The Terror in the Woods at Night next to a Lake.

A flow of consciousness ode to horror clichés, unnecessary plot twists, 

and all the Elder Gods and inhuman evils $2.41 plus shipping can buy. 

It was a dark and stormy night except for the pallid full moon shining over the long-closed camp nestled against a beautiful remote lake well known for its highly sought parcels of real-estate. The group of thirteen teens, a mix of strangers and lifelong friends whose backgrounds were, unbeknownst to them, all intertwined, made their way to a secluded sight they learned of from the whispered tales past down from their parents and the help of Google Maps.

They had gathered for a séance to communicate with the spirit of a small child who tragically died after not waiting an hour to go into the water after eating pop rocks and drinking soda. Some say it was murder. Some in the group heard it was the spirit of a local woman falsely accused of witchcraft after successfully cursing a Native American shaman for not keeping his promise to free the spirit of her missing child from the blood demons who dwelt in the hills surrounding the lake. The witch, you see, wants her child back so badly she even today seeks out and steals unsuspecting children regardless if they look nothing like the lost child or not. Or so the legend implies if you read between the lines.

The teens set up their unholy alter following the instructions carefully spelled out in the most evil of all evil books: The Necronomicon. One teen, a pretty and smart girl who was not well liked, had stumbled across the cursed book by accident while searching for songs on Amazon. It cost just enough to get free shipping after she selected the cheapest used paperback she could find from the fourteen different vendors. With this forbidden text whose pages are filed with dripping horrors and forbidden knowledge humanity was not meant to know, the group began their forbidden Black Mass rite after two teens took their nighttime ADHD meds and the rest texted their parents and/or love interests, checked Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and shared links to a new Fail video compilation on YouTube.

They were ready.

They lit their candles, removed their clothes -except for the guys- and called out to the spirits to answer who or what killed the little boy. Wind suddenly blew through the area terrifying the group who wasn't used to how air moves in the mountains. A cry pierced the night! A wail pulled from a pit of suffering in the darkest of blackness (which is called the umbra) Hell could offer. Contact was made! But suddenly (again) one of the teens cried out that they were a descendant of a sibling of a cousin of the little boy here for revenge! Blood demanded blood, she cried! Suddenly (again) another teen called out that they were the descendant of the witch who had remarried a few years later. They too were here for revenge! For blood! Then another! Then another! They all stood in a stupor confused by the thirteen unexpected twists that completely derailed their own carefully planned vengeance.

The girls replaced their clothes in a daze wondering what went wrong and why they had taken their clothes off in the first place. The boys wondered what went wrong causing the girls to put back on their clothes. All thirteen agreed it was getting late and trying to map out why they all sought revenge and against who and why really wasn’t worth it. It was getting late and they were all getting bored. Gathering their candles they said they would totally accept Friend Requests knowing they would not. It was time to go home. Time to leave this haunted place by an otherwise nice lake that saw lots of teens do things like this every summer when they had nothing better to do, or a just day off from the jobs their parents told them they needed.

But…

Hundreds of miles away an old man sat at a table. He was uneasy. Troubled. It felt like his past was kicking up dust obscuring his vision, but the moment quickly passed. It happened every now and again. Summers mostly. All things considered it wasn’t a terrible feeling. It gave him a reason to think and reminisce. Once upon a time he was a lonely, sad little boy with a mean witch of a mother. Then one the summer he decided to fake his own death and run away to join the circus. Life was pretty good after that.

The End.

Consumed by Zombies

Zombies have been crazy popular for a while now. If you’re reading this then there’s a very good chance you fall somewhere in the fandom horde. You’re kind of my proof of the first statement. (Thanks for the assist, by the way.) So have you asked yourself why are zombies, the living dead, walkers, shamblers, zed heads, crawlers, G’s, biters, etc. enjoy such popularity?

They aren’t sexy. Outside of fan fiction I don’t want to touch with a rotting ten-foot pole, of course. This is the internet age, after all. Sure, there are a few examples of romantic sexy-time in the genre. Warm Bodies was a notable example. Most of the other zombie films infused with a love-story involved ‘love doomed to fail’ like in Rec 3 or the very enjoyable German film Rammbock: Berlin Undead. Good stuff, yet not exactly the hormone infused material to fuel the hearts of teenaged girls and middle-aged women into parting with their money and panties. Sparkling vampires, anyone?

What about violence? Violence is popular. Word on the street is humans have been practicing it for a long time. There’s something to that idea we’ll swing back around to shortly, but no, it is not the deciding factor to explain the popularity of zombies. If gore alone was the magical ingredient then Hostel or Dead Again would have their own television series and children’s books. Gore is too easy.

Characters then? Strong, smart, likable characters must be a constant in the genre like the Northstar in the Heavens. No. No. And no. Most stories are filled with some or all of the usual suspects: the cop/ military/survivalist type, the thinker/scientist, the teenage lovebirds, the expendable Average Joe or Jane, the person with the “dark secret”, and the main characters that almost never die, or the sexy chick. The later comes packaged for whatever the popular look of the day is. Think of Linnea Quigley as Trash in Return of The Living Dead. She was wearing leg warmers. Still very popular today, said no one ever. Notable exceptions do exist, of course, such as in the writings of Max Brooks. World War Z and Recorded Outbreaks have smart and resourceful characters. I highly recommend the audio book for the all the well-known actors whose talents brought the undead book to life such as: Henry Rollins, Mark Hamill, and Alan Alda. The movie and book have little in common. So disappointing…

So, mulling over the list of attributes of sex, romance, violence, and strong characters that normally translate into popularity we find rare, isolated examples of each but nothing to really nail down why so many people spend so much time watching or playing fictional people fighting to stay un-eaten, un-consumed, and un-overrun by a tireless, mindless, adversary that cannot be reasoned with.

Or have we?

Zombies eat the living. Obvious, I know, but think about it. What if what makes zombies popular is what they do. They eat you alive. I once manage a large, well-stocked, and awesome video store. If you failed to buy a calendar, had no windows, and never left your basement you could tell the changing of the seasons by simply calling us and asking what movies were popular. Anyone who has ever worked in a video store will attest to how the season and holiday equaled the empty spaces on the shelves. Valentine’s Day moved all the Rom Coms. Halloween cleared out Horror. And so forth. But there are two other seasons: school finals and tax season. Months apart on the calendar and often decades distant measured by the age of the participants, both times of the year showed the same spike in rental activity. The college kids rented more Horror with a lean toward zombies just as the 9-5 working adults. This never changed in the seven years I managed at the store. Chatting with both old and young yielded the same feedback. They both felt overwhelming pressure. Forces were bearing down upon them that could not be reasoned with, that were seemingly everywhere, and that little by little consumed their lives, time, and energy. Sound familiar? Zombies are popular because they personify stress. Zombies are mindless, uncaring, unthinking dangers that eat you alive. Alone they can usually be handled with a high degree of success, but they are never truly alone. Think of all the things in your life, big and small, that drain you. Think about the stresses that pull you and take your time and attention, and therefore overwhelm you. Zombies do to the physical form what day to day life can do to us spiritually, emotionally, and financially. Our culture, whether it realizes it or not, is crying out for help because it feels like it is being eaten alive.

At least, that is how I see it.