ZWD: Inside Chapter 4

ZWD: King of an Empty City on Amazon.com

"What the hell is an Ice Pike?"  I get that question a lot. Below is the tip of a traditional pike, Basically it's a long stick with a nasty pointy end. The tips come in a variety of styles depending on what was fashionable during the time of their use. A modern one would be a boat hook I guess.  

Traditional Pike

I wanted to give the weapons a bit of a medieval feel so I took a traditional winter tool that is commonly seen in the northern US and hardly ever in the south, an Ice Chopper, and renamed it an Ice Pike. A long stick with a nasty pointy end. Not a traditional weapon I know but it worked for me. I saw it as kind of a martial arts Jo Stick/baton that she could wield give her background as a dancer and gymnast I thought she could easily adapt it to her needs. And it don't hurt to have a big flat blade you can use to chop off a head with when facing a zombie.  

Ice Chopper/ Ice Pike

 The Marine folding shovel was inspired by the book "All's Quiet On the Western Front" where a fight took place and one of the soldiers used his shovel as an ax. Seems that in WWI several soldiers actually did this sharpening the edges of the shovels sides to make blades. The use of the shovel was so brutal that between WWI & WWII the use of shovels as ax's was banned but occasionally still used. Hey, when fighting for your life you use whats available.

The Marine model of the shovel I chose because it is a nod to my father a Marine of 26 years and my Greatest Hero. I had asked him one time about the shovel and why he kept it. He said he had dug many a fox hole with it and it kept him alive on more than one occasion. He wouldn't offer much more than that. Dad had been in WWII, the tail end, he lied about his age. Korea, Vietnam twice and a dozen other skirmishes around the world and through it all he was never one to talk about the things he had seen or been through. Only the good times he had had and the great people he had met.

Dad as a DI 

Retirement photo. 

 I still have that shovel hanging in my shop. I though it would for the story make a perfect weapon for our hero to use. Using it as an ax seemed primitive and almost instinctual. I tried to swing dads shovel folded up as an ax and it's top heavy, if the sides were sharp it, I believe, would take a persons head off. Like the Ice Chopper I wanted this weapon of choice to be something comfortable and a logical choice especially for our hero who if you've read this far know isn't the most logical of thinkers.