KNOW YOUR HISTORY: THE HALF-DOZEN GREATEST ZOMBIE HUNTERS EVER

One of several how-to reports that together comprise the Zombie Survival Guide, an effort by Greater Long Beach to ensure that the local populace is prepared for the Oct. 29 invasion of downtown Long Beach by thousands of the not-so-grateful dead for a full Saturday activities leading up to the 8 p.m. Zombie Walk and the Dead Man’s After Party. Because … it’s gonna get ugly.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO have brains to be a great zombie hunter. In fact, a certain empty-headed quality seems to help. And so it is that the half-dozen greatest zombie hunters, stalkers and killers in history turn out to be a motley collection. Wherever they come from, all around the world, they also come from the edges of society, the edges of sanity, the edges of life itself. Sometimes they almost seem more like the zombies they hunt than the humans they protect—and in fact protecting us humans hardly seems part of their motivation … our expressions of gratitude invariably roll off them without reaching them, certainly not a one of them has ever shown the capability of managing so much as a little ”you’re welcome.” Stuck up or stupid, that’s they way they seem—stuck up or stupid … and probably both. Freaks.

Benoit Croissant, France

Croissant disposed of an estimated 4,000 zombies during his lifetime—many of them mercenaries enlisted by Marie Antoinette to preserve her reign during the French Revolution, but every single one of them subdued by his trusty six-piece set of 9 1/2-inch fondue forks. Croissant, whose every meal was boiled in the little pots of  oil, never went anywhere without the sharp little sticks. As his talent for killing zombies became more refined, his diet became less so, and Croissant often sampled as he slayed. After the revolution he was recognized for his contributions to French democracy and diet with the Croix de Graisses Fecales, an honor invented especially for him. He lived his final days in Canada, still occasionally killing the stray zombie, and dying after eating a bad plate of poutine.

Sadaharo Kitagawa, Japan

Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto was in a state of social and political turmoil during the 15th century, which Kitagawa found more and more disruptive to his meditative concentration as he pursued the delicate art of pruning banzai trees. When this chaos was exacerbated by a massive infestation of zombies, Kitagawa finally lost it.  He and his little group of gardners gathered their pruning tools—and their swords—and stormed out of the senior center without even stopping for their snacks. They went on what has become a legendary rampage that continued until they had systematically eradicated vampires from Kyoto–an estimated 1,2000 in all. When the conflict was over, Kitagawa returned to the senior center, only to find that another had laid claim to his work. Disillusioned, he retired to the ascetic lifestyle of a Buddhist monk. Public sightings of him were as rare, although his pals at the club say he was religous about his  Wednesday morning rubdown and steam. He reportedly died in 1533, at age 100, in a Zumba class.

Arthur ”Muttonhead” Dutton, USA

Muttonhead Dutton was born to Alswan and Erma Dutton in Kentucky in 1811. Alswan ran a dry goods store and was president of the local checkers club and Muttonhead—so named because his hair was so unruly that only constant drenchings with unrefined sheep grease could keep it under control—often accompanied him on long trips across bluegrass country in search of new checkers opponents.  As a teen, Mutton befriended the local Indians, with whom he made a trade: during their festivals he would stand 100 feet outside their camp and attract away all the flies, and in return they would send him into the wilderness to track down and kill the zombies that were terrorizing them, as well as maybe grab a loaf of bread, a quart of milk and pack of cigarettes—filter kings, hard pack … oh, yeah, and a newspaper—on the way back. Eventually, Muttonhead killed every zombie in the territory, but when he accidentally killed his father—the result of a practical joke gone wrong by one of the Indians who ironically had just lost a checkers game to Alswan Dutton—Muttonhead was forced to take his vampire-fighting skills west. His work was interrupted when the Civil War broke out in 1861. From 1861 to 1865, he served on both the Union and Confederate sides, basically just killing anything that even reminded him of a zombie–including, in another accident, his mother Erma. Thereafter, Muttonhead struggled with a host of demons, including alcohol and gambling. He was stumbling back to his hotel after a night of drinking in Branson when a pack of zombies ambushed and killed him. It’s doubtful the zombies knew that their victim had killed over 4,000 of their kind during his lifetime.

Marino “King Mari” Claudio, Brazil

The man who would one day be known as King Mari was born in Belo Horizonte  in 1635 to an African mother and a deserter from the Portugese army. Mari’s father trained him in slapfighting, the martial art known as the polka and the differences between an ascot and a cravat. An older girl taught him to dance the capoeira one afternoon in the sugar cane fields. The boy put his skills to good use during the many zombie outbreaks that afflicted the practice sessions of the national soccer team. According to local legend, Mari killed his first zombie at age 12 with a well-placed free kick. Estimates put Mari’s kill count at more than 5,000 zombies. A bust of him sits rusting on a remote beach on Isla Grande.

Harpsichord  Middlestrumpet, England

As London grew rapidly in the 17th century, packs of zombies became a major problem along the wooded roads radiating from the city. A chimney sweep named Harpsichord Middlestrumpet, poor in every way but his masculine endowment, was one day picked up by the Queen’s private police and offered a choice: 20 years as her concubine in the Tower of London or a lifetime as a zombie slayer. When Middlestrumpet chose 20 years of service to the Queen, the police burst into laughter and shouted as one, “Psyche!” Soon Middlestrumpet was clearing zombies from the Hounslow Heath area, and then the Great Dover Road. Nighttime travel around London became safe again. Middlestrumpet died in his bed from a bullet fired by the King, furious after hearing the policemen retelling the joke they’d played—and thus learning that Middlestrumpet had been willing to do his wife … something for which the King could never muster the courage. With Middlestrumpet dead, zombies soon again roamed the land.

Trader Vic

Born in 1902 in San Francisco, Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr.,  became known as Trader Vic after he founded a chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants where he and his patrons killed an uncountable zombies—day and night, over appetizers in the bar, over huge meals in the dining room—and celebrated by consuming a rum drink known by the same name. To create a diversion,  Trader Vic started a controversy by insisting he had invented another tropical drink called the Mai Tai, to which Don The Beachcomber had already laid claim. When that died down, he asked his good friend, singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, to create some new confusion. Zevon obliged by claiming in a 1970s hit song that he “saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s.” Of course, the “werewolf” was actually a zombie. And those who were there further insist that his hair was not perfect. Not at all. In fact, it was quite unkempt.