Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse. Brad Steiger
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ripped out of the wall and this hideous, reptilian arm reaching for Kim.
By this time Kim was on the other side of the room screaming. Her mother took aim and fired at the space where the window had been. She could not tell whether she hit it. Whatever it was ran away howling that same angry non-human scream when she fired the gun.
Once again the police searched the area. Dogs were used. Police cars covered the streets. Once again this creature escaped.
I remained terrified the rest of that summer. I refused to leave the house without another family member accompanying me. I refused to drive alone in my car. I never stayed home alone and progressed only as far as sleeping in my bedroom with the door open—provided my brother (who was home from college on summer break) or my parents kept a bedroom door open as well.
I went away to school the following year. I would never again spend time alone in that house. If my family went away, I would go out too and stay out until they returned. I never again felt safe in that house.
As far as I know, whatever entered our house that summer night was never caught or identified. I do know he or “it” intended to tie me up and hurt me. I do know he or “it” had little fear and enjoyed terrifying us that night. I also know he or “it” was beastlike and far from human given its loud haunting screams, incredible physical strength, reptile-like skin and putrid smell. I do know the monster that ripped the window and frame out of Kim’s wall was the same monster that intended and tried to kill me.
I am thankful I ran out of the house that night, that I did not go home alone, and that my friends were there with me to help me think things through. Sometimes our fate is just a slight degree from being something we can or cannot survive.
That night fate gave me a helping hand. Many a day since I have pondered how lucky I was to survive that horrifying period. It haunts me still as I continue to wonder what type of creature I could have faced alone that night. We all often wonder from where did it come? And where did it go? I often think about this experience as one of the greatest mysteries of my life.
MUMMIES AND ZOMBIES
Perhaps of all the classic monsters that have terrified theater audiences and groups gathered around campfires, the two most likely to be confused with one another are the mummy and the zombie. One thinks of curses and spells associated with both of these beings. Of course the principal difference is that the mummies pronounce curses upon those who disturb their elegant tombs, while zombies lie for a time in crude graves because a curse has been placed upon them.
When Boris Karloff emerged as Im-ho-Tep in The Mummy (1932), his 3,700-year-old reanimated body set out to punish those who had disturbed his tomb, as well as to reclaim his reincarnated lover. In The Mummy’s Hand (1940) Universal Studios initiated the first of a series of films featuring the mummified High Priest Kharis, who is revived by a mixture of tana leaves. Kharis, first played by Tom Tyler, slowly shuffles toward his victims, but always manages to catch them, even though he is dragging one leg, and one arm remains bound to his mummy wrappings. In each of the four entries in the Kharis series, the lovely actresses who played his reincarnated lover from ancient Egypt were never able to escape his clutches, despite their appearing sound of body enough to easily outrun the shambling mummy. In 1942, Lon Chaney, Jr. took over the role of Kharis in The Mummy’s Tomb. Chaney wrapped himself in gauze again in The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) and The Mummy’s Curse (1945)—always assuming the same shuffling gait that actors impersonating the undead have used in nearly every mummy and zombie movie made until quite recently. In 28 Days Later, (2002) the zombies definitely run as they chase the survivors of a plague that has afflicted London.
As early religions began to teach that there was a spirit within each person who died that might someday wish to return to its earthly abode, it became increasingly important that efforts be made to preserve the body. Burial ceremonies, which had at first been intended solely as a means of disposing of the dead, came to be a method of preserving the physical body as a home for the spirit when it returned for a time of rebirth or judgment.
The ancient Egyptians as a culture were preoccupied with the specter of death. There was never an ancient people who insisted upon believing that death was not the final act of a human being, that “it is not death to die,” with more emphasis than the Egyptians
Today, in many countries such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and the European nations, bodies are embalmed and every effort is made to preserve the body as long as possible. Coffins are sold to the bereaved families as dependable containers that will be able to preserve and protect the body of their beloved for centuries. The wealthier bereaved can afford crypts and vaults that are placed above ground and constructed of concrete or granite to contain family coffins.
Embalming the body of the deceased was practiced in ancient Egypt where the warm, dry climate assured its success. The Egyptians anointed, embalmed, and buried their dead, and made mummies of the men and women of power, rank, and importance.
To mummify, the Egyptians extracted the brain and the intestines, cleaned out the body through an incision in the side, and filled the body cavities with spices. The body was then sewn up and set aside to lie in salt for a period of 70 days. Then it was placed in gummed mummy cloth and fastened into its ornamental case. The poorer classes were not mummified but merely salted.
If the body of a vengeful mummy moves bereft of brain and other vital parts, there has to be a powerful spirit residing in or near the deceased that drives it. That spirit is known as the Ka.
A real zombie is a reanimated corpse who has most often been brought back to life to serve as slave labor (art by Wm. Michael Mott).
In the cosmology of the early Egyptians, humans were considered the children of the gods, which meant that they had inherited many other elements from their divine progenitors than physical bodies. The ba or soul was portrayed on the walls of tombs as a human-headed bird leaving the body at death. During a person’s lifetime, the ba was an intangible essence, associated with the breath. In addition to the ba, each person possessed a ka, a kind of ghostly double that was given to each individual at the moment of birth. When the person died, the ka began a separate existence, still resembling the body that it formerly occupied, and still requiring food for sustenance. Each person also had a ren or name, which could acquire a separate existence and was the underlying substance of all one’s integral aspects. In addition to the facets listed above there was the khu or intelligence, the ab or will, the sakkem or life force, the khaybet or shadow, the ikh or glorified spirit, and the sahu or mummy. But the most important of all these was the ka, which became the center of the cult of the dead. It was to the ka that all offerings of food and material possessions were made.
When death came to the Egyptians, the physical body did not decay, for the greatest care was taken to preserve the body as a center of individual spirit manifestation. The body was carefully embalmed and mummified and placed in a coffin, on its side, as if it were only asleep. In the tomb with the mummy were brought all the utensils that a living person might need on a long journey, together with toilet articles, vessels for water and food, and weapons and hunting equipment to protect against robbers and to provide food once the initial supply was depleted.
About 1580 B.C.E., the Pyramid Texts, the oldest extant funerary literature in the world, dating back to as early as the Fourth Millennium B.C.E., and certain revised editions of those texts called the Coffin Texts, were brought together, re-edited, added to, and painted on sarcophagi and written on papyrus. This massive literary effort, the work of many authors and compilers, is known to us as the Book of the Dead, but to its creators as “The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day.” Although there are many known copies of this ancient work, no one copy contains all the chapters, which are thought to number around 200.
By the time the text of the Book of the Dead was being copied on rolls