Roger Ma’s Zombie Combat Manual Will Save Your Ass
In a post World War Z literary environment, there is no shortage of zombie themed books. With everyone and their mother claiming to know how to protect you from the ever-looming zombie apocalypse, it’s hard to find quality works you can actually learn from. Enter Roger Ma’s The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to Fighting the Living Dead. Forget long chapters about fortifications and how-to’s on drinking your own piss Bear Grylls-style, Ma’s book cuts the fat and tells you exactly what you need to know: How to stop a zombie from calling you dinner, without the help of a shotgun, sling shot… or Bear Grylls’ piss.
The guide is absolutely worth picking up, but just in case the undead are kicking down your door before you get a chance to grab it, here are five quick things to keep you safe until you can break into your local bookstore and grab it for yourself.
5. These aren’t your grandma’s zombies.
Forget the standard 24-48 hours from bite to reanimation, in Roger Ma’s world, you can go from badass zombie killer to flesh-hungry corpse in as little as fifteen minutes. That’s right kids, it’ll take longer for your girlfriend to get ready for the movies than it will to watch your neighbor Sally go from nosey old lady to brain-eating flesh bag. Plus, it’s not just bites that can infect the living now. That’d be far too boring, right? Scratches are also deadly. So, make sure to avoid those zombies that just got their nails did before being turned into one of them.
4. Don’t work hard, work smart.
Look, we all know working out is important. Very little of those who successfully fend off zombies will look like Jabba the Hut, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time in the gym. Ma serves up easy, effective workout techniques that’ll have you taking down creepy-crawlies in no time. My personal favorite, the “Skullpopper”, involves stomping on a tire to build those leg muscles.
3. Fist pumpers are the first course.
In Ma’s world, cocky, muscle-bound men (exhibit A: Ronnie from the Jersey Shore) are easy targets because they’re quick to being cocky and slow to use their heads. Ma’s zombies don’t react to pain, so you can forget knocking them back with a simple swing of a bat. If it doesn’t re-kill them, it won’t slow them down a bit. So avoid trying to look cool by picking up a chair and hitting a zombie with it, because it’s going to be really embarrassing when your old neighbor Sally (remember her?) eats you alive in front of your friends.
2. Less Pew Pew, more FACE SPLIT.
Drop the shotgun and pick up a Viking Ax. You see shotguns in every zombie book, movie and game. They take little skill to wield and are incredibly effective, but what if you’re fighting off the undead in a city? Firing a single round from a shotgun could give your position away to hundreds, if not thousands of zombies. This is where the real meat of the survival guide lies. Ma teaches you exactly how to take down the undead without firing a single shot with a range of easy-to-find tools. If a Viking Ax doesn’t quite cut it, that’s okay, there are nearly a hundred pages on every useful close-range weapon you could hope to encounter.
1. When zombies attack, FIND ROGER MA.
(Then kick, scream and cry until he agrees to protect you)
I’m not sure why I think kicking, screaming, and crying would persuade anyone to let me join their zombie survival group, but it sounds a lot better than “ask in a reasonable manner”, doesn’t it? Anyway, if you take only one thing away from Ma’s book, it should be this: Roger Ma knows his shit and he ain’t nothin’ to fuck with. With how-tos in everything from hand-to-hand combat to what to wear, Ma’s got the know-how and he’s ready to pass it on to you. Of course, you can avoid that whole pathetic crying fit-thing by picking up the book today.
