ZOMBIES: A survival guide

Fall has finally set in and Halloween is once again upon us, bringing with it the blood splattered fun we have come to know and love in the entertainment business of horror.

Regarding the matter of guts and gore, nothing entrails—er, entails—more to the matter than the good old-fashioned zombie.

So while you’re partying Halloween night away, you should set aside some time to make sure you have a good plan laid out in the case of the zombie apocalypse.

Yes, you heard me right. Let’s be honest — with all the factors of nuclear meltdowns, radiation, and advancements in chemical warfare, fictional as zombies may be at the moment, it’s only a matter of time before they tear through the earth and claw at the ankles of countless drunken high school miscreants desecrating cemeteries in the night.

The flesh-eating undead are no new concept, mind you, but if you’re not knowledgeable of the basic fundamentals surrounding it, odds are you won’t last long. That’s where I come in.

As a professional zombie hunter (or as professional as they come, anyhow), with extensive knowledge in zombie films and with an undead digital body count of around 100,000, I have narrowed the means to survive a zombie apocalypse to three key points that you must learn to understand and execute efficiently. They are as follows: escaping the undead, identification of the undead and extermination of the undead.

First point: Escaping the undead

When the zombie apocalypse is inevitably set loose upon the earth and the undead are chomping on the living left and right, it’s time you get the hell out of Dodge, but not before you grab some essentials. Take as much food (and by food I don’t mean Twinkies — this isn’t Zombieland) and water as you can with without hindering yourself, preferably canned goods. A tent and some weaponry would also be ideal. Firearms would be best, especially for hunting.

After packing the car, it’s time to get to an isolated area deep in the wilderness. If you don’t have time to pack, try to get out of the city as fast as possible by any means necessary. If there’s a lot of traffic, don’t wait for it to clear up — get out, take what essentials you can and start walking. Next, try to get a good distance away from the city, but don’t head out too far as scavenging for goods later on will be a good idea. Try looking for any kind of campsite where other survivors might be gathering. Somewhere near a large body of water ,with possibly a boat, would be ideal (a good escape option, given the fact that zombies are terrible swimmers and tend to uselessly flop about like dying fish).

At this point, you can at least set up a temporary home and survive off the plants and the various cute animals of the forests.

Second Point: Identification of the three types of undead

Through the chaos of the zombie uprising, if the exposed guts, empty eye sockets, missing limbs, etc., are not apparent enough, it may be difficult to differentiate friend from foe.

Walkers, or slow shufflers, as I like to call them, are the least threatening kind of zombie. Very impaired and particularly “unlively” types with most of their muscle and tendons decomposed. Walkers may seem harmless at first, but their teeth can remain a menace, capable of giving nasty, “undeadifying” bites.

It should be noted that while walkers can be ignored for the most part, they can be dangerous when encountered in numbers exceeding 30 or when gathered in tight spaces. If you do get into a pickle, remember, to kill the ghoul, destroy the brain.

Quick shufflers: These zombies have been changed fairly recently and have most likely suffered from some kind of bodily harm and may have a limb that is either broken are at least partially impaired. Though these ones might seem like they’re not in the best of shape, they pose a significantly higher threat than walkers and should be approached with extreme caution even when they number less than a dozen.

Sprinters: These guys are nasty ones straight out of the undead oven and should be avoided in most situations. Odds are you will not outrun them, as they seem to be frenzied by the desire for your brains, and your best bet is to get to locations that are either difficult to reach, or make fighting off the undead easier. If you are surrounded by a pack of this rabid variety, your only options, unfortunately, are either to go down with style or hopefully you have that one last round saved up, because you’re straight out of luck and will otherwise end up like poor Captain Rhodes from George Romero’s Day of the Dead (Youtube “The Death of Captain Rhodes” to see what I mean).

Third Point: extermination of the undead

If old Uncle Frank is twitching more than usual, foaming at the mouth and making growling noises, odds are he’s missing more than just his penicillin.

Frank may very well be turning into one of the horde and that means it’s time to think fast. Check for any wounds upon his body. Bite marks are key indicators, but sometimes scratches are enough, and even if all these are absent, there’s a chance the virus has gone airborne. If that’s the case, there are essentially only two options. One: It’s time for Franky to meet his maker. Any sharp or blunt object (as effective as cricket bats and golf clubs may seem in movies, I would suggest a good, old-fashioned bat) and a gun will do, too, but if you have that kind of weaponry, its best to save it and use only when necessary.

Remember, destroy the BRAIN, you kill the ghoul.

Maybe you just can’t stomach the thought of bringing old Frank to a gruesome end, so you may consider letting him visit the other side. Er, I mean the other, other side. But remember, zombie Frank won’t remember any favors, so don’t be surprised when he comes to bite you in the you-know-what and I mean that quite literally. Also, if there are any recently dead among you already, you might want to make sure they remain that way. If their are brains intact, there might be a problem and you know what to do.

This guide could go on and on and there are hundreds of other things that can be discussed for many different scenarios, but if all else fails, just find a small group of people you can survive along with and make sure that you keep an expendable person(s) in your group to serve as zombie fodder that you can purposefully maim or push into the undead masses to consume.

Remember, a feeding zombie is a happy zombie (not to mention a distracted one) and is less likely take a chomp out of your noggin — unless, of course, he’s looking for seconds.

One final point: Have fun. Odds are you’re going to die or become a zombie yourself, especially if the virus is airborne, so have a ball with it cause there ain’t no party like an undead party!