Essential Existential Decisions in the Zombie Apocalypse

From Severed Press.

...well, not all that essential, truth be told. These are more deleted passages from GRACE AMONG THE DEAD. It’s obvious why I had to cut them, especially in light of all the complaints I’ve gotten about Derek Grace not being a cuddly, kum-ba-yah saint riding a snow-white steed to Save Humanity, ‘cause, gosh, we’re all really worth it.

I still like this passage though, as it examines a basic question one should ask oneself in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Frankly, I think there would be a lot of suicides should one go down in real life. 

Even for the most enthusiastic, the rise of the dead to feast on the flesh of the living would be fun for the entire time it would take for you to permanently mash in the heads of everyone who ever annoyed you. After that, it’s a hellscape. You’re always on the run to survive, not only from the hungry dead, but the kind of living people mean and morally debased enough to thrive in such an environment.

You sure you really want to do this?

So it comes back to this, that most basic of questions: To be, or not to be.

Survival imposes terms I’m not sure I care to accept: for one, the challenge of living in a world where the survivors are worse than the cannibal corpse apex predators trying to tear the meat from my bones. Where the electricity is down but I still fear being tracked by my cell phone. Where taking in a frightened woman brings her savage entourage in to disrupt and destroy all safety and advantage those same fools might have enjoyed for themselves, if only it wasn’t so important to their self-esteem that someone else be subjugated, hurt, terrorized and killed.

I survived a month of peace and quiet, and in one day I have all of the Great Existential Questions of Our Current Crisis slapped across my face like a large, rotten fish: Why am I even bothering? Do I really hope to see my children again someday? If so, for what? So I can fail them again, as I did when the bottom fell out of the job market? My son Jack knows more about weapons and defense than I ever will. All I know is from him and the books I took from his bedroom before leaving.

*****

Seriously, you want some of this?

Like before, it’s a matter of making Correct Choices. Like before, you can’t afford to get sick, get hurt, or get jumped by bandits. The Nietzschean/Ayn Randian Superman doesn’t get colds or break his leg. Not so much as a bruise.

On the other hand, Superman now has a Golden Ticket to kill anyone and everyone who so much as interrupts his nap. Before, only the wealthy and powerful enjoyed this privilege. Now every man’s a king. All he needs is the spleen to make it happen.

No, scratch that. You don’t even need the rage. I’d probably be a lot more efficient if I was a stone sociopath, not caring one way or the other save for the simple pleasure of being in control. Some might say that’s worse. 

They’d be full of shit, too. Either way, a drunken teenage firebug gets his hands hacked off with an African machete and thrown into a mob of hungry, shit-stinking cadavers. A cop gets tied up with a fresh corpse dumped between his legs so he can serve as the thing’s first meal upon awakening. I even poured barbecue sauce on that son of a bitch because I thought it was important he understood how much I hated him.

Anger and hatred fuel me like the Earth’s yellow sun fuels the comic book Superman’s superpowers. Among the many, idle, quiet moments at the farm, I’d sometimes wondered when I might run out of rage and just let myself fall. 

Based on what happened today, I reckon I don’t have much to worry about.

Derek Grace is describing a scene that unfolds in full gruesome detail in the first act of GRACE AMONG THE DEAD, “A Tale of Love and Redemption, of the Living Dead and a Monster Truck.”  Check out the first chapter leading up to that goat-fuck at the farm house, serialized here.

Another deleted scene, with zombies, can be found here.

For the absolute finest in zombie apocalypse hellscapes, you can’t go wrong with the books in my SAGA  OF THE DEAD SILENCER series.