Today’s Labor Day weekend is all about fun! That’s right. It’s Monday Mayhem again, folks. It’s time to put your thinking caps on and help me escape the zombies. Are you ready to indulge in some serious undead running?
How it works: I present a scenario filled with zombies, and your job is to figure out a way to escape. Of course I’ll give you my answer telling you what I’d do, but it doesn’t mean that’s what you would do. That’s up for you to decide. And if you missed them, here are the first seven parts: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII.
Are you ready? All right then. Let’s go!
Scenario #1: You’re in the woods looking for a place to sleep. In an hour, you’ll lose the light and will have nothing but the night to keep you company. You’ve discovered by some of the others who used to be part of your group that you are a loud snorer. In fact, you’re so loud that your entire group fell to the undead because of your obnoxious condition that had alerted a crowd of fly-breaders to your location earlier in the day. You manage to find a cabin. Inside, you also find it cozy if you were to leave the lights off. The shutters will do well with keeping the changed away from the area. Now the dilemma. Knowing of your condition, how will you guarantee to get a good night’s sleep without hinting at where you’re sleeping? Will your snoring be the end of you this time around?
My Answer: Apparently sleeping on one’s side is the best solution. Then again, so is sticking your head under a bucket. I’m not sure if that would help.
Scenario #2: Running several miles from a horde on the city street, you don’t notice the manhole ahead as you sprint toward a building. You fall in and injure your leg. You’re knee-deep in sewage and you can’t stand for long. If you stay where you landed, the zombies won’t touch you. It could be the zombies hate the smell of filth coming from the hole. Who knows? At the same time, because you fell into raw sewage, your injury will become susceptible for infection and you might pass out from the stench, thereby drowning in the only place where you find it safe. What are you going to do? Do you climb the ladder, take a chance by running to the building you wanted to get to before you cross paths with the crowd, or do you wait them out, hoping that in the meantime you won’t die in the bowels of the city?
My Answer: Get me out of here. The quicker I get to that building, the faster I can find clean clothes—I hope.
Scenario #3: The store at the end of the road is the only thing keeping the zombies from having their time with you. You duck through the door, lock it tight and run to the back where you find a rear exit. Before you can make it through though, three draggers pile from the entrance and chase you through the aisles as you try to avoid their paws from grabbing a hold in order to sink their teeth into you. Next thing you know, the front door bursts open and the rest of the crowd that was chasing you appear once more, marking their territory with their putrid smell. The way to get out of this alive would be to find a weapon, cut a path though the store and escape through the rear entrance. The only real problem is that it’s a dressmaking shop. Where are you going to find a weapon that would put those miserable rot-bags in their place?
My Answer: I figure a dressmaking shop will have scissors, but with a horde after you, it will take more than scissors to get out of this mess.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.
What would you do?
Looking to God 
1 – I’d sleep face down in some kind of muffling pillow made from a jacket. If I don’t sleep I survive. If the snoring is muffled I survive; if it isn’t muffled I die in my sleep. That’s if the zombies don’t shake me awake first.
2 – Anyone who’s read my post about my first job will know I have a very poor sense of smell, so I can cope with the sewer stink. The infection will take a while; long enough to find a functioning private health care service operating for free because the financial system has collapsed.
3 – Trapped in a dressmakers shop. (I’m sure you’re on acid, Jack, when you think these things up!) In that case I’d look for coathangers first, and use the straightened wire as makeshift eye-poker-outers, hurl the sewing machines at anything that gets too close, and then finally scare the zombies away by threatening them with a pattern for 1970s kipper ties.
After reading your blog for so long now, I’m convinced I won’t survive a zombie apocalypse.
grab a pair of big slacks, wrap it around your arm and swing the zipper part at them with force. In your other hand the shears to blind them. Keep up the circular motion.
Okay, I’ll have to admit–that’s one of the most creative uses of pants I’ve every heard, Barry!
It is the zipper that will shred the zombies. While doing it sing Zip a Dooda. Zip e a. What a wonderful day.
Good one, Barry!
scenario two. Smear the sewer stink all over your torso, avoiding the wounded area. hopefully the z’s will avoid you because you stink. Catch a rat in the sewers, put it on a stick and heave it away from you will give you a few seconds to get away. Z moves slow and the rat will be moving. Cats will chase it and z will chase the cats. Meow mix for the z.
In the cabin is a tape recorder, or a cell phone. Record your snoring. Place the volume at the highest range and place it near quicksand. The zombies will go there and into the quicksand. They will not die but the quicksand will hold them there while you get a good nights sleep.
1. I’d try to sleep on my side, but it sounds like I’d be doomed. Unless I lock myself in one position, which means a difficult sleep, I wouldn’t be able to know for sure that I won’t snore. Any unneeded furniture will be used as a barricade as well as setting a few noise making traps around the cabin. Might give me a chance of waking up and getting away.
2. Due to the injury, I doubt I could move further along and come out at another manhole. Only because I’d have terrible leverage and strength to move the cover if it’s still on. So I’d have to clamber back up, making sure to get my clothes a little extra dirty for the smell possibility, and run for the building. With any luck, I’ll survive and get cleaned up. Any more luck and I’ll find the person who left an open manhole and smack them upside the head . . . with a baseball bat.
3. Stabbing never seems to work on zombies, so I’ll grab something blunt. With all the shelving unit, I’d look for a metal pole or rod. Maybe even a mannequin or something that can be wielded like a club.
1. You’re right. Sleeping in one position would mean a brutal sleep. Been there, done that.
2. Louisville Slugger is your best friend!
3. A two-by-four would work too. 😉
I’m guessing the chronic snorers would be some of the first to go. Sadly, this would include me.
Don’t worry, I know a few other who would not survive on account of the condition!