Weapons, part 6.

And finally we reach the ranged weapons.

Bows:

Excellent weapons, so long as you know how to use them.  A trained archer can easily put down several infected with a bow before they notice where the arrows are coming from.  You can make your own ammunition, which is a massive plus when you may have to face thousands of zombies over the course of a zombocalypse.  However, you need to be strong, well-fed, and trained to use a bow with enough poundage to inflict serious damage.  The highest draw weight the average newbie could manage would probably be about 20 pounds, maybe 30, assuming they didn't need any kind of accuracy (not that they'd have any, being new at archery anyways).  After a month or so of training, you'll probably be able to consistently hit a 6" target at 25 or 30 feet.  This isn't very good for a silent weapon, but it gets better.  Also, if you use a compound bow, everything gets easier.  They give you more power for the same effort, have a bunch of accuracy-improving attachments, and can be used for most of the things that a normal bow can be used to do.  However, Their strings can be a pain to replace, and they fire a bit more slowly than normal bows, generally speaking, so choose carefully when choosing between the two types of bow (recurve bows count as "normal" bows in this).

Crossbows:

Bows with a few trade-offs.  They don't shoot nearly as quickly, but you fire them in almost exactly the same way as a gun, making familiarity nearly instantaneous.  Also, loading, drawing, and aiming are all easier with a crossbow than with a bow, and you get an even longer accurate range to boot.  Essentially, a crossbow is a silent, arrow-firing gun.  And you can still make your own ammunition!