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Nobody Likes a Tourist

There are lots of questionable forms of tourism. Sextourism. Food-tourism. Even eco-tourism. But no backpacking, pustlegutted, sunscreen-wearing camera-jockey is as offensive as the zombie-tourist. (That is to say, a tourist out to see zombies.)

Say you’re a voodoo priest minding your own business in the jungle somewhere. You don’t have time for tourists. You got bills to pay. Chickens to cut open and blood to spray all over naked dancing girls. It’s a full goddamn day.

Then all of a sudden, these PhDs show up, acting like they’re “down” with you. (They’re so not down.) And after a little introductory chitchat, it comes out that (surprise, surprise) they want you to show them all your voodoo medicine secrets. At first they’ll spin you some story about how they’re researching indigenous cures and tropical medicines. Give you a line about how modern scientific medicine is “learning about new cures all the time from native healers and shamans.” How the cure for cancer might be waiting inside a plant in the tropics yet unknown to Western science. (But you know better. You went into Port-au-Prince one weekend and saw that movie. It had Sean Connery in it, and it still sucked.)

You know why they’re really there. (It’s like, just come out and say it, man.) They want to know about zombies. They want to know how you make them. They want to know what chemicals you use. Then they want to know what plants the chemicals come from, and where those plants grow.

And not for any cool reasons. Not for something you’d be all right with. They don’t want to make zombies themselves, or to de-zombify a friend who was accidentally turned into a zombie.

Nope. It’s for some boring-ass shit like tenure. They want to write some kind of article about your zombie-making secrets for journals with names like Nature. Press them hard enough, and you’ll get some namby-pamby bullshit along the lines of “But I’m 40 years old, and I’m still an assistant professor.”

Cry me a river, science boy.

Other zombie-tourists are more accidental, but no less annoying. If you’re on some kind of expedition through a made-up-sounding country, and a “native” tells you a legend about a prophecy that allows the dead to rise from their graves at such-and-such a time under such-and-such conditions. And you think to yourself, “Hey, those conditions sound a lot like how things are now. What a coincidence! It would be a shame not to take a detour and investigate. ...” Just let it go man. Things never go well for the zombie-tourist in that situation. Even if your native guide is right, and he does give you the right directions to the spot (and not just to an abandoned mine where his friends are waiting to rob you), it’s not like the zombies who are gonna be popping out of the topsoil are going to pose for photos with you. Think about it.

Zombie Tip:

Your passion shouldn’t be a fashion.

If you’re just “following the horde” because it’s “what everybody is doing,” you might seriously want to stop to evaluate your motivations. If you only do what’s popular and follow from trend to trend, you’ll be left never knowing who you actually are as a person. Who the “real you” is.

(If, however, the horde is comprised of zombies, and you are also a zombie, then by all means proceed.)

It has been previously remarked that there is something inherently offensive in the idea of humans going on a tourist expeditions to see other, less civilized humans. Zombies aren’t really human anymore, or “civilized” by anybody’s standards, but they’re still not going to put their rotted, desiccating arms around your Lacoste-clad husband and smile for the cameras. They’re just going to eat you. (They’re not going to eat you because you’re an annoying tourist per se. They’re going to eat you because your brain is delicious. That being said, however, you are an annoying tourist.)

Finally, nobody, and I mean nobody, has to be reminded of the disaster that befalls the tourist who brings the zombie back as a souvenir. Usually, this will be the explorer type who wants to show off his latest find to his scientist friends. But it won’t go according to plan. When he opens the crate that he locked the zombie in, it’ll mysteriously be empty. Or else when he puts the zombie on display at some sort of science convention, the thing will get loose and attack everyone in sight. Sometimes the boat that was supposed to have shipped the zombie back will just show up with everyone on board eaten, or turned into zombies themselves, or missing entirely.

So wherever you are and whatever you do, when somebody shows up and starts acting like you’re part of some exotic culture worth studying, don’t stand for it. Not for a second. Make like a zombie instead.

They won’t be back anytime soon if you do.