Process Notes:
The rabies virus isn't good or evil: It just is. And it needs others to survive, spreading from creature to creature wherever it can. As kids, we tend to label certain predators as 'bad' even though they just exist outside the confines of morality. The same applies to a zombie plague—even one given the voice of someone dressed in an Armani suit with a glass of wine in hand, serenading its victims. From our point of view, it is hatred incarnate. But this plague does what it needs to do in order to live and holds no malice. It also has no plans outside of spreading...No evil scheme. No plot. No throne it wishes to sit on. It just is, and it happens to spread annihilation by being.
Why do you write horror?
I don't really choose to sit down and write horror. Horror just tends to seep into the stories I write: Whether it's the western where the gunslinger is really an eldritch creature or the Christmas story where the sounds downstairs are not from the thing you'd expect, it tends to bleed into the ideas I work on. It just seems to happen. Perhaps it's my own fears of violent confrontations and creatures outside of our understanding (like Santa) that manifest their way in there. Regardless, I still try to alleviate the terror by adding a cute robot in here and there... That is, until the robot figures out what the knife can do.
JOACHIM HEIJNDERMANS writes, draws, and paints nearly every waking hour. Originally from the Netherlands, he’s been all over the world, boring people by spouting random trivia. His work has been featured in a number of anthologies and publications such as Mad Scientist Journal, Ahoy Comics, Metaphorosis, The Gallery of Curiosities, and Planet Scumm, and he’s currently in the midst of completing his first children’s book. His short story "All Through the House" was adapted for the Netflix animated anthology, Love, Death and Robots. You can check out his other work at www.joachimheijndermans.com , or follow him on Twitter: @jheijndermans.