Zombie

Content warning for horror topics, death and the like.

I read a lot of zombie stories. (Actually, I read quite a lot of horror, and have a definite preference for post-apocalyptic maybe dystopia, of which many zombie stories are in the same kind of neighbourhood.) In common with a lot of other horror, the zombies are rarely the point and their origin is often incidental. I did read one recently that had s slightly different germ, and that made me think of all the different ways I've seen writers enlighten the living dead.

Not identifying particular works, lest these count as spoilers, but I can think of:

• Someone gets infected with rabies, then also with plague. The two combine.
• Science produces artificial viruses to try and cure cancer and the common cold. The two combine.
• Science attempts to produce a super-soldier serum. Produces zombie-like people instead.
• Science attempts to keep the consciousness of a condemned criminal active as punishment.
• Science wants to make something that was dead be alive again, for the craic.
• Science produces a weapon of mass destruction that turns people into zombie-like beings.
• Science reanimates the dead as cheap labour that can be coerced into doing jobs no-one else wants.
• Science is trying to make monsters as weapons.
• Cell phones turn people into zombies. Not a lot of sub to the text.
• Novel virus appearing out of nature.
• I know of at least three different Cordyceps-based zombie plagues.
• A fragment of the brain of an ancient, Cthulhu-like cosmic entity animates an undead army. A big undead army.
• Magic reanimates the dead as cheap labour that can be coerced into doing jobs no-one else wants.
• And I'm sure there are more that I've forgotten for now.

I won't claim that many (any?) of these make actual sense...