Where did all the zombies go

Monsters fall in and out of fashion, but the zombies seem to have their fifteen minutes of fame right now. They appear on clothes, various novelty items, and writers compete to re-create what used to be a corpse reanimated by means of witchcraft. Much like the vampire, the zombie has been transformed by popular culture into a monster very different from the original ghoul, but these two share a variety of common characteristics. They are both animate corpses who feed on humans, but the typical way they are presented in fiction and film is vastly different and surprisingly, it was the zombie that used to be portrayed as less ferocious.

The vampire, a bloodthirsty creature from Slavic folklore became the undead aristocrat Dracula. Forever young, he evolved into a creature struggling with his own inhumanity, which gives him great potential to be the main character of a romantic, or psychological plot. The zombie on the other hand, owes its modern image to George A. Romero, the director of the influential horror movie “The Night of the Living Dead”. This new breed of monster is driven by the mindless desire for human flesh and in many ways, it mirrors our fears of a deadly epidemic science wouldn’t be able to stop. All it takes for the infection to be transferred is one bite and within hours (or minutes), the victim becomes a moving corpse, which starts to rot and fall apart: an image much more gruesome than even the original dried out vampire. Such fears work best for the background, as the zombies themselves are usually devoid of any emotion and dehumanized.

Instead of simply making the still-breathing cast run and hide, many writers opt for a more creative approach. The BBC mini-series  “In the Flesh” plays on the idea of zombiism as an illness. In a world where the undead are being released back into society that fears and hates them, the main character, a sufferer himself, needs to cope with the consequences of the decisions he’d made long ago. For him, rising from the dead is the chance for a new beginning, and using the zombie infection as background for this story is a very interesting move. In the world of “In the Flesh”, popular culture is essentially the same as the one we know, so there are many misconceptions about the character’s condition and to some extent, people’s fears mirror the worries that accompanied the closure of mental hospitals, which is another reference the viewers may recognize.

The loss of humanity is another common theme in zombie movies and fiction. It reflects the fear of what would happen if the laws society lives by crumbled. A zombie apocalypse is an excellent excuse to portray relationships within a group of survivors  who have to make up their own rules. Extreme situations can bring out the best and the worst in people, as shown in the popular tv show “The Walking Dead”. The main character, Rick, progresses from desperately trying to retain the humane rules he used to live by to becoming an absolute leader of his group. He’s still mostly a decent person, but some choices he makes in order to preserve the lives of his party are more than morally questionable. These include leaving a lonely man to die, but also handing over a fresh member of the group as a price for being left in peace by a larger gathering of people.

The very human Rick is contrasted with characters who don’t change their code of conduct after the zombie apocalypse, but also people who use the new situation as a way to gain absolute power, like the sadistic Governor. Of course, themes like these have been explored before, a prominent example being William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies”, but using the zombie apocalypse as background is a clever, modern take on the topic. In a world like that, there is nowhere to run and all the freedom and happiness the characters can get depends on the structure of their group.

With time, such small societies could become vastly diverse which is one of the topics me and my co-writer intend to explore in our series “Gentlemen’s Tales of Love, Lust, and the Undead”. The general idea was that we wanted to create a gritty, low-tech steampunk world as a setting for numerous books that would be only loosely related, so that they could be read as stand-alones. At some point we started discussing the possible consequences of a zombie apocalypse occurring in the second half of the nineteenth century, and we decided it would be the perfect addition to the world we were building.

Most of the stories are set in an overcrowded alternative-Victorian London, a city surrounded by tall walls, plagued by political turmoil and the threat of revolution. Even the higher classes weren’t spared by the Plague, as with the land mostly inaccessible, their resources are melting at an alarming rate. “Scavengers”, a series of three novellas set in the world of “Gentlemen’s Tales of Love, Lust and the Undead” follows James, a man desperate to maintain his family’s status. In order to do that, he has to leave the safety of the London city walls and cross the zombie-swarmed countryside alongside a mercenary he hired for the job.

The zombie background in “Scavengers” delivers the necessary danger factor, but the undead are also used as research subjects at a medical university, a place we returned to in the novella “Off with Their Heads”, which tells the story of a misunderstood artist and his attempt to steal several zombie heads from the university for a moving sculpture he intends to make. The bold endeavor throws him into the arms of a prim and proper medical student, which is at the core of the story, with the zombies adding the element of grotesque and dark humor.

All the storylines I mentioned aren’t focused on the undead, the killing (even when there’s lot of it), or the constant fear. It’s the human characters that count, and it’s their passions, their difficult choices the reader is supposed to engage in. Like any other monster, the zombie is just an excuse to reveal human nature, so why limit its existence to the horror genre? As long as we treat the undead as background, the story itself can be anything: from comedy, through romance, all the way to mystery and melodrama. I’ve talked to some people who think genre crossing is risky business, but on the other hand, there are so many examples that show it can work surprisingly well. I’m all for it.

About the author

K.A. Merikan is a joint project of Kat and Agnes Merikan who jokingly claim to share one mind. They finish each other’s sentences and simultaneously come up with the same ideas. Kat and Agnes enjoy writing various kinds of stories, from light-hearted romance to thrillers. They love creating characters that are not easy to classify as good or evil, and firmly believe that even some villains deserve their happy endings. It is easiest to find them in galleries, good restaurants and historical sites, always with a computer or notebook, because for Kat and Agnes, every day is writing day. Future plans include lots of travel and a villa on the coast of Italy or a flat in Paris where they could retire after yet another crazy venture, only to write more hot m/m romance.

K.A. Merikan’s author page: http://kamerikan.com

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