You know what I find really interesting about zombies? Unlike almost
all of their monster contemporaries, they are the only ones who are
believed to be entirely fictional. And I'm talking about the undead,
flesh-eating types, not the mind-controlled voodoo ones.
Nobody
claims to have seen a zombie shuffling through the woods or has had
investigators checking out zombie tracks from an alleged attack the
night before. There simply aren't sightings like there are for
werewolves,
vampires, or
the Jersey Devil. Zombies are entirely fictional creatures, at least for the moment.
But these mindless flesh-eaters hold another unique position in the
monster world. Functionally, they serve less as a 'scary monster' than
they do as a herald for the end of the world. Whenever a story features
zombies, it's almost always in an apocalyptic context. Like vampires
and werewolves, humans can become zombies from a transfer of bodily
fluids, but unlike vampires and werewolves, few people actually think it
would be cool to be turned into a zombie. At least the other two
monsters at least appear to be somewhat human, but zombies are
essentially mindless freaks whose very existence signifies the potential
end of humanity at large.
A 'zombie apocalypse' (a catastrophic event
where humans are unwillingly turned into zombies on a massive scale) is
largely considered a type of plague, which is why many modern
storytellers choose the incursion of a biological virus to introduce
this plague into the populous. This isn't necessarily true for the
reanimated types though. Those brought back from the dead, with their
rotting flesh and lumbering gait can be pulled from a cemetery for a
night to terrorize the local community before heading back under ground.
In addition, the original "zombi" actually comes from Haitian
Voodoo folklore, where the afflicted individuals were not dead at all,
but rather possessed by sorcery. These key differences between varied
mythologies make it difficult to find a single 'truth' to follow.
What are Zombies?
Though it is
difficult to come up with a single definition of what makes a proper
zombie, there are enough commonalities between the core mythologies to
fashion a fairly simple description.
First things first, zombies don't think for themselves. Whether they
are consumed by rage, a mind-controlling disease or magic spell, or are
simply too dead to reason anymore, a proper zombie cannot think for
itself. This is what makes them so scary - there is no reasoning with
them, no cure for their infection, they don't get tired, and they don't
stop coming at you, no matter what. Some (particularly more modern)
writers have tried to change things up by creating zombies that reason,
strategize, and even lead others. In my opinion, this is where I have
to draw the line. It is no longer a zombie if it can think for itself
or reason between any options on a higher level than instinct alone.
You now have a weird, crazy, possibly undead person - not a zombie.
Secondly,
a zombie's only real instinct is to feed off of living flesh. At this
point we have to separate out the Haitian zombi (which I will from
hereon only refer to as a 'zombi'), as these are essentially people
whose minds are being controlled by a living person (magical though they
may be). A 'zombie', whether the living dead type or the
disease-induced rage type, wants only to kill and to feed, and like a
snobby food critic - only wants the freshest ingredients. I'm not so
concerned if one particular mythology describes their walking dead as
simply wanting to take a bite out of you, literally eating as much of
you as possible, or is picky enough to only want to eat brains. It's
all basically the same thing - feed on the living, the smarter the
better.
At this point it seems fair to be able to split the
remaining zombies into two categories - the fast ones and the slow ones.
Again, different mythologies have different definitions, but in our
quest to define a "singular truth", provided below is how I would define
the two primary types.
Fast Zombies
You start with a human
being. That human being is infected with a virus that causes them to
lose all control. They become mindless, rage-filled death machines
looking only to kill and feed. They are not unlike a transformed
werewolf
in this way. This 'fast zombie' is essentially like a diseased PCP
addict on a rampage, except they seek out 'normal' people to devour for
food. The hunger is what drives them. As with any virus, it looks to
spread. Essentially the virus overtakes the human's mind and begins
controlling it, driving the infected to spread this virus through saliva
and blood transmission.
Unlike werewolves or vampires, the bite of a zombie is dangerous in
that it contains a virus, rather than a bacteria. The virus takes over
the victim's mind, and it's primary concern is to spread. This is why
zombies do not attack one another. There is no need to infect someone
who is already infected. The virus is smart. It knows this already.
So
the zombie looks to bite, or to spit blood or saliva on a victim. Both
the blood and saliva of a zombie are teeming with the virus. The
animal part of the creature looks to feed, and so it often tries to eat
its victim, which displeases the virus. But what can it do? A feeding
zombie lives to infect again another day. The virus is patient that
way. It understands.
Slow Zombies
Slow zombies are
essentially the "living dead" or "walking dead". They are the
re-animated bodies of dead people and their goal is primarily to feed on
living flesh. The idea here is that their bodies are dead and rotting
away and the only way to keep them 'alive' is by consuming living flesh.
Think of it like how a living person can cut himself and have the
wound heal over time. Our bodies are constantly regenerating new cells
to replace dead or damaged cells, so it makes sense that zombies would
seek this regenerative flesh in order to at least partially restore dead
cells in their own bodies. The slow ones in particular seem to favor
brains, possibly because the human brain has significantly stronger
regenerative power for the undead than the rest of the body.
How
they are re-animated happens in two primary ways. Like fast zombies, a
human can become infected through the transmission of a virus via an
exchange of bodily fluids. Unlike their faster counterparts, the victim
usually dies before the body becomes reborn as a zombie. They are
truly just dead people walking around and looking for living flesh to
feed off of. One could create an army of the walking dead using only a
virus, but this type of zombie also seems to reconnect with the original
Haitian "zombi", where the creatures can be controlled through some
form of black magic. The only real difference between this type of slow
zombie and the Haitian "zombi" is that the slow zombie is indeed dead,
while the Haitian zombi may still be a living person.
