An introduction to Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad by Patrick Stewart

            Every few hundred years somebody says something or does something with actual merit and worth to it. Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad has never claimed to qualify for this category of heroisms, and their honesty is duly noted.
            Over the years Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad has taken many forms: A small venture cooperation, a publicly traded company with majority shares belonging to one of the worlds largest conglomerates, a branch of an offshore curry company, and currently a sole proprietorship industry privately owned an operated by James Gandhi Rage himself.
            The term “zombie hunting” is misleading and often misunderstood. Hunting refers more to the act of tracking for nourishment or sport whereas zombie hunters often let their prey come to them, although through the many colorful ways I’ve seen the staff at Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad dispatch the undead there does seem to be a certain degree of “sport” in it. “Zombie Hunting” as a colloquial term first appeared on the first season of Saturday Night Live in a skit lambasting the attempt on Gerald Ford’s life via zombie assassination, which was thwarted by Johnny Wanderer. In an example of life imitating art, the name stuck and calling it anything different now would seem out of place.
            Although it’s true that zombies date back to the dawn of man, and have been the source of great contempt ever since, they have never appeared in such numbers until the later half of the 20th centaury. The debate of their source has been raging for decades now. Environmentalists, religious zealots, politicians, and people with nothing better to say have done an awful lot of finger pointing, but only brave men like Jim Rage have thought to actually do anything about it. Having devoted his life to the research of the questionably living he is the leading expert on zombiology and is an all around stupendous man. He was quoted once in a brief interview on Sixty Minutes as saying “It’s simple really. The more people the more zombies. The more zombies, the more zombies. It’s not a one to one ratio.”
            Jim Rage’s Zombie Society was first formed in 1986 as a response to the failed zombie bill of 1982, which lost via filibuster. The bill would have put in place a system to quickly deal with zombie uprisings. As it is now local protocol does not permit police officers to deal with zombies because it’s a hazmat situation, hazmat personnel can’t enter a site because they can’t be protected by the cops, EMTs can’t control further injuries (thereby death and more zombies) also due to the same stipulations. The army has at times been called in to control a situation that has become far too problematic, but the bureaucratic red tape that surrounds dispatching the armed forces often takes days, if not weeks. The only government operated agency that has a system in place to deal with zombies is the Environmental Protection Agency which can quarantine an area through Superfund status, which results in billions of tax payer dollars being spent and more often then not a complete loss of life in the designated area. The term “Zombie Bill” has continued in political satire to define any senator that is more willing to do nothing than to address a clear and apparent problem.
            Jim Rage’s Zombie Society held open forum discussions throughout the country and is where I first met Jim. Somewhere in my study I have a picture of the two us and Jean Reno making funny faces. Through heart wrenching speeches and the promise of a program that would keep at risk teens off the street, Jim Rage was able to gather the funds necessary to “make it so number two” and start Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad, which began taking calls around the end of 1987. Originally just a two man operation the company slowly gained employees. Their notoriety exploded in the early 90s when junior reporter, Dick Weston, of the Boston Globe made a sensational article about their efforts in Blue Springs Vermont. The idea that a privately owned company could perform tasks that the government was unable to and with such accuracy and style was groundbreaking. There have of course been many Johnny Come Latleys who suddenly have the same idea.
            Over the past 15 years or so Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad has gained employees, lost employees, misplaced their jet, saved the world a couple times, moved their headquarters, and have even had a few movies made about them in India. They’re not very good, but the music’s enjoyable.
            Regardless to say Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad will be around well into the future to keep you safe at prices that won’t brake the bank. If ever you’re in need of quality zombie extermination, pickup the phonebook and look under “Z” for Jim Rage Elite Zombie Hunting Squad, which isn’t quite intuitive, but it works. And as always…

RE-DEAD THE UN-DEAD!

With love in my heart and tears in my eyes
-Patrick Stewart.