Suddenly we seem to have landed in a place between Transylvania and Zombieland. Economists talk about Zombie banks and, even worse, Zombie bankers. (I'll have to look more closely at the teller the next time I make a deposit.) And I do hope my computer isn't a zombie, up to no good, without an email to me. 

Who among us would not like to see our buying power rise from the dead? Who doesn't want the job market to come roaring back, even with a few scars and blood dripping from its jaws? Is it possible that newspapers and magazines will rise again, bloodied or not? Zombies in all their ugliness, transcend death.
 

Luckily, Jane Austen's Lizzy Bennett has appropriate killer instincts. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies shows how it's done. Jesse Eisenberg in Zombieland, seems like one of us – OK, a little dorkier than anyone we know personally – and even he can combat evil. Fashion designer Gareth Pugh just previewed what the LA Times called his Goth-punk-zombie collection. And in a novel twist on a vampire tale, Twilight's Edward Cullen refuses to drink a human's blood. (I hope the creators don't seriously think the clumsy abstinence message will influence a single American teen.) 

If Zombies and Vampires are the way to trivialize the ultimate unacceptable fact of our own upcoming, unpredictable death, their stories are important to our psychic survival. And maybe the Zombie phenomenon is having unforeseen consequences. Ruben Fleischer, director of Zombieland, said Woody Harrelson, an ardent vegan, told him he would take the role only if he went vegan for a week. According to the New York Times, Fleischer hasn’t eaten meat since.