Author: David C. Nutt

Dear Alive,

To begin with, I absolutely hate the word zombie. I also hate the terms walking dead, animate corpse, and un-dead. I prefer the more PC term altalive.

Look, I don’t know who is tapping into this- a researcher, psychic, or hacker, just get the word out. We ain’t dead. Well, we’re mostly dead, but there is enough life and individuality stuck inside here to make this all a living hell. Yeah, that’s right. Each one of us, each moaning, half rotted monstrosities running or shuffling after you is alive, aware, and worse, powerless to do anything about it. It’s like you’re sitting in your own skull as an observer enduring the most horrific first person video game ever. Thank God that our sense of smell is the first thing to go. I couldn’t stand the thought of just how we all must smell by now let alone all the horrors we have perpetrated on loved ones, families, friends, and strangers.

As for what we know about the cause for becoming altalive it’s a parasite. A relative of the Euhaplorchis californiensis and it has been perfectly harmless to us for zillions of years. Then, one or two mutations later and wham, bam, thank you Ma’am, zombie apocalypse. How the parasite works after it takes over is it reduces our serotonin and increases our dopamine. This in turn makes us more aggressive, hence our shuffling madness.

There is an upside to all this horror.

For example, how do I know all of this science stuff, especially when I was among the truly living all I had to show for education was a GED? Well, side effect of this infestation is the parasite pushes out a very strong electrochemical signal to keep our respective hoards together, and we found a way to tap into it and converse and share with other altalive. To be vulgar about it, we have our own zombie-to-zombie world wide web. We might not be able to control what we do, but we are all linked together and can share. At first we just kept each other company. Shared our misery, consoled each other. Then, when we reached a critical mass, we could all actually trade our skills. If I could ever get my body back I could be a computer genius, a doctor, or even a circus acrobat and that’s just the short list. Damn! If all you really, actually, 100% alive could figure out a way to shut off the zombie part of this parasite and turn on your brain-to-brain web you might even figure out a way to reverse the entire process and bring us back to be alive-alive, to heal and be whole. Think of what we could do with all that combined brain power…no limits!
But it ain’t gonna happen. No. One day I’ll just finish rotting and truly die and that will be the best day of my life. I digress.
If you get this, transmit back on this specific wave length and we’ll get back to you. In the meantime, if you have any humanity left, put down the machetes, the cheap katanas and broadswords and switch back to flame and firearms. For God’s sake people don’t just hack of our heads; that won’t kill us. Take the head shot and burn what’s left of us down to powder… that’ll do the job. Hope you are fully alive and well, and safe from us and our terrors.

Peace Out.