My mind-consuming fascination with zombies
I’m fascinated with zombies. I cannot explain why. I’m not a horror film buff at all (and indeed, I haven’t even seen the vast majority of zombie flicks ever committed to film). Yet thoughts of zombies constantly flit through my mind. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I frequently think of how to survive the coming zombie apocalypse. And yet, regrettably, I don’t even have a shotgun, which is by far the best anti-zombie weapon available to the average consumer, as determined by zombie experts (and if you didn’t know this, geez, where have you been?). So I definitely need to get a shotgun to deal with the zombie apocalypse when (not if) it comes. And you know I’m seriously fascinated with zombies, because I don’t even know if I’m joking when I say that.
I have had some seriously weird dreams revolving around zombies. They’re multi-hour affairs, and continue to take place for many minutes even after I’ve woken up. My most recent dream took place in a post-zombie apocalypse New York City. Yes, there were massive casualties, but order was eventually restored and life continued on, with one minor exception: zombies remained a lingering threat, especially at night (you didn’t think we would manage to take out all of the zombies in one fell swoop, did you?). It was just like how you might currently be afraid of being attacked by a mugger at 3 am on a seedy side street, except in my dream, the attackers were zombies, and they weren’t after your valuables, but rather, wanted to eat your brains. So in that sense, it was a bit scarier than contemporary New York City.
The best part of that dream, though, was how the everyday NYPD took on secondary anti-zombie duties. In the dream, I became surrounded by zombies in a dark alleyway (I don’t know what I was doing there). But luckily, the police arrived at the last second and saved me. Now, normally, the police would arrest alleged criminals, but since we are dealing with zombies here, they killed them on the spot. So the police function as judge, jury, and executioner in this post-apocalypse version of New York City, at least as far as zombies are concerned. And why shouldn’t they be? There’s no point in holding trials for zombies, since you know you’ve got to exterminate them all in the end anyway.
In addition to dreaming, I have many fully conscious thoughts about zombies, including how I would survive the coming zombie apocalypse. My ultimate zombie survival plan is this: two autoloader shotguns, a chest full of ammunition, a dependable slicing melee weapon such as a longsword (everyone knows you don’t bother trying to use bludgeoning weapons against zombies), and two weeks worth of food and water. The key to my plan is that all of these supplies are kept on the second story of a building with only one staircase, such as your typical house. That way, all you have to do is defend the stairway (zombies aren’t dexterous enough to climb the sheer vertical exterior walls of a building). And since zombies are noted for their slow movement, especially when trying to tackle stairs, you’d have a generous amount of time to take out each ascending zombie before it reached you. I suspect by the resolution of the zombie apocalypse you would have a huge pile of festering perforated zombie flesh at the bottom of your staircase, but meh, that’s unavoidable.
The reason for the second shotgun is so that you can conduct proper maintenance on one shotgun at a time without leaving you defenseless. After all, in a sustained zombie apocalypse situation, you may end up needing to fire hundreds of shells. A shotgun won’t hold up too well after going that long without cleaning. The melee weapon is in case things really go downhill. You never want to fight a zombie at melee range, but if it’s unavoidable, you’re much better off with a proper weapon than being stuck with just your fists. Just remember to aim your slashes to decapitate the zombie. You need to take out the head. A zombie with limbs sliced off will keep coming after you, but a headless zombie cannot.
And it might help to install one of these in your home:
January 8th, 2008 at 02:08
By “autoloader”, you just mean semi-automagic weapon like the SPAS-12, not a full-auto like the Jackhammer, right?
January 8th, 2008 at 10:16
Yeah, I meant semi-automatic. Turns out the term autoloader is mainly reserved for large crew-served weapons. Guess I was embellishing my shotgun a little bit there.
But hey, I had to have something like this in the post for people to leave a comment about.
January 8th, 2008 at 14:23
Well, I’ve heard the term applied to just about any loading mechanism that isn’t break- or lever-action. And obviously not to revolvers.
But what’s wrong with an autoloader for fighting zombies? What better weapon than an M1 with some canister rounds?
“Wow, that street sure has a lot of zombies in it!”
” *thoom* I don’t see any zombies.”
“… Indeed.”
I wonder if anyone has considered loading, say, the 25mm Bushmaster on the M2 Bradley with a shotgun-type round. I mean, it would totally invalidate in terms of beating down tanks, but it’s an IFV ,after all, and not meant to be fighting tanks. Besides, it’s always got that TOW launcher.
I’d say that would be pretty hard to beat in terms of zombie killin’. Something like 600RPM of controllable, zombie-popping fun.
January 8th, 2008 at 15:02
See, you’re talking about tactics the military would use to take out zombies, which is kind of missing the point. The military will never have any sort of problems taking out zombies. Heck, in the original zombie flick, Night of the Living Dead, the zombie apocalypse is defeated the day after by roving gangs of semi-organized armed militias, picking off the zombies at ranges of several hundred yards. The army is already optimized for taking out large groups of organized armed opponents — large groups of unorganized, unarmed, shambling opponents wouldn’t even stand a chance.
This post focuses on a civilian-oriented defense against the coming zombie apocalypse. I don’t have access to a Bradley Fighting Vehicle or an M1A1 Abrams tank. What I can easily get access to, however, is a shotgun, which is going to be your best bet against zombies. I specified an autoloader shotgun because there may be times when you need to get off several rounds in quick succession, like if you miss the brain, and you don’t want to have to try to manually load another round into the chamber while a zombie is shuffling inexorably towards you.
January 8th, 2008 at 15:55
I guess you’re right. I’ve been thinking in military terms a lot lately trying to keep people alive in a military-ish GURPS game. I suspect there may be zombies involved at some point, so…
The thing with zombie action plans is that they are largely location dependent. What may work for you might not work for me, based on number of people involved as well as locations required.
Now, for me, I live in Ellensburg. We’ve got this very nice water tower that’s up on a hill and has about fifty feet of sheer metal walls with but two ladders up to the top. I figure a couple tents tied down on top and some food would be perfect. I mean, one of the main concerns with a ZAP is water, so a large storage place for water seems like a natural place. I would need some way of preventing all the water from leaking into the rest of the town, though.
The problem with shotguns is that the ammo for them is unnecessarily heavy. And really, they wouldn’t be any more effectively than many other weapons. If anything, they would do *less*. I mean, a shotgun will kill by causing a lot of little wounds. You only get the spectacular effects of a shotgun at close range. Other than that, it’s just an aid for hitting a moving target. No good against something that moves slowly and doesn’t feel pain.
January 8th, 2008 at 16:10
Sorry for the double post.
Also, to hit the brain - widely considered the best way to stop a zombie - you have to get through the skull. Shotguns lose power over distance very, very quickly when compared to other weapons.
http://www.zombiesarecoming.com/2007/11/02/top-5-reasons-you-should-not-use-a-shotgun-for-zombie-defense/
That article and the attached comments are definitely worth a read, though the ones I’ve read so far do address the penetration issues I mentioned before. Slug rounds are one option, but you might as well use a different kind of longarm if that’s what you’re going to load solid rounds.
I’ve only used break-action shotguns with no boresights, which make them painfully difficult to aim, so I may be somewhat biased against them to begin with. It may be the case that the .22 long rifle wins once again as the top survival round, generically. You situation might affect this considerably, though.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:00
a .22 is incredibly small. Seriously, if you’ve ever handled their bullets its just a small step up from a red rider bb gun. (that isn’t a joke)
This could be beneficial, because once the .22 round enters the zombie’s skull it would not have the force to exit the skull and would remain lodged in the brain scrambling the signals sent between the nerves.
On the other hand, if it doesn’t actually get into the brain you are in deep doo doo (to use the parlance of our times)
I would recommend a shotgun with a rifled barrel (yes they make those, no I don’t know why that isn’t considered a a plain rifle) and slugs. You could also make a good case for buck shot or just a plain big rifle in the first place like a 30-06.
February 20th, 2008 at 13:49
Jeff: Yeah, I own a .22 rifle, and yeah, the rounds are small. They can still be lethal, but when going up against human-size targets, you would want a larger caliber. Something like a .223 or a 7.62mm would be good enough though. A shotgun slug is overkill. If you have to go mobile, medium caliber rifle rounds will kill a lot more zombies than the same weight in shotgun slugs.
Incidentally, a rifled shotgun technically is a rifle, they just don’t call it as such because the ammunition it fires is traditionally associated with shotguns rather than rifles.