Watch the Quite Ones

Some days, you can forget that reanimates are out there.

Everyone else - everything else - has a voice. Raiders demand tribute or string up people as examples. Government types drop by to see what we're doing and see if we're ready to reunify the USA, or at least drop off the mail. Traders are hawking wares, New Birmingham types are proselyting. All types from other G-zones are passing through, and praising their own way of life, asking you to join or do some sort of favor.

Reanimates say nothing.

The so-called citizens - they broadcast warnings to stay out of their territory and away from their laser towers. Sometimes they stop by and tell us another area is going to be annexed. Then a group of people gets mad, stages an attack, and makes the aliens rethink.

Reanimates don't plan, reanimates don't get mad.

Kids are calling for freedom, farmers for elections, and leaders for order. Half the town says we need more guns, and the other half says more butter. For every person who says its time to take another ride to the cities and recover old technology, there is another who says we shouldn't rely on such things and accept a simpler life.

There is no debating with reanimates.

Radiation clicks the Geiger counter, chemicals turn the test paper blood red and asphyxiated blue. Crude painted symbols reveal raiders, orchid like towers mark citizen territory.

Reanimates do little to claim the place.

Never forget that they are there. Some will drag a person down and beat them to death. Others shred flesh and armor like a cornered wildcat. A few will pound bones to dust with the finesse of raining bricks. Rarely, one will be capable of all of the above and then some. All of them are waiting for you, silently, ready to destroy those who forget.