Allen Fiction

There are a number of things about the “Zombie Genre” that strike me as completely wrong. And at first it may seem like something trivial to write about, but I felt that I had to put some ideas out there in the hopes that someone can fix it if my efforts fall flat on their face. My first gripe with the genre is that most of its fans are failing to see that, yes, it is a genre. It is a genre like anything else. It is a genre just like young adult vampire fiction is now a genre. And take the connotations that go alone with it too. It is a genre, and it needs to be critiqued like any other genre. So now, I’ll start my long argument about why the Zombie Genre is completely wrong.

The “zombie” part of most of the stories (the part with the eating people) does not need to be carried out by zombies. Why does it have to be zombies eating people? To me, that feels like a cop out. We do not need a “walking dead” to justify eating someone. We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by threats of famine, nuclear war, poverty, stock market crashes, corporate corruption, etc. All of these manmade disasters can lead to the justification of humans hunting and eating humans. When people get hungry enough, they will eat anything that does not knowingly kill them. A few books have touched on this, but they have rarely inspired or ignited a genre where this is a continuing trend. Books like Alive and The Road have dealt with cannibalism, as have Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lector stories. The Book of Eli did a pretty good job of handling this subject on screen. As have numerous post-apocalyptic video games. So what we have with these books, movies, and videos games, the ones with normal humans eating humans, are realistic and creative scenarios being fictionalized for the medium.

Another thing that bothers me about the literary Zombie Genre is the fact that it would not exist if it weren’t for the film genre. It may just be that I’m having a “get off my lawn” moment, but what I see in Zombie Fiction are, essentially, novelizations of films. That’s what they feel like to me. The stories may be different, but typically in films (with the exception of 28 Days Later), the reason for the existence of zombies is never explained. This is because it is so open-ended and impossible to justify scientifically, but a movie can make you forget about that part of the story.  However, I get the feeling that Zombie Fiction in the literary realm wants the same affect. It wants the reader to forget that the origins of the zombies was never explained, but at the same time wants the reader to feel as if it is something that could actually happen. Some attempt to explain, but it usually goes the route of some super virus. But it never explains why the virus would cause humans to eat other humans (especially if “everyone” is already infected). So to me,  it makes sense that it can only be excused in the film or TV medium. A movie can rationalize anything, at least until the effects wear off and you think about the plot holes for five seconds. But in the literary medium, there is little to no background information of how the zombies came to be, and it’s a lot harder to excuse. This causes the narrator, and the author, to rely on the readers’ preconceived notions of what a “zombie” is. I feel that if it were done correctly, there would be no need for the stigma and stereotypes associated with the word and genre of “zombie.” The typical zombie story could be fixed. The same terror could be created without the same expectations.

This is my idea:

A massive drought has covered the entire planet. The straw has broken the camel’s back, as far global warming is concerned. This has caused the more powerful nations go into isolation. Foreign trade is essentially non-existent. There are still some places in each part of the world where edible vegetation still grows. Most militaries have disbanded and formed renegade units, essentially militias. This worked for the benefit of the militias for a while, but they underestimated the number of gun-owners in the United States. Since the US Government essentially contracted out every non-combatant job to civilians, the militias have no way of resupplying themselves. The power has essentially been given back to the people. However, even the “preppers,” the “Dale Gribbles,” and other paranoid citizens who were prepared for the collapse, could not last long. After running the militias into the ground, these “preppers” raped and pillaged the American citizens who could still live off the parts of land that still grew patches of edible vegetation. But after taking over these parts of the world, they could not replicate the results of the people they had pushed out. But they did not find all of these places.

There are still some animals in the world. But they are diminishing along with the humans. Most animals that continue to thrive are rabid dogs, buzzards, oceanic fish that boats must venture too far away from shore to net. It is not impossible to find animals to eat. But because of human starvation, their populations are dropping faster than the humans’. The more educated parts of the world hunt selectively to try to keep the populations of animals growing.

Eventually the global population of animals, including humans, diminishes to the extent that the only surviving humans, who thrive anyway, are the ones who hunt and kill other humans. The ones who don’t eat other humans, survive off of what is left of the vegetated parts of the world and the oceanic life. The only way for this pattern of existence to fix itself, is for the remaining population of humans to halt their exploitation of the planet and themselves until the ecosystem can stabilize itself. The edible plants will grow back, as long as they are not raped by the remaining humans. The wild animals will repopulate, if the humans don’t hunt and kill all of them. This has been realized by everyone, but when it comes time to resist temptation and let something grow or reproduce, most succumb to temptation.

So this has led to two major philosophies of fixing the problem. On one side of the spectrum, there are humans that believe that they must eat each other to lessen their impact on the planet. On the other side of the spectrum, there are humans that believe that if they limit themselves, the planet can provide for everyone.

The cannibalistic group refers to themselves as The Firsts. The ones who live off of the planet are referred to as The Seconds. The Seconds don’t like to call themselves anything but humans. This doesn’t stop The Firsts from asking each other, “Who wants Seconds?” as a sort of joke. They are both essentially at war with each other.

Their philosophy when coming into contact with each other is simple: If a First kills and eats a Second, it saves the lives of two Firsts. If a Second kills a First, it saves the lives of a varying number of Seconds from potentially being killed and eaten by a First. This equation has sparked micro-wars across the United States and similar wars are seen throughout the world.

 ***

This is my idea. I feel like this scenario could create an equal number of similar scenarios that people love so much about Zombie Fiction, but replace them with realistic scenarios. It would take away the senseless violence that exists in Zombie Fiction and replace it with scenes that are plot essential and could help make the entire story be considered literary to more people.  This would also take away the characters that are only there as filler characters for the senseless violence.