zombie preparedness

There's a certain group of paranoid loonies out there who are promulgating the notion of "zombie contingency plans."

That there may be no speculation, I am one of them.

Beginning to gain credence outside of Max Brooks fan clubs, the ZCP is a set of protocols to be followed in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Simply put, it is a blueprint for personal survival. One has to have a plan if the worst should happen. If a top-secret mutative virus was released into the atmosphere, and 95% of the world's population was turned into slavering, mindless cannibals...

• What would you do?
• What supplies would you gather?
• Who would you team up with, or include in your survival group?
• Where would you go to take shelter?
• What would your long-term plans for the stabilization of the tattered remains of the human race (if any) be?

These blueprints are rather comprehensive. Most commence at the very first sign of trouble, within minutes of an undead outbreak, and continue in excruciating detail through the course of many years, incorporating any number of apocalyptic scenarios.

My personal plan, I'm told, is rather high-flown (literally, as you'll see) but still maintains some viable elements. Needless to say, it involves flying. What better place to escape when Earth is overrun by hordes of flesh-eating undead than the empty sky?

I'd like to be able to share the details of my ZCP with you, but some things are better left classified. Suffice it to say that the fulfillment of my plan goes something like this: there's me, and a hand-picked crew of hardy, trustworthy souls—fully equipped with firearms and bladed weapons, pillaged or otherwise. We're flying an Osprey, a Bell UH-1 or some other military-type craft (preferably capable of hovering or STOL). We spend our days moving between hidden weapon and supply caches, and hiring ourselves out as couriers or zombie-killers to conclaves of terrified landlubbers.

I don't know about you, but that blows every other zombie contingency plan I've ever heard out of the water. Most of my buddies all have land-based plans, which, in my opinion, have one fatal flaw: they're land-based. Zombies walk on land. To me, land doesn't sound like the best place to be when the scourge of the living dead arises. Zombies don't swim, either, but seeing as how they're undead, they can still infest shallow water. Only thing scarier than a zombie shambling toward you on a dark street is one reaching up from the bottom of a murky pond and grabbing the oars of your rowboat—or one of your appendages. Therefore, I would argue that life as an "aerial nomad," rotating through a series of secured caches, armed to the teeth, keeping mobile, is a more feasible idea.

This plan depends on well-maintained equipment and absolute readiness. To that end, I check on my equipment frequently, and update it or refurbish it as needs be. Last week I gave the multifarious components of my anti-zombie kit a going-over.

First I grabbed my machete and my single-bit axe out of the Jeep. Each of these implements was chosen with the utmost care. The machete is carbon steel, rather than stainless, which, though more susceptible to rust, does not flash brightly in the sunlight and alert potential enemies to my presence. I would've preferred a double-bit axe, but Pops has one in the tool shed, so as long as the house isn't completely overrun following the outbreak (which is unlikely; we're far removed from town, and zombies shamble at 1-2 miles per hour) I can run out there and grab it. The Jeep, though neither heavy nor as thick-skinned as a Ford F-350 or an Excursion, still has plentiful cargo space, and suitable 4WD capabilities to get me over most obstacles. It'll do for a start. Later on I can see about getting my hands on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle or an armored F-650.

Once inside the house, I opened my closet and took out my Louisville Slugger and my aluminum Easton. Both baseball bats would do some damage to a half-rotted skull at close quarters. Both have their plus sides and drawbacks. The Slugger is made of wood, but its reach is longer. The Easton is shorter but inestimably stronger. Wouldn't hurt to have both along. This being the United States, where guns are not irrationally viewed as being scary, violent or barbaric death-devices which wantonly kill people for no reason, I have several firearms in my arsenal as well. I would detail them here, but again, such things are better left unsaid. I will say that I am equipped for almost every conceivable scenario—and have more than enough ammunition to outlast the initial outbreak.


My machete and axe were in bad shape. Somehow, moisture had seeped into the back of my Jeep. (Yes, moisture. In the desert. Didn't have that in my contingency plan, oh no.) The blades of both tools were encrusted with rust. It took a fair amount of spit, polish, and steel wool to get it off, but I managed it. Dad helped a lot. He's good for stuff like that. I think I'll keep those (ahem) tools inside from now on, unless I really need to have them in my car.

If you must know, I didn't buy an axe and a machete expressly for zombie-fighting purposes. I actually wanted them for that inconceivable moment when I finally move to Alaska, and might need to clear fallen trees off the roads. Zombie-killing is an added bonus. A special feature, if you will. And so my anti-zombie kit has been revitalized for the nonce, and I am once again prepared to face the zombie plague, the end-all disaster. Hee hee.


Speaking of disasters, there was a slight earthquake as I was typing this post. I am not making this up. I live less than 50 miles from the San Andreas fault, so earthquakes are nothing new around here. I was just sitting on my bed, typing, when all of a sudden I felt the mattress begin to sway ever so slightly beneath me. There was some relative motion being achieved between the elbows on my knees, and the hands on my keyboard.

I jumped up and yelled "HEY GUYS! I THINK WE'RE HAVING AN EARTHQUAKE!"

No sooner did I reach the living room when Mom hollered "YEAH WE ARE!"

I felt the carpet sway to and fro under my feet. I was like riding the most gentle surfboard in the world. The light bulbs in the ceiling fan began to rattle, and I could see the clock on the mantelpiece (suspended by a thin wire) wobble back and forth. Dad—the geologist in the family—sat at the computer, grinning.

"Hey," he said, "This is a good one!"

It continued for perhaps 15 more seconds. We looked out the front window to try and see the ground wave moving down the hill, but the quake was too gentle for that. Finally, it died away.
"Somebody got really hammered somewhere," Pop mused, a little while later. "That was a good one."

The weights on the cuckoo clock still swung back and forth.

Dad was right. The earthquake turned out to be a 7.2 on the Richter scale that struck Baja California about 29 miles south of Mexicali. It took place six miles beneath the surface. Haven't heard too much about the damage it caused. But we felt it all the way up here. Yowzer.

This is perhaps the eighth or ninth earthquake I've experienced here in the Mojave. Three of them I've driven through, and haven't noticed. One of them rattled a few tools in the garage, but I couldn't feel it. Another woke me up in the middle of the night, making me think my box-spring mattress had mutated into a water bed. The rest were so gentle that I didn't detect them. Normally, earthquakes don't last as long as this one today; they just roll through, like a wave.

That could change in the near future, though. Southern California is about ten years overdue for a truly massive quake, the proverbial Big One, a 2012-style monster that'll level every overpass in the Los Angeles Basin and (hopefully) put Malibu and Santa Barbara underwater for the rest of eternity. I think I might go buy a crash helmet tomorrow. And a video camera.

Wouldn't that make an interesting vlog entry?

recommended reading

That Marco Polo book has picked up a little since last I wrote. Take this, for example:

Combining a market and a brothel, Quinsai also had the air of a perpetual carnival. One memoirist who came of age there never forgot the man who trained his fish to perform. He has a large lacquer bowl in front of him in which swim turtles, turbots, and other fish. He beats time on a small bronze gong and calls up one of the creatures by name. It comes immediately and dances on the surface, wearing a kind of little hat on its head...There is also an archery expert who sets up in front of the spectators a big wheel a yard and a half in diameter, with all sorts of objects, flowers, birds, and people painted on it. He announces that he is going to hit this or that object, and having started spinning it rapidly, he shoots his arrows through the midst of the spectators. He hits the exact spot he has declared he will hit. He can even score a hit on the most precisely defined spots of the spinning target, such as a particular feather in a particular wing of a bird. The memoirist wandered in a daze among snake charmers blowing on little pipes, luring their hideous charges from the bamboo baskets where they coiled in darkness; and a Taoist monk who carried a trap filled with multicolored shellfish, which he claimed he had hypnotized. Boxers abounded, as did chess players, poets, writers of light verse, acrobats, and magicians. A Chinese record of the era lists five hundred and fifty-four performers who appeared at court, grouped into fifty-five categories, including kite flyers and ball players, magicians and singers, impressionists, artists, and bawdy raconteurs.

Before I came to the above passage, unfortunately, I lost patience, decided to take a break and got into something a little more digestible (no pun intended): World War Z, by Max Brooks. Touting itself as "an oral history of the zombie war," the book is just that: a series of accounts, collected by a nameless journalist (presumably Brooks himself). They are from all over the world, from China (where the outbreaks initially began), India, the U.S., Russia, and obscure spots and outlying regions all over the globe. I won't go into too much detail lest I (a) divulge the finger, cliffhanging points of the plot, or (b) disgust you by revealing myself to be a zombie apocalypse fan (not necessarily zombie apocalypse movie fan, mind you; the concept will do fine). I would like to impress upon you, however, just how realistic the book is, in both discussion of the spread of the virus or contagion or whatever it is, and also in the reaction of the world at large, on both small and large scales. Brooks accurately predicts, with borderline cynicism, the disbelieving attitudes of the people and the inept and dilatory nature of government response. Nor does his anthropic prowess stop there. He also realistically portrays the actions of individuals and governments after the disaster has been acknowledged, in both regrouping and combating the sweeping pandemic. Beyond that, though, the book itself is satisfactorily chilling. There's this one part where a Chinese sub has taken refuge on the seabed, right at crush depth, and begins to hear strange scraping and banging noises on its hull. A look through the periscope reveals legions of the undead, staggering across the ocean floor, clambering all over the submarine's hull, clawing to get inside and devour the crew.

Brooks has taken a more in-depth look at long-term undead residence on Earth and come to some heretofore unsuspected conclusions. He suggests that zombies, having no need for light or oxygen and being impervious to most pressure-related maladies, would be able to exist indefinitely underwater, even crossing oceans on foot. Brooks also puts forth the logical idea that, in extreme northern and southern latitudes, zombies would freeze solid in winter (those that wander about outdoors and are exposed to the elements) and thaw in spring, renewing their menace. I can only suggest that you read the work yourself and see what a suspenseful writer Brooks is, how thoroughly he has researched his ideas, and just what a compelling vision of planet Earth under siege by its own zombified populace would be seen through his eyes.

Apart from that, I have little to report. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my in-flight reading list (the books I'll use to assuage the epic boredom prevalent on transoceanic international journeys aboard flying sardine cans). I was without the benefit of unread literature during my last hop across the Pacific Ocean and have determined never to be so again; much less this trip, which should add up to be no less than 11 hours, likely more.

To that end, I have ordered, as my last request from What the Book?:

• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
• Candide by Voltaire
• Ice Hunt by John Rollins
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

There you go, two classic novels of a martial nature, a scathing work of philosophy, and a two-bit adventure story. Boredom ought to be completely subverted.