the parasites are a different kind of zombie. heres some stuff about it

• all parasites are zombies, but not all zombies are parasites
• parasites are more intelligent than zombies, retaining some memory from their hosts and being able to talk to people properly
• parasites want to go high and like warm places
• if you die youll turn into a zombie, but not into parasite. to turn into a parasite you need to inhale spores
• the spores for parasites come from actual dead zombies who were shot in the head and started blooming. this only happens to very few zombie bodies but you should still get rid of the body somehow (better safe than sorry)
• im calling parasite here but the people in universe just call it "rot"
• some people are inmune or resistant to the spores
• parasites dont bite you. they just want to touch you and be near you