Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies

by Mogk, Matt

  Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious, often fatal viral threat that infects animals such as cattle, sheep, pigs, bison, and deer. It can be devastating to livestock and wild herds if left unchecked.

  By the government’s own risk estimates, the proposed research lab has a 70 percent chance of accidentally leaking foot-and-mouth, causing up to $50 billion in damage. But even that wasn’t enough to kill the project. Now the National Academy of Science (NAS) says the risk is much higher, explains academy member Jack Roth:

  If the virus that causes FMD escaped, it’s likely it would reach distances far away before we knew it had escaped.32

  NAS goes on to claim that the Homeland Security analysis is incomplete and utterly fails to learn from fifteen other past catastrophic accidents, almost ensuring future disaster.

  Though foot-and-mouth has no clear connection to zombieism, the weight of the evidence makes it difficult to doubt that irresponsible research and incompetent safety strategies could eventually lead to the end of the world one way or another.

  The Italian Zombie Movie (2009)

  ROGERO:

  You know what that means. That means this is it. Armageddon. The apocalypse. The end of the world.

  MARIA:

  Rogero, don’t you think you’re overreacting?

  ROGERO:

  Overreacting? How can one possibly overreact to the end of the world!

  In a scene frighteningly similar to 28 Days Later, a group of fifteen monkeys at an isolated research lab in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture escaped in July 2010 by catapulting themselves over a high electric security fence. The monkeys did so by bending and releasing flexible tree limbs. Though the monkeys were quickly rounded up, we can’t help but imagine the consequences if they’d escaped to civilization carrying with them some new and deadly sickness or experimental bio-weapon.

  In another case out of Japan, leading Asian news outlet the Japan Times filed a 2010 report about disturbing new symptoms observed in a high number of recently flu-infected people in that country:

  The health ministry has reported that 151 flu patients up to age 17 demonstrated abnormal behavior between late September and mid-November, including acting violently insane and uttering gibberish.33

  Though authorities claim that the popular vaccine Tamiflu was at fault, leading to the ban of its use by teens, only twenty-six of the known “zombie flu” sufferers had ever used that specific drug. Something more complicated, and potentially dangerous, appears to be at work.

  WE’RE ASKING FOR TROUBLE

  Providing yet another sign that the human race is doing everything it can to speed up the arrival of the coming zombie plague, researchers in England recently discovered a new kind of superbug living inside the artificially enhanced breasts, butts, and noses of plastic-surgery patients. The deadly bug, which originated in south Asia, is resistant to nearly all antibiotics and is expected to spread across the entire planet before too long.

  The offending agent is actually a gene known as NDM-1 and is unique because it can jump across different species of bacteria and is virtually untreatable. The new NDM-1 bacteria is resistant even to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics often reserved as a last resort for emergency treatment for multi-drug-resistant bugs.

  Experts suggest that the proliferation of these superbugs could become a catastrophic global public-health crisis as the NDM-1 gene fuses with other deadly bacteria or even new pathogens that have yet to be identified.

  If the undead sickness is caused by a bacterial agent that can be treated through modern medicine, the introduction of this newly discovered gene would turn a small and controllable outbreak into a global zombie pandemic that threatens the very survival of the human race. Hope those fake boobs were worth it!

  Do you know how many thousands of people got illegal organ transplants in those early years leading up to the Great Panic? Even if ten percent of them were infected, even one percent.

  —World War Z (2006), Max Brooks

  From elective surgery to lifesaving organ transplants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that a rare infection has been passed through organ donation, in what is the first human-to-human transfer of the deadly amoeba known as Balamuthia mandrillaris (BM).

  BM causes a condition leading to focal paralysis, seizures, and other serious brain-stem symptoms, before eventually killing its victim. It also often creates skin lesions on the body and face, through which the amoeba may enter the bloodstream and migrate to the brain. Dr. Mark Jacobson notes that the process of infection is of primary concern:

  Four people got organs from the deceased, and already two are showing signs of infection. Organs are not routinely tested for less common pathogens, which allows rare and deadly organisms to slip through.34

  This raises the specter of lifesaving interventions becoming transmission points. Innocent people from across the country and around the world would accept infected organs, sealing their undead fate with what they believe to be a lifesaving surgical procedure.

  Families staying home to help loved ones recover would run a serious risk of being attacked and eaten by their fathers, mothers, children, and siblings. Given the right incubation period, zombieism could take root in unsuspecting cities and towns before any warning signs were spotted or alarms signaled.

  It approached the ancient woman slowly, moving only slightly faster than she. The figure had long, white hair and horrible skin. It was also very, very thin. I thought of those “after” pictures of meth addicts.

  —Zombie, Ohio (2011), Scott Kenemore

  For perhaps the most disturbing trend in recent years, we look to African drug addicts. In a grotesque display of ingenuity, desperate addicts are injecting themselves with other addicts’ blood in an attempt to share the high. Called flashblood (or flushblood), the practice almost guarantees that users will contract AIDS and hepatitis from their infected donors, as reported by the New York Times:

  A woman who has made enough money to buy a sachet of heroin will share blood to help a friend avoid withdrawal. The friend is often a fellow sex worker who has become too old or sick to find customers.35

  There are even reports of addicts selling their blood on the black market.

  Mixing blood types in large enough doses is deadly, but no one has ever tested the effects of mixing different types of blood, each carrying different deadly infections, and then cross-mixing that over an extended population. In short, flashblood is just another indication that the human race is doing a disturbingly good job of creating prime conditions for the dead to rise and eat us all.

  15: ZOMBIELIKE CREATURES

  A parasitic fungus in Thailand has scientists baffled, as it infects helpless carpenter ants and inexplicably turns them into the walking dead. Once infected, the ants are compelled to climb down from their natural canopy home, latching on to low leaves just before they die. Assistant professor of entomology and biology at Penn State University David P. Hughs has studied the phenomenon extensively:

  The fungus accurately manipulates the infected ants into dying where the parasite prefers to be, by making the ants travel a long way during the last hours of their lives.36

  After the ant dies, the fungus is careful to preserve its outer shell, reinforcing weak spots to protect against invading microbes and other fungi. Growing inside the carcass for a week or two, fungal spores then fall to the forest floor to infect new ants.

  The scientific study of zombies is largely an exploration of all that is strange and disturbing in our natural world and often leads to more questions than answers. There is no better example than the many zombielike creatures living on land and at sea across the globe.

  CREATURES ON LAND

  AMBER SNAILS

  Tiny eggs from parasitic flatworms are ingested by the amber snail, later to hatch in its digestive tract. The larvae then change into sporocysts, causing drastic mutations in the snail’s brain and physiology. Healthy snails seek darkness to hide from
predators, but the infected amber snail moves itself into dangerous open space and light. It is also helpless to retract its newly swollen, pulsating tentacles.

  The end result is that feeding birds mistake the exposed tentacles for a caterpillar or grub and rip them off the snail’s defenseless head. The flatworm then grows to maturity inside the bird, laying eggs that are released in droppings for new snails to consume, and the disturbing cycle continues.

  SCREW WORMS

  Zombies are unique in that they are thought to eat only living human flesh, while most animals kill their prey before feasting. But the undead share a dietary interest with the common screw worm.

  Screw worms are parasitic maggots that eat only the living flesh of warm-blooded animals. While other species of maggots feed on dead flesh, such as a rotting piece of meat or a putrefied wound, screw worms attack healthy tissue. The larvae hatch and burrow deep into the tissue as they feed, making them capable of causing severe tissue damage or even death.

  If not quickly treated, a screw-worm attack will leave the host mortally wounded in a matter of days, and as the maggots become flies, dozens of additional victims will quickly be needed to support the growing population. The exponential model of a screw-worm outbreak is disturbingly similar to projections of a potential zombie sickness.

  LAB RATS

  It’s widely believed that the driving force behind a functioning zombie is its brain, so whatever root sickness causes zombieism is likely controlling the body from there. With that in mind, a team of researchers at Stanford University created zombie rats by using a virus to insert genes into a specific part of a rat’s brain, encoding a new reaction to certain colors of light.

  Team leader Karl Deisseroth explained that shining the specific color of light onto a modified rat causes neurons in the primary motor cortex to fire.37 The result is a rat that involuntarily runs around on command. Admittedly, this differs from common depictions of the modern zombie, because the undead are not normally controlled by an external force. But it’s disturbing that a virus was used to deliver the controlling gene into the rat’s neurons.

  CREATURES AT SEA

  LORICIFERA

  Skeptics often point to the widely held belief that zombies don’t breathe as proof of their impossibility. They note that in all of human history, no complex creature has been found that didn’t rely on oxygen to function. But this argument was dealt a crushing blow in 2010, when researchers from Italy’s Polytechnic University discovered the first-ever oxygen-free animal.

  Though some types of bacteria and other single-celled organisms can live without oxygen, it was previously believed that nothing as complex as this newly discovered phylum, Loricifera, could possibly exist on earth. Lead researcher Roberto Danovaro points out that the discovery of these life forms opens new perspectives for the study of all life.

  While every other animal converts oxygen and nutrients into chemical energy for survival, Loriciferans get their considerable energy by internally creating molecular hydrogen. If the infectious agents behind zombieism function in a similar manner, then the undead body might be freed of its dependence on a constant flow of oxygen after reanimation.

  ROTIFERS

  If there have been scattered zombie outbreaks throughout history, it seems possible that an undead pathogen may have the ability to remain dormant for extended periods of time. In 2010, researchers at Cornell University found that at least one species of complex animal has the ability literally to turn into dust.

  The aquatic bdelloid rotifer escapes mortal danger by transforming into dried particles and floating off into thin air. The rotifers remain in this passive state until they happen to fall into a habitable body of water that is free of any predators, then suddenly and mysteriously reanimate.

  If the walking-dead sickness is able to mimic this newly discovered process, its disappearance and reappearance throughout history would be explained. Zombies that can’t find food or are set on fire or even shot in the head could deteriorate to dust before the pathogen simply drifted away. Once external conditions were right, the sickness would then reappear to infect new victims and continue its morbid destruction.

  HAIRWORMS

  For yet another disturbing display of zombielike behavior in the animal kingdom, we need look no farther than the parasitic hairworm. The worm develops to maturity inside an unsuspecting cricket on land but must live its adult life in water.

  To make this transition, it takes control of the cricket’s brain and forces it to commit suicide by leaping into an available pool or pond. Once in the water, the cricket quickly drowns, allowing the hairworm to emerge and swim away in search of a mate, having grown up to ten times as long as its host. Gross!

  Ultimately, we won’t know if the next great zombie plague will be delivered to mankind through insect, virus, bacteria, or rogue protein. Only by exploring all the possibilities and developing reasoned theories can we hope to have any chance of surviving when that final day comes.

  In Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel turned film The Road, a father and son try to escape the bitter cold of a postapocalyptic winter by heading south on foot across what used to be the United States. They struggle on a daily basis to find food, water, and shelter while ducking violent, cannibalistic nomads who wander the countryside looking for fresh human flesh to eat. Sounds a lot like a zombie story, right?

  McCarthy doesn’t introduce a single zombie in his book yet still manages to paint a more realistic picture of an undead planet than much of the zombie literature produced in the past several years. In fact, with the slightest tweak to some minor characters and no change to the plot or core message, The Road would instantly become one of the best zombie novels ever written.

  When I mentioned to my wife that one of the main characters in The Road kills herself rather than face life in such deprived times, she said she’d do the same thing in a heartbeat. Her exact words were:

  When the dead rise, I’ll still want my hot showers and happy hour. I’ll definitely want to die if I don’t get either for a month, maybe sooner if the weather is bad.

  And it seems she’s not alone in her plan to end it all when zombies come shambling through our neighborhood. A 1998 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people kill themselves in greater numbers in the aftermath of a serious disaster, citing an almost 70 percent increase in the year following a major earthquake. In fact, results from a variety of studies overwhelmingly suggest that social breakdown caused by a catastrophic zombie outbreak will result in skyrocketing suicide rates.

  If you’re in my wife’s camp, then you can skip this section altogether. But if you’re willing to slug it out, you should read on, even if you don’t believe in zombies, because the techniques needed to survive a zombie outbreak are the same needed to survive any number of catastrophic natural or man-made disasters.

  The Road (2010)

  MAN:

  We have to. We will survive this. We are not going to quit. I’m not going to quit.

  WIFE:

  I don’t want to just survive. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to . . .

  MAN:

  Listen to yourself. You sound crazy.

  16: WATER TO DRINK

  Max Brooks stands onstage before a packed lecture hall. He is the bestselling author of Zombie Survival Guide, the first in what is now a long list of zombie survival manuals, most of which are, in my opinion, poor imitations of Brooks’s original work. Hundreds of college students fill every seat and crowd along the back wall in giddy anticipation. Some are dressed up like zombies or zombie killers. Some flip through dog-eared copies of the guide, as if cramming for the most important test of their lives. Some compare survival strategies in heated, whispered debate. Finally, Brooks steps to the center podium, and the room falls quiet. “What is the first thing you’ll want to have with you in a zombie outbreak?”

  Eager students shout out possible answers. A machete! A tank! A shotgun! My m
ommy! They laugh. They shift in their seats, looking about as suggestions fly from all corners of the room. A jock in the back thinks it must be Molotov cocktails. A young professor with a ponytail twirls a pair of night-vision goggles around his index finger. The housewife zombie in the second row with a human-brain Jell-O mold just wants a friend who runs slower than she does, so she can get away when push comes to shove. Brooks shakes his head. They’re all wrong. Dead wrong. Without a word, he simply holds up the water bottle in his hand. He takes a sip, then holds it up even higher so everyone can see. “Water, people. Water.”

  As the most recognized name in zombie survival, Brooks isn’t a student of some exotic martial art. He doesn’t engage in advanced weapons testing at a secret desert compound. He hasn’t trained his family to neutralize an approaching threat instantly with their bare hands. No. Instead, Brooks composts his kitchen waste. He grows home crops in the backyard. He worries about the preservation and storing of extra food and water for drinking and cooking. He rightly focuses on the clear connection between crisis preparedness and response strategies for more common man-made and natural disasters and the measures needed to survive an infestation of the walking dead. He understands that the basics are what keep you alive in a zombie outbreak, and lacking those basics will kill you faster than any undead horde ever could.

  DEADLY DEHYDRATION

  Symptoms of dehydration can manifest in just a matter of hours, starting with a persistent and intensifying thirst and building to fatigue, chills, and headache. Nausea soon sets in, as your muscles cramp and you experience tingling of the limbs. If you can’t find adequate drinking water, your situation will quickly deteriorate, leading to vomiting, racing pulse, vision problems, confusion, seizures, and even unconsciousness, and finally death.