Gonna need a bigger gun: I frickin’ hate zombies

Zombies freak me out on a very basic level, scaring me more than any other horror character.

The Monster from Frankenstein? Misunderstood.

Dracula? Oddly compelling. Woman throughout history have been falling for serial killers and he must have been mesmerizing to get all those chicks.

Wolfman? Just waiting for someone with enough dog knowledge to scratch him behind the ear and rub his belly. Girl soothes savage beast.

The Mummy? Well, one could argue that he’s basically the walking dead anyway—only with handy linen wrapping—and therefore falls in the zombie category. And what a category it is! Crazed, unreasonable…rotting. Ew, and drooling. I hate drooling. And once you are turned into one of their kind you don’t gain the pale loveliness of being one of Dracula’s chosen or the ability to transform with the full moon. Nope, you begin to rot, mindlessly crave flesh and lose pieces of yourself here in there.

(But don’t worry; you didn’t really need those entrails.)

Yuck. And scary. There’s no reasoning with the brain dead.

Given that I feel this way, I probably shouldn’t have watched the remake of Dawn of the Dead the other night, but I was just flipping channels and I really feel that Sarah Polly should be in more stuff. I watched for only a few minutes a shot (every time there was a commercial break with the other show I was following), but I saw enough to remind me that a.) zombies are still the most scary monster type out there, and b.) they move a lot faster than I thought they did.

Which got me puzzling out zombie biology, which then gave me nightmares because, dude, if they are unstoppable and caused by a virus that spreads rapidly then what the hell is that noise outside my window at three am in the morning?

I’m too young to be a flesh eating monster. My coloring is much better suited to vampirism.

Where’s Dracula when you need him?

Maybe if I read the Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless, I would be able to overcome my fear of the zombie hoard. Or at least, if I read Max Brook’s The Zombie Survival Guide I would know how to fight them off. First I would need a contingency plan though. Good thing Kelly Link has a short story all about that in Magic for Beginners. A friend of mine was so taken with the story that she had us all come up with what we thought the perfect place would be to hide out in during a zombie epidemic. A 7/11 in a dangerous area (for the bullet proof glass and the food)? Maybe something larger like a grocery store? How do you protect all the entrances and windows?

These are important things to think about. The Boss, when asked, came up with an excellent suggestion, which I would share with you, but…well…I wouldn’t want to have to fight you for it should this whole zombie thing actually happen.

It’s not that I don’t like you guys and all, but if word got out on the net we might not get in.

Maybe if I read David Wellington’s Monster Island I would come to terms with my zombie fear. If I, like Gary, retained my ability to think and could actually command a zombie army? That could be cool. The power would, of course, go to my head and I would probably commit horrible acts against the still living but, hey, gotta feed the zombie army. Don’t want the troops to get restless.

Of course, the question is whether I read Monster Island or Monster Nation first (as it was technically a prequel although it came out second) since it deals with the human side as the outbreak began.

Maybe I should just read Max Brook’s World War Z: the Oral History of the Zombie War to learn how it all went down in the end, and see who let it happen. First hand accounts of the Crisis as told to the author? What better way to find out exactly what I should be scared of! Once I face the fear I can move on, right? Accept the things I cannot change, etc, etc.

Then I’ll just have to worry about the robots.

Thank goodness they have a book for everything.

So what scares you?