Monster Island

The second week of class dealt with the theme of zombies. Originally derived from ancient African and Haitian voodoo beliefs, zombies were reanimated corpses, brought back to life by way of witchcraft and sorcery. Nowadays, perhaps because of the times we live in, zombie stories tend to go for a more epidemic or virus type of explanation.

At least that was the case in this week’s 2004 blog novel by David Wellington titled Monster Island. In this story set in a modern post-apocalyptic Earth, the world’s big economic powers have all crumbled, and some viral disaster in the recent months has created a global population of zombies who fiend insatiably for satisfying their hunger for flesh…specifically live human flesh. The main character Dekalb, is an American and ex United Nations weapon inspector who was stuck in a Somali refugee camp with his seven year old daughter Sarah, with a number of other survivors. At the time, Somalia is controlled by Mama Halima a woman commander in chief with a national army comprised of mostly girl child soldiers. Due to his knowledge of New York City, Dekalb is forced to leave his daughter in the care of the Somali army, and mission out to New York by boat with a team of girl soldiers to find some medicine for Halima who apparently had been infected with aids. Because of the scarce supply of aids medication in Africa, Dekalb’s knowledge of New York City was there best and fastest option. After arriving in the city, Wellington describes, in an almost graphic novel type of way, the visuals of street battles, gore, blood, a.k-47 rifles and zombie body parts, as the group made their way through the city to complete their mission. The novel also goes back and forth between the simultaneous storyline of Gary, an ex med student living in New York who had recently made himself into a zombie because of his fear of being the only one around who wasn’t. This was a very interesting and particular aspect of Wellington’s work which was nice because it gives a perspective from a zombie who has kept his conscience and is dealing with the struggle of his new undead existence.

I’m not a particular fan of the zombie theme, but as a way of understanding the rise in popularity, maybe it’s an attempt at speculations of possible futures for humanity where the field of science, which in reality is advancing incredibly fast every day and has been used for horrible experiments, gave way to the rise of mindless flesh eating freaks. I just think a lot of people have a thing for fantasizing about being in dangerous situations, but its not the same to tell a story than to live it, I bet it wouldn’t be so fun if tomorrow’s news told you about the arrival of real live zombies in a city near you…or real dead I mean.