Monday 5 September 2011

Third Entry: Define Your Terms

Before I proceed with all the gory details of my heroic adventures, I feel that I have to explain a few things. The walking dead, for instance. I call them "Walkers." I've heard them called everything from ghouls to zombies to demons, but I prefer walker. It has a nice ring to it.

First of all, there is nothing paranormal about walkers. They aren't minions of the devil or angry spirits risen from the grave to wreak a revenge most sinister. The last reports from the Center for Disease Control - before they stopped broadcasting - was of a virus. It's not airborne (thank God), but if you do become infected (if the virus enters your bloodstream), you're pretty much fucked. There's no cure, no treatment, and it has a 100% mortality rate.

But you don't just drift slowly into death. I wish it was that easy, but it ain't. It begins like a fever. You shake and shiver from both heat and cold. You become lightheaded and tired. Then, without warning, the fever breaks and you think to yourself: Hah, I beat it. I fucking beat it. And you start laughing, because you're not going to die after all! So you laugh. And you keep laughing. You laugh right up to the point where your higher brain functions start to cease. That's when you stop laughing, because you forget what was so funny. You forget where you are and who you are. You forget everything. And then come the spasms. Excruciatingly painful spams wrack your entire body, and you scream and scream until there's no air left in your lungs. And then you die. For a couple of minutes, anyway, before you rise up, ready and eager to feast on human flesh.

Grim stuff, I know. Good news, though! Walkers are really slow and really stupid. 

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