Should You Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse?
By Wendy McCloud
edited by Christine Stuckey and Dr. Charles Anderson
edited by Christine Stuckey and Dr. Charles Anderson
It’s something we’ve seen all too frequently. An attractive young person running down a dark alley, screaming in terror while being chased by a rambling, shambling horde of rotting corpses intent on eating live brains.
Don’t let this be you!
With proper preparation, you can be on top of a well-fortified roof, blowing off zombie heads with expert precision. Between the emergence of novel viruses and the lack of proper medical response in the world today, it’s only a matter of time. Should you prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse? If your answer is not a resounding “Yes!”, then you might wind up as the main course in a zombie buffet.
Dr. Robbin Koenig, a scientist in the field of host-microbe interaction, explains that science has not ruled out the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse. On the contrary, Koenig says it is “certainly possible.” When asked about a plague causing higher brain functions to cease but causing the body to remain animated, reducing it to animalistic behavior, a concept portrayed in the television series The Walking Dead, Koenig points out that diseases such as Syphilis already affect both higher and lower orders of thinking. It only is our learned sense of moral right and wrong which prevents humans from eating their neighbors like BBQ at a 4th of July picnic. If a virus were to eliminate that moral-right-and-wrong portion of the brain, well, Koenig says, “You could have smart, predatory zombies!”
Viruses and parasites can be terrifyingly precise. Did you know there are currently viruses and parasites altering host behavior to benefit their lifecycles? Toxoplasma gondii, for example, infects rats, causing them to become attracted to cat urine, which increases the likelihood of the rats being eaten by the cat. Once the cat has eaten a rat and then become infected, it can transmit the disease to humans via feces (Berdoy, Webster and Macdonald). And how about zombie insects? There is a virus that causes caterpillars to self-destruct, raining new virus particles down on uninfected caterpillars. And there is a virus that forces female moths to continuously mate, therefore infecting more and more males. (Kuchment).
One of the biggest arguments against preparing for the coming Zombie Apocalypse is that our modern medical system will save us. Unfortunately, that faith is largely misplaced. Koenig, who works with the FDA doing new drug testing, offers a gloomy outlook on the subject. Bacteria have become more resistant to current antibiotics and many research facilities for new antibiotics have closed. Viral vaccinations are even more difficult to produce, especially in the case of new or novel viruses. Mass inoculations are the only way to combat a viral outbreak, and if you’ve ever stood in line for a flu shot, you understand how lengthy and difficult that process is.
If the Zombie Apocalypse comes in the form of “higher order parasites,” the battle is taken to a new molecular level. Treatment for higher order parasites takes time and is often dangerous to the host. These are just the practical medical reasons Koenig lists. The truly frightening reason hits a lot closer to home, especially in these days of economic freefall: research is exceedingly expensive and no one is willing to pay!
Koenig isn’t the only one who sees it in economic terms. Take a moment of your time to check out Pulitzer Prize-winning author Laurie Garrett’s Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health or The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. She paints a bleak portrait of the medical system and of our world. She surmises that if the world doesn’t start working together to create a safer environment, the microbes will win. Garrett compares the microbes to predators, and we are their prey. Given that Homo sapiens have considered themselves at the top of the food chain for years; it is certainly food for thought—while we still have brains to think about anything at all.
Let’s face it; a Zombie Apocalypse isn’t that farfetched. The question then becomes, what are going to do about it?
Simple preparation is the key. There are books galore on the subject to help you map out the perfect plan of defense. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead is a perfect example. This ingenious novel includes such sage advice as:
Organize before they rise!
They feel no fear, why should you?
Use your head; cut off theirs.
Even the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has acknowledged the need for a Zombie Apocalypse survival plan: “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse” is available on the CDC website. The best part is, with the right planning, you will be ready for the impending flesh eating masses, as well as fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and even nuclear war!
There are numerous practical applications for the skills you will learn as you put together your Zombie Apocalypse Action Plan. It is commonly accepted that the only way to truly kill a zombie is by decapitation or mass trauma to the brain. You will gain valuable hunting skills as you hone your zombie sharpshooter techniques. If you can take down a rotting corpse at 100 feet with one shot, a 10 point buck in the woods won’t stand a chance. Not only will you save your family from impending zombification, you’ve taught yourself to feed them dinner.
A secret stash of canned goods, purified water, and toilet paper will help while you are huddled in fear during the initial zombie outbreak, and it will come in handy during the nuclear holocaust. Just don’t forget the can opener. There is nothing worse than staring longingly at an unopened can of peaches while drawing straws to see who will leave the safety of your underground shelter for a can opener. Poor little Susie is only 10, and she won’t stand a chance against a full-fledged 28 Days Later zombie. Those suckers can run faster than Flo Jo in the 100 meter dash!
Perhaps your argument for not preparing is: “Why bother? There is no hope for human survival anyway.” Are you going to put a bullet in your own brain? Or are you going to go ahead and throw yourself onto the buffet line and become a zombie canapé? This will result in your own zombification and in you hunting down little Susie to snack on her tasty medulla oblongata. Is that really the kind of person—I mean zombie—you want to be? Suicide doesn’t just hurt you, it hurts everyone around you. Don’t be a quitter!
Maybe you don’t need your own plan because you’re friends with someone who is zombie prepared. Good for you! But have you given careful thought to what your friend’s plan really is? As the character Otis recently learned on The Walking Dead, Shane’s (another character in the series) plan was simply: “I don’t have to be faster than the zombies; I just have to be faster than my friends.” In which case, you’d better have a contingency plan for that bullet one of your slower friends is sure to put in your kneecap, leaving you to become human tartare.
As you can see, there are good reasons to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse.
You don’t have to go out and dig a bomb shelter in your backyard, just start small. Hiding away canned goods and non-perishable foods is the perfect beginning. Head to the nearest military surplus store and stock up on MRE’s (meals ready to eat). Those things will survive a nuclear holocaust; surely they will survive the Zombie Apocalypse. Purified water, spare clothes, extra Tylenol, and some Neosporin wouldn’t be a bad idea either; however, if you do get bitten by a zombie, no amount of Bactine is going to save you, so in this case, conflict avoidance is the best policy of all.
It’s time to face the ugly, decomposing facts. The Zombie Apocalypse is on our horizon. What are you doing to prepare for it? If you still think this is all nonsense and that you don’t have to do anything to prepare for the coming Zombie Apocalypser answer, is “nothing” I hope your favorite color is putrid green, your favorite scent is rotting corpse, and you aren’t too attached to your limbs because soon, they won’t be attached to you.
Wendy McCloud is a forty-something-year-old college student who takes her passion about all things zombie to fun, yet useful extremes. She is a fan of all thing zombie and believes being prepared for anything is never a bad plan! Her future goals include writing a biography and some romance. The romance won't be zombie related, though, because that's just gross.
Works Cited
28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Perf. Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris andChristopher Eccleston. DNA Films, 2002. Film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043.
Berdoy, M, JP Webster and DW Macdonald. "Fatal attraction in rats infected with
Toxoplasma gondii." Proceedings of the Royal Society. The Royal Society, 7
Aug. 2000. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/267/1452/1591.
Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living
Dead. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003. Print.
Garrett, Lauri. Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. New York:
Hyperion, 2000. Print.
Garrett, Laurie. The Coming Plauge: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of
Balance. New York: Penguin, 1995. Print.
Khan, Ali S. “Social Media: Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.” Emergency
Preparedness and Response. CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
16 May 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2011
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp.
Koenig, Robbin. Personal interview. 31 Oct. 2011.
Kuchment, Anna. “Zombie Insects: A Q&A about a Sinister Virus.” Scientific
American Magazine. Scientific American, a division of Nature America Inc.
29 Oct. 2011. Web. 02 Nov. 2011
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=zombie-insects.
“Series 1 & 2”. The Walking Dead. Prod.. Earnest R Dickerson and Gwyneth
Horder-Payton. Perf. Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal and Sarah Wayne Callais.
AMC HD, Little Rock. 2010-2011. Television.
http://www.imdb.com/title /tt1520211
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