Zombies

This is my eighteenth and last entry for the April A to Z Blogging Challenge. Today we look at Z-Zombies.

And now we come to Z. I'm going to talk about Zombies.

The story for Sometimes We Ran was bouncing around in my head for a couple of years. At the core, it was a story about a man who decides to leave his survival compound to seek his fortune in a post-apocalyptic world. At first, I had decided to use an old favorite, nuclear war, to end the world. Further research told me I couldn't pull it off. Total nuclear war seemed a little too destructive.

It was during a Walking Dead marathon that I hit on zombies. Zombies would let me end the world as we knew it, and allow the infrastructure to stay intact. My hero could walk for years fighting zombies.:)

I decided on two types identified by the color of their eyes. Yellow-Eye varieties would appear first in my zombie apocalypse. They were the classic zombie: slow-witted walker types that could be trouble in large groups. When fresh, they would be fast. Also, cruel and unusual injuries could be assigned to Yellows, like missing arms, legs, etc.

The Red-Eyes would be different. I made them a little smarter, faster, and more crafty. They worked in small groups sometimes with a leader. I made them ambush predators, hiding in the woods waiting for a meal. Another cool thing was the noises they could make: growling, hissing, or the occasional screech of pain. Red-Eyes are the new top of the food chain in my world.

Both Reds and Yellows follow the zombie rules. Shooting them in the head puts them down. Grievous injury to their body only slows them down. If you are bitten by one, you become part of their crew. They also have a problem with doorknobs and fences. In most of the zombie-themed media I have consumed, the undead can't climb a fence, or turn a doorknob to get at the heroes of the story.:)

That's the zombies of Sometimes We Ran. I decided from the outset that I wasn't going to try an rewrite the genre, but I hope I added to it a little bit.

And as always, zombie fans. Watch out for the Red-Eyes.:)
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Published on April 30, 2014 19:59 Tags: a-to-z-blogging-challenge, red-eyes, sometimes-we-ran, walking-dead, yellow-eyes, zombies
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