Zombie Plague, Schmombie Plague!

by Rick Paulas

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Of the many fears that DT&R editor Rick Paulas lives with, being unprepared when the zombie hoards come for the delicious brains of the human race is not one of them.

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I think I’d manage pretty good when the prophecies of the cinematic gods come true and a zombie plague takes over the world.

First and foremost, I know how to kill them. Assuming that the movies were all accurate (and really, if they’re not, then all of humanity doesn’t stand a chance) then the simple solution is finding someway to puncture their brain. Using a gun is obviously the best method. But for me, someone whose gun-handling experience is limited to having my 5th grade graduation party at Photon Laser-Tag Arena in the south suburbs of Chicago, and playing hours and hours of Duck Hunt – most of the time cheating by holding the gun’s light beam directly in front of the TV, using a blunt instrument is probably best.

Since I currently have a bat at my disposal, I’ll start off defending myself from the Decomposing Hordes of the Dead by using it. The problem is that it’s made out of wood, meaning it would only be able to cave in, at most, a dozen of the undead. After that, I could risk using my hammer, but by placing myself so close to the mouths of the walking dead, I’m risking exposure to the virus and becoming a zombie myself, leading to one of those awkward moments where I ask my best friend to “just kill me, man, kill me!”, leaving him in an uncomfortable position of killing me without seeming too eagar about it. So right off the bat (pun stumbled into, but kept in, even though there has to be some alternate way of saying this without sounding so corny) I’m at a disadvantage. Luckily, I have people skills.

And that’s going to be one of the more important qualities, but not right away. After the first 30-to-40 days are over, when the world is taken over by panicked mobs killing each other for food and copies of Tiger Beat magazine, which is the predetermined legal tender of the world in case of zombie outbreak, or at least that’s the explanation I use when my dinner guests take a wrong turn at the atrium and end up in the Possible Future Currency section of my storage hut instead of the 4th floor unisex bathroom.

But once the world’s population is down to a few million stragglers, and the threat from living humans is mostly nonexistent (except for the occasional jerk who uses the “I thought you were a zombie” excuse when you hit on his girlfriend, even though you weren’t sure the two of them were together when you used the “Want to help proliferate the species?” pickup line on her), then people are going to group up. Colonies will begin to form on their own, like those small magnetic filings in an Etch-A-Sketch drawing board. And everyone will be looking for a leader.

Now I’m not saying I’d be the best suited for Leader of the Remaining Humans as they take on the zombie hoard, but I’m make a pretty damn fine Cabinet member. Secretary of the Proliferation of the Species, or something like that. It’ll be a dirty job, but someone’s going to have to make sure that men aren’t prematurely pulling out during intercourse because they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood. I mean, this is the human race we’re talking about here. All sperm must be accounted for. No pump must be wasted!

My campaign will be based on a platform of my own personal experience with fertilization. I currently have 14 illegitimate children (at least) running around, calling every male they run into “Da-da?” Be on the lookout for them in porn. My daughters will be in front of the cameras, while my sons will be behind the camera, narrating for the audience in an extremely creepy voice – one that will somehow inevitably develop a European accent.

A few days before the voters cast their ballots (which will entail throwing cell phones in a certain direction: “to the right is a vote for Mr. Paulas; to the left, a vote for Dr. Coronado”), I’ll use a smear campaign against my opponent by passing small post-in notes with crude drawings of him - you can tell it’s him because I name him beneath my stick figure - having illicit sex with a donkey, a horse, a cow, or whatever animal the prospective voters see when they look at my rudimentary Rorschach drawing of a round torso on four legs. “Leave it up to their own subconscious”, my campaign advisor Professor Bubbles will say. “It makes it feel like the attack is personally against them.” Little will they know that, in reality, I drew a sheep.

And if this has no effect on the remaining souls who walk Earth without a hunger that can only be quenched by feeding on brains, and those fools choose to elect that jerkoff with the fancy degree, legitimate children, and promises ofl “having the professional courtesy not to root on the couples with loud chants and mid-coital high-fives as they perform intercourse”, well then, I’ll just buy my way into office the new-fashioned way: with my stash of Tiger Beat magazines.