An Enquiry Concerning Your Zombie Survival Plan
INTRO
This week, we have a bit of summer survival school here at CPO. We take a break from bitching about popular crap, with a column that might just save your life.
What do you do in case of a undead holocaust?: Are you fully prepared for the events of a post-apocalyptic world maggoty with monsters?
What is your Zombie plan?
Tip 1: Leave the Chainsaw in the Toolshed: As a weapon, chainsaws are rubbish. They are loud, heavy, unwieldy, and dangerous to the user and his peers. You’d be better off with a sharp sword. Don’t take my word for it, either. You see Pulp Fiction? Bruce Willis wisely passes up a chainsaw for what looks like a katana to kill the Deliverance style hillbillies.
Tip 2: Take advantage of home field advantage: One should know the whereabouts of everything in one’s house, be able to wander around it in the dark. Though many supernatural beings have good night vision, not all do. Be like Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs. Turn out the lights and pull a Daredevil on your home invaders.
Tip 3: Fuck the Scream rules: Most monsters don’t give a shit about your celibacy. To paraphrase a friend, zombies just want you for your brain. So, go ahead and f*ck, just make sure to get references ahead of time, to make sure that you aren’t f*cking an ogre of some sort. And even then… Monsters need love too. As long as she ain’t some sort of Praying Mantis/Black Widow sort of Monstress.
Tip 4: Get a dog: In case of Zombie Armageddon (Zombageddon), it is best to have a dog. Preferably this dog will be around 5 years old; old enough to be calm in temperament, but young enough to be in good health. Cats? Familiars of Satan. If you got something useful with that route, more power to ya. Now, dogs are useful in three ways.
A: Early warning: Dogs tend to have keener senses than men. They can spot your monsters well before you can.
B: Monster Detection: Dogs are also able to spot your invisible creatures, discern loved ones from ghouls in disguise, and notice when a member of your party has turned over to the darkside. This skill is infinitely useful for discovering your body-snatching alien, lycanthrope, or undead fiend.
C: Physical protection. Dogs are the poor man’s Secret Service, except instead of diving in front of a bullet to protect the President, they will dive in front of a monstering to protect your monkey ass.
Tip 5: Know your Shotgun: If the gun is full of birdshot, you might as well use it as a blunt object, assuming of course that you are not being stalked by a small bird. If your gun is loaded with something bigger and badder than birdshot, go nuts. Shotguns are great for killing zombies. KNOW THIS: You still must aim with a shotgun. The spread is probably going to be just a few centimeters (much smaller than many would assume).
Tip 6: Junk food is good food: Most people know enough to keep a stock of canned goods and bottled tap water in case of zombie emergencies, but what about so-called junk food? Little Debbie’s, Hostess, and other assorted cake treats are loaded up with quick calories that aren’t in danger of growing rotten in the near future. A single Snickers bar contains nearly a complete meal’s worth of carbohydrates, fat and protein. Fill your fortress with this stuff. A little in each room, as most of this shit doesn’t require refrigeration.
And it is well known that candy can be used to bribe many of the common ghouls. Reese’s Pieces were the only things that sated E.T.’s bloodlust.
Tip 7: Know your Kevlar: Kevlar is good body armor, but don’t confuse it with that magic shit that Frodo wears. It ain’t. Kevlar is only going to stop small arms fire. A decent rifle will pass through both ends of a Kevlar vest without much trouble. An average man cn stab through kevlar with a good sharp knife. (Always keep a good strong knife in the fortress).
Tip 8: Have available blunt objects around your house: Baseball bats are a good all around weapon for a game of monster smashy-smashy. They are fairly easy to use, big enough to provide stopping power, yet small enough to work effectively in a hallway. A bat made of ash may even be an effective weapon against several types of vampires.
A large aluminum cylinder can also prove quite effective at destroying the brains of a zombie horde. There are even aluminum pipes that unscrew into nunchucks. Unless one is already proficient with nunchucks, I don’t recommend this option. However, I do recommend tonfa, billy clubs, cricket bats, field hockey sticks, and toilet tank lids.
Tip 9: Get Rope: What are you gonna do with a f*cking rope?
Tip 10: Fire is your friend: Keep a good supply of matches, lighters and lighter fluid handy. I would advise against butane, as it tends to evaporate quickly. Stick to something in the neighborhood of charcoal fluid or Zippo fuel. The ability to summon flame with neither flint nor tinder helps in many ways.
A. Fire scares away most low level monsters. Even the Frankenstein monster is of the opinion, “Fire bad!”
B. Fire is useful for burning questionable dead monsters. Didn’t you all learn your lesson from the Resident Evil Gamecube Remake? That game was there to teach. What, did you think it was for fun? Bah.
C. Burning your bridges. Do you live on the second floor or above in a brick building? Do you have a wooden back porch that just begs, “Climb on up zombies!”? Burn that f*cker down. You’ve got your rope, and still have the back available as a potential exit and entrance, but the zombies are screwed.
Tip 11: Never trust your neighbors: That bitch on the third floor never wanted to talk to you before. Why does she want to talk to you now? The answers can only be:
A. She wants to stay with you and girl the place up. Fuck that shit.
B. She wants to steal some of your supplies. No dice. That’ll learn her for shopping at Whole Foods, when she should have been preparing her zombie plan.
C. She want to feed you to the monsters. Maybe she is in with them, or maybe she just wants to throw you in front of her as decoy/destruction. Don’t give her the satisfaction.
Tip 12: Know a diabetic: There are millions of people with diabetes in this country. BUT whenever there are zombie vaccines, there are never enough syringes. Think about it. (You’d be best off befriending an insulin dependent diabetic, preferably one who requires large doses of a background insulin like Lantus or NPH. Larger doses means larger needles. 3/10 of a cc might not be enough cure to do squat, and those pills ain’t gonna help anybody
Tip 13: If someone asks if you are a god…: say, “Yes!”
Tip 14: Turn down your radio: Don’t listen to music if you are on zombie watch. This thing should be common sense. And if you aren’t on watch, keep the volume low anyway. Many monsters are notorious music critics.
Tip 15: Listen to Ben: The basement is a death trap and should only be used as a last resort.
Tip 16: Batteries: Always have plenty of C and D batteries for your portable TVs, radios, etc. How else are you going to learn about space radiation and government progress?
Tip 17: The Silver Standard: Many monsters are staunchly anti-silver (few are anti-gold). Got some real silverware? Throw a spoon at your monster to test. If he shows aversion to silver, you may have the key to defeating him. If he picks up the spoon, well, you haven’t armed him with anything terribly dangerous.
Tip 18: Make large slow friends: Most monsters aren’t greedy. If they catch up to your fat friend, they might just stop and be satisfied in eating him.
Tip 19: WWND? What would Nancy do? Nobody is better than Heather Langenkamp at defeating monsters. She is 3-0 against Freddy. In my book, that streak is as good as Taker’s Wrestlemania one.
Tip 20: Fear not! As the cover of that intergalactic best seller states: Don’t panic. Panic leads to stupidity, and stupidity leads to death (possibly even railing death). Keep a cool head about these things. Zombies? No problem, they are easily outsmarted, more easily outrun. Vampires? Easy to avoid during the day, and you might gain immortality. Cool. Werewolves? How often is there a full moon anyway? Mummies are a rare occurrence. Gilmen and Fleshbots are usually just misunderstood.
Pimp(s?)
We have a games section? Anyway, the Saturn feature is a good read, Fighters Megamix dominated my first year of college. I believe I slaughtered many a first time player with Janet’s cheap ass “Back, forward, punch and kick, back forward, punch and kick.” Good times. That’ll show that Picky and the bastard B.M.
