The ZOMBIE Survival Guide Complete Protection from the Living Dead

1839 A.D., EAST AFRICA

The travel diary of Sir James Ashton-Hayes, one of the many incompetent Europeans seeking the source of the Nile, reveals the probability of a zombie attack, and an organized, culturally accepted response to it.

He came to the village early that morning, a young Negro with a wound in his arm. Obviously the little savage had missed his spear shot and the intended dinner had kissed him goodbye. As humorous as this was to behold, the events that followed struck me as utterly barbaric… Both the village witch doctor and the tribal chief examined the wound, heard the young man’s story, and nodded some unspoken decision. The injured man, through tears, said goodbye to his wife and family… obviously in their custom, physical contact is not permitted, then knelt at the feet of the chief… The old man took hold of a large, iron-tipped cudgel then brought it crashing down upon the doomed man’s head, stoving it in like a giant black egg. Almost immediately, ten of the tribe’s warriors flung down their spears, unsheathed their primitive cutlasses, and uttered a bizarre chant, “Nagamba ekwaga nah eereeah enge.” That said, they simply headed out across the Savanna. The body of the unfortunate savage was then, to my horror, dismembered and burned while the women of the tribe wailed to the pillar of smoke. When I asked our guide for some sort of explanation, he merely shrugged his diminutive frame and responded, “Do you want him to rise again, this night?” Queer sort of folk, these savages.

Hayes neglects to say exactly what tribe this was, and further study has revealed all his geographical data to be woefully inaccurate. (Small wonder he never found the Nile.) Fortunately, the battle cry was later identified as“Njamba egoaga na era enge,” a Gikuyu phrase meaning, “Together we fight, and together we win or die.” This gives historians a clue that he was at least in what is today modern Kenya.

1848 A.D., OWL CREEK MOUNTAINS, WYOMING

Although this is probably not the first U.S. zombie attack, it is the first to be recorded. A group of fifty-six pioneers, known as the Knudhansen Party, disappeared in the Central Rockies on their way to California. One year later, a second expedition discovered the remains of a base camp believed to be their last resting place.

Signs of a battle were obvious. All manner of broken gear lay strewn among charred wagons. We also discovered the remains of at least five and forty souls. Among their many wounds, each shared a common breakage of the skull. Some of these holes appeared to have been caused by bullets, others by blunt instruments such as hammers or even rocks… Our guide, an experienced man with many years in these wilds, believed this not to be the work of wild Indians. After all, he argued, why would they have murdered our people without taking both horse and oxen? We counted skeletons of all animals and found him to be correct… One other fact we found most distressing was the number of bite wounds found on each of the deceased. As no animals, from the howling snow wolf to the tiny ant, touched the carcasses, we ruled out their complicity in this matter. Stories of cannibalism were ever present on the frontier, but we were horrified to believe such tales of godless savagery could be true, especially after such horrific tales of the Donner Party… What we could not fathom, however, was why they would turn on each other so quickly when supplies of food had still not run out.

This passage came from Arne Svenson, a schoolteacher turned pioneer and farmer, of the second expedition. This story in itself does not necessarily prove there was a Solanum outbreak. Solid evidence would surface, but not for another forty years.

A group of American treasure hunters from Boston, James Miller, Luke MacNamara, and Willard Douglass, traveled to this remote jungle province for the purpose of pillaging rumored Mayan ruins. While staying in the town of Tzinteel, they witnessed the burial of a man claimed to be “a drinker of Satan’s blood.” They saw that the man was bound, gagged, and still alive. Believing this to be some sort of barbaric execution, the North Americans succeeded in rescuing the condemned man. Once the chains and gag were removed, the prisoner immediately attacked his liberators. Gunfire had no effect. MacNamara was killed; the other two were lightly wounded. One month later, their families received a letter dated the day after the attack. Within its pages, the two men related the details of their adventure, including a sworn statement that their murdered friend had “come back to life” following the attack. They also wrote that their superficial bite wounds were festering and that a horrible fever had set in. They promised to rest for a few weeks in Mexico City for medical treatment, then return to the United States as soon as possible. They were never heard from again.