I don’t watch much television. There’s not a whole lot on the tube worth watching. Reality shows? I don’t think so.
The one show I do watch religiously is AMC’s “The Walking Dead”. The family knows that come Sunday night at 9:00, the T.V. is mine for an hour.
Why “The Walking Dead”? Why not “NCIS” or “Survivor” or “The Mentalist” or something else?
Several reasons. As a horror and thriller writer, zombies fascinate me. Plus, you start following a series show like that, the characters grow on you, and you start to care what happens to them. And, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, lots of stuff can happen. Usually bad stuff.
But the main reason I watch “The Walking Dead” is that zombies scare the you-know-what out of me.
Just the idea that zombies could be real and on the munch is frightening in a visceral way. I think zombies scare me so much because, among all monsters, they symbolize the destruction of not only the individual but of civilization itself.
We received a wake-up call the other day (for those who were paying attention) when the meteor streaked into the atmosphere and exploded over Russia. The resulting shock wave injured a thousand people and damaged property for miles around. For a time there was panic in the streets as people frantically tried to find out what had happened. Were they under attack? Was the world ending? No one knew, thus the terror.
Then came the Carnival cruise from hell. When the ship’s engines died and left thousands trapped on a dead boat with the power gone, no working toilets and nothing to eat but onion sandwiches, passengers quickly learned that safety and comfort were illusions. Circumstances could change in a heart beat. The ill-fated cruise was just a microcosm of the breakdown of civilization.
That’s what happens with zombies. It’s the thought that things could go so bad so fast and that our society could collapse around our ears quicker than we could react. We’re used to getting water when we turn on the tap, light when we flick a switch. A short jaunt to the store in our gas guzzlers, and we can pick up milk and eggs and meat and bread when we run low. If we get sick, we call the doctor, or go to the emergency room. We feel comfortable with our neighbors, and the cops are just a 911 call away. We’re civilized.
But civilization is just a thin veneer masking savagery, the fragile skin over the rotting apple of chaos.
That’s what zombies show us. How fast things can go to hell.
Zombies Symbolize “The End”
The “Z” virus strikes, and reality starts to come unglued. Our friends and neighbors and loved ones become the rotting, slavering walking dead who can infect us with a single bite. They replicate exponentially. They’re slow, but they don’t stop. They keep coming. They’re mindless. Like sharks, they’re eating machines. Their only desire is consuming our flesh. We can’t reason with them. Can’t plead with them. Can’t reach them. Daddy’s dead, but he still walks, and he’s coming for us. Mama want’s to chew our face off. Little sister wants to eat our brains. And if we get bit, we’re done. Finished. It’s only a matter of time before we become a shambling corpse ourselves.
And just like that, the film of civilization, of normalcy, crumbles away. Dead is no longer dead. Our loved ones aren’t lying down and rotting in their graves like they should be. They’re rotting on their feet, moaning as they stalk us.
“But it’s Mama!” we cry, as our once vibrant, loving mother shambles closer, expressionless, flesh hanging from her in ribbons, rotting arms outstretched to embrace us. “It’s Mama! She loves me!” We can’t wrap our minds around it. Mama cares. She would never hurt us. Put her down like a mad dog? You cannot be serious!
But Mama is past caring about anything but hunger. She is what she is, and, if we’re lucky, we realize it in time. Things are different. Our once-sane world is gone, and we’ve been thrown out on our own, our minds and emotions reeling.
But now it’s survival time. If we want to live, we have to depend on ourselves.
And at the core of our terror is a stark truth. Danger and dissolution is everywhere. Death rules. And we know we haven’t been trained or conditioned to cope with it.
That’s one of the most fascinating aspects of “The Walking Dead” – the way the characters handle their situation, physically, mentally and spiritually. And, lately, they haven’t been coping so well.
The stress of constantly fighting to stay alive takes its toll. Who do you trust outside your own little group? Food and ammunition is scarce. Survivors are out for themselves. You start to fear your fellow humans as well as the undead moaning outside your sanctuary.
I believe another reason zombies scare me is that they’ve lost their ability to reason as well as to remember. In zombies, we recognize ourselves and our loved ones when we and they grow old and dementia and Alzheimer’s disease start to take their toll. The loss of cognizance is appalling to we who have always been in control.
Also, zombies are front and center actors in the playing out of one of humanities oldest fears – that of being eaten alive. Who wants to lay there helpless and watch (and feel) while some creature pulls your guts out and snacks on them? Same with sharks, or bears, except that zombies have that whole undead thang going for them.
The writers of “The Walking Dead” do a pretty good job of character creation, and viewers find themselves rooting for their favorites. But, like real life, there’s no telling what might happen. The writers are devious. Your favorite character, be it Shane or Lori or Carl or Rick, Glen or Dale or Andrea or Darrel or Hershel – or anybody – could wind up a zombie snack. Someone you’ve invested a lot of emotional involvement in dies. And in the back of our reptile minds we recognize that life can imitate art. Our loved ones could die anytime. From heart attacks. Traffic accidents. Tsunamis. Fires. The dice roll, and someone bites the dust.
Then we realize – it could happen to us.
And that’s it in a nutshell. Much more than that skeleton in a hoodie with a scythe, a zombie represents death personified.
That’s why zombie’s scare me.
