John Austin - So Now You’re a Zombie - A Handbook for the Newly Undead

Not all zombies are created equally; only one in eight zeds is capable of scaling a ladder or similar structure. And the number of rungs can be an issue—coordination varies from zed to zed. But if you or someone in your horde can climb a ladder, by all means do! Fire escapes or maintenance ladders fixed to buildings are common, so look for these pathways to the brains.

By employing their arms and/or legs, most zeds are capable of climbing staircases. If this weren’t possible, newly reanimated zombies could never stand up in the first place. As you climb stairs, you may experience balance issues, resulting in nonfatal falls. Simply dust yourself off and continue the pursuit.

Your average zombie-busting human will have a difficult time destroying a wooden staircase, but he or she can certainly block one. Do your best to remove obstacles by tearing into rubble or swan diving over it.

Fences are a real kick in the rotten balls! Most are designed to restrict access. Scaling them can be tantalizing but is often beyond the average zed’s dexterity—it’s often easier to plow right through. You’ll find your greatest success with fences that are approximately your height or lower, and fences constructed out of wood. The chain-link variety, often used as a mobile barricade and topped with barbed wire, will be virtually impossible for you to pass over; just go around.

If a human climbs a tree to escape you, can you climb up after him? Unfortunately, you probably can’t. The good news is, you don’t even need to! If you’re patient, eventually you will starve the breather out of the limbs. Seriously, how many provisions can a human store in a tree? Or, with sufficient moaning, enough zeds may swarm the tree to cause a zombie pileup, forming a ramp that will get the top zombie in range of your victim.

Rope climbing is impossible for zombies, so unless you want to relive some high school gym class fantasy, don’t even try. But, again, what’s the rush? What goes up will have to come down. So unless another meal catches your rotten eye, just wait it out—your victim can’t hang on forever.

While hunting, you will sometimes follow a human into an unfamiliar location. This may be an area of extreme cold, extreme warmth, or extreme moisture, any of which can have a serious impact on your bodily integrity. Before boldly going where no zed has gone before, review the dangers outlined below.

Remember the Beringia land bridge (see page 6)? Trying to walk in snow is the least of your worries.

The z-virus is very good at regulating your body’s temperature, keeping it steady at around 70° F, but this ability to thermoregulate decreases as temperatures fall. At very low temperatures, the z-virus in you will increase your cellular absorption and decomposition to keep your internal temperature at acceptable levels. Over a long period of time, your muscles will become less responsive and less elastic, leading to coordination problems and slowing down your bodily functions. Your speed may slow by as much as half, and with food more difficult to find and chase, you may decompose to immobility.

If you experience an extreme freeze, 15° F or below, your body will be vulnerable to frostbite (a type of decay), but your extremities should continue to function until they fall off. Don’t be alarmed unless your eyelids freeze shut. If you are that cold, eventually your body will completely stiffen up. A zombie body that has been frozen for longer than 48 hours will be use- less when thawed. Water in its cells will expand during freezing and destroy the body’s infrastructure, rendering it limp when warmed up.

Extreme heat (110° F or above) can also affect your body. In some parts of the globe, temperatures can reach an astounding 150° F. How does this affect you? As molecules heat up in a humid environment, they increase their movement, leading to cell breakdown. Depending on the humidity, your rate of decomposition can double as the temperature rises. As a result, your body will need to double its nutritional intake of human flesh (see “Human Buffet,” page 105). But if the temperature is high and the humidity low, decomposition will be halted. That is a good thing.

The lifeguard has been eaten!

As you’ve read, moisture and humidity will increase tissue breakdown. So what does swimming do? Zeds that spend too much time in water will experience rapid decomposition. Early signs of this included pruning up of the toxic skin. Stay dry! Avoid prolonged exposure to water, including rain. Also, don’t continually roam sewers or other subterranean domains, as these damp environments will also accelerate decomposition.

Now that you’ve learned the basics of hunting, you’re bound to come across your first human. Awesome—this is what being a zombie is all about!

So let out a moan to announce to the horde that dinner has been located. Within seconds, the mob will shift gears and zero in on your find.

In the past, stubborn Luddite zombies ignored the technological changes in the world of the living. They even underestimated the significance of the automobile, an advancement in transportation technology with which zeds must frequently contend. With roughly 700 million of these monsters on the road, humans are positively obsessed with them. And their obsession only increases during an outbreak, since these vehicles are perfect for both shielding the living from our attacks and carrying them out of the contaminated zone. So unless you are hunting the Amish, hunting strategies that were used against the chariot and the stagecoach are obsolete. It’s time to learn how to take down the auto.

The living would have us believe their automobiles are impenetrable. However, this is a total deception—they are full of vulnerabilities!

Many cars, foreign and domestic, can easily be stopped with minimal collateral damage. (See “How to Stop a Vehicle,” below.)