None of them could see or hear, but each was aware of one another’s proportional distance and
apparently believed that the other knew the way, none having the ability to clarify or shout out I don’t
know the way. They formed a three-file line through the center of traffic which, parenthetically but
naturally, stopped for them.
Some of the mummies in the back were picked apart by the crowd, which grew courage with
numbers, but the herd was largely unaffected.
They were not zombies. They were zombiesque. The mummies had risen from the dead with some
semblance of their past humanity. But they were both unable and unwilling to convert anyone in the
crowd to the ranks of the undead, and this latter quality is the defining aspect of zombies.
Vampires also rise from the dead and maintain some semblance of their previous humanity.
So do Frankensteins. Frankensteins, in fact, rise from the dead with more humanity than they’d
had before.
That’s what distinguishes a Frankenstein from a golem.
A golem and a Gollum both serve a master – as do zombies in the earliest tellings
– but this is their only similarity.
And nobody had confused the mummies for vampires.
Vampires and zombies also share the latter quality, but zombies have none of a vampire’s
panache.
As dusk receded into night the mummies slowed down, their linens unwrapping from the feet and
joints.
As the crowd receded the mummies occupied a greater portion of the street.
The smell of their ancient flesh emanated within their phalanx and they had no mechanism to smell
anything, even themselves.