Undead Studies

After losing more and more of the police and hired security, it's been a grueling month. There are no more truck deliveries since the streets have been run amok by the undead. The government has decided to do helicopter deliveries to the shelters they had listed on one of their occasional broadcast announcements on TV and radio. Helicopter deliveries will be done monthly now versus the two weeks the trucks use to deliver in that time. Even having less people in the hotel with some deciding to leave the like Vic did or commit suicide, supplies are still short considering that one of the residents are expected to give birth next month.


The barricades around the hotel perimeter have been recently reinforced. Behind the simple metal fence wires, we've started settling in some concrete blockades. Though we're dealing with undead corpses, I didn't expect them to be as fast as they could with half their systems already gone. After setting up barb wire atop the blockades, whenever one of the undead climbed over the fence and ran towards us like track stars on steroids, they'd end up getting tripped by the razors on the wire. Essentially they would fall flat on their faces either resulting in bashing in their skull, momentarily knocking them out, or just trapping them just scrapping on the pavement trying to get to us like a mouse after cheese.


Observing some of the undead being caught within our barricades, one of our doctors decided to plead with the officials in control of our shelter to take some of the trapped zombies that were still moving and do some anatomy research on how they work. Due to my luck I ended up becoming one of his assistants to gather up his 'subjects' by picking them out of the barb wire by leashing them with a long pole. One of us would end up pinning down the 'subject' as the other would end up 'castrating' the zombie. By my use of the term 'castrating,' we've turned it into slang meaning, "To pull out the teeth and nails of the zombie in order to make it less of a lethal biological threat to us."

Next we would end up strapping it down to a stretcher and move it to a private room set on the ground floor surgically opening the specimen and seeing inside what it had to make it such a lethal flesh-eating machine. The doctor spent about three weeks with about five different specimens. We didn't think about the castration procedure till the third specimen - back when we originally had three assistants. From the first three specimens, we mainly spent most of our time butchering the things. The first two specimens were essentially disassembled to make a proper model for our growing zombie anatomy journal that he was writing to document his findings for the shelter officials. For the third specimen, the doctor decided to do away with the corpse from the neck down and concentrate on the head. Performing a encephalectomy, he observed the effects of the unknown virus mutating the brain as it turned it into a self-sufficient organ without any need of blood pulsation or help of other organs. There is nothing keeping the body from being infected with all sorts of germs and with no working system regenerating the body's health. This sort of answers my question on why the zombies rot as they 'live' since most of their systems are dead.


On the fourth specimen we took out all it's inner organs but the brain and sewed it's chest back up and handcuffed him off to a corner. Even with most of his insides gone, he still stood there trying to lunge at us like a dog on rabies. We were pretty terrified and amazed by how the thing kept moving. The brain is essentially the only important part of the zombie. From the doctor's thesis and findings from the third specimen's brain, the virus seems to alter the electro emanating inside. It's like when a computer gets infected or modified and it gets stuck in safe mode. The machine may still turn on but only it's prime functions still work. I assume it's like that with the virus infecting the human anatomy, maybe some kind of fucked up biological virus that may have been inadvertently released or something.

After this virus seems to reboot the human brain and eliminate most to all of the other organs, the next thing it only seems to do is look for nourishment to keep it's functioning body refreshed and moist to function. Taking about two days since our operation on the specimen, it starts to develop rigor mortis as it slowed down and stopped lunging at us like mad. Seeing it's body stiffen, the thing started to look more like a helpless child reaching for a candy bar. Letting it helplessly shuffle around for a little longer, the doctor put it down like the rest before and ordered us to collect another.

For our fifth specimen, our essential study was to see how we can permanently put down a zombie or more properly phase it aside from just putting a bullet through its head. Finalizing that the virus does indeed kill most of the human system and even alter the brain's function, there is no need to test for a cure now but maybe a vaccine. Spending most of Saturday mainly torturing a moving dead body, we now know that doing any damage to the spinal cord will either disable the legs, arms, or the whole body. Once the head was the only remaining body part working, I pulled out my knife and stabbed it through the left eye which stopped its mouth from opening up like a fish out of water.


Once we disposed of the final specimen, the doctor finished up his research and sent the journal to the officials which would be copied and sent out to various shelters to inform them the biological workings of the undead. Returning to my room after being away for almost a whole month, my roommates kept badgering me to tell my experiences with messing with the dead. I ended up locking myself in the bathroom for the first night back just trying to wash away the filth and smell that stained me.