Zombie CSU

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Shaun of the Dead appeals to my inner wiseacre. It’s a brilliant parody that’s very witty and hysterically funny. Not surprisingly, Re-Animator is another favorite. It’s a darker spoof of horror films than Pegg and Wright’s but still a worthy cult classic.”

  * * *

  Naturally the pathologist works closely with the medical examiner or coroner to contribute evidence to ongoing investigations, or for court cases.

  Expert Witness

  “There are a couple of things to know about this subject,” remarks Dr. Herschel Goldman, a consulting pathologist and expert witness. “First, if you’ve been in pathology for any length of time you’ve seen just about everything. Early in my career, I worked for nine years at the University of New Mexico hospital, and we had several plague victims come through our department. They tell you about that in medical school, but until you actually have a plague victim on your table there’s a part of you that just doesn’t believe it. Since then, I’ve worked in the States and abroad and I’ve seen more disease victims than you can imagine. To me this is old hat nowadays. This is thirty years in now, and I don’t know how many postmortems I’ve done. Thousands upon thousands. I’m beyond being shocked anymore.”

  I asked him how jaded a pathologist would get after a while.

  “It’s not that you get jaded per se.” he says. “It’s more that you become used to these extremes because there are six billion people in the world and everyone will die at some point. It’s a perspective check when you stop and realize that everyone who has ever lived since history began has either already died or will at some point die. At first the thought is morbid, but after a while it’s oddly calming because you realize just how much a part of life death is. It’s a wondrous and endless cycle.”

  How does that view withstand global pandemics?

  “That’s hard, just like it’s hard to see so many people die in the rush of a tsunami or a hurricane. We view discase on that scale as, yes, part of the natural world, but at the same time we’ve become somewhat armed against them. Just as we’ll build stronger levees in the hopes of withstanding the growing strength of tropical storms we’re also building stronger medicines and better processes for epidemic prevention.”

  The Zombie Factor

  I asked Dr. Goldman how a pathologist would react to a zombie plague.

  “Call me gruesome, but I’d love to take a shot at it. Discovering a new disease would be a nice thing to retire on. Of course, ideally I’d like to discover a new disease that can be prevented or treated. With plagues you often have victims before you have an idea of the pathogen, and in your zombie concept that’s what we’d have. We’d have the zombie, whether he’s still thrashing around in restraints or lying there with a couple of police bullets in his cranium, we’d still have a prime specimen. And if the infection from the bites is as virulent as you say it is in the movies, then we’d have the security guard, too. Two subjects presenting with two different aspects or phases of a new disease.”

  In the movies the doctors are often bitten or are too scared to work with the infected.

  “I would doubt that these movies are written by medical doctors, my friend. I don’t know a pathologist worth his salt who would back away from that. This would be the kind of thing we got into science for. The chance to learn something new, to add to the body of knowledge, to make a significant impact on medical history…that’s why we went to med school in the first place. We all had dreams of being scientific pioneers, but the reality is that most of what we do is routine. Crucial, to be sure, but it is routine.

  “Now you ask if we would be so shocked that we’d become zombie food? That’s not an outcome I can ever see happening. Understand, every pathologist, coroner or medical examiner I’ve ever met has had weird experiences, or knows someone who has. Corpses turn out not to be dead. You unzip a body bag and there’s your next door neighbor. Corpses are wheeled in with erections or big grins on their faces. You see it all after a while.”

  So, no panic?

  “No way. If a body started moving I’d be making a lot of calls right away. I’d have staff flooding the place; and, God forbid, if the corpse tried to bite me, I’d probably flee the room and lock the door, then call security. Remember, by the time we start conducting a post mortem the body has probably been wrapped in plastic and stored in a cold room for hours if not days. That means that even if we are talking a reanimated corpse it will be a very cold, very stiff, and very slow reanimated corpse. I’m over sixty but I play golf and tennis and I swim. If I can’t outrun a half-frozen zombie then I’m not trying.”

  What about the psychological effects?

  “Sure, there would be some, especially as we began to explore the pathology and realized that we had, in fact, an actual zombie. Views would change, nerves would be affected. That’s what therapists are for. But the big picture is that rather than be terrified of this we’d all be excited by it. It would be seen as an opportunity for a massive leap in medical knowledge. Everyone would want to book time to be in that autopsy suite. You’d have doctors flying in from every country on earth.”

  What about a global epidemic?

  “Most of the best doctors today, the young lions of pathology, got into it because of pandemics like AIDS. You think there’s a pathologist alive who doesn’t hope that someday they’re going to perform a necropsy and find something, some clue, some new direction that will lead to answers or to a cure? We study the diseases of the body with the hope, open or secret, of making a real difference. In forensic pathology mostly what we do is help prosecutors convict criminals. Very worthy, very important, but that doesn’t change the world. If a zombie plague existed, the best—the absolute best—in the field would be aching to take a shot at the case. Depend upon it.”

  JUST THE FACTS

  The Coroner’s Office

  Not all bodies are autopsied, but virtually all bodies associated with violent crime are. A postmortem examination performed on a body associated with a crime (or suspected crime) is known as a forensic autopsy. If a body is presented with an uncertain cause of death, an autopsy becomes even more crucial, and the surgical exploration, the examination of the organs and tissues, and the tests performed on blood and other bodily fluids often reveal what might otherwise go unnoticed.

  * * *

  Eternal Lust

  Zombie Love by Lisa Anne Riley

  A number of zombie stories have strayed from ghouls and humans fighting to the death themes into the realm of ghouls and humans exploring a whole new (and incredibly twisted) slant on necrophilia. Ranging from movies like director Michele Soavi’s Cemetery Man (1996) (a.k.a Dellamorte Dellamore) in which hero Francesco Dellamorte (played by Rupert Everett) has a torrid affair with a gorgeous zombie (played without a sign of decay by Italian supermodel Anna Falchi); to the indie cult hit Zombie Honeymoon (2004), directed by David Greboe, in which Danny, a young newlywed husband (Graham Sibley) is infected with the zombie plague and his wife, Denise (Tracy Coogan) tries to keep their marriage together despite the fact that her new hubby is starting to eat people.

  There is zombie porn, zombie gay porn, zombie romantic comedies (zom rom coms, like Shaun of the Dead) and all sorts of twists and turns on love after death.

  But here’s a twisted little fact that might make you squirm next time you’re at a funeral: In some cases, when a man dies facedown or vertically the blood descending from higher to lower points after the heart stops beating can sometimes engorge the penis resulting in a postmortem erection. Over the centuries some wags have nicknamed this phenomenon angel lust, or—as I heard it described at a horror con a few years ago—a zombie chubby.

  * * *

  Expert Witness

  I spoke with experts at the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner to learn how this process works, particularly in connection with a criminal case. According to Lt. David Smith of the Investigations Division, “We have the best forensic doctors in the world working here. We are a teachi
ng facility and have an extensive intern program that attracts future pathologists to study here from monthly residents to yearly interns. We have a caseload of 20–40 bodies daily and because the population is so big and diverse, there is little to nothing that we haven’t already seen at least once.”

  How soon after a homicide does the coroner’s office generally take possession of a body? “That would depend on where the person died,” Lt. Smith says. “If they die at a hospital, we generally take possession of the body within 2–3 days (we have a lot of hospitals in this County and over 5,000 miles to cover to get to them). If they die at a residence or crime scene, then we pick up the same day, usually within a couple of hours of being notified of the death by police. We allow the police to conduct their investigation and recover evidence before we recover the body.”

  When asked which types of crime require an autopsy, he said, “Under California law, anyone who dies by means other than natural causes is a Coroner’s case. Even those cases who die of natural causes but have not seen a doctor in the 20 days preceding their death is a Coroner’s case. The pathologist is the person who will decide what type or level of autopsy an individual will receive. In L.A. County because of our high workload, we pick and choose which case receives a full autopsy. All homicides, regardless of circumstances will receive a full autopsy. Males under the age of fifty with no known medical condition will get one. Females under the age of sixty with no known medical conditions will get one. Traffic accident victims will usually receive a limited autopsy to include blood draw for BAC (Blood alcohol content), a drug panel, possibly x-rays and a superficial examination only (you don’t have to do a full autopsy to determine that a person died of multiple traumatic injuries when you can just look at a person and make that determination). A suicide death of gunshot wound to head would get a limited autopsy if the bullet didn’t exit (they would open up the head and retrieve the projectile). They would draw blood for toxicology and that would be all. Males fifty years of age and older and females sixty years of age and over with no signs of trauma and no foul play suspected would get a blood draw only and their death would be recorded as ‘Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular disease.’ This is a medical determination after years of study of bodies that have shown us that individuals in this age range almost always have the disease therefore autopsy is not required to prove it.”

  And the turnaround time for a postmortem? “During our slower times of year, once we receive a body, normal turnaround time is 2–3 days. During our busier times of the year (holidays, Christmas and late summer), turnaround time can be as much as 2 weeks. We make every effort to accommodate homicide detectives when we can. Under California law, detectives have 72 hours to charge someone who is in custody of a crime or let them go. When it is unsure if a murder has taken place, this would be most relevant and we push these people to the ‘front of the line’ when we can to help out. The Coroner’s office is an independent entity and does not have policy or practice dictated to it from other law enforcement agencies.”

  Lt. Smith adds that there are investigators at the coroner’s office who sometimes participate in the investigation: “Coroner Investigators serve as the eyes, ears, nose, etc. of the pathologist who is not able to go to a scene of death. The Coroner Investigator is charged with taking scene photos, interviewing witnesses, family, detectives, police officers and anyone else who might have information related to the death of the person. Investigators collect forensic evidence at a scene to include: hair samples, fingernail clippings and scrapings, GSR (Gunshot Residue collection), weapon recovery (firearms are collected and turned over to law enforcement for storage, all other weapons are brought into the office and placed in evidence). Investigators collect personal property and search for next of kin information, as the Coroner is the entity charged under law with the obligation of notifying the family.”

  I asked Lt. Smith to comment on the differences between real-world postmortems and the versions portrayed in films. “You’re not going to find a dark room with the single overhead light and the family standing in the room identifying a body that is pulled out of a cooler on a tray. We do not allow the families to view bodies while in our possession. If identification is an issue for us—no fingerprints on file, no x-rays, etc.—we would allow a family member to view a Polaroid facial photograph of the decedent to establish the identification.”

  Why the precautions? “Due to all of the contamination risks, smells, numerous bodies, etc. family members are never allowed on the service floor to view bodies or witness autopsies.”

  Joyee Kato, who works in the Decedent Notification section of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner discussed the process of notifying the next of kin in a murder case. “The coroner has responsibility to identify and notify the legal Next-of-kin (NOK) of death. However in Homicides, we allow the Handling Homicide Detectives to attempt notification first. We would then follow up with them in a couple of days. If they are unsuccessful—we would take over and search for NOK on our own. If the NOK is not present at the scene, our Investigator would begin searching for NOK info immediately. If they locate information, the ideal approach would be to make the notification in person. When done in person, we would usually request PD15 to accompany us in case the information causes the medical assistance or the notification results in violence. If NOK info is not readily available, we would continue to search for family back at the office using various resources at our disposal such as arrest history, DMV, special search websites, witness interviews, request report and so on.”

  I asked Lt. Smith about the scenes in films where a body is laid out with a sheet covering it—which falls off as the zombie or vampire rises. You see the same thing in the forensic-themed TV shows. It’s all very dramatic, but how likely is it? Lt. Smith was very eloquent on this point: “Bodies are never just covered with a sheet. All of the bodies are wrapped in plastic when they are picked up, with a sheet overlapping the plastic. This is to protect people and equipment from body leakage. I’m sure there’s probably more than what I have listed but the truth to be told is, I do not watch the forensic shows—I get enough at work! And they tend to make me laugh at the way they do things. I mean…I wish we could solve a case in an hour, and have forensic evidence literally dripping around a crime scene for us to find and use!”

  The Zombie Factor

  Now the crucial question: What if the corpse turned out to be infected? “It depends on what they are infected with,” advises Lt. Smith. “We have had several cases of bubonic plague come through the office (yes, it’s still around). We notify the L.A. County Public Health Nurse of any contagious disease that we receive—spinal meningitis, tuberculosis, plague, etc. Anything that might be a public health risk is reported to the nurse who in turn follows up with notifying any other agencies that might need to be contacted as well as notifying family and/or friends who may have had contact with the decedent prior to the death and who may be at risk. Serious health risk cases are locked up in special refrigeration units isolated from the rest of the decedents and staff and key-controlled by authorized personnel only.”

  Which means a zombie is not going to get up and walk out of the morgue, as is so often seen in films.

  Smith adds, “If the CDC16 is monitoring something special (bird flu for instance) and we encounter cases with the disease, we would let them know for tracking purposes, as well as the public health nurse. Something like a plague incident does not fly under the radar.”

  JUST THE FACTS

  The Zombie Infection

  To anyone in the health field, the word epidemic is guaranteed to send chills up the spine. Nothing paints a more terrifying picture than an invisible army of disease germs that spreads like wildfire.

  * * *

  Art of the Dead—Peter Brown

  Out for a Quick Bite

  “I like both fast and slow zombies. It depends on how hungry or mad they are. I consider them as formidable creatures, reacting on a primal urge to feed.
Just because the body is rotted doesn’t mean they are always slow to react. Considering their unnatural abilities of reanimation, why wouldn’t they have unnatural strength and speed as well? Hell, if you can rise up from the dead, lose a limb after being shot and still have the ability to move around free of pain…you see my point.”

  * * *

  The correct term for something like this is pandemic,17 which is defined by the World Health Organization18 as the emergence of a disease new to the population in which the agent infects humans, causing serious illness; and in which the agent spreads easily and sustainably among humans.

  There are plenty of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands or even millions and which are not considered pandemics, cancer among them. For a disease to be a pandemic, it must be infectious or contagious. Fighting communicable diseases is tough at the best of times.

  The World Health Organization classifies diseases of this kind as follows:

  Interpandemic period:

  Phase 1: No new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans.

  Phase 2: No new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans, but an animal variant threatens human disease.

  Pandemic alert period:

  Phase 3: Human infection(s) with a new subtype but no human-to-human spread.

  Phase 4: Small cluster(s) with limited localized human-to-human transmission.

  Phase 5: Larger cluster(s) but human-to-human spread still localized.