Posted in Monday Mayhem

Zombie What Ifs III

Lock your doors. Board your windows. Run and hide. This week’s Monday Mayhem series post brings you another Zombie What Ifs segment designed to challenge all you would-be undead slayers. If you haven’t worked through the first or second parts, no worries, you can have fun any ol’ way you want. Remember one thing—there isn’t any right answer to these. The point is to have fun, enjoy the moment and allow your creativity to run free.

Zombie Hunting Permit
Zombie Hunting Permit

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.

Are you ready? All right then. Let’s go!

Scenario #1: Trapped in a locked car, windows rolled to the top and the keys having slipped to the floor of the passenger side, you dive for them. That very moment, one of the undead smashes through the passenger side window, and swipes its paws through the air to get at you. The keys are not on the floor as you originally had thought, but ended up under the passenger seat instead. What do you do, considering three more zombies are on their way and may smash through the other windows surrounding the car?

My Answer: Rise quickly, beat the tar out of the zombie’s face with the heel of my shoe, then dive for the keys hoping I’ll grab them in time before it attacks again.

Scenario #2: A horde of maggot bags chases you into the woods. You sprint, zigzag and find you haven’t lost them. In a desperate attempt to thwart their sensitive noses and ears, you find the carcass of a dead deer. A quarter of its torso is missing, but it gives you an idea. You saw it in a movie once. Do you squeeze into the remains of the deer in hopes the undead will pass you by or do you take your chances and keep running knowing sooner or later you may collapse from exhaustion?

My Answer: Keep running. No way would I want to slip into the guts of a dead deer.

Zombies ahead
Zombies ahead

Scenario #3: You run down the stairs to the hotel’s main lobby where you spot another group of undead waiting for you. You escape by making your way through the First Floor corridors rattling every door you encounter. All of them locked, you dash to the Fire Exit. Even there, another crowd awaits for its dinner—you. In a desperate move, you double-back pulling on all the doors again. Your luck changes when you find one of them unlocked. Sprinting inside you negotiate the adjacent rooms to fling the door open to the hotel’s indoor pool area. At this point, the gang of rotting flesh mongers plow through all the doors in the area, surrounding you. If you’re not a good swimmer, jumping into the pool will surely mean the death of you. But if you stay and try to outwit them, sooner or later you’ll get eaten alive. If you’re a good swimmer, eventually, you’ll tire and drown. What do you do?

My Answer: I’d rather drown.

Scenario #4: The mass chases you into a garage complete with a set a tools (ie. screwdrivers, hammers, a nail gun, compressed air, etc.) and a few parked cars, which were waiting for repairs. Do you stay behind and fight with the tools on hand or do you take a chance with one of the vehicles (keys are in the ignition)?

My Answer: I always go for the quickest way out—the cars.

Scenario #5: From the barn to the woods is a fifty-meter dash. You can make it, you think. Without a second thought, you run as fast and as hard as you can, hopping the wooden fence to make it to the open field. Twenty-five meters to go and from the woods you see them appear. First, there are twenty. Next, there are forty. By the time you finish your scream, a hundred of them have popped from the woods. You begin to run back to the barn, but it’s too late, the zombies that were chasing you earlier exited the barn with the smell of your flesh in their nostrils. Luckily, the farmers who had been working the field before the apocalypse left a hoe, a sickle and a scythe leaning against the fence. They’d also left the tractor with the keys in it, perhaps evidence zombies had attacked them right there. So, what’s your move? Keep running through the field hoping you won’t get caught? Stay and fight? Or do you try to hop on the tractor to see if it’ll start?

My Answer: Grab the sickle and run. I don’t know if I’ll lose valuable time attempting to start the tractor. I mean, I don’t even know how long it’s been out there.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

How did you do? What’s your best answer to any of the scenarios?

Posted in Monday Mayhem

Zombie What Ifs II

A couple of months ago for my Monday Mayhem segment, I played a game of what-ifs. I thought it would be fun to do that again today. The rules are simple: I present a number of zombie scenarios and you come up with the answers. Don’t worry I’ll also give my own solutions to the problems. This way you won’t feel so lonely answering.

Zombie Hunting Permit 2013-2014
Zombie Hunting Permit 2013-2014

Are you ready to have fun? All right, let’s do it!

Scenario #1: A zombie appears at the top of the basement stairs. You thought taking your family to the subterranean dwelling was a good idea at the time—until it showed up. Now trapped with nothing to defend your family except your bare hands, you have to choose between either taking a chance with getting bit by attacking the monster or locking yourselves in the bathroom, starving to death.

My Answer: I’d lock us in the bathroom, but once hunger makes its appearance, I’m sure I’d attack the undead by attempting to poke the beast’s eyes with my thumbs.

Scenario #2: You run out of gas on the highway while attempting to flee the city of the zombie infestation. Unbeknownst to you, a horde of the undead is roaming ahead, marching to your position. Once you realize this, what do you do? Do you stay in the car and take a chance they will get bored and leave you alone? Or do you run as fast as you can, even though a few of the back ranks of the crowd are those fast zombies?

My Answer: I always run.

Keep Calm
Keep Calm

Scenario #3: You’re in a barn shooting at the zombie pack from an open window as it approaches. With a few shotgun shells remaining, you’ll have to decide what to do next once the crowd overtakes the barn. A ladder sits waiting to bring you to the loft. But you can’t stay there forever—you’ll die without food or water. A window holds the answer, yet the drop alone will kill you. What do you do?

My Answer: If I can find something to land on, like a bale of hay, I’d jump but not before setting the whole place ablaze.

Scenario #4: Target is having a sale on mouthwash (it’s the best I could come up with in the time available). When you arrive in the store, the crowd has changed. You parked your car at the back of the lot and you know if you make a run for it, sooner rather than later, the undead will catch up and tear you apart. Which department is your destination (sporting goods, the food court, electronics, etc.)? Why?

My Answer: I’d head to the food court and see if I can grab a butcher knife from somewhere. With a knife, I don’t ever have to worry about running out of bullets.

Scenario #5: This is an easy one. A resilient maggot bag chases you into the garage and soon breaches the door to head straight for you. Sitting on the workbench next to you is a gas powered chainsaw, hedge scissors, an old baseball bat, and a hoe. This is more of a philosophical question. Which item do you use to kill the predator? Why?

My Answer: The hedge scissors—I don’t like messes.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Do you have any scenarios you’d like to add?

Posted in Monday Mayhem

Zombie What Ifs

In Latest News: Jack Flacco presents RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE jacket reveal.

Since today’s a long weekend for most of North America, I thought I’d take it easy on you and play a little game of zombie what ifs. The way it works is I give you a scenario and you tell me the solution. It’s more like a “What if you see a zombie in the street staring at you, what do you do?” type of thing. I figure we all need a break from my regular analytical Monday Mayhem posts and what better way to do that than to enjoy some dark humor.

Zombie Permit
Zombie Permit

Are you ready? Let’s go!

Scenario #1: You’re in your kitchen. A zombie walks in brandishing its yellow-stained teeth and measuring you for its next luncheon. It slowly creeps toward you with hunger in its eyes and a drooling mouth. There’s no way out. What do you do?

My answer: Grab a fork from the utensil drawer, poke its eye out, and while it’s wailing in misery, run past it.

Scenario #2: You’re in a long hallway with two zombies chasing you to a dead end. You have one bullet in your gun. What do you do?

My answer: I’ll attempt to line them up and hope one bullet will pass through both skulls.

Quarantine
Quarantine

Scenario #3: You’re staring at your friend through the window of a gas station as two zombies surround him ready to pounce. He has a gun, but he’s out of bullets. Your gun is the same make and model as his, and your bullets fit his gun. What do you do?

My answer: Crash in there and shoot the crap out of the offending beasts. Anyone who messes with my friends messes with me.

Scenario #4: You’re alone with a zombie. There’s a shotgun in the middle of the room on the table. The zombie is one of those fast zombies. No matter what you do, it matches your moves and can even climb the table if you let it. One door in the background is your only escape. It’s smart, and it will chase after you if you even think of escaping. What do you do?

My answer: If I go for the gun, it might attack me. If I go for the door, it might tackle me and I will probably not make it. Right now, I don’t have an answer.

Scenario #5: Your friend is hanging on to dear life from the edge of a cliff. If you don’t rescue him soon, he’ll lose his grip and plummet one hundred feet to his death. One problem, though. A horde of zombies is marching toward you. There’s a road to escape on your right. What do you do?

My answer: This is a hard one. If you stay behind to help your friend, you may lose your life by becoming the main dish of a zombie feast. If you take off on the road to freedom, you’re leaving your friend to the gnawing jowls of the undead. Like I said, this is a hard one. Even I don’t know what to do in this predicament.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale October 22.

Do you have any scenarios you’d like to share?