Ellington

A lot of things keep people up at night these days: terrorism, recession, environmental catastrophe. But these aren't the things I worry about. No, I worry more about zombies and the apocalypse that is sure to come one day if scientists keep up their horrible experiments.

Often I'm up until 2 a.m., certain that tonight will be the night that one of NASA's space probes to Venus will explode upon re-entry and radiate the brains of the freshly dead, or that one of the millions of current biological warfare experiments will escape into the public in the form of enraged monkeys.

My hostility against these careless government scientists gives way after a while, though, and I do what all men worth their salt begin to do when faced with doom: plan and set aside provisions.

But see, I'm new to town, unfamiliar with the best places to find ammunition and hold up when the police and national guard become overwhelmed. So I set out to speak to Jacksonians who have put some thought into it.

"This started in college, when the 'Zombie Survival Guide' first came out, and my friends and I all read it," says Paul Jannise, a local actor and barista. He recommends reading the "Survival Guideԗalong with watching "The Walking Dead" and "World War Zԗto anyone who wants to make it through.

"From that point on anytime I enter into a new space, I look around the room sort of estimating how well it would hold up under zombie attack or under siege," Jannise says. "Generally my thoughts are, 'We're not ready.Ҕ

The first thing is not to panic, he says. You can escape the typical Pittsburgh zombie, slow moving and mindless, if you use your head. It's important to follow government evacuation procedures, or find a safe place to fortify in Jackson.

"It depends on where you are," says Jo Fabbri, another barista at a coffee shop of I-55. "Lots of Jackson homes are already barred up and boarded, ready to go, until (Mayor Frank) Melton arrives with his band of S.S. Soldiers. Maybe that's it, maybe Melton is the cure."

Fabbri assures me that I've come to a good place for the uprising, because most Jacksonians already carry guns. But are they the right guns, and where do I find them?

I went down to the local Bass Pro Shop and talked with Jim Bailey, a project surveyor for Pickering Engineering, working at the gun counter.

"The Remington 870 would be a good zombie gun," he says. "It's real dependable, and when you're getting attacked by zombies, you wouldn't want your shotgun to hang up."

The 870 can be found in just about any gun store, Bailey told me, and works well against fast-moving zombies, as well as the plodding Pittsburgh variety.

"You get a shorter barrel on it, and they handle pretty quick ... and they throw big patterns, so you don't have to aim as close to hit one of them," he says.

But Jannise said some books warn about the splatter affect that shotguns have at short range, which could infect you or your neighbors. And then there is the psychological toll that overcomes many a survivor.

"You can't become such a monster yourself that it's not valuable for you to survive," Jannise said. "You have to deserve to survive. So if in the process you become a looter, or a raving madman or so distrustful of other people that you're a homicidal maniac, then you don't deserve to survive the apocalypse. You can't lose sight of your humanity if you want to survive.