Comrade Undead

My grandfather is a cool old man. I guess I could say he’s a little notorious too. Good thing no one here really knows why he can be considered such. Grandpa was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. That’s the less interesting part about him. He was also a chemist involved in the development of some kind of a crazy chemical weapon, apparently. Now that he’s retired, he doesn’t do much, nor does he ever really talk about his past. He’s also not haunted by it, to be franked. I guess he just doesn’t see the point to bring up stuff that would either confuse or terrify most of us.

The other day when I was about to leave his house, he asked me if I’d like to have one of his old journals. He’s specifically said, “Do you still remember your mother tongue?”

“Yes, of course,” I responded.

“Good, would you like to have one of my journals? It’s just lying around taking up space,” he inquired.

“Sure,” I remarked. Not knowing what I was going to do with an old journal that belongs to an old chemist.

Now I know what I’m going to do with it. Well, I already did. I’ve transcribed some of it to English and decided to post it online. What I’m sharing here is the content of a few pages from my granddad’s old journal from the fifties. It’s about some sort of chemical weapon experimentation. I guess not much will come of it either way, since it’s been so long and the entire project potentially fell flat somewhere along the way. This specific portion of grandpa’s journal talks about experimentation with something called “Comrade Undead”, a neurotoxin that was developed as the potential next big thing in warfare. We’ve never heard of that, so I’m going to hazard a guess that was never used or that the project failed at some point.

Everything below this point is quoted from my grandfather’s journal.

P.S I know some of I had written below might be shocking. Believe me, it disturbed me when I got through this section but I can assure you, my grandfather is a decent man. He’s not some psychopath. He was just a man doing his job. Also, keep in mind the different era all of this took place in.

It’s my first day here. The compound seems nice. The moment I arrived here; the doctors regularly stationed here came to tell me about this chemical agent they’ve been developing. They gave it an amusing name, to say the least, “Comrade Undead.” I chuckled when I had heard that name. Upon inquiring why it was nicknamed so, Comrade Koryakin told me it’s because the animal testing displayed some intriguing results. Subjects would usually lose their mental faculties before long, expiring after a period of a vegetative state, hence the “undead” part. The “comrade” part was more of a joke on their behalf. I like the idea of having a humorous staff of scientists around me. It helps the mood.

In any case, I’ve monitored the administration of the chemical agent into five human test subjects. All of them young men; taken from the labor camps. They seemed elated to be here. What they don’t know is that they’re going to die. Most likely, the animal testing showed a hundred percent lethality rate. All these men know is that they’ll be taking part in a government experiment that could last up to a month. They know all of their needs will be tended to as long as they comply and stay put in their small cell. They are only required to partake in interviews with us whenever instructed.

If I were in their place, I’d also be happy to stay away from the labor camps. I’ve heard they’re beyond nasty. That’s what you get for defying the civil order.

Unfortunately, I cannot leave this compound until the test is concluded; that is until the chemical kills the five. It could take up to a month. I hope it doesn’t however, even though this place isn’t really bad I don’t find too much solace in being locked in a bunker below the Volga.

Well, it’s time for dinner, so I guess I should put the pen down.

12/3/1950

It’s been four days since I’ve arrived here. The chemical seems to be working fine. The five men are displaying the intended effects. A few hours after the initial injection, they all complained of a dizzying headache. Something I forgot to mention in my previous entry. At nightfall, all the subjects began displaying signs of anxiety and emotional distress. Nothing too serious, they were just restless and uneasy. Two of them reported racing thoughts. From the first night I spent here, the subjects are displaying a progressively worsening insomnia.

According to the reports, they had difficulty falling asleep due to their excited state during the first night. Once they did manage to fall asleep; all the subjects reported suffering terrible nightmares that would jolt them awake. By last night, none of them is capable of falling asleep. I’ve conducted an interview with one of the men. He noted that whenever he feels himself falling asleep, he can feel a heat wave slowly surging up and down his spine. One that would turn into a searing sensation that burns through the middle of his back and shoulder blades. According to the subject, he would jolt up in agony every time he tried to sleep. Now, all of them are trying as hard as they can to avoid falling asleep.

It’s also interesting to note that I wanted to conduct the same interview with the other subjects, but I was refused by the guards. Apparently, there’s something wrong with the guinea pigs. They are sitting in different corners of their cell, huddled into a seated fetal position with their eyes darting all over the room. The guards say they can smell the aggression coming out of them whenever they open the door to toss them their meals. That’s probably why they wouldn’t let me in. Oh well; I do think that this reaction is either a result of the sleep deprivation or the chemical’s effect.

Speaking of meals, they’re serving Foie Gras today for dinner. I’m starting to enjoy this place.

16/3/1950

Another two days had passed. The test subjects are beginning to display the signs of extreme paranoia. The progression of the poison’s effects is going as expected. Today, when we came into the lab where the testing cell is located. We found the windows of the cell covered by the shirts of the subjects. Turns out they stuck them to the windows using fecal matter.

There was a lot of screaming, resisting, and thrashing when the guards entered the cell. The test pigs didn’t want to comply and tried fighting the guards out of their confinement. I could hear some rambling nonsense about how we’re planning to cut them up or something. That’s not the plan; again, yes, they’ll die. Not by getting operated on.

They are also apparently driving the night shift of the guards insane with their constant screaming and beating of the walls. The poor soldiers can’t exert any force onto these pigs because we need them alive and in good shape.

I have a feeling all of this will be over with soon enough.

18/3/1950

It’s been ten days since my arrival. The subjects won’t eat. They outright refuse food, or water for that matter too. They were presented with their usual food crates but cowered away from them on sight. One of them began screaming for the crates to be taken away, the others followed. Their voices sounded so weak.

I’ve managed to conduct an interview with one of them. The state of his mind is delirious, to say the least.

“Why aren’t you eating?” I asked him.

He didn’t respond.

“Well?” I pressed on.

He refused to answer, and I pulled out a cupcake from my drawer. I looked at one of the guards watching over us and told him, “shove it down his throat.”

The dog immediately beginning shaking in fear, begging me to not torture him with the pastry. I couldn’t help but hold back a chuckle. Imagine a grown man being afraid of a cupcake. Whatever this drug did to them; it was definitely frying their brains.

Anyway, after that, I’ve managed to get him to speak.

“So, why won’t you eat again?”

“I… I… I… ca… can’t…”

“Why can’t you?”

“My, my th-throat, it contracts violently. Can’t eat. It hurts too badly. Don’t want food. The pain is unbearable, I’d rather starve. What on earth did you do to me?”

“What about water can you drink?”

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

“Answer the question, and refrain from using profanity please.”

“You piece of shit!” he yelled out before attempting to lunge at me. the guards pinned him to the table while I just sat there. I watching a rabid dog thrash about trying to escape the clutches of trained soldiers.

The bastard was taken back to his cell, and I’ve concluded that they must be suffering from a severe case of hydrophobia. They can’t swallow any liquid or anything for that matter. Once something passes through their throats the muscles violently contract causing immense pain, it’s usually a symptom of rabies. Kind of fitting really, given how rabid these animals have been acting lately.

In any case, we’ve decided that we’re going to feed through dialysis. This experiment is worth every expanse it seems.

22/3/1950

I guess, last night was extremely eventful; it turns out the rabid dogs turned into actual rabid dogs. The guards reported hearing a scuffle during the night, but when questioned on why they wouldn’t interfere, they sighted a lack of directive to do so.

I suspect they just wanted the subjects to suffer for troubling their nights as they had. Perhaps being locked up in this bunker is corrupting even the minds of our Red army soldiers. Such a shame.

I digress, the aftermath of the said brawl was a bloodbath. While only one of the subjects was severely injured; all of them have nasty cuts and bruises all over them. One of the subjects suffered a broken arm. Another a cut so bad to his forehead that I can safely assume most of the blood is his. They wouldn’t calm down until we administered them with anesthetics.

I don’t know where they found the strength to fight like this.

The anesthetics had an interesting effect however, sometime after being administered some of the effects wore off prematurely. That is, the medical staff shrieked in horror once the patients appeared to have woken up. Well, not really, they were immobile but conscious. Locked inside their own bodies, so to speak.

It makes you wonder who was more terrified of the whole ordeal, the patients who woke up to find themselves stuck in place while medics were stitching them up or the medics who had to deal with the wandering eyes of their patients.

I do wonder if the one with the ruptured liver felt as he was being operated on.

He’s since been separated from the rest, given as they’d most likely assault him again. At least, that’s what we think.

Him being a Volga German probably had something to do with the whole brawl.

Too bad we can’t ask him what had happened.

23/3/50

Well, it’s been a week since I’ve last written; Comrade Undead has turned out to be a resounding success. The guinea pigs are all dead. The last one, the German, he died just a few moments ago. After this scuffle of theirs, they initially recovered before slowly all higher mental faculties.

It started with the loss of memory and disorientation and later turned into a speech disability, in no time they couldn’t even formulate words at all. Only incoherent mumbling syllables and gross sounds.

Three days ago, it was clear none of them had the strength to stand up or do anything as a matter of a fact. They couldn’t really even sit up. They were just slumped on the floor – drooling and staring at the ceiling.

Their eye movements ceased almost entirely after the loss of mobility.

They didn’t respond to any stimuli, not even beatings.

They just lied there, motionless, unresponsive. Slowly wasting away. Vegetative, perhaps.

I guess that’s why they called it “Comrade undead”. If these scums were lawful members of the soviet society, they’d be now undead comrades of ours, but they weren’t. So, they were just undead criminals.

In a couple of days, they were all shriveled to shells of their former selves; the dialysis didn’t seem to help sustain them. Their bodies were just falling apart from the inside out. It must have completely destroyed the brain. It would be interesting to inspect their brains; I wonder if I could get the results of such an autopsy.

The German lad, he was confined to a bed the whole week, and it seems like his eyes froze on the door. I didn’t enjoy dealing with him these last few days. It was pretty disturbing seeing this humanoid, heavily bandaged husk just staring at you and drooling with a bit of a smile curled on its lips. I think I was beginning to see things myself; he did have a natural smug look to him but still, I’m sure he wasn’t really smiling… I’m glad I can leave this place first thing tomorrow morning.

Regardless, I’m pretty sure Comrade Stalin and the other party leaders will be happy to hear my report on this experiment.

31/3/1950