When I started thinking way too much about zombies:

While on a Navy ship for 7 months


What started my zombie fixation:

Max Brooks and George Romero

Favorite zombie book:

Definitely World War Z

Favorite zombie movie:

28 Days Later, Night of the Living Dead color remake

Favorite quote in any zombie movie:

"See that one? I think I did her."


My score and score summary on the non-lame zombie survival test:

Don`t know, it wouldn`t load.

I just re-enlisted for another 4 years in the Marine Corps, so my plans for the Zombie plague will largely revolve around that for the foreseeable future. I`m 22, married with one on the way, and stationed in Camp Pendleton, California. I`ve been to Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Dubai, Singapore, and Australia (oh yeah!) and Canada, and can safely say that there`s nowhere I`d rather live than America. I`m an artilleryman by trade, but have cross-training in Mission Oriented Combat Shooting, Nonlethal weapon application and British army style Public Order procedures.

Besides speculating on possible apocalypse scenarios, I`m into SCUBA diving, guns, working dogs, and (maybe a bit too much) videogames. I used to be a raging Guild Wars fiend, but it stopped being interesting after I ran out of vicoden.

I`m originally from Florida, but am stuck in the People`s Republic of California for the forseeable future, which sivearly limits my gun collection.

Rage Zombies are theatrically cooler, but Romero Zombies more dangerous because of durability, and they don`t starve.

12 guage. It will almost always cause crippling central nervous system damage out to 50 feet or so, and at living room distance a headshot is child`s play. I just hope I have some buddies to cover me while I reload. Yeah, so what if it`s short range? If a zombie`s out to sniper distance, it`s no threat anyway.

I know this is a hot topic, so I made it a bigger point. AK for if facing Rage zombies or humans, due to superior ballistics. AR for Romero zombies, for pinpoint accuracy.

If the Dead Rise?:

If Zack were to come groping at my door tonight, I would meet him with a Remington 870 with synthetic stock, 6 round tube and 18 inch barrel, and a Ruger P95DC 9mm auto with a 17 round mag, with more to spare. Also, I`ve got 2 boxes of shadilly procured MRE`s, First Aid kits, and about 20 gallons of bottled water in jugs on my front porch. I have a big sliding glass door, so we might be shit out of luck anyway.

If I figure out what`s going on early enough, I`d make a break for Camp Pendleton, which is less than 20 miles away. Although I have no doubt that Pendleton will fall. Refugees will probably come swarming to the base from as far off as L.A. The MP`s couldn`t stop them. How could they? The crowds would be paniced and swarming. The base would do its best to house the refugees with no way to weed out the infected. And soon enough, the ghouls would come gnawing their way up the massive traffic jam running the length of the base`s main road.

Sure, the Marines have enough firepower here to make short work of the infection, but they`d never use it. They would try to capture and restrain the zombies, thinking of them as sick people. By the time the top brass recognized the ghouls as no longer human and in need of extermination rather than medical treatment, it would be far too late. The brig and the Naval Hospital (which is right next to family housing, by the way) would soon be bursting at the seams with ghouls.

The advantage that Camp Pendleton does have, however, is many small, fenced in compounds in sparcely populated areas, any one of which could be a hasty fortress. If possible, and armory would be a good first stop. Although they`re very much secured from forced entry, there`s always an armed guard inside, who could probably be easily convinced to open the door for a man with a pregnant woman.

Armories are, for all practical purposes, impregnable. Not only are they secured from forced entry, but obviously have all the weapons you and 500 others could ever need, and even running water (however long that lasts). It would, however, be unwise to stay there unless you`ve already brought huge amounts of food and are willing to ignore the paniced pleas of other survivors outside the barred door. (You can`t feed everyone, after all) Also, there`s only one door, so if it gets blocked by swarming ghouls, you`re trapped.

The armory will, however, provide you and your likely growing group with enough weapons and ammo to make it safely to a more permanent hideout. Fortunately, you need only make it as far as the nearest motor pool. Everyone knows that even the most basic military vehicles are rugged, dependable off-roaders, but it is not common knowledge that none of them have locking doors and do not require a key to start. What could be better?

After basic weaponry and transportation is aquired, any one of the many small, fenced compounds will do for a secure location. From this initial base of operations, raids can be made to the Ammo Supply Points, where most of the base`s ammo and ordinance is stored. An enterprising survivor probably would have little trouble finding a cutting torch to get into the ammo magazines. There`s also any number of wearhouses where MRE`s and field rations are stored, as well as artesian wells sprinkled all over the base.

Expanding the group of survivors would likely be pretty easy. The base`s numerous barracks would be full of Marines hiding in their rooms behind locked doors, trapped by the zombies on the other side. Many such survivor groups would probably pop up before long. Due to the ready availability of non-perishable food and weaponry, as well as physically fit and mentally tough young men, Camp Pendleton-and most military bases-would recover more quickly from the initial chaos.

Of course, none of that will matter if I can`t get to Pendleton, will it? So I`d better have a plan centered around my appartment, to. This scenario is a lot sketchier, and, frankly, more likely for my wife and I to end up slouching and moaning, but here-goes....

I`ve already enumerated the supplies I have at my immediate disposal, so I won`t go over that. My first priority would be to take all my weapons, food and water immediately to the appartment directly above my own. In my complex, all appartments have a front door as well as a sliding glass door leading to a small enclosed porch, or balcony in the case of upstairs. The only access route to upstairs is, obviously, the narrow stairway to the front door. Throwing all the big furniture down the stairs should be adequate to block them.

At that point, I`d have to lay low for awhile. The dramatic zombie siege against my barricades would ideally be avoided just by staying quiet. God help us if a fire starts in the complex, because then we`re screwed. Our only hope would be to try to get to another secure location in our car, but that seems unlikely.

Hopefully after a week or so the initial chaos would have died down, and what survivers there are will be holed up. Sneaking out of hiding, preferably onto the roof, would then be the best way to try to contact other survivors. Most people in my neighborhood are either Marines or (mostly) illegal Mexicans, so there`s plenty of tough, resourceful human material to work with.

My neighborhood also has the benefit of being fenced off. About 2/3 of it is also surrounded by a steep hill, at the top of which is another fence that separates our neighborhood from a trailer park. The only entrance to the complex is through a wrought-iron gate. I bet I can pull enough men and weapons together from the survivors to seal that gate and eliminate any zombies within our perimeter. Remains could be burned in one of the many dumpsters that can be found here. Every appartment will have to be cleard. I don`t have nearly enough ammo to do that, but hopefully others will have more guns.

After this perimeter is secured, wholesale looting of the other appartments will comese. All weapons, food, medicine, water, and living areas will be consolidated in a central core of appartments, maybe breaking down walls between appartments to make one big communal area. Unlike my base scenario, there will be many women and children to look after, maybe even outnumbering the men.

Forraging the surrounding area would be very dangerous, as my neighborhood in in a pretty populous area and near several major roads. We`d probably wind up supplementing our diet with stray cats and raccoons. Yummy.

There`s plenty of decorative landscaping here that could easily be uprooted to grow crops, provided we could lay hands on some seeds.

The Hemingway solution.