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ZOMBIES VERSUS VAMPIRES

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When a horror-buff friend learned I was doing a book about zombies, he remarked, “Well, you know, zombies are pretty much like vampires. They both need to feed on human blood.”

I agreed that zombies “are pretty much like vampires” in the films after George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and the dozens of zombie movies that were spawned by that single low-budget, black-and-white, independent production.

“But,” I stressed, “this is a book about real zombies, the undead that lie in their graves until they are summoned to serve their masters as mindless slaves. There are some stories of zombies that attack people on the orders of their masters; there are many accounts of dark side Voodoo sorcerers having been responsible for peoples’ deaths; but I know of no accounts where shuffling zombies hunted humans to eat them. And no one becomes a zombie after having been bitten by a zombie—though a tetanus shot would certainly be in order.”

It is quite easy to see how in centuries past the undead—whether zombie, vampire, ghoul, wraith, or restless spirit—may have been confused with one another.

No one can possibly derive an exact date when early humans first began to bury their dead. Controversy continues whether or not certain skeletal remains found in the caves of the Pleistocene epoch Neanderthals indicate that some kind of burial ceremony was conducted for the dead around 200,000 years ago.

Neither can anyone pinpoint for certain when the concept of an afterlife first occurred to primitive humans. It might be conjectured that when early humans had realistic dreams of friends or relatives who were dead, they might have awakened, convinced that the departed somehow still existed in some other world. Such an idea, whenever it first occurred, was undoubtedly taken either as reassuring and comforting or as frightening and threatening. The belief that there was something within each individual that survived physical death was either an exciting promise or a terrifying menace that eventually spread to humans everywhere throughout the planet.


The Draugre are the undead of the Scandinavian sagas. They incorporate aspects of the zombie in that they are animated corpses, and they are occasionally vampiric in their quest for blood. They also possess magical powers (art by Bill Oliver).

Paleolithic humans (c. 250,000 B.C.E.) placed stones and other markings on graves, but we cannot determine for certain whether they did so to distinguish one grave from another for the purpose of mourning or to prevent evil spirits from rising from the burial place.

The fear of evil spirits also gave rise to the universal dread of cemeteries and the belief that burial grounds are haunted. Restless spirits, vengeful ghosts, ghouls, and vampires could lurk behind every grave stone or tomb.

The traditional vampire of legend was a corpse, wrapped in a rotting burial shroud, that has somehow been cursed by man or devil who has clawed free of its grave to satisfy its bloodlust for the living—quite often, family members or local townsfolk. The vampire in folklore appears as a grotesque, nightmarish creature of the undead with twisted fangs and grasping talons.

With each succeeding generation, the dark powers of the vampire grew. He could transform himself into the form of a bat, a rat, an owl, a fox, and a wolf. He was able to see in the dark and to travel on moonbeams and mist.

Mere mortals seemed helpless against the strength of the vampire—which could equal the strength of 10 men. What could the people do if they suspected that a vampire was rising from the grave or crypt at night to seek human blood?

Some homes liberally displayed wolfbane and sprigs of wild garlic at every door and window. Nearly everyone wore the crucifix about one’s neck and placed others prominently on several walls—especially near windows.

And then there were the times when a few brave individuals hunted down the grave or coffin of the nocturnal predator and placed thereon a branch of the wild rose to keep him locked within. If that didn’t work, then the only course of action remaining was to pry open the vampire’s coffin during the daylight hours while he lay slumbering and pound a wooden stake through his heart, behead him, and burn the body—or, much safer, destroy the coffin while he was away and allow the rays of the early morning sun to scorch him into ashes.

Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse

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