href="#litres_trial_promo">237, 240, 259, 267, 276, 291, 301, 317, 323, 326, 329.
Maciej Lewandowski: p. 205.
Daniel Mayer: p. 50.
Cpt. Muji: p. 202.
Rafael Omondini: p. 183.
Ricardo Pustanio: pp. 16, 22, 33, 54, 167, 252, 269, 270, 302, 306, 321.
Paul Dale Roberts: p. 320.
Seanol: p. 61.
Shutterstock: pp. 11, 27, 37, 39, 41, 46, 47, 57, 61, 78, 80, 83, 100, 118, 122, 184, 193, 249, 313, 327, 332, 336.
David Jolley Staplegunther: p. 97.
Vincent & Bella Productions: p. 295.
Himanshu Yogi: p. 25.
All other images are in the public domain.
INTRODUCTION
The zombie: it is a creature that provokes a wealth of emotional responses: menace, terror, panic, excitement, fascination, and trepidation all share equal, top billing. And it’s not just the actions of the zombie that engineer such states of mind. It’s the very name, too. Indeed, the “Z word” is one that hits home in near-primal fashion. Just mentioning it strikes a deep, chilling, and malignant chord in our subconscious, even if we’re not overly sure why that should be so.
Perhaps it’s the image of the rampaging, utterly driven, killing-machine, violently forcing its way into our homes. Maybe, as a result of the fraught, violent, and unpredictable world in which we now live, it’s the growing association between the dead-returned and matters of a definitively apocalyptic nature. Or, possibly, it’s all due to the sense that the zombie is an unstoppable form of evil; a shambling, marching, or running horror that threatens to overturn society and create a new world in its image, rather than in ours.
In short, the zombie offers us—the human race—one thing and one thing only: extinction. And we know that. As a result, we fear these soulless creatures. Yet, as highly intelligent entities, and ones keenly aware of our own precarious mortality, we find ourselves not just repelled by the zombie, but strangely, and almost hypnotically, drawn to both it and the future it promises of death, decay, and planet-wide devastation. Of course, in today’s society, our perceptions of the zombie are primarily driven by the world of entertainment; that is to say, the likes of The Walking Dead, World War Z, and the Resident Evil movies.
But it hasn’t always been like that. In fact, there was a time long gone when it was nothing like that.
The concept of the zombie has been with us for not just decades or even centuries. It has been an integral part of our myths, legends, folklore, and beliefs for thousands of years. Long before exotic viruses, biological warfare, and sinister military experiments brought the dead back to life in our cinemas and on our television screens, there were the dark spells and incantations of the ancient Egyptians, the Sumerians, and the Babylonians. Their high priests and priestesses sought to restore the dead to some semblance of life and to zombify the still-living. Their goal was to command both categories, to have them do the bidding of their human masters, and to control them—which is very different to the zombies of today that are definitively out of control. Within the culture of the Celts and the people of Haiti, Scandinavia, and Africa, belief that the recently deceased could be reanimated, and that the living could be reduced to zombie status and used in almost slave-like fashion, was widespread centuries ago. Today, the zombie serves as entertainment. Back then, it simply served.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the screenwriters, producers and directors of movies of the dead—such as King of the Zombies, White Zombie, and I Walked with a Zombie—were near-exclusively inspired by Haitian traditions, by Voodoo beliefs, and by sinister spells and incantations. And, invariably, the zombie presence in old-school Hollywood was focused on one locale, such as an isolated island or a creepy old mansion. Zombie hordes devouring the living, the end of the world, and Armageddon-style, worldwide disaster were nowhere in sight. It was not until 1968, when George A. Romero unleashed a certain movie—Night of the Living Dead—onto the masses that the zombie largely left the domains of Voodoo and magic behind and entered a new, and far more savage, realm. That realm was, and still is, filled with viruses, bites, infection, and worldwide chaos.
There
