Zombie apocalypse: why your survival plan fails

Why you wouldn't survive a zombie apocalypse: only 1 in 50, according to a forum user

Out of fifty people, one survives. That's the calculation from the person who opens the thread with an unfriendly invitation: lay out your plan to survive a zombie apocalypse and I'll explain why you'd die no matter what. And he admits it could be fewer. The result is a catalogue of good intentions, hand-crank flashlights, and corpses announced in advance.

The opening is amusing: the one promising to dismantle each plan admits his 1 in 50 is just an estimate. From there, everyone else competes to see who has the most broken plan.

Why would most people die? The problem isn't the zombie

The first argument repeated is that the casualty list is decided before the first bite. Having a family, not being in your hometown, depending on circumstances and being in the right place at the right time. Do you have a firearm? Can your vehicle last more than a week? Do you have any pre-existing condition? Would you abandon someone close without even knowing if they're alive?

The answers to those questions separate serious plans from posturing. Some directly assume the uncomfortable: they wouldn't risk their life for relatives twice their age, and would abandon anyone. It sounds harsh, but behind it is the logic of long camps, where you learn that it's you first and then the others.

And then there's the most common mistake: believing you survive by fighting. The leg wound, the infection, the fever, and not being able to move are more lethal than the enemy itself. Fighting is the last resort, not the first.

The shelter: a 5-meter stone wall and 500 meters exposed

The most detailed plan on the table describes a house with access via a 5-meter-wide stone wall, beyond that only 1 kilometer of water, and before reaching the door, 500 meters of path with no protection. With two days' notice, barbed wire could be added. There are building plans, keys, and security systems, because years ago work was done with them.

Another current bets on the opposite: go up and barricade. Occupy the floors of the block by accessing through the courtyard windows, starting with the upper ones, clearing floor by floor and keeping the resources. Homemade protections with tire and foam secured with zip ties, helmet, and a crowbar, which works for doors.

Geographic isolation has classic defenders: camp on top of a hill, prepare a steep path, and trust gravity. Or directly an island near the coast, fishing, because zombies don't swim. The nuance came quickly: walking along the bottom of the water doesn't work either, because a body that doesn't coordinate even less, and you have to breathe.

The pantry: cans expired ten years ago and 15 liters of oil

Here the matter becomes domestic and much more useful. Expiration dates are seen as a legal imposition rather than a health warning: as long as there's no rust or punctures, the worst that can happen is losing flavor. The consumption of cans of olives, tuna, and fabada ten years past their expiration date without consequences is described. The real risk mentioned is botulism.

The typical inventory includes water stored for years, legumes, brick soups consumed months late, and 15 liters of olive oil bought when the price was still reasonable. The shopping list adds batteries, candles, power banks, an old-fashioned radio, and LED flashlights with rechargeable batteries and solar charger.

The reasonable doubt is the usual one: without running water or electricity, how do you cook, how do you maintain hygiene, how long does stored water last? The most stark answer, from another participant, puts the limit at one week. Whoever has their own spring will drink.

Fast or slow zombies? Why slow ones don't end the world

The question gets an almost epidemiological answer: according to one participant, slow ones would be impossible, because an outbreak of that kind would never get out of control on a global scale. The only real apocalypse option would be the fast zombie, the one that infects before anyone reacts. Another participant adds the most antiestéticared scenario: a latency of several days without symptoms, which breaks the entire paradigm and turns it into something else.

The counterweight is military and quite logical: any army would contain invasions like those in movies in open field. At most there would be chaos in a couple of cities. Nothing like an apocalypse.

The imaginary draws on a specific series of references: the one with eight seasons, the train to Busan, the video game adaptation that lost steam in its second part, and the British outbreak of the infected. There was even a memorable 250-page confrontation discussing whether the infected in that movie were real zombies or just sick people.

The enemy isn't the dead: it's the hungry neighbor

The most solid consensus of the whole thread is uncomfortable: the living are scarier. Going to a town where you know no one with rumors of a disease of unknown transmission is signing your sentence, because they shoot first and ask questions later. There is a reasonable prevention against that threat: organized groups with prior cohesion, weapons, and fighting experience, very different from the spontaneous starving person.

About urban hordes there are two opposing readings. One holds that millions of people without drinking water succumb within a month and that the masses remain huddled around cities, robbing and dying. The other recalls the historical analogy: small, isolated towns had it easier than large interconnected cities when invasions swept the eastern Mediterranean. A devastating counterargument: back then the planet's population was much lower. Today any hiding place ends up located.

The conclusion on the ground is clear: except for an isolated house with high walls, mountains at your back, and your own water, the chances are tiny. And even so, no one has closed the underlying question. If the masses stay in the city, the rural refuge holds. If they spread out, there's no peak high enough.