by John Austin
Don’t be concerned about mixing blood types (A, B, AB, O). Consumption of incompatible blood types will not cause complications, though it has been observed that type O blood can give you the shakes.
Bone Marrow Group
The Bone Marrow Group, also known as the Table Scrap Group, is typically what is left after a hungry horde fully consumes a body. The human body should have 206 bones, each one filled with red and yellow marrow. This marrow is made up of juicy blood cells. For minimal nutrition, we suggest 10-20 servings, though optimal nutrition is much higher—30-40 servings.
Servings from the Bone Marrow Group can be replaced by additional servings from the Brain or Blood Group, if available—that’s what you really crave, after all. But leftover marrow will keep you on your feet until you have an opportunity to hunt down something more satisfying.
Bone marrow can be difficult to extract, but try to avoid stuffing full bones into your body. Bones such as the femur (the thigh bone) are large and can cause complications in your absorption tract. Finger and toes, on the other hand, can be consumed whole.
Feeding Etiquette
Proper zombie feeding etiquette can mean the difference between feasting on a fresh kill and foraging for rodents.
Don’t Start Eating Until Your Victim Is Ready
Wounded humans will continually attempt to escape your clutches by fleeing or fighting. Even if they are experiencing early symptoms of z-virus infection, until paralysis sets in they are capable of inflicting damage.
So the first thing you must do before eating your victim is to continue inflicting trauma until your meal is unresponsive. The quickest method is blunt force to the head. Your victims’ head. Not yours.
Never Play with Your Food
If your victim is unconscious, he or she may be experiencing the advanced stages of zombification. Procrastinating could result in your victim completing reanimation and shambling away. Once it becomes fast-on-its-feet food, you’ve forfeited your meal.
Even if reanimation is not forthcoming, an uneaten human can quickly attract other hungry zeds. As the Zombie Code states, everyone is entitled to a meal (see “The Zombie Code,” page 143). The longer you wait, the less flesh for you. If the feeding frenzy becomes overwhelming, we suggest you remove one of the victim’s limbs and creep away.
Rotten Is a No-No
In the panic of a zombie outbreak, humans often die from accidents, infighting, or other non-zombie-induced scenarios. As a result, you’re likely to encounter unclaimed food in your wanderings. If you do stumble upon a meal just lying around, it may have passed its expiration date. Any lifeless carcass, simmering and swelling in the sun for longer than 12 to 16 hours, has sustained severe cellular damage and has no nutritional value. If the body is bloated, gray in color, stinky, or has a toe tag, it’s a good indicator that it’s been around a while.
During your rampaging haste, you may miss these warning signs. Fortunately, your body will automatically reject rotten meat. During zombification, the z-virus modified your tongue’s taste receptors to detect and reject unproductive flesh. Try sinking your teeth into a bloated stomach—your body will instantly cease craving that particular torso.
If you ignore this warning and continue to chomp down on rotten flesh, you may suffer from absorption blockage. Symptoms may include upset stomach, abnormal vision, and increased projectile vomiting.
Use Your Mouth
Food should always enter your body through your mouth. This is the quickest path to your digestive tract. Some zeds may attempt to stuff human flesh directly into their open body cavities. This is not recommended. Although absorption is still possible, without a path out of the body this flesh becomes dead weight, decreasing your maneuverability.
Of course, even if you are missing a mouth or a stomach, you will still crave food. In this situation, first attempt to insert the flesh down your throat, but if this is impossible, go ahead and jam it into your body.
Absorption
While most species become sleepy while digestion takes place, the undead become more active during the absorption period, especially after they consume a human brain. This period of increased intensity can last up to 48 hours, while medulla rush capabilities (jumping and running) will last up to 24 hours. Both the surrounding temperature and tissue freshness can influence these times. The ideal temperature for absorption is around 78° F. If you are in a hot climate, we suggest that you wait for the temperature to drop at night before consuming anything.
The z-virus will absorb everything except for hair, teeth, claws (finger- and toenails), and major bones. However, it will extract as much marrow as it can before excreting any waste. Depending on virus strain, complete absorption can take up to 48 hours.
After absorption is complete, your body will discard any waste within 24 hours, ideally through a relaxed sphincter. However, due to overeating or damage to your digestive tract, waste material can sometimes leave the body through gastric blowout. Abdominal ruptures eventually affect two out of three zombies, and 95 percent of boomer types (see “What’s Your Body Type?” page 26). While embarrassing and disgusting, it really has no impact on your day-to-day functions. And yes, spilled waste is infectious for up to two days, depending on climate conditions.
Another complication to look out for is a body clog. When this happens, waste will continually build up in your body. Eventually, you’ll be burdened with hundreds of pounds of unprocessed flesh, affecting your mobility and eventually ending your post-life.
Ordering Off the Menu
No question, human flesh is essential for a balanced diet, but what happens if the living aren’t available? To avoid malnutrition during famine or post-apocalyptic conditions, turn to the hearty choices the animal kingdom has to offer. Many animals have internal organs similar to humans’. They are often slower and dumber than breathers but will yield more flesh and blood. Most of the multicellular species listed on the Hierarchy Hunting Chart below can provide basic sustenance, though rarely the complete nourishment human flesh provides. The farther up the chart you go, the better off you’ll be.
Larger animals such as livestock and house pets are fabulous human substitutes. Many of these creatures will be abandoned by their owners and weakened by starvation. Our experience shows that while canines can cause some bodily damage, their bites are rarely fatal (unlike ours).
Finally, there are rodents, birds, and small reptiles. These little critters make up a vast majority of animals found in most regions. High in numbers, they are still troublesome to catch, making them extremely annoying.
In certain areas, you may be tempted to hunt large primates like gorillas or chimpanzees. Yes, the DNA in these animals is almost 98 percent identical to a human’s, and they could easily supplement your dietary needs. Yet despite their nutritional advantages, hunting great apes is not recommended. A gorilla can lift 10 times its own body weight, strength enough to rip a frail zed body to shreds. Plus, primates are capable of contracting the z-virus (see “Infecting Animals,” page 132), and who wants the competition?
Other powerful animals such as bears, elephants, and large cats should also be avoided. Refer to the Animal Avoidance Chart below.
Oversized snakes have also been known to feed on zombies. If one swallows you whole, you will need to claw or bite your way out of its stomach. Even though the virus will kill the snake during the digestive process, you’ll still be stuck inside a dead snake.
Other Foods to Avoid
With a hunger as unrelenting as yours, you may even feel the urge to snack on other substances beyond human and animal flesh. To be on the safe side, here are some you should steer clear of: Flammable Liquids. Complex chemicals such as gasoline, acetone, and ethanol should never be consumed. These liquids have a high degree of flammability—they’ll turn you into a quick-light zed! Other chemicals can also lead to increased decomposition. Items labeled with the following symbols are hazardous and should be avoided.
Adhesives. If so
meone has thrown a sticky compound on you, do not eat it! Although it may smell like horse or cow meat, it’s not. More likely, it’s designed to bond items together, things such as zombie jaws. If ingested, your body could eventually lock up. Handling an adhesive compound can also reduce your hands’ dexterity.
Polymers. Plastic materials often have sharp edges that could damage your body during consumption. These and similar nonflesh materials—metal, glass, and wood—have no nutritional benefit. Humans sometimes use these materials as armor or jewelry; eat around them.
8
INFECTING
It’s not just you—all zeds are infatuated with the living. After all, they are your only physical need. Obsessed as you are with feeding, it’s not abnormal (relatively speaking) for you to turn a deaf ear to all other distractions. But while you’re eating humans, you should also give some thought to recruiting them. After all, like most predators, zombies are stronger in numbers. The more zombies you walk with, the more humans you can kill and infect—which means still more zombies, and on and on!
Amazingly, as you hunt and battle humans, something magical happens: you will automatically transfer the z-virus to your opponents. Also known as the zombie shot, it’s a simple fluid transfer that occurs during a bite or blood splatter. Once the virus is in a breather’s bloodstream, the infection is irreversible.
Though you have completed your task, the newly infected human has just been introduced to a new world. The infected’s first hours are the most critical. First, the zed-to-be must avoid being consumed. He or she will often flee from your attack, even as the early symptoms of the z-virus kick in. During the virus’s incubation period, the victim’s own bodily fluids become progressively more infectious; often an infected individual will seek shelter with other humans only to spread the virus to those in hiding. They will only welcome the stealth zed until obvious symptoms appear, at which point the infected human will be quarantined or destroyed. The good news is, the communicable seed has already been planted! Depending on the humans’ health precautions and the virulence of the z-virus strain, this common scenario can lead to an impressive outbreak.
On the flip side, as mentioned in earlier chapters, it’s very possible that a newly infected human will be so weakened by the virus that he or she is incapable of escaping your clutches. Good job—eat up! If your feeding frenzy does not damage your victim’s cranial area, and the victim was still alive before the z-virus stopped his or her heart, reanimation as a zombie is still possible. Your new zed friend likely will be a bit dismantled, and not easy on the eyes, but who among the undead is?
In other words, if you continue to properly hunt and attack, your horde should grow without any extra effort on your part. What’s better than getting something for nothing? However, if you have a rabid itch to maximize your infectious potential, this chapter is for you.
Administering an Infection
Most zombies are very reluctant to exert themselves by actively trying to infect a human. They really don’t care! Behavior like this may seem lazy, but it’s to be expected. Zombies may mob together, but they’re mostly independent. We certainly wouldn’t expect you to sacrifice a meal for the greater good of the apocalyptic pandemic! However, in every zed’s post-life comes a time when it is overwhelmed with meal choices. At that moment, when the human supply seems like more than you can handle, why not use your built-in biological weapons to weaken the resistance?
The most common way to transmit the z-virus is to expose your victim to your infected bodily fluids. The human body is covered with entry points that are vulnerable to viral penetration. The eyes, mouth, nose, and ears are all potential gateways to the human circulatory system. So are uncovered wounds anywhere on the body. More exotic infection methods, such as injection via syringe, have also been reported.
To increase your chances of infection, use one of the popular transfer methods outlined below.
Bite It!
What did you say? “Bite me”? No problem! Forty-eight percent of all zombies were infected through a bite. As you already know, your mouth is like a versatile Swiss army knife. You can use it for attacking, holding, feeding, moaning—and infecting, too. Once your rotten grill breaks the skin of a living human, they’re contaminated. No wonder the zombie jaw is so feared by humans.
Cranial bites are the most effective, though humans will often block your attempts with their hands. A few fingers in your mouth shouldn’t stop you—think of them as appetizers. Unfortunately, if your fingerless target does make it to reanimation, the new recruit may be of little use in a fight. Without opposable thumbs, how will it ever use a melee weapon?
Clawing
A less serious but still very effective means of transference is administered through your knifelike fingernails. Any lacerations on a living body caused by scratching will be vulnerable to your infectious blood. Once your victim is infected, z-virus symptoms will increase his or her vulnerability, including numbness around the infected scratch. Of course, too much clawing can lead to potentially fatal blood loss ... which is fine if you are hungry.
Blood Splatter
The third most common means of transference is the infamous psycho blood splatter. This method is less controllable than biting or scratching, but it frequently occurs during altercations with the living. If one of your body parts is crushed or cut by a breather’s attack, infected blood may fly from your body or the attacker’s weapon and land on a human’s skin.
However, because you do not have a functioning circulatory system like a human, your blood will not spray when an artery is cut. It needs to enter an open wound or facial opening through its own momentum.
Projectile Vomiting
Records show that exposure to infected vomit is the forth leading cause of infection. As with blood splatter, the vomit will need to penetrate a wound or facial opening if it is to infect your victim. Depending on what is churning in that stomach of yours, it’s easily possible to produce a half-gallon of heave. With that much spew, you can quickly infect an entire group of last-ditch defenders. Hopefully they are shocked, standing with their mouths open.
Other Methods
It’s amazing how many atypical sources of infections we have observed. They’re rarely the result of zed action, but it’s still good to be aware of the possibilities. Breathers can contract the z-virus by consuming infected food or being bitten by a mosquito that has recently fed on infected blood. Human scientists may inject test subjects with the virus for research purposes. We have even witnessed a newly infected human purposely infecting friends and family for undead companionship.
Of all the bizarre viral vectors, sexual contact is most common. After close encounters with our forces, human survivors tend to feel a heightened need for physical and emotional intimacy. It isn’t uncommon for the opposition to lay down their arms for a bit, and lie down with each other. As mentioned before, early symptoms of the virus are not always visible, with or without clothing.
DID YOU KNOW?
The z-virus is capable of surviving during an organ transplant. Once the organ is introduced into a new body, the patient can quickly become infected.
Stages of Zombification
The act of transference was child’s play compared to the process of zombification. Every zombie goes through a series of uncomfortable transformations that lead to reanimation. Incubation times vary, but with the most common strain of the z-virus, the process takes about 24 hours. If you are curious about what actually happens during transformation and reanimation, review the seven stages of zombification below.
Stage 1: Infection
Isn’t it amazing that this microscopic devil is the foundation of the undead kingdom? With millions of viruses, why is the z-virus the most feared by man? First off, it’s resilient. The armored capsid is capable of fending off 100 percent of antiviral drugs developed by human science. In addition, the z-virus is fast! It does not discriminate based on age, size, race, or method of transference, and
will take only seconds to bypass the immune system and begin zed restoration. Once introduced into the bloodstream, the virus dedicates itself to reproduction (yeah, baby!) and quickly begins to self-assemble within host cells.
Within 20 seconds, all of the body’s thousands of miles of veins will flow with infected blood. At this point, the circulatory system is only helping the virus. Unaware of the invasion, it will continue to cycle blood throughout the entire body, roughly three times every minute. This makes amputation of an infected limb almost impossible; a victim would have only seconds to remove the appendage, and that’s a procedure the living prefer not to rush.
As the virus attacks and breaks down healthy blood plasma, the human’s blood begins to coagulate. Eventually the heart will experience complications from the coagulating blood, prompting it to increase the number of beats per minute. This produces the z-virus’s first symptom: high blood pressure. Amazingly, the resulting pressure is forceful enough to squirt blood up to 30 feet, assuming the still-functioning heart is lacerated correctly.