The ZOMBIE Survival Guide Complete Protection from the Living Dead

1867 A.D., THE INDIAN OCEAN

An English mail steamer,RMS Rona, transporting 137 convicts to Australia, anchored off Bijourtier Island to aid an unidentified ship that appeared stranded on a sandbar. The shore party discovered a zombie whose back had been broken, dragging itself across the ship’s deserted decks. When they tried to offer help, the zombie lurched forward and bit off one of the sailor’s fingers. While another seaman sliced the zombie’s head off with his cutlass, the others took their injured comrade back to the ship. That night, the wounded sailor was placed in his bunk and given a draught of rum and a promise by the ship’s surgeon to check on him at dawn. That night, the fresh zombie reanimated and attacked his shipmates. The captain, in a panic, ordered the cargo hold boarded up, sealing the convicts in with the ghoul, and continued on course for Australia. For the rest of the voyage, the hold echoed with screams that melted into moans. Several of the crew swore they could hear the agonizing squeaks of rats as they were eaten alive.

After six weeks at sea, the ship anchored at Perth. The officers and crew rowed ashore to inform the magistrate what had happened. Apparently, no one believed the stories of these sailors. A contingent of regular troops were sent for, if for no other reason than to escort the prisoners off. RMS Rona remained at anchor for five days, waiting for these troops to arrive. On the sixth day, a storm broke the ship’s anchor chain, carried it several miles up the coastline, and smashed it against a reef. Townspeople, and the ship’s former crew, found no evidence of the undead. All that remained were human bones and tracks leading inland. The story of the Rona was common among sailors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Admiralty records list the ship as lost at sea.

Evidence of the attack comes from a relief party, sent to investigate the small silver-mining town after two months of isolation. This group found Piedmont in shambles. Many houses had been burned. Those still standing were riddled with bullet holes. Strangely, these holes showed that all shots had been fired from inside the houses, as if the battles had all taken place within their walls. Even more shocking was the discovery of twenty-seven mangled and half-eaten skeletons. An early theory regarding cannibalism was discarded when the town’s warehouses were found to contain enough food supplies for an entire winter. When investigating the mine itself, the relief party made its final and most terrifying discovery. The entry shaft had been blasted shut from the inside. Fifty-eight men, women, and children were found, all dead from starvation. The rescuers determined that enough food to last several weeks had been stored and eaten, suggesting that these people had been entombed for much longer than that. Once a thorough count of all corpses, mangled and starved, had been made, at least thirty-two townsfolk could not be accounted for.

The most widely accepted theory is that, for some reason, a ghoul or group of ghouls emerged from the wilderness and attacked Piedmont. After a short, violent battle, the survivors carried what food they could to the mine. After sealing themselves in, these people presumably waited for a rescue that never came. It is suspected that, before the decision was made to retreat to the mine, one or more survivors attempted to trek through the wilderness to the closest outpost for help. Since no record of this exists and no bodies have ever been found, it is logical to assume that these proposed messengers either perished in the wild or were consumed by the undead. If zombies did exist, their remains have never been recovered. No official cover-up followed the Piedmont incident. Rumors ranged from plague, to avalanche, to infighting, to attacks by “wild Indians” (no Native Americans lived in or anywhere near Piedmont). The mine itself was never reopened. The Patterson Mining Company (owner of the mine and the town) paid compensation of $20 to each relative of the residents of Piedmont in exchange for their silence. Evidence of this transaction appeared in the company’s accounting logs. These were discovered when the corporation declared bankruptcy in 1931. No subsequent investigation followed.