Zombieland

No one really knows when the first zombie infected the next and it became a plague of destruction. No one will ever know, because within 3 days 50% of the population was infected and the rest within a month of that. This is about what happened next.

The first misconception about zombies is that they can't live without human flesh to snack on. This proved false once there wasn't anyone left to eat. Rather, they are driven by a deep biological need to consume fresh flesh in much the same pre-zombie humans were driven to copulate. The urge was always there, but without the ability to fulfill it they managed, similar to a priest with a vow of celibacy. They didn't need to devour flesh for sustenance, as they no longer needed any sort of food.

The second misconception is they are brainless monsters also proved false. Although becoming a zombie removed mental faculty it didn't wipe it out. One became a sort of mental infant with the motor skills of a adult, all vicious urge and desire without the emotional complexity to express themselves. Picture a mentally handicapped adult with murderous impulses and you will get the idea.

So what was a population of zombies to do once there wasn't anybody left to snack on? Imagine a world where all the women on Earth were gone, leaving  only men. A kind of chaos, except in this case the population was totally static and without any concept of death. For a long while, the Earth simply healed itself. Nature began to take hold again in mostly abandoned cities. Animals, not recognized by zombies as food, began to fill in empty spaces left behind. The zombies just stumbled around, zombie-like, without purpose or goal, never tiring or need to rest or sleep or eat.

Finally, the zombies began to change. Bit by bit, they got a little bit older and their mushy baby brains actually started to record what was going on around them. They would stop aimlessly shuffling around and begin to look at things, not through them. They developed tiny goals and interests. Some would climb high up on buildings or cliffs and gaze down and feel confused by the enjoyment and the act in itself. Others would head to the green spaces and take in the lush green or the animals that once again ruled the planet. They were relearning how the planet works and how they could interact with it.

Finally, they tried to communicate with one another again. They would make long moaning sounds between their teeth or low guttural growls to try and show others what they had seen. In sheer frustration, they would grab each others hands and lead them to whatever they had to show and make a sound to represent it. Soon it was a common sight to see zombies hand in hand shambling down the streets, first in pairs, then in larger and larger groups until whole communties had formed. Or maybe formed again. Human society had manifested itself once again on the Earth.

Scholars decades later would reinterpret these early beginnings as their very own creation myth and argue about the strange remains of beings like themselves littered everywhere. They decided that a second, more perfect race had been created on the ashes of a first. And considering their evolution from bloodthirsty savages to reasoned debaters, who can blame them?