The Zombies Are Coming. Where Do You Go and Who's With You?

Given the current climate, this might be in poor taste. Oh well. Everyone needs an outlet.

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The news announces the first zombie outbreaks. China declares martial law and Australia is in lockdown. India calls in the army while Iran considers evacuating and carpet-bombing its own capital. Greece is the first European country with reported zombie cases.

For a while you feel immune, but then the infection starts spreading to mainland Europe and to the US. Suddenly, the local news is reporting from a helicopter above a Tesco/Walmart/Aldi/your local superstore. There are zombies chasing someone in the parking lot.

Shit just got real. You were there yesterday. You buy your bread and milk from that store.

You decide to take matters into your own hands. Your fate resides squarely with you, and not with a gaggle of incompetent governments.



Here's the game.

1. Where do you go that you think you will keep you safest?

2. What do you take with you?

3. Who do you go with?

4. What's your long-term survival strategy?

I know what I'd do.

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Some ground rules:

(i) You can assume public transport no longer exists. Trains, planes, cars and buses are off the table. Flying to your own private island is not an option, unless you happen to be a pilot with a fuelled jet in your backyard. You can hijack or steal any extant cars or buses you find though (if you can already drive).

(ii) Assume this is happening as of today. So unless you happen to have an AK47 lying under your bed, any weapons you use to get somewhere else have to be in your house right now, or you have to creatively fashion some weapons out of what you have. Creativity is the key word here.

(iii) Assume the level of contagion starts at approximately one zombie for every 100 metres of road. If it's half a kilometre to the nearest store, expect to encounter five zombies on the way. Every day, the zombie concentration doubles. So don't waste time!

(iv) We are talking about zombies that are halfway between Dawn of the Dead (1978) and 28 Days Later. Most of them are at walking speed, but occasionally one can run for a short distance. All it takes is one bite, and you're dead. They can live without almost any organ, but headshots, decapitation and full incineration will kill them.

(v) Lastly, get creative! It's all about clever, fun ways of surviving and even thriving in the new world order.

 

There is a retail park about 5 miles from here: they have a superstore, a huge pharmacy, two clothing retailers, a Porsche showroom, a petrol station and, most excitingly of all, an IKEA. I would establish a colony starting in the IKEA and grow it from there to include the entire retail park. With the sleeping space and furnishings in the IKEA, we could sustain dozens of people. With the stock in the superstore, we'd have enough food for months or even years. Hell, we could even clothe and medicate ourselves, and have movie night in the IKEA restaurant.

On my bike, I can reach a top speed of 24mph, so outpacing zombies isn't a problem. I would cycle to the retail park with my garden shovel strapped to my back, and two improvised Molotov cocktails made with absinthe and whisky -- all we have at home. I would use the Molotovs for fending off zombies at a distance, and the shovel for close attacks (you can slice someone's neck open with a well-placed blow). I'd aim to get to the car showroom first, and break into a window at the back, taking care to hide my means of entry from zombies and closing up the space. Once inside, I'd get some car keys, pick a decent car and drive straight through the shop front.

I'd go back home and pick up my girlfriend in the car, and any of my neighbours that have survived. I would then steamroll through any zombies on the way back to the retail park and set up camp in IKEA. If needed, we could make more weapons from broken and sharpened wooden furniture. (We don't have guns in the UK, so we could only kill zombies using melee weapons.) It wouldn't take much to find the security room and lock all the entrances to the facility, and ensure we decided who could come and go.

To me, this is the prime mistake made in movies. Those who are lucky enough to find an enclosed space with supplies rarely hunker down and keep the space protected. But it's obvious. Anyone old enough to have played Worms will know what I'm talking about.

 

You guys resurrected the crap out of this thread. Well done.

In the age of COVID, I wouldn't be so sure.
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You missed my point. This pandemic was a black swan event that few people expected. Even now, going to the supermarket with everyone masked up is totally surreal. It seems less of a stretch now to imagine another black swan event that catches everyone by surprise -- certainly less now than, say, in 2018.

 

Love to hear what you say to the bereaved at funerals: "People have been dying since the dawn of time, stop crying, nothing hew here."