Zombies and zombie stories are a study of humanity. Because, and bear with me here, zombies aren’t the primary element in a zombie story. The most important ingredient in a zombie story are the survivors at the heart of the tale.
Without survivors and their often harrowing tale, there is no zombie story-telling genre. Because, let’s face it, by themselves, zombies just aren’t all that interesting.
That group of undead flesh-eaters stumbling their way toward the survivors is simply another piece of the environment in which the survivors have to survive. And, the survivors are the meat of the story.
All of this comes from a recent comment from Dana on the Big Box Stores as Shelter from the Living Dead post:
Any place that might attract a lot of people would be just as scary as the zombies. Eventually, people start to freak out and you either get “Lord of the Flies” or crazy evangelicals such as in Marcia Gay Harden “The Mist” – (brilliant performance, btw).
I’d much rather face my fate outsmarting and hiding from zombies by myself or with a small group than have to deal with a bunch of freaked out crazies proclaiming that the attack was God’s will, or even worse, proclaiming themselves as gods.
Dana hits on an extremely important point, and one that I have overlooked in my preparation posts:
One of the most important parts in getting prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse is choosing proper comrades, and keeping that list small.
Proper companions are people who are skilled at many things, do not hold overly strong opinions on subjects of race and religion, are good campers, ex-military, ex-boy scouts, and extremely smart.
Now, I realize that it’s difficult to find all of those traits in one person, but the more the better.
Things you want to avoid are people with abundances of aggression, vanity, arrogance, or strongly religious or racist characteristics. Usually it’s a good idea to avoid people that you wouldn’t want as a friend…
If a person thinks that the apocalypse is “those people’s” fault then you should probably start watching out. Because it’s just a short jump for them from saying that it’s those people’s fault to saying that it’s your fault.
Next thing you know, you’re being thrown into an awkward crowd-surf on top of a sea of zombies.
Not good.
In the next post I’ll cover another important topic in this vein: Killing your friends, when is the best time to shoot your infected companion?
