Leviticus 26:29

Ten minutes after Walter Newman died, his eyes opened.
I'm hungry, Walter thought. Where's the never-ending pasta bowl when you need it?
Walter looked around in a haze. He was on his back, on the ground, in the yard of some kind of fortress or castle. He saw other people around, vaguely, but he was certain that wasn't important at the moment. He started to get up, trying to remember where he was or what he had been doing on the ground.
Walter rubbed the back of his neck, feeling fresh scar tissue. For a moment, Walter felt a flash of reality. No. He had fallen. He had felt his neck crack, the bones of his shoulder breaking through his skin. No. Walter looked around frantically, seeing the dead walking all around him, slowly, almost hovering, buzzards looking for a meal. NO!
"UUGGHH!" Walter moaned mournfully, closing his eyes tightly as he fought back the disturbing images in his mind.
Walter looked again. They were just people, people he didn't know. The walked away, saying nothing to him. He looked up at the white tufts of cotton in the sky above him. A midget riding a chicken passed overhead. Walter knew it was somehow absurd, but he didn't question it. Chicken. Walter was very hungry.

"Breakfast is on, Rose."
Rose Redding jolted awake, dropping the copy of Pride and Prejudice from her lap. She was seated in a soft maroon chair in the Cooper family's farmhouse. Her arms were wrapped around a crowbar. Ever since that first night in the house, she slept fitfully unless she had something to defend herself with.
"A rough night, dear?" Mrs. Cooper asked.
"No more than usual," Rose said. Together they walked into the kitchen where the rest of the Cooper family waited at the table.
"Rose, sleep all right after your watch?" Nat Cooper said.
"Just fine, Mister Cooper," Rose said. "What's for breakfast?" The family chuckled.
"Same thing as always, eggs and taters," the younger son said. "Why are we always havin' eggs and taters, eggs and taters. I don't want any eggs and taters, I want cereal!"
"Pipe down, Daniel," Nat Cooper said. "We're in a tough way, and your mother's doing everything she can. And don't think being in a tough way'll keep me from tannin' your hide."
Rose was almost too intent on her meal to notice. She hadn't eaten much for the last week. The sight of the new zombies had left her without much appetite. She quickly devoured her egg and polished off her potato.
"May I have another egg?" Rose asked. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper looked at her silently for a moment. Rose blushed slightly as she tried to explain herself. "I know we don't have a lot of food to spare, but I really think I need the protein, and they're more replenishable than our potatoes at the moment."
Mr. Cooper's glance fell to his children's plates, then returned to meet Rose's gaze. "OK, Rose. Mother, will you put another egg on the fire?"
Mrs. Cooper stood from the table slowly. "Yes, dear."

Walter walked through a desert, the sun beating down and burning his skin. I have to get back to my family, Walter thought. He knew that was why he had been walking for so long. Where he had just been, Walter wasn't quite sure. How long have I been walking?
Too long, came the voice. Walter looked up. The sky had gone dark, and a frowning Cheshire cat looked down on him from the sky. You need to get past the forest, the cat seemed to say.
Walter looked around at the trees. He did seem to be in a forest. The canopy blocked out the sky. Was I in the desert earlier? Walter thought. He felt his stomach growl. And who are all these people wandering around? Can they help me? Walter knew intuitively if he called out to them, none would answer him. Not until he found his wife. But before he could do that, he definitely needed to find something to eat.
Walter entered a break in the trees, and looked up for the cat. It was there, but lower in the sky. Its frown was thinner, almost impossible to see. Maybe the cat is hungry too, Walter thought.
There's always food in the Quick-E Mart, the cat seemed to say. Walter looked around. There, standing in a field next to a cow house (What are those called? He thought.) was a brightly lit Quick-E Mart, open for business. All the other wandering people were going toward it. Thunder rolled, a sure sign of a coming storm. Some of the wanderers fell down before they could get to the store. Walter walked toward it, feeling sluggish.

"They're coming around the side!" Rose shouted. She raised her rifle and fired. The slower zombies were easy targets, even in the black of night, and fell immediately at a headshot. The others, though...
"They're too close, Nat!" Mrs. Cooper shouted downstairs toward her husband.
Thunder roared from below as Nat Cooper fired the shotgun from between the boarded windows. "They're too damn fast, I don't want to waste ammunition! David, watch that window, he's coming around!"
David raised the heavy hunting rifle toward the window, but struggled to keep the barrel up.
From above, Rose fired her rifle twice more. "That's the last of the slow ones! How many left?"
"Three, I think," Nat Cooper shouted. A piercing shriek from outside preceded a fast body springing from the darkness and shattering a board on the window Mr. Cooper was guarding. Arms covered in splinters and rivulets of blood reached into the house.
Thunder, cocking, and more thunder. "Two left," Nat Cooper said.
"I think one's come around this side, Poppa," David said.
Rose and Mrs. Cooper came downstairs with their rifles, ready to help guard the windows from the nearby intruders. In the center of the house, young Daniel sat with his knees to his chest, crying softly.
David hefted his gun to the window again, resting it on one of the guardian boards.
"David, don't leave that there!" Rose shouted, moving to help him.
Too late. A hand grabbed the barrel from outside and yanked, pulling the boy toward the window. Two bodies smashed the boards on the window and grabbed David. "MOOOMMAAA!!"
The whole family ran to him. Rose struck the zombies with her crowbar. Mrs. Cooper screamed, swinging a shovel with strength only adrenaline and maternity can create, beating the zombies off her son. Mr. Cooper fired four shots from the shotgun, obliterating the zombies.
"David! David, are you all right?" Mrs. Cooper asked frantically. She stumbled, and Mr. Cooper dropped the shotgun on the floor to catch her.
David stumbled backward, turned, and vomitted. He looked up at his mother with blank, bloodshot eyes. An inhuman shriek sprang from David's body.
"David?" Mrs. Cooper said, eyes full of tears as he lunged at her.
"NO!" Rose shouted as she struck the creature that had been David Cooper with the crowbar. The creature came again, and Rose struck again, and again. The creature fell back, then turned toward Daniel, still on the floor crying.
Rose moved quickly. She scooped the shotgun from the floor, spun to the monster, and fired the last round. What remained fell to the ground.
"NO!" Mrs. Cooper screamed. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SON?!"
Rose was in shock. "He... it wasn't your son anymore."

Walter was still hungry. He had eaten on the 3-foot hero sandwich lying next to the bag of oats on the Quick-E Mart floor. The wanderers seemed inexplicably intent on that bag...
Another flash. People, expressionless, bent over a human body. Blood on their faces. Walter's sandwich, somehow attached to the body.
"UUGGHH!" Walter clenched his eyes, then opened them. Whatever it was had passed. He really needed to talk to someone. And find more food. Still hungry.
Walter saw new people moving amid the wanderers. Who are they? He wondered. But they weren't people: they were like life-sized marionettes, moved by strings that floated up into the air. They moved like animals, fast. They would be in one place one moment, and in the blink of an eye much closer. Walter didn't like them. Neither did any of the wanderers. Walter needed to cut those strings. Yes. The marionettes were too creepy, they needed to put cut and put away.
In an instant one was upon him. No, a 10-foot snake was upon him! He moved as it struck, barely missing. The snake struck again. Walter felt fangs enter his right hand. Blood flowed out of him as venom flowed in. Walter pulled the snake, still embedded in his hand, towards himself. If that's the game, Walter thought, two can play. Walter bit the snake, sinking his teeth into it. Its body whipped about violently, then went limp and fell to the ground, releasing him. Walter looked at it again. A marionette, but no strings. All around him, wanderers stood next to limp marionettes. Walter felt jubilant, wanting to celebrate. The wanderers didn't look like they wanted to have a party. As he walked off, Walter wished his wife were there to congratulate him.

They buried David the next day. There was little time for mourning, though, because of the repairs needed to keep the house protected. The zombies had smashed a number of boards, and had gotten the last of the chickens. Rose worked hard hammering boards over the windows, hauling firewood into the house, cleaning the guns. Twilight approached quickly, and the day's work was showing on her.
"If you keep this up, you won't be able to stand tonight, much less fight," Nat Cooper said as Rose nailed the last board to one of the windows.
"I'm just doing what I have to," Rose said. "I can't let it happen again."
"You don't owe us anything, you know," Nat Cooper said. "We fed you, you fought for us. We've been square all along."
"You guys took me in," Rose said. "You've been like a family to me since I got here."
"Get in hear, dear," Mrs. Cooper said. "Sun's going down, we've barely time to eat before they come."
Nat Cooper walked into the house. Rose hammered the last nail and then followed him to the door. Nat paused, then turned in the doorway. The shotgun was in his right hand.
"We're not your family," He said. "And with the chickens gone, we can't afford another mouth to feed that ain't flesh and blood."
"What?" Rose said, shocked. "You can't mean that."
"Plus, after last night," He said, "I reckon Mrs. Cooper couldn't bear to have you under our roof again. Now here's something to keep your strength up." Cautiously, he handed her a small hand towel with a boiled potato wrapped inside. He then placed both hands on the gun. "If I was you, I'd head south."
"Mister Cooper..." Rose said, fighting back tears, "Nat..."
"We needed you to fix our house today. You needed us to give you food for the road. So it's like I said, we've been square all along."
Rose stumbled back, turned to leave, then looked back at Nat angrily. "My shotgun?"
"If you try to come back," Nat Cooper said, "You'll get done to you what David got done to him."
Rose walked away from the farmhouse, slowly and wearily. As the sun set, there was rustling in the woods to the north.

I wonder how long I've been wearing this backpack, Walter thought. He knew it didn't have any food in it, or he would have eaten it already. He had followed the wanderers, which led him to a clearing with what looked like a little family restaurant on a peninsula surrounded by a small pond. The water looked harsh and forbidding. Probably poisoned, Walter thought, best avoid it. If he could find money in the backpack, maybe he could get a friendly server at the restaurant who would sit with him a while.
He saw a deer running lightly away from the restaurant. Maybe I should go hunting instead, Walter thought. He felt he could eat the whole thing. It was a doe. Doe, a deer, a female deer. Walter looked up at the Cheshire cat. It was grinning widely, evidently recognizing the song Walter was trying to remember.
Between him and the deer, Walter saw a dozen of the marionettes chasing it. They were going to get to his dinner first. He had to beat them to it. To beat them. Walter hated the marionettes. Maybe there was something he could use against them in the backpack. How long had he been wearing this backpack?

The fast zombies caught up with Rose among the trees. She had run for the area with all the good firewood. She picked up a strong, slender branch from the ground and struck the first zombie in the head. She began beating them off, but she clearly wouldn't be able to do it for long.
The slow zombies began to reach them. But instead of attacking Rose, they grasped at the faster ghouls. They began to struggle, wrestling with each other violently. The ghouls bit into the slow zombies repeatedly, but in vain. When one of the slow zombies returned the favor, the ghoul screamed and went into convulsions before falling to the ground, limp. Rose tried to move away from the struggle, but was block from behind by a couple of slower zombies. She struck the first to the ground, then struck it in the head with her make-shift club. She didn't linger to see if it was dead or just dazed. The second was wearing some kind of military looking backpack. Rose looked at its face more directly, struggling to make out its features in the failing light.
"Oh my-..." Rose gasped in fear and horror, "Walter?"
Walter Newman stared at Rose blankly.
"UUGGHH!"

Zombie Meta-Discussion

The text of the latest chapter is written, just leaving links and some formatting to do. I'm very happy with the results, in that I think this next chapter captures the mood I was going for exactly.

As a brief recap: We've finished Act I (Chapters 1, 2, and 7), in which the main characters were introduced, the setting was established, and the community was formed. We've also finished Act II (Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6), in which we saw how the community dealt with relating to the post-apocalyptic world and each other; we also saw the community separated, leading to Rose seeking refuge at the Cooper family farmhouse and Walter being killed and reborn as a revenant. The upcoming Chapter 8 begins the final Act by returning us to the events at the very end of Chapter 6.

Before posting the next chapter, I'd like to get some reader thoughts on the technical presentation up to this point. If you think the story/characters/themes are crap (or if you think they're great, for that matter), feel free to talk about that, but that's not what I'm thinking about right now. I'm mostly wondering about things like frequency of links, length, etc.

I'm particularly wondering about the length. This chapter is about the same size as the last two, a bit over 2,000 words. Up to this point I've been dividing these longer chapters in half, figuring nobody wants to sit reading a blog post much beyond 1,000 words. However, the chapters would flow better as a unit. I've thought about trying to get the length down to around 1,500, but I just don't think I can cut that much (and I always make sure you readers get what you pay for, I'm sure you won't be too upset).

I'd just like to get some thoughts on this before I put chapter 8 up. Chapter 9 will probably finish the story, although I wouldn't be surprised to see it hit 3,000 words, so I really need to deal with formatting issues before racing to the finish line. Please comment early and often.

Origins

If you want to know someone, what question do you ask? "How do you do?" "What do you do?" "Where are you from?" A friend of mine takes a novel approach: "So, what's your story?"

To know someone, it's not enough to get some facts together. You need to understand what their life has been like. Why they choose what they choose and do what they do. And to know that you need to know how they came to be what they are.

The same is true for getting to know characters, and the why and how are especially true of superheroes. People in relatively ordinary situations reveal themselves over time, their quirks and habits congealing into a coherent identity. But the whole point of superheroes is that they are not in ordinary situations.

Superheroes are characters, just like in any other type of story. The best heroes are not those who are very different from the rest of us, but those who are the same. What makes this kind of story work, and why I enjoy them so much, is it puts relatively ordinary people in unthinkable situations, forcing them to grow and change into who they really are. In a superhero story there can be good guys, bad guys, and a whole lot of degrees in between, but the one thing no one can be is wishy-washy. Superheroes are born of extraordinary constraints, and constraints create choices.

I think it's because these kinds of stories are so tied to the constraints that makes the origin story so central to superheroes. It's not so much that the fact that this person can do things no one else can demands justification; we encounter uniqueness in people all the time, and it's not like other movies don't exaggerate reality. No, we need to see the origins of superheroes because the things that bind them to be heroes are why the choose what they do. The origin story is the superhero's story.

Just in case you aren't convinced yet, consider this: the fact that Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive/genetically engineered/totemically possessed spider is not why he does what he does. Peter Parker is Spider Man because when he tried to just be a dude, his uncle was murdered. Peter believes what he does about the spider because he experienced what he did about his family. With or without magic pixie dust, that story would have been the origin of something.

A few weeks ago I found a 5 issue origin story for the superhero Daredevil at the thrift store, written by Frank Miller no less (you may know him for the original graphic novel of 300, as well as his directing work on Sin City and The Spirit). Really well done. I'm sure it helps that Miller was a regular writer for Daredevil in the early 80s, but he seems to get why the character does what he does. Miller knows Daredevil's story. And most really don't get it, 'cuz was that movie ever bad!

All this is to say, I guess, that I really like superhero stories, especially origin stories. I like getting what a character is about, knowing what they'll do next because I know who they are (as opposed to be because of a rehashed plot). I'd love to see movies of characters like Thor, Punisher, The Spectre, Daredevil, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and a whole bunch of others. But the creators have to know the characters, understand what they are about. And to do that, the creators have to be able to tell the origin story. So here's hoping for a host of awesome Superhero Origin movies in the future!

Here's some good (or at least entertaining) origin movies / comics for you:
Batman Begins
Unbreakable
Batman: Year One
Daredevil: The Man Without Fear
The Matrix
Darkman
Iron Man
Heroes: Season 1
Here's Hoping on the Wolverine Movie!

PS- This made me laugh.

If Rorschach were Me... or Very Confused

Roar-Shock's Journal, Easter 2009:

Still getting used to electronic journaling. Wanted to comment on previous entry, but couldn't find archives. Library system must have glitches. Hurm.

Had trouble with Shock-mobile today. Overheated engine, not enough coolant. Own fault, stupid. Big Tony came to help though. Good friend. I know I can be difficult sometimes...

Good day otherwise. Spent day at church and with family. Didn't waste any criminal scum today. [insert comment insensitive to minority group here.]

Wife is pregnant, due any day now. Might not write anything for a while. Or will write more, with deep fatherly insights. Insight # 1: Don't stay up too late. Sleep is your friend. The kind who gets busy doing other things and forgets to call sometimes.

Went to Good Friday service. Moving. Good to be drawn back to the cross. 'Beautiful, Scandalous Night' is a good song.

Still impressed with library computers. Never have to log on to them or any sites, even blogger. Always ready. Not sure why everyone wishing me happy birthday last week on that facebook called me 'Diego.' Not my name, or birthday. Thought was appreciated, though.

Just checked website 'twitter.' "derekwebb: just called 911 to report 3 gunshots with a block of my house." Scratch previous comment on wasting criminals today. Night is young.

Microeconomics: A Meta-Lesson

For those that don't already know, I teach a night course in the Principles of Microeconomics. 'Night course' means that I cover a weeks worth of material in one evening, a 3-hour marathon class (I do provide breaks; I'm not a slave driver yet). This week we talked about perfect competition, specifically whether perfectly competitive markets are good or bad. It's a really exciting lecture, because we get to see how all of the decisions in competitive markets perfectly match the desires of the people involved, and how no possible change to such a market exists that can make society better off (for a decent overview of the topic, you might try this site). We're getting into the part of the course I really like to teach.

After class, I had a student (who is originally from China) ask if people from different religions would disagree with anything I was presenting. It's a great question, particularly when we get to the topic of Welfare Analysis. There are plenty of arguments against positive neoclassical economics (what we teach freshmen) by other schools of thought - Austrians, Marxists, Feminists, even Behavioralists. But not many specifically religious positions would question the description of the world economists offer.

When it comes to determining if the world economists describe is good or bad, though, lots of opinions open up. Devout Muslims would say that the system of interest rates common to market economies is immoral. Many mainstream Christians would say that the problem with markets is that the encourage greed (or Avarice if you're a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic). I don't know with much certainty, but I suspect Buddhists would object to treating many goods and services like commodities. Personally, I find no religious objection to any of those things. In fact, like most economists I think interest rates for investment (loans for consumption are another matter) are good, and there are relatively few goods or services I think shouldn't be traded (I'll let you guess which ones they are).

But I do have problems with neoclassical welfare analysis. My objection is a bit subtler, though. I have no problem believing that competitive markets lead to resource movements that perfectly reflect the desires of the people (up to, and possibly including, the issue of income distribution). But I am not comfortable with the jump that says this is necessarily the best society can be. Implicit in this view of the world is the assumption that what people want and what is best for them are the same. Now, I just finished reading Judges, and I'm not getting a "people only want what's best" vibe.

There are a lot of self-destructive desires in the world, and this is the danger that would run rampant in a world where all markets where perfect with no intervention by the government. While in a lot of circumstances I think there is good justification for saying that people may be wrong about what's best for them, but no one else knows better. There are a lot of circumstances where I (as one who believes the world is the creation of a God who has not kept silent) think that is incorrect, too. I don't tell my students this, because they're hanging on for intellectual dear life as it is. But it is worth thinking about.

Markets can be perfect without being infallible. This concludes our meta-lesson.