The Stiff: Chapter 4: Page 153
I always agreed with Lucy’s point about brain-eating zombies. Even in “Return of the Living Dead,” you don’t actually see any (many) zombies walking around with their brains hanging out.
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That point never occurred to me! I did always wonder how zombies can eat and eat and never excrete. Perhaps the zombie virus (or whatever activating agent is responsible for the undead condition) gives the host a super-efficient digestive system, burning up almost 100% of all consumed material? The resulting energy powers the zombie’s body, much as a galvanic battery can make a frog’s leg twitch. But none of the energy goes into cell repair or replacement, so eventually even the “freshest” zombie will fall apart…..
It probably doesn’t enrich the world’s knowledge for me to mention this, but I *have* read a handful of ‘defecating zombies’ stories (well… stories where the zombies defecate… I haven’t seen one so far where that’s the main *purpose* of the zombies. -_- ). However, I can’t remember any names other than Hugh Howey’s excellent “I, Zombie.” That’s not counting “living zombie” stories like 28 Days Later, of course, in which one can assume that the zombies defecate. In John Ringo’s 28-Days-esque series “Black Tide Rising,” one of the side effects of the weaponized zombie virus is that, in the early stages, the ‘zombies’ take all their clothes off, a viral adaptation so they don’t die later of infections caused by impacted bowel in their pants. Clearly realism can go too far… -_-
This discussion about the bodily functions of zombies dredged up a few long-forgotten stories: Edward R. Bryant’s “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned” which reveals more than you want to know about the sexual habits of the recently deceased; and Stephen King’s “The Night Flyer”, with its unseen Nosferatu urinating a stream of blood.
Okay, I’ll stop now..
I have done some speculation on the matter. And since in the reanimated dead, their infection not only gets things going, it keeps it going for awhile they don’t need their organs since the infection that permeates their tissues need it. Why I was shocked when in Romero’s film “Day of the Dead” we are told they don’t eat for nourishment, just out of a compulsion, which didn’t make sense to me. I just say that the infection needs new tissue and blood to feed on even though it can’t function well in a healthy body. (Too hot.) Yet it is in a dormant state or is held at bay by the normal immune responses and once you die it takes over. In the uncut “Land of the Dead” we see a person who hanged himself and came back. That secret in “The Walking Dead” hinted at till we see one of their own die by other means then get back up to bite. The infectious agent is everywhere. Too bad in most of them we don’t see it happen to other animals, at least mammals would be nice. SyFy had a zombie tiger in one which was great.
No excretion of anything obvious except on the skin and tissues which may or may not help in slowing down or even stopping the decay which is after all done by bacteria. But if that bacteria can’t survive then the tissues could last for a very long time.
It would be terrible indeed if one or more of them had all of their brains reactivated by mutant strains of the unknown cryptic infection. How horrible to be conscious of what you must do to maintain your “health.” Raw meat, not necessarily human, but still.
Resident Evil has its own way and we have seen in the game and the movies that the T-Virus necrots are evolving to become better hunters. from the Magini mandibles to greater strength and speed are happing in situ in the infected.
If I remember correctly, a zombie deer shows up in the movie “Slither”. Also, you would think that one of the side effects of a zombie plague would be hordes of undead mosquitoes and fleas. In that case, you wouldn’t need a human vector at all! Nature would take care of everything.
I am not saying “no one does” I am saying usually they don’t. Too hard I think. There was a cat and a dog in “Night Of the Creeps.” Extraterrestrial bio-weapons. We see a zombie alien too on the ship in the beginning on the run. Notice his milky eyes. And of course in Resident Evil. The skinless dogs…But then the T-virus is powerful.