{"id":802,"date":"2011-11-01T12:48:48","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T17:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=802"},"modified":"2011-11-14T15:16:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T21:16:20","slug":"me-talk-zombie-someday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=802","title":{"rendered":"Me Talk Zombie Someday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Zombie Picture Every Day #1<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s the working title at the moment. What we have here is a tangent from last year’s NaNo that I got real excited about and wanted to write mid-November 2k10. Lacking a better idea for this year, I’ve decided to do it. An intelligent “zombie” writing his memoir, laying it out for all to see…. Who knows? Once again, I’ve got that “This thing is gonna suck” feeling which comes from lack of plot, lack of planning. I know I’m going to have some amazing idea either Nov 15 or Dec 1. Just wish I had it now.<\/p>\n

Anyhow. Enough of that. Positive: Zachary P. Graves is fun to write. It’s all conversational. Lots of swearing! Much zombie humor. Here’s a bit written during last night’s Midnight Scramble….<\/p>\n

\n
My name is — was — Zachary P. Graves and I am — technically — dead. I say technically because, really, and I think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll agree, any man who can still scratch out his memoirs, any man who can do that still has some shot at life. Right? But, according to the Gooseman-Keane Act of 2015, any person who progressed through Stage IV of Westphail (the popular name for the H3N5P2 virus which did all this) is, for all practical and legal purposes, dead. Done. Extinct. Regardless if that person has been through DEI (Decapitation, Evisceration, Incineration) or is currently trying to break your door down so he can get inside and get a bite to eat, that person is dead. Once you hit Stage IV, your chances of going anywhere but a DEI Station are pretty slim especially now that every Tom, Dick & Harry, and their wives, mothers, kids and pets have been through Westphail Victim Pacification Training. In the beginning, it was easier. Nobody knew what to do with us.
\nBut I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m getting ahead of myself here.Yeah, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a fucking zombie, and yeah, I realize I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just telling you a whole bunch of shit you already know. But, on the off chance that this document doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get toasted the second I do, that someone bothers reading it, that all you skin-so-soft living motherfuckers actually survive Westphail, figure out a way to keep from catching it yourselves, maybe even eradicate the virus itself, maybe having a record of someone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been there, done that, and is currently wearing the t-shirt, maybe that would be helpful. To somebody.
\nAnd let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just get something out of the way right off the bat: this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to have a happy ending. I keep thinking about the kid in I Am Legend — the one who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got the future of mankind in his hand. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not that kid. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the only semi-intelligent Z around. I know this, because for fuck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tried talking to every single one of the brain-gobbling slow-walking pusballs that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come across and you know what? They all say the same goddamn thing: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Garrr blurble skalkaska wurrrrtz.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Know what that means? Jack and shit. Nothing. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not talking. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not vocalizing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just noise. Know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hilarious? Scientists trying to come up with a Z lexicon. As if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to sit down to tea and have a conversation with them someday. Some pinhead in a lab coat is listening to tapes of Z noise saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, this one here, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s saying he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lonely!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not lonely. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not thinking. Everything you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read is true: the Zs have no more feelings. No more emotions. No more needs or desires. Everything has been burnt away by the virus. Written on top of all the things that made those people people is a burning impetus to feed. And you know what they eat. What we eat.
\nShit. I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m about to lose half my audience and the rest of you will no longer find me so sympathetic. Yeah. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve fed. In the early days, I broke through boarded up doors, dove through windows, tore screaming people apart. Ate their fucking brains. And you know what? I liked it. Hell, I loved it. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting there, my new family numbering in the thousands, glassy-eyed, jaws working mechanically, I could see there was no joy, just that constant voice: eat eat eat eat eat. And I thought, You guys are fucking missing out. This is fun! But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hang out with those dudes much anymore. Not if I can help it. The horde, yeah, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a constant party, and I mean constant. But it attracts too much attention, not so subtle at all. And all that moaning. Ugh. The first time I felt the wind of shotgun pellets zinging by my face, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I thought, This might not be the thing for me anymore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the working title at the moment. What we have here is a tangent from last year’s NaNo that I got real excited about and wanted to write mid-November 2k10. Lacking a better idea for this year, I’ve decided to do it. An intelligent “zombie” writing his memoir, laying it out for all to see…. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanowrimo","tag-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}