Shawn Beatty prepares with his cross bow in "Zombie Apocalypse," airing at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Discovery, cable 30. DISCOVERY
Prepare yourselves: There will be a “Zombie Apocalypse” on Tuesday.
Well, not exactly. Zombies won't be rising from the graves but the Discovery Channel will be airing the one-hour special "A Zombie Apocalypse” as part of its "Apocalypse Tuesday" programming on cable 30.
The question is not "if" but "when," according to four people who are prepping for the end-of-the-world scenario and are featured in the special, reports hollywoodreporter.com.
They include a Wisconsin-based teacher who isn't expecting zombies to end his world but wants to be prepared, a mother of two who is teaching her children to fight zombies, an ex-military firearms instructor who is preparing an escape route in case and the founder of the Kansas Anti-Zombie militia who has a secret location stockpiled with supplies.
All are prepping for an "impending outbreak" a la "The Walking Dead," according to the website.
The special also includes some scientific proof, it reports.
"A zombie pandemic … is something that is plausible, it's something that at least in terms of spread, is very likely," says Dr. Robert Smith of the department of mathematics at the University of Ottawa, in the film.
It is plausible for humans to contract a virus that changes them into something resembling a zombie, according to Dr. Steven Scholzman of Harvard Medical School, in the film.
In the world's infrastructure, diseases can move very quickly as people gather in cars, trains, subways and "if such a virus were to become a pandemic, the results would be immediate and devastating."
A zombie-like virus passed on by human contact could infect every person in a city the size of New York in just 8-9 days, according to press information, citing the fact that the 1918 Spanish Influenza killed 100 million people worldwide, and something similar could kill a 250 million today.
The disclaimer for the show reads: "This investigation mixes archival, fictional and re-enactment footage. Disturbing image warning. Sensitive viewers proceed with caution."
"The zombies are real… they are just not what you thought they are.”
FYI: "The broadest definition of a zombie is a re-animated corpse. A flesh automaton," according to Max brooks, author of "World War Z," in "Lost Tapes: Zombies."
Tuesday's programming on Discovery launches at 7 p.m. with "How the World Will End" followed, at 8 p.m., by "Apocalypse 2012 Revelations" at 8 p.m. and "Zombie Apocalypse" at 9 p.m. All on cable channel 30.
Here’s the trailer for "Zombie Apocalypse."
