Notes from the 2089 logbooks
of Phinneas Finn, now
administrative clerk to the
Subminister of Health, from
his days as a freelance
Undertaker to that Ministry.
13 June. Risens on the loose in
the East End again. Stepney's a
real hot zone. Reclamation Men
burned it out six months ago,
stupid bastards moved right
back in. Went hand to hand.
Total maybe twenty takes.
Another ten mercy kills, all bitten—heads spiked as per standard,
bodies burned.
23 June. Risen in the Covent
Garden. Escape from a Plague
Cart. Gave us a bit of a chase.
Fast canny bastards, the fresh
ones. Limited incidental
casualties.
8 July. More in the East End - Plague Cart caught by surprise this morning. Twelve takes, three
mercies. Department of Health gives East End a rating of one per three for the summer.
19 July. Incident at Hospice of the Quiet Sleep at Burns and Lombe. One died in the night, nurse
on duty asleep. Others ran, secured the doors. Good—contained the infection. Less trouble.
Hospice not reclaimable—burned and razed. Maybe forty dead.
28 July. East End again. This damnable heat. Old keep dying. Four dead, locked in by surviving
family. No mercies. Quick knife work cleanup. Damned glad the risen think slower'n wood.
~
Excerpt from Prof. S. Kinney's book A Natural History of Undeath; Being a treatise on the
various unliving and half-living inhabitants of the modern world. Published by Oxford
University Press, 2011.
The xombie is generally a solitary creature, though the term may have implications that are not
needed here. It is more accurate to say that the xombie appears to pay the presence of other
xombies no attention whatsoever. Recognizing its fellow undead as such, and therefore as no
source of nutrition for them, the xombie pays its kindred as much mind as it would a nearby rock
or tree.
This utter indifference, paradoxically, may be a driving force behind the "flocking" behavior
observable in groups of xombie. The spread of the contagion is radial from an original incident,
wherein a risen corpse begins to feed and thereby creates a growing group of xombie in its
vicinity. Caring nothing for one another, these newly risen creatures will search out any source of
prey in the vicinity, and in many cases will move collectively toward the nearest source of prey.
The observation that the xombie may descend en mass to feed is, therefore, not an incidence of
pack behavior but an accident of proximity. There is no evidence whatsoever for cooperative
behavior among xombie of the ordinary type.
Beginning in 1983, we do however have scattered reports of a variety of xombie beyond the
ordinary type. This monster is reported to be more intelligent than the customary run of xombie,
capable of limited reasoning and, apparently, some degree of animal cleverness. These aspects,
unexpected in the animate dead, make this variety of xombie a terrifying opponent, difficult to
predict and extremely challenging to destroy.
One of the first reports of this manifestation dates from 1986, where we have the journal of a
young woman trapped in the last fortified building of a fallen compound in the north of the
kingdom. Here I present the last page of the journal, unedited, for the edification of the public.
"...others are gone. They went to get help and never came back, and it's been four days. No one
is coming back. I know this now. I am prepared to die, but only... not at the hands of those things.
If there is a God, I pray it. I will not join those monsters with my death.
Richard died of his bite three days ago and bit James when he rose. James disposed of Richard,
then walked into the courtyard. I can see him walking past now, beneath the window. They all
walk by the window. Around and around the building... they know I am here. They know I am
here because the strange one knows I am here.
He is standing in front of the building, where he has been for two days. I know him. He was a
farmer. He was one of the first to die. Two days ago, I looked out the window and saw him. He
saw me too, and he stopped and looked up. Then... oh unspeakable... the others stopped, like
puppets whose strings had gone tight, and turned as one to look up at me too. I have not slept
since.
I try not to look at the window, but I cannot help looking. He has not moved, not once. The others
circle the building in lines, removing any chance of escape. One by one, they throw themselves
against the back door. The sound is changing. They are almost through. When they break
through the door, he will come for me.
There, the crash. I looked out the window and he was gone. The others stood in the courtyard like
unused toys. Now there is a rattling at the doorlatch... he is here. He waited all this time, and he
has me now.
The others throw themselves at the door. It will not take long. I have a pistol, but too few rounds.
There is no more time to write. God help me."
This and other more recent observations indicate the existence of a xombie of unusual
intelligence and manual skill. The memory facilities are unusual—in many cases we have
evidence that the xombie recalls the location of prey and will in fact work tactically to corner a
target, even ignoring new targets once a prey is well-secured. We have multiple observations of
what appear to be the same xombie in multiple incidents over time within a region, indicating that
this strain of xombie may be of greater natural longevity than its simpler cousins. Moreover, the
regular observations of unusual coordination and cooperation of simple xombies in the presence
of a xombie of this strain have led some scientists to speculate that this strain possesses some
sort of corrupted telepathy or other ability for mental control of lesser specimens. It is this ability
that has led to the creation of the epithet "Xombie Lord".
Relatively little is known about the creation of this strain. Based on the observations we have, we
presume it did not come into existence until the 1980's. It is widely presumed to be a mutated
form of the standard xombie, though the origins of the strain (and, indeed, the very nature of the
xombie contagion) remain something of a mystery. No known observations of the strain have
occurred among the spontaneously risen, and as it stands the strain appears to be vanishingly
rare. Though the Xombie Lord does appear to be able to compel lesser strains of xombie into its
service, there are no known instances of cooperation between individuals of this strain; whether
this is an intrinsic behavioral trait or a function of the strain's rarity is unknown.
It is worthwhile to note that there is no reliable superficial means by which the Lord-strain can be
discerned. The differences of the strain appear to be largely behavioral rather than physical, save for the
increased delay in the decay process. This delay was observed closely under laboratory conditions in the
Bell Harbor Paranormal Research labs. Regrettably, these labs were overrun by xombie in year five of the
experiment. As this incident is widely considered to be a spectacular verification of the Xombie Lord's
ability to control lesser undead at distance, no lab has since proved willing to continue the experiment...
From the reading material assigned by Prof. Jacob Highman for his course, An
Introduction to Non-Human Pathology, at the University of London, last autumn term.
and 