Zombie CSU (50 page)
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 adventures
2
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.
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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.”
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.”
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.
T
HE
F
INAL
V
ERDICT
: A
RMED
R
ESPONSE
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.
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.”
I
n 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.
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But what about a sophisticated physical response? After all, four thousand years of martial arts development have pretty well established that the human 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?
It’s been established that zombies are attracted to sound. Guns are noisy, and unless you have enough bullets to chop down every zombie who comes running after it hears a shot, you’re in trouble. When faced with a zombie while running for cover, it’s best to pick a response that will get the job done as quietly as possible, and the human body is a virtually silent weapon.
Not all martial arts are based strictly on unarmed fighting, however. Many teach the use of staffs, clubs, chain whips, spears, knives, and swords. None of these weapons run out of ammunition (although swords will blunt after you’ve chopped a few dozen necks); and they are relatively silent. Of course they require skill, and unless we already know there are zombies on the loose, it’s not likely we’ll just happen to have our lucky samurai sword with us the day the dead rise.
J
UST THE
F
ACTS
Fighting the Dead
As a martial arts instructor, I advocate self-defense training for everyone—and that has nothing to do with any fear of the dead coming back to life with an appetite.
There are thousands of different martial arts, and these arts teach both armed and unarmed skills for defense and attack. Every country has had some kind of native art. The process of development and proliferation as we understand it from a historical perspective got its start in India thousands of years ago and then spread slowly through China and from there into Korea, Japan, and Okinawa…and then around the globe. And over the last hundred-odd years, the martial arts have split into three distinct categories: sport (boxing, fencing, judo, wrestling), esoteric (tai chi, some forms of kung-fu, aikido) and combat (anything self-defense oriented).
A case can be made that all martial arts have a combative element, but really many of the most popular sport arts need significant modification to be effective in life-or-death combat. Judo and wrestling rely on throws and pins; boxing is based on pain and tissue damage; contact karate and kickboxing are mostly point-driven. Zombies never submit to holds, you can’t choke them out, they’re dead so what do they care if they get a broken nose, and they’re not likely to weep over being outscored in a fight. A boxer might get eaten; a mixed martial-arts grappler who takes his undead opponent to the floor is probably going to become a picnic snack for the zombie’s friends. The arts that would flourish during a zombie crisis would have to be those focusing on structural damage and killing.
From the point of view of technical philosophy—the logic behind the development and implementing of combat kills—even most of these more lethal combat arts need to be adjusted for use against the undead. Some of the most popular skills would be eliminated out of hand. The two-knuckle punch, though capable of breaking bones and rupturing internal organs, is a poor choice against a zombie; as is the tiger-claw slash across the face, the elbow to the solar plexus, and the good old-fashioned kick to the balls. Against a mugger, rapist, or thug, these are fan favorites, but zombies tend to shrug them off. But a side-thrust kick to the knee will take a ghoul down, no question about it. Living dead or not the zombie still depends on its skeleton, and we’ve already established that skeletons are designed by nature to resist the constant pull of gravity. They are in effect scaffolding. Break a knee and gravity will pull the zombie down, simple as that. Yes it can still crawl; yes it can still bite…but it can’t crawl faster than you can run; and while it’s crawling along the floor, you have time to go pick up some handy blunt instrument and bash its skull in.
Art of the Dead—Kevin Breaux
Subway Zombie
“If the dead rose then martial arts will save more lives, at least during the outbreak phase, than guns will. Most people don’t carry guns, but millions study—or have studied—martial arts. I know that if a zombie came at me on the street, or in the subway, or some ordinary place…I’d be ready.”
Zombies…Fast or Slow? Part 7
“Quick answer: slow. Slow answer: These dudes are falling apart at the seams. Even I can’t go very fast some days. Imagine how the average person feels the day after a rugged workout and multiply it by 100 or 1000. That’s the sort of physical condition I attribute to zombies. Their muscles are detaching from the bones. It’s a wonder they can move at all.”—Bev Vincent, author of the Bram Stoker Award-nominated book
The Road to the Dark Tower
(NAL, 2004), the authorized companion to Stephen King’s
Dark Tower
series.- “I like slow zombies but it’s all about the story that’s being told. I’ve seen fast zombies done right and they’re just as scary, just as effective, as shamblers and twitchers.”—David Wellington, best-selling author of
Monster Planet
. - “I kind of like the fast zombies only because there is a greater sense of urgency to their approach. They seem more human, and thus deceptive. You may have to get up close to one to tell if it’s an actual zombie, and then it may be too late. But I think a proper mix of the fast and slow type of zombie is probably the best. The slower ones can be the ones that have been dead and rotten a lot longer.”—Zombie portrait artist Robert Sacchetto
Expert Witness
“There are few techniques more reliable than the side kick,” observes Rene Sampier, an 8th-degree black belt instructor of Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do from El Paso, Texas. “Even a fair-sized kid can break a grown man’s knee. The technique is pretty simple: you pull your knee up above the waist and tilt your hip so that the flat of your heel is aimed to the thin spot just above the kneecap, the base of the femur. There’s very little muscle there and by stamping sideways and down you knock the attacker’s leg straight and then it breaks. It’s about as easy as standing a cheap broomstick against a wall and breaking it with your foot.”
Australian women’s mixed martial arts champion Jane Dalkieth agrees. “The adult male knee breaks at about twenty PSI when hit just above the knee. Just a side kick of even reasonable speed (anything above fifteen miles an hour) will crack the bone My grandmother could at least sprain a man’s knee, and if you piss her off enough she could probably break it.”
Jim Winterbottom, a teacher of Jeet Kune Do (the style developed by the late Bruce Lee), has this to say: “As much as the human body is built to be enormously tough there are always built in vulnerabilities. Otherwise only the strongest would ever have survived, which we know isn’t the case. Martial arts taught us that smart trumps strong because the smart fighter knows where the body is weak. Even a bruiser like the Rock has weak spots. The knees, the elbows, the small bones in the foot, the ankle, the neck…all vulnerable. Zombies have those same structural weaknesses and they don’t dodge, evade or block. You don’t even have to be a great fighter to score the shot.”