Okay, so... I'm the author of a book titled Outbreak: Boston, the first in a series of books set in the beginning stages of an outbreak of a zombie-ish virus. I've sold a few copes of the first book and the second one will (hopefully) be finished by sometime this spring.
I'm really trying to avoid the whole 'social commentary' zombie thing. Or well, I'm trying to downplay any social commentary so...take what you want from the book(s).
That said, I've always had loved zombie movies. I'll never forget the first time I saw the original George Romero 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead. I was about eleven or so at the time and was watching it on the late late incredibly late show one summer night.
I'm sitting there and, being eleven with a hyperactive imagination, I started to think. What if this ever actually happens? I figured that if it did, I'd be one of the first people to know about it. I should explain that if you stand in the front yard of my parents' house and look off to your left a bit, you'll see one of our local cemeteries. My next door neighbors would have probably found out a little quicker as their house is directly across the street from the graveyard.
Gimme a break I was eleven. I was kinda relieved when I found out about those heavy bronze lids they put over the coffins, though.
I also remember the first time I saw 28 Days Later. Holy crap on a stick that movie scared the shit outta me. Not so much because of the 'fast zombies' (okay, more than a little bit because of that. I can only sprint so far, for God's sake!). It was the last part of the movie with the soldiers in the mansion that really freaked me out. I'm not going to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it. Watch it. I'll wait.
You're back? Okay good. Did you enjoy the flick? Cool. Check out the sequel 28 Weeks Later too. Well worth the time.
That part at the end there made me really think about what would be WAY scarier than any zombie (fast or otherwise). How would people handle it? How fast would the shit really hit the fan? And in my book, the scariest thing is not the zombies (they're generally pretty predictable) but what the people around you could be like in that situation.
I'd like to think that most of us would pull together, try and help each other out as best we could. I really hope so. However, there's a segment of the population that would take advantage of the situation to indulge in every horrible urge they'd ever had. Take Hurricane Katrina for example.
Yes, there were heroes. People who stayed behind to look after their elderly neighbors. People who showed up in droves to help pull people off of rooftops. To hand out MREs. People who opened their homes to total strangers in need.
However, there were villains too. The police who opened fire on unarmed people just trying to get out of their flooded homes and their fellow officers that covered it up. The 'military contractors' (a clever euphemism if I've ever heard one) that were guarding a home in New Orleans when a van full of men jumped out with guns. When the dust settled, the Blackwater guys found that the men who attacked them were New Orleans police taking advantage of the situation to go around looting homes left empty by the storm.
That's what I'm trying to reflect in my books. If the dead ever did rise, we'd see humanity at its best and, unfortunately, at its worst.
Anyways, that's all I got for now. Hope you enjoyed the book and I'll post here as often as I can. Check out Outbreak: Boston's Facebook page, as I'll likely put more stuff up there more often than here.
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