Preppers use zombies as concept to teach others

It has been 16 days since the infection reached Maricopa. No traffic lights are working and all cable, WiFi and phone service is dead. The zombies are everywhere, shuffling their feet and moaning throughout abandoned streets.

Maricopa resident Keith Lostritto huddles with his family and neighbors in his boarded up home with a loaded arsenal laid out on the carpet in front of him. He is unafraid. He has been planning for this for years. 

“I’m not running,” Lostritto said. “I have a house, I have a lot of weapons and my plan is to hunker down and defend myself.” 

Lostritto is a member of U.S. ZORT. (Zombie Outbreak Response Team), a group made of “preppers” who train others to prepare themselves for the end of the world. The group has members in 30 states and is attempting to establish chapters in all 50. Lostritto and his response team are a part of an international movement that can’t get enough of the brainless undead. 

Despite being fictional, zombies can be used as a fun and interesting way to teach important lessons to people, Lostritto said. 

The public’s fascination with zombies goes back a long way. Lostritto said his first experience with zombies was George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” which was released in 1968. 

“The movie terrified me, and since then I was hooked.” 

Lostritto points to George Romero’s movies as the start of the zombie craze, but said more recent TV shows have re-ignited public interest in zombies. AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” a show about a small group of survivors trying to make it in a world infested with zombies, broke cable ratings records with the finale of its third season. Author Max Brooks’ zombie novel “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War” spent four weeks on The New York Times’ bestseller list and Brad Pitt is starring in the movie version this summer.