So Now You’re a Zombie: A Handbook for the Newly Undead

Who is your enemy?

Simply put, your enemy is a warm body containing an uninfected human brain. The world is filled with more than 6 billion of them—that’s an astounding 135 million tons of gray matter, or 10.3 million fully loaded dump trucks! Unfortunately, humans refuse to simply load their brains into dump trucks for us to consume. Instead, even in the midst of a full-blown zombie outbreak, the breathers’ inquiring minds will continue to focus on their own selfish needs. In order to hunt them successfully, you’ll need to understand what those needs are and how they influence the behavior of your prey.

Human Needs

Breathers are quite capable of pigging out, just like you. A zed once witnessed a single human downing 80 chicken nuggets in five minutes. And while this is abnormal, a healthy mortal will need to digest roughly 2,500 calories of food a day—about 40 chicken nuggets—to maintain their fragile biological processes. That’s approximately 1.2 pounds of chow, about one-third the weight of an average adult human brain. Along with fast food, they also need water, shelter, and alcohol. These are the bare essentials a human requires to live long and prosper.

But then some old guy named Maslow made a real mess of things by beefing up this list with a few “emotional” needs. They include a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization, whatever the hell that is. And while friendship and respect are not essential for our survival, according to Maslow they are a must for humanity.

This baffling array of needs will eventually affect the sanity of all last-ditch defenders of the living. As they yearn for respect, friendship, or sexual intimacy—our money is on intimacy—they will neglect their more basic needs and their personal safety. By understanding this tendency, we can exploit humans’ weaknesses. The following insights expose how vulnerable the living truly are, not knowing that at any moment their civilization hangs by a vein.

Hierarchy of Needs Maslow’s pansy ass hierarchy of needs, with the more basic needs at the bottom.

Humans Will Make Mistakes

During past crises, both natural and zombie-made, humans have made costly miscalculations or become disoriented to the point of uselessness. The next zombie plague will be no different. Both physical and emotional needs will hamper their decision making and increase your feeding opportunities. What follows are some major mistakes your prey will likely make.

Most humans approach the likelihood of a zed epidemic the same way they approach the possibility of a huge asteroid hitting the earth: they assume it just isn’t going to happen. Tell that to what became the Gulf of Mexico 60 million years ago! Even after reports of the walking dead start coming in, some humans will assume it’s a media hoax, not unlike the alien attack panic caused by Orson Welles in 1938. (Aliens? Yeah, right!)

This skepticism has crippled their preparedness. As we’ve moaned before, humans need an ample amount of provisions to survive. They are very capable of this task; their homes are stockpiled with enough pornography to outlast an outbreak, but they can’t eat porn. In a single year, a human will need about 430 pounds of food and 170 pounds of water … or 91 cases of beer. Except for screwball survivalists, how many humans do you think actually have this much stockpiled today? The answer is very few. No wonder humans cut and run once the party runs out of chips and salsa.

Crawling out of their protective shelters, humans will be drawn to places such as Super Food City and Doug’s Donut World to find anything edible. Desperation can also lead to violence among remaining survivors; they might attack each other over Twinkies and Spam. These scenarios can produce wounded or hungry humans, slow-moving zombie food that you can quickly gobble up.

However, do not assume that all mortals will be unprepared for a zombie uprising. Zed groupies and other secret “zombie awareness” groups are ready. However, none of these brainy bands have amassed numbers large enough to hinder a ziege.

“Bless you!” is just a polite way to say, “Thanks for the z-virus!” Most breathers are sneezers who do not take necessary precautions during a viral outbreak. Mouths, noses, eyes, and wounds should all be covered, but they won’t be. Their careless behavior is our opportunity to recruit new members to our undead team (see “Infecting,” page 117).

Humans who are already infected but who have not yet succumbed to death and reanimation will further our causes by continuing to interact with the general public. Some will use public transportation as they search for a cure or try to find family. While it’s pure carelessness on the part of the breathers, we welcome their assistance.

According to our undead sources, the human race hasn’t yet cloned Chuck Norris. (Phew!) Even luckier for us, only a small percentage of the living have even been trained to be mercenaries. Yes, weapon possession is high, but they mostly consist of cutlery knives and nontraceable handguns—“miniweapons,” you might say. Scrambling for protection, humans might use anything, from clubbed weapons to simple wooden boards.

Unless they land a lucky blow to your head, most of these weapons will have no effect on your pain-impervious body. What’s more, such weapons require the attacker to be in close proximity, making them easy targets for vomit (see “Projectile Vomiting,” page 82). And many improvised weapons cause extensive blood splatter, increasing the risk of infection.

Even gun-toting humans are a manageable threat, as most of them have terrible aim. And as battles rage on, there will be an ammunition shortage; bullets will run out quickly. If you stay to the rear of an attacking horde, you can reduce the risk of a fatal head shot (see “Avoiding the Bullet,” page 84).

Human obesity levels are grossly underestimated; the majority of humans are not built for combat. These “biggest losers” have two options: fight or flee. Most jelly bellies choose to avoid pudgy-hand-to-zombie-hand combat, and flee. They can exhibit impressive feats of speed on their oversized legs, but eventually the Big Macs take their toll, causing fatigue and excruciating sideaches.

In the end, the brain-eating turtle wins the race. A persistent zed will exhaust them, though the hunter may face the unpleasant possibility of having to watch these humans blow chunks. If that doesn’t make you sick, take a look at the human food below.

Breathers are crazy. Their personal feelings can erupt in all sorts of hysterical ways, inevitably decreasing their chances of survival. At the slightest suggestion that they might end up on our menu, humans will panic. They’ll randomly wave swords or shoot aimlessly, slashing fellow defenders’ jugulars or worse. In addition, claustrophobia, video game withdrawal, or a misguided urge to reunite with family and pets can lead to an ill-advised journey out of a hiding place. Most of this craziness adds up to an easy meal for you.

By the end of a truly devastating zombie outbreak, the breathers may have succumbed to total desperation. They may take their own lives to avoid joining the ranks of the undead—or they may try to join our ranks even without being infected (see “The Mentally Disturbed,” page 12).

Hey, look at me, I’m at Pacific Playland! Humans continually evolve and have, just recently, mutated into multitaskers. Case studies have shown that the living today are incapable of sitting quietly. They constantly create noises by humming, tapping, whistling, and talking. These annoying noises piss us off—and tip us off that dinner is served!

Zeds have also observed that the living find it necessary to surround themselves with objects that increase their visibility. Barking dogs, vehicles, weapons, electrical appliances, and other technologies flash before our eyes and ring in our ears, helping us pinpoint which direction we should shamble. When humans shoot out a window, turn on the lights, or let the family dog bark, they’re letting you know that you’ll be eating good.

If it’s anything like the TV show Big Brother, the human resistance is going to be a train wreck! There is no question that during a z-virus epidemic, military personnel or other government officials will be dispatched to “assist” the living. However, this aid will take the form of containment only—officials will simply set up a large perimeter around the infected area.

At this point, it’s open season on everyone trapped inside the confines of zombieland. Humans barricaded in homes or other shelters are just leftovers for us to claim. Eventually we’ll infect or eat everyone within the perimeter, swell our numbers, and prepare to assault the humans’ main line of defense.

Unlike the efficient, self-motivated zed, panicked humans need someone to slap them around and tell them what to do. This freakish weakness soon becomes a burden. It starts with complaining, then leads to questioning leadership. Eventually it escalates into something uglier: a once-powerful breather band can be torn apart by irreconcilable differences, making it vulnerable to a zombie horde’s attack. Not unlike a severed appendage flailing on the ground, a separated individual becomes an easy target.

Not to toot our own horns, but there is an “I” in zombie!

How to Kill a Human

Yes, the living can experience minor injures—muscle soreness, sprains, contusions, tendinitis, and possible fractures—but none of them will guarantee you a brainy dessert. If you scratch or bite a human, they will be infected by the z-virus and will eventually die and join our cause—but you want to eat, dammit! What you need to do is kill a human, not just harm it. Knock it cold to the ground, then chow down until your face is painted red.

Fortunately, if you can harm it, you can kill it! Breathers come in all shapes and sizes, but absent weapons or protective clothing, bodies of every type are equally susceptible to infection and/or death. Don’t be fooled—tattoos will not improve your prey’s defenses against the horde.

Every human’s soft underbelly shares the exact same set of innards: 11 entangled body systems that must continually perform their respective duties to maintain life. If any one system is seriously damaged, the body as a whole cannot function. This interdependency provides you with 1,001 termination possibilities. For example, the human circulatory system is responsible for pumping six quarts of fresh, uninfected blood through thousands of miles of veins. If interrupted, the human goes down, blood squirting everywhere.

Getting hungry yet?

The human body is covered with vulnerable entry points into one or more organ systems. The following slaughter strategies will help you find them. Each one, when executed correctly, will result in something horrible. For them, that is.

Be a trauma momma and go for the head!

Biting or scratching a breather’s facial features can cause major disorientation, and possibly impair your victims’ vision (see “Use Your Body as a Weapon,” page 81). Without sight, he or she will definitely be at a disadvantage.

You can also use your flailing arms to rain heavy blows to your victim’s head. This can bruise its brain and put the human in an unconscious state. Other common symptoms of a bruised brain are dizziness, stroke, seizures, vomiting, aneurysms, nosebleeds, and seeing stars and little birdies.

If pushed to the ground, a human could experience a skull fracture, and a skull fragment could “dent” into the brain. This could lead to quick death, or at least impair your victim while you feast.

And no, battering a brain it does not affect its nutritional value.

Like a turducken, the human body is stuffed with all types of internal organs. While the human skeleton is highly resistant to damage and human skin is highly resilient, damage done to internal organs such as the liver, kidney, or heart is often delightfully deadly.

To gain access to these organs, concentrate your bites and claws in body locations that offer the least resistance. The diagram on the right shows areas that are not protected by the skeletal system. Use your jaws or claws to break through the skin and tear away until you’ve damaged something important.

Make them bleed! Many humans go queasy at the sight of blood, and can quickly turn hysterical when they see blood flowing directly out of them.

Fragile humans are also super-duper blood dependent, and will go into shock if they lose even 30-40 percent of the red stuff, guaranteeing you a quiet meal. How can you, a scatterbrained zed, estimate the percentage you’ve drained? When your unwilling patient turns ghostly white and his or her heartbeat increases, you’re on the right track. To increase lethality, aim for a major artery shown on the diagram below.