The first encounter

The end of Day 1 was probably the hardest thing to do in a story like this: introducing the zombie. It’s a very challenging thing, to introduce a monster that’s such an iconic part of horror culture, in a way that seems believable. And even bothering to do so, you have to ask, why bother? Because when you sit down to watch a “…of the Dead” flick, or buy a zombie book, you know what you’re getting into. The first time you see a guy kind of shambling around, you and your friends all point “LOOK! ZOMBIE” and that’s that; the action moves on.

Taking this logic a step further, it’s hard to imagine creating characters that haven’t seen or heard of zombies. The concept is too much a part of modern culture to justify a reaction of confusion. “It died, then got back up? What…what should we call this strange phenomenon?” does not come off as believable. No one buys it, because we have a word for that, and that word is zombie (or Jesus, depending on your preference).

So I had to think of a way to introduce the horror element without the characters just falling back onto “Well I saw this in a movie” and still leaving some doubt there; that’s why I chose the party setting (D1 P3-4). A party already has some elements of insanity: people do things they don’t remember in the morning, everyone is likely drinking alcohol, etc. Then a fight breaks out: a common party occurance, and everyone reacts in kind. Except something about “the other guy” seems a little off, and the fight goes bad.

But before anyone can really THINK or confirm what they think they just saw, the cops show up, and the characters do what’s natural. It’s only some time later that they can really discuss what went on, and all they have are their memories: clouded by darkness and alcohol, they’re just left with a feeling that something bad went down. Only after additional encounters with the zombie can they be certain that they have an idea of what’s going on.