Читать книгу The Zombie Book - Nick Redfern - Страница 28

When a fictional, on-screen zombie apocalypse erupts big time, one of the very first things that happens is that the cities quickly collapse and fall. As the numbers of the marauding dead increase near-exponentially, and as the cities become overrun by the hungry and deranged dead, those who have managed to avoid getting infected are invariably forced to leave for far more isolated, out of the way areas. But cities from which the living have fled are not just found in the domain of fiction. One such real world example is located in the heart of India: it’s the city of Bhangarh. That the city may be bereft of people because of a deadly virus will surely make all fans of the living dead sit up and take careful notice.

Bhangarh Palace in India was a thriving center of activity for centuries until a bizarre plague struck the area in the 1800s, and the disease spread to the human residents.

Located in the Indian state of Rajasthan, Bhangarh has origins that go back to the early 1500s when, thanks to the vision of the Maharaja Bhagwant Das, plans for the creation of the huge, sprawling city were first made. In no time at all, Bhangarh was a veritable hive of activity filled with more than ten thousand homes, a huge market place, and a spacious palace for its rulers. By the early 1600s, Bhangarh became significantly fortified, chiefly to deal with threats posed by the hostile hordes of opposing kingdoms. It was thanks to this careful fortification—combined with the fact that it was surrounded by a number of large hills and hard to penetrate forestland—that Bhangarh remained free of attack for decade upon decade. That life of bliss and relaxation all changed, however, in the latter part of the eighteenth century when the city became a definitive ghost town.

While the circumstances that provoked the sudden evacuation of Bhangarh are steeped in mystery, one story that persists has more than slightly zombie-themed aspects attached to it. Reportedly, the local animals, which the residents of Bhangarh used as their primary source of food, became the victims of a mysterious virus that killed them with frightening speed. Shades of something akin to so-called mad cow disease, perhaps? Not surprisingly, when the virus reportedly, and suddenly, jumped from animal to human, complete and utter chaos broke out, and the entire population quickly left for new homes—ones just about as far away from Bhangarh as was conceivably possible.

The dark memories of that long gone exodus still dominate the minds of the people around Bhangarh to this very day. As astonishing as it may sound, in the almost two and a half centuries that have now passed since Bhangarh became a city of the dead, there has not been even a single, solitary attempt to breathe new life into the abandoned city: Bhangarh remains just as dead today as it was back in the eighteenth century.