Thursday, January 17, 2008

*

One would have to be kind of nutty to write out a zombie-attack preparation plan in any kind of detail.  "Zombie-attack?"  It's an absurd question.  Why would anybody waste time on something so impossible?  How could a planner even begin a strategy without knowing what KIND of zombie?  

There was a History Channel show (or maybe Discovery channel) about real life Voodoo zombies.  Voodoo is a real religion.  I don't know what it's all about, but there are evil sorcerers in it who kind of dress like Slash: top hat, dangily cigarette, open shirt -- the whole deal.  (Could Slash be a voodoo necromancer?  He was probably the top of his class in voodoo yeshiva or catechism or whatever they do; his parents were very proud; but, secretly he knew that his heart was in hair-metal -- put it underwater, and it's the plot of the Little Mermaid.)  These sorcerers make a concoction that kills you and then brings you back (A poisidote?) -- when you return from the grave, you're in the sorcerer's thrall.  There was a guy on the show who says that he is IS a zombie.  He remembers dying.  His family remembers burying him.  Now he's back.  I think he rents mopeds or snorkels or something to tourists.  He has a pretty impressive beer gut.  He's very sincere.  I guess he represents our "classic" zombie.  Beating this kind of zombie invasion is easy -- first of all, you have to take out the sorcerer in order to avoid new zombies.  To take out the sorcerer, you just offer him the chance to express himself artistically.  To take out the extant zombies, you have to appeal to their employers; with some creative scheduling, it's probably possible to give them each shifts that prohibit any chance to organize.  

Of course, the "classic" zombies are hardly the scariest.  The other breeds are the real trouble: brain-eating-supernatural-zombies and science-zombies.  The origin of the brain eaters isn't clear.  They definitely used to be dead, so they often have chunks missing.  Also, the rigor mortis makes them shamble.  For some reason, they like to eat the brains of living people. (The brain is also their weak spot.  They're probably symbolically anti-intellectual.  Unless brains really do taste good -- I'm no expert.)  They wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that they are contagious.  Since they transmute everyone they bite, their numbers grow pretty fast -- also, they're already dead, so it's not like you can just force them to work double shifts.  Science zombies are similar in that they are contagious, but they aren't so brain focused -- they're usually just really really pissed off.  They come from government experiments gone wrong or freaky jungle diseases.  The good news about science zombies is that you can just kill them.  The bad news is that they run and and jump and fling themselves at non-zombies.  

The solution to the more dangerous zombie varieties is similar to the solution to the "classic" zombies.  It's just like removing the necromancers.  You have to get to the root of the issue.  Anti-intellectualism, government experiments, and all unknown plants and animals in the jungle must be eliminated.

No comments: