Upon the Physiology of the Animate Dead

PATH 201     Introduction to Non-Human Pathology (4)     Brookes-Lawley Building, Sutton Continuing through the transcript of the introductory lecture given by Prof. Jacob Highman at the University of London, last autumn term. Allow me to introduce you to the Late Mr. Alfred Wilcox, Ph.D. and Friend of the College. This specimen has been the property of the university for twenty-five years. He was bequeathed to the Nonhuman Studies department by Dr. Wilcox himself prior to his death, with the stipulation that the body was to be used for research purposes. He was the subject of a number of experiments in humanity reestablishment in his early days and has been used for observations and class demonstrations for the past fifteen years of his tenure. We have several specimens of this sort at present, of which Dr. Wilcox is the most venerable. It is, of course, impossible to feed these specimens, as the living flesh of humans is required for their sustenance. The specimen you see before you has therefore existed twentyfive years without nourishment, and though you can observe his decrepit state, he is manifestly still very much a danger. Were he by some accident to be let loose among you, you would observe him to call upon the most amazing reserves of speed and strength. Until the head is severed from the body or the brain is destroyed, the animate is a danger. This cannot be stressed highly enough. You will be working with cadavers of this type in your studies at the university, and it is easy to permit familiarity to make you careless. This program loses students to such carelessness every year. We are instituting a new set of safety precautions for this year's class in an effort to avoid this. The University cannot afford a repeat of the incident several years past—you have no doubt heard the stories, or seen the site of the former Nonhuman Physiology wing. But I digress. Were Dr. Wilcox to be allowed his way, he would be able to kill and feed upon dozens of you without slowing. Though he has been twenty-five years without feeding, his capacity is entirely undiminished. He would feed without stopping until no living individuals remained within his reach. When the food supply within this auditorium was exhausted, he would venture forth in search of still greater supplies of food. Despite their extraordinary ability to maintain activity in the absence of feeding opportunities, when given access to prey, an animate will feed almost continuously. There appears to be no reflex for satiety. I have personally observed an animate stuffed with flesh, fresh human organs protruding from its own rotting viscera, chewing into the neck of yet another victim despite its inability to actually swallow the flesh it was macerating. The physiology of the zombie is altered in an extraordinary fashion following a feeding. The natural processes of decomposition and desiccation that wear away at the corpus are halted and actually reversed by the absorption of living flesh into the system. A creature as far destroyed by age as the one you observe before you can be restored to the strength and appearance of a nearly fresh corpse with sufficient infusion of living flesh. The language I have used here is not accidental. The corpse animate is, simply and fundamentally, just that—a corpse. It does not metabolize, it does not have a beating heart or pumping lungs, it does not digest and excrete. Rather it seems to integrate the flesh it consumes into itself. Even animates lacking intact viscera or throats appear to be able to perform this oddity. The precise mechanism by which this occurs remains something of a mystery. Moreover, it is likely to remain a mystery, as experimentation in this vein would require the commission of acts worse than mere murder... To be continued. Written By: Nicole Vega Illustrated By: Trent Thynes