The apocalypse has happened. It’s not what you expected. Zombies have taken over the world. It’s up to you to survive. Will you?
For today’s Monday Mayhem, I’d like to ask a question. It’s a simple question.
What would you do?
Everyone has a notion one would know what to do when confronted with the inevitable decision of taking a life to save another or oneself. But I ask, would you be capable of such an act? Morality plays a big part in the decision making process. What if the guilt is so unbearable that you couldn’t do it? What if the very person you had to remove from existence was your brother? Your sister? Your mother? Your father? Would you?
Remember, the world has fallen under a full-blown zombie apocalypse. You don’t know if the condition your loved one is suffering is temporary or permanent. You have no clue as to the status of the government’s involvement to finding a solution to the condition. You have no idea whether it will be ten minutes before someone walks in to present a solution. Ten hours. Ten days. Or even ten weeks. For all you know, your loved one has become one of the changed and you have a choice to make.
What would you do?
Would you take the life of your loved one in order to save yourself, the rest of your family or anyone else who is not your family but appears to have evaded the condition that has made the person banging at the door one of the changed?
I’ve concluded that I wouldn’t know what I’d do if confronted with such a decision. If the person I love turns on me because of the change, then I will have quite a time justifying the death if I don’t know what caused the condition in the first place. My problem is also a moral dilemma, since I would still see the person as he or she was before becoming one of the undead. Moreover, to add salt to the misery, I would probably do my best to protect the victim of the condition as a means to prolong their life until I was sure there isn’t anything else I could do for them.
Like I said, for me it would be a moral decision, regardless of who it is. I would have to be good and sure there would be no looking back before I take a knife to the evil that has invaded the victim.
I know, it is strange, and I agree. After all, I write about zombies. Getting rid of them in fiction is very different from living through the process of guilt inhibiting every crevice of my heart. But the idea of taking a life because they pose a threat may seem premature to me if I don’t have all the facts at my disposal.
Then again, I could be wrong, in which case I would have to reevaluate the criteria I would use to save my family.
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 
hello jack flacco its dennis the vizsla dog hay i wood run away!!! i can run reely fast!!! i am not shoor wot dada wood do he is too bizzy lukking for a bigger verzhun of that first pikcher wot he cud yooze as kompyooter wallpaper hay dada!!! prioritize!!! ok bye
I’d do the merciful thing, just like with a suffering, dying animal: put them down. I know it would be harder than it sounds, but I can’t imagine letting someone else kill the reanimated corpse of my child, my wife, or anyone else I truly cared about. It would be better to handle it in the family.
I don’t know. I’d want to live. Of course. But would it even be an enjoyable life? I don’t know that I would be inspired to try very hard if it wasn’t worth it…but they say one never knows what one is truly capable of.
My friend I agreed that we would wait until the person was fully turned and then do the deed. I know in real life it wouldn’t be that easy, but if there is no cure in sight and no way to safely lock your loved one away, then that would be the safest option.
I think most of us would do likewise. There would be no ” miracle cure ” for a zombie virus, unless someone existed like Murphy in the series ” Z Nation “, who’s kind of like a half – zombie, half – living hybrid, if that was possible.
I’d give myself a cut off point: when they dribble more than they talk, shoot ’em. I think once law and order has gone it won’t be long before I and everyone else will revert to what we really are. Apes with big brains.
Either that or move to Canada and live in Jack’s house, because Jack’s The Man when it comes to dealing with the maggotty hordes!
Yeah, either Canada or Alaska. Zombies apparently have an aversion to cold. Strange, because that would keep them from deteriorating so fast.
Would a freshly – turned zombie move faster or lurch along like zombies traditionally have been depicted as doing ?
This is an obvious choice for me because while I enjoy a the fiction of a good zombie apocalypse story, I know that a virus capable of reanimating dead tissues would effect the host irreversibly. A rotting corpse can’t just be made fresh and whole again. I don’t know what some people imagine a cure would do to fix a disemboweled or jawless walking corpse- but they are imagining magic, not science. The flesh decays and the body’s vital organs cease to function as they should and deteriorate. If presented with saving myself from a turned loved one I would end their zombie existence, not because I don’t care, but because I logically understand the science and know that there isn’t a technology to magically heal a dead corpse. I’m sure I’d hesitate and be torn up over it later, but I’d make the decision to survive. Plus, I believe the soul leaves the body when it dies, so that eliminates a degree of attachment for me.
I would find Ranger Martin . . .
Hate to say it but I’d probably be one of those people who tries to chain them up in the basement until a zombie cure is found like the governor did with his daughter on the Walking Dead or Sean did with his buddy on Sean of the Dead (he kept him in a shed and they’d play video games)
No idea. I’d think if they’re turning, I would be able to see it as a mercy kill. That’s only with loved ones. Not sure about strangers since it would depend on the situation. To save others, especially loved ones, I’d probably do it if I couldn’t think of any other way.
If someone I knew turned, I would give them mercy – Z Nation term – because they wouldn’t be the people I knew anymore. They would be like comatose people who were still mobile & ambulatory ( Maybe not the best analogy ), or people who had died, come back, but devolved.
Sometimes one has to follow basic survival priorities, & set aside ethics.
Reblogged this on thepageofdaniel and commented:
Crunch time here…..
Thanks so much for the reblog, Daniel!
You maybe would be surprised if a real situation like that happened to you, your life at stake…..maybe you would be able to take a life. You guys in the Americas, ( I need to get a work visa to get back over there) do have a very good saying ” fight or flight” when in life and death situations or just other tough situations. For the most part I think for my own experience is that when it gets to your life in danger people tend to either fly or they get paralyzed, and then there are a smaller portion of the population that do have that fight instinct in them, except they don´t even know it since they never will be in those extreme situations. Which is actually good.