Wake up, people! Life is not a spectator sport. It could all end tomorrow, and there are no second chances, unless of course you’re bitten by someone like me.
On the day my father passed away, I promised myself I’d live my life as though my bite transformed my victims into zombies. My dad was a good man, to be sure, but a simple man as well—the sort of guy who worked hard, never asked for more than he deserved, and never wondered what it would be like to transform people into the living dead with a single bite. Of course, he always got the short end of the stick.
He was never really happy, and I remember asking myself, at a very young age, how his life would have been different if he’d behaved as if his appetites could provide him with an army of the living dead.
It’s certainly changed almost everything about my life—the way I look at people, the way I treat them, the way I bite them, hard, and then begin screaming, “Aha! I’ve turned yet another person into a relentless shuffling zombie! Soon my mindless hordes shall hold dominion over the entire world!”
I can honestly say that nothing’s been the same since I had this insight. The words “invigorating” and “exhilarating” don’t even begin to cover it.
I used to dread getting up in the morning. I wasn’t much more than a mindless half-dead thing myself! But ever since I decided to stop being a zombie and start making zombies, I’ve begun every day with a smile.
My dark joy at commanding an army of flesh-eating undead is, of course, balanced by the knowledge that this dark gift will kill me. That knowledge forces me to take a rather poignant and bittersweet view of life. I enjoy my coffee more than I ever have before, drinking it as if it may be my last, checking the barricades on my windows and doors, biting my wife to turn her into a zombie who will now be powerless to resist my will. And just like that, I’m off to work, wide-awake, energized, and ready to go!
All my coworkers have noted the change in me. After all, if living as if I’m dying slowly from a contagious disease that turns the people I bite into flesh-eating zombies has done one thing, it’s really taught me who my friends are. Once I bit our office IT guy Lowell every day for three straight weeks, turning a reticent cube drone into both a confidant and a ravenous monster that exists only to consume the flesh of the living. When I told Lowell about my contagious and fatal imaginary disease, he was intrigued. Although he’s a ways from taking the bull by the horns and creating a few flesh-eaters of his own, he’s treated me with a quiet respect ever since.
You’ll get a lot of that if you decide to follow my path of living every day as if you’re dying of a contagious disease that turns people you bite into zombies. It can be a lonely path, and as you see, it’s not easy to explain exactly what you’re doing and why. But it will, I promise, totally realign your world. Once you decide to seize the living and sink your teeth into their flesh and condemn them to a tortured eternity, nothing will be the same—nights at the movies, trips to the mall, air travel, nothing. And once you realize that those you bite will turn into zombies obsessed with your death and the rending of your flesh, every day will seem like a gift.
Remember, your death is inevitable—therefore, why not enjoy the limited time you have alive by enjoying all the zombies you’ve spawned? And above all, remember this: They can only be killed by head shots.
