1. Take a dip in the pond.
If its one thing I have learned by watching movies like House of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, it’s that zombies can eat people in water just as easily as on land. They may not swim like Michael Phelps and win gold medals in the undead Olympics, but an undead hand can grab you and pull you down while the zombies are walking on the bottom of a lake. Also, sunbathing, having sex or just lounging on the beach is not a good idea during a zombie invasion. Apparently, a zombie coming out of the surf can be surprisingly stealthy and if you get one of those superhuman remake zombies, kiss your bikini clad body goodbye. Then you have the added embarrassment of being a zombie and half naked.
2. Assume the figure you can’t make out in the dark corner is a living human.
How many times have we seen this maneuver where the man or the woman enters a darkly lit room and notices a shrouded figure in the corner. Sure, half of everyone you know has been eaten and you know for a fact there are zombies nearby, but they can’t help taking that positive outlook and assuming that that person in the corner is their beloved husband or girlfriend. “Beth, is that you,” he says as he slowly walks toward the figure. Yeah, no. It’s not Beth, and if it is Beth, she wants to freaking suck the marrow from your bones. Instead, assume the figure is dead and point your gun at it from the beginning. If it is Beth, she will acknowledge so that you don’t shoot her, and if it’s not Beth, then you are in a perfect position for that head shot.
3. Go back for that extra item.
If the zombies have pretty much taken over everything, we know that food will be in short supply. There will be occasional raids into the city to grab canned goods from the grocery stores. Once you have your boxes of food, don’t go back for that box of Ho Hos or Jack Daniels you saw on your way out. Odds are that by the time you go back in the grocery store about 15 zombies had the sudden inclination to go shopping and not for that spare bottle of JD. If anything you will have to kill a throng of zombies by yourself and the worse case scenario is when you exit the grocery store you will be wanting a little meat … super rare.
4. Go anywhere alone.
I like to call this the Scooby Doo maneuver. You and the rest of the Scooby gang all decide that the best thing to do in this giant creepy house filled with flesh eating monsters is to split up. The other scenario is a person hears or sees something and instead of getting the rest of the group, decides to go check it out on his own. In my opinion, this is survival of the fittest. Darwin’s theory in action. If you are stupid enough to go off alone, then when I watch you get eaten in the movie, odds are I will be laughing … hysterically. The other bad part is el stupido gets turned into a zombie and gets a chomp into one of the other survivors before everyone figures out he is dead. See rule 2.
5. The kids aren’t alright.
No one wants to believe that little Sally in her Easter dress is actually an undead eating machine, but in reality there will likely be a lot of undead kids. They’re slower, not as smart and are a lot like an afternoon brunch for the zombie crowd. Everyone always assumes the best when they see a little girl walking along down the middle of the street in a dirty, blood-soaked dress. “Oh my God, there’s a little girl in the road, she is going to be killed.” No, she’s already dead and you will be too about 30 seconds after you lay a compassionate hand on her shoulder. For as much as we hate seeing poor little undead Sally, we hate the idea of putting a bullet in her head even more. I have seen many bad actors hesitate and end up being a Sally’s next meal.
6. Assume there is only one zombie.
Alone, zombies can easily be considered pathetic and almost comical creatures. In Night of the Living Dead, the gun toting hillbillies were hanging zombies and watching them flail and in other movies they are used as target practice and for experiments. There have been so many people who decide to mess with the zombie and end up getting eaten by the 150 that snuck up behind them. Zombies are pack animals and in almost every movie I have seen tend to stay in groups. So if you meet that lone zombie on the road, either kill it and move on or ignore it completely because his friends are probably not far behind.
7. Ignore or hide the zombie bite.
Sure, no one wants to shot by their compadres, but once you’ve been bitten you can kiss your ass goodbye. It always amazes me when even though they have watched tons of people turn into zombies, no one really notices the guy hiding his bleeding and oozing zombie bite. At best, they ask, “Are you feeling Ok, you don’t look so good.” This is usually followed up with, “I’m just tired.” Those idiots believe it and end up being the ones that pop his flesh eating cherry. If you get bit, tell the group. Yes, they will probably shoot you, but they might actually try to make the few days or hours you have left pleasant before shooting you when you turn. At the very least, leave the group and try to get as far away as you can, so you don’t end up eating your best friend.
8. Believe there is some mythical utopia where the zombies haven’t made it.
There are always the groups that decide to migrate to one end of the country or the other, the cold confines of Canada or some fortress in South America where, rumor has it, the zombie plague hasn’t spread. Once again, bull crap. If all of civilization has fallen apart, there is not some glorious section of Idaho that magically has been spared from zombies. “I heard that the zombies hate potatoes and left the entire state of Idaho alone.” “A friend of a friend said that the zombies can’t swim and that there are islands that are still free of zombies.” (We all saw how that little caveat paid off in the Dawn of the Dead Remake.) Once again, see number 2.
9. Go near a window.
Windows to a zombie are like meat tenderizers. They cut you when they break through and make the meat nice and soft. This is particularly important for elderly zombies who don’t have their false teeth. A pane of glass is not a feature of a zombie fortress. You can see out, they can see in. They can break through it like tissue paper, grab you and pull you out in seconds. Being near a window is bad enough, but having your back to a window is like having a giant neon sign on your back that says “Eat me.” Board those windows up, but keep just a hole big enough to stick your gun barrel through. You probably wouldn’t like the view anyway.
10. Believe you are going to make it.
Lets face it, zombies are constantly reproducing, don’t age and are hard to kill. Don’t delude yourself into thinking humanity will overcome the evil. Humanity is being eaten by the evil. You’re entire life, however long it is, will be filled with constant fear and anxiety, death and killing. You’re fine when you are younger, but what are the odds of you outrunning zombies when you are 65 or 70. They are going to get you unless you are one of the lucky few to suffer from a sudden natural death like stroke or heart attack and even then, you had better hope it isn’t where there are any zombies around to snack on your during your final breaths.
*thanks to shot in the head for the info!
No comments:
Post a Comment