2. YOUR ZOMBIE BODY
No need to ask your doctor if the z-virus is right for you—a zombified body is a definite upgrade from your fragile human form. As a human, you were vulnerable to freak accidents, countless fatal diseases, and cheeseburger-induced heart attacks. Strange as it seems, the deadly virus may have actually prolonged your stay on earth. If in fact, if you were scheduled for a toe tag, the z-virus may have been your winning lottery ticket. So go on, make the most of your new body like you stole it—because you did! This chapter will show you how.
Body Parts of Importance
In your oxygen-rich past, your human body was a veritable smorgasbord of complex parts, each dedicated to a unique function necessary for the operation of the whole. Sounds interesting, right?
Wrong! This overly complicated system serves no purpose in the undead universe. The z-virus took the opportunity to trash-can most of its functions, and those that remain have been altered almost beyond recognition. However, after the elegant artistry of the zombification process, the leftovers are surprisingly efficient. You may even say superior. From flesh to claws, the zombie body is fully equipped to serve as an instrument of human destruction.
For example, the virus has modified the muscles in your jaw, relaxing and elongating them to increase your chewing force—quite beneficial when chomping human flesh. In addition, your jaw has become more flexible, making it possible to literally fit your foot in your mouth—or someone else’s. The modifications also increase your swallowing potential.
Scan the menu below for more juicy facts on your most important zed equipment.
Arms. Your arm bone should be connected to your hand bone, and your hand bone catches food. Zeds blessed with two arms have a higher success rate when hunting. Some quick-witted zombies are also capable of using their hands for holding weapons or operating simple human mechanisms. Some rare strains of the z-virus will allow a zombie’s arms to remain active even after they’ve been disconnected from its body; this type of motion is known as zedothermic movement.
Legs. Are you a leg guy or gal—meaning, do you have two of them? These helpful appendages are responsible for moving you from one place to another. Decomposition and other viral side effects have likely hampered their coordination, which is why you have that stereotypical zombie limp, shuffle, or shamble. Legs on fresh zeds move the fastest, so use them before you lose them! Newly undead zombies are capable of adrenaline bursts that surpass those of the average zed, allowing them to move at incredible speeds of up to one step every 1.5 seconds.
Head. Hey, zed head, without your melon, your body wouldn’t work. It’s packed with the precious infected brain matter that drives you. If your cranium experiences trauma, termination is probable, so be cautious! Just as important, your moan machine—the mouth—is the entry point for human flesh. Most heads are also graced with eyes, ears, and a nose. Lucky for you, the z-virus has enhanced these organs to aid in hunting and combat; see the next section for more details.
Use Your Head!
Zombies aren’t known for using their heads, but a zed noggin is actually a useful tool for registering stimuli during a human hunt. The z-virus infuses a zombie’s eyes, ears, and nose with extraordinary sensory abilities. By honing your enhanced sight, smell, and hearing and coordinating with other members of the horde (see “Body Language,” page 25), you can pinpoint the location of even the craftiest breather.
Your rotten eyes don’t lie—there is no question your eyeballs are different from a human’s. Your eyes’ light receptors changed during zombification; while the cells responsible for detecting bright light remained virtually untouched, those responsible for working in low light, detecting motion, and providing basic visual information have become highly specialized. Consequently, what appears to be pitch black to a breather is still dimly lit to a zed.
Besides amplifying light for hunting prey under the cover of darkness, your zombie eyes also provide you with improved peripheral vision. This is not the result of your modified light receptors but the side effect of dehydration, which has caused your eyeball to shorten. This shortening causes light rays to focus behind the retina. As a result, your eyes now see distant objects more clearly, while anything within a few inches of you is blurred. Unfortunately, this farsightedness affects all zeds when defending and attacking at close range.
Through a combination of these changes, you may also experience an increase in remote vision. This will allow you to detect the smooth body motion of an uninfected human out of range of your other senses.
What condition are your eyes in? Review the Zombie Eye Chart on the next page. The silhouettes on the top two lines—military, firefighters, police, ninjas, martial art experts, Chuck Norris, and loggers with chainsaws—should be avoided. On the next two lines are other humans who should be targeted—either because they are generally weaker or because their special skills could benefit the human resistance: the elderly and injured, children, medical staff, white-collar office workers, clowns, and farmers (humans need food, right?).
Of course, before the outbreak is over, even the trickier targets will have to be dealt with. But all their brains taste the same, so why not start with those who will put up less of a fight?
Don’t be alarmed that you cannot see your ears. They’re there, right on the sides of your head. Before reanimation, they were responsible for assessing the stupidity of other uninfected humans. The z-virus determined that prejudging others was not necessary in your post-life, so now your ears can only detect the basic sounds made by the living, not evaluate them.
“The ear of the zombie must ring with the voices of the living.”
Test results have shown that fresh zeds share the same auditory range as a human. In addition, though all humans have the biological capability to wiggle their ears, most breathers have not developed this talent. But here’s a surprise—drumroll, please—almost all zombies can! When you were zombified, the virus activated the underdeveloped muscles attached to your ears that make this shifting possible. Once stimulated, your ears are now capable of slight motion that can help determine the direction of noises.
However, you may lose all hearing ability during later stages of post-life. Eventually your ear canals (external auditory canals) will clog with decomposing tissue, blocking the inner ears’ ability to function. In addition, you may experience an increasing problem maintaining your balance. Hearing impairment from decomposition in the ear canals can sometime be cured with a quick dip in water, but damage to the inner ear cannot be undone.