Excerpt from "Weapons and Warfare in the Zombie Apocalypse."

Unarmed Combat

We've all been in fist fights at some point.  Or most of us have been.  Sort of.  In something that looks vaguely like two hominids trying to ineffectually squeeze and poke one another.  That is, most of us suck at hand fighting.  We just don't do it enough.  If you do, you're either 1) a biker, 2) a convict or you were previously, 3) a cop (but that's specialized), 4) a professional boxer/wrestler, 5) a practicing martial artist.  In other words, most people aren't good at fighting with bare hands.  We're actually not really equipped for it, from an evolutionary point of view.  Neanderthal man was, and was strong enough to rip bits off of you.  But alas, the bigger muscles and smaller brain not a success story did make.  That is actually a wonderful lesson regarding the utility of unarmed combat in the zombie apocalypse.  Unarmed combat against zombies is foolish.  Some of my fellow experts would argue otherwise, but I strenuously object.  Allow me to make my case in the following pages.

People who are expert fighters (or just really mean and tough) can do a lot of damage without using any weapons.  Part of this gets back to the fact that we're really not that tough.  We're poorly designed to take punishment, with relatively weak muscles and dangerously exposed vital organs.  Which means if you're good at beating people up you know that the majority of the population is pretty squishy and bad in a fight.  Most fights end quickly.  Boxing matches are boxing matches because the people involved are trained professionals.  Anyway, if you are a Shao Lin monk or a professional boxer (or whatever) you can probably take most people in a fight.   The key word here is "people."  Because you aren't going to be fighting people, most of the time, in the zompocalypse.  Most of the people will be dead.  But you will have plenty of zombies to toy with.

There are a number of glaring problems with the concept of trying to fight zombies unarmed.  First, the zombies themselves.  Consider, for example, that a zombie is nothing more than a sack of meat and bones that wants to eat you.  It isn't really alive, but it is presumably host to a lot of little things that are---the bacteria that are hitching a ride on the slowly-rotting body of the zombie.  These bacteria are dangerous, and if you start wrestling around with the zombie you're likely to come into close contact with them.  These organisms don't have your best interests in mind and should be avoided.  Also note that this is over and above whatever pathogen created the zombie in the first place.  If you don't want to get infected it's probably a good idea to keep your hands to yourself. 

Speaking of hands, notice that the typical attack utilized by the vast majority of the non-trained populace in a fist fight is, well, a fist.  And the fist is not an ideal weapon.  Even using one against humans is dangerous. The human mouth is more or less as dirty, bacteria-wise, as a dog's mouth is.  The chance of getting a nasty and potentially dangerous infection makes this a bad idea.  Before the apocalypse cutting your hands on some other dirty human's teeth wasn't too much of a problem because of antibacterial soap and antibiotics.  Yet again, the problem is a lack of medical care.  And punching a zombie is much worse than punching a human, because they're infected with whatever made them zombies and carrying around who knows what other bacterial hitchhikers.  You don't want to punch a zombie.  Ever.

Once again, zombies can only be destroyed by destroying the brain.  Unless you have a handy parking tie or some other hard inanimate object to bash the zombie's head against, good luck.  The skull is the hardest part of the body for a reason and you aren't going to be able to get through that with your limbs.  The Shao Lin monks in the room might beg to differ, but all the regular people should never take it the street with a zombie.

Another reason why it is extremely stupid to try to go hands-on with the undead is related to the nature of the zombie brain, and how it's different than yours or mine.  We, you see, (as living breathing humans) are not normally capable of exerting our muscles to their full potential.  The very good reason behind this is that if we did so we would risk damaging muscles, bones and connective tissue.  Our brains stop us from going fully berserk because the brain is interested in not ripping important parts that it might want to use later.  The zombie, with a mushy and primitive brain, does not have this restriction.  So zombies can exert their muscles to the full extent of their power.  Zombies that look smaller than you will very likely be stronger.  And the zombie doesn't care if it rips muscles or damages tendons.  This makes unarmed combat with zombies extremely dangerous.  If you can't get away, you're lunch. 

For some real-world evidence to back up my assertion that you should pretty much never go unarmed against a zombie I offer you something Bruce Lee once said (and I'm paraphrasing): "if someone wants to bite your nose off, and they're willing to take whatever punishment you might inflict to make that happen, then they'll probably get the nose."  This, by definition, is exactly what a zombie is like in a fist fight.  They don't care at all what you do to them, they just want the nose.  And the rest of the stuff attached to the nose. 

More evidence about the dangers inherent in hand fighting with zombies comes from a friend of mine who is a policeman.  The individual in question has a not-quite-politically-correct term for the strength displayed by many people who have mental problems.  The same concept works for individuals who have been partaking of illegal substances that aren't good for them.  Being really stoned or crazy can allow people to short-circuit the mechanism that normally doesn't let the body harm itself through its own strength.  These people can be extremely strong, and the police are very careful when they deal with them.  Zombies, in terms of strength, are going to be like the guys who get blasted on PCP and pick a fight with a dozen cops.  You really don't want to take them on by your lonesome.

The only advantage you as a live human has against the undead in terms of bare-handed fighting is speed.  Zombies are slow, and so if you're careful you have the ability to outmaneuver them.  As long as they don't grab hold of you, you can outrun them or flank them.  Zombies have relatively poor coordination, and they can be pushed or shoved in order to unbalance them or knock them over.  A kick to the back of a knee should be enough to temporarily hobble your zombie opponent.  A sharp enough blow or kick to the side of the knee may break it, inflicting a more permanent crippling injury to the zombie.  Attacks like these are not designed to do anything other than gain you enough time to make your escape.  Fighting against even one zombie without a weapon is extremely dangerous, and you should break contact as quickly as possible.  Once this has been accomplished you can keep going and make good your escape and arm yourself in order to re-engage the zombie(s) on better terms.  If you are caught unarmed by a group of zombies, your only hope is to break contact and escape as quickly as possible.  It is not possible for unarmed and unarmored humans to survive combat with multiple zombies.  In such a situation the odds are simply too stacked in favor of the undead.

Killing a zombie, in the absence of weapons, is a difficult task.  If you are able to grab the zombie's head and twist it sideways violently enough you may be able to sever the spinal cord, which would deactivate the zombie from the neck down.  The zombie's jaws would remain dangerous, but it would be incapable of locomotion.  In order to do this, you will have to be extremely careful to avoid the zombie's jaws prior to the snapping of its neck—just because you've grabbed the zombie by the head doesn't mean that it will desist from its primary and only motivation, which is eating you.  Action movies have done a good job of making it seem relatively easy to break someone's neck with a quick twisting motion.  In reality this is more difficult than the movies make it seem, in part because the person in question is going to be resisting your attempts.  In terms of the zombie, the muscles of the neck will almost certainly be tensed as it continues its single-minded assault on your person.  With a wriggling (and very strong) zombie trying fanatically to chew on your flesh it's going to be more difficult to emulate Hollywood's action stars than you think. 

There are two relatively basic street fighting techniques that you might be tempted to use against zombies.  Pitted against a human opponent these things are extremely deadly, pretty much assured to stop a fight, even if they don't kill outright.  The first is gouging an opponent's eyes with the thumbs or one or both hands.  The second involves violently thrusting an opponent's head sideways while simultaneously driving your knee into the relatively soft portion of the skull around the ears.  Both of these things work against people, although they take a simple brawl and elevate it into the realm of attempted murder.  But then in the zompocalypse there is no such thing.

So.  Eye gouging.  This is a particularly gruesome and terrifying wound to inflict upon a human opponent.  The eyes are filled with fluid which is somewhat pressurized.  If even a small pin is thrust far enough into the eye this fluid will leak out, and blindness is certain.  Eyes can be crushed and burst open by the strength of the hands, if you have the fortitude to actually delve into an opponent's head.  Beyond the eyes are the relatively weak bones of the ocular cavities.  Humans can be killed with a determined enough assault on the eye sockets.  Even if this doesn't kill the effect of losing one or both eyes may be so traumatic that you will have brought an end to a fight.  Against zombies, this is not so effective.

As usual, there is no psychological impact on a zombie when you pop one or both of its eyes.  They don't feel pain and lack the ability to anticipate a future of partial or total blindness.  They simply don't care at all.  Moreover, in order to attack the eyes you’re placing yourself into the potentially very strong embrace of the zombie to your front, with what will probably be disastrous consequences.  If you have the physical strength necessary to fight off the zombie while you continue your assault on its eyes, keep in mind that putting your fingers into the insides of a zombie's skull is a very good way to get infected, or at least get a very dangerous “normal” bacterial infection that could also kill you.  Delving around in a zombie's body, especially while it's fully animated, should clearly be avoided at all costs.

Smashing the side of an opponent's skull is a potentially lethal attack on a human.  The skull is weak at the side of head, and is much less able to stop intrusive attacks.  Against a human, driving a knee into this relatively soft part of the skull is a good way to inflict a serious brain injury.  With a hard enough blow the brain will swell, resulting in unconsciousness and death.  As above, you've probably gone into the territory of attempted murder.  But, zombies, as usual, don't cooperate. 

A zombie's brain is only partially functional, so there's no guarantee that you'll be able to inflict enough damage to put your zombie down by battering it with a knee or elbow.  While you're attempting to knock your way through its skull, the zombie will still be trying to grab and bite.  In order to knee the zombie in the head in the first place, you'll also need to push its head downwards towards your rising knee—an activity that is dangerous in several different respects.  Grabbing the side of the zombie's head may result in a bite.  Pushing the zombie's head into your knee may also result in a bite.  And since bites are fatal, you've just lost in a very final way.

As I conclude this section I would like to reiterate that unarmed hand-to-hand combat against zombies is extremely dangerous.  It is something to be avoided unless you have absolutely no choice at all.  It would be better to run.  The dangers of fighting a zombie unarmed put it just to one side of being suicidal.  Even fully trained professional fighters (boxers, etc.) are going to notice that their skills, which worked so well against living humans, are more than trumped by the vast advantages zombies enjoy in an unarmed encounter at arm's length.  This is not to say that contemplating unarmed combat is bad.  As with everything else in this volume survival is a prize won by those who are the most adaptable to changing conditions.  In Darwinian terms, survivors who are willing to use every tool and every technique are those survivors whose survival is “selected for.”  So unarmed combat should not entirely be stricken from your zompocalypse playbook.  But if flight or armed combat are options these should always be chosen first.  Hand fighting is the last resort of the desperate.