You Might Be a Zombie . . . (33 page)

Of course, those are just rats, right?

How it can result in zombies

Hey, did we mention that half the humans on earth are infected with toxoplasmosis and don’t know it? Maybe you’re one of them. Flip a coin.

If your coin just landed braaaains-side up, you should know that studies have shown that the infected will often see a change in their personality and are more likely to go insane.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse

Humans and rats aren’t all that different. It’s why we use them to test our medications. all it would take to cause a zombie apocalypse is a more evolved version of toxoplasma that could do to us what it does to the rats. So imagine if half the world suddenly had no instinct for self-preservation or rational thought. Even less than they do now, we mean.

If you’re comforting yourself with the thought that it may take forever for such a parasite to evolve, you’re forgetting about all the biological weapons programs around the world busy weaponizing such bugs. You’ve got to wonder if those lab workers don’t carry out their work under the unwitting command of the
Toxoplasma gondii
already in their brains. If you don’t want to sleep at night, that is.

Granted, these people have never been dead and thus don’t fit the exact definition of
zombies
, but we can assure you that the distinction won’t matter a whole lot once the groaning hordes are clawing at your windows.

4. NEUROTOXINS

What are they?

There are certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you’l be considered dead, even to a doctor. The poison from Japanese blowfish can do this.

The victims can then be brought back under the effects of a drug like stramonium (or other chemicals called alkaloids) that leave them in a trancelike state with no memory but still able to perform simple tasks like eating, sleeping, moaning, and shambling around with their arms outstretched.

How it can result in zombies

Can?
How about
does
.

This has already happened in Haiti, where the word
zombie
comes from. Just ask Clairvius Narcisse. He was declared dead by two doctors and buried in 1962. They found him wandering around the vil age eighteen years later. It turned out the local voodoo priests had been using alkaloid-like chemicals found in jimsonweed (or as it’s known in Haiti, zombie’s cucumber) to zombify people and put them to work on the sugar plantations.

So the next time you’re pouring a little packet of sugar into your coffee, remember that it may have been handled by a zombie at some point.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse

On the one hand, it’s already happened, so that earns it some street cred. But even if some evil genius intentional y distributed alkaloid toxins to a population to turn them into a shambling, mindless horde, there is no way to make these zombies aggressive or cannibalistic.

Yet.

3. THE REAL RAGE VIRUS

What is it?

In the movie
28 Days Later
, it was a virus that turned human beings into mindless kil ing machines. In real life, we have a series of brain disorders that do the same thing. They were never contagious, of course. Then mad cow disease came along. It attacks the cow’s brain, turning it into a stumbling, mindless attack cow.

And when humans eat the meat . . .

How it can result in zombies

When humans are infected with mad cow, they cal it Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Check out the symptoms:

• Changes in gait

• Lack of coordination (stumbling and fall ing)

• Muscle twitching

• Myoclonic jerks or seizures

• Rapidly developing delirium or dementia

The sanest guy in the office.

Sure, the disease is rare and the afflicted aren’t known to chase after people in murderous mobs. But it proves widespread brain infections of the rage variety are just a matter of waiting for the right disease to come along.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse

If the whole sudden, mindless violence idea seems far-fetched, remember that you are just one brain chemical (serotonin) away from turning into a mindless kil ing machine. all it would take is a disease that destroys the brain’s ability to absorb that one chemical, and suddenly it’s a real-world
28 Days
Later
.

So imagine such an evolved disease, which we’l cal super mad cow, getting a foothold through the food supply. Say this disease spreads through blood-on-blood contact, or saliva-on-blood contact. Now you have a rage-type virus that can be transmitted with a bite.

With one bite, you’re suddenly the worst kind of zombie: a fast zombie.

2. NEUROGENESIS

What is it?

You know all the controversy out there about stem cel research? well, the whole thing with stem cel s is that they’re basical y used to regenerate dead cells. Particularly of interest to zombologists is neurogenesis, the method by which stem cel s are used to regrow dead brain tissue.

How it can result in zombies

Science can pretty much save you from anything but brain death; doctors can swap out organs, but when the brain turns to mush, you’re gone. Right?

Not for long. They’re already able to regrow the brains of comatose head-trauma patients to the point that they wake up and walk around again. Couple that with the ability to keep a dead body in a state of suspended animation so that it can be brought back to life later, and soon we’l be able to bring back the dead, as long as we get to them quickly enough.

That sounds great, right? well, a German lab dedicated to “reanimation research” has looked into the process of “reanimating” a person and found a small problem. It causes the brain to die off from the outside in. The outside being the cortex, the part that makes humans human. You don’t need the cortex to survive, so that just leaves the part that controls basic motor function and primitive instincts behind.

So you take a brain-dead patient, use these techniques to regrow the brain stem, and you now have a mindless body shambling around, no thoughts and no personality, nothing but a cloud of base instincts and impulses.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to cal a real, live, undead zombie.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse

Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. all it would take for the clock to strike “Ah, zombies!” is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor.

1. NANOBOTS

What are they?

A technology that science engineered to make you terrified of the future. We’re talking about microscopic, self-replicating robots that can invisibly build—

or destroy—anything. Sure, at some level scientists know nanobots will destroy mankind. They just can’t resist seeing how it happens.

How it can result in zombies

Scientists have already created a one-cel nanocyborg, by fusing a tiny silicone chip to a virus. The first thing they found out is that these cyborgs can still operate for up to a month after the death of the host. Notice how nanoscientists went right for zombification, even at this early stage.

According to studies, within a decade they’l have nanobots that can crawl inside your brain and set up neural connections to replace damaged ones.

That’s right; the nanobots will be able to rewire your thoughts. What could go wrong?

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse

Do the math, people.

Someday there will be nanobots in your brain. Those nanobots will be programmed to keep functioning after you die. They can form their own neural pathways and use your brain to keep operating your limbs after you’ve deceased and, presumably, right up until you rot to pieces in midstride.

Of course, when that happens the nanobots would just need to transfer to a new host. Therefore, the last act of the nanobot zombie would be to bite a hole in a healthy victim, letting the nanobots stream in and set up camp in the new host. Once in, they can shut down the part of the brain that resists (the cortex) and leave the brain stem intact. They will have added a new member to the unholy army of the undead.

Look, we don’t want to create a panic here. all we’re saying is that on an actual day on the actual calendar in the future, runaway microscopic nanobots will end civilization by flooding the planet with the cannibalistic undead.

Science says so.

Nathan Birch
(The Ten Most Insane Medical Practices in History, The Five Creepiest Urban Legends That Happen to Be True). In addition to working for Cracked.com, Nathan spends his time writing for top video game sites, producing his own Web comic (www.zoologycomic.com), and hoping he’l never actually have to grow up.

Robert Brockway
(Three Colors You Don’t Realize Are Control ing Your Mind) is an editor and columnist for Cracked.com and the author of
Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead
, a book that is infinitely superior to this one in every way.

He is also fired, just now.

Adam Tod Brown
(Five Horrifying Food Additives You’ve Probably Eaten Today, The Awful Truth Behind Five Items on Your Grocery List) is a freelance editor and comedy writer with skil s often described as “ninja-like.” He holds a master’s degree in street knowledge and drinks from only the finest bejeweled goblets.

Tim Cameron
(The Six Most Terrifying Foods in the World, Four Great Women Buried by Their Boobs) goes by his middle name Nial as a musician, since it’s over 70 percent more pretentious. You can experience Nial ’s stirringly resonant soundcrafts at www.nial -cameron.com
Erica Cantin
(“Michael Bay Directs the News” in Five Stories The Media Doesn’t Want You to Know About) lives in a formerly abandoned castle near the sea, where she and her family sing many a merry shanty.

Rory Colthurst
(Five Wacky Misunderstandings That Almost Caused a Nuclear Holocaust) is a politics student based in London. He started writing when the school system would no longer let him draw pictures, and has never looked back.

Travis Corkery
(Six Terrifying Things They Don’t tell You about Childbirth) is a writer from Anchorage, Alaska. He lives with his wife, Charlene, dog, Volta, and two children, one of which was conceived to research the article that appears in this book.

S. Peter Davis
(The Five Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught in History Class, Four Mythological Beasts That actually Exist) in addition to this sort of thing, churns out reams of unpopular and social y disturbing fiction. He lives alone in Brisbane, Australia, with his two fish, Salmon Rushdie and Marlin Brando.

Jacopo della Quercia
(Numbers 5 to 3 of Five Conspiracies That Nearly Brought Down the U.S. Government) was born to Italian parents, studied Renaissance history in Florence, has taught classes on Dante, Machiavel i, and Renaissance art, believes the past is still alive, writes in code, and died in 1438.

Ben Dennison
(The Four Most Insane Attempts to Turn Nature into a Weapon) writes comedy to pay the bil s. The bil s usually win, but hey, man, that’s cool.

Justin Droms
(Oh the Places You’l Go [When You’re Dead]: Six Insane Things Science Might Do with Your Cadaver) was an editor at Cracked.com for two-and-a-half blood-soaked years. He currently “works” in “marketing” in Washington, D.C.

Robert Evans
(Four Things Your Mom Said Were Healthy That Can Kil You, Five Stories the Media Doesn’t Want You to Know About) has dedicated his life to finding every dick joke in the history of literature.

Tomas Fitzgerald
(Five Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could actually Happen) hails from Western Australia, the savage hel -scape that inspired
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
When he’s not wearing hats adorned with crocodile teeth, Tomas lectures in law at the University of Notre Dame.

Ian Fortey
(Five Awesome Places to Have Sex [and the Horrific Consequences]) is a freelance writer, Cracked.com columnist, and Pisces. He will sleep on your sofa if you let him.

Alexandra Gedrose
(Five Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity Is Doomed) has a strong aversion to bottled water.

Gladstone
(Five Famous Artists Who Didn’t Create Their Signature Creation) is a columnist for Cracked.com and the creator and star of the popular Hate by Numbers video series. His Web site is www.KafkaMaine.com—and stay for awhile?

Christina Hsu
(Five Hollywood Adaptations That totally Missed the Point) is extremely proud of having written part of a book, which she hopes will be the first small stepping stone to her life goal of someday, possibly, if all the stars align, writing half of a book.