They are a main pillar of horror for us. They are dead but not dead, they are able to do some stuff and their main motivation is to bite the hell out of us. They stumble around and depends on the director, they might run like a cheetah to make everything wrong. Mostly they are random strangers but it might happen that your friend becomes a zombie and you have to kill her ending up with emotional dreads and shit. Anyway, let’s rethink the whole topic, I know deep there all of you have a rough plan on what to do if a zombie apocalypse happened so let’s see if those plans actually help.
The very first issue that came into my mind was “which zombies we should think about?” there are different types, as far as I know, some walk slow and can’t see and all they do is to follow the noise or something while the badass ones see stuff and run for them. Some are contaminated with a weird virus while the others are just literally walking deads. Let’s first go with what they all have in common: they eat you if you’re not quick enough, they won’t stop trying until you smash their heads so basically a bullet in the chest doesn’t work because they’re already dead so apparently they can’t be deader. Ok then let’s be realistic because that was the whole point from the beginning.
They “should” be alive to be able to be zombies. You see, the brain that we have to smash is a pretty greedy organ and needs about 20% of the energy you consume so there won’t be any half slaughtered zombie crawling around without its intestine for long. Why? because the brain needs to receive the energy otherwise it’ll stop working that sensitive fat bag and the zombie won’t be able to do anything. Some movies tried to convince us that they don’t need a full brain to be zombies and actually that’s why they’re like this. Well, even in that situation still the zombie needs “something” to keep those brain regions working wherever the regions are. Without a functional digestive system, the meat they’re eating won’t do good and the brain will give up. This doesn’t make the whole scenario impossible tho, you might see a zombie crawling around but probably just for few minutes till the blood drains out. Yeah, the vascular system should also work fine and it’s a piece of good news for us, it basically means you can stab a zombie and it’ll be enough to kill that bastard. Let me spit it out, they should be alive to be zombies and whatever kills a living being will stop them. But wait, there’s more, one massive problem is the pain. Apparently, they’re not feeling it so if you harm them, in any case, they won’t back off or it won’t distract them. Aim well, they’ll die but they’ll keep trying till the last moment.
So what will change here? a lot, if they are alive then killing them is morally awkward. It will be self-defence anyway but you are literally “killing” them and there won’t be any justification for what you did just keep it in mind and I won’t go there. It’s just cool to think about! What else will change? the virus scenario gets more plausible. It’s already here, you can evoke predatory behaviour in mice if you mess with a specific brain circuit. Interestingly, we know this for a long time so conspiracy wise speaking there was enough time for some governments to work on this virus. Why tho? it’s pretty ruthless but actually driving your enemy mad and letting them eat each other is not a bad strategy in a full-blown war. All you have to make sure is that it won’t spread out and turn into your problem at one point.
So now that we kinda figured out the plausible cause, we can think about the zombies themselves. In principle, they can be pretty seriously utterly dangerous! I mean it! Think about it, there will be a spectrum of “how much of the intelligence they’ll lose” or let’s think of it like “how much impulsive they’ll be.” In theory, the virus might just change the general intention of the host to some sort of a psychopath (well it’s highly unlikely because we don’t really know which regions to target and what to do with them). This means you are not dealing with some walking/running stupids but actual killing machines who can think, plan, communicate, use tools, and radically outsmart you. This to me sounds like a normal war. Soldiers are not stupid and militaries are highly efficient for one purpose and that is to vanish the enemy no matter what. Now imagine the same but the army will kill then eat you, which is not much worse than killing alone because you’re already dead so why caring about what’ll happen to my body.
A level below this, I was thinking about a fully hijacked brain that acts impulsively and lacks a significant amount of intelligence. They are the goddamn runners. They see you and all they are thinking is to clutch you and rip some meat apart from you. They don’t care about the future and how to build a trap and wait for the poor lady to fall into it they are blinded by the hunger for flesh and all they can see is the pray. They are not the most dangerous ones but they are pretty fucked up because first, they can outrun you, and then, they have all the senses working. Basically, they are predators. Like a hungry lion so nope, we won’t be happy around them either. Finally, the easiest zombies are those we think we are prepared for. They’re kinda just hungry lions but blind turtles. You might run away from one or two or 100 but when they are everywhere you can’t run anymore. So they can outnumber you. Again, in theory, everything in this spectrum is possible but we need to know that they are alive and they only difference is that their brains are hijacked by something so they’ll die like everything else if it makes you feel better.
Ok then, we’ll end up with some weird questions like if they’ll have any other interest or not? Do they sleep? Do they fall in love or get horny at least? Do they get fat or develop diseases e.g., cancer or meat-related stuff? I mean, they are alive. Again, I’m not gonna go there and I’ll just throw them at you in case you for your deep times in a bus sticking your head on the window.
Last step, what do we do then? It clearly depends on where they fall on our spectrum. I was thinking probably for the intelligent type, well, we’re kinda fucked, aren’t we? Again, and let it sink this time, it’s a war and we’re already in it anyway. We’re just not eating each other (presumably!) but we are using everything we have to end the other side. The hunter ones tho, they are my nightmare. What I’d naively do (let’s say jumping out of my window is not an option) is to get to a police station and assuming that I’m still in one piece I’d go for the anti-riot stuff. No teeth can pass through them but still, they will be able to tear me up or something, it’ll just give me some time to do something while they’re struggling.
What’s next? No idea to be honest, just hide somewhere till a cure appears or survivors start to make a community. I don’t know if that life worths the struggle and stress anymore. Usually, in our plans for the apocalypse, we are those lonely soldiers that don’t need to take care of anybody else and actually, don’t care. But is it true tho? Can you see your loved ones running around screaming for flesh? Remember that they certainly won’t greet you if they see you. You have to fight for your life with your mother who now just wants you to go back inside her. Let’s make it worse, you have no idea where they are and what they are doing, are they alone? are they afraid? are they in danger? how to find them? even if you’re all together, how to protect them because you don’t want to see them being eaten alive. So, zombies by themselves are not that scary I was thinking, what freaks me out the most is the emotional fuckery that will come with them. I hope you already did let the idea sink, this mess is real and happening already all around the world for people who are living in a war-zone.
