My take on Zombies

I have something of a varied history with zombies.

On the surface, it's an over-used cliche monster that lets us rationalize killing people. Zombies are intended to portray humans in an honest, sincere way that lets us kill them without feeling bad. Some of the most popular metaphors include consumerism, popular culture, and technological addiction.

But, there's a story that goes back even further than that. The Wikipedia entry (chill out, this isn't an academic or scholarly resource) says that a Bokor (A practitioner of Vodou, local to west Africa and Haiti) brings a body up out of a grave, and then it serves him. So, effectively, a robot. No consciousness, no intelligence, just decaying muscle. Of course there's variants of this, but this one is by far the most popular.

I heard a mis-translation once that I really liked. In it, a person was subdued with very heavy sedatives, then put in a casket. When they awoke, they'd open it up (the coffin was built deliberately easy), then find a man conveniently in the graveyard. He tells the victim (still up on drugs) that they are dead, and a walking anomaly. So, the person believes they are a zombie, and continue to do zombie-like things, usually minus the eating-brains part.

Obviously, not accurate, and there's a lot of holes in it. But it's still rather fetching. I like the idea of a normally non-violent zombie, just like we have normally non-violent humans. My theory goes as follows:

For whatever reason, a person re-animates. It could be magic (traditional explanation), it could be a brain virus (Max Brooks style), it could be radiation (the Ghouls from Fallout), but for whatever reason, someone comes to.

Bodies are in varying states of decay. Some brains will be more intact than others, and the same goes for musculature and other tissue. So, some zombies will be "fresher" than others.

At the top of the food chain we have ones that are indistinguishable from humans- complete cognitive functionality, the same body they died in, etc. These are the ones who were bitten (or however else the virus is transferred), but not eaten. They ran around, scared and confused, and reanimated without losing a heartbeat. By far the best off.

Near the middle is the classical zombie. Their brains and bodies have deteriorated from time, bad burial conditions, or they were partially eaten during the transfer. Either way, they have limited cognitive capacity, and diminished physique. These are the shamblers, groaning out "brains..." as they skulk around city streets and metro tunnels.

At the bottom of the food chain are the weakest. We could even call them crawlers. Only enough mental capacity to warrant mobility and food scrounging (mostly rotten meat in processing plants and grocery stores. Can't get anything that moves unless it's a very good day), and enough stamina to move from one place to another. Truly pitiful, they're usually plucked up and cannibalized by meaner, more capable predators.

To me, this makes the most sense, and is the most fun to play with. So, with the basics down, there's a few other things I've theorized:

-Mutations

Everyone loves mutant zombies. To mutate, all you need to do is augment your DNA, then tell your cells to go crazy. And, you'll need to eat a lot to be able to grow. Jagged, bony outcroppings will need a lot of chitin (or calcium) to grow effectively. If you want more size, you'll need to eat up.

-The Brains

Classically, zombies want brains. That's just how they roll. I always thought it was to make restoring their own easier.

Viruses reproduce by decimating the host material. In order to sustain the subject matter, there needs to be an intake of edible tissue. In this case, cognitive matter. So, zombies need to eat brains to get smarter, and keep their virus population up to status. Brains are ideal because they're brains. They are 100% what a growing zombie needs. I suppose substitutes would work, but the quantities and portions would have to be sufficient. Is there a substitute for brains? Tofu, maybe?

-Half zombies

A pregnant woman gets bitten. Not... that other thing.

A half-zombie may gain a form of immunity to a parasitic virus, but inherit other traits. This is a gray area, as no one else has really delved into it. The game Sonny best illustrates what I try to get at. He's a zombie, but it's not a big deal.

-Culture

One thing I enjoy pondering is how maximum-freshness zombies fit in with a regular human society, once they stop shooting at each other. It makes for an interesting background, even if Fallout has pretty much answered the question.