The Zombie Book. Nick Redfern

also: AIDS, Alien Infection, Alien Virus, Creutzfeld-Jacobs Disease, Infection, Spanish Flu

      There can be absolutely no doubt at all that the most lethal part of the zombie is its head. Aside from the fact that the head just happens to be home to a zombie’s vicious mouth—from which an infectious, and usually fatal, bite is invariably delivered—the head has the ability to keep on living and snapping even if, or when, it is severed from its decaying body. The only surefire way to ensure that a zombie stays down forever is to penetrate its brain—either with a bullet or two or a sharp and deadly object.

      Few people realize, however, that centuries before the fictional zombies of television and cinema infected the imaginations of people here, there, and pretty much everywhere, the severed heads of the dead were spreading deadly disease in the real world. It was the ruthless and deadly Mongol Empire—which rose to prominence under the rule of the maniacal Genghis Khan—that came up with a novel, and admittedly horrific, way to defeat and kill their sworn enemies. And it was a method most famously put to outstandingly good use way back in 1347.

      At the time in question, the Mongols were engaged in a violent confrontation with the people of Caffa, an ancient city located in the Ukraine. It transpired that this was the very same timeframe in which a dreaded plague that became known as the Black Death had taken a decisive and deadly grip on the landscape. It was a plague that went on to kill around 200 million Europeans between 1348 and 1350, and took its name from the hideous blackening of the skin that was caused by massive and unstoppable hemorrhaging. Always on the lookout for new and novel ways to exterminate the enemy, the Mongols had a sudden (no pun intended) brainwave.

       Peter Breughel’s painting The Triumph of Death captures the horrors of a Europe caught in the grip of the bubonic plague.

      Carefully protecting themselves from the risk of infection as best they could, the Mongols sought out the corpses of the infected dead, and then quickly and decisively severed head from body. The decapitated heads were then placed into huge catapults and shot across the sky, over the surrounding walls of the city, and right into the heart of bustling Caffa. Even in death, history has graphically demonstrated that the Black Death could still be quickly spread. And, indeed, in no time at all, the heads of the infected ensured that the people of Caffa—the arch-enemies of the Mongols—soon became victims of the deadly virus.

      For those who think that the only hazardous head of the dead kind is to be found on-screen or in the pages of a novel or comic book, it’s time to think again.

       Black Dogs

       See also: Berwyn Mountains Zombie Dogs, Chupacabras, Zombie Dogs of Texas

      In the 2007 movie I Am Legend, Will Smith’s character—Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville—comes under attack from a vicious pack of zombified dogs. While Neville survives the onslaught unscathed, his own dog, a German Shepherd named Samantha, does not. With shocking speed, she transforms into one of the crazed, barking dead. Similar hounds of the dead appear in the Resident Evil series, too. Of course, zombie dogs are just the stuff of horror fantasy, aren’t they? Just maybe, they are not.

      Within British folklore and culture of centuries past, one of the most feared of all supernatural beasts was the so-called phantom black dog. Typically the size of a small pony and with a pair of blazing eyes—often described as looking like red hot coals—the creepy canine was feared all across the land. The names of these infernal beasts varied widely and wildly according to locale, and include Padfoot, Black Shuck (which takes its name from an old English word, “scucca,” meaning “demon”), Skriker, and the Girt Dog.

      According to some of the ancient traditions, the black dogs were the reincarnated, supernatural forms of recently deceased people. And, if someone was to encounter a black dog on a lonely and isolated stretch of road, late on the proverbial dark and stormy night, it meant only one terrible thing: the fiendish hound would soon be coming for the soul of the witness or that of a family member or close friend. So, what you may ask, does this all have to do with zombies? Well, consider the lore and traditions surrounding the phantom black dogs. A person dies, then very soon thereafter returns from the grave in monstrous form and fashion, and has only one goal on its mind: to take the lives of the living. Sound familiar? It should!

       Black Sheep

      Making a highly watchable zombie movie that combines chills with laughs is not always the easiest thing in the world to successfully achieve. Shaun of the Dead was right on target, as was Zombieland. A further movie that falls into this particular category is Black Sheep, a 2006 production that was shot in the green and pleasant pastures of New Zealand. Or, rather, they are green and pleasant for a while. They soon become very unpleasant pastures, however, ones that are soaked and saturated in pint upon pint of human blood.

      Transforming a healthy looking person into a violent, killer zombie is not a difficult task: make-up, ragged clothes, and near-endless amounts of fake blood work absolute wonders when placed in the right hands. In Black Sheep, however, the zombies are not people. They are, as you may have surmised from the title of the movie, sheep. Nevertheless, the company that handled the special-effects, Weta Workshop—one that also played a major role in the production of The Lord of the Rings movie-series and the television series Xena: Warrior Princess—did a fine job of turning the usually meek and mild animals into crazed, four-legged killers.

      As is so very often the case in zombie movies, the cause of all the death and destruction is bizarre, and fringe-based, medical experimentation, coupled with reckless, mad scientist-style genetic tinkering. In short, the sheep find that blissfully munching on the lush grass of New Zealand just doesn’t cut it for them anymore. With their bodies, DNA, and make-up wildly altered, the woolly ones develop a distinct taste for human flesh.

      Just as is the case when a person is bitten by a human zombie, after being chomped on by a savage and infected sheep, it’s best to be put out of one’s misery before the unstoppable mutation into a killer corpse begins. The main reason being that not only does the victim become zombified, they also transform into a bizarre creature that is, in essence, half-human and half-sheep. Sheebies, rather than zombies, as one might perhaps be inclined to call the infected abominations. Or maybe we should call them Baaaabies.

      As Black Sheep progresses, we are treated to a great deal of dark hilarity, horror, and death as the cast, one by one, succumbs to the bleat of the dead. We also learn that the deranged soul who is responsible for all of the death and tragedy has a personal interest in sheep that goes a little too far than most of us would consider appropriate, if you see what I mean. The psychotic sheep, showing that they are not just the relatively simple numbskulls that most of us assume them to be, don’t just take out their rage on people. A sheepdog, one that has made their lives a living hell by constantly herding them back and forth from field to farm, also becomes a victim of the whitest, fluffiest zombies of all time. We know this, as in the final moments of the movie the dog utters not a typical bark but a definitive and ominous bleat.

      The sheep apocalypse: coming soon to a field near you. Maybe.

       Body Snatchers

       See also: Alien Abductions