I know this is pretty pathetic. I am a slave to pop culture. And when all this was starting to go down, during the quiet time of Week 1, Charles and I slipped off and had a DVD viewing party. We watched movies like Zombieland and Dawn of the Dead to try to understand what we are dealing with.
I really like Zack Snyder’s take on zombies with all the running and the savagery and it was a really good movie. However, in their version of zombies, they all just clustered at that mall wanting to get at the humans inside. It made for a thrilling escape and was a great movie finale. Thankfully, that is not what we are dealing with. This is one of those instances where Hollywood made a great movie but they got the reality wrong.
Back in the first week of this blog, I discussed alligators and crocodiles. They are opportunistic hunters. Thankfully, zombies are the same way. Case in point, not all of the same zombies that popped up in the area on Day 1 are still in the area. Several of those transformed in those first few hours came along initially and banged on the windows and doors. Truth is some still do that now.
I have this theory that a lot of these zombies are “locals” and have it engrained in their subconscious that Reason’s translates to food and they are showing up on some intuitive level. But they all seem to react the same way. When they realize that they cannot get in, they move on to look for greener pastures. We’ve worked very hard to cover up our visual and auditory presence. In the movie I Am Legend with Will Smith, he often covered up his scent by using some chemical. (Bleach maybe?) I need to look and see if that movie is in the video department. (Yes, I know technically those were vampires but the theory is still solid.)
So the zombies come looking for food. Perhaps they can sense that we are in here and they come up moaning and banging and when they realize that they cannot get in, they shamble on down the road, looking for easier prey.
Therefore, by these observations, I think we can say that zombies are migratory. How do they know where to migrate to? Of that, I cannot be certain. Why do birds just know to fly south for the winter?
Still, it seems clear that zombies’ sight is not nearly as sharp as it is in life. Their hearing appears to be about the same. If I didn’t know better, I would say their sense of smell actually improves (at least when it comes to hunting). Not really certain about touch and taste. But I often wonder if zombies have some sort of ESP to be able to detect flesh and that is why they keep coming up and banging on the doors in the first place.
