Why are these zombies? I do not like
1 Like
Yeah, itās funny - I can only think of a couple zombie books or movies where they even glancingly addressed the issue of the zombies not rotting away. I guess itās because ultimately, with zombie narratives, as Romero put it, āGod has changed the rules, and somehow this thing is happening.ā That fundamental terror at the rules of reality changing are at the heart of zombie stories, even the ones that make vague gestures in the direction of scientific plausibility with āliving virus zombiesā etc., and I suspect that mostly the thinking is that they donāt need to explain things, or even that too much explanation detracts from the horror.
Hmmm.
Maggots only eat flesh which is already in a state of relatively advanced decay - the gooey stuff. The principle agent of decline in this situation might be the base of the decomposition pyramid, the most widespread (and arguably essential) part of our biome - The microbial agents.
By far the most common of these is the bacteria, followed by fungi. Also of special note will be the micro fauna, mites in particular.
Oxygen in the cells is rapidly depleted, bacterial growth particularly in the gut and lungs increases rapidly. We see this externally as bloat, and smell it from several blocks away as well.
From the moment of death until absolutely nothing is left but dried bones, the mites are eating away.
Typically zombies are portrayed as not suffering from advanced initial stage decomp - lesions yes, bloat no. The only way this could happen is if a limited amount of oxygen was being supplied to the cells of the body, preventing the chemical change stages leading to advancing decay.
Meanwhile, the mites are eating away. The skin is getting thinner - the abdominal cavity will spill before long.
Body temperature is far below human normative levels - fungi are slower growing, but relentless.
Your zombie is losing mass, hosts a mite population in the millions, and is growing various fungus at this point. The bacterial process though stymied by a partial oxygen supply is extant, and awaiting its moment.
The human body is well designed to protect the pulmonary system, but the ligaments, tendons, and muscles are going to rapidly succumb to the microscopic onslaught. Very soon, the zombie can no longer use its limbs.
Eventually itās a race to the finish for this poor lump of flesh. Fungi grows freely where an epidermis once was, the pulmonary system struggles to supply oxygen as the increasing anaerobic bacterial load ravages the lungs and gut. Now come the maggots.
The mites are still eating away at anything they can reach - given the mechanical damage from mites, fungi, maggots, and lesions thatās nearly everywhere by now.
Birds, dogs? Whatever, the microbes eat them too in the end. 
While animals might account for a portion of zombie ādeathsā, millions of the buggers are going to be trapped in structures specifically designed to keep weather and animals out. These will ādieā the relatively quick death Iāve outlined here.
4 Likes
I like this featureā¦cool videos. The condor got me thinking about Pleistocene giant fauna and the ruckus they might raise against a passel of reanimated ghouls: giant sloths, short faced bears, American lions et al. (Dinosaurs vs Zombies of course goes against Science and is patently ridiculous. I donāt know why I brought it up.) Anywayā¦
Fuckinā zombiesā¦how do they work? They rotā¦albeit slowly. They shamble along at greater or lesser speeds. And they hunger for brains. Any living flesh reallyā¦
So whatās their motivation? They are all messed up for certain; so whether virus, or possession or an angry vengeful Creator; when the Dead walk the Earthā¦itās problematic for the living on many levels.
The one characteristic we can agree on is that zombiesā¦are not very bright. They are not planners or tool usersā¦all they can do is bite you. (I suppose aquatic zombies might inadvertently drown a hapless river crosser, or if cornered one might jump off a cliff, say, rather than join the ranks of the undeadā¦but these are outliers). Yet Hollywood and the Media have perhaps given these shambling shibboleths a little too much credit. Let us face the facts: with the parameters of human tooth size, jaw strength and gape circumference; zombies in the real world are going to have a tough time of it. Have you ever tried to bite someone who didnāt want to be bit? Itās not that easyā¦
I guess Nature wins by default becauseā¦in the end, it always does. In your FACE stupid zombies!!!
2 Likes
āFirst read this as āgiant flock of cowsā.ā
Well, supposedly one of Max Brandā;s earliest stories, written before heād done much research or actually been anywhere near the Southwest, had a character stranded in the desert to die of thirst, with a circling flock of coyotes in the sky above.
Or thereās Marvel Comicās Hellcow. If Dracula could fly, one assumes Hellcow could as well. (Damn, now I want to see a Hellcow Vs. Zombies story!)
Why would they have to kill the zombie? Eating it alive would suffice (if the flesh is edible, of course). Itās not like predators have any moral qualms here.
Also, even the ripping zombies would find to be wolves and bears and cougars to be quite resistant. even in the movies classical slow zombies are laughably easy to kill unless the come in in large numbers.
Most zombie movies work only because the humans act very, very stupidly.
Iām assuming that the āunicorn chaserā in this case can run you down and gore you with surprising speed?
In fairness to (some) zombie movie protagonists, the same factors that make zombies fairly feeble combatants also make humans fairly feeble combatants (unless suitably armed, and even then any combat technique that implicitly or explicitly relies on the fact that pain, blood loss, and shock weaken humans is going to work less well than expected) and humans come with additional restrictions: food, sleep, limited pain resistance, morale problems.
Thereās a simple fix for that. We call it āwinterā. . . .
1 Like
I thought that too but then realised that those zombie birds might have hard time flying with stiff joints and half rotten wings.
Then again think about zombie worms: you stand on one place too long and they start gnawing they way through your shoes and into your feet.
Humans are feeble combatants? Considering that there are 7 billion of os despite not being fast breeders, I beg to differ.
I think a Zombie apocalypse would be devastating at first, yes, but after that, Zombies are just another force of nature and not a particular dangerous one. They canāt arm themselves, they canāt plan.
Yes, they rely on large numbers, but then again, they burn pretty well and itās not like we can use the infected cities in any sensible way.
As long as they a freshly infected, they are a hell of a danger.
Also, they donāt have to fly that well to breach simple defense that would keep human zombies away. You can build moats and walls that keep a reasonable amount of zombies at bay, but that doesnāt help if a zombie crow still manages to jump a couple of metres.
āUnless suitably armedā. Humans are brutally effective pack hunters and killers, and smart enough to back up lethal force with habitat modification, sophisticated logistics, and other tools necessary to turn initial violent success into increased population in ways that other predators can only dream about (well, actually, most of them probably lack the cognitive capacity, which is why they canāt). However, (in part because of this) a huge percentage of humanity engages in little or no violence and mostly deals with absurdly specialized functions that become dangerously irrelevant if society experiences more than a slight disruption.
A hypothetical zombie plague would not be an extinction-level event(since zombies are dumb, zombies have finite lifespans, and kill-teams from uninfected areas would find them easier to exterminate than even unarmed civilians, because they are dumb, heck, just put some live bait in a secure cage and then drive around in an armored bulldozer or other closed vehicle, squishing and squishingā¦); but your average Joe is probably unprepared for a fist fight, much less a grappling contest with a humanoid that feels no pain or fear, suffers from no blood loss or shock, and just has to land a single bite in order to doom him to a particularly messy death.
I always kind of thought that they didnāt decay. That zombification was more like since youāre dead and donāt feel pain or heal, the ārottingā is really just the accumulated damage of non-healing tissue.
Humans fist fight all of the time and, unfortunately, hit each other all of the time. Hitting stuff isnāt exactly rocket science.
Also, yes, at the initial phase many would fall victim to hordes of zombies and their bites, but zombies remain unarmed and stupid. People have lots of protective gear at home. Leather jackets, thick pants. Thereās no way someone simply bites through my boots and my riding coat, bit yes, Iād need a helmet. Quite a few helmets around, though, and lots of helmets to be looted from stores. Bolas are easy to build, Stakes too, Humans can climb, Zombies canāt.
If itās an extinction level event, itās because of the failing infrastructure, not because of the zombies themselves.
1 Like
Regarding the beginning of this article (why humans are scared of zombies), I read another great one the other day (which I canāt find now) that seemed dead on.
Humans arenāt obsessed with zombies because of fear of dead bodies or being eaten or plague or anything else. Weāre obsessed with them because as humans, weāre attracted to the idea of a problem whoās only solution is murder. 
4 Likes
Birds would probably avoid moving humanoids, despite their smell, and the zombies would probably fight back if attacked. Bears, wolves, coyotes etc, tend to stay away from population centers, so a few zombies might get taken out, but the vast majority would be ok, at least until nature reclaims the cities. Beetles, maggots, bacteria etc. are the only realistic threat here. I have no answer for that one.
Well, the depictions and descriptions of zombies in the various games, movies, books, etc. tend to have at least some that are clearly suffering from some degree of decay rather than simple wear and tear, dehydration and the like. They just donāt decay more than that stage, whatever that stage is. Itās obviously a decision made for creep-factor rather than any sort of narrative consistency (and usually in media thatās not too concerned about narrative consistency anyways), but the fact that it makes no logic sense adds to the horror, however.
So would the UK become Zombie Island?
