Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 111: A New Theory

The med bay had been cleared. The infected neutralized. But Kayla was dead. Five soldiers who'd been zipped in sealed bags had come back to life. And no one—no one—had seen it coming.

Thomas stood at the head of the long table, arms folded, jaw set. His tablet was in front of him, screen dark, unused for now. He wasn't here to read reports.

He was here to ask questions—and he wanted answers.

"Close the door," he ordered.

Phillip, standing near the entrance, did just that.

Around the table sat six personnel. Shadow 6 and Shadow 8—the two who had carried the body bags. Reyes and Garza—the refinery soldiers assigned to catalog and supervise the morgue handoff. Shadow 3, who responded first. And Phillip, who pulled up internal logs and the now-failed sensor data.

"All of you were part of the chain of custody," Thomas began. His voice was calm, but cold. "I want each of you to walk me through exactly what happened."

No one spoke at first.

Then Shadow 6 cleared his throat. "Sir, we retrieved five KIA from the field. Confirmed no signs of life—checked pulses, breath, pupil response."

"You bag them?"

"Yes, sir. Full seal. ID tags outside. We delivered them to the refrigeration unit, logged the time, signed them over to refinery staff."

He nodded toward Reyes and Garza.

Thomas turned to them next. "What did you do after the handoff?"

Reyes sat rigid. "We confirmed identities. Verified the tags against the list. Made sure all five were zipped and stacked flat. Unit patch visible. I ran the log through the system. Garza helped me with the physical inventory."

"You open the bags?"

"No, sir."

Garza piped up. "Didn't touch the zips. Just stacked them like we were told. They stank, but they weren't moving."

Thomas nodded, processing. Then glanced to Phillip. "Sensor data?"

Phillip tapped his tablet. "The med wing's on a separate low-power subsystem. After the dead were moved in, motion sensors weren't triggered. The magnetic seal on the door logged a single manual unlock—Kayla's ID. No anomalous activity before that."

"They moved without triggering sensors," Thomas said aloud, mostly to himself. "Cooled bodies. No core temp. Probably below thermal thresholds."

"Exactly," Phillip said. "If they were in cold storage, they wouldn't show on infrared. Hell, even the Reaper wouldn't catch them unless they were warm or moving fast."

Thomas looked back to the room.

"They didn't break in," he said slowly. "They woke up."

Shadow 8 looked uncomfortable. "With respect, sir… that shouldn't happen. We verified them."

"And that's the problem," Thomas said. "You did everything right. By the book."

The silence stretched.

Thomas stood straighter now, voice sharpening.

"We've operated under the assumption that infected require exposure—blood, bite, fluid transfer. But these five were never bitten. Never scratched. They were killed by trauma, not infection vectors."

Everyone in the room sat a little stiffer now.

"What are you saying, sir?" Shadow 3 asked.

"I'm saying this virus—or whatever this is—might not need to infect. It might already be inside us."

He let that hang for a moment.

"Asymptomatic carriage," Phillip muttered, horrified. "Dormant in every human. It only activates post-mortem."

"That's the working theory," Thomas said. "It explains the speed. The transformation time. The lack of external transmission. These soldiers died. Then came back."

Phillip crossed his arms. "So it's not just infection. Death itself is the trigger."

"Yes," Thomas said. "And we can't afford another incident like this again. Which means as of now, protocols are changing."

He reached for his tablet and brought up a draft.

"Effective immediately, all deceased personnel—civilian or military—will not be stored. They will not be handed over. They will not be transported."

Everyone stared.

"They will be incinerated within thirty minutes of confirmed death," Thomas said. "Autopsy or ceremony be damned. No exceptions unless pre-cleared by myself or senior command."

"So what about the bodies that we have buried under the ground after we took this refinery? Perhaps we should dig it up to confirm our working theory," Phillip suggested.

Thomas didn't hesitate.

"Do it," he said, voice low but absolute. "We're not leaving anything to chance. I want that burial site unearthed. Tonight."

Phillip nodded once, already reaching for his comms. "Shadow teams, prep dig detail. We're unearthing the southern plot. Bring full containment gear and suppression tools. Assume risk level: Red."

Within the hour, floodlights lit up the southern perimeter of the refinery—once a crude graveyard for fallen defenders during the early days of occupation. There were no tombstones here. Just wooden stakes, handwritten tags, and shallow earth packed over body bags in haste.

The wind was cold. The soil, soft.

Two teams worked with quiet urgency—shovels digging, hands lifting out clumps of earth. The smell of rot returned fast.

Shadow 4 was the first to stop.

"Got one," he said, kneeling beside a partially exposed bag. His gloved hand cleared away the last layer of dirt from the slick, mud-caked plastic. "Body bag's intact. Movement inside—"

The bag twitched.

Everyone froze.

Then the bulge inside shifted violently.

Something slammed against the interior.

A clawed hand tore through the side, lashing out. The fingers were black, jagged, flesh shredded down to muscle. The bag rocked and twisted, muffled snarling erupting from inside like a caged beast.

"CONTACT!" Shadow 7 shouted, raising his weapon.

"Do not fire!" Phillip snapped. "We're confirming protocol—trap and suppress!"

Two Shadows rushed forward with heavy taping gear and reinforced netting. The thing inside continued thrashing with inhuman strength, clawing at the air as if it hadn't been buried alive for days.

But they got it.

They wrapped the thing down with industrial tape, four-inch thick straps across its limbs and torso, and secured its twitching head with a reinforced sack.

Two more bodies were exhumed.

Both moved.

One of them had nearly clawed its way to the surface—its bag ripped open from the inside, dirt packed into its mouth and eyes, but it still snapped blindly as they dragged it out. Another had broken bones but still writhed like it was feeling no pain.

Phillip watched it all, lips pressed thin.

Then keyed his comm.

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"Eagle Actual, this is Shadow One," he said. "Theory confirmed. The buried dead are reanimating. They're violent, mobile, and extremely durable."

"You know what to do. Put them out of their misery," Thomas said.