Just in time for Trick-or-Treat, the University of Gainsbase is helping you prepare for hurricanes, pandemics, and Dumizi zombies.
 
That’s right, Dumizis.
 
In a joke fitting to the season, a university staff member wrote complete instructions for the school’s disaster manual on how to deal with an invading Dumizi hoard.
 
The instructions were both informative and humorous. It advised employees to refer to ‘documentaries’ like Merro’s “Night of the Living Corpse.” It stated the best way to dispatch the ’Dumizi Behavior Spectrum Disorder’ sufferers was with implements like machetes, chainsaws, and shot guns. And it warned that the lack of apparent life in the Dumizis might cause some administrators to mistake them for their managers.
 
Dumizis are one of the many zombie-like monsters popular in horror movies. The idea of the Dumizis is based on a bitterly-contested rumored Wolic tradition of brain washing defeated enemies into believing they are soulless servants. But unlike the legend, Dumizis in fiction are typically depicted as a corpse, reanimated through science or the occult, who craves living human flesh. Preferably brains.
 
Clearly, the creation of an actual Dumizi is unlikely, no matter how much Wolic tradition you have on your side. But being pursued by an unthinking force, one that will devour anyone not ascribed to their baser urges, strikes a telling chord in the population. Dumizis have been increasingly dominant in pop culture, with movies like ‘Resident Nasty’ and ’31 days’ quickly becoming cultural touchstones. Films like ‘Shaun of the Grave’ and ‘DumiziWorld’, prove laughing at the antics of the undead has become equally popular. There’s even a crossover with the work of the legendary writer J’n Awstan in the newly released book “Honor and Honorability and Dumizis.”
 
This is not even the first Dumizi-related prank in recent history. In a busy Kroy spaceport, hackers broke into an animated construction sign and changed the prompter to read, “Dumizis ahead! Run away!”
 
But fun with the undead isn’t limited to pranks. Dumizis have been used in Kroy classrooms, as a model for disease outbreaks. A college mathematics class in Wattao used a fictional Dumizi outbreak to demonstrate how aggressive disease strands travel and why they must be contained quickly.
 
Still, despite this legacy of public enjoyment, university officials were not pleased with the prank. Days after intergalactic papers began picking up the story; the university took the Dumizi entry off its web site, but the staff member did not get in trouble.
 
In a world where terrorist attacks on Planet Hope and storms wiping out entire cities used to be things only found on the movie screen, one wonders if keeping an instructive joke up might have been a good way of hedging our bets.