Tablet Six

The Epic of Gilgamesh dates all the way back to Ancient Mesopotamia. It’s a poem depicting the story of a local warrior named Gilgamesh and his adventures across the Middle East. It is written across twelve stone tablets, each one a new chapter of his story. The sixth one is about zombies.

“Father give me the Bull of Heaven,


So he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling.

If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven,


I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,


I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down,


and will let the dead go up to eat the living!


And the dead will outnumber the living!”

This was the first recorded mention of the walking dead.

Now, to the present.

Zombies happen. It’s as simple and complicated as that.

To say that the world was prepared for the outbreak is stretching the truth a bit thin, but we weren’t exactly sitting ducks.  When the outbreak, eventually nicknamed the “Gilgamesh Effect,” began to spread across the world, a lot of people died. Slaughtered by loved ones and strangers. But, surprisingly, the 21st century was stubborn.

There were no rolling black outs, there were no shortages of food, the Internet never deceased to exist for a moment and World War 3 or Z didn’t break out.

The only big thing that happened was paper media (newspapers, magazines) just stopped being distributed. Why walk around for information when you can hop on the Web in two clicks?

But really, how did we survive the zombie apocalypse?

Quite frankly, I credit the freaks of the world.

Yes, the freaks.

The paranoid extremists.

The people who took their “just-in-case-zombie-outbreak” plan way too seriously.

The killers that were finally given free reign.

The hunters that loved the thrill of the chase.

The mentally insane who went buck wild.

And, the video gamers who had experience with this sort of thing.

The socially frowned upon picked up the slack of the emotionally terrified.

The “freaks” saved our asses.

Now, five years after the outbreak, the world is returning to normal. Or, rather, evolving to a new normal. For the next few months I will be keeping the South up-to-date on the changes sweeping the nation while also awaiting the launch of one of the first online publications for the South since the outbreak that will happen in the next few months.


So stay safe, kids.