Zombie Cliche Lookout: The Ankle Breaker
When fleeing from a killer, zombie, or other unimaginable horror, the protagonist is generally too worried about what’s chasing him/her than looking out for where they’re going. This is a problem, because when they’re too distracted by Danger A, they will invariably run headlong into Danger B. Of course Danger B isn’t really much of a big deal, and easily avoided, being just a rock, or an above-ground root, or a loose floorboard. But when the potential victim is running at top speed and looking over their shoulder, well, bad things tend to happen.
In slasher flicks, this tended to happen earlier in the film, when a decidedly non-virginal character would trip, break her ankle (this character was almost always a woman, and women in slasher flicks tend to have weak ankles), and get thoroughly killed by the bad guy as a way of upping the body count before the big showdown with the protagonist in the final reel.
About this Episode:
Clark is actually running on a very narrow little strip of green. The trees and bushes in the foreground and the background are on a bunch of completely separate plates, which allows me to reposition them a few different ways. I played around a lot, moving them closer and farther from the camera to get what I thought was a nice composition to make it look like he was running through dense foliage, as well as to give the impression that he had gone farther than he really had. It’s sort of like in old cartoon shows where characters would run past the same background over and over again, which is to say, cheap.
Discussion Question: Secondary Threats
If you were to suddenly find yourself in a zombie film, and you were blessed to be fully aware that you were in a zombie movie, what sort of secondary dangers would you be looking out for, besides the obvious (zombies)?
The Classic Ankle Breaker. I love it! Hopefully Murphy will hurry up and hit him with his car.
What makes you think Murph is heading this way?
it could be how Clark meets up with his Secondary Emeny’s
Secondary enemies?
The Main Charecters in other words
Oh I don’t think they’re enemies, per se.
friendamies?
God no. I hate those portmanteaus.
Fall on knife?
Yeah, that’d be no good for ol’ Clark.
Recover miraculously without a bruise or pause in step? The two good answers were already taken! 😀
Hah, that’s always possible.
Honestly, the ground in front of him looks fairly clear, he should be able to roll with it if he knows what he’s doing – which isn’t a given, considering he just ran away from two zombies.
This isnt a “Miricle.” comic, Void
The same secondary dangers that most people face in a disaster; dehydration, malnutrition, infection both from wounds and internal disease, weather, the OTHER things in nature that are trying to kill you (bears, wolves, snakes, other humans, etc.). Oh, and let’s not forget that the zombies may take to eating the prey of the predatory animals, making them more desperate for sustenance and more likely to attack people for food.
Depending on how far into the zombie apocalypse we’re talking, finding shelter would become harder too, as houses and buildings begin to fall apart and decay without proper maintenance. In the beginning, anything with sturdy walls, a strong door and barricadable windows will provide a measure of security, but after just a few years of disuse, most houses will succumb to the weather, especially in areas with rougher weather than others, and suitable shelters will become more and more scarce, and that’s ignoring the fact that numerous dangerous critters (mice, rats, spiders, snakes, etc.) will have moved in to an abandoned building long before it falls down.
I know, I type too much, and I overthink things lol!
Nothing wrong with that; I like well-thought out responses.
This raises an interesting question: Is the zombification Dave uses in his storyline only able to infect humans, and not other species as well? If so, it would mean his zombies are the type that spread via viruses or bacteria specific to humans! 😀 If that’s true, it would mean the zombie plague could be eaten out of existence by the fact that eventually zombies would become an extinct food source for other animals. 😉 I do, however, find myself wanting to think that the zombie plague would be an ever present threat, at least where Dave’s storyline is concerned! 😉
That is something I’ve left vague for the time being.
Too much? Not at all. Paragraphs would help, though. 😉
Generally, I agree with you. Dehydration, malnutrition, disease, and injury are huge concerns in a WCS event. My first concerns are bad water, causing enteric diseases and generally making a mess of things. Diarrhea kills about two million children per year, and is the second leading cause of infant mortality worldwide. This is a serious problem, and one we will face head-on in The Crunch, regardless of what causes it.
My number two threat is other survivors coming for my supply of toilet paper and vacuum-packed double-stuffed Oreo cookies. I figure when the Schumer finally does hit the fan, those two things will be worth more than gold.
Milk for all those cookies will be a priority as well.
As soon as I buy land for my retreat, I’m getting goats. That’s already in the plan, goats for meat, milk, and maybe wool. Rabbits, chickens, and guinea fowl for meat and eggs, and a large vegetable garden.
Sounds like a good plan.
I’d like to get a few chickens. I hear guinea fowl are great for getting rid of ticks, which there seem to be tons of these days.
Chickens, too, will basically eat anything that doesn’t eat them first. Turn ’em loose in the corrals to keep the flies down.
I didn’t know that, sweet!
Chickens think maggots are candy. They’ll pick ’em out of the manure; and their scratching helps compost it, to boot.
You can also let hogs wander through the orchards to eat the fruit that falls from the trees, which also keeps the fly population down.
See, monocrop farming is one of the real travesties of our time. I am not a crunchy granola-head by any means; but even a six year-old can tell you that it more natural to grow more than one crop together. That is, keep the chickens and the horses in the same pasture. Let the pigs wander through the orchard. Give the bees access to a variety of fruits and vegetables.
Oh I definitely agree. It might be more efficient to just focus on one thing, but you’re probably losing a lot in other ways. Instead of using your other crops/livestock to help balance things out, you have to do more artificial things, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, hormones, etc.
Regarding the discussion question: One thing I would definitely be on the look out for would be rogue zombie actors that have been infected and turned into zombies! 😀 Dave ought to get this reference, heck, he even used it in a bonus strip himself! 😉
I’m actually stumped on this one Brickvoid.
Bonus Features Episode 27, of course! 😀
Right, but I assumed that this had showed up elsewhere, in a movie or something like that?
My two choices would be things like tetanus or staph infections, and packs of feral dogs.
Something I personally would be worrying about would have to be poisonous plants, and the wants of strangers.. One mans treasure, is surely to be another’s want for that treasure.
Luckily no really poisonous plants to worry about here in the foothills of the Rockies, at least of the poison ivy/oak/sumac variety.
If you live in places where these are common, I recommend stocking extra diphenhydramine (generic Benedryl). You’ll need it.
Wants of strangers is definitely up there. Big time.
Poisonous plants and critters probably depends a lot on where you live. Here in Michigan, we don’t have too awful much to worry about. Poison oak, ivy, sumac, and the occasional rattlesnake or brown recluse/black widow. I’ve seen exactly one rattler in my life, and only a few of the spiders.
Back home in Arizona rattlesnakes are a part of life. I’ve only ever known one person to get bit, only because they’re easy to watch out for, and fragile. I’ve seen kids kill rattlesnakes with a flip-flop. Scorpions are a problem if you’re allergic. I’ve been stung lots of times. Black widows are a mess. Again, be careful and know what you’re looking for.
I’ve actually known two people to get rattlesnake bites up here, and those things are pretty damn rare in Michigan.
theres only rattlesnakes in the mountains of Utah, the snakes dont like dry flatlands.
what sucks is that I’m allergic to the very grass…. I learned that the hard way, while I was picking grass seed for my mom… I cam in when we were done, and I was just itchy, and bright red… I took a shower, and the redness faded into a poka-dot effect…
“that he had gone father than he really had. ”
I noticed a typo… should be “farther” not “father” in that sentence.
As to other hazards… it’s been stated already about the malnutrition, dehydration, diseases and such.
But yeah, packs of dogs gone feral, poisonous plants or animals. Here in Washington, we do have Devil’s Club for something worse then Stinging Nettle, Poison Ivy or Oak. Hobo Spiders, Brown Recluses.
As to Clark’s running… it’s not just the possible fall and break an ankle… he’s holding something sharp and there’s always the possibility of falling on his blade and impaling or cutting himself.
Oops, let me get that fixed.
Definitely a good notion about running with a big knife. Probably not a great idea at night, when you’re not paying a lick of attention to what you’re doing and surging on adrenalin.
I think that Clark has Naturally bad luck, he will probibly run into something insane like a bear, car, or hordes of zombies.
Someone’s got to be the shit-magnet (there’s one in every group), may as well be Clark.
I think outrunning zombies in an open field would be easy. The problem is surviving on the run.
You’ve got to love the shit-magnet character.
better keep some cologne around though, heh.
Neville Longbottom?
Neville was one of my favorite characters, along with Professor McGonagall.
McGonagall was another hardass. Longbottom said it best in the movie version of Sorcerer’s Stone: “Why is it always me?”
Why, Neville, because you’re the shit magnet. It’s a corollary of Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, but especially to that rare breed. I suffer from it a bit myself. I call it the “Fifty-fifty-ninety rule”. If there’s a fifty-fifty chance of getting something right, there’s a ninety percent chance I’ll get it wrong; so I can relate on a personal level.
The best way to get around it is to over-prepare. Get all your ducks in a row so that when things do go horribly, inevitably, wrong, you’ve already mitigated the situation to the best possible degree. Like poor Clark, above. He just lost his primary gear. We can only hope he had a secondary cache somewhere, and that he can get there quickly and safely. I’d hate to see him at the mercy of strangers.
I know a few people like that. A whole family of them with the worst luck I’ve ever heard of. They’ve had three separate house fires, all of them just weird fluke things.
Whenever I bitch about my bad luck, I try to think of them.
Also: I totally forgot Snape. Because Alan Rickman is badass.
heh, have you seen how harry potter should have ended? It shows what really happened to Snape
No, I sure haven’t.
yea. i remember when it was dark at camp, i ran into a table i didnt even see, maybe a flashlight would be nice for clark
Flashlights are good, but there are some downsides.
Unless you’ve got a red filter, it’s going to screw up your night vision.
The zeds can see the flashlight and follow it, leading them right to you.
night vision goggles then?
NODs are nice; and the quality is improving while the price is lowering. That said, the cheapest price I have found for a MINI-14 Gen 3+ monocular is still over three grand. You can’t beat the quality, though. They’re at least as good as the PVS-14, and smaller to boot.
by the way… that looks like Clark’s old campsite
It’s similar; I like building rocks for some reason, so they tend to show up a lot in exteriors.
what if he just ran into his other camp? That would be pretty funny.
and a zombie is in that tent, mmm… human sausage
im back
Bloody hell Clark, are you trying to get yourself killed? You know how slowly zombies move. You can stop for the 2 seconds it takes to look behind you…
Question:
Secondary threats? One thing to look out for would be tripping up in the dark and impaling yourself on a seven inch blade, I would think…