Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies

by Mogk, Matt

  3. Civil response. Are police, fire, and rescue services highly trained in emergency preparedness? Is the local population psychologically ready for disaster? Are there ample hospitals and other public services?

  Let’s use Los Angeles as a test case. The city scores relatively low in combat readiness because of its high population density and average gun-ownership rate. Despite a favorable climate, its infrastructure score is also poor, because transportation options and water resources are horrible. Finally, its civil response score is high because emergency training is excellent, and the threat of earthquakes has created strong cultural preparedness for disaster.

  Overall, Los Angeles gets a C+. What is your city’s ROS rank?

  SURVIVAL ACROSS THE STATES

  By comparing hard statistical data from different regions throughout the United States, including population density, climate, topography, gun-ownership rate, military presence, and public infrastructure, the zombie survival picture becomes clear.

  According to the calculations, the Northeast rates lowest in likely survivability against the undead. Eight of the top ten states in terms of population density are in that region, with New Jersey leading the pack at one thousand people per square mile. But the supporting data don’t stop there.

  The Northeast also has extremely low gun-ownership rates, with six of the least-armed states being in that area of the country. A lot of people and not a lot of firearms, along with crowded urban centers and clogged transportation corridors, lay the groundwork for a deadly explosion in the zombie population.

  Which region is the safest? The middle Northwest boasts low population density and high gun ownership, with Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota landing in the top ten in both categories. In fact, Wyoming is rated second highest in overall survivability, with just five people per square mile and topping the list with an estimated gun-ownership rate of almost 65 percent. The region benefits from rugged terrain accented by large expanses of open land and an impressively self-reliant population.

  Standing out above the rest, Alaska captured the top spot. Though it came in second in combat readiness, it boasts only one person per square mile. But as we’ve seen, Alaska’s natural benefits offer specific challenges, too, highlighting the fact that no place is perfect when it comes to zombie survival.

  TOP TEN STATES

  1. Alaska

  2. Wyoming

  3. Montana

  4. South Dakota

  5. Idaho

  6. North Dakota

  7. Arkansas

  8. Utah

  9. West Virginia

  10. Mississippi

  BOTTOM TEN STATES

  41. California

  42. Delaware

  43. Florida

  44. Illinois

  45. Maryland

  46. New York

  47. Connecticut

  48. Massachusetts

  49. Rhode Island

  50. New Jersey

  To be clear, living in a state at the bottom of the survivability list doesn’t guarantee certain doom any more than living in one at the top guarantees success. I would much prefer to be fully emotionally and physically ready for a zombie outbreak in Massachusetts than caught completely off-guard and unprepared in Montana. Ultimately, true zombie survival is an individual concern, with each person making the choices necessary to either stay alive or die trying.

  Ratings and statistics are important only to the extent that they give you a better understanding of the bigger picture, providing insight into potential areas of concern in your survival landscape.

  27: THE GLOBAL VIEW

  According to the American Red Cross’s 2010 World Disasters Report, the next global disaster—whether natural, man-made, or zombie—may well be even worse than any we’ve experienced in the past several decades. The report finds that rapid urbanization, poor local governance, population growth, inadequate health services, and a rising tide of urban violence make the human race increasingly vulnerable to catastrophe.

  Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, has done extensive research on likely governmental reactions to a global zombie plague. His resulting nonfiction work, Theories of International Politics and Zombies, was published by Princeton University Press in February 2011.

  Drezner argues that preventing an undead outbreak isn’t possible, because we don’t know how zombies will ultimately be created and where they will first crop up. The only option is contingency planning for a worst-case scenario, but as we’ve seen with any number of other large-scale disasters in recent years, that planning is rarely done:

  It’s a global reality. Governments are composed of bureaucracies, and what all bureaucracies try to do is create standard operating procedures to handle routine things. Zombies aren’t routine, and applying these procedures to them likely won’t work very well.

  Overwhelming evidence suggests that bureaucracies will falter in the face of a zombie pandemic, but what of the world’s military establishment? Couldn’t the stronger nations overpower their undead foe with strict discipline and overwhelming firepower? Or at the very least, wouldn’t the threat of human-on-human violence be quelled by the mere presence of government troops?

  As we have seen, when disaster strikes hardest, abundant food and potable water jump to the top of the list of survival priorities. Without water to drink, you can’t make it more than a week. Without food, you’ve got a month, tops. This immediate need for the essentials of life has the potential to undermine any military effort to control the worsening situation. And because zombies don’t share the same survival limitations, they continue to multiply and grow stronger in numbers, while the global population grows weaker by the day.

  In the weeks after the devastating Haitian earthquake of 2010, upward of fifteen thousand U.S. troops were sent to keep the peace, with their primary objective being to protect the precious relief supplies arriving from all over the world. With a total Haitian population of just 9 million, that’s roughly one soldier for every six hundred people. Still, reports of violence and looting were rampant.

  To reach that same level of military presence within the United States, the government would need to deploy 517,000 troops to the streets of every city and town from Florida to Oregon. That’s roughly 90 percent of the active-duty soldiers in the entire army assigned to protect pallets of bottled water. And if a zombie outbreak causes desertion rates to spike, the other branches of service could be swallowed up, too. Would you show up for duty in Georgia knowing your spouse and children might be attacked and killed in your home in Iowa?

  No doubt, some nations will fare better than others, simply because of their military capability, infrastructure, and stocked resources. So, which is the best, and which is a zombie nightmare waiting to happen?

  THE WORLD’S WORST

  When comparing the outcomes of a zombie outbreak with other more common natural and man-made disasters, we find that the worst places to be are generally poorer countries with dense populations. Authoritarian regimes often fail miserably under the weight of these large-scale stresses, too. Which countries rank lowest globally in the case of a catastrophic undead pandemic? All available data clearly point to two that are likely doomed.

  With 1.35 billion people living on 3.7 million square miles of land, China has a population density lower than that of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. However, its paltry gun-ownership rate of just 3.5 percent means that the People’s Republic has a fraction of the number of armed citizens residing in the United States. Add into the mix a notoriously secretive government that rules with an iron fist, and China ranks near the bottom in global zombie survivability. But another country is even worse off.

  Without a doubt, India is the last place you want to be in a zombie pandemic. It packs in 944 people per square mile, making it an ideal recruiting ground for new undead conscripts, and of a total populat
ion of 1.3 billion, less than 4 percent own firearms. Furthermore, India’s military is substantially smaller and not as well equipped as that of either China or the United States.

  Dead Snow (2009)

  VEGARD:

  She’s not here right now. She’s skiing across the mountains.

  OLD MAN:

  Skiing across the mountains?

  LIV:

  She’s a bit sportier than the rest of us.

  VEGARD:

  Why? Is the terrain dangerous?

  OLD MAN:

  The terrain is the least of your worries up there.

  BEST COUNTRIES

  We’ve seen the worst, but where is the best? At first glance, countries with remote or hard-to-traverse terrain tend to stand out. Other desirable attributes include ample food supplies, a self-reliant population, and solid military and civilian defense capabilities.

  Note that only nations with a population of more than 5 million were included in this evaluation. So a country like New Zealand, with a citizenship of just 4.4 million, did not meet the criteria for consideration.

  Here is a list of the top ten safest countries in a zombie outbreak:

  10. Sweden. A favorably small population and many natural defenses help Sweden capture the tenth spot. Its military is well trained, well equipped, and solely focused on the defense of its people and lands.

  9. Argentina. As the eighth-largest country in the world by landmass, Argentina is sandwiched by the Andes Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. Its high level of urbanization keeps it from climbing higher on the list.

  8. Finland. The Finnish benefit from being surrounded by other countries strong in zombie survivability, and their population density of just forty-one people per square mile doesn’t hurt, either.

  7. Norway. The fact that the tiny country of Norway came in second in gold medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics shows that Norwegians know how to thrive in icy conditions. A lot of snowy land and a few hearty people to defend it is a recipe for survival.

  6. Bolivia. With mountains to protect the population from its neighbors and the worst economy in South America, Bolivians are adept at managing without modern conveniences and can ably fend for themselves.

  5. Kazakhstan. Borat made the whole world laugh at this little country, but Kazakhstan may get the last laugh. The rugged terrain, formidable climate, and extremely low population density are key survival factors.

  4. Russia. Low population density, huge land barriers, and a battle-tested people give Russia the number four spot. If the Nazis couldn’t take Leningrad, there’s no reason to think that zombies will.

  3. United States. With more than eighty-three people per square mile, the United States is considerably more dense than any other country in the top five, but its heavily armed citizenship is more ready for a battle than most.

  2. Canada. Sure, its 35 million residents are packed in a thin strip along the country’s southern border, but gun ownership is common, and there’s plenty of room to head north when the dead rise.

  1. Australia. This vast nation grabs the top spot because of its population density of just 7.5 people per square mile and the fact that it has the world’s biggest moat surrounding it on all sides.

  As we’ve seen, traveling even a short distance in an un-dead world will be a dangerous and slow affair. Building your survival plan around simply hopping on a plane to the Aussie outback at the first sign of the zombie plague is extremely ill-advised. No matter how high on the list, a given country is only suitable for extreme survival to its own population or those few outsiders who are intimately familiar with the climate, culture, and resources.

  Running off to some perfect new land that will welcome you with open arms and readily provide everything you need to thrive is a fairy tale, and when the dead walk, fairy tales get you killed.

  28: PAST OUTBREAKS

  In the winter of 1918, history’s most lethal virus was born in an army camp in Kansas, then quickly spread, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide in little more than a year. In terms of the panic it caused and the lives it destroyed, the Spanish flu is the closest thing to a trial run for a global zombie pandemic that the modern world has ever seen.

  The Department of the Navy’s records for that period give a glimpse into the collateral problems generated by so many dead so quickly:

  Bodies started piling up in the road. In a vision not seen since the Black Death of medieval Europe, carts went through the streets, their drivers calling for people to bring out the dead for burial. Wagon loads of bodies were buried together, some having died weeks earlier. Highway workers dug large trenches and filled them to capacity.58

  If zombies carry with them the same disease and filth as a human corpse—and there is no reason to think they don’t—one of their greatest weapons might be their ability to spread sickness from afar.

  A handful of bodies left out to rot in the elements can generate a putrid smell for some distance, but hundreds of thousands of rotting bodies could literally create a toxic death-cloud that invades the lungs of hiding humans, rendering them too sick to defend themselves before a single ghoul is even in the same zip code.

  Imagine coming down with a high fever. Your head is pounding, you’re sweating bullets, you can hardly see straight, and the thought of eating makes you physically ill. After three or four days of this, there’s finally a scratching at your front door. By the time zombies come to finish off what’s left of you, death seems like a welcome change, as you’re too weak even to fight back.

  We’d seen these things on TV, but to be this close was something else. I wanted to take a deep breath to settle my nerves, but the stench made that seem like a bad idea.

  —Groundwood (2010), Bev Vincent

  No scent is more distinctive and revolting than that of death. The stench is so universally repugnant that even insects avoid coming in contact with the dead of their own species. In 2009, biologist David Rollo of McMaster University in Canada made this discovery accidentally while researching the social behavior of cockroaches. Rollo found that when he crushed dead cockroaches, spreading their body juice across a specific area, other roaches wouldn’t dare come near:

  It was amazing to find that the cockroaches avoided places treated with these extracts like the plague. Naturally, we wanted to identify what chemical was making them all go away.59

  Though human noses can’t easily detect the fatty acids of dead bugs, we are repelled by the sickly-sweet smell of mammalian corpses, especially those other humans. Anyone who has smelled even a tiny dead mouse under the stairs will never forget the stench of death.

  There’s a lot we can learn from past outbreaks of other more common deadly pandemics, but what of zombie outbreaks throughout history? There are no confirmed incidents in the historic record, but by investigating possible attacks from the past, we can hope to reach a better understanding of the threat we may soon face.

  ZOMBIE COLONY OF ROANOKE

  In 1587, the colony of Roanoke was established on a small island along the coast of present-day North Carolina. One hundred fifteen men and women eagerly arrived at what they thought would become the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The group was well stocked with supplies and lived in secure structures that offered good protection from the elements and any unfriendly neighbors.

  The mystery of Roanoke began when a supply ship returned in 1590 to find not a single living soul and no evidence of war, famine, or any other possible reason for the colony’s complete disappearance. In fact, there is still no generally accepted explanation for what happened to those settlers, leading some to suggest that it may have been the work of zombies.

  Max Brooks included a fictional zombie outbreak on Roanoke in his 2003 bestseller, Zombie Survival Guide, and now it seems life is imitating art, as noted Harvard archaeologist Lawrence Stager recently unearthed evidence of mass cannibalism at the Roanoke site.60

  No doubt, a sudden undead plague sweeping through the un
prepared colony would quickly become a horrific, violent feast, leaving not a single man, woman, or child alive. The relative isolation of the settlement and the time elapsed before the return of the supply ship might have allowed for the remaining colonial zombies to rot back into the earth. Without any humans left to feed on and therefore no way to spread the infection, the zombies would have simply died off.

  If the colonists did experience a catastrophic undead event, there could be something sinister still in the ground on Roanoke Island, waiting to be released into a modern population that is more advanced, more connected, but just as unprepared as ever.

  What’s more, if the settlers on Roanoke Island were, in fact, overrun by a deadly zombie outbreak, then there are certain important date markers to note. They landed at their new home on July 27, 1587, and exactly one month later, the ships that delivered them sailed back to England. Then, on August 18, 1590, the ships returned to bring supplies and support to the new colony, but they found not a single living soul.

  Even if the Roanoke zombie plague began just days after the ships sailed, the lack of human remains found upon their return indicates that an outside estimate for the zombie life span would be two years. It could obviously be much shorter, but two years is a probable max.

  The notion is that there must have been enough time for zombies to completely overrun the colony, leaving no one left alive, and then wander the island aimlessly until they slowly decayed back into the earth. By the time the reinforcements arrived, there would be nothing for them to discover.

  ROME IN RUINS

  In March 2010, archaeologists excavating ancient Roman ruins in Italy uncovered a mysterious lead coffin weighing almost a thousand pounds. Not only is the metal slab bizarrely heavy, but it’s also folded over its encased corpse like a “burrito.”