HOW TO MAKE A ZOMBIE
from Sharon Ledwith
Much has been written about the
walking dead we’ve come to know as ‘zombies’. Immortalized in movies,
television shows, books, comics, and music videos (remember
Thriller?), zombies have become so much
a part of our culture that people can’t get enough of these brain-eating horror
icons. When researching for
The Last
Timekeepers and the Noble Slave, the third installment of my young adult
time travel adventure series, I wanted to incorporate a Voodoo ceremony that
included creating a zombie. Oh, where to start, I asked myself, as there was so
much information out there to glean, and only a chapter to fit it in.
So do zombies exist? The people of
Haiti certainly think so. Here they are considered to be more than spooky
stories, but rather very real entities. Stories of zombies persist in Haiti
right up to the modern day, with sightings of the poor, haggard creatures
fairly common in many rural areas. In fact, cases are so prevalent that there
have been wild estimates claiming that there are as many as up to one thousand
new cases of zombies a year. Wow, that’s a lot of the undead roaming around a
small island! Zombification is even a crime under the Haitian Penal Code
(Article 246), in which it is considered to be on par with murder despite the
fact that the zombified individual is technically still alive.
Bet you’re dying to know how to make
a zombie? Read on…
The zombies of Haiti were said to be
corpses that were reanimated through black magic by powerful Voodoo sorcerers
or priests known as bokors, for manual labor on farms and sugarcane
plantations. Zombies can allegedly be made from those who are still living if
the bokor is powerful enough to wrest the victim’s soul from their body. The
process of turning a living person into a zombie is said to follow certain
steps. First, the bokor will place a hex on the target of the ritual, who will
subsequently fall mysteriously ill and die soon after. The exact methods and
concoctions used vary among the bokors, but many use a powerful neurotoxin
derived from pufferfish. Some zombification processes use blood and hair from
their victims in addition to using Voodoo dolls. Ohers involve a carefully
prepared mixture called
‘coup de poudre’ (powder strike) made of
mystical herbs, human remains, and animal parts. Administrating this mixture
can also vary from ingestion, injection, or even a blow dart.
Once the family of the victim
pronounces the victim dead, he or she is buried in the family tomb (usually
above ground), where the responsible bokor will steal the body from its grave
and set about reanimating it through dark sorcery. Next, the bokor performs an
ancient Voodoo rite where he or she captures the victim’s ti bon ange (the part of the soul connected to an individual)
within seven days following the death of corps
cadaver, while it is still hovering over the corpse. This effects a split
in the spiritual parts of the victim and produces two complementary types of
zombies: the spirit zombie and the zombie of the flesh. The bokor then traps
the spirit zombie in a small clay jar or container, and replaces it with the
loa (Voodoo spirit) that the bokor controls. The container is hidden in a
secret place and is wrapped in a piece of the victim’s clothing or some other
personal possession.
After a day or two, the bokor then
administers a hallucinogenic mixture called the ‘zombie cucumber,’ (made from
the plant Datura stramonium) that
revives the victim and is used to keep the zombie in a state of submissive
confusion. In this brainwashed condition, the zombie cannot speak, has no
memory, and no longer resembles its past human personality. Now easy to
control, the zombie is completely under the control of the bokor who created
them until the bokor dies. Once released from bondage, the zombies can finally
return to their home village or place of burial, and die.
There seems reason to believe from
work and research done in the past that there may possibly be a concrete,
scientific basis for stories of zombies, so perhaps time will tell. For now,
these mysterious creatures lurk along the fringes of Haitian villages and our
imaginations. Whether drug addled slaves or corpses reanimated through dark
sorcery, the enigma of real zombies beckons us. Perhaps one day we will bring
them out into the light and have the answers we seek.
With that, I’ll leave you with this
line in the song Thriller, by Michael
Jackson: It’s close to midnight! Something
evil’s lurking in the dark! Hopefully, it’s not a blood-thirsty corpse. Stay safe, my
zombie-loving readers!
Here’s a glimpse of the premises of both my young
adult series:
Mysterious Tales
from Fairy Falls Teen Psychic Mysteries…
Imagine a teenager possessing a psychic
ability and struggling to cope with this freakish power. There’s no hope for a
normal life, and no one who understands. Now, imagine being uprooted and forced
to live in a small tourist town where nothing much ever happens. It’s bores-ville
from the get-go.
Welcome
to Fairy Falls. Expect the unexpected.
The Last
Timekeepers Time Travel Adventures…
Chosen by an Atlantean Magus to be
Timekeepers—legendary time travelers sworn to keep history safe from the evil
Belial—five classmates are sent into the past to restore balance, and bring
order back into the world, one mission at a time.
Children are the
keys to our future. And now, children are the only hope for our past.
The Last Timekeepers Time Travel Adventure Series:
Coming soon: The
Last Timekeepers and the Noble Slave, Book #3
The Last
Timekeepers and the Dark Secret, Book #2 Buy
Links:
MIRROR WORLD
PUBLISHING
׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀
The Last
Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis, Book #1 Buy Links:
MIRROR WORLD
PUBLISHING
׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀
Legend
of the Timekeepers, prequel Buy
Links:
MIRROR
WORLD PUBLISHING ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES
& NOBLE
׀
Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls Teen
Psychic Mystery Series:
Lost
and Found, Book One Buy
Links:
MIRROR
WORLD PUBLISHING ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES
& NOBLE
׀
Blackflies
and Blueberries, Book Two Buy
Links:
MIRROR
WORLD PUBLISHING ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES
& NOBLE
׀
Sharon Ledwith is the
author of the middle-grade/young adult time travel adventure series, THE LAST
TIMEKEEPERS, and the teen psychic mystery series, MYSTERIOUS TALES FROM FAIRY
FALLS. When not writing, researching, or revising, she enjoys reading,
exercising, anything arcane, and an occasional dram of scotch. Sharon lives a
serene, yet busy life in a southern tourist region of Ontario, Canada, with her
spoiled hubby, and a moody calico cat.
Learn
more about Sharon Ledwith on her WEBSITE and BLOG. Look up her AMAZON
AUTHOR
page for a list of current books. Stay connected on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, PINTEREST, LINKEDIN, INSTAGRAM, and GOODREADS.
BONUS: Download the free PDF short story The
Terrible, Mighty Crystal HERE
Next came choosing the new paint color. I wanted to go with a dark brown—mostly to hide all the flaws in the trunk’s body caused by my scraper. Perhaps I used little too much elbow grease. Hubby helped me with this part, carefully spraying the sides, allowing the trunk time to dry, then giving it another coat. Covering the flaws reminded me of the care a writer takes in creating characters. Like the gouges and grooves in my trunk, your characters NEED flaws because readers must feel some sort of connection with them. Readers WANT to cheer on those flawed underdogs, see them scream, watch them change and grow. And when that connection happens, they wholeheartedly invest in your characters and the hell authors drag them through.
