Warning: This article contains images of zombie gore.

Here’s the thing: I hate zombies. You’re probably thinking, “Well, no one likes zombies.” and you’re probably right about that. However, nothing quite evokes the particular sensation of skin-crawling, throat-closing, gag-reflex disgust in me like the shambling hordes.

Here’s another thing: I really like horror media, and having a whole avenue of it essentially closed to me has been frustrating for a while. True enough, there’s some zombie media that simply wouldn’t be up my alley anyway. I’ve moved well past the need or interest in anything that is endlessly dark, and a lot of zombie movies or TV shows are a misery slog without much else to say for themselves. Despite that, there is also a good amount of interesting zombie media that I might like to partake of, some day.

In short, I wanted to get over it. Granted, maybe roping a friend into watching The Walking Dead with me might have been a little too much, too soon. I don’t regret it, exactly, but it might have been a little too much of a trial-by-fire for my first port of call, seeing as I managed to neatly avoid the series for years. When asked if I’d seen it, I’d say it wasn’t really my thing. Alternately, i’d say that that I’d been spoiled for some plot points that would kind of ruin my experience, or any other number of (certainly true) reasons not to watch.

I rarely, if ever, told people about the fact that close-up detail of decaying zombie flesh and guts kind of made me want to die.

Still, I’m giving it a shot. Time will tell if I ever actually finish it. My gut feeling (haha, get it?) says it’ll actually be the human-on-human cruelty that will end up upsetting me more than the zombies, but we’ll see how it goes.

Recently, though, a copy of Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 fell into my hands, and I thought “Aha! This will put the nail in the proverbial coffin.” Now, granted, none of the zombies I’ve encountered so far have been too gross, on the decaying flesh front. The spitters are pretty nasty-looking, sure, but you know — they just want to vomit acid on me. That’s fine, I guess.

Where the hammer meets the nail in this scenario is that my options aren’t limited to passively watching people be torn apart, or passively watching a zombie stumble around with her guts hanging out of her ribcage. Instead, I’m making piles of zombie bodies over here, and honestly? It feels surprisingly good.

I even felt a little victorious looking at the chainsawed-open insides of a charger. I waited for the disgust reaction to come, and lo and behold, it never did.

I’ll probably have to keep playing, and watching a bunch more to really get to grips with it. I don’t want to be totally numb, mind you. If you ask me, feeling revulsion at the sight of rotting innards, brains, and skin is a pretty sensible squick. All the same, I’m pretty happy using Left 4 Dead 2 as a stepping stone until I feel brave enough to venture into the wild world of the shuffling undead out there.

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