How to Survive a Zombie Holocaust (part 2 – tactics)

So you survived another week with your tasty brains intact and are back for more information to prepare you for the impending outbreak of Zombiesm. Well unlike the grandmother who continuously gives you socks for your birthday, I’m not here to disappoint. Today I’d like to discuss some of the more famous survival tactics we’ve seen in movies and games.

The first tactic up for discussion is the stranded on a desert island debate. You’ve just crash landed on some strange tropical island do you a) do everything to get off the island or b) do you suck it up and come to terms with the fact that you’re now living on an island paradise and your boss will have to get someone else’s life to make a living hell.

Now unfortunately, unless you’re already living on an island paradise when the zombie apocalypse occurs the real situation is a little less appealing, but then again, what did you expect from a zombie apocalypse? Whether you decide to work on being rescued or on making yourself comfortable you’re still going to need a safe house of sorts.

The whole zombie apocalypse thing really does bring a new sense to the term “home sweet home” so it’s really in your best interest to make sure it’s a place worth spending most of your time in. Zombies are not known for their engineering ability, so you want to try and put that engineering degree to good use or at the very least all that time you played with Lego as a kid to design yourself a fortress to call home.

There is a lot of debate as to whether animals are a good idea to keep around. Would a dog serve as good warning system; able to sniff out undead rotting corpses and provide protection, or would they simply end up being a loud “survivor’s are here” announcement; an appetizer to a hungry zombie and then worst of all a bloodthirsty zombified dog afterwards or “zombog” (not sure if that is the technical term, but sounds pretty good to me – copyright in process).

With regard to weapons you’re going to want to stick to anything that allows you to keep your distance because like that awkward guy in the cue with halitosis and wearing a trench coat, zombies have some serious issues with “personal space”. While guns are probably your best bet here the obvious problem becomes getting these guns because if you don’t already have a personal arsenal (read aren’t a “redneck)” then you’ll have to be making your way to a guns and ammunition store which unfortunately has risks of its own.

You see what people tend to forget during the fury and festivities that comes from the end of the world, is that some things don’t change namely the fact that the most likely animal to kill a human being is in fact a human being and an even more likely type of human being to kill is one with a lot of guns, a fear of you wanting to take these guns and the lack of any kind of punishment for killing. Not that the courts would ever hear the matter, but I have to think the “he looked like a zombie to me” defence is going to be quite a common “get out of jail free card”.

Your best bet in a zombie apocalypse is really to do you and the world a favour and try to rebuild civilisation. So get all the necessary supplies: food, water and video games and try make a turn past a strip club or two and convince the ladies there to join you because not only will you need help in repopulating the earth, they stand no risk of attracting any zombies to your location with the smell of brains.

Good luck my tasty-brained reader

How to Survive a Zombie Holocaust – part 1 (the rules)

Face the fact, people love zombies, not “love” in a teenager “say anything to exchange bodily fluids sort of way” more in a “love observing violent animals in zoos sort of way” (sooo cuddly!) Why is it that we are fascinated by the thought that one day the entire world will be overrun by bloodthirsty rotting corpses with the insatiable appetite for brain salad? Is it the subtle theme that we are all indeed “zombies” marching around soullessly in our meaningless corporate existence or is it just the idea of running through the streets waving a chainsaw around, carrying more ammunition than redneck on payday, while our boss gets his leg chewed off by zombie accountants?

Regardless, “Zombie culture” is as massive as “Bieber Fever” and only half as brainless. Spawning hundreds of movies, TV series and games, zombie-lore has developed several rules some of which have been modified to suit changes in societal tastes (insert remark about different recipes for Brains here) while others have remained steadfast.
So “what are the rules?” you may ask as if to gather vital information, but instead interrupting the flow of this article which I will have to use as a segue to the next paragraph (sneaky, I know). The rules are as follows…

1) Outbreaks of Zombie-ism (it’s a word now) are usually caused by some sort of virus – Sometimes unleashed by some sort of biblically prophesised verse (although I don’t remember anything in Sunday school about “Then zombies came and they did eat the brains of the living. Amen”), but usually the virus is manmade and cooked up in some laboratory by some corporation as a biological weapon or artificial sweetener, where of course, “nothing could never possibly not go wrong”.

2) While the Zombie outbreak will initially be caused by the disease/virus/military-grade artificial sweetener, the outbreak will reach epidemic proportions once the newly zombified (also a word now) members of society start chewing down on each other’s “thinky-bits” resulting in more zombies. This equates to the dumbest form of procreation that evolution has ever managed to spit out of the primordial soup where an organism whose only method of procreation is also its key source of food. Talk about not being able to have your cake and eat it… where the cake is both your only source of nourishment, as well as for fornication and the preservation of your species – but you try telling that to my nephew after I ruined his birthday party.

3) Zombies can survive pretty much anything except severe damage to their brains or having their heads separated from their bodies (it also appears to work vice versa). As satisfying as it may be to kick your zombified former boss in his nuts this will not stop him lurching towards you to suck your brains out of your skull (I call those “weekdays”). Rather shoot him in the head… then kick him in the nuts.

4) Zombies’ movement abilities are one of those rules that has changed over the course of time. Originally slow lumbering corpses with the mental capacity of soggy toast and the athletic ability of a drunk blind man wearing rollerblades made of banana skins (elaborate analogy, I know) zombies have never been too difficult to outmanoeuvre (except for a certain group of dancing zombies in Michael Jackson thriller video). However, some movies and games decided that slow moving corpses wasn’t exciting enough so instead introduces zombies as feral, bloodthirsty savages with the unnerving speed and strength of a crack addict where your skull is filled with white powder and shiny things. The need to shoot for the head with these guys becomes even more necessary as the ol’ “kick the guy in the nuts and run” technique is going to get you a bite mark shaped haircut.

These are just a few of the rules for surviving a zombie holocaust… stay tuned for more and keep those tasty brains of yours safe.