Zombie Defense

This article has been approved by the Zombie Survival Squad.

Every June, thousands of would-be zombicidal skull crackers are overrun and slaughtered by hordes of reanimated cannibals. The reason? They haven't a goddamned clue what they are doing. My insightful and strangely arousing guide to etiquette and material selection is invaluable information should you be attacked by decomposing masses of homicidal corpses, or thousands of angry South Korean farmers. Nothing says "put down the sandwich board" like a barbecue fork through the eye socket.

I am doing this as part of a platform to launch my revolutionary militia in the conquest of Bakersfield, Iowa, led by my glorious leader Michael "I was saying 'snigger'! Honest!" Richards, under his glorious creed, "Question all authority except mine, for obvious reasons, in the fiery creation of the new nation, um, wait a minute, uhhh BZAM! Cosmoerica! Fits like an oven fresh pair of pants with no underwear! Weasel Demons! Mulligatani!"

Weapons

Ranged

Rifles

These are the best guns for the job. Accurate, powerful, and widely varying, you have dozens of good choices available.

Small caliber

.22s are great! A close range 10/.22 (Ruger) is a like a barracuda. Small, fast, and more than a little "bitey". With a 60-shot banana clip, this gun is useful in every scenario. For Night of the Living Dead zombies, one can movie swiftly between the masses and put one into sixty undead assholes heads (or their assholes if you feel so inclined). The great thing about the bullet is that it can enter the skull, but bounces around and turns the brain into Campbell Chunky Style New England Clam Chowder thereafter. For 28 Days Later monsters, the large shell capacity and accuracy guarantee 100% satisfaction. This is an effective rage suppressant.

Large caliber

The .30/06 is your bread-and-butter boomstick. Good trajectory, speed, and expansion for long range targets. The only problem with it is the recoil, but this can be prevented with shoulder padding or mounting it to a swivel. The .300 Win/Mag with a muzzle break is the best gun, if you don't mind the God-awful noise. This is the best biggest weapon you can use conveniently, what with larger guns taking up space and being hard to carry. Also, you need quick firing and magazine capacity to keep the bastards from dismembering you (and by dismember, we mean to remove one's member).

A semi-automatic is nice for firing quickly, if you can. Bolt action is traditional and common, and can be just as effective. If you can get your hands on a good level action with lever evolution ammo, you are also in luck. For short range, small caliber guns don't use a scope. Scopes are mandatory for large caliber. Slings, cartridge belts, and bayonets are encouraged. And for the love of Bruce, clean your gun! You can't massacre hordes of the undead if you have rust in your gun.

Pistols

Pistols are great for close quarters. Basically any handgun (.40, .44, .45, .357 or .500) is very effective against the slaughtering of the ZED's at close range (within forty meters). Very small caliber handguns such as the .22LR and the .380 are formidable at making minced meat out of a zombie brain as it bounces around inside the skull, or whatever is left of a skull, but they take a little longer for the ZED to be taken out. 9mm handguns are grossly available, but aren't always the best caliber to use. for the same price as the average 9mm you can have a better caliber. Best advice with Handguns are practice, practice, practice.

As an update to this article by ~DS~, it must be pointed out that 9mm's are, in fact, much more deadly than one might think. A single shot to the torso with a Federal Hydrashock round tears enough tissue and causes enough trauma to knock back a grown man. The entry wound alone would be the size of a quarter, and for a 9mm cartridge, that is devastating. Readjust your aim for the skull of your target, and you make a brain slushy. Like Tallahassee said, "Enjoy the little things," and that includes a box of hollow points. From personal experience, .22LR must be disqualified from the list of handgun category cartridges to use against zombies, along with anything under .32 ACP due to low-impact and low-rate-of-fire and capacity.

Shotguns

Shotguns have always been a staple in the zombie asskicking industry. With light weight mobility, awesome knockdown power, and simple actions, not to mention how fuckin' cool they are, zombies' heads will explode with amazement (that or two barrels of SSG) and hot chicks will be on you like Roman Polanski on an unconcious thirteen-year-old.

Here are the following shotguns recommend by Bruce Campbell.

• "Listen you primitive screwheads! See this? This ... is my boomstick! The 12-guage double barrel Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?"
• To experience better zombie decapitation, try the sawed off model.
• For more efficiency, but less sex appeal, try the Defender pistol grip model. Remember, if it's a pump action, remove the magazine plug, sawed off, full choke close range, modified long, and 00 buck. And for God's sake, keep the safety on! Safety first. And always, always use a twelve gauge.

But in all serious aspects, Mossberg 500, Remington 870, Benelli M1014 (M4 model), Winchester 1100 and even the good old IAC Lever action M1887 shotgun that Arnie used in Terminator are good choices. Never choose a double barrel: Lessons learned from Zombieland and Mad Max. Reloading takes a while and, if you want a little double barrel, then put it in a backup pile for when all your fancy semi-autos and pumps break.

Crossbows

Crossbows are useful, because they have long range, and good accuracy. they are also silent. if you use one in close quarters, you die.

Compound bows

Now here's a manly weapon. Use a good Hoyt of Browning with all accessories (especially the whisker biscuit). Make sure you have it set to at least fifty pounds for better skull penetration. It can also be used to set flame to kerosene-soaked fields amidst shambling zombie fuckwads. Compound bows are so manly that their arrows need to have vasectomies to prevent impregnating their target.

Potato guns

Mainly used for fun when only two or three zombies attack. It can kill them, and it's fun! Be careful to avoid using these against a gaggle of zombies, or against the fast type.

Melee

Most blunts instruments are effective as melee weapons, but here's a quick listen of some good ones.

The Axe

The axe (and variations) is the most effective melee weapon. The sharpness doesn't count so much as weight or solidity. A ten-pound wooden mallet is a goddamn marshmallow compared to a five-pound hatchet. Anything with a point is useful for cranial penetration, like a spiked bat or kindling chopping device I have at home. If you're a stickler for handling and style, may I suggest a cricket bat or a shovel?

Chainsaws

Chainsaws have become a staple in the zombie killing diet to speak, because they're particularly effective at sawing them into chunks for easier chewing. However, as an overall weapon, they just aren't effective against traditional zombies, unless you're Bruce Campbell, in which case you can kill everything except yourself (Bruce Campbell). However, if you have the leisure time and gas to use a chainsaw, go out and have fun, but wear protection. Zombie blood (and oh, there's lots of it) is toxic. Diehard chainsaw fans may consider the option of amputating one or both hands (we advise one) and attaching the aforementioned chainsaw to the stump. This can limit many activities, such as rubbing your stomach and patting your head simultaneously, or effectively patting dogs without them expiring messily. On the plus side, it gives you unprecedented abilities in the fields of falling trees, bucking those trees, chopping said trees into firewood, or de-limbing zombies. It is also known to cure compulsions such as chronic masturbation. Few things are more difficult than trying to self-gratify with a Stihl 360.

Hand-to-hand combat

Fisticuffs is the manliest way to kill a zombie. Before you indulge, however, you may consider viewing several advisory points.

• Do not punch a zombie in the mouth. This will only exacerbate things. This mistake has resulted in the untimely demise of several prominent martial arts experts, including Bob Krane and Joe Pesci.
• Wear brass knuckles. This will double your knockout power, and the shininess will distract the zombie to the point of drooling idiocy, much like a child or a resident of the state of New Hampshire.
• Have a stiff drink. Johnnie Walker Red is advised, or Laphraoig single malt scotch if available.

Another strategy is the neck grab. You could essentially dance with a zombie for hours if you had your hand firmly rooted across its neck. If you're a sadist in bed, it makes things all that much better. Let's hope mad cow disease turned mad human disease turned mad zombie disease doesn't come with communicable zombie gonorrhea.

Places to rest

Zombie defense isn't just about weaponry: You can't recklessly run around shooting things forever. You need to rest, and that's when the zombies get you, if you're not prepared. Here's a small list of things to definitely keep in mind during a catastrophic zombie event. (Note: not a zombie political movement.)

Forts

Choosing your fortress to repel the shuffling corpse armies is rather like selecting your new woman: Size is important (by size I mean breasts), and she should be relatively free of her former occupant. (In the case of women plural, consider guys who might one day come home from Tikrit and decorate the living room wall with your brain and testicular matter.) In the event of a zombidemic, head out of the populated areas and head straight for the mountains or woods or what have ye. This will get you away from all the other idiots who were infected by not selecting a brisk walk as their means of escaping new zombies, unless you have 28 Days Later type monsters, in which case you should get the hell out of London (or Frankfurt or Sofia or Toronto or Hoboken).

• Find a large, preferably empty log house. If the house is occupied by one or more recently widowed, large breasted young women, allow them to stay only by your benevolence, and let them know it.
• If it's a log house, it has a gun collection. However, if you don't already have a gun collection with you, you need immediate treatment consisting of war, western, and horror/comedy movies, a brand new pair of testes, and good, stiff gloves to straighten out your limp wrists. By the by, guns do not compensate for a small penis; you compensate for your gun's lack of a large penis, which you undoubtedly have if you are reading this.

Perimeter defense

Perimeter defense is a tricky issue when staying in budget. Try to build on pre-existing walls, or sandbagging the area. Sandbags are a very useful tool. Make them with sewn-up PBS tote bags. And sand. Substitutes include cinder blocks, zombie corpses (make a pile, then push it over on top of the attackers, or any malcontents, The 300 style!) Or wood. Tin siding works, but there usually isn't enough around, and it requires plenty of work. The one thing better than thriftiness is laziness. Sharp objects on top of the wall is a must. Concertina wire is nice, but rare and expensive. Barbed wire is good, but broken glass is better. Pour cement on top of the wall, and put said broken glass in it. Smashing the bottles over the heads of zombies is a good way to produce broken glass.

As for other static defense, you have several options. Moats are overrated, as they're hard to dig and difficult to fill. You need to line the hole to prevent percolation (which too, is costly and difficult), and filling it with acid, napalm, or dog shit is the only good way to prevent crossing. Land mines are hard to obtain, but easy to make at home. Find a recipe for some kind of explosive, bury it, then put a keg of nails over it. Tie a fuse to it that leads to behind a rock. Light 'er up and git 'er done! Saturating a soybean field in flammable liquid is a good way to dispose of mass charges. Bales of hay are a great combo of perimeter and flammability. Shoot from it, then soak it in gas, flick your Bic, and run like the fucking wind. Pitfalls are great, too. Dig one about 5' by 5', about 6' deep, and put stakes on the bottom. Remember to slope the walls to prevent escape. Cover it with grass and sticks, and put a wire in front. When the pit is full past the five mark, cover the bodies with hot rocks and roast the bastards, luau style.

Vehicles

Sometimes, one needs a vehicle. Vehicles, in a nutshell, are good for four things:

1. Running over zombies
2. Running away
3. Sleeping in/on
4. Storing your essential Bug Out equipment

As such, it's always nice to have a vehicle you can use to run the fuck away when it gets out of hand, or, if you're crazy enough, to run the fuck over the undead with.

Scooters

A scooter is the absolute best vehicle for sending an exile into banishment. With pathetic speed, awful steering, and a zero-cool factor, the scooter's only benefit is its good mileage, but the zombies chasing you will have already torn you into four of the seven essential Taco Bell ingredients and sodomized you with your getaway vehicle. The moral of the story? Don't fuck up and get banished by either using narcotics or even thinking about Grey's Anatomy, both of which are illegal in my fort.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile

Indubitably the grooviest of all fighting vehicles, the Wienermobile is a re-killing machine. The designers gave it roll-down concertina wire and a .30 cal. turret (for crowd control). There are spray nozzles that secrete the disgusting odor of stale, genital-based meat products, therefore attracting throngs of zombie children with residual sensory memory. The next step is to feed them hotdogs. Loaded with hand grenades.

Kawasaki 500 dirtbike

This is the getaway vehicle. With speeds of up to 120 mph and smooth maneuvering, you'll be 20 miles away before the zombies know (or have a vague, befuddled idea) what happened. An alternative is any sort of motorcycle equipped with a side car, for extra zombie mowing potency, and/or a storage place for weaponry.

Four-wheel drive

These are the most common and popular vehicles to use as BOV's (Bug Out Vehicles). WTSHTF (When The Shit Hits The Fan) and you need to trek across a muddy field, through a boulder ridden plain, etc., one of these will definitely get you farther than a car will. Even things like hitting tall curbs will stop a low car.

Four-wheel drive vehicles tend to, but not always, have a rigid full frame that will take abuse of bangs and bumps, as well as payload capacity better than unibody vehicles. Be aware that some vehicles such as Jeep Grand Cherokees have unibody structures as well, but they are able to take more abuse than your average car.

Disease

The best cure against Zombie disease.
Warning: Only works 95% of the times. Not recommended for small children.

If you can, try to introduce a communicable and fatal disease to the swarming masses. There are several recommended.

• Brain cancer (not communicable, but they might go insane and begin eating other zombies, or, better yet, themselves. Try making bonfires amongst them fueled by Pop Tarts and any plutonium you have kicking around).
• Syphilis. The downside, Donny the desperate house husband, who just figured out a way to beat zombies with sex, will die.
• Prostate cancer. While not fatal to zombies, it will retard their speed and make them irritable, along with the added bonus of their having to urinate every half hour. Having an organ the size of some son of Bill O'Reilley and Keith Olbermann genetic fusion experiment gone wrong's ego lodged in their midsection will slow their movement to the equivalent of a crotch-hobbled penguin.
• Drug addiction. They will eat each other instead of you.