My favorite monster has always been the zombie. They are so much

Host: The cinema was nearly deserted — an old, half-forgotten theater that smelled faintly of butter, dust, and memory. The screen glowed pale against the dark, playing the final, shuddering frames of an old zombie film — a black-and-white apocalypse where humanity and horror blurred together. The projector hummed softly, scattering light through the faint haze of smoke curling from Jack’s cigarette.

Host: Jeeny sat beside him, her knees tucked up, a cup of cold coffee balanced on the armrest. The room was still, the only sound the slow, looping whir of film spinning out its last reel. Between them lay a torn page from a film magazine — the kind you could find stacked in the corners of arthouse theaters, filled with essays that smelled like nostalgia.

On it, scrawled in ink:

“My favorite monster has always been the zombie. They are so much fun. They can be scary, pathetic, sad, funny, tragic, even heroic. They are the most elastic monster because, even with all of that, they don't interfere with telling stories about the humans. They serve as threats and metaphors, but they allow the story to be about people.”
— Jonathan Maberry

Jeeny: “He’s right,” she said softly. “The best stories about monsters aren’t really about monsters at all. They’re about us.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said. “Because humans are the only thing terrifying enough to make the undead look sympathetic.”

Jeeny: “You sound like Romero.”

Jack: “Romero was a realist. He knew zombies weren’t villains — they were mirrors. Flesh mirrors. Walking metaphors for everything we deny.”

Host: The screen flickered — the zombies lurching in grayscale agony, their movements slow but inevitable, like time itself chasing what’s left of humanity.

Jeeny: “You know what I love about Maberry’s line?” she said. “That word — elastic. It’s perfect. Zombies can hold anything we project onto them. Fear, guilt, hunger, grief. They’re blank canvases painted in decay.”

Jack: “Or they’re just what happens when the soul gives up and the body refuses to admit it.”

Jeeny: “That’s what makes them tragic.”

Jack: “That’s what makes them human.”

Host: The light from the projector strobed across their faces — alternating between shadow and glow, like a heartbeat caught in film.

Jeeny: “You ever think about why people love apocalypse stories?” she asked.

Jack: “Because it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of ourselves.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe because apocalypse wipes the slate clean. Strips away the noise. Leaves only what matters — hunger, survival, love.”

Jack: “And fear.”

Jeeny: “Always fear.”

Host: The reel clicked — the movie ending in a sudden burst of white before the screen went dark. The light cut off, leaving them in stillness. Jeeny leaned back, her voice softer now, almost reflective.

Jeeny: “You know, zombies are the only monster that make me feel sad instead of scared.”

Jack: “Because they don’t mean to hurt anyone?”

Jeeny: “Because they remind me of everyone who’s lost their way. People walking through life with eyes open but hearts dead.”

Jack: “You mean society.”

Jeeny: “I mean us.”

Host: Her words lingered — quiet, heavy, like dust refusing to settle. Jack looked over at her, his cigarette burning low.

Jack: “You think we’re zombies?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes. We scroll instead of speak. We consume instead of connect. We move, but we don’t feel.”

Jack: “That’s not death. That’s survival.”

Jeeny: “That’s decay disguised as progress.”

Host: Outside, thunder rumbled faintly — the city’s pulse echoing through the old theater walls. The flickering emergency exit sign painted the room in dull red, like the heartbeat of a dying god.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why zombies endure,” he said. “They adapt. They evolve. Not physically — metaphorically. In the ’60s they were fear of conformity. In the 2000s, fear of infection. Now? They’re fear of apathy.”

Jeeny: “Fear that we’ve become too desensitized to notice when something dies inside us.”

Jack: “Or when it gets back up.”

Host: The rain began to fall against the windows — slow, rhythmic, cleansing. The sound seemed to soften the air, grounding them back into something real.

Jeeny: “But that’s what I love about them,” she said. “They don’t talk. They don’t reason. They don’t pretend. Every other monster — vampires, demons, ghosts — they’re too articulate. Zombies are just truth stripped of all metaphor. And somehow that makes them… honest.”

Jack: “Honest?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because they don’t fake humanity. We do.”

Host: The silence after that was thick — the kind that forces you to look inward.

Jack: “You know,” he said quietly, “maybe that’s what Maberry meant when he said zombies don’t interfere with stories about humans. Maybe it’s because they reveal the humans. When the world ends, we show who we really are — the cruel, the kind, the cowards, the ones who still choose to hope.”

Jeeny: “And that’s what keeps the story alive — not the monsters, but the survivors.”

Jack: “Or the ones who try to be.”

Jeeny: “You think there’s a difference?”

Jack: “Only in timing.”

Host: She laughed softly — not mockery, but the sound of someone who’s seen too much truth and decided to smile anyway. The rain outside softened, the storm giving way to something gentler.

Jeeny: “You know what I think?” she said, standing and walking toward the dark screen. “I think zombies are the purest symbol of love. They never stop walking toward the people they want.”

Jack: “That’s one way to look at obsession.”

Jeeny: “No. That’s one way to look at persistence.”

Host: She turned back toward him, her face half-lit by the last glow of the exit sign. “You can’t kill love any more than you can kill hunger,” she said. “It just keeps coming — mindless, relentless, desperate.”

Jack: “So we’re all just starving?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But at least we’re starving for something that once made us human.”

Host: He crushed out his cigarette and stood beside her, their reflections faint against the blank, silver screen — two living figures surrounded by ghosts of the stories that came before.

Jack: “You know,” he said softly, “maybe that’s the point — zombies keep coming because people keep failing to learn what makes them human.”

Jeeny: “And storytellers like Maberry keep trying to remind us.”

Host: The rain outside slowed to a drizzle, a rhythm that sounded almost like applause.

Host: And as they stood there, shadows of motionless figures on a dead screen, Jonathan Maberry’s words seemed to breathe again — not as theory, but as warning:

“They serve as threats and metaphors, but they allow the story to be about people.”

Host: Because every monster, no matter how grotesque,
is just a reflection waiting to be understood.

Host: And every human,
no matter how civilized,
is a heartbeat away from hunger —
for meaning,
for connection,
for the pulse that proves
they’re still alive.

Host: Outside, the city flickered back to life —
not healed, not redeemed,
but still moving.
And inside the empty theater,
two souls watched the screen’s quiet silver shimmer
and realized —
the undead aren’t the tragedy.

It’s the living
who forget what it means to feel.