ZOMBIE BOOKS

us think they would.  We use the term ‘dead’ to describe zombies, but a more accurate statement would be that they are brain-dead.  The virus attacks the mind and orders the consumption of living things to keep them alive.  Poor nutrition makes most of them weak and slow, since the virus clearly does not think fruits and vegetables are important for survival.  They recognize nothing from their old lives, and will eat their own child as soon as they would the neighbor’s dog.  They talk, though very poorly.  I suppose speech isn’t all that necessary for a zombie.  They don’t stagger like in the movies either.  Instead, it’s kind of a fancy stumble.  Zombies walk around like clowns pretending to be drunk when they haven’t fed, but have a nearly normal gate when they aren’t hungry, walking around like anything or anyone else.  Well-fed zombies will walk right by you and not even blink.  Yet by all appearances the modern zombie has two settings: Totally chill, and dying of hunger.  Moreover, there is no ceremony separating the two conditions.  They will ignore you, or tear down a house to kill and eat you.

It’s all luck of the draw I guess.

So most folk didn’t fight the zombies.  They let them into elevators.  They held open doors for them.  People unknowingly invited zombies over for dinner.  They shared cabs with them.  People waited in line for the bathroom with them.  And then the zombies ate them.  One by one, in “crazy random acts of disturbed violence,” zombies attacked and often consumed people in waiting rooms, hotels, malls, bars, and super-hip sidewalk bistros.  One minute, the odd guy was standing next to you as you were waiting at the DMV.  The next minute he had attacked the lady behind you and was eating her leg while she screamed for her life.  You get all noble and shit, and try to pry the nut job off her.  He turns.  He bites.  Pow!  Welcome to the zombie family!  You may not be officially dead, but in the eyes of the world you are now a crazed cannibalistic maniac who doesn’t recognize right from wrong and will unashamedly consume babies who are still buckled into their strollers, and that’s close enough to dead for us.  Before they knew it, the city was overrun.

Now the real question.  Why didn’t people just kill them?  Once the world figured out the real situation, why didn’t people just shoot them and be done with it?  Great question.  You are also most likely pointing out that one good shot to the brain and it’s all over; break out the champagne and toast your survival brilliance, right?

That would be nice, if only it were true.

Really guys.  I’ll wager movies did more to encourage a rapid outbreak than any other factor out there.  First of all, most victims did try to shoot the zombie in the head.  But have you ever tried something like that?  Shooting a moving target is hard enough, but to hit a living target in the head while panicking is harder than films make it appear.  Also remember, their brains are now inactive globs of grey and white matter.  So a person would waste half of their ammunition trying to shoot the zombie in the brain, missing most of the time.  When they did hit it in the head, it didn’t affect anything, and the zombie would soon be on them.  Like cutting an earthworm in half: Messy, but it doesn’t kill it.  Blood flows slowly for the creatures as well.  When zombies are injured, the wound seeps a jelly that stops what little flow of blood there might have been.  The only real way to stop a zombie is to destroy it, though as I mentioned earlier, most never even tried to kill them.  Most just opened their door and let the zombie eat them.

It’s been eighteen months now.  Here in Cheney, those few who are surviving are doing so by staying in hiding.  Humans have become the prey.  They’re like mice in a field.  Like cockroaches in the walls.  Like hares in the desert.

But not me.

It’s like caging crabs, really.  I have made it my job to collect and exterminate as many zombies as I can catch.  At first it was a noble effort to eradicate the threat and help civilization return to its previous wonder.

That was for the first couple months.

That was before I was bit.

That was before they took the ring and pinkie fingers from my left hand.

That was before I despaired of becoming one of them.

That was before I tried to kill myself.

That was before the doctor found me drenching myself in fuel.

That was before she discovered that I was immune.

That was before she told me her theory.

The doctor believed that I carried the “Z” gene.  That I was born with the virus, and I could spread it to others, but it would only be a dormant strain in my system.  If I got bit by a zombie it would hurt like hell, but it wouldn’t be any different than being bit by a non-infected human.

She told me that blood like mine was the cause of the outbreak, and it could hold the answer to a cure.

Then she performed tests on my blood.

Then she found out she wasn’t immune.

Then the woman, who stopped me from killing myself, became the thing I had grown to hate most.

And I killed her, long before I burned her.

Now, I exterminate them as a way to find peace.  To silence the little voice in my head.  The one that tells me the outbreak is my fault.  The voice that tells me that no matter what I do, I can never undo what my blood has done.

There is a smaller voice which reminds me that I didn’t do anything wrong, that just because I am immune doesn’t mean that I ever hurt anyone.  But in the battle for control over my mind, you can guess which voice wins more often.

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