One year left.

Z-Day. 2012. The Mayan zombie super-apocalypse. Sensational journalism. Paranoid survivalists. Gun nuts. People out having fun. Boy scouts taking their preparedness to the next level. If you can be ready for this, you can be ready for anything.

2012 and the end of the world has been discussed at length here (dozens of comments pending) and elsewhere. This site naturally leans towards a zombie apocalypse on the 21st of December, 2012. We’re zombie fans, we love this stuff. Take it with a grain of salt as you will. True,  most apocalypse theories and end time projections lack scientific evidence, but we don’t really care. If we can prepare in a year for a be-all end-all apocalypse of local or global scale based on humans turning into something decidedly less human, you can count on a zombie preparedness expert to get you out of a jam, change a flat tire, whip up delicious scorpion stew, or have a solid sate of mind to hear your own fears. We’re there for you, but we won’t hesitate to end it real quick if you decide to get all bitey on us. Just don’t expect us to share our escape strategies and survival plans with anyone, even our loved ones. They will be revealed when necessary.

Doomsday 2012 will certainly be creeping into mainstream media as the year progresses. You may count on a few groups or individuals even creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Y2K, Heaven’s Gate, May21, 2011 — the dates have come and gone, and some of us remain. That may be true come a year, but it doesn’t mean our curiosity will be satisfied on the 22nd.

Research indicates it will be the “Boyle” rage virus, still alive human type of zombie. If you’re looking for evidence, all it takes is a few Google searches and Cracked’s RSS feed. Cracked has posted numerous articles about Z-day. Here’s a few relevant ones to bring you up to speed.

5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen

• Brain parasites (such as toxoplasma or Naegleria fowleri)
• Neurotoxins (like tetrodotoxin)
• Rage Virus (think advanced rabies)
• Neurogenesis (stem cell research causes post-mortem or post trauma brain growth)
• Nanobots

 7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail (Quickly)

• Natural predators (dogs, wolves)
• Heat
• Cold
• Biting as a bad poor of transmission
• Inability to heal (which assumes dead zombies)
• Natural landscape barriers
• Weapons and people

And a terse list that fulfills a lot of our carnal desires:

5 Reasons You Secretly Want a Zombie Apocalypse

• Guilt Free Violence
• Free Stuff
• Simplicity
• Acting Like a Jerk
• Being the Alpha Dog

Even if the zombie, climate, political, or economic apocalypse doesn’t happen on the 21st, zombie haters will remain vigilant, stocked, and prepared.

It’s not a paranoia, it’s not a fear, or even a desire. It’s a mindset to think “what if” and “how can I be ready”.

Time to start the countdown.

If you can be prepared for a zombie apocalypse, you can prepared for almost anything. At least, that’s how the line of thinking goes. If one can have all the food, water, shelter and materials to survive a complete lack of human civilization, one should easily be able to survive a tornado, hurricane or flooding. This is a common thought shared by many zombie fans and survivalists and is our tying thread to reality. Yet when the message comes from the Centers for Disease Control, it’s still a bit creepy.

Considering the Rapture is supposed to happen this Saturday the 21st of May, you’ll need a plan, and you’ll need it quick. Even the Bible fortells of zombies, where people long to die and do not find death, so maybe they’re on to something.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

- Revelation 9:6

The CDC warns that with the possibility of a zombie apocalypse, you’ll want your plan to share the common things with any survival plan, but they neglect to mention such important things as a sturdy bladed weapon, firearm, or other suitable projectile weapon.

• Water, one gallon / person / day
• Food, especially non perishable items
• Medications, prescription, painkillers and other OTC
• Tools and Supplies, including knives, duct tape, radios (don’t forget paracord)
• Sanitation supplies, such as bleach soap and towels
• Clothing and bedding (a change of clothes would be welcome in a long term situation, as well as a backpack to carry things)
• Important documents, such as passport, drivers license, (and may I add FOID card if you’re in Illinois)
• First Aid Kits

The Undead Report also recommends:

• Kukri / Sword / Axe
• Pocket Knives
• Staff
• Pistol / Crossbow
• Rifle / Compound Bow
• Bicycle or reliable motorized transit

The warning states that you’ll need a meeting location when the zombies come, as well as an escape route for your home. This is the kind of information that gets filtered out before something terrible happens. CDC claims that they would handle an outbreak of zombism the way they would handle any other outbreak, through study, containment and control.

The post is written by Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan, whose personal favorite film is the Resident Evil franchise. You know, the one where the zombie virus is created in a laboratory, and then agents are dispatched to deal with it.

That’s reassuring.

According to a Fox News interview about the article, CDC spokesman Dave Daigle said it was a tongue-in-cheek post in response to someone asking CDC officials if zombies would be a concern due to radiation fears surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.

While it’s a good thing that the CDC is trying to get citizens prepared for such a horrendous pandemic, I hope the tongue-in-cheek humor does not apply to their own precautions and preparedness for a zombie outbreak. This is serious stuff and should not be taken so lightly.

Do remain vigilant, do remain prepared, and do take this official government post with a grain of salt. But don’t let your guard down.

From the CDC: Social Media: Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse

It would appear the government has been less than secret when it comes to zombie removal. (Stimulus Money Funds U.S. Dept. of Zombie Removal (Pic))

Minneapolis Appeals Court Rules Zombies Have Right To Free Speech ‘They slowly lurched down the halls and said things like, “Get your brains here.” Everything was going great until the police showed up’ – I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, zombies shouldn’t even be allowed to have lower jaws. On the other hand, these were fake zombies. So, go us?

The Crazies (2010) ‘A reinvention loosely based upon the George Romero classic of the same name, The Crazies is about the inhabitants of a small Kansas town suddenly plagued by insanity and then death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply.’ – George Romero knows zombies aren’t always the reanimated dead. It makes it that much messier to have to kill live humans. At least you can aim for center of mass. But double-tap for sure. And don’t drink the water.

Man bites thumb in pub brawl bite – ‘A man bit the thumb of another man so hard that he nearly severed it during a fight outside a Sydney pub.’  - You think that’s a bite? Now THIS is a bite! Only in Australia.

Conn. man bites Cambridge Hospital security officer ‘Police responded to Cambridge Hospital for reports of an assault at 4:45 p.m. and found a security staff allegedly bit by a Connecticut man. The victim’s middle finger had been bitten through a glove, had teeth marks on it and was bleeding’ – Okay, I guess it happens in New England too. Time for better, more zombie bite proof gloves.

Woman bites a chunk out of her mom’s cheek in fight A woman ‘jumped on her mother “and bit her left cheek, causing a large chunk to be rended…’ – Will you be prepared to kill your relatives in the event of infection?

It won’t be fun. It will be people you know. It may be soon. Cheers!

No Halloween tricks here, only treats.

Keen readers will note that suspected zombie activity exists, and is often overlooked by the press.

Man punches suspected zombie, flees

IOWA CITY, Iowa

Iowa City police are investigating an early morning assault [on October 26th] in which a man accused another of being a zombie, then punched him twice. Police said the assault occurred at 1:17 a.m. Sunday at an Iowa City restaurant south of the University of Iowa campus.

A man was ordering food when he was approached by another man who called him a zombie, then hit him in the eye. When the victim tried to call police on his cell phone, the man punched him again, breaking his nose.

The man then ran out a back door.

The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

It would appear the aggressor here has been on high alert. If you’re going to attack or defend yourself from suspected zombies, you had better make sure you have the full legal right to defend yourself from personal and property harm.

Dead baby wakes up for his funeral wake

A baby boy born 16 weeks prematurely was declared dead by doctors at a hospital in Paraguay only to wake up in time for his funeral wake hours later.

“Initially, the baby didn’t move, he practically didn’t have any respiratory reflexes, nor did we hear a heartbeat and, as a result, we declared a premature fetus of 24 weeks dead,” Weber told Reuters Television.

The family was given a death certificate and a cardboard box with the baby’s name scribbled on the outside which served as a makeshift coffin.

But when the family took him from the hospital to prepare him for his funeral, the unbelievable happened.

“I opened the box and took the baby out and he cried. I got scared and I said “the baby’s crying” … and then he started moving his arms, his legs and I got scared, we got very scared,” said one member of the family, Liliana Alvarenga.

Hours after the baby’s death had been declared he was found to be alive. The hospital has begun an investigation and the baby is now in a stable condition in an incubator.

Presumably, he was transferred to another hospital where his condition was upgraded to “alive”.

Pet Turtle Disease Could Spread to Humans

Oct. 5, 2009 — A researcher has identified the first Australian case of a captive turtle being infected with a highly contagious disease, which has the potential to spread to humans.

Debbie Bannan, a second year veterinary science student from James Cook University in Townsville, said she discovered the disease on an Emydura macquarii, a common species of pet turtle, which was brought to a vet clinic where she was volunteering.

She said the turtle presented with a lesion on its front forelimb, which they thought was an isolated inflammation of the bone and could be treated by amputating its limb and flipper.

“It started to rehabilitate really well,” said Bannan. “But three months after that it rapidly went downhill and reluctantly we had to euthanize it.”

Bannan said when they conducted a post-mortem, they found the turtle had a bacterial disease, called mycobacterium, that had spread throughout its entire body.

“Mycobacterium is much like staph on human skin, and it can be carried by lots of animals.”

The bacterium isn’t pathogenic until it enters the body, through air passages, cuts or the intestines, she said.

Lastly, a terribly misinformed scientific perspective of zombies.

Shoemaker: Zombie doomsday scenario is just illogical

The causes for reanimated flesh are varied and sometimes completely undefined. No matter, the end result is the same — an ever-quickening spread of walking dead consuming and converting the living to their cannibalistic ways.

We all know that zombies eat brains. It’s what they crave. It’s what motivates them to ceaselessly stalk the living and rip them to shreds in an attempt to open their skulls to get to the savory gray matter inside. Further, we know that any injury caused by one of these creatures — be it a bite or a mere scratch — is enough to turn a human into a zombie.

Yet, we also know that the only way to permanently disable a zombie (to kill one, as it were) is to shoot it in the head, or decapitate it, or cause enough trauma to the cranium so as to destroy the brain. Burning works well, too.

Do you now see the lack of logic behind the zombies-overrunning-humanity scenario? If zombies eat brains, and the destruction of the brain is the only thing to kill a zombie, then how could zombie-itis ever sweep over humanity and wipe them out? Motivated only for the neuro-smorgasboard that the living are to them, zombies would be negating their own spread by destroying potential zombies in their feeding frenzy.

Well put professor, but we’re on the lookout for aggressive, crazed, highly infectuous and potentially lethal, very alive humans. They have no taste for brains, only a taste of madness. However, I bet your brains are delicious.

I’ve taken to wearing my kukri around town more often, strapped to my thigh. It’s easier to claim “religious use” than a firearm.

I was asked on the Red Bar Radio show “how much have I spent so far on something that doesn’t exist”.

Not enough.

More shock, more horror, more psychotic zombie paranoia!

The Undead Report will be on Red Bar Radio’s Hallowe’en show again. Last year was a great time, much zombie survival advice was dispensed, and killing tactics were planned.

Tune in Friday, October 30th at 3PM CST!

Red Bar Radio is an Internet radio comedy talk show in Chicago. They are running a Hallowe’en show on October 30th, and The Undead Report’s Zombie Hunter Sam is one of the guests.

That’s a photo of zombies waiting outside the studio! Man I hate zombies.

The show has a live webcam and chat, so you can interact while the show is airing, with a podcast to follow. If you have anything you’d like to hear discussed, ranted or destroyed, please post a comment. You can listen to Red Bar Radio LIVE on Friday, October 30th at 3PM CST by going to http://redbarradio.com/tv.
Replays are available any time by going to http://redbarradio.com

The Undead Report was featured in G4 TV’s Attack of the Show’s Blogwatch segment, “Best Cataclysmic Zombie Apocalypse Blogs”. The pending zombie apocalypse is no laughing matter! At around 1:07, you’ll see Sam on watch, a pic from this post. Want to buy the stuff you saw on the show? Check out the Zombie Weapons and Gear Store, support this site and purchase man woman and child zombie targets, or just play some zombie hunting Flash games.

Attack of the Show

Also check out the Zombie Research Society — doctors and scientists performing zombie research and hypotheses. Transmission via mosquito? stay informed. They maintain an excellent zombie science blog.

Chattanooga — The name may sound like something you’d hear a zombie moan as its mucus and pus filled maw begins to nom on your brains, but the clever denizens of this Tennessee town have their stuff together.

According to the Chattanooga Pulse, city hall won’t be having any organized zombie marches parading trough town.

City Hall has no official comment, but an unidentified source states that, “The city of Chattanooga will not tolerate zombies. What if one of those bloodthirsty monsters tries to eat a child? What if one of our venerable elderly citizens witnesses one of those horrible creatures walking across the Walnut Street Bridge and has a heart attack? We can’t let those freaks roam about in public freely; they need to continue to live in the shadows.”

City Hall Stops Zombie Invasion

And in Florida (God’s waiting room), the undead have been having a field day picking off old people. Ya gotta love that someone’s lessening the fear by passing it off as an April Fools article. If a real person from Florida didn’t see that headline, their pacemaker would probably up and fizzle right then.

“They came outta nowhere,” New Birmingham resident Ronald Frobnitz exclaimed, pointing to the woods that border Woodhaven Circle in Jacksonville. “Shufflin’ and moanin’ something that sounded a lot like ‘braaaiiinnns.’

“They caught wind of us and slouched our way. I hollered ‘don’t look Ethyl,’ but it was too late, she’d done been chomped.”

Frobnitz and his friend Ethyl N. Glykol were doing a quiet spot of feral hog trapping on Woodhaven Circle this morning, when he claims they were attacked by “the living dead.”

I appreciate the editor’s tagline at the end of the article:

Medical professionals continue to deny the threat of a zombie outbreak is real — but what do they know, really? The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Reece Daniel, the Zombie Squad and Woodhaven Circle’s feral hog problems are real.

Living dead attack couple on outskirts of Jacksonville

Making the rounds on the zombie web is a hacked road sign in Austin, Texas reading “Zombies Ahead”.

Fantastic, this is an excellent idea and warning of things to come. While I cannot condone any illegal activites, the know how to change a road sign could be very useful in the event of zombie outbreak or space radiation attack. If you are aware of an outbreak and feel inclined to adjust road banners, make sure you keep the exisiting message and place your warning on a separate page. You don’t want people to avoid the zombies only to be unaware that the bridge is out!

Updated info after the jump!

While most road sign control pads are placed in a lock box, it’s seldom locked and rarely under password protection. The password is ususally the default code “DOTS”—or you can easily reset the password by holding “shift” and “control” while typing “DIPY” (so that it just defaults to “DOTS” again).

Many of the road signs are powered by a small generator, but there are some solar powered models. These can be very useful during an apocalypse – you’re not going to run out of sun (nuclear winter excepted). Do your homework, stay alert.

Resources

Inside Programmable Road Signs 

Hackers Crack Into Texas Road Sign, Warn of Zombies Ahead

Update 2009-01-31: More Warnings

Things are starting to look a little sketchy. Perhaps Austin is really under attack and the news reports and images are disbeleiver’s shock, or a cover up. Images below. The idea of nazi zombies is particularly distressing. What is this, Return to Castle Wolfenstein? Time to break out the zombie targets.

Update 2009-02-03: Illinois Zombies

UDR reader Coral writes in that “zombie” road signs are seen in Illinois. The hacking and sighting menace continues across the USA.

Sign warns Illinois drivers about zombies

The Illinois freeways have apparently been taken over – ‘conquered’ if you will – by a master race of commuter zombies. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive IDOT workers or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the zombies will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new undead overlords. I’d like to remind them as a trusted blogging personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground brain mines.

Sam will be on Red Bar Radio’s Hallowe’en show. Red Bar Radio is an Internet radio comedy talkshow in Chicago. They are running a Hallowe’en show on October 29th, and I’m their zombie expert.

The show has a live webcam and chat, so you can interact as I’m on the show. If you have anything you’d like me to discuss, please post a comment. You can listen to Red Bar Radio LIVE on Wednesday, October 29th at 7PM CST by going to http://redbarradio.com/tv Replays are available any time by going to http://redbarradio.com

Update: Download the Show!

FYI: It’s talk radio, and it’s raunchy as all hell. I take no responsibility for the content herein. They barely scratched the surface of the stuff I know. Scared.

Download the Hallowe’en podcast!

Undead in Magazine and Books

This April, Discover Magazine’s ran an article about Wade Davis, the ethnobotanist who researched Haitian zombies. His work lead to the book and movie “The Serpent and the Rainbow”. He was the only white man to be initiated into the cult like secret societies, he learned the way to make real zombies;  the neurotoxin induced psychosis zombie made through voodoo zombie powder. Psychosis zombies come from a powdered derivative of TTX or tetrodotoxin, from certain puffer fish native to the Haitian waters.

Humor publications also run undead corpse and zombie related topics, The Onion most notably. Of spot-on interest is the article, “Study Reveals Pittsburgh Unprepared For Full-Scale Zombie Attack“.

Government-conducted zombie-attack scenarios described on the State Department’s website indicate that a successful, citywide zombie takeover would take 10 days, but according to ZPI statistician Dr. Milton Cornelius, the government’s models fail to incorporate such factors as the zombies’ rudimentary reasoning skills and basic tool use.

While the humor is a bit of a stretch, is your city really prepared? Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z are excellent reads, providing useful information and a realistic narrative of a post-zombie holocaust. I won’t go into detail about the books here, but I strongly suggest you read them. World War Z is very well written, and quite scary.

Zombie Dreams

Several readers have written me and shared their zombie dream experiences, relieved to discover their dreams are not uncommon. Many, myself included, have had “me versus them” zombie dreams that almost seem like training or practice for a zombie apocalypse. These dreams can be influenced by films and books, but still carry a common thread with the dreamer, who seems to be preparing for the inevitable, training to kill zombies and survive the holocaust. Readers share that their zombie dreams seem to focus on actively participating in the holocaust, revealing neither the end nor the beginning, similar to George Romero’s movies.

The funny thing is I keep having re occouring nightmares of zombies. Never have I had these type of dreams…

I too have been constantly dreaming of the undead, but only because my friends and I have been dwelling on the thought for so long. I’ve done my share of homework, and judging by what this article reads, I’d say it’s extremely close if not entirely IDENTICAL to my own perception of 2012 and the zombie pandemic…

A girl from Maine wrote… how they seem like fighting practice…

I just woke up from a dream… The funny thing about these dreams is how these seem so real… I was running from zombies and very scared… I seemed to be searching for them and I did have a handgun… I felt “experienced” in this one. In every dream though it was clear there was not too many people left on earth.

Zombies as a Social Metaphor

A colleague suggests that you can understand the weltgeist based on monsters or demons in popular films. In the 50s and 60s it was often nuclear war, mutants and aliens, suggestive of our fear of communists, growing xenophobia and living in a a post-war, post nuclear society. Later, it was vampires and zombies – sucking the life out of cities and people as more and more Americans moved to the suburbs and tuned out from city life and each other, stressing the economy. In the late 80s and early 90s, it was slasher and demon films, one unstoppable killer against many, echoing the increase of public paranoia and the daily fear of your neighbors. Parents became overly cautious and overbearing. “They Live”, the cult classic John Carpenter film is a fantastic metaphor for the Reagan era and a massive increase in materialism and the disappearing middle class.

Zombie films are definitely on the rise, in the past five years, we’ve had the 28 Days saga with its human induced virus zombies, remakes of the Dead series, new terrifying zombies in the Resident Evil films, and numerous independent zombie films. While not every zombie movie has an axe to grind with culture and material desire, their numerous releases parallel common sentiment that many people, Americans in particular, are tuning out to the real world – becoming zombies and mindlessly going about their trivial business, devouring the less fortunate without second thought.

Zombie Video Games

It’s hardly necessary to mention zombie video games. There are fewer zombie themed games than films produced, but they are gaining in number. While many games do not have zombies as the main foe or plot device, they make an appearance in several games as support enemies or unique levels.

Zombies are difficult enemies in Doom 3, Quake, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, STALKER, Half Life 2, and many more. They range in attacking ability – some are slow, some explode and others shoot at the player – but they remain a difficult target. Unfortunately, not a lot of games understand the whole “headshot” thing. STALKER zombies seem to get it right, as they tend to be more difficult to kill than their human counterparts. Headshots certainly work much better in the Half Life series, though eviscerating a zombie with a saw blade and watching half its corpse come after you is also quite accurate. Just remember to aim for the neck or head, no body shots and you’ll do alright.

Zombie themed games include Dead Rising, the Resident Evil series, and the upcoming (sure to be awesome) multiplayer Left for Dead. If you are looking for an RPG style zombie experience, I suggest Urban Dead, a web based zombie game. You can create multiple characters, play as survivor or zombie, and continue to be revived.

If you want to prepare for the holocaust – look no further than your local book and movie store.