Zombie Apocalypse: Difference between revisions

Whatever the cause, the result is the same; the recently dead have risen, ''en masse'', to feed on the living. With each victim they claim, their numbers swell, and no force on Earth can contain them. As society collapses, it's up to the [[Big Damn Heroes]] to fight their way to safety or keep shooting until things blow over.

 

 

While [[Horror]] is assumed to be an inherent part of the zombie apocalypse, not all the horror and conflict comes from the zombies themselves. Instead it can come from the reaction of the living humans involved, and how they respond to the state of fear and violent chaos brought about by the zombies. Often, the answer is [[Divided We Fall|"not well"]]. The breakdown of society, the fear that your [[Fire-Forged Friends]] could be infected and turned against you without warning, are just as or more important to a zombie story as the zombies themselves.

 

 

Due to the threat that zombies pose (they did just become the apocalypse, after all), protagonists of more serious works are required to become very genre savvy very quickly (but will demonstrate genre blindness with regard to the word "zombie" itself). [[Failure Is the Only Option|Failure is often the only option]] in these stories; [[Downer Ending|rarely do they have an ending]] that could be considered "happy" by typical standards, or indeed one where [[Inferred Holocaust|humanity survives]] as a species. Another main staple is that things will always, ''always'' [[It Got Worse|get worse]]. Either from the character's actions or circumstance which are out of their hands, no matter how improbable it is.

** ''[[Highschool of the Dead]]'' also subverts the traditionally leftist/libertarian politics behind most zombie-themed works, and is one of the few that takes on an explicitly right-wing nationalist stance. An ''[[wikipedia:Uyoku dantai|uyoku dantai]]'' group provides safe and effective harbour for survivors (whereas the "normal people" undermine it), and the military is shown to be effective at containing zombies. There are also some scenes where the characters lament the stupidity or myopic priorities of groups of anti-government radicals and protestors. Speaking of characters, the main cast includes: the rich, blue-blooded daughter of the ''uyoku dantai'' leader, an [[Heir to the Dojo]] with traditionalist [[Yamato Nadeshiko]] views and styles, a gun nut trained by a Blackwater mercenary, and the daughter of a police officer (and, by extension, [[The Man]]), while the head of the group is praised by the ''uyoku dantai'' leader for his filial piety (family loyalty). The anime actually had some scenes involving Saya's family altered because it became increasingly apparent to the [[Media Watchdog|Media Watchdogs]] that [[What Do You Mean It's Not Political?|the creators were trying to make a political statement with an unpopular group]].

*** The licensed English translation also tries to downplay the right-wing politics of ''Highschool of the Dead''. For instance, in one scene a character likens the Ukyou Dantai group to a mafia - in the Japanese Saya rejects that and defends her father's group, noting how it's a force for good in the community; in the Yen Press version, however, she only growls "we're so right-wing even the mafia hate us", which quite badly distorts the original point.

* Parodied in the ''[[D.Gray-man]]'' manga. The Science Department created Komuvitamin D in order to help people work overtime, however it turned them into zombie-like people instead. The zombie arc was played mostly for comedy but there is one scene where {{spoiler|it is discovered that a ghost of a girl experimented on didn't want the Black Order to leave and infected them so they would stay forever as mindless infected people. However, Komui [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|starts reciting the names of all the kids that died from experimentation by the Black Order in order to find out her name, telling her that even if they leave, they will never forget her.]] It doesn't stay serious for long}}.

* In ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'', the justification for {{spoiler|the Plan 34 massacre is that the [[Hate Plague]] Hinamizawa Syndrome could cause a Russo-style Zombie Apocalypse if it started spreading out of control.}} The manga-only chapter ''Onisarashi-hen'' shows precisely what happens when {{spoiler|Plan 34 fails and the disease breaks quarantine: aside from a few isolated cases, life goes on as normal. The person who created Plan 34 deliberately lied about how dangerous the Syndrome was in order to get it approved.}}

* Parodied in the [[Monster Mash|Thriller Bark arc]] of ''[[One Piece]]'', where pretty much every single zombie convention is shattered. Here, zombies can move pretty quick, they get tired, they have resorted to fighting each other on a couple occasions, and bite from them has no effect; plus, the giant zombie is actually [[Lightning Bruiser|the fastest one of the bunch.]] However, this does make sense considering these zombie are made by implanting the personality and move set of a living person into a specially modified corpse.

** Thriller Bark zombies feel no pain, however. They feel ''fear'' just fine, but not pain.

* In a ''[[Naruto]]'' Shippuden filler arc, a group of ninja has a special jutsu that makes zombies. It turns out that the zombie apocalypse facing the leaf village is {{spoiler|actually a diversion, and the real goal is to revive 4 powerful ninja monks who can use a lightning jutsu to destroy the village in one shot.}}

** Chapter 515 shows a bunch of dead characters being revived by Kabuto to use as his personal army against the United Shinobi Alliance.

*** Amusingly, this was actually itself made fun of in [[Marvel Zombies]] 5, in which the characters go to the [[Welcome to The Real World|real world]] and talk about how the trope itself makes little sense.

* ''[[The Goon]]'' is all about zombies, all are created by an unnamed Zombie Priest to be his army, most are fully sentient and can do pretty much anything (others are standard Romno) also the bulk of them are all former Mobsters.

** When the story was adapted for the animated series (see below), the color of the "zombie" Smurfs was changed from black to purple, presumably to avoid any accusations of racism.

** The Papercutz translation of the original comic book story to English also changes the infected Smurfs to purple.

* ''[[REC (film)|REC]]'', and the American remake ''[[Quarantine (film)|Quarantine]]'' document the first stage of a zombie apocalypse with an [[In-Universe Camera]]. In these films, the zombies are afflicted by a disease described as similar to rabies. It's hinted that a mysterious tenant intentionally created the disease.

* In Lamberto Bava's ''[[Demoni]]'', the creatures are more like monsters than zombies, but they work with zombie rules and may have been an inspiration for straight zombie films to follow.

* Italian director [[Lucio Fulci]]'s ''[[Zombi 2]]'' took the Romero concept and increased the gore factor with such novel touches as [[Everything Is Even Worse With Sharks|a zombie fighting a shark underwater]] and [[Eye Scream|a woman getting her eye gouged out with a sliver of wood]].

* ''[[Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror]]'' takes this trope to its beginning phase, with zombies coming back as the presumable result of an ancient curse, and includes [[It Can Think|tool-using zombies]], along with the unusual use of [[Dawson Casting|an adult dwarf playing the role of a child]].

* [[Older Than Dirt]] invocations in [[Mesopotamian Mythology]]:

** In ''[[The Epic of Gilgamesh]]'', [[Jerkass Gods|the goddess]] [[I Have Many Names|Ishtar/Inanna]] tells her father that if he doesn't help her get revenge on Gilgamesh for turning down her proposition, she will break open the underworld and [[Disproportionate Retribution|bring up the dead to consume the living]], all of them. He, sensibly, agrees to her alternative. Had she gone through with it, it would probably have been the [[Ur Example]] by a couple of millennia.

* Max Brooks' ''[[The Zombie Survival Guide]]'' is a handbook on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Its advice is based around classic zombie behavior that is not quite rooted to any specific source. It breaks down the hazards and strategies in detail, from zombie strengths and weaknesses to effective combat tactics.

* Max Brooks' next effort, ''[[World War Z]]'' is a mockumentary of a past zombie invasion, conducted in a series of interviews with survivors from around the world. The interviews are ordered so as to take the reader through the war chronologically, from "Patient Zero" to the Zombie Apocalypse to the eventual human victory. The interviews are supposedly conducted by [[Author Avatar|Max Brooks himself]]. When ''The Zombie Survival Guide'' is mentioned and criticized, the "interviewer" says, "Oh really?"

* Jonathan Maberry's book ''Zombie CSU The Forensics of the Living Dead'' is a [[What If]] scenario in book form. The author has interviewed [[Real Life]] Police, SWAT, doctors, hospitals, 911, and even DHS about what they would be doing to react if the Zombies began walking the earth. Delightfully enough, all the agencies and groups interviewed in the book had already given the question some consideration and had strategies formulated. [[Crazy Prepared|Yes, even the]] [[Dead Rising|DHS]].

** His novel ''Patient Zero'', has a genetically engineered version of [[The Virus]] (that infected unusually fast via parasites and prions along with the viral cocktail) that creates Zombies used as a weapon by jihadist terrorists who come up with a strain that allows for ''smart zombies''.

* Richard Matheson's 1954 book ''[[I Am Legend]]'', while it was about vampires and not zombies, is an important precursor to the genre. Matheson's novel was adapted into the films ''The Last Man on Earth'', the most faithful adaptation, and later into ''The Omega Man'', which apes the then-recent ''Night of the Living Dead'' to a degree and turns the vampires into Luddite photophobic albino mutants produced by biological warfare. The most 2007 adaptation, ''I Am Legend'', has the infected more like an odd cross between zombies and vampires.

* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] [[Horus Heresy]] novel ''False Gods'', the attack on [[Garden of Evil|Davin's moon]] is met by hordes of animated corpses.

* [[John Wyndham]]'s 1951 novel ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]'', while concerned with genetically engineered [[Man-Eating Plant|Man Eating Plants]], foreshadows many themes of the contemporary Zombie Apocalypse. Society collapses after an atmospheric event causes mass blindness. The sighted and unsighted alike struggle to scavenge a living while being hunted by this new predator. Eventually the sighted protagonists retreat to the countryside and barricade themselves in a farm house, fending off repeated Triffid attacks. The book is heavy with social commentary and contains memorably hellish imagery of shambling, groping masses of humanity. The Triffids themselves have a rickety, limping gait and are slow moving, awkward creatures of little threat individually (unless they catch you unawares). In large numbers, however, they are a serious menace; able to force their way in anywhere and seemingly capable of rudimentary communication and organization. The most effective way of stopping one is to 'decapitate' it using special blade firing weapons. It has been adapted as a lightweight 1962 monster movie (casts the Triffids as extraterrestrial plants) and a more faithful (albeit stagey) 1981 television series, and then again as a TV series in 2009.

* ''[[Star Trek]] Destiny'' reveals that this is how {{spoiler|the Borg came to be, as a result of two humans lost in the Delta Quadrant getting "possessed" by a starving energy being called a Caeliar, capable of manipulating matter as she saw fit. Then all they did was [[Schmuck Bait|wait for the locals to come wondering what that huge racket was]]...}}

* David Wellington's ''Monster Island'' and its sequels provide Romero-style zombies with an exception: if your brain is provided with oxygen between death and before returning as a zombie, you return as an intelligent zombie which the sequels call a lich. The dead are reanimated as a result of a scientist having pierced the source of [[Life Energy]], causing the world to overflow with life energy, reanimating the dead. The trilogy is available online.

* ''[[Friday the 13th]]: The Jason Strain'' has Jason, while a "special guest" on a [[Deadly Game]], [[Halfway Plot Switch|being abducted by scientists, who want to replicate his regenerative abilities and immortality]]; Jason wakes up partway through the vivisection, rampages through the lab [[Gone Horribly Wrong|and is exposed to an experimental virus which reacts negatively with him, giving him the ability to reanimate his victims as zombies]]. Thousands of deaths later the virus is cured and Jason's rid of his new powers. Notably headshots don't stop the zombies - the head needs to be ''completely'' eradicated in order for them to be fully (re-)killed. Also, Jason fights a shark in reference to ''[[Zombi 2]]''.

* Rot and Ruin takes place about 15 years after an unexplained Zombie apocalypse, and while the zombies are relatively easy to kill (zombie hunters tend to make a game of it) the society is still kind of in shock, so the idea of any organised take-back-the-earth campaign fails to gain traction when it's brought up. Something of an unusual example in that while the main characters do kill Zombies, one of the main points of the book is that just because they're walking around doesn't mean they're not someone's dead relative who [[Due to the Dead|deserves respect]]

* ''[[Diario de un Zombi]]'' has this as the setting for a depopulated Barcelona. Add in unstoppable biomechanical horrors and cultists.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* The Borg of ''[[Star Trek]]'' fame are almost Zombies [[In Space]]! One guest star even referred to them as 'cybernetic zombies.'

** They are in fact [[Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie|cyborg pirate zombies]]. In space.

** There's also the episode, "New Earth" set in a hospital in the year 5 billion and twenty-three on, naturally enough, a New Earth which is run by cat people. Towards the end, we find out that {{spoiler|the doctors have been growing people in an enormous area under the hospital and exposing them to various diseases from the moment of their conception, which has turned them into your common-or-garden Romero zombie}}. Of course, the buggers get out and mischief ensues.

** ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' did a zombie-themed story for the show's pilot episode, "The Invasion of the Bane". In this case, the zombie effect is caused by consuming a new energy drink that turns out to be a symbiotic life form. The resulting zombies try to force others to drink the stuff.

* Discovery's ''[[The Colony]]'' is a reality TV show that takes place after a simulated "viral catastrophe". It's basically a zombie apocalypse with the zombies cut out.

* An episode of ''Smallville'' dealt with a zombie apocalypse.

* ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'' features a recurring sketch about a game show taking place in a world where an unspecified, but clearly horrific and traumatising, "Event" has happened. Food is scarce, there are no more children, there are frequent exhortations to "Remain Indoors" and the survivors live in terror of a mysterious '''Them''', who look like us because they used to ''be'' us. {{spoiler|The latest episode has revealed that '''They''' are sephulchral voiced, red-eyed zombies with a taste for human flesh. Oh. ''And they've got in''.}} It's hinted that this is not the worst part of the "Event".

* The ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "The End" has exactly this. It was more or less a [[Shout-Out]] to ''28 Days Later'' (rage virus infected, very fast Zombies, I mean Croates).

* The Devil Wears Prada's concept EP "Zombie", as the name implies, centers around one of these. The lyrics and sound clips in between songs (such as the quote at the top of the page) rely heavily on the genre's many clichés.

* [[Lemon Demon]]'s ''Bad Idea''.

* Oderus Urungus of GWAR leads the Zombie Army.

* Kirby Krackle [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyGOXA1r4K4 "Zombie Apocalypse"]

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' brought on plague zombies during the 13th Black Crusade, courtesy of the god of pestilence and decay, and other zombie infestations have been known to be caused by Tyranids and a fair number of different plants.

** Plague zombies have been part of 40k background for almost as long as the Chaos powers, and are a playable gang in the spinoff skirmish game Necromunda.

** The latest Innistrad block takes this [[Up to Eleven|way over eleven]], by introducing a good old fashioned zombie apocalypse, [[Vampire Tropes|vampires]] and [[Big Badass Wolf|werewolves]], [[Mad Scientist|mad scientists]] and their [[Eldritch Abomination|abominations]], demons, and central to the block's story, [[Beyond the Impossible|all of these at once]].

*** Name-dropped in the Dark Ascension card [http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/dka/3zfb3i9bkw_en.jpg Zombie Apocalypse], which brings back all of your zombies then destroy all humans in play.

** The Gotha Zombies have a few differences from other zombies, though; they're semi-intelligent, and function more like a highly aggressive chimpanzee tribe in terms of organization than anything else. They're quite willing to eat zombies from other "tribes", and will even eat their own if there isn't any other food available.

* In 2008, [[Rifts|Palladium Books]] debuted their own Zombie Apocalypse game: Dead Reign. Featuring a mish-mash of tropes and abilities. (The majority of the Zombies are tough, slow-moving ones, but there are also fast zombies, thinking zombies, zombies that don't believe they're zombies, and "half-dead".)

* In ''[[Exalted]]'', this is one of the favored tactics of the more militarily inclined Deathlords. High level Necromancy can raise corpses en masse, and certain spells can even corrupt an area to the point that the dead will rise of their own accord. Eye and Seven Despairs, one of the Deathlords, has even pioneered a zombie plague that works on its own accord, but is too busy [[Revenge Before Reason|tormenting the reincarnations of people who screwed with him in the First Age]] to actually deploy it.

* ''[[Deadlands]]'' has zombies, but these things are intelligent and cunning. Makes them hard to put down. Particularly if they're intact enough to be ''shooting back''.

** [[Greyhawk|The World of Greyhawk]] campaign setting included a zombie variant known as a "Son of Kyuss," which was an aggressive zombie with green worms crawling about in its eye sockets. If the worms landed on someone, they burrowed under that person's skin and attempted to reach the brain, at which point the victim would become another Son of Kyuss. Given the nature of some of the beings in the game, these creatures were probably too weak to cause a full-scale apocalypse, but they could easily wipe out an entire village of zero-level humans.

** In the 3.5 edition book Elder Evils, there's a world born dead, Atropus, whose coming is marked by the undead rising from their graves in a zombie apocalypse. As in some other Zombie Apocalypses, his coming may cause anyone who dies by any means (not just killed by a zombie) to rise as a zombie (or skeleton if there's not enough flesh for a zombie). When Atropus gets close enough to the planet anyone who's dead will reanimated as a skeleton or zombie by tearing out of their graves even if they were killed years ago.

 

 

* The FPS ''[[STALKER|S.T.A.L.K.E.R.]] - Shadow of Chernobyl'' has zombies in one part of the game, who are actually stalkers who have been [[Mind Rape|mind raped]] by psychic emissions in certain parts of the zone.

* In ''[[City of Heroes]]'' and ''[[City of Villains]]'', zombies are counted among the servants of the Banished Pantheon and the minions of [[Mad Doctor|Dr. Vahzilok]]. Also, the Halloween events feature zombies that spawn from trick-or-treating, and the 2008 incarnation featured zombies crawling from the ground en masse. Finally, the Mastermind Necromancy primary set lets player villains summon their own zombie minions.

* An [[Clown Car Grave|infinite number]] of zombies usually appears early on in ''[[Castlevania]]'' games. Fortunately they're much easier to kill than the average movie zombie.

* In a similar fashion, countless zombies (and [[Everything Trying to Kill You|other things]]) plague our hero in [[Ghosts 'n Goblins (series)|Ghosts N Goblins]].

* ''[[King's Quest IV]]'' is one of the earliest examples of the trope, which is even more disturbing because it takes place in a fairy tale country of princesses, fairies and magical talking creatures. It is, frankly, terrifying. Fortunately for most young players at the time of it's release, they came late in the game. Due to the general unforgiving hardness of a Roberta Williams title, it was uncommon for any player to get that far without help.

* ''[[Dead Island]]'' is about a zombie apocalypse in a tropical island resort in the South Pacific.

* ''Arma'' and ''Arma II'' both featured popular zombie mods that turned an ultra-realistic tactical FPS into a zombie survival game. The use of massive maps and realistic effects and equipment makes them extremely immersive.

* While the text/ASCII-based [[Hell MOO]] doesn't feature an actual zombie apocalypse (they go for the standard nuclear warfare), there is a zombie virus and some locations, especially the basement of the Bradbury hotel in Slagtown, are filled with them. Since all NPCs can be killed (with varying degrees of difficulty) and anyone who dies of zombie rot rises as a zombie if their corpse isn't butchered, one or two tough NPCs getting infected can easily result in a zombie plague hitting Slagtown; usually the Freedom City Police is skilled and tough enough to keep the spread outside their borders, but it can make wandering into Slagtown or Gangland suicide for a newbie.

* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' had the [[The Plague|Gray Plague]], which, as players found out through [[Time Travel]] to [[After the End|Seaside Town, 28 Days Later]], killed the infected population and brought them back as zombies.

* Downloadable PC Game ''[[Zombie Driver]]'' casts the player as an [[Action Survivor|Action]] [[The Taxi|Taxi Driver]] in the midst of an infested city where the outbreak was caused by a chemical explosion. The cabbie must rescue people trapped in various buildings and return them to an extraction point. He gets paid by the mayor for zombies killed and survivors rescued, so he can buy bigger and badder cars and weapons to run down zombies.

* In ''[[Adventure Quest Worlds]]'', {{spoiler|Vordred creates this in the Doomwood Part 1 finale if the hero chooses to betray Artix and let Vordred become the Champion of Darkness}}.

** Also, {{spoiler|in Doomwood Part 2, Drakath grants Gravelyn's wish to bring her father back by sending her and everybody else to an alternate past created by him where he never intervened with King Alteon and Sepulchure's duel. There, this is what happens when [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Sepulchure kills Death]]}}.

{{quote| "Humans taste like chicken! Zombies taste like crap!"}}

** Also worth noting that Sluggy has so far had: straightforward ordinary zombies; people turned into socially dysfunctional geek zombies by brain-eating mosquitos; ghouls from another dimension which were treated with similar tropes to zombies but turned out to be of different origins; military research into weaponising zombies; and a zombie-themed restaurant. Not in that order.

* The printed version of ''Van von Hunter'' has zombies that crave brains, but are actually intelligent. After they have tasted some really good brownies made by gnomes, they changed their chants from "braiiins" to "brooownies" instead, and raid gnomes for more brownies.

* In ''[[The Whiteboard]]'', the two weeks to either side of Halloween 2010 featured a zombie uprising that Doc and Roger had to take down. This story arc updated daily, instead of the strip's normal M/W/F schedule.

* ''[[The Zombie Hunters]]'' [[Reconstructed Trope|reconstructs]] this against the backdrop of a [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|near-future]] [[After the End|Post-Apocolypse]]. It's been a few years since [[The Virus]] nearly [[Depopulation Bomb|wiped out]] the human race and turned Earth into a [[Crapsack World]], where [[Our Zombies Are Different|multiple]] [[Superpowered Mooks|subspecies]] of [[The Undead]] roam freely. The known [[Endangered Species|remnants]] of humanity and [[Government in Exile|government]] have settled on an [[Island Base|Island]] [[Police State|Military Base]], to attempt to [[Find the Cure]] and [[Fighting For a Homeland|rebuild society]], which would be fine if it weren't for the tensions between the two [[Fantastic Caste System|castes]], uninfected and Infected. The Infected are a minority population of [[Zombie Infectee]] [[Action Survivor|Action Survivors]] who contracted a dormant form of the virus due to low exposure [[Fighting for Survival|at close proximity]]. [[Typhoid Mary|Highly contagious]], they can infect others through their own bodily fluids, and will inevitably [[Came Back Wrong|reanimate]] after death. Consequently, Infected are both [[Fantastic Ghetto|segregated]] from and forbidden from [[No Sex Allowed|romancing]] the uninfected. They're also [[Dystopian Edict|required]] to wear [[Fantastic Racism|identifying armbands]] and ID tags, [[Big Brother Is Watching|pass through checkpoints]], and [[Fascists' Bed Time|obey curfews]] while among uninfected, and the young and unskilled are [[Fantastic Caste System|exploited]] as [[We Have Reserves|highly-expendable]], underequipped, yet vital [[Disaster Scavengers]]. The story revolves around a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|motley]], [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|dysfunctional crew]] of these [[Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom|so-called]] "Zombie Hunters", living within the margins of their [[Dystopia|Dystopian]] society, and training in an [[Older Sidekick|older]] [[Half-Human Hybrid]] [[Token Heroic Orc]] (who's contempt for his station parallels their own) while trying not to get eaten on the job.

* ''[[Bob and George]]'', in a Halloween special.

* ''[[Wapsi Square]]'': [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/zombie-apocalypse/ Discussed]

* ''[[Squid Row]]'' : [http://squidrowcomics.com/?p=429 here] in an [[Imagine Spot]]

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** "Zombie Apocalypse" is a common brainstorming scenario for first responders because it's widespread enough to implicate all of the major disaster relief agencies, but also fictional so it doesn't flare up the usual interservice rivalries.

* [http://zombiefit.org/ ZombieFit] is a parkour/fitness class designed to prepare participants for the ever-present threat of a zombie apocalypse.

** The author of the article, Dan Drezner of the Fletcher School for Diplomacy (aka the best foreign affairs school in America), has published a monograph called Theories of International Relations and Zombies. It covers the major paradigms of IR theory and the "corpus" of zombie literature and film. It's an excellent introductory text to IR theory for beginners, and the results show that while a zombie apocalypse would suck, it's unlikely to be the end of humanity. It's also really damned funny.

* [http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/02/2784139.htm Any day now...]

** [http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html This] article explains the ways it could happen and how likely it is.

** Covering all the bases: in the event that it does happen, [http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-famous-zombie-movie-weapons-that-would-get-you-killed/ this article] discusses how [[Hollywood Tactics]] would promptly get you zombified.

** [http://www.cracked.com/article/136_5-reasons-you-secretly-want-zombie-apocalypse/ This] article examines the appeal of zombie invasions.