A Review of World War Z Part 3: The Great Panic

 

 

 

 

 

Up until this point in the book The Great Panic has only ever been mentioned, never fully explained. This section of the book is dedicated to that moment in history.

 

This is a French Military Dirigible. I picked it because

it reminded me a marshmallow.

The first character we meet Gavin Blaire and he pilots one of D-17 combat dirigibles that make up the core of America's civil air patrol. Before the war he piloted a fugifilm blimp.

(Hindenburg was a dirigible.)

 

Gavin Blaire remembers The Great Panic in a very factual way. Almost as if he still doesn't believe it.

 

"Back down the road, about thirty miles, traffic was moving a little better. You'd think the mood would be calmer. It wasn't. People were flashing their lights, bumping the cars in front of them, getting out and throwing down. I saw a few people lying by the side of the road, barely moving, or not at all. People were running past them, carrying stuff, carrying children, or just running, all in the same direction of the traffic. A few miles later, I saw why.

Those creatures were swarming among the cars. Drivers on the outer lanes tried to veer off the road, sticking in the mud, trapping the inner lanes. People couldn't open their doors. The cars were too tightly packed. I saw those things reach in open windows, pulling people out or pulling themselves in. A lot of drivers were trapped inside. Their doors were shut, I'm assuming, locked. Their windows were rolled up, it was safety tempered glass. The dead couldn't get in, but the living couldn't get out. I saw a few people panic, try to shoot through their windshields, destroying the only protection they had. Stupid. They might have bought themselves a few hours in there, maybe even a chance to escape, just a quicker end."

 

"Who organized this mass exodus? Did anyone? Did people see a line of cars and join them without asking? I tried to imagine what it must be like, stuck bumper to bumper, crying kids, barking dogs, knowing what was coming just a few miles back, and hoping, praying that someone up ahead knows where he's going."

 

 

After Gavin Blaire, we meet Ajay Shah. Because, America wasn't the only place panicking. That wouldn't make it great. Others places had to panic too.

 

"They tell me what happened here was not unusual, all around our world where the ocean meets the land, people trying desperately to board whatever floated for a chance of survival at sea."

 

Ajah Shah recounts his own country's panic...

"I knew Alang was a shipyard, that's why I tried to make for it in the first place. I'd expected to find a construction site cranking out one hull after hull to carry us all to safety. I had no idea that it was just the opposite. Alang didn't build ships, it killed them. Before the war, it was the largest breakers yard in the world. Vessels from all nations were bought by Indian scrap-iron companies, run up on this beach, stripped, cut, and disassembled until not the smallest bolt remained. The several dozen vessels I saw were not fully loaded, fully functional ships, but naked hulks lining up to die."

 

The narrator points out that they could have just climbed aboard the ships and then retracted the ladders, waiting for rescue instead of trying to make the broken ships seaworthy.

 

"You speak with rational hindsight, you weren't there that night. The yard was crammed right up to the shoreline, this mad dash of humanity backlit by in land fires. Hundreds were trying to swim out to the ships. The surf was choked with those who didn't make it." 

 

Everything is going to hell in a hand basket over in India.

Before the whole walking dead issue, they had loads of racism. There's been several accounts of people from different regions being beaten to death for being different.

The most infamous racial attacks were on the Bihari people. Bahar is ignored by central government as well as the state government in the 1990s were known for being terribly corrupted. In 2000 and 2003, anti-bahari violence was the cause for 200 deaths and creating 10,000 refugees.

There also has been a lot of trouble where North East Indians are assaulted when they travel to different regions of India.

And North East India has a history of violent attacks on non-natives.

Next to the racism, their violence towards those of a lower caste is also extremely high. Check it out, the entire time you're reading it should be thoroughly depressing as well as educational.

 

"I even saw one captain, standing on the launch deck, waving his gun shouting, no unscheduled castes! We won't take untouchables!" Untouchables? Castes? Who the hell still thinks like that? And this is the crazy part, some older people got out of the queue! Can you believe that?"

 

Ajay recounts how several people won't let him on their boats because he was a "darkie." Even in a time of ultimate crisis, their prejudice prevailed. I suppose that's part of human nature though, right? When everything is falling apart, you cling to your most basic instincts because we naturally fight change. So when the dead is up and walking around, the only control these people had left was their racism. It's ugly, but it's true. They were scared and they became rigid in what they knew.

But then there were others who didn't succumb to the horribleness of it all. These were good people in opposite contrast to the ugly.  

 

"I'm just highlighting the more extreme negative examples. For every one profiteer and repulsive psychopath, there were ten good and decent people whose karma was still untainted. A lot of fishermen and small boat owners who could have simply escaped with their families chose to put themselves in danger by continuing to return to shore. When you think about what they were risking: being murdered for their boats, or just marooned on the beach, or being attacked by so many underwater ghouls..."

 

"It was low tide, deep enough for a man to drown, but shallow enough for standing ghouls to reach up for prey. You saw many swimmers vanish below the surface, or boats capsized with their passengers dragged under. And still, rescuers continued to return to shore, or even jumped from ships to save people in the water.

That was how I was saved, I was one of those who tried to swim. The ships looked much closer than they actually were. I was a strong swimmer but after walking from Bhavnagar, after fighting for my life for most of the day, I barely had enough strength to float on my back. By the time I reached my intended salvation, there wasn't enough air in my lungs for me to call for help. There was no gangway, the smooth side towered over me. I banged on the steal shouting up with the last bit of breath I had.

The Sir Wilfred Grenfell, it's a real ship!

Just as I slipped below the surface, I felt a powerful arm wrap around my chest. This is it, I thought; any second, I thought I would feel teeth dig into my flesh. Instead of pulling me down, the arm hauled me back up to the surface. I ended up aboard the Sir Wilfred Grenfell, an ex Canadian Coast Guard cutter. I tried to talk, tried to apologize for not having any money, to explain that I could work for my passage, do anything they needed. The crewman just smiled, "Hold on," he said, "We're about to get underway. I could feel the deck vibrate then lurch as we moved.

That was the worst part, watching the other ships we passed. Some of the onboard infected refugees had begun to reanimate. Some vessels were floating slaughterhouses, others just burned at anchor. People were leaping into the sea. Many who sank beneath the surface never reappeared."

 

The stories in The Great Panic section of the book always strike me as sort of shell shocked. There's less emotion in these stories, but then you remember that they're in the middle of panicking.

The emotional disconnect is common in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

* The opioid system of the brain, which can blunt the feeling of pain, is hyperactive. This may account for the emotional numbing, an inability to experience tender feelings, that often accompanies post traumatic stress. - Dr. Matthew Friedman, executive director of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

 

See, emotional disconnect. Totally a thing. The entire globe is just suffering from a really bad case of PTSD.