We Hate Zombies

Scenario:
At some point during the past week or month or who knows how long, you blacked out. You’ve just come to and find yourself sitting in the midst of a large group of people, watching some great debacle of color in what looks to be a huge, dimly lit tent. You realize from the clowns and the trapeze ninjas that you’re at a circus, and no one else has a splitting headache but you. That’s when you see the zombie wobble in through the front tent flaps and take the neck out of a guy. You reach for your shotgun but find only a hunting knife. What do you do?

What you should do:
In order to respond to this scenario, you’ll have to understand a little about the mob mentality. When people catch on to the gory zombie glee going on near the entrance, they’re going to go bat shit nuts and run for Jesus. Everyone will panic and do what they can as quickly as they can to move toward what they perceive to be an escape. Problem is, some people are clumsy and fall, some people are ruthless and throw elbows, and everyone generally moves at a different pace. The result? Chaos, confusion, and a hot sweaty traffic jam; a man-buffet, ripe for the infectious blood vomit.

In the jumble of limbs, the zombie will have plenty of time to take a nibble here and there, until the zombiism is spreading as fast as fire in a furniture store. You don’t want to be caught down in that crap because you hate people rubbing their sweat all over you, and your knife won’t protect you from a thousand zombies already rubbing you the wrong way. That’s why you’re going to be smart and avoid the mob.

Instead of running down the stands to join the death sentence below, move upwards, towards the top. There will be very few people at the top, so you won’t be bothered by Strangers you may or may not hate.¹ Also, the zombie will be distracted by the mass of people, and even when zombies start to head your way they will probably be even slower to advance due to their general inability to scale a set of stairs.² Even better, you’ll have a bird’s eye view to watch the madness or otherwise check it’s progress.

That just leaves you with the escape part. Well, it’s a good thing you brought your knife, because if you hadn’t noticed your cage is nothing more than some heavy-duty fabric. Since you’re at the top of the stands, you should be at the wall of the tent, so use the knife to slash your own exit. Now, you’ll probably be at least 40 feet up in the air, so don’t haul ass skydiving because you’ll never walk away clean. Instead, cheap the ground for zombies, then climb out of the tent. Use the knife to slow your descent as you slide your way down to the ground.

What I would do:
Since I’m always watching for zombies, blacked out or not, I spotted the zombie before it even knew what a second chin tasted like. The quick observation buys me precious time. Before anyone else would even have a chance to recover from the shock of a man bleeding out, I would have vaulted over the heads of a hundred men down to the main attraction. Every circus has a clown and a cannon, so I’d use both in a maneuver I like to call ‘Keeping the Bull off the Cowboy.’ Shooting the confused and abused clown out of the cannon and into the zombies would keep the macabre at the entrance and slow their advance for only the cost of a creepy vintage funny man.³

With the zombies busy feasting on number three, I would duck and roll over to the lion tamer and cut his Achilles heel so I could steal his whip. The lions, as their kind has been known to do, would grow wild at the scent of blood and devour the weakness, then naturally fall in behind their new ring leader. With whip in hand, I would approach the three zombies, whipping them from 20 feet like the real Indiana Jones from when his movies were good. First I would take out their eyes. Whip! Whip! Then I would knock out their teeth. Whip! Crack!

After rendering the zombies helpless, I would likely be attacked by circus folk seeking revenge for the loss of their old whip-master. This would of course be a minor annoyance as I would unleash my ferocious man-eaters on them. The carnies’ thirst for vengeance would only whet the appetite of my four-legged bodyguards, so some innocent bystanders might also be consumed, as could be expected. Free from distractions of my own, I would continue whipping at the blind toothless undead until I had backed them into the elephants cage and locked the door. Then I would continue whipping the zombies through the bars of the cage while the fire-breather set ‘em alight, just to build up a thirst for the heavy drinking I would be about to receive.
¹ Xenophobia: curse, or gift?
² Note: Some types of zombies are not slowed by stairs. Watch out for this.
³ I don’t fear carnies, but they smell like cabbage and that reminds me of my grandma and her freakishly small hands.^4
4 Turns out my grandma died before I was born. No one knows who that old woman was or why I went to her house for two hours twice a week.

Rating (Overall Rating: 5 out of 5)
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This entry was written by Matt and posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under 3-Star Threat Level, Survival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.