Alice B. Sullivan – An Xperience Interview

Alice B. Sullivan – An Xperience Interview – by Liam Sweeny.

Death is not the answer. Not if you’re smack dab in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. In this environment, death is not the answer; it’s the admission ticket. Alice B. Sullivan brings zombies to life – or undeath – in the printed page. Her Aftermath series comes with a headshot.

RRX: Let’s start by having you tell me a little bit about yourself first.

ABS: All right. Well, I have been writing since a young age. I think it was like sixth grade in English class when we started writing poems and short stories, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I started by writing poetry and really short stories. I doubt they were any good, but I was 12 years old. I was just having a lot of fun with it. But I grew up loving the horror genre in general. Playing video games (Resident Evil), watching my brother and my cousin play those video games. I consumed horror like it was water. And then I figured out, as I got older, that I could also write. The stories that I loved to consume – whether it was games, books, shows, or movies – I figured out that I could also write those stories. The zombie genre just had this immense chokehold on me from Resident Evil and George Romero. I just stuck with that genre, and I never looked back.

RRX: Your zombies, are they Romero zombies or are they Resident Evil zombies in terms of speed?

ABS: It depends on the series. I have eight books and a couple of short stories, and I have my main series. In my main series, I have more Romero-style zombies in the sense that they shamble. There’s no residual intelligence there. (I know Romero dabbled in his intelligent zombies, which was super cool. I loved “Land of the Dead,” “Diary of the Dead”; I loved it all.) They don’t have the intelligence, but they shamble. They eat all sorts of flesh.  I do also love running zombies cause I think they’re terrific. It just depends on the type of zombies. So if it’s an undead zombie, it’s a shambler, but if it’s like my “living infected,” like “28 Days Later” or “Dawn of the Dead 2004,” it’s gonna be a runner.

RRX: How do you think it happens? In fiction, like if we were to really get zombies, what do you think would keep the undead alive enough to run? How do you think that would happen?

ABS: So, in terms of reality, I think it would be science gone wrong simply because humans always explore things a little bit too far. We think that we can do certain things in the name of science and discovery, but we never really know when to draw a line, and I think because of that, we always cross that line. I think it would be something bioengineered in the sense that it would take hold of the important aspects of the body, so the brain stem, the major organs, but what makes you “you” is kind of gone. In that sense, you’re undead. But the pathogen, whether it be a virus, bacteria, fungus, etc., takes hold of your nervous system and does all of your sort of functions for you, but what makes you you is completely gone.

RRX: When you’re writing about zombies, obviously, there’s metaphor and stuff like that. I look at it from two different kinds of perspectives. One was like the original “Night of the Living Dead.” It was so much about the fear of the zombies. It wasn’t trying to figure out the personalities of the people in the house. It’s all about the fear, the isolation, you being trapped, and trying to figure out how to survive the night.

And then you have “Walking Dead,” where it’s almost like they’re props. Because it’s all about the character development of all these people, and the zombies are just something like window decoration, just a plot device at some point. How do you balance those two perspectives?

ABS: When I consume my zombie media – books, games, what have you – I do like a lovely balance of zombies being a threat on top of human relations. Because, of course, when the apocalypse happens, you’re going to have that human drama, whether it be people going completely ballistic or you’re trying to seek companionship and survival with other people. But when I write, I make sure that zombies are still sort of center stage. In the sense that if people become a little bit too docile to zombies, that’s when you make that mistake, and a single mistake can cost you and other people their lives. So zombies are always a looming threat, whether it’s 10 years in the apocalypse or five months since the apocalypse. But the way my characters deal with that is that they work as a team. They train every day with simulations and real-life scenarios so that they don’t ever really become too docile to the threat. Because one zombie or a group of three zombies isn’t that terrifying, especially if they’re shamblers. But in a horde situation, you can get backed into a wall pretty damn easily. And regardless if they’re walking, you can’t really outrun that. You’re gonna get backed into their corner.

So I do like that steady balance of human relations, them growing and still learning. Even if they’ve lived with the zombies – them growing and learning and meeting new people, and then humans coming in to sort of disrupt that a little bit and forcing the characters out of their comfort zone. So, placing the characters out of their comfort zone brings an added layer of drama regardless of them fighting the same types of zombies. It’s still in a different environment, city, town, whatever. But I still think that adds that layer of drama of breaking the character out of their comfort zone.

RRX: I think you touched on something. Yes, the zombies are scary, but after being in that world long enough, you kind of get used to them, and the living human beings end up being the bigger problem. Do you have any of that in your writing?

ABS: I do. In my main series (it’s the Aftermath series), it’s set 10 or 11 years post what I call the collapse, which is a zombie outbreak. My character focuses on the town that she has found refuge in, but then an outside force comes in, disrupts everything, forces her out of her comfort zone, and she realizes that the zombies aren’t the only thing that she has to worry about. What disrupts her comfort zone is a higher evil, which is, you know, corruption. The origin of the outbreak itself, and people she thought she knew ending up being people she didn’t know at all, because people are deceiving, they can betray you. So I do have people being an outside strong entity to disrupt the flow of a character’s mundane, quaint life in the zombie apocalypse. So it’s never cozy.

RRX: One of the things that’s cool about the zombie genre is, as terrifying as that world is and the many dangers and threats that you have to navigate, there’s a sense of freedom. Because, even though they’re not deadly, think of all the things we have to navigate in our modern society that, when you’re in a zombie apocalypse, those don’t matter anymore. Nothing matters except survival. So in a way, there’s a big freedom to it all. Do you see that?

ABS: Oh yeah, 100%. My friends have asked me, “Do you prefer a zombie apocalypse or a 9-to-5 job?” And I picked the zombie apocalypse every time. I know it’s devastating. I’m not trying to take away from the devastating aspect of it or the death toll or anything like that. I know how heavy it is. Obviously … all I write are zombie books, and I understand the weight of it all. But when you’re put into that, it’s like when life gives you lemons, you have to make something out of those lemons, right? You have to look at it a little differently. There is a sense of freedom. You’re not waking up, having to worry about bills, taxes, anything like that. You’re waking up, and you’re kind of back to your roots of finding community, growing food, maintaining livestock, and sort of trading skills that are equal in value. To help each other out, rather than focusing on making money to afford something. Everyone’s kind of working together to sustain some sort of community, and you have camaraderie, and you have things like that. So it brings us, in my opinion, back like people. Back to their roots, and you understand that yes, it’s devastating, but at the same time, if you find a close-knit community, you can build something out of it. There’s still some hope in that situation.

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