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when it becomes a zombie through magical, chemical, or viral means. Revenants, on the other hand, are said to reawaken due to their greater intelligence and awareness.
    Most revenants reawaken within a year of their death, but this is by no means a certainty. The record for the longest period of “initial death dormancy” is held by the World War II Japanese soldier, Tadamichi Giichi, who died on Okinawa in 1945 and returned to battle the Allies again in 1992.
    Cremation also serves as the best form of prevention; ashes do not reanimate. Otherwise, preventing a revenant remains incredibly difficult. Despite vast amounts of research, predicting who will return as a revenant remains a fool’s game. Even if you did know or suspect a specific person will return, if you aren’t willing to cremate the body, then the next best thing is to wrap it in the strongest chains available, a rather tough sell to the next of kin.
    In the final analysis, there is little that can be done to prevent revenants. Even if they are not fully understood, they seem to be a natural part of this world. We can only deal with each one individually as and when they claw their way up out of the ground.
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    9 Many leading animate necrologists still argue that there is a metaphysical element to the process. However, discussions of Satan or other embodiments of evil are beyond this investigation.
    10 Despite many rumors and reports to the contrary, revenants are the only zombie type whose severed limbs often continue to move independently of the rest of the corpse for more than a few seconds.
    11 Found in Chapter 32 of L. Murdick’s Memoirs . The unpublished manuscript is held in the special collections department of Appalachian University.

Atomic Zombies
    The world changed on July 16, 1945, the day that Robert J. Oppenheimer and his team test-fired the “Gadget” on the White Plains Proving Ground in New Mexico. The detonation of that first nuclear bomb heralded in an “Atomic Age” for mankind, but it also caused a subtle change in the chemical makeup of the planet. Through means that are still not clearly understood, the nuclear explosions of 1945 caused an “excitement” in the molecules of the atmosphere. This in turn excited the water vapor in the air,which fell to earth, infecting the rivers and seas and eventually the ground itself. The effect was not a cataclysm as some had predicted, but a slight change to the physical and chemical laws of nature. It changed the boiling point and freezing point of water by one-hundredth of a degree. It made certain types of metal alloys impossible to cast. And perhaps most importantly, it brought about the birth of a new variety of zombie.

    The term “atomic zombie” is slightly misleading. The explosion of the first atom bomb did not create any zombies, nor did the bombs dropped on Japan. Instead, they affected the world in such a way that future chemical processes would produce zombies. In fact, “chemical zombie” would probably be amore accurate term. While radiation remains the most common stimulus for an atomic zombie outbreak, it is not necessary. Nor are most atomic zombies radioactive (see notes below on “ irradiated zombies ”). For example, the Amazon River basin has seen several atomic zombie outbreaks due to certain combinations of nonradioactive industrial sludge being dumped into the river. Still, perhaps the “Atomic Age” deserves its own zombie, and by now the term is in common usage and would be difficult to change.
    There are many who argue that 1945 was the most important year in the war against the undead, as it marked a vital turning point. With the defeat of Nazi Germany, the forces of necromancy were scattered far and wide, and many of its premier practitioners were killed. Yet out of the ashes of World arose, a nightmare not born of human evil, but of the seemingly random misapplication of science. The zombie