Can you drown a zombie?

[ThelmaLou]

Dang! I gotta get new glasses…

I thought this was a drink question:

“Can you DOWN a Zombie?”

“The Zombie is the mother of all freak drinks. Although it may seem like a product of the Pu-Pu platter 1950s, it actually hearkens back to the late '30s, when Hollywood restaurateur Don the Beachcomber supposedly cooked it up as liquid CPR for some poor SOB experiencing death by hangover – thereby delivering him into the clutches of Baron Samedi (you know, the bald guy in Live and Let Die). In any case, it caught on, especially at the Hurricane Bar at the 1939 New York World’s Fair (perhaps that explains the Trilon and Perisphere). By the time tiki culture hit its stride, the Zombie, with all its evil, no-more-than-two-to-a-customer charm, was ubiquitous. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean it was any good. In fact, it’s not. But no matter – sometimes the urge will strike anyway. We can respect that.”

Read more: Best Zombie Drink Recipe – How to Make the Perfect Zombie

[pepperlandgirl]

@AClockworkMelon

This very much depends which zombie version you’re going by. I, of course, refer to the Zombie Survival Guide. As far as I know zombies would be incapable of the hand-eye coordination required to climb up a chain.

And that’s why you’d be zombie food.

Can you imagine the feeding frenzy that would cause once the zombies started laying waste to the trapped victims? Every shark within hundreds of miles would be there. It’d be unbelievably epic. For that reason, I encourage the tragically doomed floating city.

[Fubaya]

@simster

Why ‘build’ a floating city of boats? just cut loose the marina itself and build onto it - in any decent sized marina - you’re going to have mulitple houseboats, and enough other boats to use for manuevering.

I did consider that, but many marinas may not be easy to cut loose. Even the floating docks often have poles cemented into the ground under the water that come up through loops and keep the dock in place. Grabbing a boat is fast and requires minimal exposure to danger, but I’d take a whole dock if feasible. However, I’d prefer to have only enough boats for the survivors and no empty boats that zombies can sneak aboard. If they get past lookouts and board a boat, hopefully someone will be inside to hear them and raise the alarm.

Oh yeah, I do plan on having extra boats for utility, escape and backup (every boat in motion should be towing a smaller one, maybe a jet ski, in case of emergencies), so there will be extra boats, but those could be kept anchored away from the flotilla. I don’t want any large boats with hiding places.

@MandaJo

Your plan is doomed because you don’t have any screening process. Inevitably, someone will have a small bite and a tiny zombie infection that will not fully develop until you are all stuck on a boat far from land, at which point all the things that made you more safe now act as a trap, exacerbating the danger.

I would only let my group on. If they have a hidden bite, we are all doomed whether we’re on boats or surrounded by zombies in the city, so the danger from the group is the same. The danger from the outside is what the plan seeks to minimize. Any new people would be searched and quarantined. If the zombie infection takes a long time to develop, as opposed to the few minutes I’m familiar with, I don’t see how any survivors could ever trust each other enough to band together, so I guess I’d have a floating city of one boat if that were the case.

@AClockworkMelon

[in re: zombies climbing anchor ropes] This very much depends which zombie version you’re going by. I, of course, refer to the Zombie Survival Guide. As far as I know zombies would be incapable of the hand-eye coordination required to climb up a chain.

That’s my assumption. I’ve never seen zombies that could do anything like that, but I obviously haven’t seen many zombies. Barriers could be put around the chain/rope so even if they made it to the surface, they’d have a harder climb to get aboard.

[Barking_Dog]

@jackdavinci

But your idea to find sanctuary on water is a sound one. I doubt most zombies have enough fat and lung capacity to float or brain capacity to swim.

Well if a zombie is an animated corpse, than it’s rotting, and wouldn’t the decomposition process cause the body cavity to bloat with gas allowing the creature to bob to the surface? And I imagine a zombie could swim all right. An infant can instinctually doggy-paddle, and a zombie’s shambling walk likely requires more brain power than that.

My thinking is, a zombie that is too rotten to float is a minimal threat to a floating settlement. And probably all zombies, floating or not, will probably subject to marine predation. As an aside, do you think fish would still eat a zombie, and if so would they themselves become zombified? And if they can eat zombie flesh with impunity, could eating a fish that ate a zombie cause a human to become stricken?

Also per the OP, I just thought of something before posting. Do the lakes and waterways you plan to take refuge in routinely freeze during winter?

[pepperlandgirl]

But think of it this way, zombies aren’t going to get distracted. And if you really do manage to outlive all the land dwellers, they’re going to be even more determined to get to you the last food source. Plus they seem pretty much like herd animals. So they’ll just keep marching into the sea, if that’s what it takes. If just one zombie out of millions figures out how to scale that chain or climb over your barrier, that’s it. You’re fucked. And if zombie movies have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t trust your fellow man in the case of an apocalypse. Not because humans are evil, but because they’re dumb, panicky, self-serving, and everyone thinks they’re a unique snowflake and probably won’t turn into a zombie despite the bite on their arm.

[Apollyon]

@Barking_Dog

Well if a zombie is an animated corpse, than it’s rotting, and wouldn’t the decomposition process cause the body cavity to bloat with gas allowing the creature to bob to the surface?

Thank you, that’s a mental image to cherish: bloated decomposing zombies dog-paddling towards the floating city.

As an aside, do you think fish would still eat a zombie, and if so would they themselves become zombified?

Cool: zombie sharks. I’m thinking there’s a movie in here, a sort of Dawn of the Dead meets *Waterworld *and Jaws.