A practical guide to surviving the unavoidable outbreak of the living dead.
Artwork by Anna Romero
Surviving the multitudes of zombies during Halloween and Zombie Crawl has changed my perspective on the possibility of zombies being more than just a creation of active imaginations.
Sure, dressing up as a zombie is a fun costume idea (though not very original), but what happens when the costume turns into reality? What if the brainless couch potatoes of today become the brain-eating couch potatoes of tomorrow? There are plenty of movies covering the subject (Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, et. al.) and even a book (The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks), but if you don’t want through go to all the trouble of doing the research yourself, please read on. Your life may depend on it.
It’s an understandable assumption that this article is satirical.
It is not.
I feel it is my duty, as a knowledgeable sort of lady, to do all the research I possibly can on the living dead to inform my fellow, self-aware classmates of their best chances for survival. I will separate this article into sections for easy skimming when you’re on the run from zombies… assuming you print this article out. You will, won’t you?
I. WEAPONS AND GEAR
First things first. There’s no way you’re going to come up with a cure in the few minutes you have as a horde of zombies ambles towards you, so your only option is kill them before they kill you. As opposed to what most video games and zombie movies would have you believe, a gun is not the best option. In fact, it’s one of the worst options. There’s the obvious issue of limited ammo (sure, you could raid plenty in abandoned gun shops, but where would you keep it all? You don’t have an inventory), but even more pressing is the matter of aim.
“A recent study of New York City police officers found that when firing at live targets just nine feet away, their hit rate was a dismal 11%. When the target stood at a distance greater than 20 feet, that number dropped to 4%, meaning that 96 out of 100 shots missed their mark,” reads an article on zombieresearch.net (ZRS). This means that even police officers who are frequently trained and tested on the use of firearms are lucky if they hit four of every 100 moving targets (in this case, zombies). Though you might think the slow movements of zombies would increase your chances, your elevated heart rate and shaky hands would cancel out any benefit from that.
So then, if not guns, what do you use? Swords and hand-to-hand combat are impractical unless you’ve had many years of extensive training, especially against a crowd of the ravenous undead. Thus, your best option is blunt objects. Bats, hammers and wooden planks (preferably with nails in them) are some of the most effective items you can use and, as an added bonus, are easy to find.
Next, you’ll want to protect yourself. For lack of a better term, you’ll want armor. Covering any uncovered openings on your body is a necessity; do you really want zombie blood in your mouth? Goggles can protect your eyes and surgical masks will keep your mouth and nose from being exposed.
Then there’s the matter of your body. There’s only so much a rotting jaw can bite through and mobility is key, so you can get away with less armor than if you were going against live humans with guns. Several layers of light clothing can do wonders, but your best bet is a hooded sweatshirt with strips of duct or industrial-strength tape and leather gloves.
II. FOOD AND WATER
Without water utility companies, running water is no longer an option, and without functional food production, you’re unlikely to obtain fresh food after the outbreak. As a human, you still need these things to survive, so what do you do?
Any running water you do manage to find will be contaminated and nothing short of undrinkable. You’re likely to get poisoned, but any water is better than none at all. Still, it’s always best to avoid drinking contaminates, so this is where a bit of McGyvering is necessary. “Crush fresh charcoal up as fine as you can get it, strain water through it (clean socks or coffee filters work well here), and drink the resulting black liquid,” says Apocalypse Dan in the Midnight Podcast. You’re likely to vomit after drinking this concoction, but that will cleanse out any toxins in your system and will keep you hydrated. Of course, this is a last hope measure and you can survive on bottled water until every grocery store has run out (which is likely to happen very quickly depending on how many survivors there are and how much combat takes place in grocery stores).
The same is true for food. You’ll be able to survive on canned food for a while, but eventually you’ll have to find other options. You’ll have to hunt. You’re unlikely to find a deer roaming around in your big city, much less a means by which to prepare it, so you’re going to have to stick to small animals: cats, rats, dogs. That means your beloved Fido is going to have to go from man’s best friend to man’s best meal as soon as possible so you don’t risk the thing getting infected and thus becoming inedible. Eventually, these will run out too, and then remaining survivors will have to resort to eating one another… but then, by that point, you might as well let yourself be turned into a zombie.
III. SHELTER
Sorry to say it, but you’re not going to be able to continue living where you’ve been living your entire life; you’re going to have to find a new home. Most zombie movies would have you believe that a mall is your best option, but it’s not. Think about it: zombies were humans before they got turned, right? And most people have seen the same zombie movies you have so, of course, a mall would be the first place they’d check. Still, you will want easy access to food and water, so your best choice is the top floor of an apartment or a rooftop near a grocery store or an underground shelter if you’ve planned ahead and stored at least a year’s supply of canned goods and bottled water. Since pre-planning is unlikely, and rooftops don’t provide optimum shelter, we’ll go with the apartment option. Once you’ve found an apartment that is at least five stories high, not infested with zombies, and within a mile of a grocery store, you’ll need to plan out escape routes in the eventuality that the undead find a way to enter your apartment.
You can lessen the likeliness of a zombie break-in by destroying every easy way in. It’s a well-known fact that zombies can’t climb ladders, but they can climb stairs. Destroy all the staircases and, if you can, break off any ladders or fire escapes so they hang at least four feet above the ground (so that you can reach it, but zombies can’t…rotting arms aren’t very good at pulling rotting bodies up). The goal here is to find a place that you can get in and out of, but zombies can’t.
IV. WHEN EVERYTHING’S GONE TO HELL…
Save the last bullet for yourself. If zombies surround you and you know you’re not going to be able to kill them all, take your own life. It’s better than having your brains slowly, excruciatingly extracted from your skull.
So there you have it! It’s not likely you’re going to have to use this guide any time soon (as the soonest predicted zombie apocalypse is in 2012), but it’s always best to err on the safe side and keep a baseball bat nearby.
