What Would You Do In A Zombie Apocalypse?

[Moonface]

The end days are here. One moment you're paying your respects to a dead loved one wishing you could see them again, then before you know it they're popping out of the ground with their neighbouring undead like a twisted game of whack-a-mole and want to chew on your brains because they wanted to be cremated instead. You run for your life, wondering to yourself what to do next. So, what do you do? Where do you go?

Here's a few scenarios to play with if you want a starting point:

Scenario A - Kill Them All
Everyone is shocked at the revelation of hordes of undead coming to infect and eat the living, and many may end up being taken out by the ever growing hordes. Fortunately, everyone decides to focus on doing whatever necessary to stop the undead and may even succeed. Do you join in to help, or do you sit in your mother's basement and let everyone else handle it?

Scenario B - Everyone For Themselves
Unfortunately, not everyone wanted to try and stop the zombies from spreading in a collective effort, instead focusing on their own survival. Small groups band together, but ultimately not enough people can work together to really stop the zombies from eventually taking over the world. Do you try to hold out on your small piece of turf, do you make haste for somewhere that isn't filled with selfish assholes, or do you make haste to get a hold of somewhere important to serve your own survival first and foremost, regardless of whether everyone else has to die in order for you to keep it?

Scenario C - Zombieland
So you tried to stop the zombie apocalypse, but in the end it didn't matter. Shuffling in the streets has become more popular than Fortnite, and who knows how much time has passed since this all started? Where have you decided to live out the rest of your days, or do you admit you've probably died somewhere along the way to this point, even if it was crying in a bin?

Scenario D - Fun Before Death
You accept the zombies will win. Humanity is doomed to have a craving for fleshy balls of thoughts. Before you go, you decide you may as well enjoy yourself and make the best of a bad situation. After all, what would Frank West do?

Bonus Scenario - This Army of Mine
Somehow, you magically get to have a group of people made up of your choosing to help you survive the aforementioned scenarios or one of your own creation. Perhaps your dad worked for the army and got you your own private protection force? Maybe you live in a town where the residents call upon their second amendment rights to stop the zombies like they belong to a tyrannical government? Just pray you're the only one in the area that got such levels of protection.

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I'm still thinking on the scenarios, but if I could I would totally want to get myself inside a shopping mall to hold out in until things go back to normal. I know it has problems with the amount of people that could be inside and get infected, but if everyone was able to barricade up most of it and keep things under control it could go well. Same as if things started bad, you might be able to section off areas of the mall and work on trying to take back areas of it. This probably mostly comes under the D scenario, but without the attachment of everyone has to die. I just picture a mall being a lot of potential fun, especially if zombies were minimal. You could just start finding random stuff to smack them about with like Dead Rising.

In reality, I'd get away from populated areas pretty quickly. Less people means less zombies, and I also don't want any part of being stuck in those long lines of traffic that occur when everyone panic evacuates. If I was waiting it out, I think the best outcome is to grab a good sized boat and go out to sea with it. Not super far from the coast necessarily, just enough so zombies aren't boarding you. You'd get protection from the elements, and if you lacked food maybe you can fish for something and cook it on board. If everything was screwed forever, take that boat, have some faith Arthur and go to Tahiti! and find an island and learn to live off the land. Lack of electric would suck, but I doubt there'd be anything on TV anymore and the internet would be pretty quiet. However, I guarantee someone would start a Twitter trend of #zombieselfie or something that involves doing stupid shit with zombies that like most silly social media trends, should get people hurt/killed but people do it anyway and then give the Pikachu face when they get infected.

[queenzelda]

If I find myself in the future of a zombie apocalypse; I'll just do my best to survive. I'd hope all of the playing games back in the day with zombies gets me ready for the real deal. I also wonder if you could just stink yourself up to the point they would avoid you. I mean if you smell like them; then wouldn't they think you're one of them? It's something I've often wondered & would probably try out just for shits & giggles. I mean if you smell like death warmed over; they're most likely to accept your smelly a** is my theory. XD

[Moonface]

I mean if you smell like them; then wouldn't they think you're one of them? It's something I've often wondered & would probably try out just for shits & giggles. I mean if you smell like death warmed over; they're most likely to accept your smelly a** is my theory. XD

You just have to hope someone who isn't a zombie thinks you are one and picks you out of a crowd to bash over the head with something before you can react.

I guess doing that also depends on the zombies. If they were like Dying Light zombies (although they're infected, not undead) then it would totally work. Resident Evil zombies it might not since I've never seen camouflage attempted in the games (the movies might have done it though).

I also think success of humanity depends on how the zombies die. If it's damaging the head severely, then I think things would be significantly harder than if you could just do enough damage to them anywhere until they just die like in Dead Rising. Same as if you can be infected from taking any hit, or if you have to die to one. If it was the latter, I'd probably be a lot more tempted to take on a lone zombie because taking a scratch wouldn't mean game over.

[Dragon Lord]

Fortify my house as well as I possibly could and then kill anything that came near it -- living or dead.

[queenzelda]

Well the thing is that there has never been medium to touch on the 'smell' aspect in zombie movies or video games. Also depending on the kind of zombies would also determine if the whole idea of smelling like them; as to if it would work or not. The unicorn zombies would be an example of that.

What I'm curious to know; is what about people who are considered 'dead' by the state already? Aren't they zombies already?? I mean the state considers them dead; yet they're walking around like they're alive & have to prove their alive every 4 years (or so).

[Moonface]

Well the thing is that there has never been medium to touch on the 'smell' aspect in zombie movies or video games. Also depending on the kind of zombies would also determine if the whole idea of smelling like them; as to if it would work or not. The unicorn zombies would be an example of that.

What I'm curious to know; is what about people who are considered 'dead' by the state already? Aren't they zombies already?? I mean the state considers them dead; yet they're walking around like they're alive & have to prove their alive every 4 years (or so).

The Walking Dead had the characters cover themselves in zombie guts, and it worked until one of the characters freaked out and drew attention to themselves. So there is medium that has covered the scenario.

Proving you're not a zombie would be easy. For starters, zombies wouldn't have the cognitive functions of a living human. Even if they somehow did, there would be no pulse in a zombie. Besides, if the state thinks you're dead and didn't somehow catch you alive before the apocalypse, then you'd be good if you maintained that post-apocalypse.

[Dragon Lord]

I was going to mention The Walking Dead as well. The character Michonne traveled by covering herself in the innards of a zombie, so that she'd smell dead like them, and also traveled with two 'Walkers' she had on chains to help her blend in with a crowd of Walkers.

Of course this also depends on what kind of zombies we're talking about. Obviously the ones in TWD have no intelligence what-so-ever and just react to typical things like sounds and what they see. If we're going along the lines of Resident Evil zombies, which maintain intelligence, then something like that obviously would not work.

Then of course we have World War Z zombies which are strictly based off of sound and are hyper aggressive.

Speaking of all these different takes on zombies... which do you think would be the worst kind to have to survive against?

[Mr EliteL]

TWD zombies and typical bog-standard ones would obviously be the easiest to survive against. If you're exceptional at being quiet, travelled alone or with a few others (if you don't want to be on your own) who know how to as well, then the WWZ zombies might be easy to avoid. Although their kind, any mistake and you'd swarmed in no time, unless lucky to not be near any. RE zombies, haven't played enough of the games and assumed most were unintelligent (but a bit better than typical slow useless zombies) except bosses and some others. If there were any mutated like their bosses, then yeah that's going to be very difficult to survive against unless you were near convenient machines or have a car perhaps.

I own a pruning saw, so that'll be my first go to weapon. Don't think I'll stick to my house, just grab supplies and get out. However I don't have much areas to go to I think would be safe. Their's the supermarket but everyone would go there. Would get supplies and then leave. If I could steal a car and go somewhere, either a remote location or mall. Oh, I'd want to find a baseball bat at some point, since all I want to do is batter zombies with that.

[Dragon Lord]

RE zombies, haven't played enough of the games and assumed most were unintelligent (but a bit better than typical slow useless zombies) except bosses and some others. 

I don't know about any other RE games, but RE5 zombies are basically just humans with mutations. They can do everything a human could do. In the game you see lots of examples of it -- them driving vehicles, them using weapons (guns, rocket launchers, thrown items, etc.) and they also retain their ability to talk. 

Something that makes World War Z zombies extremely dangerous other than how aggressive they are is also the fact that the transformation from human to zombie is near instant. Within minutes one can turn into hundreds. That would make living in a larger city almost a zero chance of surviving the first day.

[Mr EliteL]

Ah, then the RE5 zombies seem to be the hardest to survive against with that. Yeah, I need to watch some videos now. Wasn't fully aware they had that much going for them as well as mutations.

For WWZ, I was going with you being in one of the best possible scenario of having been able to evade them straight off, as in the outbreak started far away from you, and you happened to find out how they act before encountering any. If you started off in a high populated area with the outbreak in effect, then yeah things will get screwed up pretty quickly for you. (every instance of 'you' in this post is any person trying to survive)

[Dragon Lord]

You'd think the RE5 zombies would be the biggest threat since they maintain so much intelligence, but at the same time that could actually be used against them. Even though they are "zombies", they still act human, which means they would be predictable like humans are. That could be used to your advantage against them.

I think I'd be more worried about a zombie that's just going to charge at me without giving any fucks about anything than a zombie with a gun that I'd be able to more easily lure into a trap or something.

[Moonface]

Speaking of all these different takes on zombies... which do you think would be the worst kind to have to survive against?

Anything that's fast and has no consideration for preserving itself. RE5 zombies are aggressive, but it wouldn't be any worse really than fighting regular humans. I believe they can't even infect you without forcing a Plaga parasite down your throat, so the spread of infection would be easy to stop.

TLoU style "zombies" would be variable. The early infected people would be very dangerous because they're fast, aggressive, and it takes a single scratch to be infected. Freakers from Days Gone would be another type like that which would be hard to deal with properly, especially because they hunt in hordes.


Anything slow like RE2 zombies would be the best to deal with, because even if they take a fair amount of damage, they're easy to keep away from. I'd rather take strong and stupid, than weak but intelligent/fast/aggressive.