Firing Mode: Double action is the mode in which a revolver fires: there are also pistols that are double action. Double action is when the trigger is pulled, the hammer is drawn back and then released when the trigger reaches a certain point. Single action is when the hammer is back, the trigger only has to be pulled lightly and has little travel, which causes the hammer to fall resulting in more accurate firing. Many models combine both whereby the first shot is double action and all the following shots are single action. Single-action 1911 style .45 pistols are prized for their accuracy. These should only be used by experienced shooters.”
Expert Witness
I asked Witzgall to discuss what the military could bring to the fight that could turn the tide even against a horde of zombies. “It all depends on what collateral damage I have to be worried about,” he says. “We know bullets work to the head; but so would shrapnel tearing a zombie’s head and limbs off or blasting him into a thousand little pieces. If I did not care about leaving a building standing (but could not nuke ’em) I would use a Napalm air strike and incinerate the zombies. Failing air strikes, an artillery strike would do just as well. I would send in tanks (with flame throwers) and the infantry as mop up.”
Captain Dick Taylor, U.S. Army (retired), agrees: “It would take a lot of zombies to overwhelm the military. We could send in a tank division and simply roll over them. It’s not like we would be taking return fire. All we would need to do is make enough noise to attract the zombies and then they’re ours.”
What kinds of tanks would we use? “Let’s start with the Mobile Gun System,” advises Taylor. “That’s an armored fighting vehicle rolling on eight-wheeles and mounting a 105 mm tank gun. This is a thinner vehicle, just shy of nine feet wide, which means that it’s better for urban deployment. You could use noise or whatever to lure a bunch of zombies into a side street and then sic a Stryker on them. Between the fire capability and the weight of it just rolling over them, you’d damn soon clear the street with absolutely no risk to the personnel inside. Zombies are not going to chew through 14.5 mm armor.”
Taylor is enthusiastic about the Stryker’s stopping power. “Well, the 105 mm gun is a great crowd pleaser. Since you’re not taking fire you can let the hostiles close to point blank, though afterward you’d better have a hose crew with a strong stomach. Then you have the M2 Browning .50 machine gun. These fifty-cals kick out 500 belt-fed rounds per minute at 3,050 feet-per-second and they’re effective at up to 1,800 yards. Guns like that don’t care about headshots: they’ll chop the zombies into pieces. Pieces aren’t a threat.” He adds, “If you’re out of 105’s then the Stryker has an Mk 19 Grenade Launcher belt-fed automatic 40mm grenade launcher, which has a sustained firing rate of 40 rounds per minute. That’ll put grenades into a crowd of zombies at a range of 2,200 meters. Though if you want to do pinpoint shooting you’re good at 1,500 meters. That’s close to a mile. If you need to create a real hell zone, the Mk 19 is man-portable, which lets a team take it to a secure firing position separate from the vehicle.”
The Stryker is just one tool of modern military combat. Another equally effective weapon in the war against zombies would be the attack helicopter. “If you’ve ever seen attack helicopters really open up then you understand what putting the fear of God into your enemy is really like,” says Taylor. “It’ll just park there above the zombies’ heads and then hose them with an M197 Gatling gun capable of a cyclic rate of fire of 730 rounds per minute. And, if things get tight, it can open up with Hydra 70mm rockets. All of our helos carry more firepower than you’d think. Even the old AH-1 Cobra’s have a couple of 7.62mm multi-barrel Miniguns that’ll chop up a whole crowd of zombies without risking a single casualty. If the Army gets called to war against the zombies, then the zombies had better wake up and find religion.”
“If the zombie’s body is desiccated,” mused Rick A. Shay, owner/moderator of the Combat-Handguns Yahoo! Group, “I’d choose a weapon with a heavy projectile—like a 12-gauge shotgun slug. An impact by such would have the greatest physical footprint as it goes through the man-sized target, transferring its momentum to all it touches, and destroying anything in its direct path. If the zombie’s body is moisture laden, then a more-or-less standard hunting bullet like a .30 caliber Hornady V-Max would do. Fast delivery of kinetic energy would be the best bet in that case. The projectile would lose its energy to the target in as fast a manner as possible, taking out any and all bones and connective tissue it may encounter.”
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Art of the Dead—John Worsley
Dead Valentines
“Dead Valentines is the story of the Office of Dead Validation, a quasi-military branch of the Portland Police Department dealing with the aftermath of an abortive apocalypse. Most undead stories exist at one of two extremes: The Isolated Incident, and The End of the World. I wanted to explore what might happen socially, at both the personal and macroscopic levels, after a potential epidemic of undead is actually gotten under control by competent, organized emergency action. What happens to the survivors? How does society respond? And how do the undead ultimately, as you know they must, adapt?”
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Gun safety range owner Karl Rehn cites NRA safety and is less optimistic about head shots: “Headshots with a pistol? Only effective if you can hit a 2” × 4” box (eye socket zone). Maybe 10% of pistol shooters can do that given unlimited time at a stationary target past 3 yards. Typical pistol distances are 0–15 yards. Maybe 3% of pistol shooters can do it in any realistic time frame against a moving target. Basically only SWAT team guys and competition shooters in the top 25% nationally and even then only at distances less than 10 yards.” His advice: train. A lot.
Armed for War—photo by Jonathan Maberry
“Zombies may not feel pain but they are not indestructible. In the end technology will overcome savagery.”
But this doesn’t mean that everyone should start packing a piece just in case Romero turns out to have been a prophet rather than a filmmaker. Rehn insists that everyone who goes near a gun should memorize the NRA rules for gun handling: “ALWAYS keep the muzzle in a safe direction. ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.” He adds, “Rule #3 really doesn’t matter if you obey rules 1 and 2. The key is the word ‘ALWAYS’ which is where most people screw up. Gun safety is not hard. It just requires consistent discipline and just enough fear of the consequences of a gun accident that you never get complacent. ‘Experts’ and cops are the worst about making gun safety errors. I put ‘experts’ in quotes because most gun owners that believe themselves ‘experts’ are not. Reading lots of gun magazines and being a mediocre shooter that owns a lot of guns does not equate to expertise.”
The Zombie Factor
Guns have been a favorite weapon against zombies since Night of the Living Dead, but as we’ve learned from neurologist Dr. Peter Lukacs, it isn’t just any shot to the head that will drop a zombie; and we’ve learned from gun experts that good shooting is more than just a matter of pulling a trigger.
Gun expert Constance Link insists that it isn’t how powerful the gun is, but where you place your round: “Stopping a perp or a game animal is like buying real estate. Three things matter above all else, location, location and location. Where you put the bullet is paramount. No amount of power will work if you miss a vital area or miss entirely.”
JUST THE FACTS
Shock the Zombie
Tasers are a type of nonlethal weapon that administer an electric shock strong enough to disrupt superficial muscle functions. Since zombies, no matter how they are created, rely on a whole or partly functioning central nervous system, the Taser will drop them in their tracks.
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Zombie Squad
Zombie Squad Posters
“We make dead things deader!
“Zombie Squad (ZS) bills itself as the world’s premier nonstationary cadaver suppression task force. They aren’t joking. (Wel
l, not entirely.) ZS is an honest-to-God disaster preparedness organization that uses the “Zombocalypse” as a way of teaching folks how to prepare for actual natural or man-made catastrophes (hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism…you name it). All the money they collect goes right to charity. I asked Kyle Ladd, one of the brains behind ZS, to give us the lowdown on the group:
“It started several years ago by a group of disaster preparation minded zombie horror fans in St. Louis, MO, who enjoyed getting together to review bad zombie flicks and plan for a theoretical end of the world. We later discovered that there are lots of other crazies like us out there so we took the initiative to try and organize them in a way that may do some good. We discovered that there is, in fact, a rather large number of philanthropists in the zombie horror fan culture.
“We have three official chapters as of today, but we have several in a probationary status around North America. We have strict standards on what a chapter must do to uphold the ZS name. Chapter members must be dedicated to community involvement and promoting the mission of the Zombie Squad organization.
“As far as membership goes, it is not mandatory to buy a membership in order to be involved in ZS. We have lots of people involved with us who are not paying members, so it’s not easy to get an exact number. There are thousands of members on our Internet forum but right now we only have around 300 active card-carrying members. Our members come from all walks of life and bring a vast array of experience to the table ranging from disaster response professionals like police officers and EMTs to comic book store clerks and zombie book authors.
“We organize different types of charity and disaster education events but the difference is that we make them fun. Some of our more popular charity events are the BBQ Blood Drives, movie festival canned food drives and zombie/apocalypse themed trivia contests. The Zombie Survival seminars are popular at the sci-fi conventions, and we are regularly invited by conventions, schools, and other organizations to present it. Our more popular events are camping gatherings (Zombie Con and Wintergeddon) when ZS members from all over North America get together for several days.”
Why zombies?
Kyle explains, “It’s the perfect metaphor for disaster. Zombie Squad believes that if you’re ready for the downfall of society caused by the flesh eating risen corpses of your friends and neighbors you’re ready for anything.”
He adds, tongue seriously in cheek, “Of course if the dead do ever rise…we’ll be ready.”
Zombie Squad can be found at www.zombiehunters.org.
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Tasers were developed in 1969 by inventor Jack Cover, a long-time science fiction buff who nicknamed his device the “Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle,” taking the name from the sci-fi character Tom Swift who was originally featured in a series of adventures2 published from 1910 through 1941.
The Taser model most commonly used by modern law enforcement is the Taser X26,3 which uses a replaceable cartridge containing compressed nitrogen to deploy two small probes that are attached to the Taser X26 by insulated conductive wires with a maximum length of 35 feet (10.6 meters). The Taser X26 transmits electrical pulses along the wires and into the body affecting the sensory and motor functions of the peripheral nervous system. The energy can penetrate up to two cumulative inches of clothing, or one inch per probe.4
Expert Witness
Joe McKinney, San Antonio Homicide: “The TASER works through electricity, and that might change things slightly. Muscles, even reanimated dead tissue, might react to electricity. There have been experiments with dead frogs, for instance, in which the frog’s legs twitch when hit with electricity. Maybe you could temporarily immobilize a walking corpse with a TASER.”
“I like the idea of the TASER for use against zombies,” agrees Dr. Michael Pederson, a pathologist from Toronto, Canada. “Electricity should effectively and efficiently short-circuit the central nervous system, and that’s what will stop any living thing, and we can extend that definition to zombies because they must have an operating CNS if they are moving.”
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Art of the Dead—Matthew “Six” Bahr
The Undead Are Coming for You
“Fast zombies are scarier…especially at the beginning of an outbreak. But I’m a little old school and the slow zombie is my pick. A horde of slow zombies is scary because they won’t stop…you can run but eventually they’re going to get you.”
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* * *
Art of the Dead—John Worsley
Zombies Everywhere
“They’re versatile, they’re simple, and they’re terrifying. Through their silence, zombies are a great vessel for a variety of villainies; they have no necessary agenda but hunger, and there’s something hauntingly ineffable in their blank-eyed stare. George Romero showed that with the right elements surrounding them they can neatly parallel social ills and mindless consumerism.”
* * *
The Zombie Factor
One of the things humans have going for them in any war is technology. Zombies, should they rise, will have numbers, they’ll be infectious, they never tire, and they don’t feel pain…but a ninety-year-old woman in a wheelchair could take one down using a Taser.
However, if Romero and his followers have taught us one thing, it’s that the human element is too often the weakest link in the chain of defense. Technology will give us an edge, no doubt, but focus and cooperation will keep us alive.
THE FINAL VERDICT: ARMED RESPONSE
The reason we’re not living in caves while bears and tigers snarl outside is because we learned how to fight. We developed fire, which allowed us to harden the sharpened points of sticks into spears sharp enough to pierce the hides of animal predators.
Once out of the caves, we learned to sharpen stones to make even better spears and to make knives. We paid attention to which woods made for the best clubs. We learned to throw rocks, and after a while we learned to throw our spears. By observing the resiliency of certain woods, we came up with the concept of the bow and arrows. Then the sword, the catapult, the cannon, the match-lock, the wheel-lock, the flint-lock…and so on up to the laser-guided missile.
We’re good at that sort of thing. Give us an enemy we really, really don’t like and give us a ticking clock so that we have to develop something right now, and watch the process happen. It’s like magic. Remember, the nuclear age was born during America’s struggle to beat Germany and Japan in World War II. Space exploration was born from military rocket science.
Give us a horde of zombies and you’ll see just about everyone reach for a gun. Sadly, pacifism would be consumed during the plague. Zombies do not respect nonviolent ideals, and they don’t have a Geneva Convention.
If the plague lasted more than six months, there would be a technology boom as researchers, engineers, designers, and builders would conceive new products based on need. Urgency would bring these products to market with incredible rapidity. Arms dealers would pop up everywhere, as would training centers for armed and unarmed response. New weapons would be developed, new technologies invented, and even in the face of a massive attack, there would be battles won with new weapons, and the counterattack would spread out from there.
Zombie Self-Defense
A Guide to Kicking Undead Ass
Self Defense Against the Undead
by Jonathan Maberry
“Even against the undead a human being is never totally helpless.”
In Chapter 5, we discussed how armed police and military could take down zombies, and along the way we’ve shared a lot of views about armed civilian response; but what about unarmed defense?
In most zombie stories, humans are unable to adequately defend against zombies. Sure, in the films with slow shufflers the humans barge through them, knock them down, kick them, and even smash them in the face with pies.1
But what about a sophisticated physical response? After all, four thousand years of martial arts development have pretty well established that the hu
man body is a fierce weapon. I mean, could you imagine zombies giving Jet Li or Steven Segal much of a problem? In TV and film, unarmed fighting has been shown to be pretty effective against the undead. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade were both built around martial arts themes. Even Chuck Norris, who’s pushing 70, could probably still kick undead ass.
Science is an ally here, too. In the face of terror and undeniable physical threat, the human body produces adrenaline, which kicks in the “fight or flight” instinct that was hardwired into us before we even climbed down from the trees. Most of us opt for the flight option, which is generally the smartest course of action. The saying “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day” is an enormously practical view; but what if your instinct was to fight? Or, what would you do if running away were no longer an option?