OK, so the US takes defence seriously, we all know that. It takes attack pretty seriously too. But it's even prepared for the possibility that one day zombies will ravage our planet (sort of). It'd be better to read this now and learn it off by heart – you don't want to be caught skimming over a document while a group of zombies are battering down your barricade.

The manual, discovered by Foreign Policy, was "not actually designed as a joke", but is acknowledged as a creative strategy for implementing trained survival methods –  an "unclassified document to ensure maximum utility in times of crisis."

It's called CONPLAN8888 or COUNTER–ZOMBIE DOMINANCE and rightly describes zombies as "horribly dangerous to all human life. Zombie infections have the potential to seriously undermine national security and economic activities that sustain our way of life." Wise indeed.

CONPLAN8888 details eight different types of zombie to be wary of, ranging from pathogenic zombies – lifeforms created after an organism is infected by a virus – to chicken zombies, apparently the only proven class of zombie to actually exist. It provides separate phases of defence to be implemented in the event of zombie apocalypse, all very useful for that day we all know is coming when we all barricade ourselves inside offices, pray and resign ourselves to the numbing inevitability that we will die being ripped apart by bloodthirsty post–people monsters with a lust for mindless violence. Because we haven't had military training but are obviously concerned with the threat of zombies, we dug out our zombie defence manual.

THE DAZED ALTERNATIVE TO CONPLAN8888

1. Decide which one of you in the group would be most likely to die first in a film, then feed that person to the zombies, distract them and run off. There's a reason that those people die first in films – it's because they probably would IRL.

2. Raid the fashion wardrobes. There's a chance that there's some leftover gear from shoots that if worn, could pass for a member of the undead. Get in costume, practice stumbling around a bit and hit the streets. Zombies are stupid, right?

3. Wait patiently for Meadham Kirchoff to release a zombie-murdering chainsaw and have it flown by military helicopter to the roof of our offices.

4. Look out at the zombies trying to batter the door down? Are there any out there who look like they might shape up to radicalise culture in the coming months? Make notes. You can't go anywhere, might as well get some work done.

5. Just embrace the fact that we're going to die. It was going to happen anyway, after all. It's one better than YOLO – now you can live twice. What's not to like?