In Jonathan Maberry's Dead of Night, a crazy scientist guy named Dr. Volker injects a serial killer named Homer Gibbons with engineered parasites in order to keep him conscious after 'death' as punishment for his crimes. Gibbons would be completely paralyzed but fully conscious as the parasites slowly broke down his body, and his breathing and heartbeat would be so feeble that only the most sophisticated electrical monitoring devices would be able to detect it. However Gibbons ended up turning into an intelligent zombie who basically single handedly caused the zombie apocalypse.
“But what about oxygen starvation?” demanded Goat. “That destroys brain cells, right?”
“It does in every case except this. The parasites use their own larvae—a network of them linked through mucus—very much like a charged plasma. It’s fascinating and—”
“Seriously, Doc?” asked Trout, jiggling the pistol. “You want to brag? Now?”
Volker colored. “Sorry.”
AFAIK Volker never got to further elaborate on this and finish his sentence. So what was he trying to say? How do the parasites prevent brain death when host respiration and circulation are practically non-existent?
