3

The Silence of the Zombies

An earlier section has enumerated the many benefits of maintaining a zombie-like silence in most situations. Zombies don’t prattle, and zombies don’t brag. (What happens in the graveyard stays in the graveyard.)

In week 3 of your zombification training, we will see how coupling this zombie silence with the caveats against fear and compromise learned in weeks 1 and 2 can combine to lead you to your next stage as a zombie acolyte.

To review quickly, most zombies do not speak at all. A few zombies can moan or manage a word or two, and fewer still are capable of short sentences. Importantly, even those zombies who can speak do not do so unless it is vitally necessary.

“Necessary to what?” you may ask. What it desires, of course. For a zombie, this is to eat some brains. Let me make this very clear. It is the most important lesson of week 3 training.

Remember:

Whenever a zombie is talking, no matter what it is talking about, it is only doing so to bring it closer to its ultimate goal (eating brains).

Most zombie speech is simple and direct, with content that cannot be mistaken for something it is not (e.g., “braaaaaains ... braaaaaaains ... braaaaaains ... ”). However, higher functioning zombies clearly illustrate that it is permissible for a zombie to use misdirection, impersonation, and even “small talk” in its verbal interaction as long as the zombie’s ultimate goal (obtaining brains) is served by it. Now that the previous weeks’ training has inured you to the un-zombie-like traits of fear and compromise, you can spend this third week refining and honing your verbal skills to that of a zombie. It will involve a meticulous paring-down of your speech until only that which is most vital remains. It will be difficult, but you will find it most rewarding.

Let’s begin by looking closely at a few examples of economic zombie speech. We will see that, in the end, each instance, however circuitously, serves to bring the zombie closer to his goal.

Our first example involves a zombie named Karl, a former chemist at a research facility whose on-the-job exposure to a certain chemical compounds has had the unforeseen effect of turning him into a zombie. A few days after his natural passing, the reanimated Zombie-Karl unexpectedly arrives at his job bright and early, seemingly ready for work. As Karl approaches the security post at the entrance, his pale hands clutching his laminated security pass, we can overhear the following exchange:

Security Guard:	“Oh hey, good morning Karl. Gee, you’re back to work? I heard you were really sick or something ... ”
Zombie Karl:	“ ... nope ... ”

After flashing his security pass, the guard dutifully opens the gate, allowing Karl to shuffle inside the facility.

At first, Karl’s actions might appear confusing. There was a perfectly delicious security guard standing right there, armed only with a fiberglass baton and certainly not expecting to be bitten in the head. Not only did our zombie seemingly fail to take advantage of the situation, he also went to the added trouble of using speech to avoid the security guard. Yet when we remember our cardinal rule, that zombies only use speech towards their brain-noshing end, we maybe begin to make inferences that explain Karl’s actions.

Zombie Tip:

Suck it up!

You never hear zombies complaining about how bad they have it, even when things are at their most unpleasant. The next time you get an extra memo to write at work, the coach tells you two-a-days will start early this year, or a farmer defending his house from a zombie-horde takes out your kneecaps with his shotgun, just suck it up! No complaining allowed for zombies.

Certainly, overpowering the security guard and chowing down would have resulted in Karl’s eating one brain, but if his goal is to eat as many brains as possible, then we begin to see how Karl’s counterintuitive zombie behavior makes perfect sense. Once inside his former workplace, Karl will have easy access to several employees and their edible brains. Further, Karl will have the added advantage of surprise, since nobody thinks something dangerous, much less a zombie, could get past the guard outside. So in leaving the security guard’s brain regrettably intact, Karl has gained access to an environment where he will be able to feast for hours on an entire laboratory full of easily surprised research scientists.

For our second example, let’s meet a zombie named Claudette. Claudette lived in a remote village on the coast of France until an unpleasant fall from a majestic coastal cliff took her life. She was subsequently reanimated as a zombie by a traveling gypsy witch, who was then subsequently eaten by Claudette (you will recall the prior caveats against attempting reanimation). Zombie-Claudette now spends her days lurking along the coast, feeding on the occasional fisherman or British tourist. One of Zombie-Claudette’s advantages is her limited (but very effective) use of speech.

See how, in the following representative example, Claudette uses cover of night to approach a pair of early-morning fishermen:

Henri:	“Un moment! Qu’est-ce que c’est ? J’entends quelque chose.”
Guy:	“C’est ne pas possible. Nous sommes tout seuls.”
Henri:	“Mais je suis sûr j’entends quelque chose ... Peut-être c’est un cheval.”
Guy:	“ ... ”
Henri:	“Je suis sérieux!”
Guy:	“Un cheval ... ? Ici ... ? Dans la plage ... ? A quatre heures du matin?”
Henri:	“Oui.”
Zombie-Claudette:	“Niii. Niii.”
Henri:	“Voilà. Un cheval.”
Guy:	“Bien. Quelle surprise.”*
*Translation
Henri:	“One second! What was that? I heard something.”
Guy:	“That’s not possible. We’re all alone.”
Henri:	“But I’m sure I heard something ... Maybe it was a horse.”
Guy:	“ ... ”
Henri:	“I’m serious!”
Guy:	“A horse ... ? Here ... ? On the beach ... ? At four in the morning?”
Henri:	“Yes.”
Zombie-Claudette:	“Neigh. Neigh.”
Henri:	“There you go. A horse.”
Guy:	“Well, that’s a surprise.”

Moments later, that lonely cove will echo with cries of “Zut alors!” as Claudette sinks her teeth through the first of two berets in yet another successful use of zombie-speech.

Whereas in our prior example we saw Karl using speech to impersonate his former human incarnation, we see that Zombie-Claudette is able to go a step beyond this by impersonating a French horse. Taken out of context, of course, Claudette’s whinnies would appear to have very little to do with eating someone’s brain. Yet, in the context of this example, we see that in fact she has everything to gain by horsing it up a bit.

For our final example (in which we will examine yet a third aspect of zombie-speech), let us meet Bucephalus. A mountain man living high in the forgotten crags of West Virginia, he loses his life as part of a long-standing and much celebrated family feud. Bucephalus then finds himself reanimated as a zombie under the authority of a curse involving a violated moonshine still, his illegitimate sister’s bloodline, and the wisest and most mystical of all the village hogs.

Upon reanimation, Bucephalus spends his days carrying out a sort of poetic justice by hunting down the men from the opposing family who conspired to kill him and eating their brains. He may be carrying out a folk-tale style of revenge, true, but it is also true that his enemies tend to live close to the burying ground and are the easiest targets for Zombie-Bucephalus.

Like Karl and Claudette, Bucephalus employs speech to further his purposes. The following example illustrates Bucephalus’s particular innovation. Our scenario commences late one foggy mountain night as Zombie-Bucephalus knocks loudly on the cabin door of one of his murderers:

Ezekiel:	“Who’s there? Who’s knockin’ on my door in the middle of the night.”
Bucephalus:	“ ... Bucephalus.”
Ezekiel (wildly):	“Bucephalus??? But it cain’t be you. We left you for dead at the bottom of the ravine last Thursday. Who is this really?”
Bucephalus:	“Bucephalus ...”
Ezekiel:	“Really?”
Bucephalus:	“ ... ”
Ezekiel:	“I’m waiting.”
Bucephalus:	“Zombie ... Zombie-Bucephalus ... ”
Ezekiel:	“Ha! I knew it! By the horn of Beelzebub, you done become a zombie!”
Bucephalus:	“Yes ... ”
Ezekiel:	“And what do you want, zombie? To eat my brain? To leave me for dead the same way I left you, I ’spect?”
Bucephalus:	“Just to talk ... ”
Ezekiel
(greatly relieved):	“Oh ... Well in that case, let me get the door.”

As one might expect, our vignette will conclude with Ezekiel opening the door to his cabin and instantly regretting it as Bucephalus pounces on him, removes his filthy John Deere baseball cap, and tucks in.

The important difference between this and our previous examples is that at no time does Bucephalus pretend to be something other than what he is. Karl and Claudette both used speech to give the impression that they were something other than zombies (a living human and a horse, respectively). Bucephalus, on the other hand, was more-or-less forthcoming about his status in the legions of the undead. In his case, speech was used to provide a ruse not about his identity, but about his intentions.

Our example zombies vary, but all of them have a valuable economy to their speech that is worth imitating. They speak no more than is necessary, and only when it brings them closer to their goals.

Your journaling assignment for week 3 is to retroactively analyze your major uses of speech each day at the end of the day. You will go back and recall each important interaction or series of interactions, taking care to note if the speech that you did manage served your purposes or was wasted language. As the week goes by, hope to see a steady decrease in not only the amount of speech that you use, but in the overall importance of it as regards your ultimate goal in any situation.

The speech-interactions you chronicle can be very detailed and extended, or simple one-sentence interactions. In each instance, note what the situation was, your ultimate goal that it served, how close to the economical speech of a zombie you managed to get, and how you would go through this same interaction differently in the future (if at all). Be brutally honest with yourself.

Some examples:

Situation: Creepy homeless guy at my bus stop won’t leave me alone

Goal: Get on my bus without getting groped/smeared with excrement

Speech Used:

“Eww, get away.”

“No seriously, leave. Now.”

“I don’t have any money for you.”

“Look, my boyfriend is a lineman, okay?”

“No, not for the Colts, for the fucking phone company, but he could still kick your ass. Come to think of it, so could I.”

“Listen buddy, I’m on my way to a job interview, that’s why I’m dressed up like this. If you lay one finger on me or get any of that goo coming out of your face on these shoes, I’m going to forget all about it and devote the rest of my day to kicking your ass. Follow me?”

Analysis of Speech Used:

Got the job done, but was a little long-winded for a zombie.

I think I pretty much stayed in zombie form. (Would a zombie have a problem with face-goo?) The escalation right to violence feels right for a zombie. Also, a zombie goes after what it wants, so it made sense to tell the guy that he better not make me change the thing I want from “Putting my best foot forward in the interview” to “Spending a whole goddamn afternoon rolling some homeless guy.”

Situation: Date with Carol from the party the other night

Goal: Carol in my bed by midnight, but gone by 2 a.m.

Speech Used:

“Hey, Carol, nice to see you again. You look really pretty tonight.”

“I hear this place is great.”

“Fascinating ...”

“Really? And then what happened?”

“Fascinating ...”

“Really? And then what happened?”

“Your sister sounds like a special girl.”

“Fascinating ...”

“It sounds like that overweight girl deserved to be kicked out of your sorority.”

“No way! I think Dane Cook is awesome, too.”

“You know, my place is just around the corner.”

“Yes, I do have a Dane Cook DVD somewhere we could watch.”

“This might be easier in the bedroom, you know.”

“Ouch! Too hard!”

“That’s better.”

“Gee, I wish you could, but my roommate will be getting back soon, and we have a rule about overnight guests. They have to have sex with both of us.”

Analysis of Speech Used:

Overall, I think this went pretty well. Got through the whole evening talking just 16 times. Definitely room for some improvement. Should have said “are hot” in place of “look really pretty.” Maybe just “Cook” instead of “Dane Cook” next time? Also, could have used “do” in place of “have sex with.” Ultimately though, I think my speech stayed true to zombie form because it brought me closer to my original goals.

Keep a journal like this, and you’ll take important steps toward honing your speech to a point (and you’ll keep things to the point, like a zombie does).

Remember:

Less is always more.

More detailed speech is sometimes permitted, but only when absolutely necessary.

To be like a zombie your speech should always take you towards your ultimate goal.