in the same way that we can’t be sympathetic for humans, which we all used to be once, we hold no sympathy for the uneducated undead. They are mindless. They are the past. We are the future.
We call zombies who haven’t been educated Stiffs. They’re still dead, mentally speaking. They have no awareness and no self-control. They can be pretty dangerous, if you aren’t careful. They will attack anything that moves, living or undead, and devour it. As long as we keep our distance, though, they aren’t much of a threat. But despite their lack of intelligence, they are faster and stronger than humans and most animals. Humans are a zombie’s natural prey.
We, on the other hand, who have been or are being educated, are Wakes. We know what’s up.
And then there’s humans.
4. THE HUMAN DILEMMA
We don’t hate humans. We have nothing against them. In fact, most of our education and learning is a result of them. The books they wrote, the schools and communities they built, and the languages and ideas they created are all an important part of zombie education. And we all used to be human at one point.
We literally couldn’t exist without them.
Here’s the problem.
We need humans. Not in a sentimental way. Sentimentality is for humans.
We need their brains.
There’s a reason Stiffs crave living human brains. It keeps zombies going. Our organs have stopped, we don’t grow, our hearts don’t beat. But there’s one thing about us that is still working.
Our brains.
And why do they keep working?
We feed them.
We feed them living human brains.
Our brains would literally shut down if we stopped eating human brains. We’d die. Not human die. Zombie die. And once a zombie dies, it can’t come back. Forget about anything you’ve heard about zombies raising from the grave. You only become a zombie if you’re infected with the zombie virus at death. It keeps the cerebral cortex of your brain alive when the rest of you dies. Once your brain dies, forget it. You’re dead. Not human dead. Dead dead. It’s absolute death.
The problem is that zombies’ brains don’t just keep working. They wear out. And eventually they die. Unless they’re fed. And there’s only one thing that keeps a zombie’s brain alive and working.
You guessed it, Joe.
Living, human brains. Specifically, the cerebral cortex has the greatest effect.
We’ve tried other animals. Their brains do zilch. Even monkey brains don’t have any effect, even though they’re close to humans evolutionarily speaking. I bet that Darwin had a nice big juicy brain come to think of it. Sorry. I’m still learning to curb my cravings. I’m getting better. Anyway. We’ve tried dead brains, or zombie brains. Nada. Only living, human brains recharge us and keep us going. I mean like fresh out of the skull brains. We’ve figured out ways to preserve them with chemicals, but that’s only if you do it right away and if the brain isn’t infected with the zombie virus. The longer an infected brain is inactive, the more the virus spreads through it. And the more the brain is infected, the less effect it has on revitalizing us.
The longer you’re a zombie, the more your brain wears out. Once you’ve been zombified for a couple years, you need at least one morsel of brain every few months to keep yourself going. Zombies gradually lose brain function over time when they haven’t fed on human brains. Eventually we fall into a comatose state. The longer you go without brains, the harder it is to come out of it and become awake again. After a few months or so, brain activity just fades away, and then there’s nothing, and there’s no coming out. The brain dies.
There’s another problem for Wakes. The longer we go without eating a piece of living, human brain, the dumber we become. Our brains stop working, and we revert back to our former Stiff selves. We call that skidding. Yeah, it sucks. But that’s just the way things are. Wakes can’t go more than a few days without having a piece of human brain, or else they skid and start to become like Stiffs again.
And then there’s the human dilemma. There aren’t a lot left. Most of the Stiffs have devoured them. The ones they haven’t are in hiding, and they’re tough to find and capture, because they’ve gotten good at defending themselves against zombies. We’re sort of going through a human famine. It isn’t pretty. But thankfully we have enough brain preserves to last us a while. The government makes sure to give us weekly updates to assure us that there are enough brain preserves to keep Revenant and its inhabitants functioning for some time, delivered by the town’s spokeszombie, the ever-beaming Mayor Hillard. Even so, brain preserves won’t last forever, and we have to work feverishly to replenish the allotment we use daily.
And that’s why human tracking is so important.
My mentor is Bill Barton. He’s the lead human tracker for our community. I live in square 1 in zone A. It’s really close to the border of Revenant so it’s the best place for human tracking in our zone.
All zombies that are still being educated are given a mentor to help them navigate through their undead experience. It’s all a bit of a shock at first, honestly. One minute you know nothing, and then all of a sudden you can start to think and reason and speak. It’s bizarre. It’s probably what it’s like if you could remember being a baby and growing up. All Wakes begin their afterlife in preliminary school, where they’re taught the basics – speaking, reasoning, and understanding. That usually takes about a year. Even though we can’t remember our past lives, the information is still there, buried in our brains, so it’s really just relearning what we already knew at one point. Our brains have already formed and the information is there. It’s just a matter of reeducating ourselves. We may have forgotten what it’s like to be human, but our brains didn’t.
After pre-school, we’re placed into formal education at Oakrest if we died when we were young, or the learning center if you were an adult. We all have jobs that are given to us based on the skills we showed during pre-school, and that determines who our mentor is. I must have shown some proficiency for human tracking in pre-school, because I had been assigned one of the best human trackers in town as my mentor.
Human trackers search for and capture humans, preferably alive so that they can be evaluated. The young adult humans are usually kept and corralled for breeding. Younger kids and older adults are usually used as fodder – that’s a nice way of saying that we eat them. Some we evaluate and determine they would be more useful if they were zombified and educated as Wakes, but only if they seem to have some skill that would translate into something useful for the zombie community, like human tracking, which we are in desperate need of. Zombies don’t retain their memories after they revive, but most skills that they had as humans can be more easily replicated as zombies in pre-school.
Lately, though, we haven’t had many new zombies brought in for education. That has a lot to do with the human dilemma. There aren’t enough rations to go around, so that makes it hard to keep educating Stiffs. This year only three zombies were brought in past preliminary school. Two went to the adult center, and one was a kid they brought into my school. He was being taught to be a speaker of state affairs. Zombie kids that were brought in to take a government role were rare. I guess he showed a lot of potential during pre-school.
It’s been really tough lately to find humans. They have gotten really good at hiding, and they only come out at night when they need supplies. Stiffs have a tendency to rest at night, and seem to be awakened by the sunlight, so it’s safer to scavenge at night. Most stay in the human safe zone, which we haven’t been able to find. No humans we’ve captured have ever given any information about its location, though we’ve gotten a few details about what it’s like.
That’s why human trackers are so important. Decades ago, when zombie education had just started, it was easier, because there weren’t as many Stiffs. The more years that passed, the more Stiffs and the fewer humans there were. Along the way they learned strategies to defend themselves against Stiffs, like keeping quiet or moving slo
wly. They’ve become a lot more conservative in recent years. They never come out in daylight now. Only at night. When they do, they’re really careful and hard to spot. And they’re good at defending themselves. They usually have some sort of weapon, usually a gun. Most tools like knives and heavy objects are pretty ineffective against zombies. Our skin is tough and difficult to pierce, and humans, for the most part, aren’t strong enough to break it. It requires the superhuman strength of a zombie to take out another zombie. Guns, on the other hand, are the most effective weapon to use against zombies. The velocity of a bullet is enough to rip through a zombie’s head and pierce its brain. An armed human can be a real concern for any zombie, Stiff or Wake. Human trackers try not to engage armed humans, and when they do, they always wear protective gear and helmets. An unprepared Wake can meet its ultimate demise at the hands of a frightened human if he isn’t careful.
Human tracking can be a pretty dangerous occupation. That’s why human trackers always travel in groups. It’s not safe otherwise.
Let me tell you, Joe, if you thought life as a zombie was easy, that it’s all fun and games, I’m here to tell you that it’s not. Zombie life is just as tough as any life. But you have to make the best of it. Sometimes you just have to be