The Undead Speak

Welcome to a new series of posts. Inspired by Wreck-It-Ralph, I travel into video game worlds to interview their denizens.

For today’s interview, I travelled deep underground until I smelled a foul stench. It was zombies. A huge horde of them with their putrefied flesh stood before me. Pretending to be half dead – which isn’t all that difficult for me to do on a weekday morning – I slunk through the hoard. I searched for some intelligent companionship in the crowd.

A tame half zombie, apparently not yet turned, approached me. He explained he could speak, reason, laugh and love because he still had a large part of his brain. He was only bitten last week. And now he was my test subject – er – I mean interviewee.

***

Q: Do you like to live as a zombie?

I was human until last week when one of the undead bit me. I have to say that it has been a dramatic change. In fact, it stinks. It stinks worse than my rotten flesh.

You get up in the morning, take the subway to work and, unless there is a system crash, you charge the protagonist. Then you die and do it over again until you want to rip off your own arms. Oh, wait…

My life is not all bad though. Sometimes the protagonist makes stupid mistakes, and my friends and I gorge on his brains. The protagonist’s AI partner is particularly stupid, and we enjoy munching on his brains too. Sometimes you’ll see the partner charge right into us or run around in circles because of a glitch. What a rube!

(His green face lights up a little. He smiles and some black pearls fall out of his mouth)

But this terrible hunger never abates. Speaking of which, didn’t you say you had some lovely brains for me?

Q: Uh, no… anyway, let’s change subjects. Do you ever get lonely?

Yes, it can be tough out here for a zombie. We have to hustle everyday for the brains to survive. But most of my friends are boring.

The zombie horde is only made up of 4 or 5 identical zombies. That’s because the game I live in only has that many zombie skins. The game studio was too lazy to add more. So we all think alike and look alike. It gets old down here fast.

Q: You sound a bit depressed. Why do you bother to rise from your grave in the morning?

To be honest, I like to indulge in the arts, culture and gourmet foods. I like to stay fit and healthy to keep up my natural green glow.

If it wasn’t for these finer things, I would have no reason to stay undead. I would delete my code from the game.

Also, I really like brains!

Q: I see. Do you do anything else besides eating brains and playing in video games?

Well, my agent and I have big plans after this video game season. We’re making moves into movies. That’s where the money is. And that’s where you get respect and fame.

Take a look at zombies in movies and what do you see? They only work a couple of hours a day, they have palatial estates and fast cars. Yes, my next stop is Hollywood. Nothing can stop me.

But before I do that… I want brains, brains, brains!

***

Interviewers note:

At this point, the zombie started to rub his belly and point to a large bubbling cauldron. He approached me and tapped my head with his index finger. After these actions, I ran as fast I could and the interview concluded.