A scared, lonely voice: An uncanny interlude in Max Brooks' World War Z (2006)
[Horror is where you find it]
Readers unfamiliar with World War Z (2006) may prefer to read these notes only after reading the story.
The Colonel Christina Eliopolis chapter of World War Z has stuck with me for a decade. I was a latecomer to Max Brooks' dismantling of "Mission Accomplished" U.S. bourgeois political unreality. As with most new books, TV, and movies, it takes a lot of leverage to get me interested.
World War Z was a reading pleasure on several levels. First, I enjoy stories where the people in charge are blown-away by unmanageable crises. Second, I always enjoy discussions and descriptions of logistics and its challenges. This got me, for instance, to the punch-line of Debt of Honor (1991) and several other Tom Clancy novels.
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[….] We were on a hop from Phoenix to the Blue Zone outside Tallahassee, Florida. It was late October, almost full winter back then....
Brooks' Colonel Christina Eliopolis chapter is remarkable in several respects. It explains one aspect of the demolition and reconstruction of the U.S. military command after zombies win the first battle with a rout. It shows the impact of this process on professional soldiers as they adapt. And it creates, within a large and generally brawling future-war novel, a quietly mysterious few pages.
[….] That never bothered me, being alone in hostile territory. That was standard operating procedure for me.
Always?
You wanna talk about being alone in a hostile environment, try my four years at Colorado Springs....
Eliopolis recounts bailing-out of her stricken C-130 transport over rural Louisiana. On the ground, she is stunned, alone, and in hostile country.
[….] I found myself burning up, mentally. Fucking weakling, I told myself, fucking loser. I started to spiral, not just hating myself, but hating myself for hating myself. Does that make any sense? I’m sure I might have just stayed there, shaking and helpless and waiting for Zack.
But then my radio started squawking. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there? Anyone punch outta that wreck?” It was a woman’s voice, clearly civilian by her language and tone.
I answered immediately, identified myself, and demanded that she respond in kind. She told me she was a skywatcher, and her handle was “Mets Fan,” or just “Mets” for short. The Skywatch system was this ad hoc network of isolated ham radio operators. They were supposed to report on downed aircrews and do what they could to help with their rescue. It wasn’t the most efficient system, mainly because there were so few, but it looked like today was my lucky day. She told me that she had seen the smoke and falling wreckage of my Herc’ and even though she was probably less than a day’s walk from my position, her cabin was heavily surrounded. Before I could say anything she told me not to worry, that she’d already reported my position to search and rescue, and the best thing to do was to get to open ground where I could rendezvous for pickup....
In the twenty-four hours before she is picked up, Mets Fan cajoles and cheerleads, badgers and provokes Eliopolis. The goal is to get her to a raised freeway over the bayou where she can be retrieved.
[….] She was so sure of me, trying to get me to think instead of just spoon-feeding me the answers. I realized that I did know this area well, that I had flown over it at least twenty times in the last three months, and that I had to be somewhere in the Atchafalaya basin.
Mets Fan keeps coaching Eliopolis to avoid roads and seemingly abandoned cars as she heads north to the I-10.
[….] I could see that it was a vehicle, a Lexus Hybrid SUV. It was covered in mud and moss and sitting in the water up to its doors. I could see that the rear windows were blocked with survival gear: tent, sleeping bag, cooking utensils, hunting rifle with boxes and boxes of shells, all new, some still in their plastic. I came around the driver’s side window and caught the glint of a .357. It was still clutched in the driver’s brown, shriveled hand. He was still sitting upright, looking straight ahead. There was light coming through the side of his skull. He was badly decomposed, at least a year, maybe more. He wore survival khakis, the kind you’d order from one of those upscale, hunting/safari catalogs. They were still clean and crisp, the only blood was from the head wound. I couldn’t see any other wounds, no bites, nothing. That hit me hard, a lot harder than the little faceless kid. This guy had had everything he needed to survive, everything except the will. I know that’s supposition. Maybe there was a wound I couldn’t see, hidden by his clothes or the advanced decomposition. But I knew it, leaning there with my face against the glass, looking at this monument to how easy it was to give up.
I stood there for a moment, long enough for Mets to ask me what was happening. I told her what I was seeing, and without pause, she told me to keep on going....
[….] Mets got on my ass, pushing me. I snapped back for her to shut the fuck up, I just needed a minute, a couple seconds to…I don’t know what.
I must have kept my thumb on the “transmit” button for a few seconds too long, because Mets suddenly asked, “What was that?” “What?” I asked. She’d heard something, something on my end.
She’d heard it before you?
I guess so, because in another second, once I’d cleared my head and opened my ears, I began to hear it too. The moan…loud and close, followed by the splashing of feet....
In my reading, this is the first strange note. Is Mets Fan a real skywatcher with preternatural hearing over radio? Or a guardian angel? Or the specter of a pilot once lost in the same area?
[….] Who was she, really? How’d she end up in this isolated cabin in the middle of Cajun country? She didn’t sound Cajun, she didn’t even have a southern accent. And how did she know so much about pilot training without ever going through it herself? I was starting to get my suspicions, starting to piece together a rough outline of who she really was.
Mets told me, again, that there would be plenty of time later for an episode of The View. Right now I needed my sleep, and to check in with her at dawn. I felt the Ls kick in between “check” and “in.” I was out by “dawn.”
The next morning brings Eliopolis close to disaster. After a miscalculation, and moving on a fractured ankle, she does arrive at an on ramp of the I-10.
[….] She was shouting at me the whole time. “Move your ass, you fuckin’ bitch!” She was getting pretty raw by then. “Don’t you dare quit…don’t you DARE crap out on me!” She never let up, never gave me an inch. “What are you, some weak little victim?” At that point I thought I was. I knew I could never make it. The exhaustion, the pain, more than anything, I think, the anger at fucking up so badly. I actually considered turning my pistol around, wanting to punish myself for…you know. And then Mets really hit me. She roared, “What are you, your fucking mother!?!”
That did it. I hauled ass right up onto the interstate.
I reported to Mets that I’d made it, then asked, “Now what the fuck do I do?”
Her voice suddenly got very soft. She told me to look up. A black dot was heading at me from out of the morning sun. It was following the freeway and grew very quickly into the form of a UH-60. I let out a whoop and popped my signal flare....
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Was Mets Fan an imaginary comrade supposedly speaking to Eliopolis over a ruined radio? A voice from the unconscious? A pilot's daemon?
That Brooks has the savvy to leave the answer unresolved, and leave us with the puzzle, speaks to his skill, and his confidence in readers.
Jay
