How Fear Defines You

Fellow horror fans have probably heard of Decay already. For those of you who haven’t it’s an amateur zombie flick filmed at CERN, home of the Large Haldron Collider. In the story a few dozen researchers are exposed to the Higgs Boson particle with disastrous results.

Watch it for free here if you’re interested:

Longterm readers have probably figured out that I like being scared. Out of everything in the horror genre zombies frighten me the most because they’re not bound by the same rules that affect other mythical creatures.

The undead don’t need an invitation to enter your home. They’re not lethally allergic to sunlight, silver bullets, garlic, holy water, cutting down their trees or hearing a human say that we don’t believe in them.

And  a universe that includes them changes the way we treat one another. If general-you wants to survive a zombiepocalypse the wounded must be left behind. Even the shallowest bite or scratch is a death sentence in almost every story on this topic and as soon as the afflicted person dies every other member of the group is in terrible danger.

This is a silly example, of course, but as I was watching Decay I realized that abandoning someone who desperately needs help is gut-wrenching. How could anyone abandon a friend or coworker to certain death? Would I keep running in that situation or would I risk my own life to help someone who was going to die anyway?

I’d like to think I’d be a hero in that situation but I honestly don’t know.

What do you fear?

 

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