Zombie Pepper Spray

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There exists a second sort of zombie legend that pops its head up throughout the western hemisphere—the legend of “voodoo zombiefication.” This myth is somewhat different from the one just described, in that zombies do not multiply by feeding on humans but come about by a voodoo hex being placed by a sorcerer on one of his enemies. The myth presents an additional problem for us: one can witness for himself very convincing examples of zombiefication by traveling to Haiti or any number of other regions in the world where voodoo is practiced.

We describe the particular case of Wilfred Doricent,3 an adolescent schoolboy from a small village in Haiti. One day, Wilfred became terribly ill. He experienced dramatic convulsions, his body had swelled tremendously, and his eyes had turned yellow. Eight days later, Wilfred appeared to have died. This was confirmed by not only the family and family friends present but also by the local medical doctor who could detect no vital signs. Wilfred’s body appeared to show bloating due to rigor mortis and gave off the foul stench of death and rot. He was buried soon thereafter.

Some time afterward, the weekly village cockfight was interrupted as an incognizant figure appeared. The villagers were shocked as they gazed upon the exact likeness of Wilfred. The person was indeed Wilfred, as his family verified by noting scars from old injuries and other such details. Wilfred, however, had lost his memory and was unable to speak or comprehend anything that was said to him. His family had to keep him in shackles so that he wouldn’t harm himself in his incoherent state. It appeared that Wilfred’s body had risen from death, leaving his soul in the possession of some voodoo sorcerer. Word of Wilfred’s “zombiefication” spread quickly throughout the village. It was believed that Wilfred’s uncle, a highly feared voodoo sorcerer who had been engaged in a dispute over land with Wilfred’s family, was the culprit. Wilfred’s uncle was later charged with zombiefication, a crime in Haiti equivalent to murder.

Is this truly a case of supernatural magic? To answer this question, we turn our attention to a highly toxic substance called tetrodotoxin (TTX).

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Gram for gram, TTX is 10,000 times more lethal than cyanide. . . . This neurotoxin has a terrifying modus operandi—25 minutes after exposure it begins to paralyze its victims, leaving the brain fully aware of what’s happening. Death usually results, within hours, from suffocation or heart failure. There is no antidote. But if lucky patients can hang on for 24 hours, they usually recover without further complications. . . .

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TTX is found in various sea creatures and, in particular, in the puffer fish. Puffer fish are a delicacy in Japan known as fugu that only trained and licensed individuals prepare by carefully removing the viscera. Of course, despite the care taken in preparation, about 200 cases of puffer-fish poisoning are reported per year with a mortality rate of 50 percent. The symptoms of the poisoning are as follows (U.S. FDA):

The first symptom of intoxication is a slight numbness of the lips and tongue, appearing between twenty minutes to three hours after eating poisonous puffer fish. The next symptom is increasing paraesthesia in the face and extremities, which may be followed by sensations of lightness or floating. Headache, epigastric pain, nausea, diarrhea, and/or vomiting may occur. Occasionally, some reeling or difficulty in walking may occur. The second stage of the intoxication is increasing paralysis. Many victims are unable to move; even sitting may be difficult. There is increasing respiratory distress. Speech is affected, and the victim usually exhibits dyspnea, cyanosis, and hypotension. Paralysis increases and convulsions, mental impairment, and cardiac arrhythmia may occur. The victim, although completely paralyzed, may be conscious and in some cases completely lucid until shortly before death. Death usually occurs within four to six hours, with a known range of about twenty minutes to eight hours.

Sometimes, however, a victim pronounced dead is lucky enough to wake up just before his funeral and report to his bewildered family that he was fully conscious and aware of his surroundings throughout the entire ordeal. Therefore, TTX has the unusual characteristic that, if a nonlethal dose is given, the brain will remain completely unaffected. If just the right dose is given, the toxin will mimic death in the victim, whose vitals will slow to an immeasurable state, and whose body will show signs of rigor mortis and even produce the odor of rot. Getting such a precise dose would be rare for a case of fugu poisoning, but can easily be caused deliberately by a voodoo sorcerer, say, who could slip the dose into someone’s food or drink.

The secrets of zombiefication are closely guarded by voodoo sorcerers. However, Frère Dodo, a once highly feared voodoo sorcerer, who is now an evangelical preacher and firm denouncer of the voodoo faith, has revealed the process. It turns out that zombiefication is accomplished by slipping the victim a potion whose main ingredient is powder derived from the liver of a species of puffer fish native to Haitian waters.

This provides an explanation for how Wilfred could have been made to seem dead, even under the examination of a doctor. However, we have already said that the TTX paralysis was unlikely to have affected his brain. How does one account for Wilfred’s comatose mental state? The answer is oxygen deprivation. Wilfred was buried in a coffin in which relatively little air could have been trapped. Wilfred’s story probably goes something like this: slowly, the air in Wilfred’s coffin began to run out so that, by the time he snapped out of his TTX-induced paralysis, he had already suffered some degree of brain damage. At that point, his survival instincts kicked in, and he managed to dig himself out of his grave—graves tend to be shallow in Haiti. He probably wandered around for some time before ending up back at the village. This topic was the subject of a horror film, The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Roger Mallory, of the Haitian Medical Society, conducted an MRI of zombiefied Wilfred’s brain. He and his colleagues found lesions of the type normally associated with oxygen starvation. It would seem that zombiefication is nothing more then a skillful act of poisoning. The bodily functions of the poisoned person suspend so that he appears dead. After he is buried alive, lack of oxygen damages the brain. If the person is unburied before he really dies from suffocation, he will appear as a soulless creature (“zombie”), as he has lost what makes him human: the thinking processes of the brain.

Seriously though, this whole zombie thing is getting super played out, it hit the gun world a few years back, and we're still seeing the occasional neon green shotgun or AR being marketed for use on zombies.