"Virus" (part 1)

They had said it was almost nothing: just a type of 'flu which mostly caused a reasonably fit person to feel unwell for a few days, or a week at the most. But then the body count started to rise, with one or two people dying each day, and then dozens. Soon it was hundreds and then the panic set in as the doctors admitted that they didn't know exactly what they were dealing with. The scourge came from the East; from a country with poor control over hygiene in its many awful food markets. The doctors thought it could be a type of rabies, since bats were regularly consumed by that country's hungry masses. When thousands died over there, people in Europe simply decreed that it was nature's revenge over how the animals were treated and didn't seem that concerned. But when the deaths started piling up in Italy, France, and Spain it was clear the contagion was spreading unchecked...

First came the sniffle, then the cough as Mark walked into his tiny bathroom and stared into the grimy mirror. His red-ringed eyes were sore and he spat into the cracked sink, his heart racing at the pink sputum.
'Shit,' he muttered as he ran the hot tap, watching the water carry the offending splat down the rusty plug hole. A pain shot up in his neck and he pulled down his top, gasping as he noticed the deep red sore. He grimaced as he prodded the wet protuberance with a dirty nail. The pain made him grin, his eyes watering. Taking a pair of tweezers he clamped the small metal jaws over the tip of the mass and jumped back instinctively as sudden squirts of liquid patterned the mirror.
'Motherfucker,' he snapped and lashed out, kicking the wastepaper bin viciously as the pain intensified. Throwing open a rickety cabinet he plucked out a small bottle of antiseptic and poured it on the wound which was beginning to drip blood. He had to grit his teeth as the stinging sensation ripped through him.
'Oh, you fucker, you shitting fucker,' he spat as he bent over the sink, his shaking hand pressed against the throbbing lump, small trickles of blood oozing between his pale fingers. Sirens came from outside and he straightened reluctantly, shuddering slightly as the sharp pain seemed to get worse. Breathing heavily he lumbered over to the window in his living room, pulling back the chocolate brown curtains and peering out into the night.
Several police cars disgorged scruffy coppers who ran over to a disturbance on the pavement; a young male, bare chested, appeared to be snarling at a group of terrified middle-aged women shoppers. Onlookers stared in disbelief as the half naked man was trying to bite those nearest him, producing a chorus of gasps.
The police advanced hesitantly with batons drawn, clearly not wanting to show force unless it was necessary. They held back until the man suddenly lunged at one of the older females, his uneven teeth crunching down on her thumb. She screamed, dropping a bag, her puffy lips stretched open and a curiously wet tongue waggling around in her cavernous mouth.
Mark watched with morbid fascination as the scene unfolded before him. With a hand pressing against his neck, he shuddered as the woman's thumb was severed and consumed. Instantly the police pressed forward, smashing the man to the rubbish-strewn pavement, where they delivered a beating, their faces scowling triumphantly. One of them kicked the fallen protagonist in the stomach, making him screech as he rolled about. Just as they were about to cuff him, he jerked upwards, butting the officer as he snarled frenziedly. The officer fell back but the others took his place, smashing the miscreant until his blood ran into the gutter. They stood back to survey the motionless body when their shocked passivity was shattered by the insane bellowing suddenly erupting from the shopper. With a long strand of saliva dripping from her twisted mouth she fell on top of the stunned policeman before biting his nose off. Her rapidly sweating face thrashed around as his agonized yells filled the charged air.
'This is fucking insane,' Mark muttered, shaking his head as he studied the pandemonium.
The madness was spreading.

 

 

"Virus" (part 2)

More sirens had sounded over the next two hours as Mark, slumped in a tatty but comfortable armchair, watched the endless news bulletins. Everyone was told to stay indoors and make themselves safe. They were told not to answer the door unless absolutely sure that the person was known to them and acting normally.

He was worried now. Worried about what was happening to his town of Castleford and, more importantly, if his girlfriend was suffering from the same affliction. After all, she had given him a violent love bite recently while he was screwing her. A cold shiver ran through him as he recalled all the Zombie films he had mocked over the years - such was his dislike of the horror genre. He clutched at his shoulder as the pain was starting to spread from the infected bite.

'This is bollocks; this can't be real,' he muttered as he watched the news bulletin feature pictures of screaming crowds and police struggling to keep order. Then it was back to the studio where a busty newsreader, with a low-cut top, was talking to a scientist who was admirable in keeping his eyes on hers without straying downwards. He was advocating his belief that the virus was a man-made military experiment and possibly released deliberately to see the effect it had on world stability. He swept a small hand through his sparse hair as he added that there could be a secondary plot to destabilize Western society and money markets.

Mark had fallen to his knees as he wondered how Milly could have contracted it. Had she fucked an infected bloke? Earlier in their relationship he'd never had the reason to suspect her fidelity was an issue, but now he wasn't so sure. After all: it was easy for virtually any woman to pick up a bloke in a pub, but a man actually had to make an effort with the result being far from certain. He was sweating as he remembered fucking her so hard, the headboard on the bed was smashing against the wall. He half-smiled as the image of her face screwed up almost in pain swam through his mind. His head sagged at the memory of her large tits wobbling violently as he banged her with venom, spittle creeping from the corner of his mouth.

The scientist was now explaining that the condition was possibly based on a form of rabies with the chance of hydrophobia and moments of mental confusion, and violence.

He had pulled her hair roughly, almost viciously, as he screwed her from behind, clawing her buttocks and leaving faint red nail marks across her pale skin. His mind had been spinning then, partly because of the cheap red wine they had slurped, and partly because he was tormented by the thought of her having an affair. Maybe he was too boring for her.

'Little bitch,' he'd mouthed, his eyes watery as he slammed inside her. He'd raked her skin as his thoughts raced while Milly, her head dipping, whimpered as she clutched the pillow. Yet behind this passive anger was another feeling: that of excitement that she was fucking a stranger. Had they fucked in the stationery cupboard -

'- Say my name, you bitch,' he'd spat, his eyes reddened as sweat fell from his face and onto the crumpled bedsheets.

- or over the cheap desk she worked at? He'd felt remote, as though he were elsewhere and staring at someone else (the stranger?) copulating with his - his - girlfriend of several years.

As Mark watched TV, showing pictures of fires spreading throughout his town, he remembered how hot his face had been, overheating from physical exertion and humiliation. He remembered shaking with fear and hatred while his own orgasm beckoned.

He could hear loud shouts and cries of distress and stared at the screen before realizing they were from outside his own window, yet he didn't care. He was remembering; reliving the scene which was vivid in his cluttered mind.

He'd felt a feeling of supreme joy approaching and had withdrawn his penis while grabbing her shoulder roughly, guiding her to squeeze her large pale breasts together while he had watched the jets of oyster-white splatter over them and trickle down. He'd almost snarled at her.

Milly had stared back in shock.

 

"Virus"  (part 3)

Yes he remembered all that, as well as the curious marks around her neck which bore a striking resemblance to his own. As he stared in the mirror again, his paranoia growing, Mark knew that the wound was getting worse. And the pain accompanying it was getting worse as well, making him swallow more painkillers. He swigged some vodka and shuddered as the burning liquid sliced down his throat. He watched dribbling pus trickle from the infection and he swore and shut his eyes,  then he poured some more vodka into a shaky hand and clapped it to the bloody lump.

'Ahh, fuck it,' he snarled as the stinging sensation drove him crazy, making him drop the bottle of Smirnoff and bend over as he cried out in pain, his eyes watering.

'Yes, I remember,' he spat as the room whirled around him. He remembered Milly stepping into the shower and staring at him briefly before closing the frosted glass door. Usually he'd try to get in to join her and they would wrestle briefly before she pushed him out, laughing as he stood there awkwardly, trying to cover up his hard-on. But this time he'd seen something in her eyes, something different.

Sirens came from outside, but he shut them out as he lifted the bottle to his scabby mouth. He'd seen fear and shock in her eyes, probably as a result of how he'd spoken to her while they were screwing.

A strange voice hissed in his ear, 'Do you remember, though?'

He span around but saw nothing. Then he discerned a ghostly figure standing there but -

'Jesus!'

- Milly had suddenly appeared and was leaning against the doorframe, her eyes encircled with blood-red liner.

'Red? Normally you use blue...'

She was gone and he blinked as he stumbled, falling onto the worn sofa as he'd done many times before. He raised the bottle mechanically, swigging several times and swallowing noisily as the room swam before him. He could hear footsteps on the stairs outside; the clip-clop of high heels and then the squeaky tread of trainers. Then came the worried voices from the small downstairs foyer. He rose quickly, holding onto a bookshelf for support, and paused as several paperbacks fell around his bare feet. He stared at an upturned cover of a horror book; a zombie face clearly visible. He chuckled drunkenly, a hand held over his face as a droplet of blood fell from his nose.

'Okay...' He stepped over to the window and looked down at the policemen guarding the entrance to his block of flats. His sweaty hand slipped on the glass, leaving behind a dirty smear.

'Oh,' he muttered in mock shock. 'They're not letting you out?' He opened the window, feeling specks of rain on his hot face. 'So they're not letting you fuckers out?'

Several coppers looked up vaguely in his direction before shoving the residents back inside as he croaked, 'So this is it? The end?' He span around and around, his arms waving to the imagined crowd surrounding him. 'Hello, Lucy,' (burp), 'I know you live upstairs and have great tits. I always wanted to give 'em a suck...'

He felt blood trickling from his itching nose and closed his eyes before taking another swig of booze. Angry shouts could be heard echoing up towards him and he laughed, realizing that they were trapped. It seemed that the insipid block of flats he existed in had been deemed "dangerous" and was in the process of being closed off. No one in and no one out - and this was starting to cause worry. How long before this turned to panic?

He sighed, glad that his alcohol consumption had reduced his fears. He drained the bottle and walked into the kitchen for another. Instantly he was glugging the cheap booze and shuddering as he knew he was about to walk into his bedroom.

And revisit his handiwork...

 

 

 

"Dumb-Down UK"

As far as I can recall, this started happening around the time the original "Big Brother" series started. This "new concept" (where a group of idiots was incarcerated in a large house and filmed) was hailed as something of a breakthrough in televisual entertainment. And they were right in that we got to see how our education system had started to fail by turning out fully-rounded morons of the highest quality.

But there are other areas where this reducing of the intellect is clearly evident. Our education is creating useless qualifications which are often worth little in the real world. They are also easier to attain than the old-style "O-levels" - which at least meant that the candidate had a functioning brain. Now we're churning out young adults who don't even know the dates of World War 2 (1939-45), and who think the Red Poppy is a racist emblem. There's always been wallies, of course, but we seem to be producing legions of them as though this dumbing down is a deliberate government policy. We're being reduced, slowly and subtly, into mindless automatons plugged into a sinister reshaping of society. All that's missing is the deep, hypnotic voice of the Man behind the Curtain:
'Step one: drink your Costa coffee...'
'Step two: go onto Facebook...'
'Step three: take selfie of yourself making two-fingered victory salute...'
'Step four: add ridiculous duck-faced pout through puckering botoxed lips...'
'Step five: watch programmes like "Love Island" and anything by the Kardashians...'

It now appears to be a prerequisite at the BBC (apart from not reporting on news items it wants to avoid) for a lot of their presenters to be twatty camp types, or overly politically correct to the extent that, increasingly, I'm turning the TV off and not bothering at all. What the television programmers are subjecting us to is a form of gradual lobotomy where as we don't need brain cells to watch their dire guff, the little grey cells die off entirely. To make matters worse, many of the adverts portray stupid men who are quite clearly there to be mocked by the growing gynocentric society we're being turned into as the war on men continues.

Programmes are definitely getting worse (and Woke): I saw a bit of one which had "celebrities" caravanning! Jesus! Things are getting more and more ridiculous. What next? Bill Oddie wrestling squirrels? Or how about "The Great Fart-Off" where unrecognizable "famous people" compete to produce the biggest gush of wind? I'm also fed up of "check-list" TV and films where each scene has to have a white person, a black person, and a person of Asian extraction. This forced execution of diversity is predictable, getting tiresome - and I think it kills off creativity. However, I'm pleased that some people are starting to fight back against this soppy crap. Unfortunately I caught some of the awful "Love Island" recently which should be renamed "Idiot Island" and can't believe what passes for television these days. The men are young and daft (each with a six-pack, naturally), and the women are walnut brown with mad eyebrows.

And so it goes on until we reach the stage where no one knows anything about the world we live in, or the history that brought us here. This is dangerous because they say history repeats itself and this is evident when one considers the endless wars and massacres around the world. But behind the idiocy; the crappy, vacuous programmes with vapid non-entities who apparently pass as celebrities, lies an emerging sinister possibility. Are we being subtly placed in cerebral straitjackets  which remove our questioning minds in order to be easier to control? This is getting a bit "1984" but it could easily be accurate as governments the world over become ever more greedy and controlling. All this could lead (eventually) to something akin to a futuristic film where faceless and ruthless men of power are guarded by armed goons in black. But, then again, I suppose that if the citizens are all sufficiently dumbed-down into gormless obedience then the private army won't be needed. A pipe-smoking Jeremy Corbyn-type character could keep us all in check...

 

Peter

 

 

"Refuse/Resist"

I have said that this site is "apolitical" because my stance is not to take too much notice of politicians in general, but I have to go back on my word - if only a bit - by writing an article on this very subject. I apologize for this as basically I do want to keep ZS separate from the idiot antics of politicians (past and present), but I've been getting pissed off with the poor quality of those people leading our country, and the greedy, grasping corrupt personalities of those at the head of the EU.

Personally I find the Brexit delay to be an appalling assault on our democratic system. It's quite clear to me that the EU, aided by some British politicians, greedy British companies (who were happy to lap up cheap immigrant labour for over 20 years), our own MEPs (funded by Europe), and a selection of global elitists, are trying every trick in the book to delay or even reverse the Brexit process. The fact that some British politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson etc seem to think that the democratic Brexit result doesn't apply to them and can be reversed, highlights their smug arrogance. These people are furnished with salaries provided by the tax payer and this makes them public servants who are supposed to carry out the will of the people. Therefore it's difficult to see how they can take the money and then try to deny the result of an honest vote while still assuming they can be taken seriously.

Meanwhile, a long-overdue anger has been rising - mainly in France - and which is proving resilient  to Macron's attempts to stifle it. The months of protests by the "Yellow Vests" have caused the French leader some problems, and it's nice to see a smarmy politician suffering at the hands of his own people. I'm all for this as it's activity of this kind which piled additional pressure on the talentless, arrogant Juncker (recently replaced as President of the European Commission), and which continues to plague Professional Village Idiot: Andrea Merkel (Chancellor of Germany). It could be that the system they helped put into place and which operates by bullying other countries which don't necessarily want tidal waves of immigration, and other questionable policies inflicted upon them, have awoken "the sleeping giant" - namely the angry rising of various populations against them. And in general, people are getting sick and tired of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer; sick and tired of no significant pay rises when a huge proportion of managers and directors and politicians get massively compensated for just being average at best.

The anger is rising. Every additional banner; every additional person prepared to voice his or her dissension is increasing the pressure. Perhaps all of Europe should rise up against the bullying EU bureaucrats who force legislation on to countries whether it's wanted or not, and who have made our attempted exit from them needlessly torturous and frustrating.

"Refuse/Resist"...

Even this country - not a place known for its disobedience - has seen the creation of the "Brexit Party" led by the vocal Nigel Farage who is one of the few politicians prepared to stand up for this country and call out the EU for its widespread corruption. I think the EU is wary of Mr Farage as he's demonstrated that he's not the pushover other British politicians are. And looking at the party's strong showing in the recent European elections, it's quite clear a large number of voters supported him in the hope he can help in this country finally sticking two fingers up to the European Commission.

There are many other problems to be countered. This country is slipping into becoming a police state where freedom of speech is slowly being eroded, little by little, bit by bit. If you don't agree with what the state thinks, your social media platforms are shut down; you're in danger of receiving a custodial sentence, or you're labelled as some kind of dangerous  "malcontent", or possibly a terrorist of some kind, or racist - in fact anything which will stop you from rocking the boat. Increasingly we're expected to tow the line and say nothing even when we see twisted religious maniacs behead someone in the street, or try to force us to their way of thinking.

I'm becoming unsettled by this country today as we're turning into a weird, twisted version of what we once were. The Snowflakes, the loony left, the naive do-gooders are weakening us as individuals and as a people, and this scenario is one of the reasons we have more cameras here than virtually any other country in the world.

We're frightened of our own shadow, frightened to kick people out of the country when it's abundantly obvious they're dangerous to us. Another of my concerns is the eventual possibility of people being chipped so all their details are contained in a tiny piece of circuitry in their bodies. That way, we'll be even easier to control and shut down if we don't comply when they start trying to restrict our thoughts and freedom of movement.

Where is our leadership? Our heart? Why have we become this pathetic, simpering country?

The failure to deliver the promised Brexit, even after 3 long years, is a betrayal; a stab in the back where our country is being dragged through the mud by weak, perennially frightened politicians so terrified of resisting the EU, or the dangerous religious twats they helped come here, that they're not fit for purpose. We lost around 400,000 men in WW2 who laid down their lives for our country to be Free and self-governing  and not for us to pander to the sickening, greedy machinations of a bloated, ungrateful Europe. If these chinless wonders - and the human rights lawyers who are only too eager to backstab our soldiers currently stationed abroad - had actually fought for freedom, perhaps they wouldn't be so ready to accuse our lads of war crimes and to give our freedom away. If it had been these Snowflakes and do-gooders having to claw their way up the blood-splattered beaches in Normandy in 1944, forcing their way through the heaps of corpses with their young dead eyes staring at the sky, perhaps they would care more for their country and want to keep it strong.

It makes me sick, that the freedom our men won so bitterly - often caked in the blood of their comrades - can be thrown away and squandered by inferior individuals who will never have to experience the violence and degradation our soldiers went through then - and still do today - whenever they're sent to war zones around the world.

So if the "Yellow Vests" kick into action here, perhaps we should join them in solidarity to try to turn this country into the Free and Fair place our soldiers fought for.

"Refuse/Resist"...

 

Peter

 

 

"Curse of the Snowflake"

I can't be the only one who finds these people tiresome. They're increasingly common and can be found in all walks of life and doing all sorts of jobs. They're usually the conservative ones who are pleasant enough to talk to as long as the conversation sticks to normal, mundane things and doesn't cross over into topics like religion and politics. In the making of this site, I was accused of "being a Nazi" by a female Snowflake who evidently thought that anyone working on this subject matter: the photographers, models, makeup department, manager of the studio etc, must automatically be mass-murderers. Obviously this is a pathetic stance by a brainless idiot who presumably sees the whole world in a similar light. Thus according to her moronic logic everyone in World War 2 films playing German soldiers must actually be Nazis themselves and must actually be German. Perhaps she thought in her say-what-you-see mindset - that because I have Zombies on my site then they must be real as well. When she mentioned the crimes that the Nazis committed, I pointed out that the British Empire was far worse and killed many more than the Germans had done. Deaths linked to the British Empire were in the tens of millions, yet no one seems much concerned about that. These Snowflakes - generally not very knowledgeable about history - say their trite piece still glibly unconcerned about our own darkness contained within our blood-splattered overseas involvements. This subject is one these people (and many others) simply don't want to visit or consider. They comment about the Nazis but still want to live here, watch television here, work here, despite our own many crimes against humanity. But I suppose it's far easier to vent spleen on other countries' evil than confront our own acts of wickedness. This particular Snowflake's concern about mass killings appeared to evaporate when Britain was mentioned because then she might have to evaluate her life (and stance) against the backdrop of our own brutality. I'm of the opinion that if a Snowflake really cares about past mass-murders, then why is he or she still living here with the blood of millions of Africans, Indians and others staining this country's legacy? But it's easier to care about something if you don't actually have to do anything about it. For the rest of us, we get on quietly with our lives and reside in the moral vacuum we prefer without having to accept our forefathers' crimes.

These Snowflakes are happy to be the "perpetually offended"; the "constant victims" who never seem to achieve a whole lot themselves because they appear to spend their time playing the down-trodden - even when it's clear they aren't. I remember a fairly recent news story where someone (a straight man I think) complained about a picture hanging in a local art gallery. He was offended by an artist's impression of a naked woman which obviously revealed her naked breasts. He moaned about it and the gallery owner was stupid and weak enough to take the picture down. Firstly - if it were a man complaining - surely he would have seen a real pair of breasts from time to time so why the outrage with the painted variety? Secondly, if it were a woman complaining, surely a familiar part of the female anatomy wouldn't phase her in the slightest - so why the silly hysteria? In the end, it meant that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people weren't able to see an interesting composition because of a single whinger. This isn't even democratic: why should a single whining idiot prevent many more people enjoying a picture? I can't help thinking that these people subconsciously know they will be unlikely to achieve much in their lives and thus seek a brief moment of "fame" by moaning about another person's talent.

I've also heard Snowflakes complain that the Red Poppy (used to celebrate our fallen soldiers) is a racist emblem and should have no place in today's society. Personally I view these people as Professional Idiots who have no grasp on history at all. It's only because of our soldiers' sacrifice in World War 2 that these twerps are able to live in Britain in the first place.

How times have changed - and not always for the better. If you didn't like something 20 years ago you just wouldn't watch it or read it. Now you have to advertise the fact you don't like something and attempt to get it banned. This weakness of character is damaging ourselves and our country as we're now unable to defend our borders because that's deemed as racist, or might hurt someone's feelings. We're also hindered in expelling those who threaten our way of life, and unwilling to stand up to the EU over Brexit when it's quite clear they're taking us for a ride and attempting to reverse our democratic values.

When you consider Britain's many good achievements in the world (things not linked to the violence of the British Empire), how many of these improvements would have been the work of a Snowflake? Not many, I'll wager, because in doing something different and meaningful you have to be prepared to take risks. This, of course, doesn't sit well for the Naysayers of life: the boring farts who'd rather stand in the background criticizing others' efforts, rather than attempting something similar themselves. So the moral of this is: don't be a whiny bed-wetter; find something you want to do in life and storm forward to victory - and if the Snowflakes don't like it: tough shit!

Peter

"Nazi Zombie Location Shoot"

What is my fascination with these creatures of evil? Some of it is linked with a basic human fear of slipping into the black eternity of death. No creature, however physically strong it's been in its life, returns from the black void. So, naturally, I'm thoroughly absorbed by these beings who exist outside the boundaries of accepted science.

The recent Location Shoot I was at transported me into a world of cold stone, damp caves, and of being hunted by Zeitzler and his deathless Kommandos. To die in different ways, at the hands of his Undead soldiers, was fun, occasionally exhilarating, and a step closer to understanding his savage world of relentless evil. Through the shifting shadows he lurks, pushing his Kommandos ever forward, while he plots his next move. To look at Zeitzler is to step into a dark world of what we're all capable of; to scratch through our veneer of education and learning and to realize it's possible for us all to hide a monster within ourselves.

When 3 or 4 of these characters stand together, I feel as though I'm on a film set with fact and fiction merging and creating an otherworldly setting. It sometimes seems as if the gathered creatures around me are real as they watch me help to organize the Shoot, their dead eyes surveying me coldly. On one occasion, in the place where we'd set up, I was lifting a delicate sandwich to my mouth, when I caught sight of Gert seemingly staring at me from the other side of the room, and I shuddered and put the sandwich down almost apologetically.

Most of the filmed sections of this session were made in the bowels of Fort Amherst, where the flickering shadows masked the oncoming evil of the Nazi Zombies. From the mercenary leader's failed attempt to stop these dead warriors, to my own demise in the brightly-lit Grand Magazine, you'll see the Zombie Sunset team heading in a more ambitious direction. But what do I think of the evil characters?

Zeitzler: played to perfection by the talented Sam Dunning, his stance contains an officer's authority as he gazes down at another victim (generally me). To be captured by him results in death, unless he's happy to let his companions use the prisoner for their own sadistic pleasure. He controls his Kommandos with an iron will. Highly intelligent, he has the vision to push home his viciousness to maximum effect. But sometimes when he interacts with Morgana, you get the feeling their informality suggests a closeness that goes beyond operating together in a small military unit...

Morgana: beautiful - and with a rather striking wardrobe - she's played by the amazing Morgana Buxton. But don't be fooled into thinking this character is mellow. There's no candlelit dinners to be had with this female - the only candles you'll be seeing are those lighting her torture chamber. You may yearn for her cool touch only to bitterly regret that thought when she twists your head and draws you towards her sharp knife. Any slight smile flickering across her pale features doesn't reflect her romantic intent, but instead indicates imminent doom.

Sgt Gert: a warrior's warrior, this character stalks any battlefield, while armed to the teeth, and takes great delight in slaughtering his foes. killing by bullet, bomb, or bayonet is bread and butter (and sometimes fresh meat) to this violent psychopath. He's fanatically loyal to Zeitzler and rarely leaves his side for long. Nicky Paul Rollett injects energy and pace into this part, whether he's kicking the crap out of me, or striking a pose. However, he's also creative and able to give advice on the action scenes. If there's a fight scenario to nail down, Nicky is often the first Nazi Zombie to enter the fray.

Mahler: an axe-wielding homicidal crazy, Mahler fits in nicely with Zeitzler's combat unit. His unsettling grin is often the last thing people see before being sliced to pieces by a knotted blade. This character (played by the laid-back Scott Giller) hails from the Totenkopf division. Mahler favours wounding his foes with a firearm before finishing them off with a bladed weapon.

Zill: played by relative newcomer to modelling, Matthew Mason. This Kommando, despite a youngish countenance, is battle-hardened - adept at blowing the enemy up with his weapon of choice: the Stg24 or Stick Grenade. Sometimes tying 2 or 3 together to increase the blast, Zill is a sinister technician of this dangerous weapon. Thrown into this ad-hoc unit because of killing a senior officer, Zill has embraced the fanatical rage exhibited by Zeitzler's soldiers.

So the next time you're alone - or perhaps an employee at Fort Amherst walking the shadowy atmospheric corridors - it might be advisable to check these killers aren't closing in around you. To be claimed by them is to leave the sunlight and be done to death in a dismal place of Undead evil. So lock your door each night and be sure to check under your bed as well...

Peter

"Alcohol"

My relationship with Alcohol has been generally agreeable. While I realize that it can twist minds, create violence, and ruin lives, I've been able to avoid that and merely suffer from the "acting like a silly arse" scenario. From the fairly common: throwing up in a cab and being kicked out in the middle of nowhere, to taking a lady out to dinner and then blowing it by making ludicrous observations. My "every meerkat can play the trumpet" comment didn't go down especially well.

For me, the onset of inebriation makes everything glitter and shine so that the possibilities of creative endeavour become almost endless. A bottle of red wine gets things going nicely, helping along a sublime mix of artistic planning combined with a hint of madness. Perhaps the sibilant voices I sometimes hear are merely the hissing of ruptured water pipes and not the gentle mocking of demons surrounding me. Lovecraft made insanity work for him as he conjured up his evil Mythos, inhabited as it was by hellish creatures wanting to destroy humanity.

(There comes the sound of blood-red wine pouring into a slender, crystal glass...)

The whispering gets louder as wine is swallowed. The sun slips down, its final shafts of light dappling the encroaching darkness with a watery gold wash as I sway softly, enjoying the sharp clinking of glasses as celebrations echo around me. My eyes half close as pallid faces, eyes dull yellow, peer at me from the long grass while blood-splatters trickle down their porcelain skin. I am insane and these creatures understand, their mouths curving up appreciatively as they begin to suspect that we are similar. Jagged nails grip withered rose bushes, faces twitching in delicious pain as the thorns tear flesh.

The clip-clop of high heels arrests my attention, and there she is: skin flashing seductively; her hair a tumble of curls and crimps. Full red lips partially hide razor-sharp incisors which make me shudder excitedly. My head drops and I rest heavily on a rickety beer garden table, a glass tipping over, as I try to gather my thoughts.

I slurp more wine, finally draining the bottle as her cold breath touches my glowing face. With a snigger, I pick up a bottle of quality red although I know not where it's come from. Soon I'm filling the glass and then begin to sup deeply. The weakening sunlight seems to spin around me, shimmering weirdly as skinny, cadaverous shapes move and twist in the background. She smiles as she loosens the belt around her stylish dress, the soft fabric falling open to reveal her large, pale breasts and slim waist. A glinting silver choker merges with her alabaster skin and her small, yet strong hands yank my head up to hers - for she is tall - and she kisses me forcefully before pushing my head down. I indulge her frantically, ignoring the soft laughing of the creatures around me, and she groans as she stares upwards into the sinister trees. More wine is imbibed and I feel like a god, clutching my face as I scream my immortality to the evil stars suddenly gazing down. She falls to her knees and I glance at the red lips around my nether region and raise my shaking arms to punch the air, tears slipping from my watery eyes.

Half empty glasses surround me and I stare at the sunken faces peering up. I shift position on my throne, feeling the cold steel sending goose pimples spreading over my skin. The blood squelches beneath me and I glance at her as she views her minions, blood dripping down between her engorged breasts. Her crown of bone is splattered in crimson, her eyes enraptured as her skinny cohorts whisper to her, their wavering voices gaining power.

I come to, my breath in unsteady gasps as I prop myself up as I try to remember. Delicate leaves fall onto me from the gold-brown canopy above, the boughs creaking in melancholy protestation. My tired eyes widen at the ribs poking through my tattered clothing. Old, dried blood covers me as does a layer of crispy, disintegrating leaf matter. As I struggle up, a number of opened and empty wine bottles - dozens of them - clink together and roll away. With a soft snarl, I crawl along the floor, parting the bushes and easing myself through. After reaching the High Street, the screaming starts. One female shopper, too slow to retreat, utters a whimper as my fevered face finds her bare legs, my yellowed teeth sinking into her smooth skin. Her uneven screech pleases me as I tear a section of flesh from her, the youth falling to the floor and thrashing around. My heavy breathing becomes more excited as I claw my way up her torso, finally biting off a thumb and snarling savagely -

(I'm sure I can hear laughing from somewhere...)

- before swallowing the small lump of meat. I rip her ears off and raise my face and look into the shop window. My bloody reflection stares back at me and I can hear more screams - and the first sirens. My jagged teeth gore her neck, my throat gulping down the torrent of blood.

I pluck a bottle of wine from her blood-splattered cloth shopping bag and my eyes widen. Chateauneuf-du-Pape! Soon I'm desperately swallowing the Alcohol, my crimson, puckering lips tasting blood and booze and I start to cackle hysterically at the semi-circle of terrified faces staring at my emaciated form. I stagger to my feet to hold forth:

'"What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties. In form and moving, how express and admirable. In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god..."'

I'm swigging more Alcohol as the first bullets strike me, shattering the bottle and puncturing my frail body. Blood and wine merge in the listless air and I fall onto the dead girl, my dying eyes resting on the advancing policemen, their guns still smoking.

A dribble of Alcohol escapes my mouth to be replaced by a surge of blood, and I smile a last crooked grin as my memories of youth, vigour, and lost dreams begin to fade.

Peter

 

 

"Transmogrification"

How must it feel to turn into a Zombie and become the vicious, relentless beast of legend? To live purely for the slaughter of the living, killing them without mercy, is a terrifying prospect. And to do so without having the mental capacity to question your actions renders us fearful of these lumbering creatures of evil.

But as you stare at the festering wound on your arm, would you be able to recognize your final moments as a human, with ideals and dreams fading away, before they are replaced by a surging, unhinged violence which cannot be sated? The yellowed eyes see only the next blood-splattered meal, with humans only registering as just another food source. The expression changes from dislike to hatred to bloodlust as your loved ones scream in terror as you cross the appalling rubicon into Undeath. Your lips fold back, baring your teeth, as you advance upon friends and family but recognizing no one. The stiffening of muscle, aiding physical strength, contrasts markedly with the weakened brain, reduced to little more than pulp, as you claw your way towards your next victim, snarls escaping between your bloody lips.

To know you're infected with the Zombie Virus means a lingering death sentence, brought into effect as the incubation period is finally ended. Your eyes close and your last feelings of rage and fear are hopelessly confused. You feel sick with worry, shaking with the knowledge of what awaits you.

Later...

Your eyes snap open and a bloody grin creeps over your face. For a short while you lie there gazing up at the grey sky with its dark, brooding clouds and brief glint of sunlight. Your dull eyes are momentarily distracted by birds squabbling up in the tree tops before human activity finally rips you from your torpor. Your grin widens as you embrace a satanic call of the wild, mindless and fearless, as you struggle to your feet. Other corpses, also risen, stagger towards the terror stricken civilians while your clawed hand catches hold of a young man who struggles to break free but fails. Your eyes, relaying little to your destroyed brain, lock upon the subdued male who seems to have frozen in fear, accepting his ghastly fate.

Blood covers your mouth, with more trickling down your clammy forehead, as you feast on the glistening entrails of the fallen man. Bodies lie everywhere with ghoulish figures leaning over each one as they tear the flesh from the still-warm cadavers. Growls and snarling fill the air as corrupted bodies embrace the insanity of what is unfolding. The trees sway in the weak breeze, with their leaves whispering softly - a backdrop of normality while all else is chaos.

In the High Street, blood trickles into the gutter, some of it finding its way into a rusty grating in the road where it falls into the Stygian darkness. Standing in your bloody clothes you stare into a shop window and watch the TV screens with vacant eyes. The straggly meat of a consumed rat hangs from the corner of your mouth and you turn clumsily upon hearing movement behind.

You celebrate another death with a savage cackle while the town dies around you. Its shattered windows twinkle in the dying light as dusk closes in. Screaming merges with the car horns from wrecked vehicles; some are overturned, while others burn brightly with smoke billowing out from beneath crumpled metal.

A droplet of blood drips from your thumbnail and falls onto the face of an elderly woman, her face still caught in a silent, endless scream. Her shopping bags lie nearby with meals for one spilling out of the torn plastic. But you stare at this uncaringly, uncomprehendingly as you bite through her fingers one by one...

But how did this cataclysm arrive? Was it through a particularly virulent strain of rabies? Or, perhaps, a military experiment gone wrong? Given Man's track record of widespread inhumanity - even with our rational brains - it seems quite possible that if there ever is a terrible Contagion then it may well be because of a government's meddling in genetics. This prospect is extremely unsettling when one considers the fact that scientists are often reckless individuals only too eager to try out new drugs on an unsuspecting society. Today's test subject guinea pigs could be tomorrow's flesh-ripping Zombies eager for a taste of human meat.

So what about you, now you've transmogrified into a rabid killer?

You're now in the story as just another grotesque with a dead mask face overseeing the collapse of humanity. It's irrelevant to you how this started, and irrelevant to you how this will end.

Peter

 

 

"Zombies and their Enduring Popularity"

Do you fear the end...?

Given the enormous contribution the Zombie has given to the horror genre (books as well as films) - and the proliferation of soundtracks, mugs, T-shirts, board games et al - it’s quite clear that this particular form of Undead is driving all before it, and has been for some considerable time. In this article I’ll attempt to give my own reasons as to why this might be, and to ponder what the future holds for the relentless evil of the walking corpses.

As described in this site’s introduction, the unconvincing, blue-faced shuffling dead of the 70s’ movies occasionally provided an interesting glimpse into the potential of this creature type. Roll the clock on to more recent years and the viewer is rewarded with the wonderfully rendered prosthetics of series such as the Walking Dead. Close ups of Zombified faces are detailed enough to send shivers down the spine, while the sight of rotting teeth slicing into bloody entrails reveals a godless world that humankind could eventually inhabit.

I think the Zombie works on different levels. Firstly it’s an allegory which is linked to dementia: when a person no longer recognizes his or her loved ones and might even turn violent with them even though they’re attempting to ease the stricken person’s last few years on this earth. Some horror films have dealt with this and the scenes can be surprisingly disturbing, such as when a wife no longer sees her partner as a husband anymore, but merely as meat to be ripped apart. The fact that Zombies cannot be bargained with or convinced to stop partially mimics the awful downward spiral of diseases of the brain.

Another reason for the Zombies’ successful career is more obvious - that they represent the end of the human species and embrace the gory, blood-crazed existence that continues afterwards, and this challenges one of the last great taboos: death. We humans are terrified of shuffling off our mortal coil and, as a result, the prospect of cheating mortality in whatever form - however rudimentary - captivates us. As people age, their thoughts must inevitably turn to their own demise (on occasion) and they wonder when the fateful act will happen and whether the lurid stories of white tunnels and angelic voices are true. And then, possibly, come the ideas of cheating this process and considering if it’s feasible to continue with life even if it’s without a pulse.

Would you want to live after your human death if it meant ripping the flesh from those still in possession of a functioning brain? In the lucidity of a moment’s contemplation perhaps not, but if in a weakened state with the possibility of the end fast approaching and when deals with God have fallen through...then perhaps the answer would then be a hesitant “yes”. So the lust and zeal many of us have for life would possibly lead us to take our meat undercooked if it were possible - and in so doing convince us that we had cheated the inevitability of death. I also find it thrilling to think that several bullets punching through my chest wouldn’t stop me; that the unpleasant grin creeping over my face wouldn’t lessen as my leathery, blood-caked hands still reach out to the terrified human I’d soon be feasting on. There’s something quietly awesome about this: to cheat death; to shrug off the knowledge that every human life will end this way and then rise again without a beating heart - is a lessened form of the divine.

Zombie fans get this idea, I’ll wager: that there’s something after our last breath which waits for us...

The majesty of Undeath.

Another reason for the Zombies’ success is that over the last few decades many different writers, artists, and directors have brought their own ideas to the party thus ensuring the genre remains flexible. This means it’s able to move with the times thus making sure that the Zombie concept is always relevant. As each new generation experiences the cold embrace of dead flesh, this builds a creative friction, just as two seas meeting smash against each other in spouts of violent foam and force.

Of course, the original idea of the Zombie came from Haiti and Africa, and generally within the sinister grip of Voodoo. Many of these Zombies were villagers reduced to vacant slaves by black magic or the application of various substances which dulled a person’s will to resist. According to ethnobotanist Edmund Wade Davis, toxins from the toad Bufo Marinus result in producing numbing agents and hallucinogens, while Puffer fish have toxins that cause paralysis, depress respiration, reduce circulatory activity, and cause a victim to believe he’s floating over his own body. As a result, it’s easy to see how this state of affairs mutated as the legend of the Zombie spread, and the idea was then adapted by writers and other creatives who adjusted the folklore for their own varied projects.

It seems there’s plenty of “life” left in the Zombie genre (sorry, I couldn’t resist that) considering the other different types available to the crazed musings of writers and directors. There’s Atomic Zombies (created by chemical or radioactive contamination); Necromantic Zombies (created by black magic to reanimate the bodies of the dead); Viral Zombies (created by a contagious virus that infects the living and turns them into Zombies following the rapid onset of death) - the list goes on.

It seems the Zombie is here to stay - and not just because its own twisted DNA makes this possible, it’s also because these snarling, vicious forms are wanted by fearful audiences all over the globe.

Peter