Zombie Cliché Lookout: Alone Time
You know that moment when you got to pick up your date for the first time, only she’s not ready so you have to wait in the living room and talk to her parents for a while? You’re being vetted. Even when the conversation is nice and casual, and the parents are open and friendly, they’re evaluating you. Measuring you up to see if you’re good enough to go out with their little girl. And, of course, you aren’t. The best you can hope to do is mitigate doubts a bit.
In the zombie apocalypse, it’s unlikely that you’ll be visiting a quiet suburb to pick up your date for a night out, but you can still find yourself in this sort of situation. Like, say when you meet a new group of people. Once the rest of the group either excuses themselves or are asked to leave, and you’re left with only the leadership of the group. They’re feeling you out, and maybe getting themselves alone with you to give you a clear, but harsh warning.
About this Episode:
This is one butt-ugly episode. White balance is off on the second and forth frames. That bugs me. and the exposure is off on the third panel. I don’t know how I didn’t catch all this when I did the initial photography. I’m hanging my head in shame, guys.
There was also a typo, but I fixed it before this went live.
Discussion Question: The Perfect Location
The zombies are here, and you find yourself woefully unprepared (Bo and Calicade, just play along). You need to get out of Dodge, and fast. Assuming you were able to go anywhere within, say, 200 miles, where do you go? Some factors to consider are: how defensible is the area? is there food? is there water? is there a secondary escape route if you get surrounded?
Is he the kind of guy who favors a shotgun wedding? 😀 Sam had better be careful where he steps or he could wind up with bullets and zombies chasing him! 😀
Hah, he does seem the shotgun wedding type.
I don’t know why but I get the feeling this question has been made before…
Never the less, my answer is this. My Granfather owns a farm( just like Hershel’s in the Walking Dead) near some woods and a creek or small river. He has a very small house there (intended for weekends) and a neighbor that is about a mile away with another house that has some solar panels( my grandfathers is connected to a landline). There is some cows(53) and three horses. Might be eating meat for longer than most people!
For escape route, if you go too deep into the property, you just might get lost for it is mostly sorrounded by woods on one side. Deer roam free in some areas, don’t know if I would ever run out of space to run away from flesh-eating menaces.
We had a pretty similar one before, that one was where you would plan to go. This is a little different, it’s a place that you can get to relatively quickly, and not some place you necessarily should be going.
The Colonel’s beret is a bit squiffy in the last panel too…
“Squiffy”?
We’re calling him “The Colonel” now? o.O
So it would seem. I kind of like it.
Better than “The Governor: I guess.
“Colonel” reminds me of Powers Boothe’s character from Red Dawn.
God I need to watch that again. It’s been ages.
I’ve noticed that folks that like apocalypse movies tend to cross genres to find then, sci-fi, drama, horror. It’s all there for the finding.
Oh most definitely. I’m a fan of quite a few different genres that I think all lend themselves to PAW flicks: horror, sci-fi, fantasy, drama, western, war, etc.
His beret seems slightly drunk?
I don’t get it.
I think he means skew-whiff
See, that’s not helping either.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/skew-whiff
Huh, that’s a new one to me. Cool.
hahaha, sorry about that Dave. It was only after I submitted the comment I thought to myself “I’ve just tried to explain a ‘Brittish-ism’ with another one!
I doff my cap to Bo for finding the definition 🙂
You limeys (or Scots, I would assume) and your crazy slang.
This episode made me think of something…is there a “Mom” too?
That is an excellent question, Dead Coat.
I read the “Alone Time” first and immediately thought that the dad was leaving Sam with Emma. But then I remembered that Sam was already alone with her. And why would dad leave already?
I think I just feel a romance coming on. It must be the cool hair swooshy from a few eps back. lol
Hair swooshy = tres romantic
I think dad is fixin’ to have a serious “come to Jesus” with young Samuel. What’s it about? Their supply situation? His expectations? Obviously something he can’t bother his daughter with. I think the “shotgun wedding” is a bit presumptuous. A man like that would want his daughter to marry a man a lot less paunchy.
Yeah, if I were speculating, I would say that he’s about to lay the rules down on Sam. “This is our mission. This is how you can fit it; or there is the door.”
He doesn’t strike me as being a humorous guy on his best day; and now it’s the end of the world- serious business. .
A couple people have postulated about a Sam/Emma hook-up. I think that’s very interesting.
I don’t see it; but hey, that’s just me.
I think it’s kind of cool how people speculate about stuff like this. It really makes it fun.
Sam’s an older office drone. I imagin Emma to be in her early twenties max. I’m a fan of may-december couples so… Bring it on!! lol
Because you have the story plotted out for the next year, at least, right?
Cross-posted w/ Ang, sorry.
It’s hard to tell how old a minifig is by looking, unless you use gray hair and a head with gray facial hair. There aren’t any “middle-aged” minifigs.
@Bo – Kind of. I have certain plot elements (Sam and these fine folks) plotted out for the foreseeable future. Other elements, like bringing back Clark, I have a sort of fuzzy idea about. I try not to plot things too rigidly to allow some flexibility, but the major stuff I’ve got a pretty solid plan on.
@Angie – Hah!
Sure, and for times when blog comments give you golden story ideas, right?
Absolutely!
Re: Minifig age – Yeah, it can be really hard to tell, like with all the surprise about the revelation that Stewart is a teenager.
“The zombies are here, and you find yourself woefully unprepared (Bo and Calicade, just play along).”
hahahahahahahaha
Because you know how those guys roll.
It’s a bit further than 200 miles; but not much more. I can hit my rally point in ten minutes. Wait for my group, convoy up, and be gone. Poof.
Barring that, the more defensible places around here have less food. The Uintah mountains are right here. Plenty of water. Easy to defend, not known for farm land. The more food I could bring with me then, the better. I’ve have a couple of routes planned south, to Arizona; but sufficient fuel is an issue, even for a modern fuel-efficient car.
It’s not that I am hyper-prepared. We actually ate a good portion of our short-term food storage getting me through nursing school (because that’s what it’s also for, an economic disaster). Where we are prepared is in education and mindset. One of my friends says, “Reality is whatever doesn’t go away when you close your eyes.” When one thinks about preparedness, his or her eyes should be wide open. What is the most likely scenario? How can you get through it and land on your feet? Are you ready for a weekend power outage? How about two weeks? Is your car reliable? Do you have a couple of extra sets of boots? Do you have two weeks worth of cash on hand? How about a couple of months worth of money in the bank? What if you get laid off, or really sick?
Remember your health. Can you run around the block without collapsing? Can you carry your pack for a whole day without an MI (heart attack)? How much extra weight are you carrying around? Since school’s out I took up running again. No matter how slow you are out there, you’re still lapping the person on the couch.
Which reminds me, do you or anyone in your party rely upon any medications long-term? Diabetics? Heart disease? Clinical depression? Better lay up as much meds as you can. I recommend two month’s worth. If your doc won’t give them to you, well, there’s always Mexico. Lay up some extra meds and rotate through them the way you would your cans of soup.
Then you can think about the big things. Currency collapse and pandemic are the real-life equivalents of a zombie outbreak, just as deadly, and just as paradigm-altering. Hyperinflation cold bring up a partial collapse, like Argentina’s recent troubles. That’s scary.
Admittedly, much of this is less glamorous than a zombie apocalypse. My goal is to get through a disaster without altering my lifestyle. The closer life is to “normal”, the more successful my attempt.
Absolutely fantastic post Bo.
That’s the thing that I like about “disaster” preparedness. Disasters can be anything from the end of the world, to having to hold you over while you’re waiting to start your new job.
When you hear hoof beats think horses, not zebras.
We all want to be the heroes in a Mad Max scenario, when the most likely scenario is a weekend blizzard; but, if you can provide a simple hot meal to your neighbors on that weekend (even if it’s beans and rice), you will be no less the hero.
Zombie horses?
The Four Zebras of the Apocalypse? That would me monochromatic madness!
There’s an undead horse in one of the new Monster Hunter sets. I’d pick one up; but I haven’t seen them anywhere but Tors r Us yet (and they charge full retail). When I see one at the China*Mart or Target I’ll pick one up.
I’ve been waiting for them to roll into Target too. Toys R Us makes me sick with their gouging.
Don’t know if I’d call it gouging, per se. More like charging for convenience and selection. That’s the free market: don’t like it; don’t buy it. The Chin*Mart nearest my place has a terrible selection of LEGO. Sure, the sets they do have are 15-20% cheaper than TRU; but they don’t have any of the cool sets.
Still, it doesn’t look like TRU is hurting for business.
You’re more generous than I, Bo.
Generous? Nah, more like an investment. Beans and rice are cheap. When the power is down for the weekend, invite all the neighbors to clean out their freezers and cook out on your propane grill. Supplement it with your beans and rice; and invite them in to your warm house (because your genset is running, right?). Watch a movie or two before you send them home.
In the short-term, honey catches more flies than vinegar. See, in a short-term problem, you still have to live with these people when the lights come back on. No one wants to be “that guy”. There are a lot of easy recipes that can feed a block. You can make a rice pudding that’ll win more hearts and minds than bullets and bayonets.
In the long term scenario, they’re welcome to whatever I leave behind, because I will be gone.
I mean generous about not calling TRU gougers. I completely agree about helping your neighbors. I do it all the time, regularly mow the old guy’s lawn next to me. I know he keeps an eye on our house when we’re not around.
Oh, right. Sorry.
Let me see if I can explain it… OK, to a real capitalist, there is no such thing as “gouging”, only people charging what the market will bear. If the market can’t support the high price, prices come down . If demand is too great, raise the prices until they meet demand.
This relates to disasters with regularity. Unfortunately, people want something for nothing, and throw tantrums like little kids when it comes to WCS.
Here’s an example: Say there was a hurricane in New Orleans, and folks wanted generators. There is a demand, and local stock is gone. Now say I live up the river in Illinois; and there are plenty of generators in the stores here. I buy all of the generators I can lay my hands on, rent a flatbed truck, and cart them downriver. When I get there I charge four times the going rate for a generator. Immediately people start screaming about “gouging” and about how unfair it is that I am charging six thousand dollars for a fifteen hundred dollar generator. Well, who took the risk? Who showed the initiative? Additionally, how else can you fairly decide who gets the generator? No matter what happens, someone is going to whine, because supply can’t meet demand.
I know this was about TRU and LEGO, and not a disaster; but I found a way to bring it back around to the topic. Feel free to use the subject for a future discussion question. 😉
I can see the argument here, Bo. And I generally like to say cavaet emptor to those who don’t want to shop around or be prepared, but the TRU thing just bugs me for some reason. I guess because I always see grandparents in there, buying stuff for the kiddos. I assume they’re on limited budgets, and just don’t know how little bang they’re getting for their buck.
But yeah, shop around. TRU can only charge 20% more if there are enough consumers willing to pay it.
Back on topic: In a lot of parts of the country there are whole subdivisions of foreclosed houses. I’d bet you could find one that fit the bill, then pull an I am Legend (the book, not the Will Smith remake) and burn down the rest of the houses around you, so the zombies can’t sneak up on you.
Of course, that is applicable in a real EOTWAWKI scenario.
God that’s a great book (not so much the film). I need to re-read that one of these days.
And don’t forget The Omega Man, which was also supposed to be “based” (not so much either) on the book.
I enjoy the movie for some reason. I guess I just like Charlton Heston hamming it up.
Another film based on the book is The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price. Not bad; probably the closest to the book, but still miles off.
Well I’ve said it once (well maybe five times). My ranch. Defendabble, food, animals to hunt, horses to esscape on, guns, water, and 20 minutes away, 20 miles.
I wish I had a ranch.
um… are you within 200 miles of central florida? if so, I’m heading your way. =)
No, about 70 miles away from the Mexico border in Texas.
dangit!
Well, I had a dream last night of me in a zombie apoc, and I remember that I couldn’t get out of the building, so I got myself bitten to end the pain…. Point is that I have no idea of a nearby area that is defensable against an army of zed in my mind or my subconscious.
Damn Sir Cheese, that is one dark dream.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
-Rudyard Kipling
Remember to save the last round for yourself. 😉
i haven’t in a while but I used to have dark zombie dreams as well. good point about the mind and sunconscious.
The wife gets them sometimes to. I’ve had, maybe, three zombie-related dream in my life. What a rip off.
the lack of control is the worst. can’t kill them all and can’t get away.
The different light shading for the four panels remind me of the movie “Traffic,” where each story line had a different tint. “Sepia? Oh, we must be back in Mejico!”
That’s one of those movies where everyone is connected somehow, right?
Weird. I don’t feel thal that Col. Squiffy is a cultist, insane, or malevolent leader. Yes, hardcore and a bit of an ass; but, that seems “merely” alpha-male posturings, trying to survive with me and my own, kind of thing.
Living right north of the Seattle area, there is no, “Getting out of Dodge, and fast.” We’ve had large population growth in the last decade, so freeways and infrastructure are overwhelmed. That is, If I don’t leave by the time I’ve typed this missive, I’ll now be stuck in traffic forever. And, you add that Northwesteners are sucky drivers in rain, fog and an eight inch of snow, and you realize that getting out of toww will . . . take a while.
One place I’m partial to is our downtown library:
1. Close by and has multiple streets of access
2. It’s a brick building which was recently remodeled that now looks like a mini Game of Thrones fortress; once you close the doors, thing is darn near hermetically sealed and from outside you can’t tell that anyone is in there
3. You don’t frequently hear people say, “When the guano hits the fan, letz go to the library!” If anything, patrons and staff are going to want to bug out of there as soon as possible to go to their own loved ones. Given it’s Off-From-Mainstreet location, it is a counter-intuitive place to go to. Flow of evactuation traffic is away from this place, and, as we know, where the masses go, so do the zees.
4. Electronic communication will mostly be one of the first things to go, so here we’ll have access to the information we take for granted, like, you know, how to hotwire a car.
5. We’ll be able to rummage & loot for food stuff in the area since one direction is all comercial and the other direction is residencial. There are two hospitals within walking distance, and oodles of resources.
6. If one is covert and cautious, a small group can remain there safely, going unnoticed, while our “Glenn” goes out and get our pressing needs, and we hatch out a plan for what’s next.
#3 is the most important point, in my opinion. If you’re going to some place you don’t own (i.e. squatting), make sure no one else has the same idea. There are oodles of semi-hardened commercial buildings around here, warehouses, schools, all with recent seismic renovations. The problem will be keeping everyone else out.
To that end, I still think the best idea is either to get out early (know where you’re going and have three routes to get there), or hunker down and weight it out. Now, if have a commercial/industrial building that you own or lease, knock yourself out. You can preposition supplies, have a second living quarters set up, and be prepared to stay until the situation settles down a bit.
So that makes three three rules as good or better than anything in Zombieland: 1) Walking sucks. 2) Know where you’re going before you bugout. 3) Don’t assume you can stay, or squat, on public land or in any building you don’t own. Other folks have the same idea you do.
Hell, even securing buildings you do own or lease might be hard enough.
Oh, one more rule: 4) The other survivors are more deadly than the zombies.
Well said, Bo.
Just noticed that I have a helluva time typing (reading what I have typed) without my glasses. Presbyopia is a bitch…
I’m just too sick today to go looking for them.
Anyone not have to look up “Presbyopia”?
“Is there a nurse in the house?”
Sounds like a hell of a spot for an improvised shelter, Luis. Good thoughts here.
I’m curious, does your library really have books about hot-wiring cars?
My family and I have decided, that in case of a zapoc (or any other apocalypse), we will go to where my dad works as I.T, a jerky factory, about 2 years of protein there (jerky lasts a while, but not that long), and we have about 6 other families that will also be there all with either mass amount of guns and ammo, or some way to make food such as aquaponics(combination of aquaculture and hydroponics) also, most of them know how to butcher animals and make jerky/sausage.
But, if I had to go on foot, I would go to the museum, the first floor, the windows are about 7 feet off the ground, the basement floor windows also have large strong metal bars( you could hit them with a car and they would still be there) the walls are also brick or concrete or something like that, and there is a third floor with windows that see fairly far into town,and an attic for storage or whatever it needs to be used for. Also the museum is one of the towns 2 bomb shelters, the other one is the high school.
And Dave, you could just say panels 2 and 4 are from sam’s point of view, and he is still a little fuzzy from the bash to the head.
Nice save on panels two and four!
What Jerky Company does your dad work for? You know we do product reviews here. I’d love to do some jerky taste tests!
Mooch.
Still, is it good jerky? I’m a bit of a jerky snob, myself…
Hah
It is superb, but extremely pricey. And also, have you ever tried heating jerky over a campfire? it makes good jerky taste like unicorn meat, and makes terrible jerky edible.
Yes, I have found many explanations for accidents and mishaps during filming/photography. And my father works for the Tillamook Country Smoker (and yes, country is what I meant). And, you would have to buy it to do taste tests (they don’t like to give out jerky free). It is also extremely expensive due to it being gourmet jerky, unlike their competitor Werner “”Gourmet”” beef snacks (I say that because it is greasy and nasty). But, if you are ever on the northern Oregon Coast during a Zapoc, then just go their (seriously, we are nice people here).
“you would have to buy it to do taste tests (they don’t like to give out jerky free)”
Oh well. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
yeah, no harm in asking (That is how I got out of doing a quiz in school once). But, if they are ever looking for tasters, I will tell you. BTW I forgot to say, but the main building has giant metal doors that could probably hold up to lots of small arms fire, maybe even a car ramming it.
Dave, you should be proud. To study for my Algebra final, I’m watching Shaun of the Dead.
just make sure you and price can get soap out in time.
Looks like he wants to have a serious talk. To be fair, a zombie outbreak is a serious situation, but what could be so serious that he’d want his daughter (who is obviously of like mind) to leave?
Question:
200 miles? That basically gives me my choice of anywhere in England. Still, I’m woefully unprepared in terms of knowing good fallback places. I know a number of castles here and there, which could easily withstand mobs of zombies indefinitely, but they aren’t likely to have anything beyond strong walls. My step-dad’s workplace might be a fair place to head to, they do fair sized metal fabrication, so they have the tools to build anything we want. It would be easy to rig up a rainwater collection system and we could produce weapons for a small army. The building is nicely hardened too, with steel doors and walls, and I’m pretty sure they have generators on site. The only real problem would be food, we’d have to head into town for that once we used up what we brought with.