Zombie Cliche Lookout: Surrounded
It’s hard to imagine a more classic zombie trope than a group of desperate survivors being surrounded by an ever-growing horde of ravenous zombies in a (possibly claustrophobic) home with limited supplies. Outside of “shootin’ ’em in the head” and the government dropping the ball on zombie containment, this is the most memorable of them all. I realize that, after three hundred and sixty-odd episodes, I still hadn’t put my characters in a true siege situation, and I needed to change that.
I love zombie siege stories, especially when they take place in private homes, because they turn what should be a safe place into a boiler primed to exploded. Outside, you have an innumerable army of zombies ensuring that escape won’t be easy, if it’s possible at all. And inside, things are even worse as personalities clash and people start losing it from stress, lack of sleep, and countless other annoyances and dangers.
About this Episode:
I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really digging this orange room. I kind of want to paint my office orange now after shooting a few episodes in here. Unfortunately, we’re renting, so I’d hate to paint with color that vibrant and hard to cover up, no matter how awesome it is. Sometimes, being a grown-up is hard.
Discussion Question: Hunker Down or Bust Out
Let’s say you find yourself in a similar predicament as Clark, Barb, and the rest of the gang here. You’re relatively safe inside, but there’s a sizable horde of zombies outside, and it seems to be growing. Do you try to fortify the house and stay there, hoping the zombies will start to dissipate after they can no longer see prey, or do you make a mad run for it before the situation gets even worse?
well considering the fact that they shot lots of holes in the van, they can’t do squat. I would sugest opening a window and shooting about 8 zombies a day, how many zombies can get into a decently fortified house? And if you wanted, you could blow up the van and waste fewer shots, but i think that the best thing to do is get everyone in one room, lock the doors, and calm everyone down before discussing what to do.
That’s assuming they have a lot of ammo. They picked up four guns, but no extra ammo. Many of the guns had already been fired as well.
well then don’t use a lot of ammo, just shoot the truck, taking multiple zombies out, and giving you less zombies to worry about as you make your run for it. Of course with blowing up the van and all, that will make a lot of noise, but there will be less zombies at the moment, and lets not forget the kids before we leave, you could give 2 guns to ted and vicky, but the kids need weapeons too. Maybe the kids can get the weapeons outside before they leave
Shoot the truck and take zombies out? This isn’t Call of Duty, that’s not likely to do much…
First things first. How much ammo do we have? Afterwards, do we have the food to feed the group? What about water? If this aren’t reasonable, can we out run them? Are the kids fast enough? It’s unlikely they are able to defend themselves given they were having troubles with only one zombie, so what about their safety? What about the rest? How’s their stamina? Shoes for escaping ( I’m hearing there are problems with finding right size in the lego world)? Lastly, how many zeds are out there? Over 10? Back entrance we should be aware of? Questions continue, answers? We surely are screwed on that end for now…
All very important questions, Phantom. It’s time to take a very quick inventory.
What do you do when zombies run through your front door?
Run out the back door.
Give this guy an award right now!
Hah
Nice one!
Ha, I just watched a movie called “the battery”… a very low budget zombie-movie… According to that movie it should work 🙂
Maybe you can do something with (orange) wallpaper 🙂
Fortifying is only for the short term… I guess we’ll have to find a way out… not just a mad run; but as far as is possible a decent plan taking every possibility into consideration. (maybe there is stuff in the house to make explosives in order to help make a path, or maybe its possible to make a box were you can fit in to walk out through the horde, get to a van and drive back to the house to pick up the rest…. for example, I don’t know)
Very interesting; I like this way of thinking. Instead of just accepting the situation, you’re looking for ways to use what’s on hand to give you an advantage.
Step one is determining assets and vulnerabilities. I agree with Foolish Lego. Use what you have if possible. Don’t panic. Keep your laser handy…er, ahem, got a bit carried away 🙂 Use your head and you may be able to buy time/get away.
If there is an upstairs window in the house have ted wife make the ultimate sacrifice for the kids and jump out the window. Hopefully she jumps far enough to lure the zombie away from the door so the rest can escape. Or of course they could hudle up and shut up untill the zomibes wander off, if they are not in a hurry.
I an bored lol. Wait oh there is a zombie on My lawn. Let’s take My shotgun.
‘BAM’.!!! Oh shit what did i just do now there is 158 zombies out there
If I was in the same situation, I would bunker down.
I figured that was probably the problem. If Clark was smart about building his barricades though, there should be some loopholes they can shoot or stab through. At that point it’s just a battle of attrition between their numbers and your food, depending on how many zombies you can kill in a day. There can’t really be an infinite number of them, after all.
Question:
Well, unless we had somewhere in mind to go to, I think staying put is the better option. You don’t want to be wandering aimlessly on the road being chased by a huge horde of undead.
There are exceptiong, of course – if you can reach them but they can’t reach you, you should be able to kill thousands of them each day, but if you live in a city of millions you could be talking months rather than days to get them all – if you don’t have that much food where you’re at, you might want to cut your way out as quickly as possible before their numbers build up too high. Of course, if you don’t have anywhere with better food stocks in mind, you might be screwed either way.
Hey maybe they will find the tons of supplies stolen from the police “safezone” in a room somewhere then they could probably survive for a long time if they just barricaded nicely.
Hey, that’s a good point, I had forgotten that these guys were successful looters.
Get the fuck out & start moving.
I love what Clark says here.. It’s almost like
“What do you think I am? An Engineer?” Ha.. Numbers..
I would hope I don’t end up boxed in.
but if it happened, I’d hope for an escape route and hope to wait out the horde to move on.
Tough call without know more about zombies. Just finished “The Rise of the Governor” and “The Road to Woodbury” on audio book and “The White Flag of the Dead” and “Taking it Back” on my Kindle. I have to admit that before those book and the “The Walking Dead” series that the idea of Zombies being attracted to noise, light and possible human scent didn’t occur to me. (I just figured they wandered around until the saw something) If this is the case then any crowd of zombies is just going to get bigger and bigger as more are drawn to the noise of the initial group. Whie its true that there cant be an infinite number, there are most likely several hundred within earshot. My point is that once you start to draw a crowd you have no idea how big that crowd will get. How long do you think any house is going to hold out with 1000+ sets of hands clawing at it 24/7 or crushing at it will all thier strength? Unless I have very good reason to expect the horde at the door to stay small, then I say bug out while you can. The good news is that que in to noise and motion should be easily distracted.
I don’t know about you, but I expect my house to be strong enough that you can’t tear it apart with your bare hands. It doesn’t really matter how many zombies are out there; if the construction is sturdy enough that you need a hammer to break it and they don’t have one, they aren’t getting in.
A lot of modern day houses have quite a bit of glass window and doors on them. Sure a human shouldn’t be able to get through your solid wood front door with their bare hands… but breaking glass… that’s a different ball game, and if you haven’t had time, or don’t have the materials to board up the glass entry points then it is going to get messy fast. Zombie might just fall through a big glass door due to weight of other zombies behind it.
I doubt it. Glass is a lot stronger than most people think, and the weight of zombies will act downwards into the ground. Even if you do have a door made entirely of glass, it’s not going to be the easy entry point that some people seem to think. I say again – your house should be strong enough that you can’t break it with your bare hands, and that goes for walls, doors, and windows.
Sounds like they need some zambie bait. I vote the children.
im just seeing this comic now, my computer finally bit the bullet so im using the library’s computer
I’m going to guess that because dave made a point about not havinh a seige in the comic yet that these ppl will be here for awile. On another note wouldn’t it be nice if something else, possibly something a bit more distracting were to be close by and most/all the zombies started going after that instead.
speaking of a seige, where is the one place you would fortify and make your very own “Fortress of the Year?”
If someone like Clark walks in with this news, I’m doing a few things:
a) I’d be continuing to fortify the house to try and minimise the immediate threat of zombies breaking in.
b) As I’ve just come into this house I’m talking to the owners (Ted and Vicky) to try and work out what assets we have (food, water, etc)
c) Getting to know my surroundings (layout of house, backyard etc) so we can work out back up plans (plural)
As time is of the essence I’d just be getting everyone to work on the fortifications and talking to the owners about potential weak spots/escape routes while we work.
I would not go running off into who knows what without taking a few moments to try and work things out.