ZOMBIES!!! The Best Weapons for Obliterating Zombies in the Apocalypse (9 page)

An IED is an explosive, often homemade, that is triggered through the use of cell phone signals and frequencies. A compartment for the bomb is first procured. Any fairly sturdy closeable box (like a lunchbox) can be used.  A phone is left on or near the box. When the phone is called, the signal from the phone triggers the device. There are some issues with setting the bomb up properly, and duds and misfires are common. Again, one would have to be in the area to know when to detonate it. One also must entice the zombie to be very close to the bomb when it goes off. This weapon could take out an occasional zombie. However, the weaknesses overshadow the strengths.

C4 will be hard for the average user to get. It can be made, but the process of making is can be arduous. It is tough to set up and to detonate. Once made, it tends to be fairly  stable. However, the complexities of detonating this explosive will be beyond most users' capabilities. If the user has some job experience with C4, they will have a much easier time making and detonating this substance. Its use against zombies is unknown. The materials for making it are or will be fairly scarce. Because of all these reasons, C4 is not recommended.

Because of this, they are not recommended for use against zombies except as a last ditch effort. Making them is a volatile process and the user can be seriously injured due to accidents during creation. If one wants to have some of these easy to make but hard to control weapons on hand, one must procure some lengths of metal pipe. Steel plumbing pipes work best. The pipe should be short enough to be able to handle and throw easily once lit. Both ends should be tightly sealed, and a wick should be placed coming out one of the sealed ends (or wall near one of the ends). The explosives themselves are extremely volatile and can catch fire when placing into the pipes hollow cylinder (so extreme care must be taken when loading substances like gunpowder).

A Molotov cocktail is similar to a pipe bomb in its general idea. A type of flammable or incendiary liquid is put nearly to the top of some sort of glass-based container, usually a bottle. A wick, which has been soaked in fluid (and can be made out of simple rags or strips of cloth), is placed in the liquid while still hanging out of the end of the container.  Matches and standard wicks can also be used in addition to cloth. The end is then sealed up to prevent the liquid from escaping and the wick is bound to the side of the bottle using some sort of binder. The liquid can be any type of flammable liquid: alcohol, gasoline, ethanol, or petrol can all be used to varying degrees of effectiveness. Their ease in manufacture belies their tricky lighting and application. This is another kind of weapon that is not designed to damage the head or skull upon explosion. It can very effectively set a structure on fire, so care should be used on where this weapon can be used feasibly or safely in battle. Serious burns for the user are a distinct possibility during lighting, as the amount of time one has before explosion after the bomb has been lit varies. If one wants to burn a structure or has dead errata hanging around inhibiting the safety and mobility of an area, this can be an effective means of starting a fire to dispose of these objects. However, this is not a weapon recommended for combat against zombies in any circumstances.

Torches and blowtorches are another weapon not recommended for hand-to-hand combat with zombies. A torch is simply a short or long staff with a lit end.  They are good to light your way in place of flashlights, or to throw on a building to set it on fire, but they are not good for zombies. If one herded some zombies into a house and set the house on fire, a torch could be used if the structure had been prepped (with flammable liquid) beforehand. Its use as a weapon is minimal and it should be avoided in combat.

A blowtorch is a thin tube projected off a small tank of propane. This handy tool is often used in both the workshop and the kitchen. However, it serves no purpose against the non-living. If you held a zombie down, you could torch its face with the blowtorchs tiny flame for an hour or longer and damage the head this way by cooking its brains. But who has that kind of extreme strength or is willing to take such a ridiculous risk? Save your  blowtorch for practical tasks or for making crème brulee, not for killing zombies. Soaking a zombie in fuel is problematic for the same reasons. For one, there must be an adequate level of fuel thrown on the zombie before lighting, and there is no guarantee that this will kill or inhibit the zombie in any way. The user also may end up catching on fire themselves, and this is much more detrimental to the living than to a zombie.