Wednesday 25 May 2011

On the Care and Feeding of Zombies



Dear Customer

Congratulations on your decision to acquire an Undead TM zombie. We feel confident that your genuine Undead TM zombie will give you many years of excellent service and you will feel completely satisfied with your purchase.

However, before you begin utilising the services of your Undead TM zombie, there are some things you need to know, in order to avoid danger to yourself and your family, and damage to your newly acquired property.

Before you unpack your zombie from its travelling crate and confine it in its holding cage, therefore, please read these instructions carefully and follow them exactly. While your Undead TM zombie is guaranteed against manufacturing defects, failure to follow these instructions will render the guarantee null and void.

The first thing to remember is that your Undead TM zombie is a delicate piece of work created to a very high standard. Unlike zombies supplied by our competitors, it is built to a standardised design, and comes with features designed to ensure your safety and the zombie’s own longevity. These features are common to all Undead TM zombies, of all classes and models, and are regularly updated to ensure your security. You are strongly urged to avail of our economical Update Package, with six-monthly servicing, repair and upgrades of your Undead TM zombie to keep it at the state of the art. For details please see our website

For the particular additional features unique to your particular class and model of Undead TM zombie, please see the Features section of the Handbook. This section is devoted to basic upkeep and maintenance.

To return to the point, your Undead TM zombie has been created in accordance with the very highest standards, and requires adequate care to be able to give the best satisfaction. It is not a crude basic model, like those advertised by our competitors, still less one of those brought into being by one of the illicit DIY kits available online and through certain channels. Your Undead TM zombie is like a piece of highly tuned, immaculate machinery, and requires you to keep it in good working order.

At all times, keep in mind the fact that your own safety is of the utmost importance. Before your purchase was authorised and you were issued a permit, you will have had to undergo a Zombie Handling Course, during which you will have been trained in the techniques of using a zombie in the average domestic situation. However, the salient points bear repeating, and with particular modifications as they apply to your Undead TM zombie.

The first thing you need to remember is that your Undead TM zombie is not a toy or a household pet. It is a domestic and personal security device, created out of a cadaver secured for the purpose, and potentially extremely dangerous to yourself and the rest of your family. The procedure for manufacturing an Undead TM zombie involves introducing millions of self-replicating nanobots into its system, which animate and control it according to programmes pre-installed in their collective memory. These nanobots are programmed, among other things, to look after their own survival and propagation, and they can detect the electromagnetic field of other nanobots. This need inherent in the nanobots to propagate themselves causes the Undead TM zombie to have an uncontrollable desire to bite and claw anyone its senses do not recognise as a fellow nanobot carrier.

[Note: For this reason, the classic Living Dead movie act of destroying a zombie’s brain has no effect at slowing down a Undead TM zombie. The nanobots infest the entire nervous system of the Undead TM zombie, inhabiting every nerve synapse, and even an amputated limb will continue to make all efforts to claw at any unprotected human who comes within range. This is one of the features which contribute so highly to the longevity and utility of your Undead TM zombie and make it so cost-effective. Also note that by international law, these nanobots have been rendered incapable of tertiary infestation, meaning that while they can and will turn anyone bitten by your Undead TM zombie into a zombie, anyone further bitten by that zombie will not receive viable nanobots in their system.]

As part of the procedure for issuing your permit to own a zombie, you and your family will have been asked to submit blood samples for a DNA profile. Undead Industries® have programmed the nanobots that inhabit your Undead TM zombie to recognise your family’s particular DNA code as other nanobots. Accordingly, as far as direct attack and resultant infection is concerned, you and your family are safe, but in a crisis situation, as when the house is under attack by armed robbers, the Undead TM zombie may have to act faster than its sensors can process information. Also, friends of the family or non-blood relatives are not recognised by the Undead TM zombie and they are liable to be attacked. This is an especial hazard where there are young children of the family with friends who might drop in unannounced, their presence unknown to and unsuspected by the adults. Accordingly, please ensure that you keep the Undead TM zombie caged at all times except when it may need to be used.

In your own best interests, keep your Undead TM zombie caged safely away.

Also, please remember the signal fact that your Undead TM zombie is not a robot or a cyborg. It is a human corpse, albeit one which has been embalmed and treated with reagents which will very considerably slow down the process of decomposition. However, decomposition cannot be completely halted, and this is one reason why Undead Industries® urges you to avail of the company’s semi-annual servicing and maintenance facility, available at a nominal cost, with or without the recommended Upgrade Package. For details please see our website.

Because of this tendency to decompose, your Undead TM zombie’s holding cage is refrigerated. Please refer to the relevant section of the Handbook for instructions on the maintenance of the holding cage; all that will be mentioned in this section is that the long-lasting power pack for the cage is non-rechargable, but replacements are available from the company’s website at standard rates, and that power packs manufactured by other companies are not compatible with cages manufactured by Undead Industries®. Again, in your Undead TM zombie’s best interests, it is advisable to keep it in its cage at all times except when it actually needs to be used.

Next, your Undead TM zombie is capable of responding to a limited series of voice commands. Which particular commands it is capable of understanding depends on the particular class and model you have purchased, from approximately fifty for a Basic Class One model to upwards of four hundred for the De Luxe Class Platinum version. The Undead TM zombie is programmed to recognise and imprint on authorised voices as part of its security features. You will, therefore, have to practice these commands along with you family members while the Undead TM zombie is present, so that it can imprint on your voice and respond only to commands issued by authorised family members.

The next point to remember is that you have been provided a set of zombie handling tools and instructed in their use. These tools are meant to secure and immobilise your zombie for routine bathing and cleaning, for which, also, tools have been provided. Failure to bathe your zombie at least once and preferably twice weekly with soap and warm water, followed by a rubdown with Eternal Life TM scrubbing liquid (available at a nominal rate from our website) may allow flies to lay eggs in its body orifices, and cause significant and possibly irreparable damage from maggot infestation. Please make sure that you, therefore, bathe your Undead TM zombie accordingly and keep it clean.

Then, it is important to remember that the zombie is not a sex toy. Cases have been recorded where certain individuals have taken it on themselves to have sexual relations with zombies. It is true that the process of zombification causes a state of permanent erection in male zombies and of nipple hardening and vaginal lubrication in female zombies, which gives out a false appearance of sexual interest and availability. Also, it is true that zombies are always completely nude because they cannot be kept adequately clean if wearing clothing. Neither of these facts, however, allows for zombie sex.

Although the Undead TM zombie’s nanobots will regard family members as fellow zombies and therefore not attempt to infect them, unprotected sexual intercourse with it has an extremely high chance of passing on the nanobot, and protection has a high chance of failure since the zombie is, of course, not alive and unable to cooperate in any way. To summarise: please use a proper sex toy or have intercourse with a living and willing partner. Do not have sexual relations with your zombie. Please. On top of everything else, it’s disgusting.

The next point is that your Undead TM zombie needs an energy source, meaning food. The inferior zombies produced by our competitors can be fed raw meat, but the uncertain composition of this material can cause digestive upsets and nutritional failures in the zombie. This is why all classes and models of zombies produced by Undead Industries® are genetically modified to be capable of consuming only special sterilised food materials produced by the company, of which you have been supplied a starter pack. Further details on Zombie Royal TM and Zombie Excelsior TM including composition, prices and packaging are available on our website.

Remember: please do not feed your Undead TM zombie meat, kitchen scraps, dead rats, captured enemies, or any other food substitute. It will not be able to digest them.

Most important: Failure to follow any one of these instructions will result in the voiding of our guarantee to you, and the company will consider itself not responsible for any consequences suffered as a result of this failure. 

Now, despite all precautions, it is possible that at some time your zombie may get out of control. If such a thing happens, for reasons mentioned above, your attempts to destroy the zombie will not be successful and may actually be dangerous, because zombie body fluids are laden with nanobots and a splash of said fluids on a mucous membrane or open wound may be lethal. Also, do not attempt to burn the zombie down, because its body is treated to be, among other things, fire-resistant, to guard against incendiary attacks by would-be miscreants; you may endanger your home or hearth but will not endanger the zombie. Instead, please contact the company immediately on the emergency number mentioned on the front cover of the Handbook, and a specialist squad will be dispatched to your address to take care of the problem.

Note: Undead Industries® offers a range of insurance policies to guard against the financial consequences of any zombie mishap. Please check the relevant section of our website for details.

A final point: your Undead TM zombie is meant to look intimidating and dangerous, to strike fear in the hearts of malefactors and evildoers. It is not meant to resemble a friendly butler, maid, or supermodel. Accordingly, attempts to apply make-up or other similar agents are strongly discouraged.

Warning: Your Undead TM zombie has specifically been programmed to regard lipstick and rouge as a threat and respond accordingly.

For further queries on any point not mentioned here, please contact Undead Industries® either by email or call the hotline mentioned on the back cover of the Handbook.

Operators should, in the absence of emergencies, be standing by.

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