Zombie Puke Attack

Somebody's gonna have to clean that up afterwards...

"Boomer, don't let it puke on you."

— Zoey, Left 4 Dead

Zombies are slow, both in the literal and metaphorical sense. So, how do you make them distance threats? No, not Deadly Lunge; give them a ranged attack! But rarely you'll expect them to use firearms or similar, because they're often too mindless to use them. Well, stomach juice, being hydrochloric acid, is strong enough to dissolve certain metals, so how about weaponizing their digestive systems?

Note that it doesn't have to be just stomach juice-infected/corrosive blood; parasites, and smaller zombies are also examples, just so long as they choke them out of their stomachs.

This is used mostly, but not exclusively, in Video Games.

A Sub-Trope of Super Spit; compare Breath Weapon and Bad Black Barf. Involves Vomit Indiscretion Shot. See also: Elite Zombie, which has the "Vomit Zombie" subtype.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light, a kid fighting Joey summons Maju Garzett, who attacks with Sludge Regurgitate.
• The Junji Ito Kyoufu Manga Collection story "The Supernatural Transfer Student" has one of the characters die and come back as a grotesque, overweight, projectile-vomiting zombie.

Comic Books

• Green Lantern: Red Lanterns can vomit "corrosive plasma." Note that RLs just barely pass on the undead stipulation; they die if they take their rings off.

Films — Live-Action

• Some "infected" from 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later constantly hemorrhage high-pressure blood out of their mouths.
• One Day of the Dead (2008) remake cover depicts a zombie copiously vomiting on something off-camera.
• The possessed, zombie-like theatregoers from Demons do this.
• A variation of this occurs in the Cabin Fever series, where people who have contracted the flesh-eating virus start puking infected blood once it's advanced enough. They don't specifically try to puke blood on other people, but that's what typically happens anyway.
• In another example that has to do with cabins, The Cabin in the Woods has among its many, many monsters some named Mutants whose sapience is unknown (unlike the other zombies), but what is known is that their special attack is vomiting corrosive acid on their victims mouths. Plus, the Boomer makes a cameo in the ending, along with other Left 4 Dead infected.
• Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed: The Zombie throws up at a news reporter.

Literature

• The zombies from Newsflesh will spit blood at you if they can't get close enough.
• In The Nekropolis Archives, zombie protagonist Matthew Richter can't digest food anymore, so he has to puke anything he eats back up. He sometimes uses this as a combat technique, as anything stored in his stomach for a while becomes noxious enough to be toxic.
• In The Expanse series, before reducing everyone into meatmoss and spare body parts, the protomolecule would infect humans who would spread it to others by vomiting a brown slurry containing it on them. These were aptly referred to as "vomit zombies".
• The zombies from Zombies and Shit tend to puke, usually once they go stupid from decay.

Live-Action TV

• A variation in the Farscape episode "Out of Their Minds", in which the villain of the week is taken ill on board Moya and graphically vomits... whereupon the vomit turns out to be a lifeform that attacks the ship's systems with at least some degree of intelligence.
• The "zombie" people in Torchwood: Miracle Day were the ill undead thus, many would throw up regularly for effect in hospital scenes.
• The primary weapon of the Hidiacs, zombie Mooks in Power Rangers Mystic Force. They make a very big kaboom, making these arguably the most dangerous Power Rangers standard foot soldier. The Elite Mook versions called Styxoids favor less messy This Is My Boomstick lances.

Music Videos

• The zombies from Michael Jackson 's Thriller MV.

Mythology

• The ancient Greek version of a zombie, called a Kathakano, was said to vomit up scalding hot blood at people, (when not simply trying to eat them) making this trope Older Than Feudalism. In later versions, the kathakano was considered a vampire, with the vomited blood being how it transformed people.

Tabletop Games

• Plague Spewers from Dungeons & Dragons vomit rats at enemies.

Video Games

• Angry Birds Epic: Some types of undead pigs, like the Mummy, attack by burping up sludge or sand at your birds.
• Blood: Bloated Butchers (the fat zombies) hack out a gob of green bile at medium to close range. You can safely crouch under them.
• Bloodborne:
  • Rotten Corpses (the sewer zombies) attack this way whenever they don't want to use their foot-long claws for some reason. They have so much bile that they bleed it, in fact.
  • Cramped Caskets spit globules of rotting, semicoagulated blood as their ranged attack.
• Borderlands: Defilers from The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned DLC use this most prominently, but most of the setting's zombies can every so often. The only zombie that can't is the Torso.
• Breath of Death VII: Zombie prince Erik has a technique that lets him puke at enemies to inflict poison. Other zombies can do this as well.
• Cataclysm: Present in both blinding yet harmless and damaging acidic varieties, both referencing Left 4 Dead. The experimental builds also add variants of both monsters. Huge boomers add a long-lasting glowing effect that make it harder to sneak away from the horde, acidic zombies are closer ranged (and FAR less annoying) than spitters, while corrosive zombies trade Area of Effect ability for range and rate of fire.
• City of Heroes: Vahzilok zombies, Apocalypse zombies, and Mastermind pet zombies all have acid vomit attacks.
• Darkest Dungeon 2: All Plague Eater-type enemies (technically not zombies, but mutant farmers/farm animals afflicted with Horror Hunger by a mutagenic alien plague) have the ability to consume and regurgitate nearby corpses, splattering their hapless victim with the mangled, acid-soaked remains; in some cases putting the corpse back in play. Hungry?
• Dark Watch has Oozers which are fat zombies that launch their puke at you.

• Dead Rising: Queen Zombies and Gas Zombies vomit infected blood.

• Dead Space 2: Pukers vomit a short-ranged jet of acid.
• Dead Trigger 2: The Vomitron is a Special Zombie that attacks by expectorating red spit at the player. Said spit causes heavy damage and messes up the player's aim for a short period of time.
• Diablo III: Wretched Mothers use the "smaller zombie" method of this to act as Mook Makers, as well as the "gob of acid" method to directly attack.
• Disgaea: The first special technique that zombies gain is "Zombie Puke", which can also poison the target.
• Dishonored: Weepers attack by puking on you.
• Elsword: Field Boss Bater (a stronger variant of Zombie Glitters) has an attack where he pukes out poisonous gas at you that will hurt continuously.
• Heroes of Might and Magic VI: The Putrid Lamassu is a zombie sphinx that vomits parasites at opponents.
• House of the Dead: OVERKILL: Some zombies puke acid, with Not Using the "Z" Word explaining this as a genetic mutation in the victims.
• Infectonator!: The blandly but fittingly named "Puker" zombies launch green vomit at humans.
• Killing Floor: The Bloat uses a wide-angle spray of vomit as its primary attack. The bile does damage over time and also obstructs your view.
• Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green: Some of the zombies do this; they can be identified by the green gas cloud trailing around them.
• Left 4 Dead
  • The Boomer's puke blinds the player and attracts a horde of zombies if it hits, and they release a blast of it when they die. The Boomer's vomit is collected by CEDA in the second game and stored in sterile glass containers for further study. Players can find these bile jars and throw them to force common infected to attack anything covered with its contents, including Tanks^note which nets you an achievement, called "Septic Tank". While the bile is useful for distracting the infected and slowing Tanks, fresh Boomer Bile overpowers the weaker scent and pipe bombs are better at reducing large numbers of infected while providing a distraction unless you have a fire handy.
  • Spitter's acidic puke acts like the Infected's version of the Molotov, damaging players who stand in the puddle it creates and igniting gas cans during Scavenge missions. The Spitter leaves a smaller puddle of it under herself when she dies.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: The Gibdos aren't technically true zombies as such, being instead some kind of eusocial organisms, but they otherwise strongly resemble and behave like skeletal, shambling zombies, and their winged variant fights using a projectile stream of greenish vomit.
• LittleBigPlanet 2: One fan-made scenario is a Left 4 Dead clone, which has a zombie that "can puke on you and the puke will summon a horde of zombies that will attack you. He can also swipe at you. If you shoot him, he will explode and his bodily fluids will coat you and also summon a horde of zombies, so shoot him from a distance."

• Loren: The Amazon Princess: Walking Dead have an ability called "Plague Vomit", which strikes the entire First row for minor (1-3) damage, but inflicts Poison status. They also have the ability Stinking Spit, which is largely the same.
• Mass Effect: The Thorian Creepers (grotesque clones made from an ancient and powerful alien organism) are a close analogue to zombies. They vomit green fluid onto the protagonists to deal damage. It also completely ignores your shields. Hope you packed some medigel. According to the fluff exposition in the third game, Cannibals (grotesque monsters made from both alien and human carcasses) vomit on dead flesh to consume it and grow stronger. This was originally supposed to be their Finishing Move against the players, but that was cut out before the final release.
• Metal Slug: Zombies attack and infect civilians/the player characters solely by this method, although only two variants actually puke the stuff out (the others use disgusting methods to get the vomit out like ripping open their ribcage, squeezing their head until the puke explodes out of their brain, or using their intestines as a hose). When a player character is zombified, their grenade attack is turned into a screen-sweeping Bloody Murder vomit spray, and it's the most powerful attack available to the player in any of the games by a fairly wide margin. The undead clones in the final mission, being clones of one of the playable characters, have access to the same blood vomit attack that you can use.
• Not Dying Today, a zombie-themed action game, have a Zombie Nurse boss who can turn One-Winged Angel after her initial defeat, gaining a bloody vomit attack in her second form. In a rather blatant reference to Metal Slug (even using the same animation).
• Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams: The Lost Souls, zombies of what appears to be former Christian monks, can sometimes puke orange-ish slime as a form of attack. You can also get damaged by stepping in it.

• Plague Inc.: One of the symptoms you can give zombies created by the Necroa virus is the ability to projectile vomit at humans, increasing severity and combat advantage.

• Ragnarok Online: Some of the undead have a puke attack.

• Resident Evil: Zombies sometimes do this, if an enemy (that is, a player character) runs by them in a hallway or staircase, or otherwise aren't able to be grabbed, such as if the zombie is on a slightly lower platform. In Resident Evil 2, this is the only way they can attack Sherry, who's significantly shorter than them.
• Silent Hill: The "Lying Figures" (the ones that look like they're straitjacketed into their own skin and stumble around like zombies) squirt acid directly from their stomachs. Lore-wise, they are more akin to demons than undead. There are several similar monsters — the Lying Figure (Silent Hill 2) sprays a mist of acid; the Armless Figure (from the films) spews a stream of puke; the Straightjacket (Silent Hill: Origins) projectile-vomits; and the Smog (Silent Hill: Homecoming) continuously leaks and belches a noxious black gas.
• Singularity: While they're not really "zombies" in the traditional sense (being the result of botched time-travel/de-aging experiments), the Reverts shamble about and attack with a spray of acidic puke when they get up close. Can be weaponized against other enemies using the Reversion power on the TMD.

• Tales of Maj'Eyal: Zigzagged. The Ghoul race has the Retch ability, which causes them to puke an undead-only Healing Potion at their feet. Standing in this puddle heals their decrepit bodies over time and removes a negative status effect every few turns. However, it acts as an Acid Pool against living enemies.
• Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys: Finnigan can use puke attacks. What they do depends on the rotting garbage he's already eaten.
• Warframe: Some Infested units can attack by vomiting stuff, such as mutalist MOA's loogies that create lingering harmful puddles or nauseous crawler's paralyzing juices.
• World of Warcraft: Some of the undead have a puke attack.
• Zombie Vikings: Can be facilitated during co-op play. When a player character is defeated, their head will fall off and subsequently will be able to projectile-vomit at enemies until the player is revived by a teammate.

Web Comics

• The Zombie Hunters features 7 different subspecies of zombie, one of which can attack by vomiting a sort of corrosive poison up to 50 ft. Suitably, they are called spitters.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: While the biggest threat for non-immunes is bites, some trolls can transmit The Plague via breathing (one-meter range) or spitting (range of up to ten meters). The small risk of this happening is one of the reasons non-immunes need to wear breathing masks in places where trolls live.

Web Original

• Uncyclopedia's Bulemic Zombie Gun, which is a zombie puke plus Equippable Ally.

Western Animation

• Harley Quinn: The zombies in the penultimate episode of season 3 all are capable of producing vomit that turns anyone who gets hit by it into a tree or another zombie.

---