by Roger Ma
With the rise in popularity of the samurai legend in film and pop culture, many unscrupulous makers have tried to take advantage of the public’s interest in Japanese weaponry by creating replica weapons. Thus, it may be easy to purchase a naginata blade that looks ready for battle but in reality would not last a single encounter with a zombie. Beware of flimsy imitations.
Fire as a Weapon Against the Undead
Much has already been written on the effectiveness of fire as a weapon against the living dead, so much so that we believed the subject required no further clarification. However, research polls indicate that much confusion still exists about the use of flame against a walking corpse. Therefore, we hope to clarify once and for all the efficacy of neutralizing a ghoul via incineration.
In a study conducted by IUCS researchers, dubbed “The Prometheus Sessions,” fifty undead test subjects were ignited with a variety of ordinary combustible compounds, including gasoline, lighter fluid, and alcohol (100 proof). Each of the immolated specimens was then timed to determine how long it would be before the subject fully succumbed to the flames. Forty percent did not yield to the combustion before the flames extinguished themselves and the specimen required reignition. The remaining sixty percent survived an average of fifteen minutes before finally collapsing. Additional testing showed figures consistent with these results, regardless of the flammable substance used or whether the initial detonation point was applied directly to the specimen’s head or to another part of the body.
Based on this research, let us assume a best-case scenario in which a zombie does indeed yield to the flames. It still would require an average of fifteen minutes before this occurred. Recall the information in the section on anatomy regarding the ambulatory pace of the average zombie. In fifteen minutes, an ignited ghoul could cover a distance of more than half a mile before falling. Should the corpse remain ignited the entire time, it could set everything it contacts ablaze, including your fortification, or even worse, other humans. The noxious fumes created from incinerated, infected flesh must also be taken into account when using fire as an offensive undead tactic.
As a result of these findings, the only recommended use of fire as a weapon against an attacking ghoul is at long range in an outdoor environment, where you have the time, safety, and surroundings to allow the inferno to do its work. There is also the possibility of combining fire with another long-range weapon that enables you to keep the ignited ghoul contained and at bay.
MEDIUM-RANGE/ MELEE WEAPONS
Just because you can pick it up and swing it doesn’t mean you should fight with it. I’ve seen weapons go flying from hands in the middle of a fight because they were too large, too unwieldy, or just plain wrong for the fighter. It may look like what I do is just pounding pieces of metal together until they look nasty enough to do damage. It’s actually more like designing a custom-made suit. No two people are the same, and no personal trait is taken for granted.
Your weapon should feel like an extension of your body. Reach, build, hand size, strength; these are only some of the things I consider when forging one of my creations. I don’t want it to sound mystical or ethereal, because it’s not. When it comes down to it, the tailor comparison is most appropriate. Sure, you can grab something off the rack, and it may fit just fine, but it’s nothing like having something designed for you. I’ve got it so that the minute someone walks through my doors, I can almost instinctively tell what’s going to work for them.
Most of the time, the choice is not so clear to the customer. There was this one woman who came to see me; she was about five foot three and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds. Never picked up a weapon in her life, unless you count a kitchen knife. She walked out of my shop with an eight-pound war hammer. Last I heard, she’s racked up about two hundred notches on it. Both she and the hammer are still going strong.
—Simon, Weaponsmith, Cody, TX
Weapons within the melee class are typically between two and three feet long and are used to engage undead attackers at a distance of approximately four feet between opponents. At this combat range, you will most likely employ a melee weapon that falls into one of two categories.
Blunt instruments
Arms in this category include any object that can be used to cause a compound or depressive fracture on the skull and penetrate the brain cavity. They include but are not limited to formal weapons such as maces, war hammers, and cudgels, in addition to any number of improvised blunt-trauma tools.
Cutting implements
Any weapon with a sharpened single or double cutting edge falls into this weapon class, which includes swords, machetes, hand axes, and tomahawks. Bladed weapons of sufficient weight can be used to strike and penetrate the skull. Lighter weapons made of thinner steel may have difficulty penetrating the cranium and thus should focus on strike points around the neck area.
Given the choice of blade or bludgeon, which is the preferred medium-range weapon? We believe that blunt-trauma weapons hold a slight advantage at melee range. This conclusion has been drawn based on several reasons:1. Durability: All bladed weapons require regular maintenance and sharpening, most frequently after prolonged combat operations. Even the reputable Japanese katana, an excellent weapon when properly crafted, requires several swipes over a sharpening stone after battle. An ordinary blunt instrument requires much less tending, and a well-crafted bludgeon even less so.
2. Reliability: Any weapon, regardless of its resilience, will eventually need to be replaced. This can happen over the course of days, months, or years depending on the weapon and extent of its use. Bladed weapons, on average, seem to depreciate much more quickly than bludgeons. This is mostly attributed to the fact that the primary attack area is always the undead skull. Even the thinnest, most delicate areas of bone will wear down the sharpness of an edged weapon after a modest number of strikes. A battle club, on the other hand, is typically crafted out of a single piece of iron or steel. Even bludgeons that are not of the highest quality will most likely outlast all but the most exceptionally crafted (and expensive) bladed weapons.
3. Flexibility: In order to extend the life of a bladed weapon for the reasons mentioned previously, it benefits you to focus attacks specifically on the softer muscles in the neck for a decapitation attack. With a bludgeon, it is the opposite. The neck will not be an appropriate target, but you have many more assault points on the ghoul at your disposal. This makes the bludgeon a much more flexible weapon in terms of target opportunity and weapon maintenance. In addition, bludgeons can be studded with spikes, knobs, or flanges that make brain penetration much easier.
Despite this recommendation, it is important to reiterate that weapons are still very much a matter of personal preference. Using a bludgeon may also require greater strength than an edged weapon, and therefore it may not be the preferred choice for more feeble individuals. It is recommended that you train with a wide assortment of implements and discover what works best for your specific physique.
The following are evaluations of specific melee combat tools you may consider as possible choices for your arsenal:
WEAPON EVALUATION: MACE
EFFECTIVENESS: VERY HIGH
LIFE SPAN: 150+ ZOMBIE ENGAGEMENTS
SKILL LEVEL: LOW
AVAILABILITY: LIMITED
COST: INEXPENSIVE
OVERVIEW: With a combat history that spans over several millennia, the mace is one of the most ancient weapons known to humankind. Some of the earliest evidence of such a weapon has been found in Egypt, where stone heads were affixed to wooden clubs. The weapon’s destructive might increased dramatically with the advent of the Bronze Age, where the weapon’s vicious striking head could be crafted from metal rather than stone. During the Middle Ages, the mace became a popular weapon for its devastating power against the plate armor worn by knights and soldiers.
As an implement to defend against the living dead, the medieval mace is a nearly ideal weapon. Crafted to inflict sev
ere trauma against an individual encased in a suit of armor, the mace can do outstanding damage to the comparatively fragile skull of a zombie. The cost of this weapon is low, as is the skill required to wield it, which explains its popularity throughout history as a weapon of the proletariat. The learning curve to master this weapon is also quite manageable—any individual who has swung a hammering tool of any sort can be effective with this armament in short order.
The greatest liability of this particular weapon is its availability, as the quantity of high-quality maces is somewhat low and poorly made replicas abound. This liability is also somewhat minimized because even a lower-quality mace, provided that it is maintained well and inspected regularly, can be serviceable for several dozen combat sorties.
WEAPON EVALUATION: KUKRI
EFFECTIVENESS: MODERATE
LIFE SPAN: 50+ ZOMBIE ENGAGEMENTS
SKILL LEVEL: HIGH
AVAILABILITY: LIMITED
COST: EXPENSIVE
OVERVIEW: One part camp hatchet and two parts combat blade, the kukri knife, also known as the Gurkha Blade, is the national knife of Nepal and the traditional weapon of the legendary Nepalese Gurkhas, where boys receive their own kukri blade when they are barely out of diapers. The expertise with which the Gurkha warrior wielded this weapon gave rise to the false myth that blood must be drawn every time a kukri was removed from its sheath.
Although the design of the blade enables its multifunctional use in agricultural activities such as splitting wood and clearing brush, it is most effective as a tool for combat. The blade’s shape may look similar to that of a boomerang, but the kukri was not crafted as a throwing weapon. The length and deep belly at the front of the blade place additional weight at the forefront of the weapon, enabling a fighter to generate a great deal of chopping force with each swing.
As a weapon against the living dead, the kukri is at its deadliest when targeting the zombie’s vulnerable neck region. Primarily a hacking weapon, the kukri can decapitate a ghoul almost as effectively as any heavy-bladed polearm. The notch at the base of the blade can also help prevent infectious fluid from trickling down onto the bearer’s hand. Given its unusual shape and shorter length, there can be a marked learning curve for those with no prior experience to wield the kukri successfully against an attacking ghoul.
WEAPON EVALUATION: EXPANDABLE BATON
EFFECTIVENESS: LOW
LIFE SPAN: 5+ ZOMBIE ENGAGEMENTS
SKILL LEVEL: LOW
AVAILABILITY: LIMITED
COST: MODERATE
OVERVIEW: A modern weapon made popular as standard equipment among many law enforcement organizations, the expandable baton may seem like an ideal weapon against a walking corpse. It is crafted entirely of aluminum or steel, made with a comfortable handle, expands to a respectable melee range, and retracts to a fraction of its size when not in use.
Unfortunately, the baton suffers many liabilities in undead combat. As a weapon made for keepers of the peace, it is specifically classified as a nonlethal weapon. Thus, it was not made to withstand constant and repeated blows to an individual’s skull. It was intentionally designed without any severe edges that could potentially lacerate an assailant. The most common attack points for this weapon are typically on the arms and legs in order to temporarily incapacitate or disarm a threatening human. Its segmented, collapsible rods also make the weapon structurally weaker than one made from a single bar of metal.
Tests show that when subjected to the incessant battering that occurs in an undead attack, the structural integrity of the expandable baton becomes seriously compromised, and suffers from warping and irrevocable damage. Although it can be used temporarily and may be found in the duty belts of law enforcement officers who were felled in a zombie attack, it is recommended that a more reliable weapon be sought quickly as a replacement, as the expandable baton may not even last a single undead combat encounter.
WEAPON EVALUATION: TOMAHAWK
EFFECTIVENESS: HIGH
LIFE SPAN: 150+ ZOMBIE ENGAGEMENTS
SKILL LEVEL: MODERATE
AVAILABILITY: LIMITED
COST: EXPENSIVE
OVERVIEW: An implement with a long heritage on North American plains of battle, the tomahawk is a particular type of hatchet originally used by Native Americans in hand-to-hand fighting. As with the mace, the earliest incarnations of the weapon’s striking face were made of stone, with steel being the more durable choice as it became more readily available. This weapon experienced a resurgence during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries when it was modernized and distributed in limited numbers during conflicts in Asia and the Middle East. The contemporary version of the tomahawk radically improves on the historical model by replacing wood with modern polymers and heat-treating specific regions of the blade to reduce shock from heavy striking while still retaining a keen edge.
As a zombie-neutralizing tool, the tomahawk fares nearly as well as the medieval mace. The weapon can penetrate bony skull plates using either end of its wedge-shaped blade, and the modernized upgrade of this historical tool has addressed its traditional shortcomings. It does, however, suffer from several minor liabilities of which you should be mindful. The tomahawk is a rather short weapon for a melee engagement, having an average length of fifteen inches. The weapon’s sweet spot is also concentrated in a small area on the striking head, requiring a greater level of precision for each blow.
Although this weapon can be and has been accurately thrown in battle, it takes a great many hours of consistent practice to successfully perform such a maneuver. The probability that you will be able to strike a bobbing target with the tomahawk’s blade is low. Even if you are able, by luck or talent, to accomplish this feat, you must then walk the distance thrown to retrieve your weapon from the ghoul’s head, leaving you weaponless and vulnerable in the interim. Do not perform this maneuver unless you find yourself with no other choice. We will address the viability of throwing weapons at living dead attackers later in this text.
Using Hooked Armaments
When selecting a melee weapon, be wary of bludgeons that have extended hooks or long, narrow bolts, such as the claw end of a hammer, a longshoreman’s hook, or the point of a pickaxe. Although these protrusions provide excellent penetrating power into the skull, they also tend to lodge in the brain cavity. Remember that once a zombie’s brain is destroyed, its entire body instantly becomes dead weight. There have been many recorded cases of a weapon being pulled out of a fighter’s hand after becoming wedged in the ghoul’s cranial vault, leaving the individual unarmed for several crucial seconds. The time required to pull your weapon free could be crucial to your survival, particularly if engaging simultaneous attackers. This is not to say that you should not select this type of weapon, but be aware of its shortcomings during battle. One method of ensuring that your weapon always stays close at hand is to craft a retention loop attached to the armament’s handle, so that if you lose hold of the weapon, it still remains secured to your wrist. (See the discussion of weapon customization later in this section.)
COMBAT REPORT:
KENJIRO ITTO
Chief Operating Officer Kusanagi Enterprises, Sakai, Japan
I’m escorted from the helicopter pad atop Hikosaburo Plaza by four heavily armed security personnel and led down to the reception area of Kenjiro “Kenny” Itto, chairman and COO of Kusanagi Enterprises. The company is currently the world’s largest producer and exporter of modern Japanese combat arms. It was also founded by the Kishida-kai organization, one of the oldest Yakuza syndicates in Japan. The company has been instrumental in revitalizing the country’s financial system, so much so that it has been said by its detractors that post-undead Japan has effectively become a “RICOECONOMY,” one that is governed by what was formerly considered the criminal underworld. Kusanagi Enterprises exports its products to every country with functioning safe regions and provides training to military and civilian groups on four of the seven continents.
Mr. Itto gr
eets me with a slight bow followed by a firm handshake. As we make idle chatter before starting the formal interview, he asks if I am aware of the reinstatement status of the higher education system in the United States. “As a former Illini, I’m hoping for the best,” he states. We begin the interview in his office, but he decides that he would rather talk while taking me on a tour of the factory several floors below.
KI: Even before the first Japanese citizen rose from the dead, ours was a nation in free fall—economically, emotionally, and spiritually. I am a student of business, not psychology, but I know enough to realize that a man often judges himself in two very fundamental ways—as a warrior or as a provider. Our country had a rich, illustrious history as a warrior nation; one that was nearly devastated by Fat Man and Little Boy.6 After that humiliating defeat culminating on the deck of the USS Missouri, many in our society felt that it was better to relinquish our combative ways to more powerful nations, lest we suffer additional disgrace at the hands of gaijin.
Many also believed we would not recover, that we would forever be international pariahs, never again contributing to the world’s significance. But the Japanese are an industrious people. After several decades, we managed to scratch and fight our way back to a place of esteem; this time, as providers to the global economy. We leveraged our growing dominance in the automotive, semiconductor, and electronics sectors to branch out into property, banking, even entertainment, which alarmed you in the United States the most. By the mid-eighties, we were such an economic force that American families were teaching their children Japanese in preparation to communicate with their future supervisors, just as they are fluent in Mandarin and Farsi today.
