Wednesday, May 23, 2012

On the Zombie Apocalypse: Location, Location, Location

Alright, so part two. Mainly because I get a bit...focused... on things sometimes. Yeah. That sounds better than obsessive!

Anyway, part of what would make any successful survival effort during the zombie apocalypse would be where you choose to settle down. All the weapons and planning in the world won't help you if you are in the middle of a rampaging horde of zombies. So how to avoid that shambling, biting mass of disaster?

One of the most popular solutions is to load up a vehicle (or actually, probably more often a horse) and ride on out of town. Running for the hills seems like a good option. After all, less people means less potential zombies, and that means less potential bite marks. Plus, farms should provide some food right?

The other option is just to fort up in town and hold out against whatever comes. You'll hopefully have some food storage, and you'll be able to scavange something from the local supermarket once things run out. You won't have to travel anywhere, which is good because the main ways to travel are going to be clogged with people...people and probably zombies. Sure, there will be zombies around the city, but you can just barricade the door and wait til they rot, right?

So I think there are problems with both of these scenarios. Sure in the countryside there will be less zombies...for a time. As the zombies spread out from the cities, you'll start getting swamped eventually. Plus, since when do I know how to farm? Unless I mysteriously pick up tilling-the-earth skills, I'm pretty sure food will be pretty scarce. Especially if I have the fortune to be in the lost and forsaken deserts of Utah or something. There will be a few awesome country refuges, but I imagine cranky farmers/squatters/survivalists with guns will get there first and not want to share. Probably best to avoid that situation--most people die from other people in zombie movies rather than the zombies themselves.

In the city, though, there will be no food either. Ever. If the stores are stripped bare two days in advance of a Houston hurricane, imagine what will happen once the dead start to eat people? Besides, the giant armies of undead walking the streets will be obstacle enough to get to any food storage. There might be some people around willing to band together and beat back the horde, but we're probably talking about millions of undead versus a few hundred humans. Seriously bad odds. One time I tried to estimate how many zombies Houston's metropolitan area alone would produce if every third person turned. That was upwards of six million undead. Yikes. Definitely avoiding the cities.


No cities, no urban areas. Where then? I think that of all the places to be, a multistory house in the suburbs would be the best. A little surgery with a hammer or an axe would remove most of the stairs, thus preventing zombie infiltration. There would be places for gardens and a moderate food supply for the short term, yet the ravening hordes of zombies wouldn't have reached us from the cities yet. We could probably build up a food supply, then wait out the wandering hordes when they came. Wildlife would be more common as well, giving us the chance at meat. Also, most people in the burbs would probably head for the hills, clogging the roads and leaving behind their well stocked houses, ripe for salvage and/or defense. It wouldn't be perfect, but this is an apocalyse we're talking about. Better a slightly crappy place then no place at all.

So yeah, more thoughts on random stuff. See you around!

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