NPC Monster, The Living Dead Boy

Living Dead Boys look and act like normal, regular, living people – usually a child (5-10 years old), preteen (11-12), or teenager (12-19 years). They are used for the purposes of deception, infiltration, ambush, and murder. A common ploy is for the zombie to pose as a shell-shocked or frightened civilian survivor, staring out with glazed (dead) eyes, crying or babbling in terror, or acting grateful and relieved at being rescued, or any other number of responses rescuers would expect from trauma. The Living Dead Boy’s behavior is pre-programmed and totally false. Despite its name, the creature is not actually alive, and is not actually thinking or feeling anything. It is designed to look “alive” and it pretends to be a traumatized victim.

During the reconstruction process, only the most undamaged, attractive, and life-like Zombies are candidates for utilization as Living Dead Boys. Necromancy magic is used to preserve their human features and the appearance of life. All children or teens because adults of both sexes tend to be paternal and protective of the young and weak in need of help.

These zombies have the most well-preserved and active brains in order to give them the most human-like behavior and thinking capacity of any Zombie. Living Dead Boys can formulate good deceptions and fairly complicated plans (at least for a zombie), and have a greater range of skills. Even so, they are little more than robots mimicking humans and lack imagination, creativity, and empathy. Still, they can pull off a façade of humanity and often successfully infiltrate  intruder parties. A ploy helped along by the fact that they are programmed to behave as if they are in shock, traumatized and in need of help. Nobody looks too closely at a frightened child. They don’t question when the zombie dully responds to them with phrases like “I don’t remember,” “I don’t know,” “it happened so fast,” “I want my Mommy. Where’s my Mommy?” or “please help me,” “don’t let them get me,” and “I’m so scared,” followed by tears and/or a rocking motion common to psychological trauma.

Tears and an emotional breakdown are always an excellent deterrent to answering questions, as nobody wants to harass a child or shell-shocked survivor. Likewise, blank stares, poor communication, repetition of the same phrase are all common to shock and trauma. (“I don’t remember.” “I’m sorry, I ... I don’t know.” “I don’t know.” “I don’t know.”) Worse, even soldiers let their guard down around children, especially when the youngster seems innocent, frightened and polite. (“Thank you for saving me.” “Thank you for the blanket.” “Thank you, yes.” “I’m sorry, no.” “You’re really nice.” “I was so scared.”) Intruders frequently let their guard down, holster their weapons so as to not scare the poor ‘child,’ and may even try to comfort the child with a hug – leaving themselves open to attack.

Planning and subterfuge remains very limited, but the Living Dead Boy only needs to pretend to be human and helpless long enough to get the living's trust.

These zombie assassin-infiltrators can determine fairly obvious escape routes, find many hiding places (helped by their small size), and formulate strategies to pick off the living one by one. Living Dead Boys are able to recognize and use keys and keycards, know how to open doors and access (but not drive) vehicles and weapons lockers. They also recognize key words on signs and documents, and know the importance and meaning of words such as “Danger,” “Keep Out,” “Confidential,” “Employees Only,” “Entrance,” “Exit,” “Communications,” “Radio,” “Hospital,” “Pharmacy,” “Laboratory,” “Munitions,” “Closet,” “Storage” and similar.

They are excellent at hide and seek and hit and run tactics, as well as pretending confusion, injury or hysteria to throw suspicion off of themselves. When a traumatized child says “I’m sorry, I’m lost,” to explain why he is someplace he doesn’t belong, most people accept it. When the monster is found covered in the blood of its latest victim(s), feigned shock and hysteria works like a dream. In between sobs the creature may sob – “It... it... was horrible. In the lab... it’s still there. Killed the nice man. This is his blood. Oh, God! This is his blood!!” If the person who finds the blood splattered child is alone and goes to pick him up to carry him to safety, it attacks, probably by biting and ripping out his throat or using a concealed weapon! It is a Scrap Zombie, after all. If the person is kneeling and looks away, the zombie child lunges forward to rip out his throat or bite a hand, wrist or any area of exposed flesh, or knock him down and beat him to death with tiny fists powered by Supernatural Strength.

Again, pretending to be traumatized or frightened is an excellent deception that can help the murdering zombie escape (“Here, take the girl to the sick bay or the shelter.) It may also help it find its next victim(s). In an empty hallway on the way to wherever it is being taken, the Living Dead Boy attacks and kills the person escorting it to safety. Or not. Being taken to sick bay or a shelter may be exactly what the monster wants: to be placed among the living it can slaughter!

Nobody thinks twice about placing an innocent, terrified or traumatized child in the med bay with other injured — all of whom are now potential victims. If there are no guards, soldiers or personnel near enough to hear the screams, the Living Dead Boy could slaughter them all. It might start in the back and quietly start killing as it works its way forward, or it may launch into a killing spree, slaying everyone who comes within its deadly reach. It’s always careful to cut off the exits whenever possible, to maximize the number of people it can kill. Unless people rush the door and push past it to escape, some dying in the process, it will try to take them all down, one and two at a time. Rushing the Living Dead Boy gives the majority their best hope of survival. If the adventuring group return soon enough, they might find a room full of dead bodies. If they return 4D6+10 minutes later, they find room full of Chaos Zombies that immediately attack.

And where is the Living Dead Boy? It may be among the zombies, but if it can slip away before being discovered, it will. That’s what these infiltrating pretenders do. And it’s smart enough to toss away the bloody clothing, clean itself up and find new clothes to wear, or concoct a story about how it played dead and escaped when the zombie wasn’t looking. Of course it conveniently ‘doesn’t know’ how the zombie got in or where it went.