#zombiehero

They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem (or several). Maybe you felt like you could never do anything right and thought you’d be better off dead.  Maybe you’ve suffered so much that you thought ending it all was a better option.  Maybe your life’s problems made you think there was only one solution.

Well, so did Baby Dahl.

Wait … who is Baby Dahl?

In another world, she was a porn star.  When life screwed her over, she decided to screw it back and take it for all it was worth.  She endured pains and pleasures to make her fortune and keep from ever letting anyone hurt her again.

Then came the zombie pandemic, which forced her into hiding.  It wasn’t long before a gang found and subjugated her, brutalizing her in every way because they could.  She couldn’t escape. She couldn’t fight back.  So she took her life, ending everything right there.

But her suffering didn’t stop there.  Her decision didn’t just take away her life, but also every possibility for pleasure, peace, and happiness.  Her tainted weapon brought her back as a zombie with a single-minded obsession to feed.  She damned herself even more than anyone else, for she became a monster worse than those who hurt her.  Even though one act of mercy turned her into the Death Doll and gave her the chance to atone for her suicide, her new existence became one of perpetual agony, an painful emptiness she could only satisfy with moments.  The pain of undeath far exceeded any suffering she ever knew in life.  None of those living problems came close to the torture she endures as a cognizant zombie.

This may be a fictional example, but there are real ways to suffer worse than the temporary problems you face in your life.  What if you jumped off a building or into traffic and ended up paralyzed instead?  What if your poisoning attempt just landed you in the hospital with an aching belly and a huge medical bill?  What if you tried shooting yourself and survived with irreparable brain damage?

There are worse things than death, but there are ways to look past that and beat back some of the pain in your life while you still have it.  Building something can tether you to the world, whether it lasts or not.  Helping people can help you feel like you can accomplish something, even if they don’t thank you for it.  Letting yourself connect with people—naturally, not elaborately—can make life worth living; you don’t have to land a supermodel to be validated when chatting with someone who shares some of your interests will make you smile.  You have options.  

Ever love someone you couldn’t be with because life seemed to keep you apart?

Ever support someone you care deeply for, even if they could never reciprocate?

Ever feel your life would amount to nothing because you couldn’t be with this person?

Life often throws us curveballs when it comes to love.  Maybe your families don’t approve of your connection. Maybe you clicked with someone who was already taken.  Maybe the greatest opportunity to fulfill your dreams came right when you met this person, who couldn’t follow you because of their own path.  

Regardless, it doesn’t have to stop you from loving them.  You can’t change how you feel, but you can still find happiness in the rest of your life and bring something good to theirs … maybe even others as well.  You can still build a life—and a love—with someone, even if it’s not that certain someone.  You can be there for that certain someone without giving in to temptation and sacrificing everything you’ve worked for.  It hurts like a bitch, don’t get me wrong, but you can find a deeper connection that keeps you from losing everything else that matters.

Didi has this problem in my zombie hero series, The Death Doll.  She’s in love with the man who made her what she became: a zombie who defends life in an almost dead world.  However, she knows that being with him would destroy everything they built.  Even if she never gives in to her intense hunger for human flesh, she could still infect him if they got too close, cursing him to suffer her pain for however long they could exist.  Even if they could come up with any kind of protection from that fate, her dead body could never feel his touch, which would eventually hollow her out worse than the taxidermist who disguised her appearance.

So, why bother?  Why even be near each other when all it does is hurt so much?

Because it’s not all they can do together.  They love each other, even if they never dare admit it, so they want to do everything they can to make the other happy.  Their options in this regard may be limited—excluding the one thing they long for the most---but together (in their own possible way), they make a life beyond the zombie pandemic possible for every survivor they can. They bring hope to a world that has long lost it.  Even if they can never consummate their love, they can still do great things together, giving themselves a deeper sense of fulfillment in knowing their efforts made life worth living for so many others.

Were you ever singled out for the color of your skin?

Were you ever told you are responsible for this or are only capable of that because of the way you were born?

Were you ever led to believe life would be better if those who don’t look like you were gone?

Always remember that those people are fools or worse: facilitators.  Too many people in the world will mislead you for their own gains; the rest just don’t know any better.  Nobody gets to tell you who you are or what you can/must do because of how you were born.

If you’d like to watch one brave soul lead her charges to a new home through a wasteland of survivors that will kill them for how they were born as soon as for their food, follow the continuing saga of zombie hero Didi in The Death Doll: Exodus, available for pre-order now on Kindle (digital and print release on May 1st, 2019). Also, don’t miss out on the beginning of her saga in The Death Doll, available on Amazon in print, Kindle, and Audible.

In my upcoming zombie hero sequel, The Death Doll: Exodus (to be released on Amazon on May 1st 2019), my protagonist Didi has to ferry her homeless people across seventeen hundred miles of zombie-riddled, gang-infested American highway.  In addition to all that “normality,” she’ll have to face two very different cities full of danger.

When I was a teenager, the worst that ever happened to me on a road trip was that my car had broken down on a move from California to Iowa and had to ride with strangers to find help; I got lucky I was found by the right one. Oh, and I did end up almost blown off the road in the middle of a tornado once.