Dr Dale's Zombie Dictionary: The A-Z Guide to Staying Alive - By Dale Seslick

INTRODUCTION

Hi, I’m Dr Dale from Dr Dale’s School of Survival, and I’ve written this book to make sure you don’t get your intestines ripped out.

First of all, let me thank you for buying my Zombie Dictionary, for taking this positive step to guarantee your own survival should the undead rise. You should take a moment now to feel a great sense of inner peace, satisfied that you had the foresight and strength to admit that you needed the Zombie Dictionary in order to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. You needed Dr Dale’s help. Yes, that’s it, let that cosy feeling of needing me just flow right through you.

OK, that’s enough inner peace and self satisfaction. We should really get down to the business of making sure you don’t die… And rise again.

Those of you who have purchased this book in the hope of finding out all about the best firearms, heavy artillery, torpedoes, missiles, tanks and submarines will be sorely disappointed. Here at the School of Survival, those are not the kind of methods we use. During a zombie apocalypse, guns will be in short supply – they also require ammunition and constant maintenance to make sure they are at peak performance. All this means that they are unreliable. You need to learn how to survive using anything and everything you can get your hands on as well as a healthy dose of common sense, and that is what we shall be focusing on in these pages.

Throughout this dictionary there will be facts that will shock, astound and amaze you in equal measure – but be aware that none of the advice can be taken as definitive. As yet, no zombies have risen from the grave on which to test our theories. However, like most resourceful, intelligent people, here at the school we have researched our information thoroughly using movies, books, blogs, forums, Wikipedia and a man down the pub who we think is called Bob…or perhaps Bert – can’t really remember, but he does wear a hat.

We hope you have an informative and life-changing journey with us through the pages of the Zombie Dictionary and if, in fact, this information turns out not to be useful and you don’t survive a zombie apocalypse, we are happy to give you a full no-qualms refund if the book is returned within 30 days of purchase, with a valid receipt, by the person who bought it.

ZOMBIES: THE BASICS

As many of you know, the word zombies begins with a Z which is the last letter of the alphabet and though some of you may find it too radical a step to cope with at this stage of your training I am going to cover ‘the Z word’ first as I feel it’s important we all know what we’re dealing with.

There is certain knowledge that I will take for granted during the book as I assume you are all aware of the basics of Zombie Mythology. For those who aren’t, here’s a brief introduction:

1) A Zombie is dead!

In recent films and in the media (28 Days Later and Left 4 Dead) zombies have been portrayed as humans who have become infected with some form of virus that has made them crave human flesh and become a bit grumpy. These are not zombies. These are people who want to eat other live human beings and are more commonly referred to as cannibals (and this is not the Dictionary of Cannibal Survival – that book will be available soon). The only zombies being dealt with in these pages are those that have been previously human, became infected, died and reanimated again.

2) A Zombie bite is infectious.

There are various ways in which a human can become a zombie (see Classification) but we do know one thing for sure. If you are bitten by a zombie you will die and rise again as a zombie yourself. Zombies attack with their mouths and this has given rise to the misconception that they are trying to ‘eat’ you. As the zombies’ digestive system is no longer operational it is highly unlikely that this is the case. The instinct to bite is merely the virus’s way of spreading and increasing the zombie masses.

3) Zombies can only be ‘killed’ by destroying the brain.

A zombie’s Achilles heel is not its heel but its brain and the only way to destroy a zombie is to destroy its brain. As all other bodily functions and systems shut down on death, the only thing that keeps the