Zombie, Ohio: A Tale of The Undead / by Scott Kenemore

Peter Mellor, a philosophy professor at a small Ohio college, suddenly dies in a car accident while driving home one night. Only he isn't really dead. He's been "reborn" as a zombie, an oddly intelligent one at that, in a world having undergone a zombie apocalypse. While this new world is firmly infested with the living dead roaming creation and eager to feed off those still yet undead, Peter is actually one of the few (maybe the only one) who can comingle with both the hoards of lurching ghouls and the enclaves of "normies" who are eager to protect their lives at any cost. Despite suffering from severe headaches and bouts with amnesia, what's clearly evident to Peter is the the rapidly devolution of society as a whole.

Both the undead and the yet undead share a common trait of decomposition and depravity--the zombies already the embodiment of mindless parasites and the increasingly violent humans, having adopted a bloodlust of their own in loosely organized cells of militia and para-military cloisters, largely unsympathetic as beings of mass paranoia with hair-trigger mentalities. Peter soon learns that though he can still reason coherently with his former colleagues and friends, he's nonetheless hunted and preyed upon as "one of them" and must hide out to protect himself. And even though he's immune to the ravenous insanity of his zombie brethren, he finds that he's constantly having to suppress a growing addiction to the increasingly more appetizing gooey stuff inside people's heads. As if that weren't enough, Peter's also come to the conclusion that his car accident death may not have been entirely accidental and his resulting strange "afterlife" may have more to it than just a zany twist.

In a coy and intriguing take on the zombie genre and a book which may soon be seen, in some form, on the big screen, author Scott Kenemore looks at more than just what makes us alive or dead, but what in fact makes us human and, moreover, to what capacity can supposed fully rational being become mindless beasts. What is first a very humorous take on the currently en vogue horror genre, maintaining a tongue-in-cheek comedic appeal throughout its narrative, Zombie, Ohio is an innovative look at the realm of existence and the nature of conscious reality. After all, it's not staying alive which is the thing at stake in the zombie mode, but staying dead as well. (FIC KENEMORE)