Drunk Zombies?

OK, I'll bite!

I say no; no inebriation for the living impaired.

Firstly, the zombified brain requires no oxygen. No real sustenance for continued existence other than (if you believe in that sort of thing) for cellular rebuilding (or whatever).

Secondly, alcohol and drugs affect the brain, not the body (although there are other body affecting drugs..). Thus, the living impaired, not using (of course) their brains, will not be affected in any way shape or form by alk or narcotics. So sad for us; no easy pieces....

Hehehe.

Although the concept would make a great story, I'm in the 'nah' camp on this one. You need circulation to get it to the brain....
Hmmmm wonder what would happen if you just injected and flooded a zombie brain with pure alchohol...that could do the trick....
Ok, I'm in the 'maybe' camp now...

ZombieZak raises a good point about the circulation, however, going back again to the discussion about digestion and if zombies receive any "nutritional value" from the flesh they consume. IF that were the case and IF said zombie consumed any flesh saturated by an intoxicant, what would be the result? Then again, an inebriated person has already processed the intoxicant rendering it non-effective by the time it has entered the blood stream. Perhaps a particularly strong hallucinogenic, recently consumed might leave "usable" amounts in the brain, stomach, etc. So many "if's", so little time.

The real question is: would you notice it if a zombie is intoxicated? I mean, they already walk like drunken people...

Hence the "She's so drunk" quote from Shaun.

Did ya know that they changed the line from "She's so pissed" to avoid confusing Americans?

May be a drunk zombie would walk around all normal like. That could confuse the living... Ah shit Don't trust a drunk zombie. Right Zak?

Yes PUS! That is why they stumble and moan and seem completely out of it. It's not because they're dead and their body is ceasing to function. It's because they are constantly drunk!Kind of like a ....CoronaZombie? HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.... ahem.

Ahh, uhm, ahh; no comment. Where did you live again? Oh, right.

Knock, knock.

My immediate two cents here would be that I don't think it would ferment. I think the "zombie system" (digestive or otherwise) would slowly excrete the matter out one way or another. If it didn't, then the bloody rotters would eventually explode gooey bits all over, as all that material that they consume has got to go somewhere...

I still maintain that zombies can't be drunk, nor drugged. Zombies, by "nature" are brain dead. Alk and narcotics need a brain or a nervous system to operate on. Unlessssssss, the zombie gestalt is other than the "classic" revived dead types. 28 Days Later types? Totally. There are others, too, where alk and drugs and would work; but I don't think they would on the Romeroesque types.

Just sayin' is all.

Yeah, I'm so sad that I looked up exactly how booze actually affects the brain and it's all "Alcohol affects the brain’s neurons in several ways. It alters their membranes as well as their ion channels, enzymes, and receptors. Alcohol also binds directly to the receptors for acetylcholine, serotonin, GABA, and the NMDA receptors for glutamate. "....

So, I'm going back to nah, again....

Whos the ...Ahhh!! crunch snap

Excuse me, sir. Would you be willing to spare a moment to hear of the glory that can be found sponsoring our faithful legions? Zombie Jehovah's would be ever so appreciative!

Make Zombies, not War!

“Do you think they heard us? Do you think they saw us?”
“I don’t think so, Barb, we hid pretty damn quick when we saw them walking up the path.”

BANG BANG BANG.

The front door shook in it’s frame. It sounded like a maniac trying to batter down the door with a joint of beef.
Jonathan and his wife, Barb, crouched behind a sofa in their living room, cowering, arms around each other, eyes tightly closed.

BANG BANG BANG. “Joooooinnnnn ussssssss….”

“Wait, just wait. If they think no one is home they will go to the next house…”

“Joinnnnnn ussssssss.”
……
……
……
Silence; except for slow dragging footsteps receding down the path.

The couple emerged quietly, carefully, from their hiding place and looked through the glass in the front door that was smeared with greasy streaks from the undead hands.

“What are they doing? Why do they come here?” whispered Barb.
“Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was important in their lives. They don't know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be here.”

They watched as the two figures shuffled slowly down the sidewalk and up their neighbour’s pathway. Both were dressed in tattered 3 piece suits, cold hands still clutching blood-smeared briefcases filled and overflowing with magazines and books.

Jonathan chuckled grimly; Barb glanced at him raising an eyebrow.
“Sorry, I know it’s not funny but do you remember how we used to hide from them in the Old Days, before the dead started to walk; how we used to pretend that we were not at home?”
Barb smiled too, “Yes, I remember, some things never change, do they? Huh, Zombie Jehovah’s Witnesses… who would’ve believed that?”

Hehe.

This is going to be great fill the zombies full of alcohol and sit back and test them for being drunk. Once you are all done MATCH TIME I am totally going to have a great time setting on fire...maybe with all that alcohol they'd blowup! That would be so fun to see!! Note bring your umbrella, thanks for the tip Tremors series!

It seems I've found the right place to put this:)

I'll Drink to That

By Aldon

Dean Baldon leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands on his aching temples. Dealing with the brainiacs always gave him a headache. Not that there couldn’t be other reasons. For example, being cooped up in a campus lab with the living dead trying to get in and kill everybody. That was the primary source of stress. This, however, was simply an added helping of misery. Hadn't the guy that invented the machine gun done so because it was supposed to make war to terrible to fight? Sooner or later this brainiac was going to come up with a solution like that. It was going to work as well as the other "great" solutions. Like using the tank to end trench warfare. In other words, a way to increase the rotation of the fan when the shit hit it.

"Say it to me in English Doc! I was in the National Guard and I sold life insurance for a living. To me an enzyme is something they put in laundry to get the grass stains out," Baldon barked.

Dr. Forch gave Baldon the look he reserved for the freshmen who made his life hell in biology 101. Still, the old man at the head of the table was in charge, and it wasn't like many of the others in the room were likely to have Ph.D.'s in biology. Of the survivors on campus most were students, some brighter than others, but all uneducated to the needed degree. The surviving professors were as worthless a bunch as one could hope for. The youngest, and most physically competent, had a degree in history of all things. For him it was teach at the Miskatonic University Extension Campus or wait tables. Forch shook his head to clear it of the bad pun he just made. "uneducated to the right degree," he thought sourly. He cleared his throat, and started again, trying to put their situation into terms a freshman could understand.

'The reanimated, or infected, are infested with a species of yeast. It's a fungus, and most of us think about it being used for making bread. There's another type we use to make the alcohol we drink, and others are used for making antibacterial medications. The kind we are dealing with here, however, is an infectious agent. It grows in the human body when it finds an area that’s warm and wet. Usually the skin forms an effective barrier for yeast. When it does infect deeply, however, it can have up to a 75 percent death rate. Recurring yeast infections are usually a sign that something else is wrong with the body. They co-occur, for example, with diseases such as AIDS and leukemia..."

Even given the life threatening circumstances, Dr. Forch's droning voice had a narcotic effect. Baldon forced himself to pay attention through sheer force of will. One of the other weekend warriors, however, must have been made of sterner stuff. He actually asked a serious question.

"Doc, I thought yeast infections are something women get and you can treat it with over the counter medication.?"

Forch smiled. "That's the common knowledge son. While OTC's treat one of the most common infections by yeast, many of us catch it and carry it with us until we die. The yellowing, and thickening, of the toenails associated with old age, for example, is often due to a yeast infection. The medications required..."

"Doc, that’s enough," Baldon interjected. "I know this is very interesting, but we need to focus on what' s happening here." Several of the people in the room rolled their eyes. Forch's lectures were well known for going off topic and into the twilight zone. Forch, however, did not seem to notice the rebuke. Despite his irritation over the interruption his years of lecturing had taught him the skill of hiding his feelings.

Forch took a sip of water and continued. "This particular strain of yeast feeds on the sugars in the body. In doing so it releases a by product similar to, but not the same as, alcohol. To the infected organism the effects is one of internal fermentation, and an increasing elevation of the by product's concentration in the tissues."

"You're saying these people trying to eat us are drunk?" Baldon asked. "I've had a few brews myself over the course of my life, and I don't remember resorting to cannibalism!"

Forch responded with grim seriousness. "Alcohol use constitutes self inflicted poisoning! There are many kinds of alcohol. However, only one is non-toxic enough that the human body can metabolize it without serious harm. Even so, alcohol poisoning accounts for the loss of far to many of our youth. Indeed, treatment centers for addiction to alcohol are in high demand, and with prolonged use permanent central nervous system damage is a clear result. The so called wet brain..."

"Doc," Baldon started.

Forch re-directed himself with effort, this time allowing some irritation to creep into his voice. "These people are not just intoxicated, they're pickled! The higher brain functions have been shut down. What remains are the primitive urges and emotions. Feeding, irritation, and so on. They don't feel pain! They don't inhibit impulses or recognize loved ones. They don't so much act on their environment as react to it. For us that means they experience us as an irritation and food."

"But Doc," said a lively young blonde from the left of the room, "when you drink to much you die. I work at a hospital, and I've had to resuscitate people who drink to much."

Forch eyed the blonde with speculation. Someone who worked in a hospital could work in a lab just as easily. And eyes tired of corpses needed something to perk them up. After the meeting it would be recruitment time!

"They do indeed," Forch continued. "However, this particular by product has the property of allowing the nervous system and muscles to continue functioning long after both should shut down. From a scientific point of view these people are dead from poisoning. They don't breathe or have a pulse. In some way not clearly understood, the by product allows the nerve membranes to exchange .."

"Doc!" Baldon interrupted, "What does that mean in terms of killing these things?"

Forch frowned. "As for killing them, central nervous system trauma will do. As the soldiers say, kill the brain. As for other methods, well, the by product is not greatly flammable. It's one of the ways it differs from true alcohol. I'm afraid, however, that it does seem to have the ability to lower the freezing temperature of the remaining water in the tissues.”

“In other words, they’ve got built in anti-freeze, is that what you’re saying Doc?”, asked Baldon.

“Not the way I would have put it, but essentially correct. Cold might slow them, but they won’t freeze.” Forch responded.

Baldon had hated the first zombie movie he ever saw, and his opinion of them hadn't improved since. It was "Night of the Living Dead" and he had taken Judy to it hoping for a dark corner and some good old kiss and feel. It hadn't turned out that way. Right from the start Judy had been captivated, and he'd had a night of her watching a movie while he watched her. He'd hoped for a, "I'm scared, hold me, moment" but it never came. Damn that asshole Romero for making a good movie. Ever since then Judy had checked out every damn zombie movie ever made. It was a hell of a way to remember your first date with your wife. And now, all those damn movies had come true. Baldon forced himself to smile.

"That's good work Doc. Keep at it. We'll try to give you the time to find a cure for what's ailing these folk."

"I'm not sure there's any cure for…"

Baldon cut him off with both his voice and a look. "Your going to find a way Doc! We have people depending on us here." Privately he thought the Doc would have been right in what he was going to say. However, there was such a thing as morale. For the sake of that alone the people here had to believe Doc was doing something that would help them all. Hell, push came to shove he'd post a guard outside Doc's lab and feed them a steady string of shit about being on the edge of a breakthrough for as long as it took. Any old soldier knew there were things it just wasn't good for the public to know. And as for the military, well, believing in noble goals was just like belief in the almighty. You couldn't judge either by rational thought, but believing made what you had to do a whole lot easier.

"I'll have dinner sent round Doc. Let me know if we need to get a few more specimens. DISMISSED" Baldon stood from the table and stretched. First he was going to have a few words with Doc, and then he was going to find some yeast by products of his own. Whiskey was it's own form of salvation. As the crowd left the room he headed toward the Doc.

END

You know dancingfred, I moved 12 miles out in the country! You know who the first people to find me were? Your zombies!

Spiffy! PIckled zombies to the rescue. Dunh dunh duhn! They will save the day....Wait, what? They're the bad guys? Oh, OK. Kill 'em; kill 'em all! (The humans, that is. I'm on the side of the zombies!) Fight the good fight, fight it drunk or ...