Geoff Holder - Zombies from History

To Cate, who came up with the idea.

For more on the strange and grotesque books written by the author, go to www.geoffholder.com

That rather terrible thing which there is in every photograph: the return of the dead.

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucinda (2000)

Power is possible only if death is no longer free; only if the dead are put under surveillance.

Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death (2000)

The Walking Dead. Walkers. Biters. Eaters. The Infected. The Contaminated. The Re-animated. Revenants. The Living Dead. Whatever you want to call them, the zombie apocalypse is coming. You know it, I know it.

So, faced with the inevitable, what do you do? Do you wait until that dull bloke from No.37 is lurching through the French windows? Or do you step up, take some pride in your actions, and take out some of historys big guns before you are finally eaten? If the latter, then you are in the right place. For, nestled within these pages, are the secrets of sixty high-value targets from Britains illustrious (and ignoble) past. The good and the great mix with famous criminals, rebels and pirates. Do you itch to take on one of the grandees of nineteenth-century literature, or test yourself against an axe-wielding medieval bampot? Wrestle with Nelson? Battle with Boudica? Then here, friend, is your opportunity. Where they are buried, what wounds and weaknesses they bear, height, age, difficulty level everything the fully prepared and thoughtful zombie hunter needs to know.

Other considerations will of course preoccupy you. Where will you have the maximum effect, for instance? The obvious answer would be Westminster Abbey, as eleven of our sixty notables are buried there. Thus, should your chosen target refuse to re-animate for some reason possibly because they cant find their head then you have a multiple choice of consolation prizes. Both Canterbury Cathedral and Winchester boast three of our distinguished dead, while Londons Kensal Green Cemetery has two, as does Windsor Castle (Henry VIII and Queen Victoria) and St Pauls Cathedral (and what two Wellington and Nelson). The others are scattered the length and breadth of these isles although, sadly, some graves remain merely speculative to this day. Such is the nature of the ancient dead. At the very least, the zombie apocalypse should solve a whole series of historical conundrums, including the final resting places of such notables as Macbeth, Wat Tyler, Owain Glyndwr or Oliver Cromwell, not to mention a certain Jack, nicknamed the Ripper.

Contemporary zombie culture did not start with Night of the Living Dead. The dead have been returning for centuries. This book is peppered with accounts of those who were declared dead but yet lived; those who survived the hangmans noose or were buried alive; and descriptions of bog bodies, preserved corpses and mummified remains. Should you wish to install yourself in a defensive position, you will also find a guide to the best castles in Britain for that purpose. In addition, there are juicy bits of folklore, tall tales and unlikely legends concerning the walking dead, most taken from contemporary accounts that stretch back more than 1,000 years.

Warning : due to a lack of time, resources and inclination, no Health and Safety Reports or Statutory Risk Assessments have been produced for any of the sixty encounters outlined here. Ancient remains should be considered a biohazard, and may act as vectors for disease-carrying bacteria, insects and worms. Barrier protection and filter masks are recommended at all times, not to mention a strong stomach. Proceed at your own risk. In addition, the publishers cannot be held responsible if, having followed the advice in this book, you still end up being killed and eaten.

An apocalypse isnt meant to be polite.

Tony Wilson (1977)

The control of corpses is always simultaneously about the social production of life; this is the underlying dualism that continues to haunt us so provocatively and which sustains these kinds of interrogations of the newly dead, of corpses, of our humanity and animality, the sacred and the secular, the humane and the hereafter, disgust and the erotic, sovereignty and power Corpses do matter.

Deborah Posel & Pamila Gupta, The Life of the Corpse (2009)

It may seem obvious, but its worth remembering that zombies are not like you or me, especially when it comes to pain. They dont pay attention to mere flesh wounds. Damage to a major limb or organ will stop you in your tracks; to the shuffling undead, its just an inconvenience. What youre looking for, then, is something that can cause maximum trauma to the zombies Achilles heel: the neck and head area. Yes, I know in the movies and games the small packs of surviving humans take out the zombie hordes with everything from automatic weapons and grenades to flamethrowers and RPGs, but you have to ask yourself: (a) how are you going to get hold of such armaments, and (b) would you know how to use them anyway? In real life, head-shooting a moving target is not an easily acquired skill. A much more realistic scenario is that you defend yourself with whatever weapons you can scrounge or improvise. A good place to start, therefore, would be your local castle or museum, where they may well have an armoury stuffed with the kind of sharp pointy things that will be of utility to your cause. Zombies beware: were going to get medieval on your derrire.

Forget daggers and knives: you require something with leverage, that is, a blade at the end of a long handle, so that the momentum of the swing adds to the cutting power of the blade. Look for pole arms such as:

Halberd : an axe-blade, hook and spike at the end of a 6ft-long pole. Its kissing cousin, the pollaxe , has a smaller axe or hammerhead.

Glaive : similar to a halberd, but with just a single-edged cutting blade. Not as effective as its cousin the voulge, which has a more meat cleaver appearance, ideal for hacking and chopping.

Bill or billhook : where the cutting blade is long and curved.

Lochaber axe : a type of Scottish halberd, with a long scythe-like blade.

Advantages : they keep the zombies 6ft away from you. And theyre excellent for neck severing.

Disadvantages : all require a two-handed swing, so you cant otherwise defend yourself. Plus the effort required is very tiring.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING : between and .

Generally, these weapons have shorter hafts than pole weapons, so while they are easier to smash and bash with, you have to get in closer, thus risking close-combat wounds (not to mention stinking zombie-breath). Mauls are essentially war-hammers, while maces are little more than clubs for maximum damage, seek out maces with metal ridges, spikes or flanges. Battle-axes, however, are the business: you can split a zombie skull in one blow.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING: maces and mauls: ; battle-axes: