Is it just me, or is everyone approaching zombie invasion completely wrong?

Cafe Society
1

It’s a fine sunny day, but something’s not quite right. The streets seem quieter than normal. A strange scent is in the air. You see a shambling figure in an alleyway, then another by the corner store. Slowly, with sense of growing horror, and yet not without some excitement, you realize what has happened. You gather your friends, some weapons and a small stash of supplies. What next?

According to traditional zombie wisdom, this is where you barricade yourselves in an island house, or a sewer, or a Costco, or any other small, enclosed space with limited options for escape, to hold out as long as possible before the enemy breaks in or your supplies run out. Essentially, you’re putting yourself in a siege situation. Nice strategy there, folks. No, I’m going to argue that your best course of action is one often wrongly depicted as a dead end in the movies: get the hell out of town. Consider the following:

If the zombie infestation is widespread, you’re fucked anyway
The most obvious argument against the get-out-of-town strategy would seem to be “But you’re leaving the known for the unknown! What if you’re just driving into more zombies?” To which I reply: realistically, your chances of surviving an all-out zombie apocalypse is very slim. If the infection has already reached your entire surrounding area, or (god help you) your entire country, it severely cuts down your chances for outside rescue (which I assume is the point of holing up in a Costco) and means the infection will likely continue to spread unchecked. In this situation you are more or less guaranteed to die, and, while you may live a few days longer in the relative safety of a hideout, eventually you will succumb. So, while escaping the city won’t help you in a hopeless situation, neither will the conventional response.

The earlier you leave, the better your chances you’ll make it out
Ever tried to head out of town on a long weekend? Then you’ll know that the trick is to get up early and head out by 6am, while the suckers that leave later in the day get caught in a 10-mile traffic jam. Likewise, if you wait too long to escape the zombies, you may find it’s no longer an option. Leave at the first sign of an outbreak, and don’t look back. This ties in with…

If the infestation is local to your area, your government may respond with extreme measures
Now, the situation you’re hoping for, and the one that would lead to the best outcome for you, is that the zombie outbreak originated in your city, or in a city nearby. This would mean the outbreak is in its early stages, and much easier to contain. Problem is, your government will probably decide to contain it by nuking the place, or at least barricading it off, trapping anyone who hasn’t yet escaped. You want to get out before either of these happen.

In conclusion:

  • The best response to a small-scale infestation is to get away.
  • You will probably die in a large-scale infestation regardless of what you do.

Comments?

2

So you’re saying you can’t stay home, and you can’t flee the city because everyone will be fleeing the city. Soo… what’s your bright idea then?

I plan on holing up in the house for a few weeks while I wait for traffic to die down, either literally or figuratively. In a real outbreak scenario I’m sure many people will do this as well, along with the flood of regular idiots shootin’ and lootin’ and the great panic all over the place. I have enough food and water to last a month easily even if I eat like a king. I have weaponry to defend the house if raiders get the bright idea to break in.

Just once I’d love to see a zombie movie where the protagonists actually do everything right to survive. A small group of people hiding in a fortified building shooting deadheads in the face when need be but otherwise just hanging out

3

Heck, it bugged me that the mallrats in the new Dawn of the Dead didn’t MacGuyver all kinds of nifty ideas to get supplies to Andy and get ammo back from him. If that mall had a hardware or toy store, I can think up quite a few possibilities.

4

Isn’t that basically the plot of Zombieland?

5

Lets hear it. What would be the best way to get food to Andy?

Assuming that doggie followed by teenager WASNT the best way of course :wink:

6

That’d make for a less exciting movie.

7

Philippe Petit, the man who wire walked between the twin towers, and his team used a bow to shoot an arrow with fishing line attached to the other tower. That fishing line was used to pull a rope and that rope was used to pull a cable that Philippe did his wire walk on. One could set up a rope to send food down to Andy the same way. I’m thinking the mall probably had a hunting store.

8

I love the dope sometimes. Really. I’m so glad to see that I’m not the only one who thinks about this stuff.

9

I just finished reading a pretty bad horror novel, where they all got on a boat after the zombie invasion, then spent time trying to figure out which ports they should raid to re-supply themselves that would be less likely to be overrun with zombies.

Then the disease that caused zombies in the first places continued to evolve, eventually infesting fish and finally birds, too.

10

Well, damn. The whole boat thing was our plan while we waited for the zombies to run out of food and die out. If the zombie virus or whatever mutates and infects fish and birds too we will just be dying on a boat instead of on land.

11

Zombies are overrated. All you need is a few guns, lots of ammo, and a large enough group to have someone keep watch at night, and to watch your back. Your main problems are going to be dealing with the collapse of society, but if most people die then there should be lots of supplies to scavenge.

12

What kind of zombies are we talking about?

Obviously, if you’re in a situation involving supernatural, truly undead zombies (a la George Romero/Dan O’Bannon) which have no biological functions whatsoever (and thus will either never expire on their own or are completely unkillable), then yes you’re totally fucked no matter what you do.

However, if we’re discussing something more along the lines of 28 Days Later, the purpose of the siege is to try and outlast the zombies; eventually they will die on their own. If the government is going to nuke the area or use some other extreme measure, either they would attempt to evacuate the uninfected or they would strike immediately without warning, in which case you wouldn’t have a chance to escape because surely they would account for the largest practical area people could have escaped to. In this situation I believe the best course of action would have to be:

[ol]
[li]Attempt contact authorities for assistance[/li][li]Move to evacuation area as instructed if contact is made[/li][li]Failing that, gather supplies and move to a defensible location[/li][li]Fortify said location: barricade windows and doors, set up on upper floor and knock out stairs, etc.[/li][li]Formulate emergency escape plan[/li][li]Wait[/li][/ol]

13

Using an arrow to launch a thin line, used to haul progressively heavier lines (as Uosdwis suggests) is one idea. If the mall has a toy store, there may also be toy rocket kits or remote-controlled model helicopters or planes one might use to get the first thin line passed. If there’s any source of rubber tubing, a catapult could be rigged, using ladders (as from a hardware store) to build a scaffold. And if there’s a hardware store, they may be generators, which they could run on gasoline siphoned from the multiple cars in the parking lot. The key should be to get energy drinks and meal-replacement shakes to Andy and put a generator on the roof rigged to spotlights which will increase the chances of being spotted and light up the parking lot. Then Andy, by all accounts a great shot and presumably sitting on a huge stock of ammo, can spend his nights shooting zombies and sleep during the day to preserve his energy. He should be able to kill five a minute, or maybe 300 an hour, or 1500 a night. Within two weeks, that’s 21,000, which should be enough to make a major dent.

If Andy can get ammo back to the mallrats, they should spend their days shooting zombies from the rooftop. Everybody takes practice, no exceptions. This will give the entire group at least minimal skill and desensitize them to zombie-slaughter should the need arise. If there are flammable aerosol cans in the mall, see if you can rig up fire-grenades of sorts, launch them into the zombie horde.

If it was me in that mall, I’d be looking for all kinds of way to maximize efficient zombie-slaughter. How’s that for a slice of fried gold?

14

Your plan is deeply flawed, as it includes provisions neither for “Profit” nor “Hi Opal!”

15

Believe it or not (thanks, EvilTOJ!), there’s a whole board dedicated to questions like this - when too stay and how, when to go and how, how to prepare/rebuild. It’s The Zombie Squad, and it’s great fun, along with some very practical information preparing for any kind of disaster.

16

Sorry. Allow me to amend:

  1. Attempt contact authorities for assistance
  2. Move to evacuation area as instructed if contact is made
  3. Failing that, gather supplies and move to a defensible location
  4. Fortify said location: barricade windows and doors, set up on upper floor and knock out stairs, etc.
  5. Formulate emergency escape plan
  6. Wait
  7. Hi Opal!
  8. Underpants
  9. ?
  10. Profit
17

Wouldn’t some kind of solution that involves keeping moving continuously be a good idea? Zombies don’t seem to have any ability to anticipate or plan ahead, so as you moved into new zombies they’d always be trying to react, not laying an ambush…and they shamble slowly, the ones you’ve passed wouldn’t be able to keep up.

You will eventually need to take shifts controlling some kind of vehicle, but for a while, even a brisk walk should keep you relatively safe.

18

Fuel? Am I not going to be attacked at the abandoned gas station?

I think the OP has a good point. Run like hell to an unifested area before they nuke it from orbit. Then set up your anti-zombie zone in a place where they don’t yet believe, and will still sell you shells and canned goods.

19

In all these zombie movies, it’s usually a handful of live people, say 5 or 6, versus hundreds of zombies. If we go by these odds, say 5 non-infected out of 500 infected, that means you have a 99% chance of becoming a zombie whenever the virus/plague/horrible government experiment gone wrong/ occurs. So why all this meticulous planning on how you’ll survive? Chances are, you’ll be walking around stiff-legged and gobbling brains like the other 99%.

20

Personally I’d go for hunting down Zombies.

Clearing area by area and barricading off the areas as I go.

On my own I wouldn’t be able to achieve much but using the phone system and radios I’d contact other uninfected survivors and hopefully link up with them.

Those who don’t know how to use weapons properly I’d train, also I’d instill in them tactics and Standard Operating Procedures in the event of encountering Zs, instead of the " Zombies lets run!", or opening wild undirected fire and having no one looking to the flanks and the rear while everyone looks at the obvious threat.
I work in a military installation and so could quite easily gain arms and ammo, but even if I didn’t there are enough around the country to enter one.

A heavy machine gun can take out masses of Zombies, if they outnumber you thousands to one it just makes them that much easier to kill.
I would try as much as possible to prevent ithe spread of infection from "killed "Z corpses., possibly by using fire and/ or disinfectants.

Food should not be a problem if you as a group use your brains, co operate and don’t panic.

I think the people in the movies become victims because they don’t ACT against the Zs but only react, also they always panic and while panicing either do something stupid or become careless.

Probably because they don’t have many brains.