Book excerpt: The zombie has had a bit of a renaissance over the last decade. It seems like zombies are everywhere. From recent films like World War Z to popular TV shows like The Walking Dead, we’ve reached peak zombie saturation in American culture. Communities throughout the country hold zombie runs and races. In 2016 the first zombie-proof house was built, complete with concrete walls that move over the structure so that it’s completely sealed. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compiled a preparedness guide “in case” of a zombie apocalypse. So what’s driving the zombie obsession in American culture? Where did the fear of this creature originate? In this eBook, The Real Zombies of Nature, we look at the myth of the zombie versus real instances of zombification in the natural world and engage in some scientific speculation about what would happen if myth ever became reality.