In the final days of humanity I shall be known as Penguin Prince. Why do I have that name? That’s for me to know and you to find out. Later. Much later. Anyway I’m not telling. What I will tell you is that the zombie apocalypse is coming. We don’t know when. We don’t know how. We don’t know why. But we know it is coming. Are you ready?
I’m going to tell you one more thing. How to survive. I will be your eyes and ears on the internet. Any information I can gather for you, I will. All you have to do is come here. It’s that easy. Read my words. Become prepared.
You can find all kinds of how-to’s and do’s and don’ts about zombie survival out there. What I don’t often come across is zombie combat strategy. Zombies may have the upper hand on us in the final days. It’s a deadly game of tag, and once your tagged it, there’s no going back. However one thing that humans will have over the zombies (hopefully) will be our wits. Our ability to think rationally and plan and strategize will be our strongest weapons against the undead. So learn the strategies that work best for killing zombies and then no matter what situation you are in you can come out on top.
Today’s combat strategy I want to go over is probably one of the grimiest strategies out there. It will rarely work but sometimes you have no choice but to go along with an unwise plan. That is why I call this strategy The Last Stand.
The Last Stand will be a Hail Mary of zombie strategies. It should only be used as a last resort in a desperate situation. It’s named The Last Stand, because either you will kill every attacking zombie in the area, or you will die. Here’s the scenario. You and a few members of your party decided to go scavenging in the local metropolitan area for supplies. You came across the mother lode. As luck would have it there was a gun shop that hadn’t been picked clean yet. Maybe that’s because you know how to get to the hardest to reach areas. The areas so deep in the red zone, the map might as well be drawn in blood. But on your way out, someone goofed. A simple sneeze was all that was needed to alert the hoard of your presents. How many times did you tell them to wear their gas masks when going on these missions? Too late now.
So you find you and your three companions hauling ass away from the zombie hoard. Only to find out that the zombies are coming from the other end of the street as well. It looks like you’re screwed. No time to break into a boarded up building, your only option is to go down the dark alleyway to your right. Not the safest of places to be, but what choice do you have. Shooting the stray zombies that are in the ally, you’ve cleared the area, but now you’re in deep trouble. The zombies are coming right behind you. You only have moments to decide what to do. Not enough time to get to the fire escapes. No time to scale the wall behind you.
Please note, nothing's to scale. It's all just for reference.
Let’s explore our options shall we. Option one would be to jump into the dumpsters. With any luck the zombies would just pass right by you eventually clearing out the ally way and allowing you to try once again to make an escape. Here’s the problem. You’re taking a grave gamble by jumping into those dumpsters. You never know what was thrown out. Used needles, knives, human waste. Not to mention that those dumpsters have probably been sitting there for ages. Any food trash, or human waste would become a biohazard and probably get you really sick. So even if you somehow survive the zombies, you may not survive what nature gives to you. And not to even mention the fact that a zombie at some point may have climbed himself in there as well. You jump in the dumpster with a zombie and chances are you’re going to get bit.
Option two, you can pull a Shane and buy yourself some time by shooting a team member in the leg, thus leaving him as a sacrifice as you push the dumpsters under the fire escape and climb up to safety. I hate to be a bastard about it, but this is a viable option. Maybe sacrifice the guy who was inconsiderate enough to leave his mask off. Three of you could make it to safety. However, I personally probably would not consider this option in the heat of the moment. I would be concerned about getting everyone to safety. Not to mention the fact that every surviving member of the group is another gun to fight the zombies. Maybe I just value human life too much.
The Third option is the one that I would pick. Stand and fight. Here’s the thing. In the ally, the zeds can only approach you from one way. You’re surrounded on the other three sides by walls, so no one is going to pop out at you. This puts you in the most dangerous shooting gallery you’ve ever participated in. But a little strategy may turn the odds even more in your favor.
Take the dumpsters and move them so they are blocking the alleyway. My recommendation is to push them a few feet beyond your tolerance line. A tolerance line is the closest a zombie can get to you before you start to panic. Everyone will have a different tolerance line but I recommend somewhere around 8 to 10 feet. Why so close? In the revolutionary war, the American’s were running out of ammo. So the legend goes that solders were given the command to not shoot until they could see the whites of the enemy’s eyes.
Note that their may be some space between the dumpsters and the walls, and or the dumpsters themselves. Try to keep it so that the zeds can't squeeze through the gaps, but you can shoot through them.
This is the same concept. 8 to 10 feet is a close enough distance that any practiced shooter should be able to hit the brain of the zombie with one shot, but it’s far enough away that if they missed, you could take a second shot before being tackled by a zed. By placing the dumpsters at that distance, it buys you a little extra time to get your equipment out by slowing down the first wave of zombies. By the time they climb over the dumpsters you will have your weapons out and ready to take them on. Not to mention by putting up an obstacle, you have ensured that only the most determined and fit zombies will cross the barrier. This prevents you from having to kill ones that can’t climb over the dumpsters, thus preserving ammo.
So the idea will be to shoot the zombies just as they are cresting over the dumpsters. If you shoot them early enough, you will cause them to fall backwards, delaying other zombies from getting to you. What will hopefully happen is soon you will make a wall of lifeless bodies that will make it even harder for other zombies to get to you, and or, tricking the zombies that show up late to the party into thinking there is no live meat in the alleyway, thus causing them to pass you. Hopefully, the stench of the dead bodies piling up will mask your odor. Let’s just hope you’ve scavenged enough ammo to last you through the attack.
Once you have successfully thwarted the rest of the hoard, you can then find a way to get to the fire escapes and climb to better safety. Do not attempt to move the dumpsters again. If you do this there’s a chance the bodies could fall, opening up a gap in your makeshift defense. Or even worse, if they fall on you there’s a chance you could become infected by incidental contamination with leaking fluids. The use of the rope in your survival pack should do the trick however. You did remember to pack some rope right?
What do you think? Would you do something different in this situation? Is there a better answer than what I have provided? Have any other suggestions of things to do to increase your chances of survival? Leave a comment below, or email me at penguinprince@grimcrew.com. You can also follow Dead Future on Facebook and Google +. You can also follow me on Twitter and Google +.
Till Fate brings our Future…
Penguin Prince
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You can also use this set up in places other than an ally way. The garage, a small store in a mall, a fenced in self storage facility. The point is to have 3 of your sides blocked in so you only have to focus on threats attacking you from the front, and to have the zombies funneled in so that you force the zombies to come at you in waves instead of all at once. Some type of makeshift barrier for the zombies to climb over or get around is ideal, however if you don’t have that available, just be sure to mark your tolerance line so you can try to keep the zombies beyond that line. It will give you a reference on when it’s close enough to fire on and still be accurate. Also by dropping every hostile at that line or slightly before it, you will start building up a wall of bodies that will make a barrier to slow down additional hostiles.