First, I love Cracked. They are one of the websites that will surely be cited if a client ever sues me for "Egregious Use of Company Resources", to which my response will be "I agree, it was a remarkably good use, wasn't it?" Then I will laugh-cry as my lawyer bills me for the time.

Every so often, they run zombie related articles and videos. (Cracked, not the lawyers).

This page is a response to the points raised by the most recent one.

#6 Why Don't Zombies Ever Finish Their Meal?

The premise of this has the underlying assumption that zombies bite people through hunger. And whilst that is one explanation, there is another: aggression.

The human body is not exactly the most weaponised structure that evolution came up with. We lack claws, armour plating, spikes running down our spine or prehensile tails that can lash an enemies eyes out at twenty paces. But we do have a fairly decent set of teeth that are capable of ripping flesh from bone, and getting at the chewy parts with relative ease.

If a zombie lacks the ability to use or comprehend weapons (and let's face it, none of these ex-people are Rhodes scholars) then all it has to attack with are four (fairly blunt) limbs and the cavernous face-hole filled with sharp points. Biting is the Hadouken of the zombie arsenal.

Now sure, you see a lot of zombies in the movies swarm someone as they go down, and they are quite happy to rip out organs and take a bite. But really that chunk of liver is a victory sip from the cup of overkill that is the zombie melee battle. One enemy is taken down, the Victory Dance Of Entrails lasts for a few moments, and then on to the next fight. There simply isn't time to stop and pig out when you lack ranged weaponry and need to shamble close to every assailant. Time is footsteps, zombie-people!

This fits in with the behaviour you see in the movies. A group of zombies eating a corpse will see the upright, walking Happy Meal and fix their sights on him rather than the one they were just gnawing the ribs off of. Killing is a higher priority than eating. Aggression beats Hunger.

Of course, when there are no people around, they could go back and finish eating. But that body has been on the ground for more than five seconds, and eating that off the floor is just so gross, you guys. Or, much like most of the animal kingdom, decomposing bodies just don't taste as good as the fresh kills. It's the reason that those lizard-owning people you met in college had to keep a container of live bugs in the refridgerator. They refused to eat dead bugs. (The lizards, obviously. The lizard-owning weirdos will eat dead bugs with very little prompting.)

#5 Why Are They Chasing The Most Dangerous Game?

Jumping a little into Evolutionary process here, but bear with me.

Zombism spreads through the bites. So a pathogen that spreads via bites will increase the aggression and biting instinct of the host. Makes sense. The pathogens that spread that way but don't increase the biting will simply not spread as quickly.

And the host it needs is a human. Pathogens are notoriously picky when it comes to their living quarters. Whilst species of virus or bacteria that cross the animal barriers seem to be in the news all the time, it is because it is actually a very rare thing to happen. And typically, once they do cross into a new species, they don't go back. Much like how once you drive a car with power steering, you never want to get behind the heavy, awkward death-circle that is attached to a vehicle without it.

Attacking other species could be part of a blanket aggression motivator: the quickest way to increase the biting instinct is to increase the desire to kill every single motherf*cking thing you can lay your hands on. But most animals are smarter than humans in respect to this: they will quickly run away from anything, often regardless of the intent of the "pursuer". Cat owners, try approaching your animal at anything faster than a normal walking pace. Watch them spaz out and evade you like they are an F-16 and you are a Rapier missile with a missing fin.

Aside from the need to spread the pathogen to humans, humans are going to be easier to catch. We have an instinctual need to help other injured humans, and so every time you see someone in a movie approach a zombie going "Ben...Ben, what's wrong?" you can shout at the screen all you want about how that is unrealistic. But part of human nature is to give aid to those who are sick and in pain, rather than just yell "**** you, I'm outta here!"

Thanks, Neanderthals.

#4 How Do They Know Anything?

This is a question about zombie senses rather than memory. Zombie movies love to give the zombies white contact lenses to make the zombies look unnatural, and this is often taken as cateracts, or damage to the corneas rendering the zombie blind.

And so how can a blind zombie chase you down the street?

Moreover, it says that the hearing and smell must be as bad as the eyesight, and getting wose with time as the zombie decomposes. So how can they find their prey?

Now this I will concede as a point that zombie movies do have stupid things in them. White eyes being one. But, taking that into account, if the zombie pathogen causes physiological changes that include the White Eyes, it could cause others, yes?

One option is electromagnetic field sensitivity. There are plenty of animals in nature that have a better EMF sense than we do. But there are a few humans who are apparantly susceptible to EMF. Since every animal including humans generates an EMF signature, this could be one way for zombies to track prey.

The other option is infra-red, or heat vision. Now, normally we can't view this because it is beyond our senses. IR sits just above red on the frequency scale. But there are reports of people who can see UV wavelengths after having their corneas removed. UV sits on the other side of the frequency scale. And why were these people having their corneas removed? Cateracts!

So, maybe the reason for the cateracts is to thicken the cornea and allow human eyes to visualise IR waves. This would enable them to track prey at night, at the expense of the colour spectrum humans use. And really, how often does a zombie need to look at paint swatches for the living room?

As an addition, corpses would give off neither heat, nor EMF. So those bodies from point #5 would be a lot less visible just a few minutes/hours after they were killed. Two points with one explanation.

#3 Where Does The Food Go?

Bit of a gross mental image, but it is true, Everybody Poops. Even those bodies that are zombified.

Now here, Ian Fortey does reference WWZ and the exploding stomachs. But in the context of "Why don't movies show pooping zombies, or large steaming piles of zombie poop?" I think it is more a case of "Because few filmmakers have a desire to shoot actors sh*tting themselves" and those that do have very niche markets they are selling to.

Also, if the altered physiology does make use of the flesh to keep the muscles going, there may not be much left to come out the other end. And what does come out is likely getting caught in the pants legs of zombies rather than leaving piles in the streets. That zombie smell isn't all decomposition, folks.

#2 Can You Really Cure That?

Most zombie pathogens are virii, and as such a cure is not really the right word. A vaccination to prevent zombism is probably what they mean.

After all, with the extensive bite wounds, blood loss, damaged tissue and reduced brain function, I doubt you are going to be able to bring a zombie back to life, even if you eliminate the pathogen completely. Maybe in 100 years when cellular regeneration is a lot more advanced. But for now, any zombie you bring back would be at best, a drooling vegetable. At worst, a leaky flesh-sack only fit for compost.

#1 Then What?

I agree with this. Zombie movies never show the aftermath. And the reason is that it would be depressing as hell. With all the humans dead, the zombies would slowly disintegrate and then the world would be without humanity at all. The cities would be reclaimed by the plants and forests. Animals wouldn't have to cope with deforestation, culling, slaughterhouses and the like. They could live wild and find equilibrium with nature. The planet would stabilise and become a utopia.

How depressing is that? The hippies would be proven right! **** that.