To Survive or Not To Survive (that's right, I made a poorly veiled Shakespeare reference)

If I were to have a fatal flaw, I believe it would be hesitation. If there was to be one character trait that would probably do me in during a zombie apocalypse, it would likely resemble an inability to make swift, life-saving choices that would propel me from being undead fodder. I mean, what would I do with my cats? They aren't exactly portable. If the whole thing blew over in a few days, I would be sorely pissed to have set them loose on the world and never have the chance to see them again. I'm going to be moving to a location without a good freshwater source. Should I by-pass the family nearby for more fertile grounds? What about gas? I might have jeep, but it certainly wouldn't get me far enough to resources before I'd need to refill. 

Governmental obligations would likely cause my husband and I to split (at least for a bit). Do I hang around the port for him or deftly drive up to safety? What if that determines whether we'll see each other again? Sometimes, these questions plague me--and maybe they should.

Really, the come down to a lack of planning. To best survive catastrophes, it is recommended to already have contingency plans in place. I asked my husband about this a few months back. He seemed fine with whatever choices I make--where ever I go. But, my hesitation at even this hypothetical situation leaves me breathless. I know this is all something which can be dealt with. Those planners on the Discovery channel certainly seem to have their pulses on this survival gig. 

Yet, would even their plans have preparations laid out for every possible scenario? Well, no, but I do assume they will be better able to adapt. Just because one cannot know the future does not mean one should not make arrangements just in case.  

I've begun with the basics: building a bug out bag, learning the roads and highways of America, building connections throughout my journeys, and improving my overall health and endurance. There will be more to learn, more to overcome as I await Z-Day. Perhaps with more time and training, my general hesitation will become less deadly.  

What flaws do you, phantom readers, believe you will struggle with most? How do you intend to prepare for them before the real dangers begin gnawing at your bloody stumps?

It's All About the Rides

A few days back, I purchased my first anti-zombie vehicle. I am now a Wrangler-ette. For a multitude of reasons (mostly having to do with Sarah Conner), I've always wanted a Jeep. Now, I can actually off-road independently and feel like the monster-eating beast I'll need to become should the world degenerate into a land of thriving and writhing undead. Oh, happy thought indeed...

Grandma Bought Me a Gerber

When pursuing knives at the Exchange, my grandma only giggled when I pointed out the small gerber (accompanied by a multi-tool contraption) I wanted for Christmas. She bounced off to find a bored sales associate to open the lock preventing me from clutching the blade with my greedy paws. My mother, a bit less enthusiastically, placed my other survival gift (a nifty fire-starter) into the cart and asked if she should be worried about her children's seemingly sudden preoccupation with blades, camping gear, and wilderness techniques. I explained how years of living with a marine (my father) has always encouraged a general interest in survival for my brother and I regardless of our current living conditions. He does also work in a camping store and I in the imagination.

Oddly enough or rather given my long lasting love for the macabre, she firmly placed my fire-starter thing (I'm sure it has a real, more serious sounding name) and a twin of it in the cart for my brother. Still not quite reassured, I gently noted that it's not as if we were buying solely gear for a zombie apocalypse (though of course I'm now running scenarios of my awesomeness through my mind about starting fires and cutting important things and of course zombies). Having recently prepped for the hurricane season, I told her it was always good to just be prepared for any emergency. You won't think you are so silly when you actually need that strong toothed cutter thing or a zombie comes barreling down the hall intent on snacking on your sinew (Maybe I left that last part out while comforting her). 

It is interesting though how we "worry" about those who prep for emergencies. In some ways, one does not want to be that person who wasted precious time and resources planning for an event so terribly unlikely to occur. Perhaps, though, this smacks more of complacency or even naivety. It is probably pretty obvious I live in North America where the majority knows little of survival or suffering. I don't mean to say we are all so ignorant as I do know several individuals who understand much about pain, poverty, and starvation in my neck of the woods (more than I ever have). I am just not sure most of us do--at least not according to our popular culture.  Maybe we know more than we pretend we do. I hope that will help us. 

In the mean time, I'll continue collecting my knives and other odds and ends of knowledge. Have you, phantom readers, been mocked for your preparations? Or, do you think under the rumble or ridicule, those who make fun are strangely relieved that some one has taken initiative?

Undead Students

Slack jaws, dazed expressions, inability to raise head from the desk it's seemingly cemented, too, failure to demonstrate cognition, etc. I see the zombification of students on a daily basis and they still have warm blood in their veins. What would it be like if they were real zombies?

I wonder if they even see/define themselves the same way....

California Creeping?

What might zombies think of Cally? Easy dining? Would west coast undead be more laid back, slower creatures?

Heartsick

How do you battle the undead when your heart has been ripped from your chest and shredded in a meat grinder? I wonder if it is not how much you physically prepare or store up for the long winter ahead that truly enables you to survive. It is rather your desire to live--to not give into to those stubborn moans caressing the otherwise silent world.

I'm heartsick and need some zombies to kill. Perhaps that might be the cure for my affliction.

H-Day?

If you were a zombie, would you attack on Halloween? Would it be tacky? Too Obvious?

A zombie doesn't have much else going in its favor other than numbers and the element of surprise. Should the undead uprising begin on All Hallow's Eve, most victims would hardly unsuspecting. Ghosty and gholishly things are supposed to happen today. We prep for that scenario all year long. If something is going to go down, October 31st seems like a reasonable day for the event to occur. Odd then a lot of disaster movies actually take place on Christmas. Would it make more sense to deck the halls with zombies? I suppose their wriggling, rotting bodies might even look endearing in the soft glow of twinkle lights. 

Well, zombie Christmas would certainly be entertaining and very much Tim Burton-esque. However, it still seems like the world could naturally align to let the dead dance among the living on our most spooky holiday. 

I imagine patiently awaiting the arrival of mini storm troopers and my little ponies gasping for candy whilst the rotting dead begin to rise inevitable from their cold, moist graves. I hear the jingle of the door bell, an indication that some dedicated trick-or-treater will be standing, arms stretched out in desperate need of glucose and melted chocolate and plastic capes flapping in the chilly October wind. As I settle a spooky grin on my lips and firmly tug on my witch's hat, I clutch a basket of snickers and skittles in one hand and reach for the brass door knob with the other. Both parties excited and expectant. However, what greets my sugar-coated philanthropy is not sweet demands of greedy children but rather the bloody groans of a malnourished corpse. For a moment, both of us remain frozen in a indistinguishable mixture of wonder and horror. My heart and all sense of sanity pause in the same instance, my body in a rigor more appropriately associated with the creature standing before me. Its eyes cloudy yet with a hint of relief as it stands before a treat most tempted, most required. This moment stretches for what seems like eternity until instinct floods both of our systems. I stumble back in terror and adrenaline; the creature descends upon my weak attempts to flee. 

Soon we are locked in an embrace deeper and more intimate than any other we had experience prior to this fateful night. My bowl of candy quickly forgotten springs from my grasp as all of my good intentions are flung out into the dark, dark night. Falling inevitably to the ground below, I can only softly mew as its shattered teeth tear into the soft flesh my forearm, bloody quietly soaking both of our souls. Down, down, down we go into the rabbit hole. It stays for as long as it is necessary, for a long as my blood remains warm. And then it leaves me behind in search of another foolish lover of Halloween, another set of thrumming arteries and tender skin and muscle. 

From terrible pain, fear, comes first the soft whisper of oblivion, until the sharp pangs of hunger reanimate my flesh. Twitching, aching, needing, I rise and seek out a satisfaction I will never be aware can never end. Trick or Treat.

(Images from http://www.zombiepumpkins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1113 and http://zombifiedzone.blogspot.com/2010/12/well-its-that-time-of-year-again.html)