Here at the Department for Zombie Control we must confess to being mystified in regards to the recent zombie takeover of so many cities, especially since we handled our own, small town zombie infestation with such little difficulty, to the degree we now coexist with them with little trouble. No one runs away from them screaming in blind terror, so no tripping and injuring oneself in the process; nor do we have vigilantes endangering the regular populace with errant bullets that missed slow-weaving zombie heads. So we thought perhaps our experience-based advice might be helpful for other locales trying to overcome the problem of shiftless dead people meandering about moaning, “Brains… brains.”
Of course, the first thing we did was form a committee (it’s a liberal, West Coast town). At the meeting we noted a peculiar characteristic of zombies: namely, that they are all dead. Some were recently dead, but most were dead quite awhile. Furthermore, except for an unfortunate few who lived fast and died young (car wrecks, overdoses, serial killer victims) most zombies had been either quite old or quite ill when they went over to the zombie side of existence. So, based on these simple facts we came up with an action plan (actually, to give credit where it’s due, it was nine-year-old Jason Fairweather who came up with the plan).
It’s really quite simple: we issued everyone a stick. It’s shaped sort of like a crutch, which is to say, a stick with a “T” at one end. The correct end to hold is, of course, the narrow end; use the “T” end to fend them off. The narrow end doesn’t work so well for fending because it tends to push into their rotten, decomposing bodies, from which flesh and body parts often fall by the wayside, but the “T” end works just fine because it doesn’t embed so easily in the flesh — depending on how far gone they are, of course.
Remember, these are dead folks, so they aren’t fast, usually because, especially in the case of the older ones, they could hardly get around before they died, so they certainly didn’t pick up a step or two posthumously. As Jason pointed out, they are even easier to knock down when they are dead than when they were alive. Also, we noted quite a few will just stay down in the, “Help, I’ve fallen but can’t get up,” mode, like old Gladys Quimby, who seven-year-old Nancy Smythe pushed down some stairs and stepped on afterward on her way to school. Gladys was 86 when she died, and you could just barely hear her plaintive cry of “brains, brains,” since she died of lung cancer, and had only one lung left anyway, which makes voice projection a little iffy. She couldn’t even hold a straw at the end; death didn’t improve her dexterity.
If it happens to be a gaggle of zombies after you, it’s only the ones who died youngish who can pose a bit of a problem. Push them out of the way first. Even Harry Jensen, who uses a walker to get around himself, told us he had no problem outmaneuvering the seven or eight former residents of his nursing home who were after him one day. Once he got past the first few he was free and clear. And that’s another thing we noticed, a purely statistical point: unless there is some sort of major disaster claiming hundreds of lives at once, there just aren’t that many zombies gathered at any one time or place — Hollywood movies to the contrary notwithstanding. Their organizational skills seem to be lacking, too, so even if there are lots of them they are, as I pointed out, easily outmaneuvered, or outrun, if you are not so old as to be approaching zombiehood yourself. It’s not like they are a championship football defense that you have to careen through. Just use your stick to push one or two aside and get through the gap. They can be tripped with it pretty easily, too.
But, as I said, some of the ones who died youngish can be a bit more of a challenge, depending, of course, upon the manner in which they died. Young Ted Franklin and Bill Robertson were stinking drunk when they went over a guard rail, their beautiful, old Chevy flipping end over end all the way to the bottom of Borked Canyon, then catching fire and exploding. Crotchety Mrs. Stephens said they gave her no problem whatsoever, since they could just barely slither about. How they even managed to get out of their car is a bit of a mystery.
But even the limbs-fully-intact, younger zombies, seem to have difficulty with attempts at rapid lateral movement, what with their peculiar method of walking — that easily recognizable, lurching sort of sway from side to side — and can be, as old Heather Granby informed us, easily fooled with a simple head fake. Apparently, it’s the odor of brains that draws them, so the head fake is particularly effective. Just don’t make it too fast for them to follow.
They give us little trouble nowadays, and we are reluctant to hunt them all down since they were, after all, mostly old friends, neighbors, and relatives. We merely give them a wide berth in the bars, library, and grocery stores. However, they are not allowed to check out books (they mess up the pages), or drink alcohol (they can’t handle liquor, or any fluids, actually — it just goes right through them). Driving is, of course, out of the question too.
We are ready to provide further advice upon request. Send us an email and we’ll see if we can help.
