The thought of being eaten alive is a natural fear, and when it's your own species doing the eating, it's even more terrifying.I think Mizejewski has it all wrong way: bacteria, insects, and wildlife aren't chowing down on zombies because the infection has a superior design. It elegantly solves the two biggest problems faced by micro-organisms: competition and propagation.
Relax. Next time you're lying in bed, unable to fall asleep thanks to the vague anxiety of half-rotten corpses munching on you in the dark, remember this: if there was ever a zombie uprising, wildlife would kick its ass.
(Note: very minor spoilers ahead if you've never watched The Walking Dead.)
Competition
There are many types of bacteria that produce highly toxic poisons: botulinum, tetanus, staph, salmonella, and so on. The Walking Dead infection could conceivably produce a toxin that renders zombie flesh repellent to all common bacteria. Animals chomping on them would immediately spit out the distasteful flesh.
That would give the zombie infection a huge competitive advantage: they would have human corpses all to themselves.
Propagation
Viruses and bacteria propagate through the air, through food or by exchange of fluids. We know everyone in The Walking Dead is infected, but we don't know exactly how the infection spreads. We know a bite is required to turn a person directly (perhaps by delivering a lethal dose of the toxin). We know amputation can save a bite victim. We know everyone has either been drenched in zombie blood or has been in physical contact with someone who has. So it seems the infection is passed through fluid exchange.
The initial infection could have been through almost any means: toilet seats, unwashed lettuce, blood transfusion, super-soldier or immortality serum gone awry, a form of kuru transmitted by cannibalism, and so on. Anyone coming in contact with a carrier could be infected but would show no symptoms. Only when a carrier died would there be any clue that something was going on. The zombie plague could be worldwide before anyone had a clue.
One hurdle virulent blood-borne micro-organisms face is that when they kill their hosts they stop propagating. That's why ebola hasn't killed us all.
Not the zombie bug. Its carriers get up after they die and continue to spread the infection. It's an ingenious solution to the propagation problem. But how do zombies get up and walk around?
First, what's the energy source for the zombie? There's no blood circulation or respiration (zombies work just fine riddled with bullets), so there's no way to transport oxygen and nutrients to the muscles. That implies that the zombie bug is consuming the body of the zombie to provide energy.
Second, how does the zombie know what to do? How does it coordinate a broken body well enough to walk on two legs?
The zombie bug itself must provide the energy to infected tissue, perhaps some form of adenosine-triphosphate that's toxic to bacteria, allowing the corpse's most basic functions to proceed without heart or lung function.
Given that energy source the corpse's reptilian brain, eyes, ears and muscles could still function to allow the zombie to ambulate and seek food. Higher-level cognition is absent because the zombie bug feasts on the gray matter of the brain to provide that energy (naturally).
A Reprieve?
As the infection consumes its hosts, eventually the zombie hordes will wither to motionless husks. At which point the zombie problem becomes manageable.
But as the the series has shown, the biggest problem isn't the zombies, but other survivors. If they continue to behave like backwoods survivalists and shoot anything that moves, they're all doomed to chaos and solitary death.
Though The Walking Dead is fiction, it shows how important collaboration and compromise are essential for survival in dire situations, regardless of whatever differences we have.
I just wish the zombies in the Tea Party could understand this...
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