You spend your entire undeath working to cultivate a reputation for affordable, high-caliber, parasite-free sex and in one moment of misguided judgment, you throw it all away.
If you’ve never had maggots crawling around inside your rectal cavity and feasting on your subcutaneous fat, you probably wouldn’t understand.
Rural Dead
By Bret Hammond
Bret Hammond is the coauthor of the book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geocaching and the publisher of Geocacher University (www.geocacher-u.com), a website devoted to providing education and materials to both new and experienced geocachers. This story is his first and only fiction published to date, which originally appeared on the zombie website Tales of the Zombie War. In addition to his interest in geocaching and zombies, he’s also a pastor and has published articles and cartoons in a variety of religious publications.
The Amish are a Christian community of Swiss-German origin centered in Pennsylvania, perhaps best-known in pop culture thanks to the Harrison Ford movie Witness. Amish culture emphasizes hard work, humility, and family. They dress simply, largely forego modern technology (notably automobiles and electrical appliances), socialize mainly among themselves, and work in trades such as farming, construction, and crafts-making. Their main method of ensuring that members keep to Amish ways is peer pressure, known as shunning. Whether or not an individual is to be shunned is determined by the leadership, and when someone is being shunned even their spouse may refuse to speak to them. In severe cases of noncompliance a person may be expelled from the community, though they are always welcome to return if they mend their ways.
Many schisms have developed in Amish communities over the years over what rules are to be followed and how severe shunning should be. The Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder established the precedent that Amish are exempt from many American laws, including those involving compulsory education (Amish children are not educated past eighth grade), child labor, and Social Security. The Amish are also extreme pacifists, and once faced severe penalties and abuse for refusing to fight in America’s wars.
Our next story, which is a bit more wholesome than the last one, takes a look at how this unusual and close-knit community weathers a zombie apocalypse, and what happens when extreme pacifism collides with extreme circumstances.
We’ve blocked off the reference room in the small community library for these interviews. Otto Miller sits across the table from me, his arms folded tightly against his chest. He is an elder in this small Amish community and looks every bit the part. I ask him to state his name and he simply stares at me and then looks down at the digital recorder I’ve placed on the table. He strokes his beard a couple times and then folds his arms again. I can see we’re going to get nowhere with this.
I click the device off. That’s not enough. I put it back down in my satchel and pull out a yellow legal tablet. As I click my pen he begins to speak.
“I have nothing against you, English, nor your devices. But you have to understand us. We don’t cling to your machines, we don’t participate in your ways, we don’t ask anything of you. But you and your…things…your ways…they are constantly thrust upon us. Even your plague.”
He points his finger squarely at me. I’ve heard of “righteous indignation,” but I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen it. “I read your newspapers, listen to your broadcasts. You think this plague was the hand of God? Wouldn’t that be convenient? If all this were simply the divine pouring out judgment and wrath upon the world? No, this was your own doing. You—you English—you played with the natural order of things and this was the result. Like breeding your livestock in one family line, sooner or later the results will haunt you. They haunt all of us.”
I’m eager to get the interview on track. “Why don’t we back up a bit, Mr. Miller. When was it the infection first touched your community?”
Otto Miller looks out the window for a moment and gathers his thoughts. “You are from the city, yes?”
I smile. “Yes. New York. My home is very far removed from what you have around here.”