Do you love the smell of rotting flesh in the morning? Or have you ever wondered what it would be like to unleash an apocalyptic plague and watch the world collapse? Well, here is your chance. This guide will show you just how to start your very own zombie epidemic in five easy steps.

1. Pathogen

As with any epidemic you first need a catalyst, in this case something that turns people into zombies. Be it rage infected monkeys or the T-virus something has to infect the populace and bring on the apocalypse. Some kind of weaponised rabies may do the trick but where would you get that from? Whatever viral cocktail you choose it will need to be able to do several things in order to survive and infect the world!

Zombie Kissing

Firstly it needs to be able to survive outside the body or ‘host’ for smaller periods of time to accommodate and accelerate transmission by air and water while also being able to survive certain climates in order to increase geological infectivity.

Secondly it needs to cause certain symptoms in order to get the zombie effect just right. Hordes of reanimated cannibal corpses isn’t quite as easy a runny nose and a headache so your choice of ingredients will have to be researched thoroughly.

Finally and probably most critically your pathogen will need to be able to spread human to human in say saliva to saliva, blood to saliva or blood to blood exchanges. This means that any kissing or spitting or biting will result in infection. Exposure to contaminated water through ingestion or into the blood stream through a cut should also result in infection for optimal effectiveness.

2. Transmission

Once you have your plague ready you need to think about how it’s going to spread across the world and bring about the down fall of humanity. There are several ways to maximise the amount of people infected with your zombie plague one of which is including symptoms that aid the spread of it. Sneezing, for example, aids the spread of the common cold by causing people to violently eject contaminated nose matter quickly and most of the time uncontrollably.

Another way of increasing the amount of people exposed to your Zombie plague would be to not only infect humans but animals and possibly plants to! If you can’t get a family through their contact with other people, what better way to get them than through that cute little chihuahua called “precious” they all love so fucking much. Being able to survive outside the body is also a must have for any would be plague as being able to exist in water outside a host will increase the chance of spreading in contaminated water.

3. Symptoms

When it comes to the walking dead nothing spells zombie more than an insatiable hunger for the human brain so cannibalism is going to be well up on the ‘Must include’ list. Quick, agile and aggressive infected or slow, wandering corpses is really down to however you want your apocalypse to look. Obviously when you use a virus to make zombies only the people who died infected would be subject to reanimation but how would you put them down for good? Would It have to be the traditional head shot or would even that not work? Would you have to completely disable them to eliminate their threat?

So apart from flesh eating undead what else do we have? Well it kind of depends on what movies you watch as there are hundreds of variations. From stumbling, barely conscious dead bodies to a completely new kind of foe capable of learning and in some (ridiculous) versions in speech! The possibilities of what your zombies could achieve is limitless.

4. Locations

So you’re nearly there, great! Now there are two locations you need to think about before you unleash your zombie plague, the first is where to target your pathogen to get the highest infectivity rate. The second is where you’re going to hide your people-hating self while the whole world goes to shit because of you. Thanks by the way!

In order to maximise the number of people infected at each targeted area the plague would need to be able to become airborne in a confined area of space filled with lots of people, a tube station, for example. Airports would also be another good to place to target as thousands of people use them every day and they could lead to people taking the pathogen abroad and infecting others elsewhere.

A Zombie

Where you go is down to you but if you want to live (for a while anyway) you’re going to need to find somewhere safe and secure and preferably with access to its own water source. Self sufficiency would be key to survival as there isn’t exactly going to be any one left to deliver you pizza so somewhere fertile is always a good idea.

5. Bug Out

Once you’ve found yourself a safe location your going to need to fill it with your supplies and then fortify it. Just in case. Once you’ve done that I would suggest gathering all the shotguns and nailed through baseball bats you can find as well as 10 years worth of ammunition as there wont be much chance to nip out for those either. After that your all set to release your plague upon humanity and watch as zombies destroy civilisation as we know it, knowing that all along it was you who started it all.

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