Red Rabies Zombie

Civilization and Culture

History

The birth of Strain X-RV, known to Allied forces as Red Rabies, was not a product of military genius—but of madness weaponized.
  By late 1943, with the Eastern Front choked in fire and corpses, the Axis powers were increasingly desperate to stall advancing Soviet and Chinese resistance. In this crucible of panic and cruelty, Professor Pathogen—an infamous virologist whose real name was struck from most postwar records—was granted unlimited authority by Das Schwarze Pentagramm to develop a weapon that could spread fear faster than bullets. He delivered something worse.
  Drawing on his own morbid expertise and prior work in viral psychosis, Professor Pathogen engineered a new bioweapon from a hybridized rabies strain, spliced with exotic parasitic DNA, autoimmune triggers, and endocrine disruptors. The result was Strain X-RV—a virus that didn’t kill directly, but instead transformed its host into a living vector of destruction.
  The first tests were brutal. Civilians and prisoners in occupied territories were exposed via injection, contaminated rations, and aerosols. Within hours, once-human victims collapsed into fits of seizure and fever. Then came the red eyes. The spasms. The hunger. And finally—the screaming.
  Unlike traditional zombies of undead myths, the infected were still alive. Their muscles overclocked by surging hormones. Their nerves dulled to pain. Their minds hijacked and reduced to a single directive: attack anything that moves. They tore through villages, military encampments, and even Axis patrols, leaving behind only shredded bodies and trails of blood. Within 48 hours, they collapsed—used up by the very virus that animated them.
  The Axis saw this as ideal. X-RV was never designed for occupation—only annihilation. It was a denial weapon, meant to clear territory, overwhelm defenses, and leave no corpses for the enemy to study or mourn. Airborne variants were dropped over suspected partisan zones in China, Ukraine, and Manchuria. Some were field-tested by SS divisions in forested resistance pockets. Reports from the time speak of whole villages screaming into the night… only to fall silent by dawn, burned from the inside out.
  Even within the Axis, X-RV was feared. Control was impossible. Once released, even command units had to withdraw and seal the area. Despite this, the virus saw continued use until late 1944, when backlash from rogue outbreaks and internal sabotage made it clear that Red Rabies was a last resort weapon, not a battlefield tool.
  A handful of Allied reports mentioned rumors of an experimental counter-agent, supposedly developed by Professor Pathogen himself—something that could stop or even reverse the virus during its incubation phase. But the war ended before it could be recovered. The scientist himself vanished, presumed dead or absorbed into postwar black programs. His records were scattered—some destroyed, others stolen.
  After the war, the X-RV strain faded into rumor, locked behind classified files and denied by every major power. But that silence didn't last. In the 1970s, a suspected outbreak in Mongolia triggered WHO concern after reports emerged of "red-eyed berserkers" tearing through an isolated mining town. The official story was “toxic psychosis.” The reality was never confirmed.
  More recently, fragments of X-RV-related data have surfaced on biotech black markets, especially in failed states and rogue research labs. Cults in South America claim to worship The Red Hunger—a figure they believe to be the living avatar of the virus. A few underground PMC operatives speak in hushed tones about injectable rage cocktails that grant short bursts of inhuman strength—at the cost of one’s sanity, and often, one’s life.
  Though X-RV was designed to burn itself out, its legacy refuses to die. The virus was never just a weapon. It was a proof of concept—that humanity could be reprogrammed into chaos, and that the threshold between man and monster could be crossed in a single breath.
  And if those old vials still exist—buried in frost-choked labs or hidden beneath jungle bunkers—then Red Rabies may one day return.
  Not as a plague.
As a message.

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