I Love Zombies

I’m fascinated with zombies. I cannot explain why. I am also a huge horror film buff and have seen every zombie flick committed to film. The thoughts of zombies constantly flit through my mind. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I frequently imagine what it would be like to survive a coming zombie apocalypse. Regrettably, I don’t even own 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 Detroit. 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 Detroit.

The best part of that dream, though, was how the everyday Detroit PD 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 Detroit, 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 or chainsaw (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 (or I would head to the nearest mall, ala Dawn of the Dead). 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.