The ZOMBIE Survival Guide Complete Protection from the Living Dead

1901 A.D., LU SHAN, FORMOSA

According to Bill Wakowski, an American sailor serving with the Asiatic fleet, several peasants from Lu Shan rose from their beds and proceeded to attack the village. Because of Lu Shan’s remoteness and lack of wire communication (telephone/telegraph), word did not reach Taipei until seven days later.

These American missionaries, Pastor Alfred’s flock, they thought that it was God’s punishment on the Chinamen for not taking in His word. They knew faith, and the Holy Father would chase the devil out of them. Our skipper, he ordered them to stay put until he could muster an armed escort. Pastor Alfred wouldn’t hear of it. While the old man wired for help, they headed up the river… Our shore party and a platoon of Nationalist Troops reached the village just about midday… bodies, or pieces of them, were everywhere. The ground was all sticky. And the smell, God almighty, that smell!… When those things came out of the mist, disgusting creatures, human devils. We plugged them at less than a hundred yards. Nothing worked. Not our Krags, not our Gattling… Riley just kind of lost his marbles, I guess. Fixed his bayonet and tried to skewer one of the beasties. About a dozen others swarmed around him. Quick like lightning they tore my buddy limb from limb. They gnawed his flesh right down to the bone! It was a grisly sight!… And here he comes, little bald witch doctor or monk, or whatever you call him… swinging what looked like a flat shovel with a quarter moon blade on the back… must have been ten, twenty corpses at his feet… he runs over, chattering all crazy, pointing to his head then theirs. The Old Man, Lord knows how he reckoned what the Chinaman was babbling about, ordered us to aim for the beasties’ heads… We drilled them point blank… Picking through the bodies, we discovered among the Chinamen were a few white men, our missionaries. One of our guys found a monster whose spine had been snapped by a round. It was still alive, flapping its arms, snapping its bloody teeth, letting out that God Awful moan! The Old Man recognized it as Pastor Alfred. He said the Lord’s Prayer, then shot the padre in the temple.

Wakowski sold his full account to the pulp magazine Tales of the Macabre, an act that resulted in his immediate discharge and imprisonment. Upon release, Wakowski refused any further interviews. To this day, the U.S. Navy denies the story.

1905 A.D., TABORA, TANGANYIKA, GERMAN EAST AFRICA

Trial transcripts state that a native guide referred to only as “Simon” was arrested and charged with the decapitation of a famous white hunter, Karl Seekt. Simon’s defense counsel, a Dutch planter named Guy Voorster, explained that his client believed he had actually committed a heroic act. According to Voorster:

Simon’s people believe that a malady exists that robs the life force from a man. In its place is left the body, dead yet still living, without sense of self or surroundings and with only cannibalism as its drive… Furthermore, the victims of this undead monster will rise from their own graves to devour even more victims. This cycle will be repeated, again and again, until none is left upon our Earth but these horrible flesh-eating monstrosities… My client tells that the victim in question returned to his base camp two days behind schedule, his mind delirious and an unexplained wound on his arm. Later that day he expired… My client then describes Herr Seekt rising from his deathbed to set his teeth upon the rest of his party. My client used his native blade to decapitate Herr Seekt and incinerate his head in the campfire.

Mr. Voorster quickly added that he was not in agreement with Simon’s testimony and submitted it only to prove that the man was insane and should not be executed. As an insanity defense applied only to white men and not Africans, Simon was sentenced to death by hanging. All records of the trial still exist, albeit in terrible condition, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.