Challenge: Zombie Apocalypse

This is part of the weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. If you'd like to participate, you can find the prompts here. They also put up a post every Wednesday where you go and link your response -- and see everyone else's. Check out their homepage to find it.

The challenge for this week is "How I'd fare in a Zombie Apocalypse," and folks, I have thought about this way too much. (Waaaaay too much.)

Also, the question seems remarkably timely, since at this point if the dead started rising up to devour the living I wouldn't EVEN be surprised.

I think I'd do pretty well. I'm not in top athletic trim, but I'm in decent shape; but then, I feel like if you find yourself having to rely on your physical prowess to battle or outrun the undead, you've probably already lost. And I'm cautious. In video games, I usually play a sniper if I can; and I will clear an entire room and wait to see if anything else comes along before I advance. So as far as avoiding physical danger goes, that's exactly what I'd be doing: avoiding the hell out of it.

Also, I own weapons. I mean, guns, yes, we have a couple of pistols, but again: you start shooting guns and you're going to attract every zombie within a quarter mile at least. Save the guns until there are literally no other options. Meanwhile, if you need to take something down from a distance? Archery. It's quiet, it's safer (you almost never hear "my bow fell out of its holster and accidentally went off") and the ammunition is much easier to replace when you hit the point of needing to make your own stuff. But I also have quite a lot of swords, and several spears and polearms -- enough to outfit a small group if needs be. And group tactics would be really helpful against zombies; one person can spear the thing and keep it in place, while their partner moves in to behead it in relative safety.

I did a lot of camping when I was younger and still have the equipment; I know basic first aid, I know how to sew, I know how to start a fire without matches. (It sucks, but it can be done.) So, you know, if the plague has spread through the city and we need to get a dozen or so people out to someplace less fraught, I'm your guy -- or I'm at least a contributing member of the team.

Where it breaks down is over the long term. I don't know how to raise crops (and canned food really doesn't last that long), I have very little experience with hunting and fishing, and the first time I need to replace my glasses is probably the last time I'm going to see the world clearly. But the thing that would take me down? I'm pretty sure I know what it is. And as an online friend of mine observed, it's the lack of cold medicines.

Music: Zombie Jamboree

Hey, I'm trying to get into the Halloween spirit, here. Harry Belafonte:

Music: Re: Your Brains

A lovely sing-along by Jonathan Coulton:

Nothin'

I got nothin' for this morning. How's your weekend shaping up? Everybody get out of the path of the hurricane? Is New Orleans still where we left it? Has the zombie apocalypse started yet?

...Or not.

I was going to try to do some kind of writing last night.

Apparently it was vitally important that we hang doors, instead. Apparently it was critical that we do this now, and -- and I confess I'm baffled by this -- it was equally important to do it ourselves because we're just too exhausted to get professionals in to do it right.

I don't even... You know what? I don't care. It's done. The evening is gone. The doors are hung. Whatever.

I swear, though, the way April is going? We're going to finally get the garage cleaned back out and everything back in place inside the house...

...and it will be just in fucking time for the Zombie Apocalypse to arrive, and force us to evacuate the city entirely.

With my luck, they'll show up right in the middle of Secondborn's birthday party, so we'll end up having to escape with a bunch of traumatized kindergarteners who are screaming for their parents, in a van that's low on gas, with nothing but Batman cake and Capri-suns for supplies.

You just watch. When it happens, I won't even look surprised.

Zombies vs Kittehs!

Book Review: Alice in Underland: The Queen of Stilled Hearts

First things first: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. That sort of thing always worries me a little -- I mean, what if I didn't like it? -- but in the case of Alice's Adventures in Underland: The Queen of Stilled Hearts, I'm happy to say that no such problem exists. The book is utterly charming (provided, of course, that you're the sort of person who enjoys phantasmagorical settings, humorous and/or macabre nonsense, and zombies).

I was expecting something on the order of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- that is, the original text of Alice in Wonderland but with zombies added in. That would have been enjoyable by itself, I think, and there are definitely zombies in there. (In this case, it isn't so much that there are zombies "added in" as it is that all the mad inhabitants of Wonderland are now zombies. Still mad, though.) However, the author doesn't stop there. Alice's Adventures in Underland isn't just Alice in Wonderland retold, with zombies; it's also a story about Alice Liddell, the young girl for/about whom the story was written, and something of her experience growing up in an alternate-history England where the zombie plague is wide-spread, but held in check by a special serum that allows the infected to look, act, and think like everyone else.

On that level, it's a fascinating look at the society of this not-quite-historical England, using the not-quite-Alice-in-Wonderland story as a sort of lens or mirror to explore elements of social expectation, hypocrisy, slavery... and, of course, zombies. And, by providing this not-quite-historical context, the author makes the story much more accessible than (I suspect) most casual modern readers find the original Alice in Wonderland. Alice in Underland isn't just charming, sometimes macabre nonsense; it's charming and sometimes macabre nonsense with meaning.

If that sounds like your cup of tea, you can purchase the book here. Just don't forget to take your serum.

No sense of self-preservation

Trust my father to wander off and start reading the titles on the bookshelves in the zombie-infested haunted office. Yes, while the rest of us were looking for weapons and trying to figure out how to avoid being killed and eaten.

Yes, yes, of course I was dreaming.

I'm still irritated with him, though.

Busy Season

It's here. I'm doomed.

Image Source

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMED!!!!!!

Zombies Ate The Traffic

A conversation with Firstborn on the way to his school this morning...

Me: "Wow. The street is almost empty. Maybe the zombies really did eat everyone. I mean, that would be completely horrifying -- but it would help with the traffic."

Firstborn: "Fat zombies."

Me: "What?"

Firstborn: "Fat zombies."

Me: "Like they went into the houses and ate everyone and got really fat, and then couldn't get back out?"

Firstborn: (giggling) "Yes. Maybe it's the McDonalds Fat Zombies Mod. It takes the texture on their bellies and makes it thicker."

Me: "That'd do it."

We pull up to an intersection, where there are plenty of cars.

Me: "I guess the zombies didn't everyone. Oh, well."

Firstborn: "Or maybe they all came back to life."

Me: "Could be, could be."

Firstborn: (looking reproachfully at the sky) "Thanks, Jesus."

Black Friday...

Look, it's not that I don't like sales. It isn't as if I think that buying things is intrinisically immoral. It's just that when you get to huge, crowded, pseudo-holiday sales, well...

"Some kind of instinct. Memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives."

Zombie Short Films

This is just a little collection of zombie films - short ones, that you can watch in a couple of minutes.

Halloween Music: More Zombies

Starting with a bit of Harry Belafonte:

Notes from the Mad Science Lab: No More Zombies

Have a seat, everyone. Are you all comfortable? Good. Then I'll begin.

I know what you've been doing. Honestly, you should all know by now that I monitor every inch of this installation, from the vehicle bays to the cryptozoo. I keep particularly close track of what happens in the labs. So I know about your drunken night out in the canteen. I know, down to the milliliter, exactly how much alcohol each of you drank. I can replay your entire conversation, complete with gestures, exactly as captured by no less than a dozen microphones and six different camera angles.

So I am very well aware that when you stumbled out of the canteen and back to the labs, you had been discussing a prank. It's nearly Halloween, after all, and you work in a laboratory. Once you realized that you could create some artificial zombies and scare the hell out of the minions -- and possibly myself -- I'm sure the temptation was irresistible. Unfortunately, all three of you got completely carried away.

I'm not entirely disappointed by this. I hired you for your initiative, after all, as well as your intelligence. And, really, if you didn't sometimes take things a little too far, and run the risk of ending civilization as we know it, what sort of researchers would you be? No, you are my assistants, and you should feel free to pursue your own projects when you are not otherwise occupied. That said...

Sam, in deciding to use a self-reproducing nanostructure to reanimate your corpse, you failed to consider what sort of failsafes might be necessary. Your infection has now claimed fully half of our minions, who are now shambling around outside the cryptozoo in the hope of infecting everything inside. This is why you should never attempt science while you are drunk.

Cassius, your decision to use "just a little" necroactive radiation to give your zombie an "aura of menace" has resulted in a creation that kills people by its mere presence. Anyone who comes within about ten feet of the thing... dies. Only about half of them reanimate, but Sam's shamblers have already infected several of the stray corpses that your radiation zombies have left behind. This has accounted for another quarter of our minions.

Bart... You, at least, cobbled together a wholly artificial creature that lacks any capability for infecting others. However, you appear to have given it a particularly active brain, and for the last fourteen hours it has been kidnapping minions, killing them, and constructing more creatures like itself - presumably to give it some company. So far there are only three of them, but their intelligence makes them vastly more dangerous than the zombies your peers created.

As a result of your combined efforts, there are now exactly three... two minions who remain alive. This is your mess, gentlemen. I expect you to clean it up. You will, of course, have access to anything in the armory... provided you can get to it. The minions and I will monitor your progress from my office. Please note that I will have the defense system up, including the turrets, so driving your zombies to my office door is a viable strategic option... provided that the hallway is completely clean by the time I emerge. Approaching the door yourselves, under any circumstances, is an extremely bad idea.

Is all that clear? Very good. Go to it, gentlemen.

Morning Brains

A conversation from yesterday morning at our household:

Beautiful Woman: "You're up."

Me: "Yep. Already had my brain eaten, too."

Beautiful Woman: "The boys ate your brains?"

Me: "Well, Firstborn did."

Beautiful Woman: "Firstborn, did you eat your daddy's brains?"

Firstborn: "Yes."

Beautiful Woman: "Firstborn! Don't eat your daddy's brains until after you've finished your pancakes. Brains are a dessert, not a meal."

Firstborn: (giggles) "I'll go finish my pancakes now."

Nothing could have prepared them...

A sunny Saturday morning.
A quiet suburban house.
Two boys playing in the living room.

Nothing could have prepared them for the horror.
Nobody could have anticipated the terror.
No one ever imagined that they would see the rise...

...of The Walking Dad.

Coming soon to a theater near you.

Let me tell you about my morning...

In fact, let me tell you about my week so far:



Heh.

Scenes from a Zombie Apocalypse

Derrick zipped the duffel bag closed and lifted it onto the center of the stretcher. The gas station didn't have a lot of food in it, but it was more than he'd expected. Especially after they'd found the grocery store looted completely.

"You ready?" Trent asked softly.

"Hell yes," said Derrick. "Let's get this shit back to the truck."

They squatted, one at each end of the stretcher, and lifted it up. Moving quickly and quietly, they went out the front door.

Jimmy was standing by the gas pumps, watching the street. He glanced back at them, but only briefly.

"How's it look?" asked Derrick, when he was close enough to speak quietly.

Jimmy nodded up the street, towards the center of town. "Just shamblers, so far."

Derrick looked at the slowly milling crowd. He recognized the slow, shuffling movements and the occasional lurching stagger. "Oh, no. Shamblers. Run for you life."

Behind him, Trent said: "Or just stroll. Stroll for your life."

"Mosey," corrected Derrick. "Mosey for your life."

"Can't," said Trent. "I'm not from Texas. I'll have to saunter and hope for the best."

Jimmy looked back at them, but didn't object to the banter. "Couple of the outliers are starting to drift this way," he said softly. "Let's get moving."

"Ambling," corrected Derrick automatically. "Let's get ambling."

"Or traipsing," suggested Trent. "Can I traipse?"

"As long as it takes us away from the zombies," said Jimmy, "I don't care what you're doing."

"So, no dawdling?" Derrick shifted his grip on the stretcher and started forward. At that moment he heard footsteps behind them: louder, faster, coming closer.

Jimmy heard them too. He looked back: "Shit. Hunters! Run!"

Derrick risked a glance back as he started to run. The hunters were unmistakable; six of them had broken away from the horde, and were loping towards them. He turned his attention back to running: this would be a bad, bad time to trip. The stretcher tugged at his arms, but Trent was matching his pace smoothly enough.

He hated running. He hated the way his lungs burned. He hated the way his heart pounded and his muscles dragged. He hated the stitch in his side. But most of all, he hated that he didn't have enough breath to suggest sprint, flee, or abscond.

Filler: Cargo (Zombie Short Film)

Short film: Infected father tries to get his daughter to safety before he turns into a zombie...

Let's see... some warnings:
1. Gross stuff
2. There's a baby - nothing horrible happens to the baby, but there is a baby in a zombie apocalypse setting, here.
3. May leave you bawling.

Valentine's Day Theme Songs

Right, so... apparently it's Valentine's Day. So, to celebrate all the hearts and flowers and candles and romance, join us below the cut for a selection of Valentine's Day music. Also, it's time for the annual Public Service Announcement: the correct abbreviation is V-Day, not VD.