Probably depend on what type of Zombie your going to face, where you live, what population survived and how the dead generate.

Firstly, I guess if your facing an original 'Romero' Zombie or a Max Brooks 'World War Z' zombie life would be pretty simple, just stay away from them, build a big wall to keep them and start farming ! Your only going to turn into one if your bit, you can outrun them with ease and your only real problems are going to be swarms. Never really understood a Romero Zombie - lets face it , an epidemic of then is unlikely due to their relative slowness.

Facing some of the later day intelligent zombie fiction types - ie Brian Keenes 'different dimensional The Rising' zombies or Matthew Smith' 'Word of their Roaring' Zombies, then life to be honest is pretty much over anyway - as they can ride cars , fire rocket launchers and even have herds of zombie cows and road fodder. As for zombies running, 'Night of the Living Dead' follow ons etc you'd never get away.

And if you were facing David Wellingtons 'Monster' series super-powered zombies, with the ability to go invisible, shoot psychic bursts and move like The Flash, then your pretty screwed too !

My issue with all things zombie is how they generate themselves. My personal feeling is that the ideal zombie story would be for a nerve gas / virus to only attack about 90% of the population, leaving the other 10% totally outgunned, but never changing on death. Therefore there is a long shot of defeating the hoard - an not like in Keene's excellent gory tale no chance for humanity. I feel a good story is one you have a chance of winnig !

It also really depends on where you live. I live in the UK, and lets face it you all know that there are far less guns available in the UK. So you guys in USA etc have it far easier to defend yourself. You can all club together, form a little well armed army and go about annihilating everything of the living dead. Here it would be much tougher - try arming yourself against a zombie hoard with just a pitch-fork or a shovel ! Try answering the question above living in the USA if the government were to take all the guns out of circulation !!

Lastly, I think '28 Day Later' got it right best of all, when showing that when the food ran out, the Zombies ran out, but there was always the 'risk' of re-infection.

Myself, I guess at the end of the day and living in the UK, like Land Of The Dead, the best way would be to take over a town, build a wall, start a farm and wait it out.

Okay Gumble, you bring up some good points... I guess I'll have to lay some ground rules on this one, being as super intelligent zombies will basically just kick our asses... Lets say that they are more like the Dawn of the Dead (2004) style z's, with a liberal splash of Night of the Living Dead mixed in there to make it a little more possible to run away if you have to... BTW I do know that there is a firearms ban in the UK and I expected that one to come up, nontheless I'd like you to try to be inventive... I mean, you guys do have a standing army and it's not like those guys don't have guns that you could beg borrow or steal ya know?

Strange you should bering this subject up. In the British Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday was this:

http://www.telegraph.co.u...laim-scientists.html

And acording to a group of mathematicians it makes no difference if the zeds are slow, fast, stupid or genius we are all doomed if it ever happened.

And you can read the math paper here. Its not overly complex to understand

http://www.mathstat.uotta.../~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

Dear 'Bury The Sun',

With respect your probably living in cloud cuckcoo land' if you think the army will turn over a gun to anyone - even after a zombie apocalypse !! It would not happen, begging or not.

OK - inventive ? I'd round up all the zombies, ship them over to France, and then Nuke it !!

Posted By gumble on 21 Aug 2009 02:50 PM
Dear 'Bury The Sun',

OK - inventive ? I'd round up all the zombies, ship them over to France, and then Nuke it !!

Now that is a first class idea

I have a way to beat the zombies that I am surprised no one else has thought of yet.They can be the fast running ones or the slow moving Romero ones.Don't matter.

Easy.Find a place to hole up.Wait.Since they are dead they would have rigor mortis and be decomposing quite fast.Wait it out and they would be a pile of goo.After they have decomposed it would safe to return to the outside world.

Posted By One Eyed Vengance(Leonidas) on 23 Aug 2009 08:01 PM

I have a way to beat the zombies that I am surprised no one else has thought of yet.They can be the fast running ones or the slow moving Romero ones.Don't matter.

Easy.Find a place to hole up.Wait.Since they are dead they would have rigor mortis and be decomposing quite fast.Wait it out and they would be a pile of goo.After they have decomposed it would safe to return to the outside world.

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> Isn't that what happened at the end / begining of 28 days / weeks later ? The rage victims basically starved to death after a month or so. OK these were not in the true sense “Zombies” but your idea is quite sound.

Sadly there would be millions of “Gung Ho” types around the world that would dislike the idea of being locked up for a month or more until the “enemy” rotted and these would be an endless source of new victims / recruits for the horde.

Well thank you Jim.I am glad I can post somewhere still w/out getting my head bitten off.(sheesh)

Brainz I need more Brainzzz

I thought that was quite humourous of you "...my head bitten off..." in the zombie thread -LOL !!

Time I went to bed I think, its 1:27am here and I'm up for work at 6am !!

Yeah,glad you like it Jim,I thought it was an appropriate thing to say.

i'd find a jail to hole up in....good metal bars and doors....arm myself with big caliber weapons or shotguns with a huge load - blow some limbs off - then get some help to dump the bodies in a big trash container and burn what is still alive....

can i write a short story based on your idea and my solution with your blessing?

aww Dan,srew Andy(LOL)I know I would read it!

C'mon Andy,give Dan your blessing dammint!

Great idea for a topic. As a kid my best friend and I loved the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and we devised ways to survive that scenario over and over again on a dull Saturday afternoon. Later on we adapted our ideas to zombies. My wife loves zombie movies and we talk about this every time we watch one. First off: If you're talking Brian Keene zombies you're in trouble. The virus crosses species so my advice would be to Eat Your Gun. Shambling zombies or speedy zombies are not as big a problem as they sound. I agree that waiting them out is the best scenario. They will rot. What you need is any secure facility  A hospital with a generator or a prison or some Corporate bunker with a Halon lock down system. A lot of computer rooms have them. And of course you need Weapons, Weapons, Weapons. Those with you who are unfamiliar with guns..make them familiar..fast. Again, great topic.

My only issue with the whole "Let them rot" theory is what if you don't have that much time... what if they've laid siege to the area that you are in and there is no food, water, or weaponry to be found? You've got about 5 days with no water, about 10 with no food... but how long can you last if you don't have anything to defend yourself with? The theory is great as long as you are ready for a siege situation, but how many of us are actually READY for something like that? I'm probably about halfway ready and I've got enough firepower (possibly) to get to the grocery store down the block if I have to... but I still doubt that most people could last it out ya know?

Sun

You make some very valid points. I have weapons at home but I know if disaster struck I'd be somewhere else. Heck, on 9/11 I was at the dump when the towers were hit. I work in a  building that could be locked down. We would have food for a while but no fire power. The least these darn zombies could do is send you a warning letter with a time and date of attack.

wrote this quick - thought i'd see what you guys thought of my idea for a story!

No one knew when it started. Some people said the Swine flu was the start. That it quickly morphed into something else. But no one was sure, and the people left alive to figure it out were quickly dieing or worse, were transformed. The people who "died" from the flu didn't die. But it took a while to know this. Cemeteries suddenly had open graves, holes with no bodies in them. Caskets that were opened and there were tear marks on the inside, tattered and shredded clothes left behind. The 1st reported case in the media was a poor night clerk at a 7/11. The video from the security camera showed it all. The 1/2 dressed man coming in. Slowly shuffling his feet, knocking over racks of chips and candy bars as he went. The clerk ran over to stop him. When the person turned one of his eyes was dangling out of the socket. His arms were laying by his sides but at wrong angles. Dried blood was all over his chest. What happened next was the bad part. The clerk reeled from the sight of the man, and the man attacked. Grabbing the clerk and biting his neck. The wound was so bad the jugular let go and the clerk fell to the ground quivering in agony and trying ot stop the blood flow. The Zombie then proceeded to start to eat the parts of the flesh of the clerk he could tear off.

Someone getting gas at the pumps saw the whole thing and rushed to the rescue. Officer Paul Edwards was coming off duty that night and headed home. He had noticed the wierd man in the store and saw the clerk go down. He drew his .40 cal Glock and rushed into the store. "Stop! Get down! Put your hands up!" He shouted at the man hovering over the clerk. The Zombie turned it's head to look at him, blood all over it's face and hands and it growled at him, A deep guttural moan that sounded inhuman. Edwards was repulsed and horrified at the scene, the clerks body still twitching on the floor. He fired point blank into the Zombies face. Three .40 caliber hollow point rounds hit the Zombie's face almost dead center. It's brains and teeth were blown out the back of it's head by the large exit wounds the hollow points created. But it had almost no effect. The man started to get up and move towards the officer, it's growl now changing pitch because of it's ruined tongue. Edwards fired three more rounds, hitting it in the neck and in the jaw. The mouth fell open not able to support itself anymore with the jaw shattered. But still it came forward. Edwards was panicked at this point to almost hysteria. He backpeddaled and pulled his extra magazine from his holster. Loaded, and fired 3 more times into the chest. Blood and lungs and gore from the mans chest cavity sprayed out behind him. But it did nothing. Edwards did the only thing he could think of, and fired at the knee joints. The two shots per kneee brough the man down. The knee caps and sockets were shattered by the heavy +P round impacts. It could no longer walk. But it started to drag itself towards him once more.

Edwards was so repulsed by the sight that he did the only thing that came to him to stop this monster. He went over to the next gas pump and pulled the emergency ax from the rack. Standing above and behind the man he swung the ax and chopped off the mans arms at the shoulder. Something had snapped in Edwards, and any feeling of remorse for dismembering this person was overwhelmed by what he did to the clerk. He then chopped off the mans legs at the knee's and stepped back. Incredibly it was still moving and mewing at it's inability to get to it's prey. Edwards took the large fire extinguiser from the pump station and then proceeded to hose the man down with the fire retadant foam. It was a super cooled foam as he hoped and in essence he froze the man to the ground. When he was sure the man had stopped moving, he stood there for a moment and just stared at the inert form. He put down the extinguisher and went back inside to check on the clerk. He knew what he'd find but his training kicked in and he went to go see anyway. The man was clearly dead, bled out in just a few minutes for the jugular being opened, and the pool of blood was spreading. The security camera footage cut off as Edwards was seen sitting on the floor, his head in his hands crying like he had never cried in his life.

whatcha guys think so far?

I like it. These are some REALLY hard to kill zombies.

what good is a zombie story if they aren't bastard hard to kill!