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On The Defense
The story of Yahya Bey, a Turkish immigrant to the United Kingdom, describes an attack on his home village of Oltu. According to Bey, a swarm of zombies descended from the surrounding hills in the dead of night. Those who were not devoured fled either to their homes, the town mosque, or the local police station. Several were crushed in the panic to enter this last location while an accidental fire killed everyone inside. Many people, lacking the time and materials to barricade all their doors and windows, were overrun by the undead. Many, suffering from bites, sought shelter in the home of the town doctor. As he attempted to treat his patients, they expired, then reanimated. Bey, a six-year-old boy, managed to climb onto the roof of his house, remained there for most of the night, then took off at first light, jumping from roof to roof until he reached open ground. Although no one in the nearby villages believed his story, a search party was sent to look for human marauders. This group found Oltu in shambles, all buildings burned, smashed, or otherwise destroyed. Half-eaten corpses littered the deserted streets. Dragging footprints, enough to suggest a sizable group, followed a track of fewer, faster tracks into the mountains. Neither group was ever discovered.
What is the perfect protection from the undead? Truthfully, there isn’t one. Defense isn’t as simple as physical safety. Supposing you manage to find, build, or modify a structure to keep the external threats at bay—then what? Zombies will not just go away, and there’s no telling how long it will take for rescue. How will you survive? Hunger, thirst, disease, and many other factors have claimed as many lives as the walking dead. Siege warfare, the type our ancestors faced when their castles or villages were surrounded by enemies, is what you will be facing when the dead walk again. Physical safety is only one part of the equation. To be fully prepared, you must have a working knowledge of stationary survival. In an interdependent world, this art has long since been forgotten. Look around your home. How many items have been manufactured within ten, fifty, even a hundred miles of it? Our way of life, particularly as members of the richest industrialized nation on earth, requires a delicate network of transportation and communication to exist. Remove that network, and we are reduced to a standard of living reminiscent of medieval Europe. Those who comprehend this and plan for such an existence stand a much greater chance of survival. This section shows both how to create a stronghold and how to live within its boundaries.
The Private Residence (defending your home)
For Class 1 conflicts, most people’s homes will provide adequate shelter. There is no need to flee the city or town as soon as you hear that the dead are walking. In fact, this is highly discouraged. In the first hours of a zombie attack, most of the population will try desperately to escape. Roads will become a mass of stationary vehicles and panicked people, a situation that is rife with the potential for violence. Until the living destroy the dead, or the dead overrun the living, trying to flee would only add more bodies to the anarchy. So load your weapons, prepare for a fight, but stay put, stay safe, stay alert. And what better place to do so than in the comfort of your own home?
1. Preparation Part I: The Home
Before the dead rise, before the chaos and carnage begin, certain homeowners will find that they are safer than their neighbors. Although no house was ever constructed for the purpose of zombie defense, several designs have proved remarkably secure. If your house itself is not structurally ready for a zombie attack, various measures can be employed to fortify it.
A. Exceptions
Stilted homes, as seen on beaches and along rivers and other high watermark areas, were built mainly to avoid being overrun by floods. Their height already makes conventional attacks impossible. Doors and windows could even remain open and unboarded. The only entrance and one or two outside staircases could either be barricaded or destroyed once the alarm is sounded. Secure on this raised platform, survival time would be determined only by the amount of provisions a homeowner had stockpiled.
There is another highly protective dwelling that was built to combat a force just as prevalent, and just as deadly, as an undead army: Tornado-proof “safe houses,” now being constructed in the American heartland, are designed to resist mild to moderate twisters. Their layout consists of concrete walls, steel-reinforced doors, and steel shutters neatly concealed behind everyday curtains. On their own, these domiciles could withstand both a Class 1 and Class 2 outbreak.
B. Modifications to Houses
Securing a house against the undead is similar to securing it from the living. One difference is the common burglar alarm. Many of us sleep securely at night only because our alarms are “armed” and working. But what do these devices really do, other than send a signal to a private security or police force? What if these forces don’t come? What if they are occupied with other battles? What if they are ordered to protect areas deemed “more important”? What if they have ceased to exist, disappeared into the stomachs of ghouls? In any of these cases, direct means of defense are called for.
Security bars on doors and windows will stop a group of zombies for a limited amount of time. Experience has shown that as few as three walking dead can tear them down in less than twenty-four hours.
Tempered safety glass prevents entry by smashing but can be forced right out of its pane. This can easily be fixed by installing concrete or steel frames. However, the money it would take to replace each window in an average house could and should be spent instead on purchasing or building one of the two house types discussed above: stilted or tornado-proof domiciles.
A good ten-foot chain-link fence can hold dozens of zombies for weeks, even months, provided their numbers remain at Class 1. A ten-foot cinder-block wall, reinforced with steel rods and filled with concrete, is the safest barrier in both Class 1 and Class 2 outbreaks. Zoning laws may prohibit a wall this high, but don’t dismiss it. (Check with your local zoning board.) Although zombies have been known (on rare occasions) to hoist themselves over obstacles as high as six feet, this has never occurred en masse. Several people, well-armed and with good communication, can maintain a six-foot wall, not easily but safely, for as long as the stamina of this group holds out.
A gate should be steel or wrought-iron, solid if possible. It should slide to one side, not swing in or out. Reinforcement is as simple as parking your car up against it. Electric motors make opening easier but will leave you trapped in a power outage or breakdown.
As stated earlier, a ten-foot concrete wall will only provide adequate protection in a Class 1 or Class 2 outbreak. In a Class 3 outbreak, enough zombies can, and will, climb on top of each other until they form an undead ramp right over your wall.
C. Apartments
Apartments and apartment buildings vary in size and layout and, therefore, in defensibility. However, from the squat two-story buildings of Los Angeles to the concrete and glass towers of New York, certain basic rules apply.
First-floor apartments present the highest risk simply because of their accessibility. Tenants living above the ground floor are almost always safer than those in any type of house. Destroying the staircase effectively isolates the rest of the building. With the elevator turned off and the fire escape too high for a zombie to reach (strict limits are imposed by law), any apartment house can become an instant haven from the walking dead.