Zombies tap into the psyche of New York City like no other ghoul. Their insatiable hunger for braaaaains mirrors our own depthless ambition and magnifies our most crippling anxieties: fear of random violence; fear of the chaos that lurks inside every crowd; fear of the stranger with one thing on his mind. Is it any surprise, then, that end-of-days parables like The Walking Dead (which just kicked off its second season on AMC), Brian Ralph’s graphic novel Daybreak (out now from Drawn + Quarterly), and the Resident Evil series (now shooting its fifth installment) strike such an emotional chord? Add to that list Colson Whitehead’s spooky, desolate new novel, Zone One, which sets its undead down in Manhattan proper, giving the city its most enervating encounter ever with its spirit monster. The book, set mostly in Tribeca, deals with the impracticalities of clearing the undead out of office buildings and luxury apartments. Which got us thinking: What should real New Yorkers do in the event of a zombie outbreak? In the following pages, we asked twenty leading experts—screenwriters, game designers, neuroscientists, Stephen King—for their most practical advice.

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