preserved food to feed a small city for weeks, thanks to Cold War paranoia and bureaucratic oversight, I will be able to finish my history at least.  Its more likely that someone will find me here and do me in though, long before there is ever any danger of me starving to death.

When I think back to how this whole thing started, I can easily point to a single moment in history.  I was just a kid, about 15 then, but I knew that what was happening would change things for ever.  I knew because that night, we watched a member of the New Ethics Party, a Dr. David Owens, be elected President of the United States, and then, after we turned off the TV, my father left the house and drove the family car off a cliff outside of the city I grew up in.  We were of course devastated:  it seems, however that my mother was not in the least bit surprised.

It is appropriate, perhaps to step back a little:  The previous year, 2011, saw a huge break through in medical technology.  According to the literature I discovered here in my exhaustive search of the archives, in June of that year, two doctors at a medium sized university in southern Illinois discovered a drug.  The project was being funded  by the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, and the rest of the alphabet soup there in Washington, and was supposedly top secret.  But the news of the discovery leaked.  After that, the scientists did what was academically appropriate and published their results.  Naturally, they became infamous overnight.

It would appear that these scientists were working on a drug meant to rehabilitate criminals and make soldiers more robotic and less feeling.  That's your typical conspiracy theory nutjob stuff, the sort of thing a government which is able to print its own money and is paranoid about any form of social unrest does with its time and resources.  But unlike your standard run of the mill conspiracy theories about alien cover-ups, reptilian invaders from another planet, Masonic plots to control the world, or sightings of Elvis (does anyone even remember Elvis anymore?  If he were still alive today he'd be getting up around eighty years old, so it was kind of silly how people used to still be preoccupied with him...  I digress.) this secret government program was real.  After publication the only secret was who authorized the funding in the first place. 

The effects of this miraculous drug were as follows:  The control group, given a placebo in a double blind trial, committed socially deviant acts at the rate that one would expect in society, about 10%.  Meanwhile among the treatment group, socially deviant behavior dropped to a remarkable .0001%!  This finding was quickly replicated in California, and the findings were made public.  What this means is that in the control group, one out of ten people exhibited some social deviant tendencies like stealing or lying or deliberately "hurting" someone during an exhaustive battery of tests after the administration of the shot.  This more or less confirmed the existing belief that one in ten people are deviant to some degree (also ironically confirming the belief that people are basically good, but can made wicked with the right incentive). 

But for those given the drug rather than the placebo, that rate dropped to 1 in one million!  And the only reason it was placed at that level was that a computer calculated the probability of random correlation between drug administration and elimination of deviant behavior at that amount in a theoretically universal population.  No deviant behaviors were witnessed among the treated group, and in fact the scientists began observing hostility toward any attempt to induce the subjects to commit deviant behavior, but more especially when the subject saw others engaging in socially deviant behavior. 

For example:  There was a case of one individual who was later revealed to have been treated with the drug.  This subject, who they called "Sam", was placed in a situation where he would run across a ten dollar bill placed on the floor.  "Sam" refused to pick it up.  The scientists then introduced a "plant" into the scenario, who was instructed to pick the ten dollar bill up.  When "Sam" witnessed this, he went over to the "plant" and verbally accosted him, rather violently, until the instructed "plant" put the bill back down.  "Sam" then lectured the man about how important it was to let the owner of the bill return to collect the money, that it wasn't the "plant's" money, and that theft destroys society.  When the "plant" attempted to explain why "Sam" was wrong, "Sam" escalated his aggression into the physical realm.  He also fought those who were trying to hold him back from attacking the "plant".  When they let him go, he continued to lecture those around him about their duty to leave the money alone and their obligation to help him stop thieves.  "Sam" later reported that he had no memory of this event, but that "... it seems like this was the right course of action" given that circumstance.

The backlash was instant and severe.  These scientists were taking away freedom to choose to do wicked things.  What moral value is there in an act, critics howled, if there is no way a person can choose to do otherwise?  Further testing was publicly cancelled; the drug, which had been administered to at least 250 people initially was supposedly destroyed.  Eventually, all people associated with the drug had to be hospitalized, and several of them died from organ failure.  Simultaneously and completely unrelated, a massive graft and corruption scandal was uncovered in the highest levels of the government, implicating a huge and unprecedented portion of both congressional Parties.  Needless to say, people forgot all about the drug, as political heads began rolling.  People may have been upset about the making of "better humanity through chemistry" but they were more fed up with government corruption, ineffectiveness, and unresponsiveness.

In 2012, in response to the scandal, a new Party arose.  Refered to as the New Ethics Party, or NEP, the charismatic leader, Dr. David Owens, himself a clinical pharmaceutical developer, ran for President that year promising one thing:  clean government.  He had no ideology, he had no political record to be hit on, he could slam any possible challenger to his campaign as being associated with the Great Scandal.  The two main parties were utterly impotent against this charge.  It was as if they knew that they were rotten to the core, and didn't have the spine anymore to stand up against this fact when someone else pointed it out.  They did their charade, of course, but by this time, the front was so pathetically obvious to everyone in the country, that politicians from either of the major Parties soon learned that every time they went on television, or ran political commercials, they lost voters.  The election in 2012 was ultimately the least expensive national election since the mid 19th century, and according to the academics publishing in the American Journal of Political Science, it was less an election and more a "democratic revolution."  I remember that more people watched the reruns of sitcoms on the major networks than watched the presidential debates.  My father, a political scientist (who had not published anything in the AJPS that year), called 2012 "boring".

In the end, Owens won the Presidency, the NEP accomplished a plurality in both houses of Congress, and for the first time since Lincoln's election in 1860, a minor Party had virtual control of the executive and legislative branches.

My father had opposed the NEP, for what reason I am not sure.  But when Owens won that November night, it must have been too much for him.  He went out, got into the car and proceeded to drive himself into an icy river.  My mother never really explained what his death had meant, or gave us any reasons for it.  I suppose she intended to tell us someday, but just never really got around to it.

Over the next years, the NEP governed the country.  Clean government was their motto and they carried it out.  The NEP in Congress enlisted Democrats or Republicans, depending on the content of the piece of legislation, to get their bills passed, and often they were able to put together supermajorities to keep institutional dissent at bay.

One thing that wasn't widely known at the time was that Dr. Owens was a supporter of the research of the new ethical drug which had been shut down two years prior.  He had been absolutely impressed by the findings on this new drug, and believed that it should be administered to people and perhaps even children, once its effects were completely known and understood, to produce a new quality of person in the United States.  This new person would not tolerate crime or lawlessness, immorality or unethicality.  Owens envisioned the possibility of finally achieving the ideals of those who saw the United States as a shining beacon for the rest of the world.  It was not out of an ideological commitment to the past that Owens acted:  he was certainly no conservative.  Instead, he was driven by a sense of right and wrong that deliberately admitted no mitigating circumstances.  He saw the drug as a shortcut to the sort of society he wanted himself to live in.

In 2015, four years after its initial development, research on this drug was begun again.  The research program was initially secret, but as it was expanded, it was difficult to keep leaks in the tight security from leaking.  In the fall of my 21st year in 2019, all details were finally publicly disclosed.  The result was that Owens committed suicide rather than take any responsibility, and the government collapsed as people realized that none, not even those committed to clean government, were immune from the drive to deceive the people.  But by then... well, it didn't really matter too much.  The public disclosure was made when the effects of the program were right in front of you.

It happened like this:  Labs were set up at research institutions in major population centers.  It was important that they were set up there, because there had to be a willing and able body of subjects for the tests.  By this, of course, I mean hardened criminals.  You aren't going to find a steady supply of killers, rapists, drug kingpins, or thieves in Spearfish South Dakota.  No, they had to have jails to empty into the programs.  Convicts were given the opportunity to earn early parole upon completion of the program.  At first, it was completely voluntary, and thousands of criminals signed up for it.  Nearly 100 percent of them were lifers, without any possibility of parole, or those faced with future execution.

The convict was inoculated with a shot of what they believed was a vaccine against influenza.  In fact, what it was was a chemical derivative of the original 2011 drug, called D-11 (or derivative of the 2011 formula).  D-11 initially produced more moderate responses in people than  the original drug in its pure form caused.  There was not a lot of display of violent aggression, according to the initial reports like there was observed in "Sam".  But social deviance dropped once more to around .0001% of cases.  The difference came when a "plant" was introduced.  Unlike "Sam", recipients of D-11 were oblivious to the "deviant" actions of others.

One shot of D-11 was seen to be effective.  Violent criminals became docile and compliant.  While still in the program and under supervision, they frequently became targets of derision and violence among the rest of the convict population who subjected them to all sorts of abuses, just because they wouldn't fight back.  It turns out that it was a mistake to reintroduce them into the prison population.  A week after the first recipients of D-11 were re-introduced into the population, a number of them were brutally murdered.  While it seems they lost the ability to commit deviant acts, those around them, who had not been inoculated, remembered old scores, and settled them quickly and efficiently.  It took government officials, who realized that their test subjects were being killed by a standard, run of the mill human being quicker than they could be replaced, only a short time to move to separate those who received D-11 from the general prison population.

More tests and observations were made over the course of the next year.  Two major discoveries were made with the inoculation of several thousand more convicts:  1)  D-11 and the derivatives that followed it up, acted in a way like a virus, and in another way, like a cancer, in that it altered the DNA of humans, and selectively removed genetic propensities to committing anti-social behavior, but that once introduced into a subject, gradually replaced their natural genetic codes with code that replicated the D-11 schematic.  It only took about a week for a person to be completely "D-11 rebuilt" as the jargon went.  And 2)  Because D-11 produced genetic damage, eventually people's immune system kicked in, causing violent reactions at first, and problems with organ rejection and rapid cellular decomposition, as the body tried to cure itself of the disease.  Within a year, 90 percent of those who had received the first batch of D-11 were dead, though to be fair, 20 percent of those original test subjects were killed by other people.

The government, realizing the promise and hazards of this drug, remained committed to the promise, and sought to mitigate the hazards.  New derivatives were developed which attempted to suppress the immune system, and then which were meant to replace the immune system with a D-11 compliant system.  The first batch of this second type of derivatives, called D-11a was undermined by the common cold, as it turns out.  With suppressed immune systems, the people became stable, but obviously, if they got sick from something else, there was no way their body could fight off the germs.  They died of a full-blown case of the cold.  In the first year after D-11a was introduced, 3400 criminals died as a result of their exposure to these tests; luckily they had all signed releases.  The few that were alive were hospitalized in a segregated hospital unit and died later. 

Later derivatives were more stable.  The new D-11 derivative now first assaulted the immune system, shutting it down while D-11 conversion was taking place, and then it reprogrammed the immune system itself to be D-11 compliant.  By the time Dr. Owens was re-elected in 2016, D-11's derivative was stable, and people were surviving without complications.  The derivative was called, appropriately "D-16", or Derivative 2016. 

Tests continued using D-16 on people.  Eventually, D-16 was administered to all prisoners in the US and state correctional systems.  Prisons became places where people cooperated with one another, spent their time working together, and their free time engaging in cooperative sports, or painting, or learning.  The results were striking.  Chemistry was in the process of creating new moral humanity.  Often, inducement was no longer necessary, and when offered the opportunity to be released, prisoners opted to stay in prison.  It was so strange.  News media was at a loss to explain this phenomena, but it was coupled by the fact that most of the people involved in the early testing were in for life anyway.  What confused the media was the stories about those who weren't in for life:  It seemed that they enjoyed prison more than the outside world as well.  None ever confirmed any stories of medical tests being carried out on the prisoner population, because none of the prisoners were ever informed that they had become unwitting participants in the experiment.

By 2018, testing entered a new phase: dissemination to the general population.  It was easy to keep a secret in a closed society like a prison system.  Especially if the prisoners themselves didn't know that they had been dosed (Most had received shots hidden within a routine series of vaccination upon indoc.)  But getting people on the outside to take D-16 willingly was a different story.  An idea of creation of an epidemic first struck scientists in the summer of 2018.  If an epidemic could be created, people would flock to doctors to get a series of vaccinations that the government said were necessary.  This of course involved an elaborate hoax.  First the State Department would have to announce that people were sick and dying from a new strain of flu in Central America, and this strain looked and acted like the regular flu, but the symptoms were more severe than usual.  The media would pick this up, and chronicle the case of everyone who died from a particularly strong case of the flu, naturally as they do.  Then selectively timed announcements from other government health agencies would illustrate the need to get inoculated against this new strain of flu, complete with the srange and effective marriage of dire warnings and assurances that there is no need to panic.  Then add news stories of shortages of vaccines, reported over media photos of long lines at selected clinics, and you had yourself a good old fashioned panic.

It's the same tactic that the government used in 2009 with the whole swine flu thing.  And the people who were upset about that back then (I remember that my parents were) still hadn't learned anything by the time they reacted the same predictable way nine years later.  And yet humanity is so predictable, isn't it.  A journalist doesn't have to lie when they report that people are afraid of the new flu:  people are actually genuinely scared when faced with something that is unknown in every respect except that it has killed people.  The only lie in this invented epidemic was the one person lying one time, about reports of a new flu virus striking a different country (and even that wasn't a lie:  every year there is a new strain of flu striking a different country.  The lie came in the added import that was given to this mundane fact by the government official.) 

That's really all it took.  Soon you had journalists flocking to other countries taking photos of sick and dying people, who always over-complain of the symptoms they personally feel.  A flu is hard on people, but most people don't really have anything similar to compare it to, so they can't and won't say, "well, this is run of the mill flu."  If they get the flu, it is always a lot more severe than the common cold which people usually mistake for the flu, and they'll tell you "This is the sickest I have ever felt in my whole life" (whether they mean it or not).  Seeing people die of the flu, even if it was only one, would be enough for people in this country to worry about it.  Couple that with a year of famine and miserable weather which marked 2018, and you have the makings of a full scale epidemic in the US.  That's really all it takes to get people to panic here.  Nobody even has to lie, really.

The reason, of course is because we really are that predictable, and the people who study us every single day, know that fact.  Not only do we panic when we are told to, but we also screw things up by trying to improve them.  While this panic was being created in the media, scientists were trying to perfect D-16 to make it available for people who may not look, physiologically, like prisoners.  Prisoners were generally healthy and strong, well fed, well exercised individuals.  It is safe to say that they had a different constitution than the average fat lazy American of the year 2018.  Thanks to our technology, we didn't really have to leave our house anymore.  We did more so out of habit than out of need. 

Combined with our horrible medical establishment in the US, people were sicker from preventable disease, more regularly, than they had since the advent of modern medicine a hundred years before.  All advances we had made were wiped out by the profit motive and the bottom line.  And yet because people were so fed up in general with the way things were going, nobody cared anymore about whether society dealt with these issues.  They just preferred to let it crumble, because they witnessed first hand the ineptitude and inefficiency of government-run health care which was neither adequately implemented or adequately funded, at least in our country.  By 2018, people who could afford quality health care occasionally sought it, while people who couldn't didn't.  Through misuse or non-use America's medical establishment crumbled and was a shadow of its former self.  But this didn't trouble American consumers a bit, because apathy had taken over.

So those working on the D-16 project needed to find a way to make the drug not kill all those people who were suffering from other things while the immune system was being reprogrammed.  In September of 2018, they hit on a new derivative, which was initially tested on ten sick patients that showed some promise.  Not only did the new derivative appear to not affect the condition of those who were already sick, but the conversion process actually was sped up, and replaced the immune system quicker.  Because the immune system had been reprogrammed, it actually began attacking cancer and HIV in three of the test subjects where the natural immune system had not functioned that way.  It was a break through:  using this derivative, which was named "DZ" because this was to be the final, or "Z" derivative of the original 2011 tests, cancer and HIV had not only become curable, but actually cured.

DZ was initially scheduled for limited release to the population along with the flu vaccine that year.  100,000 doses were spread across the face of the globe.  The goal was to monitor its administration and effects, and plan for a wider release the following year.  The flu season came and went, and all 100000 doses were reportedly administered.  It was then, in January of 2019 that things started falling apart.  First, symptoms reminiscent of the test subject named "Sam" were observed in the original ten recipients of DZ.  In the month of January, all 10 were arrested for displays of violence in public.  Three of them actually killed people who they knew before (and who, it was subsequently revealed had been emotional or physically abusive toward them.)  Seven others were arrested for attacking police officers who had arrived on the scene in response to public disturbance reports.  All ten of them, found to be in excellent health, were then administered the D-16 which had been routinely administered to all incoming prisoners for years now.  None of them disclosed their previous exposure to DZ, obviously, because none of them knew about it.

The drug interaction apparently was too much for the ten people.  Within a week, there were reports, for the first time in two years of violence within prisons.  Reports later confirmed that the interaction between D-16 and DZ, never before studied in the laboratory, had caused DZ to become airborne.  In a move to limit exposure, the prisons were emptied, forcefully.  Where the DZ had become airborne, prisoners reacted violently against the officials they had previously cooperated with.  Some prison officials were killed in the riots, which were chalked up in the news as just prison riots.  Eventually, the prisons were cleared and shut down, putting these people on the streets.  The final report revealed that roughly 2.7 million Americans received early and forcible parole.  Of that number, the lion's share were in the prisons first exposed to the mix of DZ and D-16.

The airborne version of DZ spread throughout the population like wildfire.  The first foci of the DZ-spread were in major cities: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Miami, Houston, Seattle, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia were soon completely infected with this airborne derivative of DZ, which now assumed the characteristics of a rapidly mutating, but virulent virus, in a matter of weeks.  But since the incubation period in those without previous D-16 exposure was three months, there weren't any outward signs of infection right off, except in those who already had received the D-16 shot.  Similarly, there weren't yet signs in those who received just the DZ shots either for a few months.  By the time the first outward signs began manifesting, and society became unhinged, the derivative, a new disease, if you would like to call it that, had spread, without symptoms to hundreds of millions around the country and was waiting to explode overseas. 

In May of that year, right around the time I turned 21, there were reports of riots in major cities as well as minor cities across the globe.  The fact was that the state, which relied on traditional methods of coercion for social control,  was now fundamentally incapacitated.  Any attempts to restrain these infected individuals led to violence, and frequently death for one or both participants in the exchange.  And if not restrained, the interaction would cause the infected individual to become more enraged at anyone in the nearby area.  And yet...  it was so strange.  If you did something wrong around one of these people, and they began getting enraged, the solution was to admit the mistake, and do what you could to make things right or correct the wrong you had done, either deliberately or inadvertently.  That was enough to calm them down, and then they would just go on their way.  Course, by then there was also a very small chance that you weren't going to end up just like one of them. 

It was as if these people were on auto pilot: committed warriors for some cause.  It's like the DZ made them the conscience of society.  They reacted violently whenever the witnessed people being cruel to one another, or when they witnessed people stealing something of another, or when they heard someone tell a lie.  For all intents and purposes they were otherwise exactly the same as they had been before.  But a rage would come of these people when something happened which was a violation of some strange universal order.  Can you believe it?  It was as if these people were infected with a disease, a genetic disorder, that made them incapable of accepting the fact that it was occasionally alright, or even appropriate to bend morality a little, just to get along with one another.  White lies were punished with the same impunity as massive and widespread fraud.  There was fundamentally no difference between the theft of a quarter and the theft of a car.  If you did anything like this in the presence of one of the infected, and refused to make any sort of restitution for it, or worse yet, tried to escape, you became a target.

As the infection deepened and spread across the face of the planet, the government finally admitted its role in the affair:  their report makes up the bulk of this history of the plague so far.  The government couched its admission in terms of necessity, but everyone knew that this wasn't the case.  The real goal was social control:  if they could create a society that would police itself, the police would not be necessary.  If they could create a society that was physically incapable of doing wicked things to one another, if they could create a society of angels, well, there would be no more need for government.  They tried.  And they failed.  And then they lied about it.

That was the final straw.  About this same time, the three month incubation period ended, and DZ became active in approximately 6.5 billion people world wide  The results were catastrophic.  People settled old scores with one another, repaying one another for abuses they had suffered, or for lies that had been told.  When one DZ saw another attacking someone, they felt obligated to step in and defend.  Consequently someone died, because there is nothing more morally repugnant than attacking an unarmed person.

At first, many just tried to keep their heads down amidst all the chaos.  Some, who realized their own cowardice, like our beloved president who had been responsible, ultimately for the spread of this disease, before he too contracted it, felt obligated to kill themselves.  And they did, publicly, and usually contritely.  Others felt obligated to try to help people who were being attacked, usually to no avail.  It was literally a ticking social time-bomb that decimated the population of the planet within a month.

Something very strange happened, however.  Do you recall how in the initial studies conducted in Illinois, the computer models reported that one in a million people would still exhibit social deviance even if exposed to the drug?  Well, it turns out that these models were not too far off the mark.  Over time, we generally became aware that about 1/10th of one percent of the population were immune to DZ.  I was among that number.   There were perhaps 6.5 million of us world wide who didn't get any rage anytime.  Some of them were killed by the infected over old scores, but for the most part, many of them escaped the destruction and tried to live among the infected for as long as possible.  I was also among that number as well.

I spent two years moving and foraging as best as I could in the remnants of the now wiped out civilization I had been born into.  The human race had been cut by a fraction of 10, leaving roughly the population of three Americas spread out in various pockets around the planet.  Almost all of them had DZ.  The worst thing is that DZ did not stop mutating after the original bloodletting.  These people became more zombie like with every passing day.  I don't mean to say that they were the kind of zombies you see in movies:  They to my knowledge have never attacked anyone to eat them.  I have never heard of any one of them, before the "Awakening" at least, exhibiting perma-rage either.  Nor did they decompose, nor were they ever covered in blood. 

They were more like a "dyszombie" or exactly opposite of a zombie:  they were perfectly physically fit and conscious, moral to a fault (overactive morality was their defining trait) and completely deliberate in their movements.  They would either have conversations with you or say nothing to you, but you better not try to deceive them, because then they would fall into a rage.  It was best, I learned, just to try to avoid them as much as possible, unless you needed help doing something.  In that event, it was best to limit conversations, answer direct questions directly, and when their assistance was no longer needed, offer to give them something you have.  They invariably reject it, because they have no need for anything, but that is more or less a moral obligation, to recognize their assistance.

But... that said, it is almost as if the death and destruction that happened so quickly was too much for the human psyche to take.  These dyszombies were more or less in DZ-enhanced shock at the toll their own actions had taken on the civilization.  They continue to live, but the human spark has left them completely.  DZ had some other interesting initial side effects too.  Infected people were no longer hungry, nor did their body require food anymore.  It regenerated itself on sun and air.  That was totally strange to me.  Their health, all things considered was perfect:  they were strong and well composed and were not affected by any natural disease or ailment that tended to still floor non-infected people. 

Even two years after the outbreak, they were still fit, and as strong, if not stronger than those of us who required food to survive.  For "zombies", these infected surely didn't fit the stereotype.  As a matter of fact they were fine in every respect except one.  They simply could not control their moral outrage, and needed to deaden themselves to keep themselves from going into a fit of violence that they had no control over.  The DZ was responsible for a more or less universal psychosis tied directly to moral outrage.

Over the two years since civilization fell completely apart, a few of these infected people began trying to organize themselves to accomplish some little task, like cleaning up a neighborhood and burning all the dead and rotting bodies, or evacuating buildings which were no longer inhabited, or inhabitable.  For the most part, however, during that initial period, they mostly kept to themselves.  I suppose the difference between those who worked and those who didn't is one group probably felt a moral obligation to work, while the other group didn't.  Nobody who worked complained about it, however.  They simply carried out their tasks drudging, thanklessly, for nobody's benefit but the satisfaction of their own ethical obligations.  Initially, they would work with those of us who weren't infected, and even help us find food (as long as we paid for it: while they were hanging around us, we had no problem acquiring as much food as we could possibly want or had money for), but after the "Awakening" that was no longer an option.

It took just a short time for small groups of the uninfected to return and try to reclaim the earth for themselves, to re-establish non-infected humanity as the master of the planet.  At first, these individuals were essentially warlords: survivalists who had attracted a cult like following among those who weren't infected.  They generally fought against one another in this environment, but before long, they realized that if they wanted to set themselves up as the future kings of a newly reborn human race, they needed to take back the sites of human habitation before the plague decimated our planet.

The war-lords themselves, as well as a significant number of independent entrepreneurs descended on the cities at various points across the globe, in force and began slaughtering the infected.  There was no real cause for it:  if everyone acted correctly, there was no threat from the infected.  But these warlords didn't see it like that:  instead, the "zees" as they were called, stood between these survivors and power.  In the first few attacks between the organized uninfected and the dyszombies, another hundred thousand or so people were killed, nearly all of them DZ.

But DZ was not done with the human race yet.  It was a little insidious piece of code, probably inadvertently programmed into the DZ, which brought about what I call "The Awakening."  The mutation had a self defense mechanism, and it knew when carriers were threatened.  The prison riots were an example.  All of them occurred as the prisons were being forcibly emptied.  There was no coordination, there were no committees for resistance.  The people with the mutated form of DZ just knew that the order they wanted was being threatened by prison guards.  So it was like a little switch in their DNA that flipped on and made them resist.  Similarly, when society was falling apart, and the traditional institutional responses to civil disorder were being employed, this little switch told these people to turn on the system which was threatening them, or on the people which were attempting to fight back.

Because, and I believe this, programmed into every human's DNA is a social characteristic.  We love to be around other human beings.  The mutated DZ exploited that characteristic of humans to develop what some could call a "collective consciousness."  Call it widespread, universal empathy, if you like.  But at once, all dyszombies felt the threat of a force that meant to do them harm, and what I call the "Awakening" occurred. They woke up from their zombie like state and became a unified, driven, single-minded force that far outnumbered the uninfected.  And unlike the zombies you see in movies, these dyszombies knew how to use tools.

The "Awakening" occurred in the summer of 2021, two years after the plague had indirectly wiped out most of the population.  It assumed the following form:  Uninfected launch several coordinated campaigns to reclaim the cities.  DZ switch turns on.  Dyszombies begin to attack anything that is not part of the collective, that is, uninfected, like the ones attacking them, or like me, who learned quickly how to manage my life among these people.  They can tell whether one is infected or not, because they feel aversion to people who aren't infected.  And of course rage sets in.  If you resist, you only make them more mad.  If you don't resist, they will destroy you anyway, because you aren't fighting back.  And this time, there is no way to make it right: we used to be able to apologize and try to seek amends.  After the Awakening, however, that was no longer an option.

Lots of the uninfected who were living among the DZ were killed or seriously wounded at the point of the "Awakening" which occurred, by my reckoning, on August 22, 2021.  The rest of the uninfected, for the most part, saw the writing on the wall, and fled the cities and towns, looking for safety in numbers, usually under the control of the war-lords.  I, on the other hand, found myself a nice library, barred up the door real sturdy, and discovered the cache of food in the basement.  The "Awakening" happened a month and a half ago, and I have no idea what has gone on since then outside.  I don't know if there was a war or even a fight.  I have had no news of the outside world, this long.  But, I believe that as long as none of the DZ find me here, they won't feel any desire to destroy me.  Perhaps someday their DNA will switch off, like it did after the big bloodletting two years ago, but who knows.  If, on the other hand the uninfected come and liberate this city, I don't know what they'll do either.

One way or another, I'm not moving from this spot, and will spend the next few days reading anything I wanted to read, studying, and writing.  I hope to someday be able to see the sun again.  If you find this history some day in the future, when everyone has forgotten how this society full of DZ was created, this is the true history as I experienced and researched it.  I have also tried to keep my feelings out of the paper, but as you can tell, I'm lonely, scared, and safe, for the time being. 

As my mother used to say, "May God help us all."

A brief timeline of events:

Summer 2011:  Secret drug program publicized.  Two scientists at Southern Illinois University reveal effects of drug that eliminates the ability to act immorally.  Public Outrage follows and program is shut down.

Fall 2011: Massive government scandal revealed.  More than 150 congressmen and senators forced to resign or are impeached.  Scandal plagues congress for next year. 

December 2011:  New Ethical Party is founded.  Dr. David Owens named Party's first candidate for Presidency.

Spring and Summer 2012:  Nobody pays any attention to Presidential Race.  Any attempt made by two major Parties to gain voters is met with hostility and rejection.

November 2012: NEP easily elected President, gains plurality in both houses of Congress.

January 2015:  Research on secret drug restarted.

February 2015: D-11 developed and tested on prisoners.

March 2015:  Most participants in early trials having trouble back in prison, segregated from general population.  Research and testing continues.

Novemeber 2015:  In response to high mortality rate, D-11a developed and tested. 

Winter 2015:  Common cold seals fate of D-11a.

February 2016:  Most prisoners who are first recipients die of complications due to D-11 and D-11a.  Testing on D-16 begun.

November 2016:  President Owens re-elected.  D-16 is determined stable and safe.

December 2016:  Mandatory Prison dosing program begins.  Peace and tranquility settles over prison population.  Prisoners begin to prefer to stay in prison rather than being released.

March 2018:  Government begins work on new derivative for dissemination to general population.

May 2018:  Reports begin dissemination about new flu in a foreign country.  General panic follows. 

Fall 2018:  New Derivative "DZ" ready for human testing.  100,000 doses distributed worldwide.  10 people who receive shot in US exhibit violence, and are taken to prison where they are also dosed with D-16.  Interaction causes mutation in derivative, turning it airborne.  Prison population in all 10 locations are immediately infected, and begin demonstrating violence.  Prison guards attempt to clear prisons and are attacked.  Eventually prisons cleared, putting the disease outside of the prison walls.

Fall-Winter 2018:  Hundreds of millions of people infected unwittingly with airborne DZ.  Billions worldwide later infected when airborne sufferers from US unknowingly spread the DZ around the world.  Mutated virus has complete global saturation by the time it begins coming out of incubation.

Spring-Summer 2019:  6.5 billion people infected by DZ.  Hundreds of millions of people die through mass killings, and failed government responses to infections.

July 2019:  President Owens committs suicide after official government report is released that implicates government for development and propagation of DZ.  US government officially "fails".

Fall 2019- Summer 2021:  Situation stabilizes.  Sufferers of DZ try to begin cleaning up.  Meanwhile warlords begin organizing out of cities.  By summer 2021, warlords decide that it is time to reclaim the world from infected.  100K DZ sufferers die in coordinated non-infected attacks.

ATTN:  ALL SERIOUS WRITERS AND SUPPORTERS OF THE INEVITABLE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

RE:  We need help building a new Zombie sub-milieu

I would like to cordially invite all members and followers of the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse to participate in a new sort of project.  It is called "Project: Dyszombie".  The project is open to all serious writers who want to contribute to the milieu.  When enough quality content is generated, we will compile the work into a single, standalone volume.  There is a catch:  The dyszombie is NOT the same as your classic Zombie.  Below is a quick FAQ:

1.  What is a "Dyszombie"?

The dyszombie is a twist on the classic thinking of the zombie.  Suppose everything we know about zombies was actually incorrect.  Suppose there was a type of zombie that was very much alive.  More alive, in fact that you and I.  Suppose that zombie was not a cannibal, but possessed superhuman strength, and the inability to differentiate between friend and foe.  Suppose the zombie was not the degenerate form of the human life, rotting and decaying, as a metaphor of the rot and decay in us all.  In fact, suppose you and I were the degenerate form of this creature, and while we grow weaker everyday, the zombie grows stronger, is more healthy, and will eventually replace us all.  And suppose this zombie attacks not the living human, but his baser tendencies.  Suppose it is not our mere existence which causes the zombie attack, but the fact that we hurt one another, and steal from one another, and spend our time falling farther and farther from utopia.

This creature is called the dyszombie, or the anti-zombie.

2.  What is Project: Dyszombie?

A.  "Project: Dyszombie" is not attempting to create a new trope.  Instead we are flipping the classic zombie on its metaphorical and metaphysical head.  Project: Dyszombie is a community based writing initiative about this sort of creature.  At some point in the not so distant future, a virus will be created with the aim of removing deviance from individuals.  This virus will then find its way into the prison population, making literal "zombies" of hardened criminals, until one day, the virus mutates and gets free.  Project: Dyszombie aims at chronicling the experiences of those who survive, those episodes being written almost exclusively by the audience who reads them.

3.  Isnt this just another zombie story?

A.  No.  It is one where the people who read it contribute to it.  The goal is to build a community-generated narrative of the last days of humanity as we know it.  This means that you, the reader, are the ones who write it (I will write it too.)  And the best stories, (judged by the criteria of sticking closely to the rules of the milieu, among other subjective criteria) will be published as part of the growing project.  The worst, well, they will probably be rejected.  A story that involves thinking of the zombie in classic terms: as a degenerate, cannibalistic, rotting animal, will almost be guaranteed rejection.  It's time to start thinking outside of the box, people.

4.  Published where?  Will there be money involved?

A.  On the internet at first, and it is doubtful that there will be money involved.  If there is ever an opportunity to make money, a serious discussion between all accepted contributors concerning terms and etc will need to be had, but we are not even in the same country that this particular bridge is in, so it is inappropriate to talk about that.  But beyond money, there is the opportunity to have your name attached to this really neat idea, and accompanied with all the fame and glory that comes from internet publishing!