I wrote this a long time ago... on my Blackberry... with my thumbs. It took quite a while, as you can imagine, so I wanted to put it here for safe keeping. Enjoy!
The following comes from my personal zombie mythology. My zombies are the slow moving, non-speaking, non-reasoning, undead version. It is in no way the end all be all definition of the creature. You may agree with what I write, you may disagree with what I write, you may have your eyes opened to a theory that you hadn't otherwise thought of, or you may have your own theories. Most of my thoughts are really just my opinion, governed by facts (as I perceive them) and/or common sense. I will do my best to categorize my thoughts, but due to the nature of the beast (heh heh), I may have to jump back and forth a bit from time to time. Enjoy!
CATALYST-
What got the whole thing started? What heralded the end of days? Did someone read aloud from an eldritch tome? Did an irradiated meteor pass a bit too closely to our planet? Did man's advances in medicine bear an unforeseen side effect that was worse than the cure? Maybe it was just some bad milk? From the stories I've read and the movies I've seen, it could be all of the above, and then some! Personally, it doesn't really matter to me what started it as long as it's believable within the confines of the story and it affects the appropriate region. (A meteor passing by should affect at least most of the world, where a little lab accident should just affect a town/city/county, and not the other way around, circumstances providing.)
TRANSITION-
Be it from the catalyst or from an attack (though in some stories the effects vary somewhat) our subjects are about to have the worst day of their lives. They die. Maybe they're one of the lucky ones who die from shock as Grandma rends their biceps muscle clean from their humerus, or through the mercy of bloodloss, or luckiest of all, they get put down with a bullet to the head from their quick-acting son as he chokes out an apology through his constricted throat, ending the nightmare completely for them.
Those who die from their attack, slip into the nether (peacefully unaware of the tortuous transformation) until reborn as the embodiment of hell on earth, but some won't be so lucky.
Those who survive their attacks get to endure a lifetime's worth of pain through the course of agonizing hours. The body fights, initially, and it fights hard. Any wound or other entry-point for the affliction will immediately and continuously ooze a foul smelling combination of ichor, mung and pus.
Sweltering fever or Hyperpyrexia, begins when the affliction reaches the brain via the bloodstream. Due to the damage being done through the violent nature of the affliction, the body reacts as though dealing with an intracranial hemorrhage.
Simultaneously, the rest of the body attempts to fend off a unique and extremely aggressive form of necrosis. Horrific seizures, spasms and acute cramps rack the body's muscles as the necrosis spreads, sometimes fracturing the victim's own bones in the process. Skin becomes discolored, irises pale and become a milky hue of their former color, blood takes on a thicker consistency and the body evacuates its waste.
A form of dementia becomes apparent at the final stage, as the victim's last words can range from babbling, to baby-talk, to repeating a word or phrase over and over again, a sign of the last few neurons struggling to survive.
The unique necrosis that has taken over the body at an alarming rate slows to a crawl, the body falls limp and a final breath is exhaled. At this point, the transformation is complete and the process has, for lack of a better term, vulcanized the skin, muscle and organs of the subject.
BRAIN FUNCTION-
The brain has undergone a brutal assault (chemically, physically, etc.), resulting in SEVERE damage and in fact, it remaps itself. Memories, speech and reason are GONE! There is no remembering, no problem solving, no learning, nothing. Motor skills and sensory impulse speed are critically hampered and pain receptors, along with self preservation (fear) are all but eradicated, with one exception. The only pain they feel is hunger, the only fear they have is starvation, but more on that later.
They will not recover from this, it will not get better. A living being that undergoes severe brain damage, due to illness, trauma, etc., has slim hope of recovery, and that is WITH medical care, rehabilitation, their own body's healing process, and willpower. Zombies have none of that.
Zombies will not remember how to shave, they will not flock to the mall (unless, of course, they are chasing food or alerted by noise), they will not watch fireworks or celebrate holidays. They will not remember you, you are no longer mom or dad, sister or brother, wife or husband... You are the sole motivation that fuels their drive. You are the brief respite from their only pain. You are food... PERIOD.
SENSES-
With all the other changes taking place in the zombie's body, why wouldn't the senses be affected? I'll start with what doesn't change, or change that much, and work my way down the list. Bear in mind, the senses that do continue to work could in fact be considerably slower or ineffective due to the neural pathways being non efficient as a result of the brain damage and remapping.
Hearing; relatively unaffected, possibly due to the close proximity to the brain. Always active, hearing does seem to lead zombies toward potential prey.
Sight; relatively unaffected, again due to proximity to the brain. Sight seems to aid in the location of prey, but zombies also seem to be able to locate prey in total darkness. More on that later.
Taste; does it really matter? Due to lack of coordination, many zombies chew their own tongues off before or during their first feeding, anyway. This explains the common sight of ichor spilling out past clenched teeth and leathery lips. Besides, I like my steaks rare and I've eaten hagis, but I seriously doubt I'd want to try either of them raw (oddly enough, I don't mind raw hamburger meat. Don't judge!). Zombies don't eat people because they are tasty, they do it out of their one survival instinct. So, zombies can taste, or not, but if they do, it's not for long.
Smell; defunct. The sense of smell is almost completely reliant on breathing. Zombies don't breathe, so zombies can't smell. Simple as that.
Touch; skin, being the largest sensory organ on the body takes a huge hit here. Between the 'vulcanization' process and the nerve damage, touch/pain/heat/cold/etc. are nonexistent. This loss is also something that makes zombies extremely dangerous.
The fact that they feel no pain makes them stronger than humans, much stronger. Everyone's heard of the mother who moved the car to save their trapped baby, or the druggy who got shot with the taser or pistol and didn't even skip a beat. Zombies have this in spades, and it's active all the time, not just in short, little bursts.
Feeding is also aided by this change. It's the reason why zombies can rip through living tissue with relative ease, whereas a human might sometimes struggle with a cooked steak.
That covers the basic senses, but what if the process awarded the zombie something new? How are they able to track humans so easily in total darkness? How are zombies with eyes gouged out and ears ripped off still finding a way to feed? Perhaps they receive and extra sensory boon during the change. What if somehow, they are able to zero in on the human brain's bio-electrical impulses? This may also explain the misnomer of zombies eating brains. They aren't after our brains, they are after us BECAUSE OF our brains. And being the smartest animals on the planet (debatable, I know), human brains have more activity than other animals, which causes them to go unnoticed and unfettered by the zombies.
However, there seems to be a trend lately where zombies are targeting animals, and that's a real game-changer, but I'll discuss that more in the 'DIET' section.
MOBILITY-
I believe the character Sheriff McClelland from the original 'Night of the Living Dead' said it best... "Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up." After the ordeal they've been through and the damage done, zombies bumble and stumble around like drunken toddlers. If you can't understand why, then you really haven't been paying attention, have you?
Slow, weak impulse signals, poor motor control (resulting in greatly depleted hand-eye coordination), along with a stiffened muscular system makes walking, among other things, very difficult. The result being an unsteady, slow, jerky mobility, and that's just the intact zombies.
Zombies that have suffered damage, such as one leg shorter than the other due to the severing of a foot, or having a leg with several fractures, or even being off balance further due to the removal of an arm, will ambulate even slower.
However, should zombies come into close proximity with their prey, they can and will move remarkably quickly in order to feed.
With that covered, I'd like to go over the subject of 'fast zombies' which, in my honest opinion, is just a crutch for story tellers. I understand the desire to implement them, I've heard people say time and time again how "I'm not afraid of slow zombies, I could just run around them." These people just don't get it. Next time you are around a fairly large crowd of people (a mall, carnival, movie theater), imagine 4 out of 5 of them are after you. And the few people who aren't after you aren't going to just stand there and hold the door open for you. Just some food for thought.
One of the first stories children are told sums the situation up very nicely. The Tortoise and the Hare is the perfect example of why slow moving zombies would be so dangerous. Living beings have got to rest sometime. Sure, you may be able to run away from this group of zombies here, but what about the group you run into there? How fast are you going to get away from them when you are already knackered? And don't forget, you'll have to go to sleep eventually.
Maybe you'll find some place to hole up for a while. Just remember, there is no 'safe' place, only safer. Safe is a myth humans came up with to feel secure. There is no safe in nature.
Most of the world's population is playing non-stop 'Hide and go Seek' with you... and there is no base. But since it's such a difficult concept to convey, writers take the easy way out, and introduce fast zombies.
DIET-
Zombies eat human flesh. Skin, muscles, sinew, organs, whatever they can sink their teeth into. They feed for a while, then when the body expires, (and the bio-electric impulses cease) they move on to the next potential meal. This explains why the victims aren't completely devoured.
But, why? Zombies aren't living, they aren't using the nutrients to build muscle or provide energy, so why do they feed? The reason is because nature chooses the path of least resistance. Some inert drive, tribal knowledge, what have you,(much like a dog eating grass when it has an upset stomach) has them eat fresh flesh so their bodies stop breaking down. The ongoing decomposition and rot (enzymes, bacteria, parasites, etc) that takes place within their bodies works on the fresher, untainted flesh, leaving the more complex, vulcanized meat for later. Zombies will constantly feed if they are able, to the point of forcing the flesh through their system due to sheer volume, or even filling their own chest cavities in the case of the stomach lining or intestines rupturing. Even zombies who were torn in half, or disemboweled will attempt to feed, though the flesh will do them no good as it litters the ground beneath them. Abdomens (those who have them) become distended with rotting flesh/muscle/organs and gas. The tell-tale moaning and hissing is actually gas escaping; remember, as mentioned earlier, zombies don't breathe.
If an experiment were conducted, using three cells, identical in every way, where an untainted corpse occupied one cell, a starved zombie resided in the next, and a regularly fed zombie resided in the third, the understanding of the feedings would be apparent. The untainted corpse would waste away the fastest, followed quite a while later by the starved zombie, while the fed zombie would last years after the occupants of the first two cells have withered away to dry bones and dust.
As I had mentioned earlier, there seems to be a new trend lately of zombies feeding on animals. Worst case scenario, the nightmare worsens for survivors as they have to now deal with zombie rats, cats, dogs, platypi... Best case scenario is still grim, whereas the animals do not become zombies, but the befouling of a food source would make survival harder. And, I know Romero had a zombie eat a bug in NotLD, but I whole-heartedly believe that gratuitous scene was simply for shock factor. (But seeing his later work, who the hell knows. What is it about men named 'George' who create movies with a cult following, and legions of fans all over the world, only to let the cats into their sand boxes and ruining what once was great? I'm looking at you too, Lucas!)
Finally, another rant. (Sorry kids!) I am so EFFING tired of hearing "Braaainsss" whenever the word zombie is mentioned. I have a couple valid reasons for this.
Firstly, pop culture is clueless and senseless. Sometimes it gets its hooks into something, like a Cenobite with OCD, and beats it into an unrecognizable mess that resembles nothing to its origin. Everyone just accepts it without thinking on their own, and a lot of times, it would leave you scratching your head if you did dwell on it. (If you do not no what a Cenobite is, please message me and remind me why we are friends. ;))
To the best of my knowledge, the whole zombies = "Braaaainsss" mess began with the movie 'Return of the Living Dead'. Now don't get me wrong, I've seen the movie several times, and I even own a copy. It has some entertainment value, but they shoot themselves in the foot early, and unfortunately get themselves categorized as stupid/comedy/horror instead of a true zombie film, in my opinion.
For those who haven't seen it, or are hazy on the details, the premise of the movie is that 'Night of the Living Dead' by Romero wasn't fiction, but more like a documentary. Their proof was a zombie sealed away in a drum, along with other Army surplus, that the main characters accidentally open. The zombie (MUCH faster than Romero's zombies which it was supposed to be.) escapes and all Hell breaks loose. The zombies are fast, they think, speak and use tools, they eat brains... ALL OF WHICH goes COMPLETELY against what they used to explain their origin!! (Remember what I said earlier about CATALYSTS?) They took their source material and crapped all over it.
The zombies in NotLD were not particularly fast, they did not speak, they did not reason, they did not use tools (aside from breaking a headlight with a rock, which I would have done differently) and they did NOT feed specifically on brains! I don't recall seeing any of the zombies in NotLD eating any brain matter! Granted, if given the chance I'm sure they would, but why bother wasting the time to bust open a skull when the rest of the body is right there?
But, alas, one film gives zombies a catch-phrase, and the sheep latch on.
Now, did I say I had a couple reasons why that didn't work? I guess I did, so here's reason number 2! In the cannon of monster lore, it is widely understood that different creatures have different ways of being defeated. Zombies, it is generally accepted, are easily dealt with by destroying their brains. My question is this... If zombies eat brains, they destroy the brains of their victims in the process, no? So if they EAT brains, where do all the other zombies come from? The victims would remain dead and not reanimate.
One zombie does not a pandemic make!
WEAKNESS-
As I had just touched on, destroying the brain is the most efficient way to drop a zombie. Decapitation will stop a zombie from pursuing you, but the head will still remain active, and to a point dangerous, until it finally concedes to rot and decomposition.
Fire is a BAD CHOICE as far as defeating zombies goes. When human remains are cremated, they are placed in an oven (with constant, prolonged heat) at between 1800 and 2000 degrees Farenhieght for up to 2 hours or more. All your molotov cocktail or home-made flamethrower is going to do is double your misery while you get eaten alive... while on fire. And, if you don't get eaten, you'll have to deal with the smell of burning flesh and hair along with the already prevalent smell of death and rot, along with the possibility of your shelter burning to the ground.
Their lack of self preservation is a bit of a help to survivors, too as zombies can and will put themselves in harm's way while trying to get a meal. They won't duck either, so save your ammo and go for the head shots.
In closing croquet mallets are the worst weapon... EVER! Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the ride!
