Ghost Cluster

Virtual splinter bombs which modeled their explosions within a mathematically modeled virtual universe, tagging the timelines of all those designated as affected without actually having any immediate effect on the victims in the real world. When the inchoate fatalities-- known as "walking dead" reached crucial strategic points in the physical universe, the real-world probability of the virtual bomb having been retroactively really deployed is be increased. The mere possibility of the killing blow having occurred in the victim's past begins to abrade their physicality, causing them to fall ill, to become paranoid, and to suffer strange symptoms of dislocation and disease. A technological voodoo, the damage done to the quantum-linked model of the individual affects the real individual as well. The walking dead's subconscious awareness of their doom leads them into macabre, obsessive, and ultimately self-destructive lifestyles, causing them to finish themselves off.