Tires vs. Zombies

Inexorable, it seeks prey and when it finds prey it is unrelenting. I’m talking about a virus. It invades a cell, uses what’s inside the cell to reproduce itself, and the cell is destroyed when all of those copies burst out, each seeking more prey.

The analogy to zombies is not precise. One zombie grabs at a helpless victim, tears into her flesh and begins consuming, but this does not lead to several zombies bursting out. For the analogy to work, we would need on zombie invading a “cell” containing several humans, and the result is several zombies bursting out of the mall or the safehouse or whatever.

(This, by the way, is why I always scoff when people post picture on the internet of their “zombie strongholds.” Hard to get in means hard to get out, and all it takes is one zombie to make that stronghold a gut-gobbler factory).

What’s more, it’s not that a virus goes into a cell and then uses the material inside to make copies—the virus uses the cell’s actual mechanisms to facilitate the reproduction process. The zombie-in-your-safehouse analogy then would suggest that its not just that the zombie turns people into zombies, but that the social dynamics of the group lend themselves to zombie making. Bickering distracts folks from maintaining the stronghold, falling in love makes it hard to put a shotgun to the head of a newly turned zombie, etc.

So the analogy is not a bad one, it just needs adjustment to work. And the consequence of a working analogy is, how does it inform a solution to a zombie problem? Well, your body will elevate its own temperature to kill of a virus. In other words, it makes the host inhospitable. How would we do that in the real world?

I have no idea. In World War Z, people with fatal diseases were unappetizing to zombies. But that breaks out analogy- we need the host, the cell, the mall, to be in hospitable.

I’ve got it—tires. Like those tires you step into and out of quickly an obstacle course. Line the roads with tires! The living have agility—the dead don’t. They’ll fall all over themselves. It would take weeks for them to move a few city blocks.

This is brilliant. I’m applying for the MacArthur Genius Grant. I may have eradicated the need for zombie fiction forever.

Oh no.

The Zombies News is a Horde, No, Really!

Don’t know if you now this but I am one of the people who contribute to The Great Brain Robbery, a blog that discusses brain research. I read a dozen blogs every day until I find something I want to talk about, and then I talk about it, and then I shake my head out how little we know.

And I am amazed at how many times the subject of zombies comes up. Not just because zombies eat brains! Zombies really are a thing, they’re everywhere, they’re in the annals of scientific discourse. I mean, talk about a metaphor eating its way through the flesh of innocent subjects, sheesh.

There’s this story, about the uncanny valley, which is a metaphor for our comfort with life-like robots. At first we’re okay with ‘em, but as they get more human-like we get creeped out, and then we’re okay again. It’s in the eyes specifically, according to the research, which is why zombies eyes can be made to terrify us before they even drool blood and gurgle a request for our intestines.

And then there was this story, which led me to the source of “Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency (I wrote about that a few weeks ago). Again, found it from a brain blogger. He also provided this: How World War Z Should Have Ended.

I could dedicate a whole blog post to any one of these. But I have one on Zombie children in Africa, Zombies in Puerto Rico, and one on necrotizing fasciitis to write (all of which will feature Dr. Dratoc, by the way). There’s too much!

A few weeks ago I switched from two posts a day to one, and I was thinking about dropping to three times a week. But then they’ll get me. The zombie news will crash through this brittle walls, rip me to shred and consumer my quivering flesh. I am literally shaking right now. Ignore that coffee cup. I am literally shaking!

So Many Undead It Will Drive You Batty

Halloween is Dr. Dratoc’s least favorite time of year. He’s as enthusiastic about costumes and parties as he is about draining abscesses, which he did most of the day. A guy in is twenties, who’d been bitten by a dog, had foregone medical treatment, and gotten a nice bag of neutrophils for his trouble.

Still, Dr. Dratoc tries to make an effort, and agrees to attend a friend’s party. He decides to go dressed up as doctor. Who will know? He considers helping out in the ER for a day, to get his lab coat nice and splattered. He dismisses the idea immediately, of course—Typhoid Mary was bad enough; he’d hate to be remembered as Staph-Infection Steve.

The party is thumping, packed with Miley Cyruses and government-shutdown-pun costumes. Dratoc is standing next to the punch bowl, marveling at a party in the modern era that even bothers with a punch bowl, nevermind the vectors for bacteria transmission it presents. Still, it’s full of alcohol, so there’s that. He’s talking to Greg Seibar, the party’s host's roommate, who’s dressed, of course, like a zombie.

“So, dude. Get this. Later? Doug? You remember Doug? Crazy Doug? He’s coming as a vampire. With bats, dude. With bats.”

“I see,” says Dr. Dratoc, trying to ignore Seibar’s attempt at lividity. Is that guacamole spread on his face?

“Real live bats dude. Seriously, it’s going to be—“

There’s a scream, and the crowd parts as a man stumbles into the room, falling over and crashing through coffee table. He’s dressed in dark red, a tattered cape on his back. He manages to stand up, and there’s more screams. The makeup on his face is incredibly realistic. Red welts all over, foam running from his mouth. His eyes are wild and rolling as he staggers towards a girl dressed like an undead postal worker, grinding his teeth.

“Dude!” Greg, sloshing a cupful of punch and taking it to the new arrival. “Freaking awesome dude! Have a—“

At the sight of the cup the man goes into a rage, bellowing at an ungodly volume, knocking the cup to one side, and lunging for Greg’s throat. Dr Dratoc leaps forward and pulls the man back before he can sink his teeth into Greg’s flesh.

~~~

Rabies, or hydrophobia, or lyssavirus, has been around for most of recorded history, and probably predates civilization. Since it’s naming, some 4000 years ago, the disease has always been associated with animals, which is why, when symptoms show in someone without the presentation of zootic contexts, diagnoses can be varied. This makes “zombie!” an easy way to describe someone afflicted with late-stage rabies.

Symptoms can be similar to what is seen in your “fast and angry” type zombie movies, such as World War Z and 28 Days Later. In fact, fans of these popular zombie vehicles will recall that at the start of the outbreaks in these films, rabies is believed to be the cause of the violence that humanity witnesses.

Rabies can be transmitted via the saliva, which is why biting is often the means by which new victims become infected. Modern treatments now include some protocols that have shown limited success even in post-symptomatic patients.

~~~

While Dr. Dratoc struggles with the enraged man, Greg scoots himself backwards and hides behind a table. “What the damn hell! He thinks he’s a zombie! He thinks—“

Moving quickly, Dratoc pulls his wallet out and shoves it into the man’s mouth. The man clamps down on it hard enough to make his jaw bulge.

Everyone’s staring. A girl dressed like slutty Gloria Steinem says, “Is he having a stroke?”

“No, he has rabies. The wallet’s for him to bite on instead of me." The man struggles, but Dratoc holds on. "Someone call 911. And get them to send animal control to this idiot’s house. He’s probably got a pile of dead bats in his basement.”

Half a dozen people pull out cell phones and start poking. One takes a picture. “Is he going to be alright?” the girl says.

Dr. Dratoc tightens his grip, even as the man begins to relax, easing from mania into lethargy. “Probably not. I say he’s got an eight percent chance. But stupider things have happened.”

What I Didn’t Like about World War Z

The zombies didn’t eat anybody.

They’re the polar opposite of zombies in The Walking Dead. The WWZ zombies run fast, bite their prey—once—and then move on. You don’t become a zombie when you die; you become one immediately. In as much as they a) bite people and b) can’t be reasoned with and c) look freaky, I guess they’re zombies. But that movie could have been made using different make-up and a different word, and it wouldn’t be a “zombie” movie any longer.

I respect that there needs to be different kinds of zombies in the zombie meta-verse. I applaud those who made the movie for trying something different. But at the point where I realized the zombies don’t eat people, I stopped being horrified. It was just scary. Like war is scary—so I guess it was a good title after all.

Now, for my money, the zombies in The Walking Dead are quintessential zombies. Slow, inexorable, and almost always dripping gore. Dress ‘em up in clown suits, call ‘em ballerinas, and they’re still zombies. Its that “inexorable” that I like. They’re dependable. They will always be there to mess things up.

Because I sort of find The Walking Dead boring. I know, zombie stories are about the people, not the shamblers (with exceptions like Monster Island and my own stories). But TWD has become a real soap opera. I get bored watching The Governor and Rick gaze at each other with tired eyes. Luckily, those inexorable zombies eventually come along and do what they do to the best laid plans of men.

I’d love to see a mashup of the two. Give me gore-chomping zombies versus humans who are solving a mystery Give me something. TWD is just One Life to Live with guts and guns. WWZ is just The Big Red One with nibblers for Nazis. I want The Usual Zombie Suspects. Or even Zombiedeus.

I’m a picky eater; I’d make a lousy zombie.

On the Difficulties of Creating a Zombie Taxonomy

Any approach to classifying different types or kinds of zombies is already working in the realm of meta-fiction. This is to say that comparing two different kinds of zombies requires comparing two different ideas created by two different people. Therefore, internal consistencies will the greatest challenge to establishing a robust taxonomy. Perhaps one way to mitigate this challenge is to base a zombie taxonomy not on the zombie creator but on the zombie consumer. What does the consumer know a zombie to be, and how does a consumer choose one kind of zombie as more “authentic” than another?

For example, consider the first popularization of zombies, in George Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead. The original consumer would have come to the film without any context besides other horror films, and may have considered these zombies “vampiric.” And now consider the recent update of The Omega Man, called I Am Legend. In this movie, the vampires have all the appearance of zombies, and this is how many people refer to them.

This is because, due to the ongoing popularization of zombies, the modern consumer comes to a film or other zombie entertainment vehicle already equipped with a full collection of zombie tropes. The zombie consumer classifies the zombies by what she already knows, adjusting only as much as is required by the films’ adherence to revelation and consistency.

Zombies in Romero’s film eat only brains. In The Walking Dead, they eat human flesh. In World War Z, zombies bite, but they do not consume flesh or brains. Are these aspects of the zombie integral to the overall horror felt by the consumer? If so, she may classify zombies by what they eat.

In World War Z, 28 Days Later, and the video game Left 4 Dead, zombies run at top speed. In The Walking Dead and Shaun of the Dead, the zombies are slow shufflers. Whether or not zombies “should” be able to run quickly is a hot topic for debate among fans of zombie consumption, so the zombie consumer will certainly classify zombies by their ambulatory agility.

And how are zombies made? By chemicals in Return of the Living Dead. A bite resulting in death will make a zombie in Night of the Living Dead. Just a single bite will do the trick in World War Z. And while we don’t know why, in The Walking Dead, anyone who dies comes back as a zombie, no matter what the cause of death.

These three axes alone make zombie classification difficult enough. But other creative choices by zombie makers further complicate the issue. Some zombie vehicles include sentimental or even sentient zombies (Shaun of the Dead, Fido, Warm Bodies). Do zombies eventually rot away to nothing, or can they “grow” (as in David Wellington’s novel Monster Island)? And just what do we do with super-heroes turned undead in Marvel Zombies?

I began this essay as an introduction to creating my own zombie taxonomy, but I’m afraid my brains have been consumed by all of these different zombie types. Like a horde descending upon me, I’m succumbing to the realization that no single taxonomy will ever do justice to understanding zombies.