When people who weren’t *really* dead (but appeared to be) woke up, it became a crisis of faith. They were anointed with oils and given the Last Rites by a priest and that was the end of it. There were many cases where a person in the Middle Ages was mistakenly pronounced dead. And when a person who everyone thought was dead woke up. And when their priest told them that if they swallowed a possessed fly the demon would transfer to them, they kept their mouths shut. So when the church said that animals and flies could be possessed by demons, they believed. And so religion ruled their lives and thoughts. Sure, not all of them took it to that extreme, but a great many of them did. Christ, I’d have to rent space in a confessional if I did that. They went to confession whenever an impure thought crossed their minds. Give-ten-percent-of-their-money-to-the-church-despite-barely-having-enough-to-eat religious. I’m talking, go-to-services-for-hours-a-day religious. I’m not talking Tammy Faye Baker religious. Let me start with a little background on medieval people: they were really religious. And I’m not just saying that because I wrote a novel about zombies in the Middle Ages. I argue that zombies have been around for much, much longer than that. But the idea of zombies goes back even farther. Seabrook’s story was probably the first to mention zombies. Some of you zombie aficionados may know about William Seabrook’s novel, “The Magic Island,” from 1929. You have to go back a little farther than 1968. Zombies are a modern-day thing, right? A quirky invention of our contemporary imaginations?Įveryone knows that George Romero gave them stardom in 1968 with “Night of the Living Dead,” and that they have been with us ever since. In celebration of this All Hallow’s Eve, I invited fellow 47North author Roberto Calas over to talk about the Undead…

The Scourge by Roberto Calas