A Quick Zombie Primer

By Krista Thom

Perhaps you’re a bit curious about zombies, but aren’t sure whether or not you’d like to be one. Perhaps you’re not even 100% sure what they are. I know I certainly had questions, until I came across the informative and impressively thorough book, The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.

One of the things that confused me was how exactly zombies are created. In some movies, zombie-ism is spread by a virus, in others, it’s caused by radiation, or infected food or water. Apparently, though, I was wrong to use movies as my source of knowledge. According to Brooks, Hollywood zombie movies are often exaggerated and usually inaccurate.

In reality, all zombies are victims of a virus known as Solanum, which infects the brain and causes all bodily functions to stop, rendering the victim dead in the traditional sense. Solanum then somehow remakes the brain, so that it functions independently of oxygen. From that point on, the new zombie is only concerned with finding food. (Food, for a zombie, means living or recently deceased human flesh.)

Even though these zombies are persistent, they’re not terribly bright. One of my favorite quotes from the book is, “The mental capacity of the average zombie ranks somewhere beneath that of an insect.” That’s probably a good thing both for humans’ sake and the sake of the zombies, because I would imagine that even a moderately intelligent creature wouldn’t want to inhabit a dead body.

And yes, zombie bodies really are dead. They have no ability to regenerate, and so they just stumble around, slowly decomposing.

Also, zombies can’t perceive injury, which makes them hard to stop. The only way to permanently disable a zombie is to destroy the brain.

So there you have it – zombies in a nutshell. If you decide to participate in this year’s Zombie Pub Crawl, the takeaway messages are to walk slow, moan loud, and not act too intelligent (the beer will help with this). And remember, any question can be countered by a reply of “Braaaiiinnnsss!!!”

If You Go:
What: Fargo Zombie Pub Crawl 4
When: Saturday, May 14, 3 pm – 2 am
Where: Island Park/various bars
For more information: Visit the facebook page. (Search for “Fargo Zombie Pub Crawl”.) or watch a video from a prior year: http://qr.net/b015

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)