Preparing for the forthcoming Zombie Apocalypse

I think I’ve been watching too many zombie-related television programs and reading too many zombie-related books.

I always used to be a hard science and hard science-fiction man. I was never much interested in horror. And out of all the horror genres I was not interested in, Zombies were right at the top of the list, until…

…as I mentioned in my Zombie tales for people with brains blog, I think it all started with The Walking Dead television series. For some reason this really captured my imagination. And then I started interspacing my usual science and science fiction books with the occasional zombie novel.

In fact, I just finished reading Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry. This little rascal presents perhaps the most “believable” explanation as to how the Zombie Apocalypse starts. Early in the tale we meet a prison doctor called Dr. Herman Volker. We later discover that he used to be a Russian scientist who defected to America many years before.

The doctor has a personal vendetta against serial killers due to something that happened to his family back in the Eastern Bloc way in the past. So when a really horrible serial killer called Homer Gibbon is scheduled to be executed in the doctor’s prison, he replicates some research from his days in the old Soviet Union.

The bottom line is that, when Homer is executed, along with the lethal drugs, the doctor also injects his special formula that is designed to keep Homer’s consciousness awake while is body rots in the grave. The doctor is basing his plan on the fact that Homer has no living relatives, which means he will be quickly interred in the prison graveyard.

You can only imagine our surprise (the doctor was shocked and I was horrified) when a hitherto unsuspected aunt appears and claims the body, which is transported from the prison to a mortuary in the small town where the aunt lives.

When Homer wakes up in the mortuary – hungry, infected, contagious, and more than a tad miffed at his lot – well, all I can say without giving too much away is that things do not bode well.

Now, intellectually I know (well, I certainly have high hopes) that there isn’t going to be a Zombie Apocalypse in the classical sense in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, as I meander my way around these days, I do tend to look at the buildings I’m driving by or walking through and ponder how effective they would be with regard to defense against a zombie horde.

I also find myself plotting escape routes and evaluating food and water resources. Of course the other thing you need in this sort of eventuality is appropriate weaponry. It would be a foolish man indeed who would take on a gang of zombies bare-handed (although Chuck Norris would probably be up to the challenge). As we zombie hunters know to our cost, guns are the last thing you want to use, because the sound will attract more zombies than you know what to do with.

From what I’ve gathered thus far, you can’t do much better than a machete for short range work. There are many types of these little rascals, but I must admit that I am drawn to the Gerber 31-000705 Gator Machete Pro, only $38.26 (reduced from $68.76) from Amazon. It also comes with a nylon sheath and free shipping if you select the Super Saver option. (It goes without saying that if I suspected the Zombie Apocalypse had already begun then I would happily fork over the extra cash for overnight shipping!)


I’m sure that, like me, you receive a surprising number of catalogs in the post. I once heard that the worst thing you can do is to purchase one of those Nose and Ear Hair Trimmers from a catalog, because if you do they pass the word around that you are fair game for any weird and wonderful product. (Speaking for myself, I certainly won’t purchase another one.)

Having said this, my wife (Gina The Gorgeous) is in a class of her own when it comes seems to receiving weird and wonderful brochures and catalogs promising all forms of delectation and delight, which is how I came to find myself skimming through the April 2012 issue of the FingerHut catalog (www.FingerHut.com).

I don’t know if you’ve ever looked in the FingerHut catalog. It’s really not that big, but it certainly covers a lot of ground and it’s jam-packed with all sorts of things you never even knew you wanted until you see them. Anyway, as I say, I was idly skimming through this catalog when I ran across all sorts of things that would be very handy should the dread day come. Three items that caught my eye, for example, were the M48 Hawk axe with sheath (“A great axe for camping, survival, rescue, or throwing”), the Tomahawk 12-piece throwing knife set (“Perfectly balanced for an easy, accurate throw every time”), and the Jaguar 175-lb draw camo rifle crossbow (“Adult supervision required”).


Now I’m not completely insane (at least, not yet). I know that the prospects of a Zombie Apocalypse are somewhat less likely on the scale of things than a Robot Apocalypse (for which laser rifles and weapons of this ilk are the order of the day), so I’m not actually going to go out and purchase any of this stuff. Having said this, to be honest, I think I would feel a lot safer at a primal, unconscious level if I had all of the above items hidden under my bed … just in case.

Maybe a better alternative would be to stop watching zombie films and reading zombie books. The problem is that I still have four un-viewed episodes of Season 2 of the Walking Dead on my iPad, along with books two and three of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan awaiting my attention.

Hmmm, maybe I could get by with just the Gator Machete and the Hawk Axe…

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