They're Out There
Humanity has pushed planet Earth to its limits-over population, endless wars, total disregard for the natural world and the very biosphere that supports life, pollution, mindless consumption, greed, and environmental exploitation.
The demise of humanity is two prongs: it comes from the ocean depths, the birth place of life, in the form of contaminated benthic sediment inadvertently dredged up by commercial fishermen, and an ancient subterranean lake teeming with alien bacteria that's discovered in a long-abandoned mine thousands of feet below the surface. It is a bacterium that predates the first terrestrial life forms that evolved from their aquatic cradles; reaching back to a dark, primordial period long before dinosaurs would roam the planet.
Scientists dub the virus spawned by this bacterial contamination 'Keres'. According to ancient Greek myth, Keres were female spirits of violent or cruel death, including death in battle, by accident, murder or ravaging disease. They personified epidemic diseases, haunting plague-riven places, perceived as evil spirits released from Pandora's box as a parasitic plague upon humanity. Keres is Earth's retaliatory response to abuse inflicted upon it for far too long.
Humanity must ante up or fold.
Caught up in this burgeoning maelstrom is Desmond; a middle-aged man trapped in an emotional labyrinth of depression, loneliness and empty nest so much so that he is immune from the grisly reality where the ranks of reanimates grows exponentially every day. Grieving the loss of his wife, Kendra, familial separation, haunted by shades and specters of years gone by and a life where he served a useful purpose. Added to this melancholia is Desmond's growing contemptuous resentment of the digital twenty-first century, making zombies the least of his interests or concerns. For him a broken heart is far more devastating than a world being consumed by millions of ravenous reanimates.
Zombies have existed long before Keres burst upon the world. Their humble origins began as West African slaves working under brutal conditions in the sugar cane fields of nineteenth century Haiti and voo-doo was their faith, which they brought with them. Death was only a continuation of enslavement.
While voo-doo is the dark ritual of reanimating a cadaver, technology is largely to blame for causing modern day zombies; supplicants, addicts, enticed and eventually enslaved to their bocor: the smart phone, its minion devices and the unplumbed depths of social media. The result is the phone zombie - a mindless shambling consumer whose legions grow exponentially, tapping, swiping and texting themselves into oblivion. Admit it - you've seen them. Go ahead, deny their existence even though you may be one of them....and they're out there
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