The End of the End

I don’t really want the world to go to Hell. I know some of you do – we see you out there, hungry for it, and you scare us. While I’ll pass on the reality (I’m pretty sure a planet on fire would suck just as much as, if not slightly more than, a planet with taxes) it’s always been a fascinating premise to read and write about. A global reset button, the death of status and pretense, a cosmic equalizer. At least until the guys with the ammo and supplies start calling the shots. If you want to be a post-apoc political independent, you’ll need two things: a machete and Twinkies. Lots of Twinkies.

Most of my longer works and many of my short stories deal with apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic scenarios. From the specter of Death clashing with the undead in the Empire books to aliens and robots hunting humans in the upcoming The Harvest Cycle, plotting the end of the world has proven undeniably fun. But what about after the end? Beyond mere survival among ruins still crawling with nasties, what about a post-post-apocalypse era? An end to the End?

Since it’s zombie month here at Horror-Web we’ll stick with the undead. In many zombie tales there is no possibility of an “after” – the zombies are going to win the war, even if they lose a battle here and there, with humanity forever adrift in their wake. This element of ultimate futility and a permanent demotion on the food chain may be one of the genre’s most affecting qualities. But as the zombie niche grows, and storytellers explore the endless possible permutations of Romero’s archetypal ghoul, it’s interesting to consider other outcomes.

The successful extermination of all zombies or the discovery of a cure does seem too clean a resolution to me, but I’d never say it can’t be done. We’ve seen stories in which undead (and infected) starve off. Hell, why not have the desperate dead turn on each other? When co-judging a flash fiction contest for the Midnight Corey podcast, I read “Hunger” by Keith Gouveia in which humans actually turn on the rotters in order to fill their bellies. Any extermination-type outcome would likely be at great cost, and you have to wonder how happy those “saved” would be to inherit civilization’s scraps. Tales such as World War Z see society in recovery but the undead threat still lingering.  That leads us to the question: if we can’t get rid of them, can we coexist? S.G. Browne’s Breathers and Kim Paffenroth’s Dying to Live series explore  concepts of integration, while films like Fido and Shaun of the Dead (at its conclusion, anyway) deal with zombie enslavement . Depending on a PAW’s flavor of living dead, none of these options may seem too comfortable. We’d always be waiting for the other gore-soaked shoe to drop…but without an antivirus or other deus ex machina, would we have any choice but to adapt?

Maybe the enemy have a compromise in mind. How about the total extermination of the living? Perhaps not as much of a stretch as the other way around. Keene’s demon-possessed Rising are certainly working toward that goal. I’ll have a story in Ambrotos Press’s Death, Be Not Proud (Thomas A. Erb, ed.) wherein intelligent zombies have taken over and are intolerant of people. Even if they didn’t have a thought in their head, though, zombies would probably have an easier time getting rid of us than we would them. With mankind as both livestock and a recruitment pool, it’s like being able to enlist cheeseburgers in the military.

Many tales have also dealt with the concept of zombie evolution, and I wonder what that would be like in a world without us. Would they just stand around and decompose or would they begin thinking about something besides eating? Would they become social, territorial? Would they go to war with each other?

Or maybe an advanced extraterrestrial race is watching the zompoc unfold (you know, the same advanced race that plays with our cows and butts), and comes down after humans are gone to claim the planet. They might have the tech to efficiently wipe out the zeds – and, hopefully, a natural resistance to earthly contagions.  With space in mind, humans may just want to flee the planet en masse instead of fighting for it. A new beginning could be found on worlds where we are the aliens.

Now, if you’re willing to (further) suspend disbelief in favor of aliens and interplanetary arks, why not consider summoning up another type of monster to deal with the first? Something robust that can be controlled and is hard to infect, like an army of golems. Hey, trading one problem for another is what we do.

Okay, so it could be I’m overcomplicating matters. Well, perhaps simple insects will be the ones that finish the dead off and seize humanity’s throne. Then millions of years later some beetle terrorist creates a zombie virus and it happens all over again.

Extermination, enslavement, exodus, coexistence or our own extinction…I’m sure none of these directions are unheard of in zombiedom, and I’m always game for new twists on the classic formula. How about you? How do you feel about works that present a resolution to the apocalypse? What’s your favorite of the lot?

http://empirenovel.com

http://daviddunwoody.com