Surviving The Dead – A Hardware Store Survival Guide

As much as I am an admirer of dedicated zombie armaments, I’m just as big a proponent of improvised tools for undead combat. Found objects are cheap, readily available, and often just as effective as “combat-specific” weapons. You also tend avoid those odd stares from the neighbors, which is infinitely more difficult with a 40” katana leaning against your television. With that in mind, I set out to discover what was available at a moment’s notice in my local home improvement supply store (I won’t mention the name, but let’s just say it rhymes with “Bowes”.) Let’s take a look at what I found.

Putting myself in the mindset of having only a few minutes before the entire store was ransacked by panicking citizens, I headed to the Tools section. When you say “zombie weapon”, most people immediately think ‘chainsaw.’ “It worked for Ash and Leatherface, why not me?” The reality is I couldn’t even find the damn things when I ran through the aisles. Amidst the miter saws, power drills, and electric hammers, not a single buzzcutter. I finally had to stop an employee to ask where they were stored. “Gardening,” he muttered.

Upon arriving in the landscaping row, I was faced with an assortment of display items, chains removed and lashed down for security. I took a closer look at the boxed saws. “Some assembly required,” they read. Somehow I don’t think the undead will patiently wait for me to thumb through the assembly manual, not to mention having to gas up the item for operation. This is the reason why power tools are low on my personal list of choices to battle the walking dead.

This section, however, was also chock full of items that could double as outstanding zombie-neutralizing tools. Landscaping shovels, pick axes, sidewalk scrapers – every one of these implements could last for years as your primary long-range weapon.

One item in Gardening, however, stood out as truly unusual. I still am uncertain of this tool’s true purpose, as it was piled on an unlabeled section, but in my eyes, this looks like a shorter version of the Chinese guan dao. I wondered to myself if a Shaolin monk shopping for planters for the monastery accidentally left it behind.

Not finding much in the way of melee and short-range improvised weaponry in this section, I decided to head back to the Tools aisle. Here I found one of the most obvious choices for the layman searching for an impromptu counter-zombie weapon: the claw hammer. There was a fine assortment of options in this section, enough to be choosy about your selection. I would avoid any items with a wooden handle affixed to a steel head – in time and after enough zombie skulls, weapon failure would be a concern. However, there were several models that sported synthetic handles or were forged from a single piece of steel and wrapped in shock-absorbing rubber: comfortable and functional. There was also a pile of crowbars for the taking, another effective melee weapon choice, after some personal customization.

Lastly, I focused my search on a close-combat implement. I immediately ruled out the store’s blade selection. Not only were they encased in an elevated, locked panel, most items were either folding knives or box cutters, not ideal choices against a biting, scratching corpse. There was a nice variety of long-bladed screwdrivers and lethal-looking chisels, two of my preferred improvised close-combat weapons. When picking one of these items, you need to be careful of “Going Freudian” in your selection: bigger is not better in zombie close combat. I would select an implement with a blade between six and nine inches in length, long enough to tap the brain from the farthest point on the skull, the underside of the chin.

As I walked out of the store, it comforted me to know that when the times comes, when the “Special Report” banners flash across the screen and EBS tones buzz over the airwaves, even the unprepared, teeming masses have options available for the fight of their lives. I just hope they know how to use them.