"Why don't zombies rot?" or "Do you ever feel not so fresh?"

I actually get asked this quite a bit, believe it or not. (Not if I ever feel not so fresh, the first part, obviously.) A lot of people seem to have thought a lot about zombies and the big gotcha that always seems to come up is why don't zombies rot? It's a valid question. If zombies DID rot then really all you'd need to do to survive an outbreak is hole up in your house for a few months, maybe a year. You let your typical zombie shamble around outside in the elements and you'd think their skin would fall off, the ligaments in their arms and legs would break and then you'd have nothing but a quivering mess on the ground that wants to eat you, and who's afraid of a quivering mess?



Ignoring The Blob, let's move on...



I guess a lot of this comes down to what's reanimating the dead in the first place. Is it a virus? Nanomachines? Cosmic radiation? Some kind of mysticism or judgment from God? Obviously the whatever-it-is has some form of regenerative ability or the dead wouldn't be walking around trying to eat your face in the first place. As long as their brain survives they still have enough presence to walk around. Kill the brain and you kill them. That's pretty common in the movies, except for Return of the Living Dead, where you couldn't re-kill them at all.



Here's what I think: whatever is re-animating them has to replenish itself in some way. The body's functions no longer, um, function. Heart doesn't pump, blood doesn't flow, toxins don't get flushed out in the bathroom... It's a one-way system. They eat skin, blood, brains, whatever, but where does it go? There must be SOME kind of process still working in the body that converts what they hunger for into something they can use, else why would they be hungry in the first place? Why not just stumble around and scare people and not eat them? Why the insatiable hunger?



So the virus/radiation/nanobots/whatever need energy/food to keep animating the flesh. To do so it needs to keep the body at least well enough to keep mobile. Maybe it feeds on the life force itself (read Bram Stoker's Dracula and Renfield's description of eating flies) and uses that to replenish itself. Keep a zombie locked up in a room for 20 years with no food and would you still have an active zombie? That's a good question. My guess is yes, just because it'd be out of the elements.

If the zombies were successful and ate their entire food supply would they eventually rot away? Maybe... my guess is that eventually they'd turn on each other for food or somehow they could eat trees/grass/plants/etc.



Food for thought?

Be very afraid of the impending zombie apocalypse

I've mostly been devoting this blog to fun stuff like reading, writing and movies, but today I feel like it's my duty to warn the people about the impending zombie apocalypse. It's going to happen, people. One day the dead shall rise. Be it from a plague, an asteroid, a smiting from God... or something as simple as dying in a graveyard (shameless plug for Trailer Park Zombies).

Will you know how to survive? Did you know that there are actual groups of people out there actively studying and saving and teaching others how to survive the outbreak? You can join your local chapter here:

Zombie Squad

Thankfully someone has posted a wonderful survival guide. If that doesn't work for you you should read Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide. You can purchase it on Amazon here.

I don't mean to scare you, but it's true that the zombies are out there. They're coming to get you, Barbara.

Don't believe me? Read the "5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalpyse Could Actually Happen." It's a sobering read and I'm not ashamed to admit that I've spent nights going from window to window to ensure there aren't any shambling undead outside in the bushes.

Did you lock your doors before going to bed?

Think about it.

IT

I have to admit... IT by Stephen King has always been one of my favorite books (followed by I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, The Stand by Stephen King, etc. etc.). And it's also one of the ones I find myself re-reading every couple years just for the hell of it. The thing in hardback is bigger than my dog at approximately 1100 pages and God knows how many pounds. I hate lugging the book around and as I've found myself doing lately I went to go look to see if it was available on Kindle. I hate buying books twice but it's hard to get around the damn convenience of being able to pull it up every time I have a free minute or two. Of course, it's not available, more the same. Authors/publishers really need to get on the bandwagon and really make the backlist available (for cheap). It'd probably drum up huge interest (just my .02).




Anyway, still working hard on the www.tpzombies.com site. Finding myself immersed in Photoshop (one of those things you hate to hate to hate, if you know what I mean). Also in the middle of doing a re-design of my main site www.jason-jones.net. If you have any suggestions for content please pass them along.




Til next time!

TPZombies.com launched!

I've got almost all the content out there for the Trailer Park Zombies home site. Just missing a few minor things and then it's all out there. Why don't you check it out?



Trailer Park Zombies!