Zombie Cliche Lookout: Cornered
Being surrounded by bad guys – zombies or otherwise – is never a good thing, although it often gets played up for laughs in movies. Remember in Star Wars when Han Solo went nuts and chased after the stormtroopers, only to run into a bunch more (and I’m not talking about the “Special Edition” nonsense, we roll out Star Wars old school around here)? Yeah, Han overplayed his hand a bit.
These scenes tend to come in a couple flavors. First, our intrepid heroes are running away from a problem (probably more zombies), and take the only path available to them. And when they run into the next horde of zombies, they’re surrounded on both sides. On the other hand, our heroes may have tried to turtle themselves in by fortifying a location. Inevitably, the fortifications start to break down, and they need to escape. The only problem? They’re not completely surrounded by zombies.
About this Episode:
It turns out that it’s a good thing I got a new battery for this episode, because I had to take a heck of a lot of photos for this one. Since the elevator was dark, and the zombie-filled lobby was bright, it was really tough getting a decent shot for the third and fourth panels. I ended up taking just over one hundred photos, and I’m still not really happy with what I ended up with.
Discussion Question: Escape Plan
Let’s do another hypothetical, shall we? Let’s say the zombie apocalypse takes us all by surprise, and we find ourselves completely surrounded by the walking dead. You need to take your situation right now, and come up with an escape plan.
I’m in my office, with my wife and kids upstairs. If our house was surrounded, we’d be in a bit of trouble. We have an attached garage, but there’s a car parked in front of it, essentially blocking that avenue of escape. However, our back yard opens into a wooded area that connects to a reserve. I’d snatch up the kids and we’d make a run for it through there. I don’t think we’d be able to get far, but there should at least be fewer zeds in that direction.
Typo alert: Zombie Cliche Lookout: second paragraph, last sentence: complete–>completely. 😀
This same error also appears in the Discussion Question’s second sentence in the first paragraph. 😀
About this Episode: Second sentence: forth–>fourth. 😀
Discussion Question: Second paragraph, second sentence: hour–>house. 😉
Same paragraph, fourth sentence, made–>make. 😉
Phew, hopefully Dave can track all of those typos down! 🙂
I think I got them all, thank you, sir.
As for this episode itself: The zombies just said, “Nothing to see here, go back where you came from or get eaten!” 😀
Hah
i see that you pick up your brick heads in Citizen Brick store too 😉
Nice pictures, like you usually
I certainly do! They’ve got some great products.
Really good question, Dave. If i’m at work I can just hole up with my boss and the rest of the people at the firing range. We have a WAREHOUSE full of guns and bullets out back so I am not too worried about ammo. We have a gas station and a grocery store next door, as well as a trucker’s rest stop. So food and that is covered. And the nearest suburb/apartment building is over 15 kilometres away (yeah, I’m Canadian so I use kilometres) so overwhelming hordes would not be a problem until maybe a herd (walking dead book reference) comes by.
But lets assume I need to escape. Maybe all the patrons of the truck stop and the firing range I work at get zombified, or maybe they are fast and more dangerous. I would grab as many guns and as much ammo as I could carry, throw it into the back of my truck and drive to my house, grab my girlfriend and drive to my parents house, pick them up and go to this mega storage centre where my friends and I have agreed to meet if the shit hits the fan after picking up loved ones and anyone else willing to go.
Sorry about the long entry, just I’m so passionate about the subject 😀
You work a gun shop? That’s pretty cool. Do y’all ever get any of the new Polytech M14s in stock? I must say, that is one way that Canadians have the US beat. We can’t get Chinese-made rifles anymore. Now our ARs are top-notch, but if you want an M14 clone, we only have Springfield Armory (junk) and Smith Enterprise, and LRB Arms (top-notch). I’d just like to add a new heel-stamped Polytech to the stable. I’m jealous about the ammunition, too. It’s still pretty thin around here.
We can’t get Chinese rifles?
Nope. Chicom rifles have been banned from import for twenty years, at least. One of many economic sanctions against the Red Chinese.
Well that’ll show’em.
I always suspected that it was to appease American manufacturers like Arsenal and Springfield Armory, inc. Cut off the imports and force us to buy domestic.
The irony is that the Springfield XD line is imported from Croatia.
No worries about the long entry; I love when people take the scenario and run with it.
Your work sounds super cool; any chance they’d want to sponsor Bricks of the Dead?
I’d buy ammunition from your sponsors, Dave. 😉
If it’s just zombies, we could hole up here for a while. That is, if I woke up in the morning, looked out the window, and “OH TEH NOZE! MEH ZOMBIES!” I could pick them off from the second story balcony from the front, and the second story bathroom and kids’ room. They could only come from three directions where we’re situated. The major problem is that we simply can’t fit our bugout preps in one car, not with the car seats and such.
We do have an “at work” plan. I work out of my car; so that should help getting home. My kids’ schools are within a half mile of my wife’s work. We meet at the schools, then truck on home. There, we decide to stay or go.
The trick, I think, is to not get caught completely flat-footed. Keep your steel sharp and powder dry, both literally and metaphorically. Know your neighborhoods. Work out multiple routes of ingress and egress. Keep your preps ready to move. Stay if you can. Leave if you have to. Planning to leave as a matter of course is immature planning, I think.
What’s the say? No plan survives contact with the enemy?
Yep, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Its corollary is to have a backup plan, because the first one won’t work.
In scenarios like this, situational awareness is the order of the day. The sooner you recognize the problem on the front end, the more time you get on the back end.
Im fortunate in that work is also one of my bug out locations. I’m in a 50,000sqft industrial building along with a good supply of tools, vehicles, and interior roof access. Granted there is a lot of glass up front that the zeds might be able to breach to get in, so my plan is to fall back into the factory and weld the steel door to the office shut or block them with heavy items. I also have a few “personal” items stashed here that I could make good use of in an emergency. (its good to be the boss). I have a decent store of food and water here as well and I can always gather rainwater or snow melt off the very large roof. Biggest problem is collecting the family. Two younger kids are in school about 10min away but there school is located really close to a hospital so that’s a big problem for a lot of obvious reasons. The wife and the oldest kid are farther away, getting to them would be an issue and a half if the roads are blocked.
Welding eh? Now there’s a cool, super useful skill if you could get all the supplies you need for it.
And massive amounts of electricity.
I don’t claim to be a great welder, but I am pretty good one. Anyone who tinkers around with mechanical stuff long enough eventually has to get into welding. A lot of the bigger units do require a lot of electricity to operate. But I also own a “pocket mig” which is slang for lower powered (can weld up to about 3/16in steel if you take your time) mig welder that is designed to operate on 20Amps of 110Volt domestic current. This was my first welder I bought years ago for an auto project and Ive hung on to it even as Ive acquired bigger more professional equipment specifically because I can operate it off my 5000Watt portable generator with no trouble. Comes in handy if I need to repair a gate or some broken field equipment on my hunting property. There are also some very nice units designed to function off of an automotive alternator. These were developed for the extreme off-road crowd so they could fix stuff out in the middle of no-where. Think I better add one of these to my readiness kit.
I would wonder if it is worth to try get out since being locked in the house seems a lot more appealing than the great unknown. I think at home I’d try board up all lower level windows and the doors to those rooms to try have double safety. How capable are they at opening or breaking in? If it’s anything like a bear after food I may well be out of luck on any non brick/metal structure and would try to get to some stronger building.
Submarine seems like good choice to drive/dive off to safety.
If it occurred at work my dilemma would be should I stay in a building I can secure or try get home and find my family? If I opt to stay and I biting off more than I can chew since it is a big building there’s many areas to secure however its shell is metal and brick which is a lot more comforting than wood, sheet rock and vinyl.
Ultimately resources or homesick would determine the driving force for when I leave. Can’t see the vending machine lasting too long….
To do this I’d try decoy them to one end and sneak out the other. I think I’d go with early dawn so I can benefit from the light as I imagine in the dark they benefit from their sense of smell. Can I disguise my smell?
Ideal would be to be at my work with a group I trust and my family and a lot of food supplies. Good view all around building and plenty of space to have alone time when cabin fever sets in.
Ah, “Should I say; or should I go?”
One of the great dilemmas of survivalism.
Sorry for this response taking so long, Bo.
Yes, We are not so much a gun store as a shooting range, but we carry just about ANY non-automatic rifle. I think we even have some old Winchesters on display out front. Never payed much attention to them though.
Indoor or outdoor range?
With the restrictions on handguns in Canada, I was hoping for a resurgence of riflery, with real outdoor ranges, up to say 600 meters, no benches, but grassy, sloping berms with popup targets.
I can dream, right?