Started watching The Walking Dead a few weeks back, and I'm not particularly fond of zombie flicks but wow, what a show. So any way, the point of this thread isn't to discuss TWD itself, it's to start a fun discussion to kill some time about if such an event did somehow occur. The scenario isn't very complicated. You're doing whatever you usually do in the afternoon on a weekday. You are in whatever part of the world you currently live in. An emergency broadcast on TV interrupts whatever's currently showing. Town sirens are going off. There are reports of people mawing each other to death and as a result, are spreading some kind of highly contagious virus to those they encounter through blood/saliva/etc. No one knows what caused this, but it's happening and spreading fast. Clearly, the majority of those around you are panicking and frantic. What will be your survival tactics and methods? How do you plan on surviving? Do you have people you care for that you'll attempt to rescue? Where will you go? Will you avoid or welcome strangers to travel with you? Will you fight back? What goals are you going to establish? *Edit* We're dealing with the zombies that'll run (28 Days/Weeks Later style), not just drag their feet. Go!
OK, first what kind of Zombies? TWD shufflers or 28 Days Later rage runners. I see the rage runners as a more realistic scenario, the release of a rabies like virus.
Good question, hmm, I got yelled at by a friend for calling the ones from 28 Days Later "zombies". Yeah lets go with "rage runners", I'll edit my OP to reflect that.
I'd load up my mosberg 464 rimfire, put 700 .22 lr. Rounds in my to go vest, grab my hiking bag with a week or two of rice and four liters of water (plus filter) and head for the hills.
I'd take my father and two brothers, family first! Then random folks up to five more, but only if they can pull their own weight. Heading do the whilt mountains in New Hampshire, dead weight is a no go.
First thing I'd do as I live in an apartment block is destroy the stairs so nothing can get up. Probably loot the gun shop that's about 1/2 a km away. After that, sit back and wait for winter. A few months of minus -20 or below will freeze the Zs and make life a lot easier. Or so it says in Max Brook's The Zombie Survival Guide.
Just a note: rage runners are infected with the rage virus. Know your enemy. Origin In the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, two Cambridge University scientists named Clive and Warren were trying to isolate the specific neurochemicals that cause anger and excessive aggression in humans in order to develop an inhibitor that regulates anger control issues. Warren decided that it was waste of time to experiment on volunteers from the school for the experiment because Cambridge students obviously didn't have uncontrollable rage. So he manages to get a contact at a police station to give him a violent criminal as a test subject. There was a problem with the delivery system. The injections were too diluted so Warren increased the dosage. However, the inhibitor still had no effect and when the test subject was about to attack Warren and Clive, Warren was forced to kill him. He then immediately decided they would experiment on chimpanzees, as Clive had been suggesting. As Warren and Clive were burying the criminal, Clive sneezed - giving Warren an idea. They had known that delivering widespread with a pill wouldn't do, neither would an aerosol. He decided that they should use a contagion as a delivery system. He located a certain genome in a strain of the Ebola virus. Using this new delivery system, the two exposed a chimpanzee to the inhibitor. However, the inhibitor mutated. In the chimpanzee, it had the opposite effect of what is was supposed to do. That is, it caused the chimpanzee to be full of uncontrollable rage. Warren had "created a rage virus." Clive was so disgusted by this that he quit. He later informed an animal rights eco-terrorist organization about the experimenting on animals and then shot himself. A group of those eco-terrorist would later break into the lab and free the infected rage filled chimpanzee. That chimpanzee attacked and infected them and Warren. From them, the Rage virus spread throughout the island of Britain. Characteristics After the virus enters the characters' bloodstream, the virus would be usually very quick to manifest itself in the victim's behavior (see below), from the films it is shown that only 10 to 20 seconds is required for the virus symptoms to become noticeable though infection time is possibly determined by the amount of infected blood that has gotten into the bloodstream and the overall mass of the person in question. As the virus overwhelms its host, they twitch madly in an almost spasm manner. This is a sad time for the human in hand as they cannot control the state they will live or die in after the Rage virus takes over. The virus can also pass through bodily fluids and has an almost 100% communicability rate, though it may be noted that some characters posses a hereditary immunity, allowing them to become infected with the virus without exhibiting any of its usual symptoms (save the bloodshot left eye). These characters remain carriers of the infection, and can transmit it through blood-saliva contact and saliva exchange. Danny Boyle has stated that in the films, primates are the only animals that can carry the virus (a fact that is further touched upon in the second film in the series). Rage victims Symptoms of Infected The Rage virus does not directly cause the death of its host, but because the host is solely focused on infecting or killing the uninfected it causes those infected to become disinterested in self-nourishment, which will eventually cause death by starvation. Since the virus causes those infected to act with no regard for self-preservation they will not act to evade mortal danger, such as fire or chemical gas. The Rage virus causes its hosts to permanently enter a primal state of murderous rage and attempt to spread the infection or kill the uninfected above all else, even self-preservation. The Infected are reduced to an animalistic state of permanent hostility and aggression, driving them to attack non-infected with no concern for their own safety and no moral or other inhibitions that could control their actions and behaviour. In this state of permanent and extreme psychosis, the brain is continuously pumping adrenaline into the host's system, giving the Infected huge powers of endurance and super-human strength, but at the same time placing enormous stress on their metabolism, which alongside their disregard for their own safety, leads to eventual death through physical exhaustion, coma and/or starvation. The Infected experience spasms in the extremities, and their irises become blood red. They also vomit copious amounts of infected blood as well as violently gibbering for reasons unknown. In 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, a character wonders how the Infected are able to track the uninfected down and know not to attack each other. After seeing them sniff the air he concludes that they are attracted by the smells of the uninfected, or maybe just able to smell something other than their own rotten flesh. Disease, anxiety, even rage affects the way people smell. In addition, the Infected have a very pungent odor. Even though the survivors hadn't bathed in weeks, they were still saturated with deodorants and shampoos. The Infected's sense of smell is how they find the uninfected. Carriers In the film 28 Weeks Later it is shown that there are certain people who, while not immune to the virus in the truest sense, can carry the virus without any physiological or psychological changes, except for one - a reddening of parts of the left eye. These people are classified as "asymptomatic carriers" (possibly a mistake by the scientists in the film, as the eye change is technically a symptom). A carrier will not become uncontrollably violent like other Infected and will otherwise be unaffected by the presence of the virus. A carrier can, of course, still spread the virus as they still carry it in their blood and saliva. The audience is led to believe that whatever traits the carrier's biology uses to resist the full effects of the virus may be harnessed to develop a cure or vaccine. The Infected See Main Article: The Infected The Infected are distinct from almost all cinematic zombies; they are not the reanimated dead. Also, films such as the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, and Resident Evil series portray zombies as creatures that desire to consume living flesh. By contrast, the Infected chase uninfected with the simple desire to either kill or infect them in a fit of rage. This characteristic is seen most clearly when the Infected make the use of tools to aid their killing of uninfected. For example, Don used Major Scarlet Ross's own rifle to beat her to death. Another example was when Don inflicted extreme pain and cruelty upon his wife by forcing his thumbs through her brain via the eye sockets, which suggests some sort of sadistic thought process. It is unknown if this desire to cause suffering is why a specimen will sometimes interrupt their attack to intentionally vomit blood into the face of their prey. While somewhat uncommon, this method has been known to quickly transform the human into a fellow Infected attacker. Another change would seem to be that adrenaline is constantly being produced and utilized by the infected body, as even days after the change, an infected specimen can perform display extraordinary feats of strength, agility, endurance (especially in pursuit of the unifected), and also to ignore wounds such as explosive amputation of limbs and even immolation. And while the Infected will attempt to bite their victims, it is usually as a means of either infecting or killing them (often by biting into the main arteries in their neck). They are not shown to ingest any organic material, and probably do not feed. Since Rage-infected specimens are still living human beings, they can be killed using means that are fatal to uninfected, as well as succumbing to starvation, unlike zombies.
I love zombie films. One of my favorite zombie movies is Zombieland, which has an extensive list of rules for survival. Eight of these rules are critical to your survival. Ignore them at your own peril. 1. Cardio. The calorically-challenged don’t do well with zombies because they can’t outrun them. Your survival program will also meet a terrible end if you’re not prepared to go the distance and persevere year after year. Survival doesn’t happen overnight. It requires endurance. Don’t let yourself fall prey to the zombies just because you wasn’t up to the challenge of going long. 2. Double Tap. What a waste to die at the hands of a zombie just because you were lazy and didn’t shoot them twice. Like W. C. Fields said: Try, and if you fail, try again. Then quit. No sense being a fool about it. But try again! Don’t give into the zombies that want you to quit after one try. 3. Kill with Efficiency. Why fumble with reloading a gun when a nice, heavy toilet cover is handy? Don’t focus on the preferred or cool way to get the job done. 4. Beware of Bathrooms. Confining yourself to a small space in a, well, compromising position is not the best way to fend off a zombie. It’s small, limiting and doesn’t get you anywhere. 5. Get a Kickass Partner. Loners just don’t last very long in zombie survival. Complement each other really well and we have each other’s backs. 6. Check the Back Seat. It happens all the time in zombie survival: someone gets killed in their car because they didn’t check the back seat. Stupid way to go. To make sure you don’t meet the same end, check your back seat for these nasty surprises. 7. Opportunity knocks. We learn that opportunities in life just don’t fall into our hands. You still have to get off your butt and open the door! That’s how I feel about survival and even zombie events. 8. Find Rednecks. Because they have all the guns and ammo you need kill zombies! In this zombie world of ours, they are the ultimate kickass partner.
Try reading Walking Dead graphic novels, I havent seen the series but listening to those who follow both...they had to tone down a lot from the novels. I also suggest reading World War Z. I have no idea how they made that into a movie, its essentially collection of interviews starting from Outbreak to ...well...I'll leave that to you guys to figure out.
lol my wife sent me that link as well. I didn't read it carefully but from what I did understand, didn't sound much like anything zombie related.
As long as you are well stocked with food and water and have a secure location you can ride out the worst of the rage virus. Since they are not dead they can die from natural causes. Also the rage virus for some reason shuts down the appetite they will starve to death. Infections and illness can kill them as well. Of course there will be those that were infected later that will still be around but you shouldn't have to deal with hoards of them.
The rest of you sound well prepared. Despite seeing a frankly dizzying number of zombie movies (or perhaps because of that fact), I'm pretty confident that I'd be "the dumbfounded neighbor who stands transfixed in his front garden in his dressing gown, only to be brought down while the protagonist is racing away in his/her car."
I'm such an elitist about my zombie films that I ignore everything that came after I Walked With a Zombie these days.
I have three plans in place, all of which have a seasonal variance built in As Calgary has winters that can drop well below freezing I estimate any holdout has to be for maximum of 8 months. Any drop in temp means the targets can be easily picked off or else they freeze and are ravaged by the elements Plus I am armed to the teeth
Not me. I have the notable(?) distinction of having seen zombie movies from at least half a dozen different countries at this point. Dead Snow being one of my current favourites.
I have a dream of using the unwalking dead as slalom poles on ski slopes, snowboarding between them and giving myself points depending on how many heads I can barong off.
