Zombie sex

by

Stephen Kozeniewski

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what topic, exactly, to write about in my WWBB guest post.  I actually wrote a post here pseudonymously last year because I was still hiding my shame at being an unpublished author.

What a difference a year makes!

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Since then I’ve gotten a new day job, a new cat, a bunch of other blah blah blah new stuff that you don’t really care about, but most importantly and excitingly: I found a small publisher willing to take on my horror/mystery novel BRAINEATER JONES!  I immediately thought of trying to get a spot on Louise’s schedule and when I saw her call for ‘orrible covers for the month of October I knew it was kismet.  (Sorry, other challengers, but you can’t deny it: my cover is the ‘orriblest.)

But that still left me with the quandary of what topic to write about.  Louise writes chick lit…or possible chic lit…or possibly Chiclets, although I’m not sure exactly how one would go about writing on little pieces of gum.  How could I make my little gorefest appealing to her readers?  Then it struck me:

ZOMBIE SEX

Not only would zombie sex be a great topic for Halloween AND a great topic for this blog, but it would also suddenly make that “long and hard” phrase in my first sentence seem like a deliberate authorial choice.

I’ve actually been noodling this topic a lot lately, which sounds weird, but, come on, I’m a horror writer.  We think about weird stuff for a living.  Last week I went to a midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead at my local hipster theater, which was an awesome choice because, amongst other reasons, I got to re-watch the granddaddy of all modern zombie stories.  And while I was watching it I noticed something I had either never caught before or had deliberately repressed from my memory:

THERE WAS A 100% NUDE ZOMBIE IN THE HORDE!

Seriously.  Go back and watch it.  How did I miss/forget about that?  I mean, I knew horror films in the ‘70s were exploitative with, I want to say a seventeen naked breast minimum mandated by the  MPAA.  But how did Romero manage to slip that nudie zombie by in a black and white film in the late ‘60s?  Bad for puritanical society, I guess, but an auspicious start for this blog post.

Of course, no actual zombie sex took place in that picture.  (Nor was the word “zombie” ever used.  Seriously.  Go back and watch it.)  The first contemporary example of actual hot dead-on-dead loving that springs to my mind comes in the classic 1992 New Zealand import Dead Alive.  Haven’t seen it?  Go.  Right now.  Shoo shoo.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Seriously, how awesome was that?  Anyone who says The Lord of the Rings were Peter Jackson’s greatest films simply haven’t seen Dead Alive yet.  What you probably forgot about in light of the whirling lawn mower blade of death that concluded the movie is that early on the zombie priest and the zombie nurse, urm, well, got it on.  (Yes, I said zombie priest and zombie nurse.)

And here’s where we get into an intriguing bit of erotica esoterica.  THEY HAD A BABY BECAUSE OF IT.  That’s right, apparently even zombies need to worry about the consequences of not using proper birth control.  Er, well, I guess they didn’t have to worry about it, per se, since they were zombies, but somebody sure had to take care of that baby.

I’m going to conclude our journey through the ages of undead intercourse somewhat selfishly with my own book, BRAINEATER JONES.  Partly this is because I’m trying to sell a book here, people.  But mostly this is because I have been advised that the sex in my book is “the grossest thing ever devised by man.”  That’s a direct quote from my mother, and she’s supposed to love me unconditionally.  You’ll probably find it even more appalling.

Stephen Kozeniewski

Yes, that “Corpses in Lust” sticker on the cover isn’t just to sell copies (which, by the way, why not buy a copy?)  But here’s the thing: if I tell you what the post mortem in flagrante delicto is like in my book, I’ll have ruined the mystery.  Don’t we all crave a little mystery in our lives?  Suffice it to say it is green, it is sticky, and it is pooling in a little puddle on Braineater Jones’s mattress right now.

You can read more of Steve’s delightfully twisted worldview on his blog or on twitter.  You can buy a copy of his book at any of these fine retailers:

 Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Red Adept Publishing

Braineater Jones wakes up face down in a swimming pool with no memory of his former life, how he died, or why he’s now a zombie. With a smart-aleck severed head as a partner, Jones descends into the undead ghetto to solve his own murder.

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But Jones’s investigation is complicated by his crippling addiction to human flesh. Like all walking corpses, he discovers that only a stiff drink can soothe his cravings. Unfortunately, finding liquor during Prohibition is costly and dangerous. From his Mason jar, the cantankerous Old Man rules the only speakeasy in the city that caters to the postmortem crowd.
As the booze, blood, and clues coagulate, Jones gets closer to discovering the identity of his killer and the secrets behind the city’s stranglehold on liquid spirits. Death couldn’t stop him, but if the liquor dries up, the entire city will be plunged into an orgy of cannibalism.
Cracking this case is a tall order. Braineater Jones won’t get out alive, but if he plays his cards right, he might manage to salvage the last scraps of his humanity.