BY: PATRICK MALONEY
Everyone you know, including yourself, has a zombie apocalypse escape plan—and this is despite not knowing the fire escape plan for our own homes. Zombie culture is at an all time high in popularity due to The Walking Dead, films like 28 Days Later, as well as events like The Zombie Walk Parade. I was fortunate enough to participate at a zombie survival camp for a weekend which included a simulated zombie apocalypse. Once being “bit” in the simulated apocalypse after a weekend long extensive training course, one thing was very clear—we’re all screwed if the real zombie apocalypse comes…and none of our plans are going to work the way we think they are. Here are the most common plans you’ll have the misfortune of listening to:
The Gun: The one you’ll hear the most is “I’d just get a gun and shoot them all.” It’s very well thought out and I’m sure will go over great especially seeing how most people have never even fired a gun in their lives. There’s a reason why at gun ranges they usually sit you down and put you through a boring 30 minute lecture of how to turn off the safety, how not to jam the gun, and most importantly how not to kill yourself in the process. But, you’re right, you’ll just find a gun laying around and all of a sudden you’re a post apocalyptic Rambo. The gun plan never goes on about finding ammunition (hey, if you’re finding a gun out of nowhere I’m sure it comes with a crate of ammo) or the deafening noise that will attract your new found zombie pals. If one of your friends has this plan, it’s time to reconsider your relationship with them.
The Lock My House: Yep, locking the door and living off of the food in your house plan. The average household in Canada spends $150 a week on groceries, where the average 20-30 year old spends $150 a week on booze and fast food. Most people I know personally, have about a 1-4 day supply of food (chips and cheap bottles of wine) in their homes that they could live off in an emergency situation, such as the world ending. Keep in mind there will be no running water in the post apocalyptic world and you’ll also be sharing your supplies, so it won’t be a long time before you’re hungry and thirsty enough to go outside and take your unlikely chances of finding more rations. Also there will be no electricity which means no Internet, so maybe it’s better to just go outside and get eaten opposed to being bored for any longer.
The Car: The hope and dream with some people is that driving around will somehow get them out of the situation. Along with thousands upon thousands of others with a similar idea, welcome to grid lock traffic. Not even the type of traffic that you’ll see at 5pm on a highway, we’re talking about people abandoning their cars and running on foot because they’ve realized how stupid their plan was, kind of traffic. Even if you do somehow avoid the congestion, finding gasoline would be a nightmare as no one will be available to run the pumps. Just when you thought gas prices were getting better.
The Sword/Bow and Arrow: The silent weapon approach is obviously a much better idea than shooting off a gun like a giant dinner bell, although not by much. Unless you’re a trained archer, precision of hitting your target with a basic bow and arrow is extremely unlikely. Mix in the pressure and adrenaline of the deadly situation at hand and the weapon is basically useless. Loading an arrow and holding steady isn’t the easiest task when being approached by a group of the hungry undead. A sword is silent and precise but takes a lot of strength, training, and you need to be closer to your enemy than you should be. Finding a sword sharp enough to slice through bone with ease is probably harder to obtain than the gun.
Boat: The idea of finding a boat and coasting off is so bad that it’s kind of amazing. It combines most of the ideals of the bad plans and mixes them all together. You take the car to where the boat is, use weapons to fight your way to the boat, and with no knowledge of how to use a boat you somehow drift off, and either starve to death or float right back to the coast where you started. Granted, the zombie apocalypse isn’t a real thing and we don’t actually know what could possibly kill the zombies…but if blowing an air horn at them works then this idea is actually the best.
Sources: moddb.com, signsofthezombieapocalypse.com, deviantart.net, blogspot.com, desktopaper.com, gawkerassets.com
