Monday Mayhem – Page 23 – Looking to God

Classic Literature Zombie Style

Posted on March 4, 2013March 3, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Yesterday morning I read an article that stated Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies might head to theaters soon. You read that right. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I wonder how the playful Elizabeth Bennet will choose among her suitors this time. Guaranteed Mr. Right would need martial arts training.

For this edition of Monday Mayhem, I’d like to explore other classics that would benefit from a zombie facelift.

Okay. Ready? Set. Here’s my take on classic literature zombie style:

Romeo and Juliet and Zombies—Juliet outside on the balcony: “Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art the undead that we shall henceforth quicken their demise? Deny me not, be but sworn the pleasure to raise my knife against the bowels of the fiends.”

Anne of Green Gables and Zombies—Anne walking through Violet Vale with Diana: “There’s such a lot of different Annes in me, I frighten myself sometimes. I have horrid dreams of violence. Is it wrong to want to thrust a fireplace poker into the head of a walker?”

Les Misérables and Zombies—Victor Hugo: “He never went out without a skull under his arm, and he often came back with two.”

Hamlet and Zombies—Hamlet holding a skull: “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him whole; before the eaters raised their gnashing teeth and their unbridled hunger to tear at his flesh, discarding his limbs as puppetry. For whence forth are thy gibes now among thy pieces?”

Great Expectations and Zombies—Miss Havisham: “Kill it, kill it, kill it! If it resists, kill it. If it wounds you, kill it. If it tears your heart to pieces—and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper—kill it, kill it, kill it!”

The Three Musketeers and Zombies—Aramis to D’Artagnan: “Athos takes his creature beheadings very seriously. Not to worry, he’ll be his usual charming self by morning.”

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Zombies—The opening line: “What is the use of a book, without the pleasure of jamming it down the throat of a brain chewer?”

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Zombies—Holmes holding a bow: “It’s elementary, my dear Watson. Once the creatures cross the threshold, these razor sharp arrows will dispatch them whole. There will be nothing left of the boastful relics.”

A Christmas Carol and Zombies—Ghost of Christmas Present to Ebenezer Scrooge: “There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as destroying a maggot bag with your bare hands.”

Julius Caesar and Zombies—Antony’s oratorio: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, protect thy ears. The harbingers have devoured Caesar to the bone. Lift up thy swords and swear vengeance to the beasts, spilling their entrails forthwith beyond the square.”

Can you think of other classics more deserving of a zombie makeover?

Monday Mayhem

How Far Would You Go?

Posted on February 25, 2013February 24, 2013 by Jack Flacco

How far would you go if it meant preventing the death of a loved one? Would you go beyond everything taught as wrong in order to save your family? Would you do wrong? In an attempt to answer these questions, this edition of Monday Mayhem explores humanity’s moral weakness during an apocalyptic event.

When things go well, humans tend to enjoy the spoils of their labor in relative peace and security thinking no one or anything could possibly disrupt their harmony. But throw in a crisis of biological proportions and the average person runs into the streets terrified their life as they know it is over.

The first thing to happen during a disaster of this kind is a run up on cash. Folks try to get as much of it as they can. But the old adage “cash is king” will not work when humanity is on the cusp of a new paradigm. It will all be about bartering and sharing. Even if folks head to the grocery store in an attempt to outwit their neighbor hoarding the last bit of the foodstuffs, they will have to do more than search, beg, and borrow. Guaranteed the neighbors have weapons. Guaranteed they wouldn’t be afraid to use them.

The question is, how far would you go?

Once society breaks down and the last morsels of food disappear, it will be up to the survivors to make due with what remains. And if the biological catastrophe involves a change in a large percentage of the population’s eating habits, there will be far more to fear than starvation. A new enemy will have emerged to either unite the survivors or tear them apart. An enemy so brutal and carnal, the survivors would have to do anything and everything to avoid them in order to remain alive.

Again, how far would you go?

A simple bath in clean water may take weeks. A warm bed with covers and sheets may take months. The joy of listening to any of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos or any music for that matter may never happen again. The simplicities in life, the things we take for granted, a quick walk through the woods, a chat on the phone, an email, reading a letter, a caress, taking a bus, riding on a train, walking a dog, smelling a flower, sitting on the veranda watching the rain fall, a hug, the taste of vanilla, a dance, a play, a movie, the joy of writing, talking, humming, a kiss—may disappear forever.

How far would you go?

Monday Mayhem

Rising from the Dead

Posted on February 18, 2013February 17, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Zombies are everywhere nowadays. You can’t turn around without bumping into one. They’re all over. What would my Monday Mayhem series be without them?

Last week, hackers in Great Falls, Montana infiltrated KRTV’s Emergency Alert System (EAS) and broadcasted a dire warning to viewers—the zombie apocalypse had begun. A pulsating noise followed by a voice drowned the audio to the regularly scheduled program. “Dead bodies are rising from their graves.” A blue bar at the top of TV screens ran the names of counties and areas affected by the event.

The announcement continued: “Follow the messages onscreen that will be updated as information becomes available. Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous.”

Local police reported viewers had called the station requesting information. What type of firearm can the citizens use against the roamers? Of course, the police took every call seriously even though folks had placed them in jest.

But has anyone ever asked if this scenario is actually possible? It’s all very well and fine that we know this whole thing was a hoax. Who in their right mind would take something like this and act on it is beyond me. However, several things stand out.

How did the hackers gain access to the EAS? Aren’t there security checks in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening? Who performs the yearly audit of the system? Shouldn’t someone have caught this vulnerability in deployment testing? If I were the affiliate station, I would certainly place a very concerned call to the FCC demanding a revamp of the system. Then again, I am Canadian, so my ramblings really don’t count.

More importantly, I’ll ask again, has anyone yet asked if a scenario such as this is possible?

My answer? No. A resounding no! Dead bodies rising from their graves makes for a cool horror flick but looking at it from the perspective of science can prove informative.

There’s this thing called Primary Flaccidity that occurs soon after death whereby every muscle in the body relaxes. Following this condition is Rigor Mortis, which takes place about three hours after death causing muscles in the body to stiffen. During this stiffening process, blood pools into larger veins discoloring the body giving it a pale look. This is called Livor Mortis or what embalmers call Postmortem Stain, for the bruise-like appearance of where the blood settles. The sequence by which the body stiffens tends to differ due to the variance with lactic acid levels in the muscles and glycogen levels in the different types of muscle fibers. Suffice it to say the process may begin with eyelids, neck and jaw. During the course of Rigor Mortis, the body cools in another process called Algor Mortis.

Within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, the body’s muscles relax again in Secondary Flaccidity. Within a week, the abdomen swells with gas produced by bacteria in the body. Skin blisters appear. Within two weeks, abdomen tightens and swells further. Within three weeks, organs and cavities burst. Nails fall off. Within a month, skin liquefies making the body unrecognizable.

It’s pretty morbid but fascinating nonetheless.

Anyway, getting back to the scenario of dead bodies rising from their graves in a maelstrom invasion of sorts—impossible. That is, impossible if the bodies hadn’t gone through decomposition. It would mean every body rising in every grave had to have died within minutes of each other and rise just before Rigor Mortis stiffened the muscles, Livor Mortis pooled the blood, Algor Mortis cooled the flesh, and Secondary Flaccidity prepped the abdomen for exploding organs.

Doesn’t make sense to me. If the reports from Montana were true, they’d of had skeletons roaming the streets and not bodies.

What does make sense, though, is an invasion born of the living, much like the post Zombie Apocalypse: Ground Zero I’d written regarding the origins of such an event.

What do you think? Is a Zombie Apocalypse possible from bodies rising from the graves? Where does science fit in all this?

Monday Mayhem

The Walking Dead

Posted on February 11, 2013February 10, 2013 by Jack Flacco

My Monday Mayhem series provides me with the opportunity to ramble on about zombies, the zombie apocalypse and the undead. Today’s no different. Because today, I want to ramble on about The Walking Dead.

I’ve wanted to write about The Walking Dead for a while now, but never really had any idea of how to approach it. I could talk about all the gnarly special effects with the guns blowing away the zombies or I can go into the incredible makeup each zombie actor in the show wears. However, I didn’t feel I’d provide anything new a reader couldn’t get anywhere else. And that’s what made me start this post, put it away and start it again. A few times in fact.

I decided to try something different instead.

For those who haven’t watched the show, AMC’s The Walking Dead is about a group of apocalypse survivors who search for a safe haven from evil. The evil being zombies. Although no one ever utters the word zombie in first season, labels such as Roamers, Walkers, Lamebrains, and Geeks make for good replacements.

Also to the credit of the show, the cast varies. Sheriff Rick Grimes, who’s smart, has moral integrity, a father, husband and a good friend, leads the group. He walks around flawed though, seeing things black and white causing him to make decisions that although ethically correct, causes more problems in the end. He is a protector and will do anything to keep the others safe.

Close to him is Deputy Shane Walsh, Rick’s best friend since high school. Living under Rick’s shadow, bitter resentment causes hatred, which ultimately results in Shane’s breakdown of conscience. This leads Shane to becoming a threat to the other survivors, including Rick’s son, Carl.

Lori Grimes is Rick’s wife and the center of the survivors’ emotional stability. She is loyal to Rick. This leads Shane to covet that which is Rick’s.

The Walking Dead is more than a typical zombie show. I wouldn’t consider it a zombie show at all if it weren’t for all the zombies popping up occasionally.

No, the show is about friendship. Every episode tries each friendship further and further in a refining fire. The audience watches this in awe, wondering how much can the characters take. No way can they survive this. Impossible! Yet, the friendships do survive. Through the yelling, screaming, betrayals and hatred, the survivors carry on, stronger, more determined to accomplish their goal of finding safety away from the Walkers.

The Walking Dead is a testament to what Hollywood can accomplish when the right people come together in an effort to create something exceptional. The show’s grounding comes from producers who know how the human condition works.

Have you seen The Walking Dead? What do you like about the show? Is there something in the show you’d like to see?

Monday Mayhem

Saying No to Zombies

Posted on February 4, 2013February 4, 2013 by Jack Flacco

It’s Monday Mayhem and you know what that means—yep, zombies running amok making life miserable for all humanity.

If you’ve read my Zombie Apocalypse: Ground Zero post last week, I wrote how I believed if a zombie apocalypse were take place it would happen in a large urban area. Some have commented that it would be more difficult to detect the event in a rural area instead, thus a challenge to contain.

Regardless of where it happens, we’d still have to find ways to defend ourselves. In my post Zombie Kill of the Week, I wrote a detailed list of how I’d like to see zombies killed. As amusing as it was writing that post, some truth remains: If a zombie were to enter our house, what would we do? It’s fun saying we’d love to jam an ice pick in the soft part of its temple but if we didn’t have an ice pick, it ain’t goin’ die by lookin’ at the thing and screamin’. That’s a fact.

So, what are we to do? What would you do?

Here are a few tips you can use in the event the world collapses and the zombies begin knocking on your door.

Typical Front Door

Do not open the door. Simple, right? Wrong. Those resilient maggot bags will stop at nothing if they hear life creaking inside your house. Don’t assume they’ll show up in the middle of the day either. Expect the unexpected. They can appear anytime. If you have a snorer in the house, lock ‘em in a windowless room in the basement. You don’t need those miserable gut suckers chomping on anyone in your household at three in the morning. Bar all the doors with deadbolts and chairs. Board up your windows and make only one door your access point. Dictate which door they can use.

Keep weapons handy. If zombies make it into the house, let their first greeting be a bullet to the head. Nothing says hello like a .357 Magnum. Be careful though, a gunshot will alert the others and instead of fending off one, you’ll have to deal with a whole neighborhood full of scab festerers. That’s why it would be a good idea to keep an assortment of garden tools interspersed throughout the house. A shovel can perform the duel role of cracking skulls and burying the remains. A hoe can function in a similar manner. Again, always think of the multiple uses for these tools. Now let’s say one of these brain eaters chases you around the house. What are you going to do? Sporting equipment works good too. Wouldn’t it be a relief to know at the end of a hall you can grab a baseball bat and beat the living tar out of these zombies? There’s nothing like hearing the crack of a Louisville Slugger upside the head of an undead.

Plan an escape route. If worse comes to worse and the whole house gets overrun with those walking fly heaps, the next and best course of action is to—RUN! Don’t stick around. Don’t even look back. You cannot afford to stay in the house any longer. Take what you can carry and head for the hills. Your life depends on it. If you’d planned ahead, you would have left a loose bottom board to one of the ground floor windows to make it easy for you to kick in and crawl through. Better still, you could have rigged the whole house to explode with you and your family safely halfway to the woods. This would ensure the zombies would remain in the house and you wouldn’t have to worry about stragglers chasing you.

Prepare a secondary home. As with any plan there should always be a Plan B. If something should happen to your primary residence, it would be beneficial to have a secondary residence in mind to act as your temporary home. This could be anything from a barn, a tent in the woods to a shed. Anything that will function as a place where you can lay your head without worrying if you’ll still have a head by morning.

These are only a few tips to keep those vermin beasts at bay while you plan your escape for the coast and hop on a boat for the nearest island away from it all.

What are your plans for the zombie apocalypse? Have you figured out an escape route? Will you be heading to an island somewhere in the Caribbean?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: Ground Zero

Posted on January 28, 2013January 28, 2013 by Jack Flacco

I’ve always wondered if a zombie apocalypse were to take place now, where would it hit first? It’s Monday Mayhem and this has been on my mind all weekend.

You know, I’ve thought about this question. It’s not one of those precious topics floating around lunchrooms across America. Like, how many Twitter followers does Lady Gaga have? Does Justin Bieber like chocolate chip ice cream? What will Katy Perry choose as her next hair color? Or some other mind-numbing question like that. No, since I began my study into zombie propagation methods, I’ve pondered on possible contagion locations.

According to zombie folklore, zombies become zombies when a virus infects and kills a victim. The victim rises from the dead as a zombie and carries on the cycle of infection by biting other victims. That is, if there’s anything left of the victims after the zombie attacks. Zombies are known to have a voracious appetite for human flesh and will do anything to consume as much of it as possible.

Which begs the question I asked earlier: Where in the world would a zombie apocalypse have a greater chance of beginning?

Let’s use some logic and think about this for a moment. It would be fair to assume a typical zombie virus falls under the category of designer viruses engineered to deliver its payload to as many victims as possible. Obviously, no one in their right mind would volunteer to release such a virus into the population, therefore, should it happen, it would happen by accident.

Okay, how about location? For a virus of this magnitude to cause such devastation, the lab would have to be located near a huge population. Like a city. I did a quick search on Google for labs located near large populations and found one just outside a metropolis in a quaint suburb. Located across the street is a hotel.

Forgive me if I’m naïve, because sometimes I don’t get things right away. But if this lab should ever have a breach, isn’t it reasonable to say the hotel across the street would fall victim to the contagion first? Don’t hotels contain travelers? Travelers need airports. Aren’t airports in cities? If a whole city gets infected by these busy travelers, wouldn’t the likelihood of the contagion spreading to surrounding communities increase? And let’s not forget the infected flying out of the city. Where are they heading? Europe? Africa? China?

Now, let’s say, for the sake of argument, I’m wrong. Let’s pretend a zombie apocalypse starts in a rural community first. What are the chances of it stretching its legs beyond the borders of a small town? Do you think the military would allow it? I don’t know. Seems unlikely. The military’s response is quick when it comes to these types of situations. They’d have the location secured once they see zombies running around town trying to make meals of its residents. They’d then execute a containment protocol to prevent the spread from affecting outlining regions.

No, a zombie apocalypse wouldn’t survive in those conditions. The military would make sure of that. If it does happen, it’ll happen in a large urban area. As for my research, I’m not silly enough to reveal what I found online, although if you’re smart, you probably already figured out my Google search. You also know to which lab I’m referring.

What do you think? Big city or small town? Do you have any other locations where a zombie apocalypse could start?

Monday Mayhem

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Posted on January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 by Jack Flacco

I’ve played a lot of video games in my day. I still do. Just not as much. The game I keep coming back to, no matter how amped up my system gets, is Return to Castle Wolfenstein. As part of my Monday Mayhem series, I’d like to share my experience I had with the game and how it changed my attitude toward zombies.

Released on November 19, 2001, Return to Castle Wolfenstein became an instant Platinum hit. Billed as a first-person shooter, the game features a single player component and various multiplayer modes. For this post, however, my focus will be on the single player mode.

The story of the game is simple. You are B.J. Blazkowicz, an American agent investigating paranormal activities in World War II Germany. You have escaped from Castle Wolfenstein’s dungeon and you proceed to eliminate anyone who gets in your way.

That pretty much sums up the game in its most basic form.

Part of the gameplay involves enemies who shoot, electrocute and/or bomb the player with their assortment of weapons. In one tough level, the player comes across a Panzer tank and some Gatling gun taunting soldiers protecting a building. The player has to eliminate the tank and soldiers before penetrating the building. One evening I’d completed the level straight through without dying. I’ll never forget the sense of achievement I felt. That night I could have taken over the world.

But the brilliance of the game comes when the player becomes trapped in a dark, brick-laden room, void of life and filled to the knees with a thick fog. The player has to cross the room to a door on the other side.

I remember it was two in the morning. I had my headphones on and the lights were dim. I was playing this part of the level for the very first time. Fear hit my stomach, clenching, rattling it like a steel trap. A step at a time, I kept turning my head not wanting anything to sneak up on me. All my senses tingled as I moved forward. When I reached halfway, I felt some relief. I’m still alive, I whispered to myself. I’m still alive. Shh. One more step. Keep going, one more step.

And then, the moan.

I jumped from my desk throwing the headphones on the keyboard. I almost screamed, waking everyone in the house. I backed away from the monitor with a dead stare. My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. It wanted to rip from my chest. The cold sweat drenched my shirt. All I remembered was the moan to the right behind me that wouldn’t stop. Regaining my courage, I edged closer to the monitor and peered into the fog. I could barely make them out. Hands? Hands. They appeared from the fog. Then I saw the arms and finally their heads. Their gruesome heads lifting from their graves.

Zombies.

In that moment. In that instant. I’d gained a respect for zombies I never had, which has remained with me to this day.

True story.

Are you part of the old school gaming league? Have you played Return to Castle Wolfenstein? What did you think of the zombies in the game?

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