Dear Zombies,
Where do I start? I understand you’ve taken over the media. I understand you’ve taken the spotlight from the vampires. I understand that. I remember not too long ago when you dragged your feet, moaned as if you had ingested the most wonderful meal in the world and possessed the most demonic eyes on the planet. I know, I’ve written about you in my Monday Mayhem series.
![Zombies [Photo Credit: In compliance with Wikipedia Common Licensing]](https://jackflacco.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/zombies-on-the-street.jpg?w=840&h=659)
You have to understand, it takes a lot to scare me. I mean, I’ve seen The Exorcist umpteen times, The Omen and The Shining several other umpteen times, so I’m no slouch when it comes to the Horror genre. It takes quite a lot of to scare me. Granted, certain scenes in The Sixth Sense make me want to crawl under the sheets and suck my thumb like a little baby. So, yeah, you can say I get scared. But like I said, it takes a lot.
Also, you have to remember, I grew up watching Saturday Morning Cartoons where animators drew you as funny little characters with barely enough intellect to figure out where you belonged in the grand scheme of things. You don’t have to tell me about your history, I know it. Yes, even the voodoo incantations chanted in Haitian tribes to raise their dead. Talk about messed up.
Again, that doesn’t faze me. Not in the least.
![Zombie [Photo Credit: In compliance with Wikipedia Common Licensing]](https://jackflacco.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/zombie.jpg?w=769&h=1024)
The virus. Your virus. It chills my bones to the marrow to think I can become one of you, one of the horde, one of the crowd, simply by a single bite from your infected mouth. It churns my gut to know this.
You know what else? I don’t like the fact that you are fast. I don’t have a chance. Since when did you become so fast to the point where you can crash cars from their spaces and dive on to your victims? You’ve become undefeatable. Should you flock as I’ve seen you do in many of the modern movies—we have no means to defend ourselves other than to hide as mice would from a cat hunting its prey.
And that’s not fair.
At least give us a hint of what we can do to create an antidote for your condition. At least give us a chance. We can’t outrun you. We can try. But you will win.
I liked you better when you were slow and punchy.
At least we had a chance.
Yours truly,
Jack Flacco
Do you have anything you’d like to add as a P.S. to my open letter to the zombies?
Looking to God 
LOL!! Jack, this is hilarious!
P.S. Zombies, stop tricking us into thinking you might have feelings with some of your warm, fuzzy attempts in recent movies I won’t call out. Just know we know what you are, and you shan’t seduce us into annihilating, undead deception.
One of my friends and I have dreams about being pursued by zombies…they are the worst dreams…the ones where you wake up breathing hard and gripping blankets or pillows, because you know there’s nothing you can do to get away or hide or save yourself…
I never had those dreams before zombies got so popular.
Zombies have lost a lot of their scariness. The last truly scary bunch were in 28 weeks later
I hate zombies… I mean I’m not into horror type movies as it is… but zombies are the worst of the worst… and for me it’s because you can’t reason with them… there’s nothing to reason with… they’re already dead so that makes them hard to kill and yes they’ve gotten crazy fast too… but if you’re backed into a corner with a lot of other monsters there’s some mind behind them that you could possibly try to reason with to at least by you some time for the cavalry to get there… but zombies just want to rip you to pieces while you’re still alive and eat you… or worse turn you into one of them… which isn’t cool at all…
lol! great letter! 🙂 i haven’t given up on vampires yet, though. they’re not in the limelight of the media but they’ll resurface time and time again. they’re sexier. but yes. the virus. THE virus. freakin’ scares the crap out of me.
Never give up on vampires. Their time will come again…
Hey, Jack! I don’t know if you’d be interested, but there is a fan project for making a sequel for Banjo Tooie going on right now. It’s called Project Imagination. But in order for the project to succeed, it needs some volunteers. The list of what the project needs can be found here:
http://dinomacabre.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/project-imagination/
If you don’t want to help with anything listed on that post, then the next best way to help is by getting the word out.The more people that now about it, the more likely the project will get volunteers. Of course, if you don’t want to help, that’s fine too. No one has to do something that they don’t want to!
Awesome post! 😀 I agree, the virus is very scary! And I have also noticed the zombie evolution, why on earth do they have to be SO FAST?!
I am so with you – making zombification a virus, and then giving them speed simply makes them terrifying. But I have to agree with “theopeningsentence” teen angst certainly takes the polish off their hideousness!
Katie… I have to disagree. A shambling walker is terror. It is in the shadows waiting, in the closet ready to pounce and the eventual relentless pressure of a horde of thousands of moaning corpses will get you or drive you mad. A runner betrays his presence
And yet, I can likely defend myself against a solitary, slow zombie. The horde is another matter and they’re just scary – to me – all the time.
The likelihood of being able to defend myself against a fast zombie, and a fast zombie horde is slim, which for me, ups their terror-quotient. My fear of them isn’t based on their ability (or lack thereof) to drive me mad, it’s on whether or not I’ll survive an encounter.
Fear not, Jack, there is hope. As zombies evolve they will eventually go to high school and fall into the trap of pre-pubescent love and longing, and then one foul television series or film franchise will finally bring them to heel and collapse the whole card stack. There will be a way to stop ’em: teenage angst.
Ha! Yes, teen angst! How could I have been so blind! Isn’t that the downfall of all societies?
Every generation rewrites its fairy tales to give meaning to the world they live in. This is not the creeping plague of Ring-around-the-rosy, nor is it the growling shadows in the forest of Little Red Riding Hood. Zombies fill the role of that virulent storm that destroys the world. (“World” as in the life that you inhabit, not the globe.) The primal fear of the uncontrollable storm manifests our generation’s fear of a world moving so swiftly thatvwe can no longer fight or run to safety. Where is mother’s shielding skirts, or father’s strong hands to fight the monster? They are nowhere to be found, for our generation has slain the saints and banished our parents for the sake of self-serving individual empowerment. Thus, we are left alone to tremble at the monsters wrought by nature’s cruel kindness, and face the fury of the storm wide-eyed and whimpering.
Very good points, Tarl. In other words, we’ve destroyed our heritage in order to fight the good fight ourselves, which varies to in a key way since we’ve always relied on the previous generations for our knowledge and empowerment!
And zombies represent a key fear in our self-empowered generation – that which we have already killed and sent beyond our control will return and destroy what we have created.
We’re going the way of the dinosaur…meet the new evolution:)
I am making my comic book debut with werewolves. It is time for some long haired fury. Remember the days of the werewolf movies? The Howling, Wolfen and An American werewolf in London classics one and all. Transformation scenes were always my favorite par. I am betting on werewolfs becoming the next big thing.
Maybe they just need to be loved. Also, can the zombie not learning how to use guns with surprising skill and accuracy? Range is the only chance we have.
Unless we’re talking about Land of the Dead where they learn how to shoot. But even then, the crowd’s madness alone is enough to annihilate humanity!