Nearly everyone contracted the Nunavut Virus within six months, but only a minority succumbed—mostly the old, the infirm, and obese. As foretold, they all reanimated shortly after death. But any notion of rabid corpses tackling victims to tear at their flesh was shattered by the mundane reality of decomposition. Thought, sensory processing, and coordination are higher brain functions, impossible for an oxygen-starved cerebrum. With no heart to pump blood and no lungs to oxygenate it, their muscles were seized by rigor mortis before slowly decaying. A zombie was barely capable of movement, let alone a coordinated attack. They were toys with dying batteries, occasionally twitching or shuffling, but mostly just locking their knees and wavering in place, a testament to subverted physiology.
Roads and avenues became littered with these in-the-way bodies—sandbags, as they were colloquially named due to their dryness and heft. Navigating a busy New York City street, already a trial of patience, was now like playing a game of flag football. Mowing the lawn became a two-part chore: first, escorting the neighborhood's resident corpses off your property at a snail's pace, and then the actual yard work. Traffic jams became an hourly occurrence as upright and prone bodies dotted the roadways. Drivers would exit their cars to clear the sandbags, and traffic would resume, only to halt again a half hour later when more corpses wandered into the street or were shoved into it by a frustrated pedestrian.
The greatest irony of the zombie apocalypse was that the living perpetrated all the violence. In densely populated cities already known for their irascible citizens, a sandbag blocking a crosswalk would be kicked in front of a bus (another traffic jam). A sandbag on a subway platform was inevitably pushed onto the tracks (service delay). An odorous zombie stinking up a department store would be thrown to the hard tile floor. Perhaps the only silver lining was that violent crime among the living dropped precipitously. When anyone reached a breaking point, there was always an undead punching bag within arm's length to let off steam.
And the smell. Zombie fiction never addresses the penetrating, inescapable stench of decay, a miasma accompanied by the low hum of swarms of flies. The smell of rot was everywhere: outdoors, in homes and businesses, on your clothes, in your car, seared into the collective consciousness. It was maddening. The cost of respirators and rural vacations skyrocketed as the wealthy retreated to pockets of fresh air.
At first, dealing with the zombies was a simple, practical matter. They were an economic crisis that had to be remedied. Hard to make it into the office with sandbags peppering the commuter rails, or deliver an Amazon package with a sandbag stuffed up in the wheel well of a delivery truck. The President issued an executive order allowing for the disposal of all zombies at the discretion of each state. Cleanup crews were formed, guidelines were drafted, and the effort commenced. But it was all in vain.
Within a week, the first of many ZAGs (zombie advocacy groups) formed. They gathered at city halls and marched down avenues holding picket signs with slogans like "DON'T INCINERATE GRANDMA" and "ALL ZOMBIES MATTER!" The activists caused almost as much disruption as the creatures they were defending.
It didn't take long for the Supreme Court to overturn the executive order, citing a lack of precedent—the understatement of the millennium. The activists lobbied Congress to pass the "Zombies Are People Too", or ZAPT Act. Suddenly, the undead had more legal protection than manatees. Not only was it forbidden to harm a zombie, but you couldn't even touch them. They could, of course, bump into you, but if you voluntarily made contact with an MCC—a "Minimally Conscious Corpse"—you faced a fine of up to $5,000. A clause buried deep within the ZAPT Act stipulated that a portion of this revenue would subsidize the ZAGs, transforming them into a lucrative, niche industry.
The brief dip in violent crime quickly reversed. The stock markets fell through the floor as the economy imploded and the standard of living declined for everyone. In the end, the zombie apocalypse did bring humanity to its knees—not with a bang of rabid brutality, but with the whimper of a widespread, legally protected, and utterly maddening nuisance.
