I wasn’t sure if I’d make it, and it was a pretty close call at times, but I managed to survive 8 hours of solidly playing Resident Evil 5 and drinking vast tonnes of caffeine. We showed those zombies who was boss. And as some sort of a reward I had lots of scary screwed up dreams about zombie invasions, and being eaten by a giant alligator. As a result I feel like shit today. Some sort of video game and fizzy pop induced hangover. That and a constant paranoia that zombies may be lurking around my house. Something has happened to my brain to regress it back to being 8 years old. I’ve always suffered from unnecessary paranoia about fictional creatures. I had a ridiculously irrational fear till I was about 5 that Dracula lived in cracks in the walls and floors and would get me if I stepped on them. A completely irrational fear you might think. There is no way Dracula would hide in such tiny spaces because a) he’s NOT REAL and b) he’s NOT BULIMIC. Even if he could fit, how on Earth would he get that whopping great cape in there? You may also have played the dodge the crack game, but when I played it, it felt like a whole new level of danger and the occasional misstep would cause huge amounts of tears of fear. Tears of fear sound like a poor 80’s tribute band. Or a zombie version of an 80’s tribute band at least. Although how they would play the instruments with their lack of co-ordination or mental capacity is beyond me.
That is of course if they are traditional Romero zombies, which are the proper ones. The ones in Resident Evil 5 are a bit cheaty in that they ride motorbikes and can run fairly fast. Not that zombies are real, but if they were they’d clearly be slow and unable to do that. Especially in the UK where they’d all be so unhealthy when alive that there is no way that dead they would get faster. I like to think this in case of an impending zombie attack so I can at least hope that I might get some escape by running away. I have read several cases for why each type of zombie are better. I think enthusiasts prefer the slow originals to the new and improved for purely selfish reasons. Its because if the existed it would be hard to out run the new, improved zombies. The old zombies however would be ace. You could run just a little way ahead of them then point and laugh. Get your friends over to point and laugh. Put videos up on YouTube of you pointing and laughing. Generally, a lot of pointing and laughing fun. The best way to tell if your zombie is a mark 1 old shit slow zombie or a mark 2 removes all stains zombie is to challenge it to a race. If it says ‘oh no, but I’m so slow’ and just trudges along, with you having to wait for it by the finish line you’ve made out of your jumper and someones dismembered arm, then its a Romero zombie. If however before you’ve even said ‘GO!’ its pounced on you, ripped your esophagus out and you are now slowly being infected with a virus that will turn you into the undead, then its a mark 2 and you’re an idiot for challenging it to a race. You should have run away and hidden somewhere with a shotgun in tow. DO YOU KNOW NOTHING?
There were two bits in particular that ruined me last night. One was when I had no ammo and had to run in circles to escape a zombie with a sack on his head and a massive chainsaw, while Mat shot at him from a distance. That was not nice. The other was being eaten by a giant crocodile. That was also not nice. I am now completely on edge today. Pulling back the shower curtain this morning took some serious courage. Shower curtains are notorious for housing monsters. Its like they have some sort of deal with them. I’m not really sure what they get out of it. Perhaps for every vampire/zombie/ghost/serial killer they hide, they get the promise of being set free on the open sea to live the rest of their lives as rudimentary rafts for things that don’t weigh much. The worst case of shower curtain monsterage is in The Shining, in Room 217 (Room 237 in the film). If you haven’t read it, I won’t ruin it for you, but lets just say its truly truly terrifying. So terrifying that once, when leaving Mat’s house late at night I just hinted that he should watch out for the shower curtain when he goes into his bathroom, and he couldn’t wash for days. I say couldn’t, its also possible he just didn’t wash because he is skanky, but I like to believe it was fear induced. We are very bad at doing that to each other. Once, when we were about 18 we went to a friend’s birthday that took place in a night club in Hertfordshire that is the sort of place you would only wish on your enemies. Terrible music, the sort of clientele usually found only in prisons and large spaces on the dance floor. We were staying at Mat’s mum’s house in Hitchin, but were at least three miles away and didn’t have much cash. Taking a gamble we decided to get a cab as far as it would take us. Unfortunately £13 didn’t take us very far and we got left on the side of a country lane, at 2am, in the middle of nowhere. Then followed constant pointing out of dodgy looking shadows, lots of shouting sudden noises to scare the other and as many horrible possibility stories as we could ie. what would you do if 30 zombies appeared right there and tried to eat your face off? It started being quite funny but eventually we spooked each other out so much we found ourselves running back at top speeds.
Re-reading that has now got me unnecessarily scared too. I’ve got another night off today. I was meant to be gigging in Manchester but with no one to take up there I didn’t want to do 8 hours of driving. Not only that but I actually can’t afford the petrol by myself. So here I am, broke, at home and scared of zombies. There are times when I have no option but to be completely disappointed in myself. I’m going to go and sit in my cupboard with a shotgun and await the apocalypse.
