Zombie Cliche Lookout: Dirty Work
When people talk about zombie survival, they’re usually discussing cool stuff like guns and other weapons. Some of them might talk about the less sexy aspects of survival, like procuring food and purifying water. What few people like to talk about is the truly disgusting aspects of survival, especially when it comes to disposing of the zombies they’ve killed with all those awesome guns. However, as gross as it is, it’s much more disgusting to have a bunch of dead bodies just lying around your hideout, slowly decaying. The stench would certainly adversely affect anyone within range, lowering your group’s morale if not making everyone completely nauseous.
It could also be very dangerous. We don’t know what sort of nasty pathogens zombies might be carrying. Leaving those corpses just lying around might cause those germs to spread, perhaps leaching into groundwater. It would be awfully embarrassing to kill a hundred zombies with your bare hands, and then die from an easily preventable disease simply because you didn’t want to deal with the corpses.
About this Episode:
Taking a bit of a break from Brent’s story to address a few of the other plot points I need to get on, starting with all these zombie corpses on the cabin lawn. No one wants a zombie corpse in their front yard.
Also, it gives me the opportunity to have a big pile of bodies in the comic, and you know I’m not going to skip an opportunity like that.
Discussion Question: Dealing with all those Zombie Bodies that Pile Up
So just what sort of dangers could zombies pose, and what would the best means of disposing of them be? Could they carry disease? Attract other zombies? Could they poison the water supply? Could people somehow become infected by interaction with the body? How long does the zombie pathogen survive? Should you burn them, or would the ash introduce pathogens in the air? What about burying them?
Typo alert, Zombie Cliche Lookout, first paragraph, first sentence: “usuallydiscussion cool” after the first comma: discussion–>discussing 😀
Same section, same paragraph, fourth sentence: “around you hideout” you–>your
Same section, second paragraph, first sentence: “might by carrying” by–>be
Same section, same paragraph, fourth sentence: be awful embarrassing” awful–>awfully
Discussion Question, first sentence: “disposing them be” insert “of” between the two italicized words. 😀
Same section, fifth sentence: “people someone become someone–>somehow 😉
That’s a lot of typos there, Dave! 😀 You haven’t been burning the midnight oil trying to get the page together, have you? 😀
Holy crap, that is a lot of typos. I write this on my lunch break yesterday. No idea why I made so many mistakes.
“Write” -> Wrote
Wow, Dave! This has to be a record! 😛
Good lord.
Regarding the Discussion Question: Ideally they should be incinerating the zombies, the same way hospitals dispose of medical waste that might contain dangerous pathogens. Being in a zombie apocalypse, however, will most likely mean one would have to resort to using less than ideal means of fueling a fire that burns hot enough to incinerate corpses. Not simply because of the ever constant zombie threat, it’s because lugging one around isn’t possible in a zombie apocalypse, as any decent incinerator is going to be on wheels, rather heavy, and sturdy, so it doesn’t incinerate itself instead of the bodies. This by definition means it’s not going to be something you can simply shove into your hip pocket! 😀
If it’s possible to make a safe disposal method of the ashes that might form as a result of non-incineratable foreign objects in the zombiefied bodies, it could be adapted to be a new form of car fuel, although being powered by zombies isn’t exactly ideal because most of them will want to bite anything that’s edible, though not because they don’t want to be incinerated. 😉
It’d be preferable to have zombies tossed off a high cliff where there is little chance of living people coming across them. They’ll probably rot away fast enough and if the wind is right, the smell will probably drive most people away from that direction anyway.
It’s definitely necessary to get rid of zombie pathogens that remain in the corpses, I think burial might be an option although not a very good one, it depends on what Dave means regarding biodegradability of zombiefied bodies. Normal human bodies decay very quickly, I’d expect zombiefied bodies to not decay any slower than human bodies, and quite possibly a lot faster, depending on the length of time the zombie’s been around.
You raise some really interesting points here, BV. My sister is a funeral director, I’m going to have to pick her brain on some of this stuff.
I can imagine that the pathogen doesn’t die when the zombie does. After all, it was already dead the whole time, and that didn’t seem to adversely affect the pathogen.
Looking at the recent Ebola outbreak, several medical workers in hospital settings managed to contract the disease while taking normal (maybe even somewhat greater than normal) safety precautions. How much greater the danger should be in a world where hygiene is rudimentary at best.
I mean, if you can catch Ebola while trying not to be contaminated through gloves, masks, scrubs, and hand washing, how much easier it should be to catch something while elbow deep in gore, handling twenty rotting corpses with bare hands, and having just come through combat and contact with a rough environment which may have left untold numbers of tiny cuts and scratches on one’s skin…
Excellent point about the Ebola infections. These doctors and nurses are taking insane precautions to do their jobs as safely as possible, and some of them are still getting sick. It just goes to show you how virulent these things can be.
Just FYI: With regards to the zombiefied bodies, I’m talking about the ones that have been stopped from roaming around by a critical hit that stops the zombie brain from functioning, not the recently turned zombies. 🙂
Hah, thanks for the clarification.
On my very first day of work experience placement (City Parks Dept.) I had the job of picking up a cat that was dead for a week, then throwing it into a rubbish bag. It was the hottest day of the year, and it sat in a van for 4hrs+. It was the worst-smelling thing ever.
In the case of zombies, most people definitely would not be happy being tasked with the clearing of hundreds of dead things, and might just leave them lying about for others to deal with. Airborne viruses can definitely be contracted through this. So add a respirator to your survival kit, your respiratory system will thank you for it later.
Yessir. I’ve got a couple N65 paper respirators I keep in my trunk. Very handy to have on hand.
So far, the only practical method I can think of with regards to disposing zombie corpses is burning them.
Another potential method could be dissolving them in acid Breaking Bad style, though the odds of finding such chemicals are slim and the odds of safely disposing of the resulting sludge slimmer still.
Either way, it’d probably be wise to wear protective clothing such as hazmat suits while doing so.
Off the top of my head, you could bury them, or drag them to a location a good distance from where you hang out.
Dissolving them sounds pretty awesome though.
I have a bad feeling about both. I’d move em far away, but my bury or burn. If you burn them, you risk the pathogen getting in the air, and airborne pathogens are a bit difficult to handle with the limited supplies these guys have. Also, if you bury them and plan to hide out in one place for a while (over the course of a few years), you risk contaminating your ground water supply when the bodies decompose if you use a well or live with water closer to the surface. This is very unlikely, but I personally would take a risk in a situation like this.
Very good points. Another risk to burning them: the light from the fire might attract more zombies or hostile survivors.
The way you deal with walker cadavers is an important aspect. It’s definitely a time consuming activity, especially when you kill dozens of zombies. Burying them would take too much time. My best guess would be to pile up the bodies and burn them. If the survivors manage to learn that the infection doesn’t spread through air, it’s the best alternative, even if you have to wear gloves and a mask.