Eagle eyed readers might recognise this little laser cut image as a tiny version of the image we did at UPfest last year. I was just seeing how small the laser cutter will reasonably do and how difficult that would be to paint. It turns out it is particularly tricky to paint at that scale.
Anyway, the image is related to a zombie book I’ve written called Skin & Bones that features some zombie pigs and in the spirit of attempting some feeble marketing for it I’m giving it a shameless plug here. If you’re at all interested in the book here’s a little taster of what to expect. Drop me a line if you’d like to give it a read:
This morning you woke up feeling a little unwell. You have no appetite, your head is aching, your throat is sore and you think you might have a slight fever. You don’t know it yet, but the zombie virus has already been working away inside you for a week or so and has been busy attacking your immune system. It’s reached the stage where it’s really about make it’s presence known.
Exactly when and where you were infected is unclear as it can take anything between 21 and 30 days from initial infection to the first proper symptoms. What is more certain is that you are now infectious yourself and have been for a while. Your family, friends and anyone else in close contact with you are all in mortal danger.
The next couple of days will determine if you are one of the lucky few who has some natural resistance and will, at least, survive the infection stage or not. In the highly probable event that you have no resistance then, at some time between 3 and 4 weeks after infection, you can expect the whites of your eyes to turn red, your vomit and diarrhoea will now be charged with infected blood and large blood blisters develop under your skin. You are now at the peak of infectiousness as the virus particles, eager to find their next victim, replicate swiftly inside your body.
What comes next is straight out of a movie. Your brain heats up and you become more aggressive as your mental faculties begin to deteriorate. At some point you’ll become unconscious and then the next time you open your eyes you will no longer be in control of yourself. You are now constantly hungry for human flesh and have the overriding urge to bite someone. Satisfying your cravings is now all your limited intellect can cope with. Congratulations, you are now a zombie.
Calling you a zombie would probably suffice in a pinch but isn’t quite correct however and the term ‘living dead’ would probably seem a better fit. But you won’t care. The virus has made permanent changes. From the second you were infected the grave is your only and eventual way out. At least by that point you’ll have no knowledge of what you’re doing. Just following some of the baser human instincts that have been modified and enhanced. Your end is nigh. Along with just about everybody else’s…
Cheers
id-iom
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