Location: Not Important How often do we go through life, day after day without paying the slightest bit of attention to the things that we surround ourselves with as a matter of course; the petty trinkets, the emotional crutches, the sentimental keepsakes. Three on the TV set? Eight by the bed, two in the closet, in the car, in the back pack? The invasion was under control after the first twenty-four hours. The enemy was viscious and there were horrendous casualties but they were winning, the enemy was being beaten back. But the cost... Thirty-three adults and forty children in a toy store, a scene repeated too many times across the world. Mr. Bobble Head going for the throat, the Fuzzy Dice and Rabbit's feet biting and clawing out eyes. It seemed that all that was needed was a form, the invaders would do the rest. Where once was empty space and incomplete anatomy, a ghostly green substance that quickly evaporated upon exposure to air, formed limbs, organs, muscles, teeth. Most of the attacks were random, isolated affairs. The teddy bears marched on Tiananmen Square and were overrun with tanks while the people cheered. The Chinese government scratched their heads at that one. The teddy commando units in Indonesia were quickly eliminated. People took matters into their own hands in France and England, bonfires sent clouds of greenish vapor into the air. And they finally put the Dough Boy down for good... Hollywood was the scene of a massacre, some would never look at the Disney cast the same way ever again. But in the end, they won. Or so they thought. The first day of celebration was the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse. 'I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' Dr. O was a dead man, he worked with dead men and women, brilliant dead men and women. The combined IQ of the collected personages was a telephone number, they were quite possibly the most intelligent group of dead people to have been collected in one organization- ever.

He was a chain-smoker, a bad habit, bad for his health some would say but that mattered little to the dead. It reminded him of what it was like to be human, going through the motions. His current form of existence was the reason that he and his colleagues would never be acknowledged publicly for the discoveries they made. Both due to the fact of what they were and to the nature of the source material that they worked with. In time perhaps their work would trickle through into mainstream science, 'discovered' by living researchers. He didn't mind, the dead had no need for recognition.

Another benefit of his position as Chair, a rotating ten year term in office, was the fact that it was he who decided what technologies were released. It was also his word that approved the plans for how the release was to be done. Most often such plans were laid out on a time scale of decades. Their clients were often clamouring for more but the terms for the establishment of the organization had been one of non-interference by either political or military powers and freedom from private business interests. His predecessors as Chair had maintained this policy throughout the changing years, administrations and the countless attempts to bring them under the aegis of one interest or another.

It was the true reason that they remained dead to the world. There were no secrets among them but they were wary of the few gems of knowledge shared with the living. Despite vocal dissatisfaction, as the goose that laid the golden egg, they were tolerated by the powers aware of them. Thus never needing to use their own trump cards in a battle for independence.

For example, Dr. O was working on a device that could have been part of an inter-stellar communications system; or a wireless power transmission system; or a death ray... It was all like that with all the artifacts that they worked with. Each new discovery was a means of global peace, an end to mankind's scarcities. However, like the tale of the monkey's paw, every boon presented a possibility for humanity to destroy itself, to cast down the light of civilization and grind it into nothingness. Dr. O dealt with things like this every day so when Albert came around and showed him the zombie, his first thought was to call up a report on the twenty-six studies they had running that could have been responsible. After the last of the biochemical labs was absolved of blame he sighed, "All right, give it to me, who's the joker that did this."