by Brahm Stroker
The idea of sharing this information has weighed me down tremendously and I’ve wrestled with the idea whether or not this information should be made public. Some of you may scoff or even ridicule me for telling you that I know the origin of the zombie. How can I make such a claim? Get to the end and you decide whether this to be fact or a salacious fable conjured from an overactive imagination.
I ask you to put your skepticism aside for a moment and tell me if you’ve ever heard of Yersinia pestis? No? Maybe I have your attention now? Go ahead, highlight Yersinia pestis and Google it if you wish, or read on and learn what I have to teach you. The information I give you here is way more accurate and a truth I’ve helped suppress.
The coccobacillus is a type of bacteria with no spores and to further help you, bacteria is a type of cell. This bacterium is a facultative anaerobe that can grow with or without oxygen and can and has infected humans via the oriental rat flea, thus creating the worst pandemic in human history: Black Plague, Great Plague, also known as the Black Death.
Having originated in Central Asia where it traveled the Silk Road and reached into Crimea in 1343. Carried by Oriental rat fleas that live on black rats, these rodents were an unwelcome but common passenger on merchant ships which accelerated the spread of the plague throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. Thus hitting my home country of Budapest, Hungary in the year of 1349.
The Black Plague is responsible for killing nearly 100 million people. Fever and vomiting blood were the most common signs you had contracted the disease from the bite of a tiny flea. I found it amazing how something so small, something so insignificant, could kill nearly 100 million people!
Most of the infected died within 2 to 7 days of infection. Understand this wasn’t a blessing for anyone who was unfortunate enough to contract the plague. No one had an easy death no matter the duration. You see, dying isn’t easy for us to do.
I find that especially true because I had contracted the disease as a child and had suffered the effects firsthand. Tiny bites up and down my legs. The pain that burned within my body was excruciating. The fever so hot that it felt like the sun was draped across my forehead. My body trembled and tingled in such a manner that I believe the nerves within me were dying. Through the bouts of extreme pain, I wondered how someone could vomit so much blood and yet still live?
I prayed for death but remained in a state of illness for weeks, suffering all the ailments of someone with the black plague, not understanding why death was being so cruel to me. Why wasn’t it taking me and allowing me to suffer so?
My parents were gone and there was no one around to care for me. I suffered alone; a child in an unfamiliar body, his parents in the room on the other side of the dwelling, dead and rotting with the stink of spoiled eggs.
What had I done so wrong at such a young age that I would have to witness the creeping death entering my toes which turned them black and emanated a rancid stink that I still cannot describe to this day?
Young, alone and afraid, I had somehow continued to live. Sleep wasn’t something I was able to do so I worked tirelessly and dug graves for my parents and buried them. I cleaned the house and nursed my wounds as best I could. My thoughts were confused and I found it hard to learn what had happened, but time and history were on my side and I was able to develop and grow. I came to understand that both life and death had become me.
A paradox I still don’t understand. I believe I am the first and only of my kind. If there are more, I don’t know about them. We keep to ourselves and to the shadows. We often appear as pale-skinned and thin, quiet and loners.
Early on I had learned to hide the rot that had taken my toes and the tips of my fingers and watch the world from afar. I’ve grown from a child into a man, and oddly, I know that the living can be dead and yet, somehow alive. I can’t pretend to understand the popularity around the dead rising nowadays. You see, I’ve seen what a sweeping plague can do and it is catastrophic. There is nothing glorious about the suffering of millions and the idea of being stuck in the state of both living and dead for eternity.
Check of Rated Z: Money Shot by Brahm Stroker now.
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