Yes, the undead instinct is always “Bite first, ask questions later,” but if you aren’t careful, that strategy can lead to your demise. Mastering a few simple self-defense strategies, including “weapons of the body,” will not only surprise the humans but also possibly impress your fellow zeds.
Holding Techniques
You’ve worked hard to find your prey, so you’d hate to lose it! The most basic attack strategy is holding a victim against his or her will. A properly executed hold will give you the opportunity to employ the other nasty strategies found in this chapter. Briefly study this illustration of the four most effective holds: the Hair Hold, the Bite Hold, the Arm Hold, and the Leg Hold.
Use Your Body as a Weapon
Your body is bursting with all types of bloodthirsty weaponry that can be used against the living. And remember: your flesh and blood are highly infectious. Once your victim is infected with the z-virus, he or she will begin to experience all types of nasty symptoms, weakening resistance and making it easier for you to gorge out. You can increase the likelihood of viral transference by biting, scratching, spitting, bleeding, and/or vomiting on your target.
The following diagram illustrates the deadliest weapons in your personal arsenal.
Your bite is mightier than your moan! Using your teeth, bite down on your victim’s flesh, hard enough to tear through the skin. This will cause direct fluid-to-fluid contact. If you are a severely decomposed zombie, you may have experienced tooth loss. Your rotten gums may not break the skin’s surface, making your mouth a less effective weapon.
Heaving toxic fluid from your stomach allows the possibility of attack at a distance. It can weaken your victim through infection, disorientation, or disgust, and can also cause temporary blindness. One out of four zombies is capable of projectile vomiting to a distance of six to seven feet.
At the ends of your fingers are fingernails, made up of a tough protein called keratin. These popular zombie weapons, randomly sharpened by breaks and chips, can easily pierce your victim’s soft skin. When attacking for the kill, the more lacerations the more blood loss.
You should concentrate on clawing around your prey’s neck. If you cut the jugular vein, it can lead to fatal hemorrhaging. Clawing the victim’s head can also impair his or her vision, and possibly cause a concussion.
Enjoy your fingernails while you still can; eventually you will lose them due to severe decomposition.
Zed Melee Weapons
Along with their biological weapons (their bodies), certain zombies are capable of using primitive external weapons. If chimpanzees can, why can’t zeds?
Most advanced weapons require study and training to use. In other words, they’re too complicated for a zed. However, melee weapons, designed for close combat, can be effective without any technical know-how, just random arm motions.
A blunt weapon is an edgeless, rounded, or unsharpened object used to inflict blunt force trauma. Clubs, pipes, logs, and severed body parts are all classified as blunt weapons. Tightly grab one of these items and haphazardly swing it around. Amputated appendages can be used to harm your victim psychologically as well as physically.
An edged weapon has two ends, the edge and the handle. If you carelessly handle the wrong end, you could lose a finger. Grab onto the non-shiny part before operating. These weapons usually require some training, but your abnormal shuffling and twitching will make it difficult for your victim to avoid being lacerated.
You can quickly turn an ordinary object into a dangerous projectile by tossing it through the air, a technique best used during a siege. Glass fortifications can sometimes be demolished by chucking living and nonliving objects into them.
But now the bad news: 7 out of 10 zombies are incapable of throwing an object, and of the 3 who can, only 1 can hit its intended target.
Defensive Strategies
Past attempts at initiating a zombie apocalypse have always failed miserably. We know now that one of our biggest blunders has been our lack of defensive strategies. A zombie never retreats, only attacks—but better to attack in a way that limits the possibility of cranial injury and re-death. By studying thousands of failed engagements between humans and long-gone zeds, we have identified some of the most common attacks scenarios implemented by the living, and learned how to most effectively counter them.
Most humans are predictable—they usually go for your head. They have crafted all types of weapons to do this, but most often they rely on firearms. In certain situations, they may resort to fire or melee weapons instead, and either of these weapons can also cause cranial damage.
Review the following defensive strategies for the most common human attacks, and with a little luck you will avoid the embarrassing fate of our zombie forebears. Need more motivation? It’s quite possible these trigger-happy humans used to be your buddies! Such behavior from an ex is understandable, but family and friends—what gives?
Avoiding the Bullet
Head shots are a bitch! A bullet targeted to the brain will cause almost certain death. Slow as you are, it is highly unlikely you can avoid a bullet traveling as fast as four thousand feet per second. Your best protection is avoiding gunfire altogether.
Of course, that isn’t always possible. If they can, the living will certainly stockpile sufficient firepower to protect themselves and possibly hunt you down. Fortunately, as mentioned earlier (see “Terrible with Weapons,” page 35), most humans are not trained marksmen and will unload rounds wildly, desperately trying to land a lucky shot between your eyes. These cowboy antics are as likely to hit other humans as they are you. Unfortunately, other breathers are trained snipers, waiting for a trophy zombie to kill. Until you have a chance to observe the shooter’s technique, it will be very difficult to know the skill level of the target you are about to engage.
When being fired upon, you must avoid shots in both the Kill Box and the Deadly Triangle areas. A shot to the Kill Box is 99.9 percent fatal. Trained marksmen also aim at the Deadly Triangle, which if hit will result in an undead fatality. Head areas outside these kill zones are capable of absorbing minor blows without lasting effect, though if strong enough the hits could cause unconsciousness for 1 to 10 minutes. Severe damage to the upper spinal cord, the brain stem area, could also result in termination.
In short, guns are bad news. If you see a human holding one of the firearms depicted here, implement one of the following bullet-avoidance attack strategies. Remember, even after being bitten, your victim still is capable of firing a weapon, so once you’ve employed a maneuver it is important to disarm (or remove the arm of) the shooter to avoid a scuffle shot.
