Zombie Queen

The Zombie Queen, a character in the Wake the Dead book, is the leader and creator of the various types of Zombies found across the United States emanating from the Reno Hive. She is first seen in Chapter 16.

Appearance
The Zombie Queen is unlike any other zombie in appearance. She is a tall humanoid figure, with glowing and expressive amber eyes, nothing like the vacant stare of a normal zombie. She has hardened silver plates of rotted skin and unusual rows of spikes that grow from her shoulders and forehead. She has huge hands with massive claws, as well as leopard-like markings on her abdomen and legs.

Personality
The Zombie Queen possesses two unique traits compared to other Zombies. She can both communicate with others and think for herself. She is a cold, calculating individual, immensely proud of her creations. She appears to have a sense of humor, albeit very warped and twisted, commenting that she is unsure whether she wants to kill you outright or toy with you first. She is also intelligent, able to work out in seconds that when Shannon Fox asked her about drones, she meant regular zombies. Like all other zombies, she has a keen instinct to kill and eat humans, finishing off all but one of those from your colony kidnapped by the Siren. She also has excellent intuition, being proficient at knowing which humans will make good Queens, and has very strong determination, trying and failing three times before succeeding in making Your Sister a fellow Queen.

The Queen also possesses a tender side, reserved strictly for the zombies she creates. She appears gentle and affectionate as she tends to her creations, caressing the membrane of their pods with the back of her hand. It is unknown what personality she possessed before being turned into a Queen, but it is presumed that she was a strong willed individual, something the process of transforming her into a Queen has only enhanced.

Background
Approximately twenty years before the most recent solstice, while you and your sister were fleeing your home, you two met Candace, a woman with strong motherly instincts, who saved you from a zombie. She brought you two with her into a caravan leaving the city, heading for the mountains, towards a military stronghold, presumably The Tower. The car backfired loudly which drew zombies to your location. Before the car was able to escape, Zombie drones forcibly pulled her out of the vehicle. Instead of killing her and feasting upon her, they dragged her into the entrance of the Reno Hive. It is presumed that she was transformed into the Queen that you would meet again years later. It is unknown what happened to the Queen who transformed her or any other Queens before her time.

Wake the Dead

 * Chapter 16: Into The Deep
 * Chapter 17: Shadows of the Past
 * Chapter 18: Brought Low (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 19: The Solstice (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 20: Survival of the Fittest

Your Character
The Queen first comes across you when you and your friends infiltrate her hive, in an effort to rescue the colonists kidnapped by a Siren. She recognizes you based on your smell, despite not having met before. She will not negotiate with you, calling you prey, but does answer some of your questions. She taunts you by revealing she has transformed your sister into a Queen.

Your Sister
The Queen turns your sister into a fellow Queen to help her during the solstice, failing three times but succeeding on the fourth attempt. She is proud of what your sister has become, and calls your sister her "daughter". According to your sister, the Queen told her about humans and the lies they say, warning your sister not to trust them. The Queen has told her that humans are their prey, and that she must eat to gain her strength.

When you plunge a syringe containing an antidote that Shannon created into your sister's chest, your sister screams in pain and the Queen is automatically protective and angry about your actions towards her daughter. The Queen struggles to regain control of your sister, but when your sister openly defies her, the Queen says that if your sister refuses to fulfill her purpose, she is no longer of any use to the Queen. During their battle, your sister beheads the Queen, but not before the latter mortally wounds her.

Powers and Abilities

 * Zombie Physiology: the power to use the abilities and traits of zombies. Although most zombies are of Type P (Plague-Bearing), the Queen appears to be Type R (Revenant) as well.
 * Zombification: While ordinary zombies (drones) can zombify others by biting them, the Queen has the ability to transform drones into different types of zombies. These include Sirens, Soldiers, Scouts and Queens. The Queen achieves this by feeding them different colored liquids from her mouth, gold for Queens, green for sirens, amber for scouts and orange for soldiers. She creates the various pods in which these zombies grow and change, engineering their properties and creating the liquid in which they are suspended. She also sedates them, to enable them to stay still long enough to change their form.
 * Zombie Manipulation: The Queen, as leader of the hive, is ultimately responsible for controlling all of the zombies that emerge from it, and thus they answer to her. She appears to have a considerable influence on them, her mere presence outside one of their pods is enough for them to stir.
 * Enhanced sense of smell: The Queen appears to have an abnormally developed sense of smell, even for Zombies, remarking that you and your sister smell the same.

Weaknesses

 * Decapitation: It is assumed that dismembering or manually removing the head of a zombie will result in instant and permanent death. This is confirmed when your sister beheads and kills her.

Trivia

 * Candace's character model resembles a version of Laura from Rising Tides.