Janiece | June 13, 2007 10:33 AM

Nice photo-shoppery. I have a neighbor I suspect is an undead-American, although I think he gnaws his brains in the closet.

Now I have to get back to my job, engineering something or other...or perhaps I'll just play with my undead-American dog. He's not as spry as he used to be, though.

T.M. Wagner | June 13, 2007 10:33 AM

You're just trying to get out of going to the creation "museum." Next you'll be telling us you've discovered a gateway to Narnia in your pantry.

We weren't born yesterday, you know!

Steve Buchheit | June 13, 2007 11:05 AM

Janiece, ooo a closeted zombie!

JonathanMoeller | June 13, 2007 11:07 AM

It's been a bad day. The end of civilization always gets me down.

Fortunately, I had to foresight to stock up on ammunition, Bibles, and silver-plated katanas before the 2006 elections.

Shawn Powers | June 13, 2007 11:09 AM

I must say, that's really a great job with Photoshop. I'm normally passively amused with Photoshoppery, but I'm genuinely creeped out. Nicely done. Ya weirdo.

John Scalzi | June 13, 2007 11:09 AM

I didn't do it -- the folks at SFSignal did.

Janiece | June 13, 2007 11:12 AM

Steve, outing a closet zombie without their permssion is really bad form - were you raised by wolves?

Jeremiah | June 13, 2007 11:12 AM

mmmmm braaaaaainsssss

Steve Buchheit | June 13, 2007 11:17 AM

Janiece, I was raise by chipmonks. They have no propriety.

And only tiny lee-ttle brainz. Like buffalo wings, but for zombies.

Matt Jarpe | June 13, 2007 11:19 AM

I'm looking forward to your visit to Zombie Creation Museum. I hear they have a great exhibit showing how God created Adam, then ate him. He only had one rib left so he created Eve, then ate her. It took him several tries to leave the people alone long enough to get them to breed. The zombie dinosaurs didn't help either. Four thousand years and now he finally has enough people to fill his Godlike appetite.

Janiece | June 13, 2007 11:30 AM

I wonder if the Zombie T-Rexes were eating rotton coconuts?

Michelle K | June 13, 2007 11:31 AM

Waaah!

I am totally afeared of zombies! Now I'll have to avoid Whatever because a zombie may come crashing through my monitor to eat my brains!

(hides)

Nathan | June 13, 2007 11:36 AM

Now, Matt,

Don't go bringin' eeeeevolution into the discussion. Next thing ya know, some bastard's gonna start posting shit and sucking all the fun outa this thread too.

And I mean "bastard" in the strictly pejorative sense, so don't anyone go and get all literal on me.

John, Congrats on your new un-dead status. Just think. Now, when you make appearances, you can just leave your arm on the table and let your fans take care of shaking hands themselves. This should ease your workload by tons!

Sam Taylor | June 13, 2007 11:45 AM

Mmm... brains... I could use a spare one of those.

Sam | June 13, 2007 11:52 AM

Has anyone read the book "World War Z" (Z is for zombie if you havent figured it out)its pretty good.

Julia | June 13, 2007 11:57 AM

I've been a zombie for a year. Over a year, really. I even have the copy of the Z-grade movie where I kill and eat one of the main characters to prove it.

Unfortunately, the trailer seems to have disappeared off YouTube. Sad.

chang, myspacier than ever! | June 13, 2007 11:58 AM

I is can be zombie psycophant of da Scalzi.

mmmmmdabrainzzzisggoooodddddauwaagrghahgrgehrr.

Smith | June 13, 2007 12:26 PM

I didn't believe in zombies until I moved to the city.

Jennifer | June 13, 2007 01:00 PM

You're just trying to get out of going to the creation "museum."

Hah, I thought the same thing. Only Zombie Jesus gets into the Creation Museum...

theWallflower | June 13, 2007 01:08 PM

That sure isn't a pleasant surprise on the daily blog checkings.

Kate | June 13, 2007 01:09 PM

May God have mercy on us all...

Updates are still pouring in, but you can get the gist of my story on my blog.

Stay safe, and shoot to kill.

Jim Wright | June 13, 2007 01:09 PM

Oh, please, Scalzi, you aren't fooling anybody. The blood on your face is red. Red blood is oxygenated, indicating living tissue.

Hmmmmm, unless of course, it's not your blood? Dammit, Scalzi, did you eat the neighbors? Actually I can see that, here in Alaska, but I thought Ohio was civilized - mostly.

Kate | June 13, 2007 01:13 PM

Omg. I got soo excited to write something, I didn't even read the directions.

I suck so badly its not even funny. :(

Jim Wright | June 13, 2007 01:28 PM

Stay safe, and shoot to kill.

Uh, Kate? The Zombies are already dead. Better idea would be "Shoot to Destroy." Zombies are reanimated dead tissue, each part is it's own creature (surely you've seen severed zombie arms pulling themselves along by fingertip?). Incineration is best - I recommend homemade flame-throwers, utilizing environmentally friendly bio-diesel or corn-based methanol napalm.

Patrick | June 13, 2007 01:39 PM

There are directions for a Zombie Apocalypse?

Espana Sheriff | June 13, 2007 01:39 PM

Sam: World War Z is *excellent*-the submarine stuff alone is worth it.

The Walking Dead comic is also very good.

Kate | June 13, 2007 01:42 PM

Yeah Jim.

Just give me the dumbass award for my participation in Zombie Day.

For some reason, the idea just popped into my head for the plague - like zombification (which to me is a hell of a lot scarier) when I saw Scalzi's picture because largely his head was still intact. Instead of the dead rising from the grave, (Which seems kinda campy) So that's what I wrote.

I laughed at "Shaun of the Dead" before it became horribly gross, and didn't laugh at "28 Days."

I read the first three paragraphs of the 'rules' and then went keyboard crazy, only to find out that the dead should have been rising. Dammit.

Although, you know if a zombie is coming at ya, who cares where it came from. (and for the record, I don't think I've received as many frantic calls from my family as I did today.)

So I accomplished... something.

Carol Elaine | June 13, 2007 01:53 PM

The hordes have come to JPL.

Still, Scalzi, don't think you're not going to the Creation Museum. I don't care how undead you might be...

Kristy | June 13, 2007 02:37 PM

But, Jim Wright, blood gets oxygenated as soon as it hits the air. So you need to check the blood on his *insides* to be sure.

Smith | June 13, 2007 03:12 PM

So take a moment to check the color of the spatters on the opposite wall as you pump round after ineffectual round into him as he shambles ever closer...

Norwegian Woodsman | June 13, 2007 03:42 PM

The enemy! The enemy is hear! I used to like your writing before you turned all undead on me, but now I fear that we have become arch-enemies. You're people have been keeping my family on their roof the entire day. Suddenly racial segregation seems highly appropriate ;)

Pablo Defendini | June 13, 2007 03:45 PM

So even though our house is pretty defensible, we still almost got overrun this morning. Whod've thought they'd try to get in through the skylight?!

I told my roommates a couple of weeks ago that we should spend that extra house fund money on a nice stash of chainsaws, shotguns, and maybe a lawnmower or two. Y'know, just in case.

But noooo, they wanted an air conditioner for the TV room, cause it gets hot in the summer, waaah. So we did that, but I went ahead and got myself a small machete and an electric pruner anyways, which I keep strategically stashed under my bed.

Who's laughing now, bitches?

Annalee Flower Horne | June 13, 2007 03:57 PM

Your 'all the cool authors' comment reminds me of that song from the Discworld game:

"The best and the brightest
have already died!
Why not simply join them--
on the other side?

That's death!
No need to take a breath..."

The mechanics are holding your zombie breatheren off here in the shop--they told me to stay in the office and keep on filing (paperwork stops for no apocolypse, after all).

Chris | June 13, 2007 04:32 PM

Hardware rental store => Whisper Chipper®: check.

Fifty-mumble gallon fuel tank, filled, plus hose/siphon: check.

Cheesewire or piano wire: check.

NEXT!


C'mon, people. This isn't rocket science, nor do
you need to be Dr. McNinja to handle this.

I offer condolences to the formerly living artist known as John Scalzi and support to his family and next of kin... and to his- oh no, not the cats, GOD, NOT THE CATS!!


<aaarrggghl*>

cherie priest | June 13, 2007 04:36 PM

I can't figure out if I am made of awesome or if I'm sort of a heel ... my dad just frantically called me asking if I'm okay.

Heh.

Espana Sheriff | June 13, 2007 04:51 PM

Cherie: both! lol :)

G. Jules | June 13, 2007 05:26 PM

Kate: From the posts I've read, there seems to be a wide variety of possible zombie apocalypses (apocolai?). I read yours this morning, and of the posts I've read, I think it was the one that most made me think about how terrifying the zombie apocalypse really would be.

Hope your family wasn't *too* terribly worried by that post!

Jon R | June 13, 2007 05:28 PM

Well, ok, I suppose a Zombie Jesus explains the whole "rising from the dead thing", but if God's son is indeed undead, does this make the 2nd coming less likely? Or more? And are we still blaming this situation on the Jews?

Jeri Merrell | June 13, 2007 05:43 PM

Zombie Jesus is a Futurama reference - I learned about it from my teens which makes me SOOOO uncool.

And... will there be zombie cats today too? That would be... interesting. ;)

Rachel Brown | June 13, 2007 06:09 PM

Re: zombie pets: http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/

Sam Taylor | June 13, 2007 06:24 PM

Food for thought... er.. brains?
Zombie music!

zombie song "eat your brains"
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/re-your-brains

kill the zombies spn
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PCM4HNuFbx0

50,000 volts survive zombies
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ynXBMgLEbM

Jon H | June 13, 2007 07:48 PM

I'm not a zombie, but I am zombie-curious.

Espana Sheriff | June 13, 2007 07:49 PM

Oh dear... thanks for the heads up on this one Scalzi. Not only an perfect-for-the-internets zombie experience but I have gotten almost zero work done. Win!

Jim Wright | June 13, 2007 07:57 PM

Kristy ...you need to check the blood on his *insides* to be sure... ooooh! A science chick, and blood-thirsty too! My kind of girl. How are you with a flame-thrower?

Kidding, of course. My wife is even more bloody-minded, only it's my blood she's minding - and most likely to spill. (Hey! that's good! Anybody wants to turn that into a C&W song, give me credit and it's yours).

Brendan | June 13, 2007 08:03 PM

Tell him to come out of the closet!

Carol Elaine | June 13, 2007 08:13 PM

Still hanging in there. It's been a rough day.

wil | June 13, 2007 08:30 PM

"All the cool authors are zombies now."

Can I play? Does this count?

Stephen Granade | June 13, 2007 09:06 PM

Living near an Army arsenal that was once used to make and store chemical munitions probably explains why we're being overrun by the post-dead.

Hibryd | June 14, 2007 10:45 AM

This will be an excellent chance to test out that Straight Dope column, which sought to answer the question "After the zombies take over, how long does the power stay on?"

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mzombiepower.html