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Chapter Six
This anthropological zombie tale concerns Crain, a grad student, who has a theory of mankind's evolution. As he and his former professor scavenge on bone marrow left behind by the local zombie horde, he makes his well-reasoned argument.
21 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 11, 2014
7 people are currently reading
493 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Graham Jones
235 books14.9k followersStephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author thirty-five or so books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in.
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July 6, 2024
‘This is how you prove a thesis.’
There is such a playfulness to the ways Stephen Graham Jones confronts horror that has the reader nervously giggling through the descent into darkness and dread. Chapter Six is a brief little yarn but one that charmingly knits zombie apocalypse into a satirization of academia as two men, ‘ teacher, student, each working toward a common goal,’ trailing an herd of the undead in order to process their evolutionary theories. Lampooning the monomania of academic pursuits at any cost, Jones presents a fresh take on the classic zombie trope through an anthropological framing while still delivering plenty of chills and thrills.
‘Herd suggests a lack of intelligence, of conscious thought, while horde brings with it aggressiveness. Or, at the very least, a danger to the society naming those invaders.’
For those interested, you can read the entirety of the story HERE from Rector Magazine. I’ve always enjoyed the way Jones crafts horror through literary aims, examining tropes in ways that open up conversations on their philosophical underpinnings and exploring the gritty nature of humanity through the juxtaposition of the not-quite-human. He also excels at plunging the reader into the treacherous landscapes and suffocating dread of atmosphere, here with two academics ‘eighty miles from campus, if miles still mattered’ as societal collapse has dissolved our common constructs as the world is now populated by the ‘all-too-human horde, exhausting the landscape’ that is merely a bloodstained wasteland of ‘concrete and asphalt, stretched tight like an eardrum.’ This story is short but it crackles with engaging prose and forward moving tension even though the dialog is an academic discourse that feels all the more absurd and surreal in such a crumbling world. We follow the two academics as they follow the zombies like some sort of fucked up episode of Planet Earth but without David Attenborough to comfort us into the darkness. It is a dark humor of etymological insights of the past as a map towards the understanding of a future where the social codes of the present begin to have no meaning and primal instinct regain the throne.
‘Crain tried to frame their situation as a return to more primitive times. What the plague was doing, it was resetting humanity. Hunting and gathering were the order of the day, now, not books or degrees on the wall. Survival had become hand-to-mouth again. There was to be no luxury time for a generation or two, there would be no specializing, no social stratification. The idea of a barter economy springing up anytime soon was a lark; tooth and nail was going to be the dominant mode for a while, and only the especially strong would make it through to breed, keep the species going.’
Stephen Graham Jones is such a delightful writer who is a true champion of modern horror and Chapter Six is yet again another fine example of his literary prowess. Short but sinister and fun, Jones never lets me down.
⅘
‘This was his thesis in action. His final proof.’
There is such a playfulness to the ways Stephen Graham Jones confronts horror that has the reader nervously giggling through the descent into darkness and dread. Chapter Six is a brief little yarn but one that charmingly knits zombie apocalypse into a satirization of academia as two men, ‘ teacher, student, each working toward a common goal,’ trailing an herd of the undead in order to process their evolutionary theories. Lampooning the monomania of academic pursuits at any cost, Jones presents a fresh take on the classic zombie trope through an anthropological framing while still delivering plenty of chills and thrills.
‘Herd suggests a lack of intelligence, of conscious thought, while horde brings with it aggressiveness. Or, at the very least, a danger to the society naming those invaders.’
For those interested, you can read the entirety of the story HERE from Rector Magazine. I’ve always enjoyed the way Jones crafts horror through literary aims, examining tropes in ways that open up conversations on their philosophical underpinnings and exploring the gritty nature of humanity through the juxtaposition of the not-quite-human. He also excels at plunging the reader into the treacherous landscapes and suffocating dread of atmosphere, here with two academics ‘eighty miles from campus, if miles still mattered’ as societal collapse has dissolved our common constructs as the world is now populated by the ‘all-too-human horde, exhausting the landscape’ that is merely a bloodstained wasteland of ‘concrete and asphalt, stretched tight like an eardrum.’ This story is short but it crackles with engaging prose and forward moving tension even though the dialog is an academic discourse that feels all the more absurd and surreal in such a crumbling world. We follow the two academics as they follow the zombies like some sort of fucked up episode of Planet Earth but without David Attenborough to comfort us into the darkness. It is a dark humor of etymological insights of the past as a map towards the understanding of a future where the social codes of the present begin to have no meaning and primal instinct regain the throne.
‘Crain tried to frame their situation as a return to more primitive times. What the plague was doing, it was resetting humanity. Hunting and gathering were the order of the day, now, not books or degrees on the wall. Survival had become hand-to-mouth again. There was to be no luxury time for a generation or two, there would be no specializing, no social stratification. The idea of a barter economy springing up anytime soon was a lark; tooth and nail was going to be the dominant mode for a while, and only the especially strong would make it through to breed, keep the species going.’
Stephen Graham Jones is such a delightful writer who is a true champion of modern horror and Chapter Six is yet again another fine example of his literary prowess. Short but sinister and fun, Jones never lets me down.
⅘
‘This was his thesis in action. His final proof.’
June 7, 2020
They were eighty miles from campus, if miles still mattered.
It had been Dr. Ormon’s idea.
Dr. Ormon was Crain’s dissertation director. If dissertations still mattered.
They probably didn’t.
Zombies. Zombies were the main thing that mattered these days.
this is another fun social-science spin on the zombie tale.
after all of the philosophical riffs in zombie lit about "is zombie still human?," and "how much can we lose of ourselves and our society before we are ourselves no longer human?," this one goes in the opposite direction - aims its focus backwards to speculate about early human development when two scholars of anthropology and evolutionary biology find themselves in a position to obtain first-hand knowledge about how man responds and reacts to a new apex predator - the zombie.
dr. ormon and his student crain head out into the zombie-filled world, determined to prove or disprove crain's theory about why humans first became bipeds, and the efficiency of persistence hunting.
Their job as survivors, now, it was to go deeper than that infection.
This is how you prove a thesis.
to scholars of anthropology, the zombie plague is an opportunity - a laboratory of sorts in which to observe conditions firsthand that represent a watershed in human development.
Crain tried to frame their situation as a return to more primitive times. What the plague was doing, it was resetting humanity. Hunting and gathering were the order of the day, now, not books or degrees on the wall. Survival had become hand-to-mouth again. There was to be no luxury time for a generation or two, there would be no specializing, no social stratification. The idea of a barter economy springing up anytime soon was a lark; tooth and nail was going to be the dominant mode for a while, and only the especially strong would make it through to breed, keep the species going.
it's funny and playful, while also being relentlessly dark. the humor takes the form of academia-mocking, as the pair debate etymology while following a … group of zombies down the road, studying their behavior:
“Do horde and herd share a root?” Crain asked.
He’d been tossing it back and forth in his head since the last exit.
“We use horde for invaders,” Dr. Ormon said, in his thinking-out-loud voice. “Mongols, for example.”
“While herd is for ungulates, generally.”
“Herd mentality,” Dr. Ormon said, handing the binoculars back. “Herd suggests a lack of intelligence, of conscious thought, while horde brings with it aggressiveness. Or, at the very least, a danger to the society naming those invaders.”
Then no, the two words only sounded similar.
Crain could accept this. Less because he had little invested in a shared etymology, more because the old patterns felt good, felt right: teacher, student, each working toward a common goal.
the single-mindedness of bickering academics will return, quite spectacularly, at the end of the story, and provides a satisfying punchline to the horror.
and, yes - the things they do are probably things they do not need to start doing yet, as this early into the apocalypse there are likely still other options, but the people that point this fact out in the comments on the tor site must not have ever met an academic. this is not about survival, this is about precious data, and the irrelevance of their findings because - apocalypse - is of no concern. which is pretty much the black-humor current running all through this story, duh.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/06/ch...
come to my blog!
September 23, 2022
Marrow Escape
In a world sick of the Zombie trope, (well, at least I am) here is a zombie story that's a bit different.
An anthropology student is continuing his studies post-zombie-apocalypse by theorizing we (humans) evolved as persistence hunters. To do this, he and his academic adviser, follow a horde (or is that "herd") of zombies studying their behaviour. His hope/theory is, that the non-dead humans will evolve to deal with the new apex predator. My personal opinion is...academics would be some of the first to succumb to the zombie virus.
This is an okay book, but it's a bit like watching a movie that you missed the first 30 minutes of. 3 and 1/2 stars I reckon. ⭐⭐⭐🌓
In a world sick of the Zombie trope, (well, at least I am) here is a zombie story that's a bit different.
An anthropology student is continuing his studies post-zombie-apocalypse by theorizing we (humans) evolved as persistence hunters. To do this, he and his academic adviser, follow a horde (or is that "herd") of zombies studying their behaviour. His hope/theory is, that the non-dead humans will evolve to deal with the new apex predator. My personal opinion is...academics would be some of the first to succumb to the zombie virus.
This is an okay book, but it's a bit like watching a movie that you missed the first 30 minutes of. 3 and 1/2 stars I reckon. ⭐⭐⭐🌓
November 20, 2022
Interesting take on zombies in this fun little story
March 10, 2025
A short tale of zombie academia, dense, intelligent, and satisfyingly speculative. The mood combines the depressing and the meditative, the writing is terse and precise, the ending appropriately bloody. Highly recommended!
August 3, 2024
Another excellent short story from SGJ
August 22, 2020
A zombie story told as an anthropological discussion between a professor and student.
January 3, 2016
I really appreciate how this story about the zombie virus is not treated like an apocalypse or as part of a new, dystopian society, but as a new threat in the constant struggle and evolution of man.
May 29, 2024
4.5⭐️ just a quick little zombie read from my favorite SGJ. I mean if you’re going to follow a zombie horde why not discuss your graduate thesis with your professor.
November 5, 2018
A juicy, enjoyable zombie story - an increasing rarity, in a world that's so over the Walking Dead.
March 26, 2022
There are gems to be found in the short story section of Tor.com. They just aren't in their book of short story collection.
This story convinced me that Stephen Graham Jones is some what of a philosophical genius. The way he chose to explain evolution was pure brilliance.
Here... have a look yourself! https://www.tor.com/2014/06/11/chapte...
This story convinced me that Stephen Graham Jones is some what of a philosophical genius. The way he chose to explain evolution was pure brilliance.
Here... have a look yourself! https://www.tor.com/2014/06/11/chapte...
December 30, 2024
The way SGJ crafts a story is just one of my favorite things.
November 1, 2018
Wonderfully fast reading and well written zombie short story, manages to do two things I love, freshen up and say something new about a rather now tired sub-genre of horror and at the same time mock academia a bit. A win-win in my book.
The story is very simple, thrusting the reader into the midst of the zombie apocalypse. We don’t get the how or the why other than it is apparently infection-based and a quick-acting infection at that. Civilization has collapsed, and our two protagonists are most interested, aside from survival, in helping a grad student, Crain, complete his dissertation on early man’s evolution to top predator. The story focuses on Crain and Dr. Ormon, his dissertation director, who while following a zombie horde (“eighty miles from campus,” showing how academia-focused they were even after the fall of civilization) debate the etymology of horde versus herd and what they were in fact following and events proceeding from there, as their survival techniques are heavily influenced by Crain’s dissertation research. Even with finding foot and shelter paramount concerns, they were still focused on things that really had no meaning anymore, with college still being their world when perhaps they were the only ones left alive from their college. Or even wherever they were, “eighty miles from campus.”
A bit dark, kind of gruesome, with a very dark ending, it was still a good read with some nice anthropology and archaeology in it.
The story is very simple, thrusting the reader into the midst of the zombie apocalypse. We don’t get the how or the why other than it is apparently infection-based and a quick-acting infection at that. Civilization has collapsed, and our two protagonists are most interested, aside from survival, in helping a grad student, Crain, complete his dissertation on early man’s evolution to top predator. The story focuses on Crain and Dr. Ormon, his dissertation director, who while following a zombie horde (“eighty miles from campus,” showing how academia-focused they were even after the fall of civilization) debate the etymology of horde versus herd and what they were in fact following and events proceeding from there, as their survival techniques are heavily influenced by Crain’s dissertation research. Even with finding foot and shelter paramount concerns, they were still focused on things that really had no meaning anymore, with college still being their world when perhaps they were the only ones left alive from their college. Or even wherever they were, “eighty miles from campus.”
A bit dark, kind of gruesome, with a very dark ending, it was still a good read with some nice anthropology and archaeology in it.
August 2, 2014
You can read this for free too here: http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/06/ch...
I loved this little short. So much so that I wish it wasn't a short. I want more...... MOOOOOOOOOOOORE....braiiiiinzzzz *cough* I mean...yes that was good
I love stories that go for the less obvious when zombies are involved. I get a little tired of survival stories sometimes. It all can get a little too predictable.
Cain is a student of anthropology. Like early man he and his assistant are living on the fringes of the zombie herd (or horde depending on your view point). He's studying this new "species" as they evolve in an effort to discover and understand how we came to be as we are.
As they travel Cain reveals how he would have structured each chapter of his thesis. If thesis's's's's (sorry) were still relevant in this post apocalyptic world
His assistant will play an important role in this research...he just doesn't know it yet....
Seriously go read this.
NOW!
I loved this little short. So much so that I wish it wasn't a short. I want more...... MOOOOOOOOOOOORE....braiiiiinzzzz *cough* I mean...yes that was good
I love stories that go for the less obvious when zombies are involved. I get a little tired of survival stories sometimes. It all can get a little too predictable.
Cain is a student of anthropology. Like early man he and his assistant are living on the fringes of the zombie herd (or horde depending on your view point). He's studying this new "species" as they evolve in an effort to discover and understand how we came to be as we are.
As they travel Cain reveals how he would have structured each chapter of his thesis. If thesis's's's's (sorry) were still relevant in this post apocalyptic world
His assistant will play an important role in this research...he just doesn't know it yet....
Seriously go read this.
NOW!
March 2, 2018
This is a different sort of zombie story. Very cerebral. Even though we don't really see any brain-munching going on...
It was just okay for me. It read too much like a textbook, with these two anthropology nerds talking shop. The story did pick up eventually, but only at the end. It almost felt like... well, Chapter Six of a novel. All the technical discussions about evolution would've been okay as part of a larger work, but they took up way too much of this short story and made it kind of boring. The ending makes up for that a little, but it's still not something I'd read again for fun.
Quotable moment:
It was just okay for me. It read too much like a textbook, with these two anthropology nerds talking shop. The story did pick up eventually, but only at the end. It almost felt like... well, Chapter Six of a novel. All the technical discussions about evolution would've been okay as part of a larger work, but they took up way too much of this short story and made it kind of boring. The ending makes up for that a little, but it's still not something I'd read again for fun.
Quotable moment:
Once it was dark enough that they could pretend not to see, not to know, they used a rock to crack open the tibia of what had once been a healthy man, by all indications. They covered his face with Crain’s cape, and then covered it again, with a stray jacket.
"Modern sensibilities," Dr. Ormon narrated. "Our ancestors would have had no such qualms."
July 24, 2014
Deux universitaires (un maître et son élève) qui survivent à une horde de zombies, et qui discutent de la thèse de l'élève. En s'appuyant sur l'apocalypse pour étayer leurs idées.
Je n'ai pas trouvé grand chose d'intéressant dans le texte, et le final n'a rien d'excitant ou de surprenant. Un texte très passable.
Je n'ai pas trouvé grand chose d'intéressant dans le texte, et le final n'a rien d'excitant ou de surprenant. Un texte très passable.
August 8, 2014
If you can stand to read sentences like the following, you will like this story.
"The clothes Crain and Dr. Ormon were wearing, they’d scavenged from a home that had had the door flapping, the owners surely scavenged on themselves, by now."
"The clothes Crain and Dr. Ormon were wearing, they’d scavenged from a home that had had the door flapping, the owners surely scavenged on themselves, by now."
August 28, 2016
I'm not sure I want to put this much effort into thinking about my zombie fiction.
September 25, 2025
Vintage SGJ. An excellent blend of humor, horror and pathos.
November 27, 2018
They were eighty miles from campus, if miles still mattered.
It had been Dr. Ormon’s idea.
Dr. Ormon was Crain’s dissertation director. If dissertations still mattered.
They probably didn’t.
Zombies. Zombies were the main thing that mattered these days.
Zombies, ho!
Also: ewww!!
This short is simultaneously disgusting and hysterical, in both senses of that word: hilarious, and unhinged. Jones has the perfect dry, deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery to keep this story going. I want more.
Read it for yourself here: https://www.tor.com/2014/06/11/chapte...
August 21, 2024
i am enamored by this mix of creation myth and evolution. the reverse order of cain and abel vs adam and eve. the broken ribs on eve. genesis 6 being about the fall of mankind before the flood. how that's all blended with the prey/predator nature of human evolution. the doctor bringing up his brother being a civil war re-enactor. aaaaaaa.
tbh im not big on zombie stories but this was a handful of pages and i'm down for anything stephen graham jones [and, tbh, all the other SGJ books on libby have a waitlist rn lol] and im so glad i gave it a shot. this is gonna be one of those short stories that haunts me for years (in the best way).
tbh im not big on zombie stories but this was a handful of pages and i'm down for anything stephen graham jones [and, tbh, all the other SGJ books on libby have a waitlist rn lol] and im so glad i gave it a shot. this is gonna be one of those short stories that haunts me for years (in the best way).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 7, 2025
"The gazelles did learn to perspire, he said in his head to Dr. Ormon, shuffling into place behind him, and the race, it was on, it had never really ended, not since those first delicate steps, six million years ago."
▪︎
An intriguing take on zombie, which involves anthropology –think of darwin theory evolution. It was really intriguing how the analogy of the post zombie evolution was compared to how humans evolve due to their environment. Like natural selection in a sense, and as it goes on, one would think there's some truth in the zombie route. I would say this short story had its punchline, but it wasn't really that gripping to me, but still an decent read. 3⭐️.
▪︎
An intriguing take on zombie, which involves anthropology –think of darwin theory evolution. It was really intriguing how the analogy of the post zombie evolution was compared to how humans evolve due to their environment. Like natural selection in a sense, and as it goes on, one would think there's some truth in the zombie route. I would say this short story had its punchline, but it wasn't really that gripping to me, but still an decent read. 3⭐️.
August 18, 2018
Another Tor.com freebie that's a hidden gem. In Chapter Six, two members of the anthropology department, having survived the zombie apocalypse, slowly make their way up a devastated interstate landscape and scavenge on their way. Being the nerdy type, they discuss theories of evolution and whether a gathering of zombies can properly be called a "horde" or a "herd," given their herd mentality. All of their academic discussions come to a tipping point, though, when they run across another living being.
April 19, 2022
One of Stephen Graham Jones' multiple great takes on the zombie genre, this one with the hook that it follows an Anthropology PhD student and his supervisor - This doesn't for me reach the heights of 'The Age of Hasty Retreats', but its representation of the awkwardness of a student and supervisor forced into close proximity and extreme circumstances is wonderfully-observed, and the anthropological discussion is convincing enough that at multiple points I genuinely wanted footnotes. Strongly recommended!
March 12, 2023
Chapter Six by author Stephen Graham Jones is an anthropological zombie story you can read for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2014/06/11/chapte...
Crain, a grad student, has a theory of mankind’s evolution. As he and his former professor scavenge on bone marrow left behind by the local zombie horde, he makes his well-reasoned argument.
My ongoing quest to get current with the Tor short stories. This was an interesting one. I would stick to scavenge vending machines and canned food though. ;-)
4 Stars
Crain, a grad student, has a theory of mankind’s evolution. As he and his former professor scavenge on bone marrow left behind by the local zombie horde, he makes his well-reasoned argument.
My ongoing quest to get current with the Tor short stories. This was an interesting one. I would stick to scavenge vending machines and canned food though. ;-)
4 Stars
June 1, 2017
Superb. The arguments over zombie senses and ability this time are coming from within the story!
The pair of argumentative academics made for a surprisingly compelling read, and the absolutely spot on portrayal of how they distance themselves to argue over - essentially - inconsequentials. After all, what use is a paper if there's no-one left to read it?
The author is a new discovery for me, one I'm delighted to have found.
The pair of argumentative academics made for a surprisingly compelling read, and the absolutely spot on portrayal of how they distance themselves to argue over - essentially - inconsequentials. After all, what use is a paper if there's no-one left to read it?
The author is a new discovery for me, one I'm delighted to have found.
February 10, 2019
Very nice take on zombies, with less action scenes than one has come to expect from zombie stories. Instead this focuses on morality, anthropology, evolution, and the origin of man (both biblical and scientific). We can only speculate based on how nature behaves now, what we know from studying. Theories are theories. We cannot know for sure ever, they’re theories. Concepts based on patterns of behaviour and data. Which is exactly the sort of thing the characters in this story are out to test.
August 31, 2022
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.75/5
So far my least favorite from my favorite author, but that's on me and not him! I don't think the story is for me, maybe it's too philosophical and deep. I don't know, but SGJ's writing always encapsulate the beauty and brainy of him <3 Can't wait to read the Only Good Indian next!
So far my least favorite from my favorite author, but that's on me and not him! I don't think the story is for me, maybe it's too philosophical and deep. I don't know, but SGJ's writing always encapsulate the beauty and brainy of him <3 Can't wait to read the Only Good Indian next!
August 15, 2024
The zombie apocalypse through the eyes of academics. I'm not sure it's possible for Stephen Graham Jones to write something I don't enjoy, and this was not the exception to that rule. There's a surprising amount packed into these 20 or so pages.
October 21, 2025
A post apocalyptic academic argument discusses the merits of human evolution.
A strange and darkly humorous story. Jones builds to a clever revelation that probably won't survive re-reading, but the story itself is very good.
A strange and darkly humorous story. Jones builds to a clever revelation that probably won't survive re-reading, but the story itself is very good.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews