The ZOMBIE Survival Guide Complete Protection from the Living Dead

1979 A.D., SPERRY, ALABAMA

While on his daily rounds, Chuck Bernard, the local postal delivery man, stopped at the Henrichs farm to find that the previous day’s mail had not been collected. As this had never happened before, Bernard decided to carry the mail himself up to the house. Fifty feet from the front door, he heard what sounded like gunshots, cries of pain, and calls for help. Bernard fled the scene, drove ten miles to the nearest pay phone, and called the police. When two sheriff’s deputies and a paramedic team arrived, they found the Henrichs family brutally slaughtered. The only survivor, Freda Henrichs, was obviously experiencing the symptoms of advanced infection. She bit both paramedics before the deputies could restrain her. A third deputy, last to arrive and new to the force, panicked and shot her in the head. The two bitten men were brought to the county hospital for treatment and died soon afterward. Three hours later, they rose during their autopsy, attacked the coroner and his assistant, and moved out to the street. By midnight the entire town was in a panic. At least twenty-two zombies were now at large and had completely devoured fifteen people. Many survivors sought refuge in their homes. Others tried to flee the city. Three schoolchildren managed to climb to the top of a water tower. Although surrounded (several ghouls tried to scale the tower but were kicked back to the ground), these children remained safe until they were rescued. One man, Harland Lee, left his home armed with a modified Uzi submachine gun, a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, and two.44 magnum pistols (one a revolver, the other an automatic). Witnesses reported seeing Lee attack a group of twelve zombies, firing first his Uzi then the other weapons in turn. Each time, Lee aimed for the zombie’s torso, causing extreme damage but no kills. Low on ammo, and backed against a mass of wrecked cars, Lee attempted head shots with a pistol in each hand. Because his hands were shaking too violently, Lee produced no hits whatsoever. The self-appointed town savior was quickly devoured. By morning, deputies from neighboring towns, along with state police and hastily assembled vigilante groups, had converged on Sperry. Armed with sighted hunting rifles and new knowledge of the fatal head shot (a local hunter had learned this defending his home), they quickly dispatched the threat. The official explanation (provided by the Department of Agriculture) was “mass hysteria from pesticide release in local water table.” All bodies were removed by the Centers for Disease Control before civilian autopsies could be performed. The majority of radio recordings, news footage, and private photographs was immediately confiscated. One hundred and seventy-five lawsuits were filed by various survivors. Ninety-two of these cases have been settled out of court, forty-eight are still pending, and the remainder have been mysteriously dropped. One lawsuit was recently filed for access to the confiscated media footage. A court decision is said to be years away.

News of this outbreak initially came from Green Mother, an environmental group seeking to draw attention to the plight of local Indians suffering the seizure and destruction of their land. Cattle ranchers, seeking to achieve their aims through violence, armed themselves and set out for the Indian village. While deep in the rainforest, they were attacked by another, more terrifying enemy: a horde of more than thirty zombies. All ranchers were either devoured or reanimated as walking dead. Two survivors managed to make it to the nearby town of Santerem. Their warnings were ignored, and official reports explained the battle as an uprising by the Indian population. Three army brigades advanced on Maricela. After finding no trace of the undead, they moved into the Indian village. The incident that followed has been officially denied by the Brazilian government, as has any knowledge of an attack by walking dead. Eyewitness accounts have described the massacre as exactly that, with government troops destroying every walking being, zombie and human. Ironically, members of Green Mother deny the story as well, stating that it actually was the Brazilian government that fabricated a zombie hoax as justification for massacring the Indians. One piece of interesting evidence comes from a retired major in the Brazilian Army’s Bureau of Ordnance. He recounts that, in the days leading up to the battle, nearly every flamethrower in the country was requisitioned. After the operation, the weapons were returned empty.