krakenslayer
10-Sep-2009, 08:22 PM
Whilst fiddling around on the Internet Archive, I stumbled upon George Romero's long-defunct official site. This is part of an unfinished story that appeared on the site around 2001, not long before it shut down.
I think it's of interest because it marks an early appearance of a Big Daddy-style smart zombie, and the story is actually told from the creature's point of view. It also offers some insight into the sensory awareness of GAR's zombies provides an answer to the question of why zombie bites are deadly.
Not sure if this should be in the fiction part of the forum, didn't think so as it's a GAR original.
This is all there is. Enjoy:
It couldn’t see very well. Nor hear sounds clearly. It could only feel things that were flame-hot or ice-cold, and it couldn’t distinguish between the two. Even when it held something in its hand, only his dim vision made him aware of its presence. It couldn’t smell at all and that, in very large part, diminished its ability to identify tastes. It could, however, think. This gave it one of its only advantages, because most of the fast-moving ones assumed that it had no intelligence whatsoever.
It could, for example, even with its deteriorated senses, differentiate between the fast-moving ones and those of its own kind. Then, using reason, it was able to choose a course of action. When faced with more than one of the fast-moving ones, it most often chose flight. Guns were loud enough for it to hear, and it could see the bright barrel-flashes. It’s heart had stopped functioning... When? It had no accurate definition of time. So, clearly the emotions it felt were coming from someplace other than that failed organ. It didn’t realize that it possessed another organ, called a brain, which had not ceased functioning.
There were times when emotions...affection, rage...determined its actions, even when reason suggested alternate behaviors. Both affection and rage had placed it in danger in the past, but even though it remembered the circumstances and determined not to expose itself to similar perils, whenever it was driven by emotion, all of its determination could not prevent it from acting rashly.
It placed itself in peril when it first came to Outpost #5. That’s where Scud was stationed. Scud had walked on flowers.
It had no language. It had come to recognize a few words and phrases that were frequently used by the fast-moving ones...“gun”, “weapon”, “kill”, “fucker”, “shit”, “piece-of-shit”, “pile-of-shit”, “pile-of-walking-shit”...but it had never heard the word “flower” spoken by anyone. So, it didn’t know what the pretty things were called, but it had always had a great affection for them. Since the time when Scud walked on those pretty things, it had been following that fast-moving one’s spoor, reasoning that it shouldn’t be following...it remembered that Scud, and other fast-moving ones who were normally in Scuds vicinity, possessed “guns”. But, driven by rage, it followed. And followed.
Until it finally arrived at Outpost #5...and Scud was not fast-moving. The ones in his vacinity were not fast-moving. They were lying on their backs.
It didn’t know about sleep. It never slept. It didn’t know that sleep could be interrupted by sounds and movements. It walked into the strange, small dwelling, made of cloth not wood. Three long strides brought it to the place where Scud was not moving fast. It wanted to walk on Scud the way Scud had walked on the pretty things. But it suddenly experienced An even more powerful sensation. Hunger.
***
It had no way of knowing that fluids had begun to run from its mouth. It couldn’t feel the viscous strands which were the same temperature as its body. It identified the taste in its mouth as the taste of it, itself. Unlike the more savory, salt-like taste of the fast-moving ones, it and those of its kind tasted bland, tasted like...hardly anything at all. So, it didn’t realize there was anything at all oozing over its lips.
One of the fluids had secreted from its barely functional salivary glands. It, by itself, was relatively benign. A greater part of the mixture was something that wasn’t quite blood any more, but a cocktail of livid plasma, long-dead cells, and blackened bits of arterial plaque. Then there was the putrid soup of decay, some from the internal melt-down of its own body, most from the waste matter, which it could not excrete, that filled its bowels...remnants of flesh it had ingested floating in pools of what had once been the blood of fast-moving ones, non-nucleated blood which, removed from its host, quickly turns to corruption. These ingredients, combined, became a venomous brew, a fetid solution which fast-moving body systems could not tolerate.
Since it didn’t realize that it was excreting fluids, it didn’t realize that those fluids alone brought harm to the fast-moving ones. Had it been able to understand this simple fact, it would not have had to place itself in danger as often as it had. In moments of rage, it would not have had to remain in danger long enough to maim or destroy fast-moving corpses. For that’s what they were. Corpses. From the moment of exposure, they were dead.
As with a snake bite, if the venom could be purged quickly enough from its point of injection, a victim could be saved. Very few of the fast-moving ones actually had been saved in this manner. Tools were not often readily available. Companions refused to use their mouths for fear of exposing themselves. And the sheer panic of the victims themselves, who often, like those drowning, blindly fought against their rescuers, used up their precious allotment of time, the sixty to ninety seconds before dying cells were swept away on blood-stream currents.
The gangrenous infection spread rapidly. The resulting condition was invariably fatal. Victims normally died within a day or two. Three at the most. They died as a result of the infection. It was not, however, a result of the infection, that in another day or two...three at the most...they began to walk again. All who had died in recent months, if their bodies were reasonably intact, had begun to walk again. Science could only speculate on cause. Theologians, as well.
Elastic strands of its unperceived fluids reached and clung to a name-tag sewn onto the breast pocket of its ragged and bloody fatigue shirt. It had often stared, pondering, at that tag, dimly aware that it was some sort of identifying mark. It gazed at embroidered letters up-side-down. Even had it seen them right-side-up, it would not have understood their mysterious groupings nor that they designated the name of what was once a fast-moving entity, a member of what was once known as the Military. COL. MATTHEW SEARS.
The drool rolled thickly from the name-tag and, like melted cheese, stretched down, down, down, until the putrid bulge at its bottom-most end...touched the side of Scud’s face.
to be continued...
It never was :(
I think it's of interest because it marks an early appearance of a Big Daddy-style smart zombie, and the story is actually told from the creature's point of view. It also offers some insight into the sensory awareness of GAR's zombies provides an answer to the question of why zombie bites are deadly.
Not sure if this should be in the fiction part of the forum, didn't think so as it's a GAR original.
This is all there is. Enjoy:
It couldn’t see very well. Nor hear sounds clearly. It could only feel things that were flame-hot or ice-cold, and it couldn’t distinguish between the two. Even when it held something in its hand, only his dim vision made him aware of its presence. It couldn’t smell at all and that, in very large part, diminished its ability to identify tastes. It could, however, think. This gave it one of its only advantages, because most of the fast-moving ones assumed that it had no intelligence whatsoever.
It could, for example, even with its deteriorated senses, differentiate between the fast-moving ones and those of its own kind. Then, using reason, it was able to choose a course of action. When faced with more than one of the fast-moving ones, it most often chose flight. Guns were loud enough for it to hear, and it could see the bright barrel-flashes. It’s heart had stopped functioning... When? It had no accurate definition of time. So, clearly the emotions it felt were coming from someplace other than that failed organ. It didn’t realize that it possessed another organ, called a brain, which had not ceased functioning.
There were times when emotions...affection, rage...determined its actions, even when reason suggested alternate behaviors. Both affection and rage had placed it in danger in the past, but even though it remembered the circumstances and determined not to expose itself to similar perils, whenever it was driven by emotion, all of its determination could not prevent it from acting rashly.
It placed itself in peril when it first came to Outpost #5. That’s where Scud was stationed. Scud had walked on flowers.
It had no language. It had come to recognize a few words and phrases that were frequently used by the fast-moving ones...“gun”, “weapon”, “kill”, “fucker”, “shit”, “piece-of-shit”, “pile-of-shit”, “pile-of-walking-shit”...but it had never heard the word “flower” spoken by anyone. So, it didn’t know what the pretty things were called, but it had always had a great affection for them. Since the time when Scud walked on those pretty things, it had been following that fast-moving one’s spoor, reasoning that it shouldn’t be following...it remembered that Scud, and other fast-moving ones who were normally in Scuds vicinity, possessed “guns”. But, driven by rage, it followed. And followed.
Until it finally arrived at Outpost #5...and Scud was not fast-moving. The ones in his vacinity were not fast-moving. They were lying on their backs.
It didn’t know about sleep. It never slept. It didn’t know that sleep could be interrupted by sounds and movements. It walked into the strange, small dwelling, made of cloth not wood. Three long strides brought it to the place where Scud was not moving fast. It wanted to walk on Scud the way Scud had walked on the pretty things. But it suddenly experienced An even more powerful sensation. Hunger.
***
It had no way of knowing that fluids had begun to run from its mouth. It couldn’t feel the viscous strands which were the same temperature as its body. It identified the taste in its mouth as the taste of it, itself. Unlike the more savory, salt-like taste of the fast-moving ones, it and those of its kind tasted bland, tasted like...hardly anything at all. So, it didn’t realize there was anything at all oozing over its lips.
One of the fluids had secreted from its barely functional salivary glands. It, by itself, was relatively benign. A greater part of the mixture was something that wasn’t quite blood any more, but a cocktail of livid plasma, long-dead cells, and blackened bits of arterial plaque. Then there was the putrid soup of decay, some from the internal melt-down of its own body, most from the waste matter, which it could not excrete, that filled its bowels...remnants of flesh it had ingested floating in pools of what had once been the blood of fast-moving ones, non-nucleated blood which, removed from its host, quickly turns to corruption. These ingredients, combined, became a venomous brew, a fetid solution which fast-moving body systems could not tolerate.
Since it didn’t realize that it was excreting fluids, it didn’t realize that those fluids alone brought harm to the fast-moving ones. Had it been able to understand this simple fact, it would not have had to place itself in danger as often as it had. In moments of rage, it would not have had to remain in danger long enough to maim or destroy fast-moving corpses. For that’s what they were. Corpses. From the moment of exposure, they were dead.
As with a snake bite, if the venom could be purged quickly enough from its point of injection, a victim could be saved. Very few of the fast-moving ones actually had been saved in this manner. Tools were not often readily available. Companions refused to use their mouths for fear of exposing themselves. And the sheer panic of the victims themselves, who often, like those drowning, blindly fought against their rescuers, used up their precious allotment of time, the sixty to ninety seconds before dying cells were swept away on blood-stream currents.
The gangrenous infection spread rapidly. The resulting condition was invariably fatal. Victims normally died within a day or two. Three at the most. They died as a result of the infection. It was not, however, a result of the infection, that in another day or two...three at the most...they began to walk again. All who had died in recent months, if their bodies were reasonably intact, had begun to walk again. Science could only speculate on cause. Theologians, as well.
Elastic strands of its unperceived fluids reached and clung to a name-tag sewn onto the breast pocket of its ragged and bloody fatigue shirt. It had often stared, pondering, at that tag, dimly aware that it was some sort of identifying mark. It gazed at embroidered letters up-side-down. Even had it seen them right-side-up, it would not have understood their mysterious groupings nor that they designated the name of what was once a fast-moving entity, a member of what was once known as the Military. COL. MATTHEW SEARS.
The drool rolled thickly from the name-tag and, like melted cheese, stretched down, down, down, until the putrid bulge at its bottom-most end...touched the side of Scud’s face.
to be continued...
It never was :(