Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse

"There is no heaven. There is only Zombification."

Imagine just for a second that one day, after living a reasonably crappy life, you died. You were murdered. Just like that. And even worse, when they threw your ass into a hole in the ground, no one cared. No one came to wish you your best as you begin your journey into your afterlife. There were no fancy tombs, no sacrifices, no screaming widows; just a lump left in the Earth after the dirt was thrown on top of you. That would suck. As your life flashed before your eyes just moments before your demise, you'd wish for a chance to come back and do things differently. You'd wished that you had settled down, loved, had children, and dozens of other things as your heart pumped the last bit of blood into your failing body. As far as I'm concerned, you'll never get that chance to come back, so you have to live life to the fullest everyday, which is something I don't usually do. I just sit here and play video games, or write about them. But imagine if you did get to come back. Just like all those commercials for prescription drugs you see every twenty seconds if you watch the early morning news, certain side effects can occur. The most common side effect of death is Zombification. Edward “Stubbs” Stubblefield recently awoke from a twenty year stint with death and his Zombification is irreversible. Now, in 1959, he's trying to live his life to the fullest in the City of Punchbowl.

One of the worst problems with being dead for twenty or so years is how hungry you are if you do get lucky enough to wake up. One of the most important things for Stubbs to do then is to eat brains. Brains, while only contributing about 2% of the mass of our entire body consume nearly 20% of the energy that our body produces, so these brains are incredibly nourishing during Zombification. As Stubbs emerges from his tomb in one of the main squares of Punchbowl, a Mecca for modernization in 1959, one of the first things Stubbs discovers is that he's hungry, and his hunger can't be contained. He needs to constantly eat. He once was a traveling salesman in his old life, but his new business is brain consumption. It's all he really has time for and his new career is messy. When Stubbs clamps his teeth down onto the skull of a victim, their blood shoots out in nearly every direction. Chunks of bone and sinew litter the streets as Stubbs dines on the tasty grey matter inside the heads of once intelligent victims. Now, though Zombification is typically a disease that strikes the dead at random, it is highly contagious once it starts. If Stubbs does feast on the brains of say, a teenage hunk or a police man, well, they're unfortunately going to be afflicted with Zombification as well.

But, this has an added benefit for Stubbs. Stubbs is a perfect middle-management candidate. Perhaps one day he might even find a nice position in civil service as a bureaucrat in the municipal government of Punchbowl if he can find a food source that doesn't require him jumping on people and eating their brains. Once Stubbs has chewed on a few tasty brains, he soon has an army of undead minions at his disposal. His army might not be comprised of the best and brightest, but they do take a lot of attention off of Stubbs and allow him to eat more and more brains and infect more and more people with his potent strand of Zombification. Sometimes they might need a shove in the right direction, but generally Stubbs' army can handle themselves alright in combat. Another side effect of Zombification is flatulence. Everyone has a little gas now and then, but during Zombification and the rotting of your insides, farts can literally clear rooms and knock people out. However, when attempting an overthrow of a municipal government, as Stubbs is attempting, this can be incredibly beneficiary. Stubbs can utilize this gas attack to allow easier access to some of the harder-to-consume minds around him.

Of course, life as a zombie isn't always the most interesting. It mostly involves brain eating, and then some more brain eating, followed by a few more hours of brain eating. Stubbs might occasionally possess someone, or blow them up with his head, but really, his life boils down to just a whole lot of endless people killing, and Stubbs wants to break free from this rigid life. He's got himself a love interest, and hopefully she can see past his green, slimy exterior and his insect-filled interior and find what remains of his maggot consumed heart. Fortunately, Punchbowl's municipal defenses aren't very strong, and Stubbs, even suffering from Zombification, can achieve victory in just a few days. With the help of competent human allies, Stubbs can take over Punchbowl in just a handful of hours. Stubbs might be left craving a few more brains and he might have wished that he could have done a little bit more than just feast and fart, but I think that, by the time Punchbowl and love have been conquered, Stubbs is reasonably satisfied with the second chance he was given for life and love.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/06