Free Zombies by Joseph McCullough

reported the existence of a pack of viral zombie hounds terrorizing villagers in the backwoods of Bulgaria. This report revived an old debate within the animate necrology community about the commonality and classification of zombified animals, a debate which continues to the present. While some scientists believe that a new branch of study should be opened to focus solely on undead animals, others, this author included, believe that animals should be viewed as members of one of the already existent zombie classifications. In nearly every case, zombie animals display the same strengths and weakness of a human corpse of the same zombie type. To lump all zombie animals into one category could cause confusion and do a major disservice to the men and women who risk their lives combating the zombie threat.

    Two dogs infected with the Z-virus.
    The story of zombie animals begins with the ancient necromancers. Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful necromancer can reanimate the body of any creature as a zombie. However, there seems little point in the exercise. Reanimated animals retain few of the advantages they possessed in life. Even the larger mammals become slow, weak creatures, neither significantly stronger nor tougher than a human zombie. True, necromantic fish can swim and some undead birds can fly, but it takes an extremely imaginative necromancer to make use of such ineffectual servants. For the most part, necromancers reanimate animals more for vanity than anything else. Perhaps a skeletal mastodon is a status symbol in the necromantic community. Some necromancers do use an undead animal as a sort of grim familiar, though to what end is unknown.
    Interestingly, wielders of voodoo black magic are not able to create any zombie animals. Voodoo zombification requires the incarceration of the zombi astral , the soul of the deceased. Since animals do not possess souls, or at least not in the same way as humans, there is nothing for a bokor to imprison. Many bokors have other spells they use to enchant animals, but such magic is beyond this investigation.
    The possibility of animal revenants remains an intriguing one, but there are no clear-cut cases to date. There are several reports of dogs that have exhibited signs of revenant behavior or appearance, but so far every case has ended with the destruction of the animal in question, so no true studies have been possible. 17
    It was only with the dawn of the atomic zombie that animals became true participants in the zombie curse, and then only on a limited scale. As science is still trying to determine exactly how various chemical interactions lead to the reanimation of corpses, it cannot at this time say why certain species are vulnerable and others are not. In fact, it may be that a specific chemical reaction only causes the reanimation of certain species, and that we only tend to notice when that species is human or another large mammal. Luckily, atomic zombie animals mimic their human cousins and become slow, sluggish creatures. 18 Although dangerous, these undead animals have proven only a minimal threat to humanity, unlike their cousins, the viral hounds.

    Previous page: Viral hounds
    Unlike their human counterparts, zombie canines do possess a vague sense of hierarchy. Most zombie dog packs contain an alpha male, a dog that the others follow. These alpha males direct and guide their pack through a series of growls and barks that function in much the same way as zombie moaning.
    While it has not been conclusively proven, zombie dogs show a predilection for attacking other dogs before attacking humans. Some mercenary containment unitsemploy their own (living) dogs to act as bait should they encounter a zombie dog pack.
    There is perhaps a sick irony that the only species besides humans to be affected by the zombie viruses is man’s best friend, but the truth is no joke. 19 As incredibly dangerous as viral zombies can be, they are nothing compared to the four-legged