What Would You Do? – Day Eight: Shopping Spree
It’s been awhile since we’ve last seen this segment, but like our undead friends, it won’t stay down no matter how many bullets you shoot into it (headshots excluded). In our last episode, you raced into a pharmacy whose employees were somewhat aloof with the coming apocalypse. With zombies on your footsteps, that apathy was sure to change, here’s what a few people decided to do.
Strife went the communal route, trying to rally the troops before the oncoming dead:
Time to rally my own mob. I’m going to hold the line at the door. Once I’ve smashed a few heads, the corpses will form a decent enough blockade by themselves. Call out to anyone who is in the shop, tell them that we’re fighting zombies and that some help would be appreciated.
While Dan of the Dead was all about letting experience do the teaching about zombie apocalypses.:
I’m outta there. I’ll push my way out a back exit and make my way to safety leaving the pharmacy workers to their own demise.
On to day eight: You run out the back to find the back door bolted shut. It doesn’t take long for you to hear the screams. You lean out the back door to see the dead pour into the pharmacy. Old and young alike are tossed to the ground and savaged by blood stained corpses. You lock the back door and sit down, covering your eyes until the screams end. You find a phone and call for help. The operator tells you to hold still. That help is coming.
Day bleeds into night. Your stomach growls. A quick check doesn’t reveal food. Just piles of unpacked boxes. From inside the store, you hear a woman plead for help. You crack open the door to see a woman trapped underneath fallen shelves. A small horde tries to reach her, but can’t get over the shelves Outside, you hear a helicopter circling. There are no zombies in the food aisle, yet you know if you started towards it, your footsteps might alert the horde
What would you do?
Remember: You must answer this honestly. You must close your eyes and put yourself in the imagined situation and tell me what YOU would do. Not what you would want to do or what Max Brooks advises you to do. Also remember, it’s not a question of HOW you got into these situations. Rather, it is WHAT YOU WOULD DO if you found yourself in these situations.
Filed under: Odds and Ends · Tags: What Would You Do
well i usually dont condone looting but in this situation ill start raiding through every box in sight for every ounce of food or supplies and try to drown out the women as the horde eventually reaches her
i would get something small like a can o something from the room and throw it aiming towards the front of the store, hoping this would be enough to distract the horde, using this i would run up to the woman and see if the shelves were liftable and if she wasn’t badly injured. if so i would lift quickly and help her a section of the pharmacy without zombies, wait for them to end up wandering back to where ever they were and hope to make a mad dash outside
The human body can survive long enough without food. I’ve still got my bat, right? Wade in and rescue the survivor. Once the small horde is cleared, we’ll get the hell out of the building. From there, we need to find a low laying roof to get on top of, a trained rescue chopper can pick us up from there, and smashing skulls as they come over the roof is easy enough to maintain for a while.
I would have trouble watching someone die, or hearing it. If I could topple more shelves to block the zeds from outflanking me while I try to pull her free, then cool. But if the front is still open, andy loud activety would dray them into the store with the small horde. At this point my adrenaline should be high enough that actaual food would make me nauseated, so I could hold a little on the grab.
Trying the cieling tiles from the desk in the back room might let me see what my chances were about crossing over to the front that way… Of course I weigh 230, so I don’t trust them to hold, but the pipes above might.
I’m not really sure. HOW is the woman trapped under the bookshelves? Is she pinned, or is there just a barrier between her and the zombie horde? Is the front door open/lockable/shattered? What other stuff is in the back room?
I don’t sit still very well, and that goes double for when I’m scared, so I would search the supplies in the back room better, looking for food, water, or other useful supplies.
I would also try to help the trapped lady, but my surrounds would dictate how I would do that. If the front door was destroyed, and there was no way of securing the store, I would try to get her freed as quickly as possible, bat and any other weapons I might have found ready and never out of arms reach. If I could lock the door somehow, I would make a dash for that first, and try to lead the undead out the door…While this tactic would NOT work with faster moving zombies, as long as they’re the slow type, I’m pretty sure I could get the store at least somewhat clear by leading them out, and quickly running back in and locking the door. Of course, if the place was crawling with undead on the outside, too, there’d be a major problem with that plan, but hopefully the helicopter would be a nice distraction for them. With the store *hopefully* fairly clear, I would take care of any remaining zombies as quickly as possible, then go about trying to help the trapped woman and getting some food and water.
==== Background ====
>You lock the back door and sit down
This is a safe room, sleep is possible. Excellent!
> Day bleeds into night.
So at least 8 hours has passed. I’ve calmed down and now i’m just wishing I had some fresh baked cookies…
>You find a phone and call for help.
We have communication with the outside world. Wonder how long that will last?
> hold still. help is coming.
Not going to depend on it, but holding out for 48 hours is do-able.
==== Assumptions ====
Weapons: Limited, whatever I had in my car when it crashed, and whatever i used to defend myself when getting away from the car.
Personally, I’ve never in my life bought a bat, I would not own one. More likely, my car inventory would have been (and is):
– a backpack containing:
— roller-blades
— gps unit (geo-caching)
— water bottle (1 liter plastic bottle)
— can of pop (quick sugar supply)
— granola bars (they last forever)
— Lighter
— razor/first aid kit (for hiking/rollerblading injuries)
— pad of paper
— sharpie (permanent marker).
– A Tire Iron
– 3 D-Cell Size Mag Lite
– Dirty Clothes ( so it’s not the cleanest car :p )
– Candles (Car gets stuck in a blizzard, could save your life!)
Dirty clothes + alcohol from first aid kit + tire iron == torch
That would have been the weapon I used to escape my car safely, and if i had the time to crawl into the back of the car and create that, then I had enough time to grab my backpack and thrown in flashlight and some candles.
==== Issues ====
1. Woman calling for help
2. Food
5. Helicopter
Short Version:
Try to rescue woman, try to contact a friend who could rescue me, sit still for 48 hours and wait for the help to come. After 48 hours, make new plan.
=== Woman calling for help ===
> you hear a woman plead for help.
After 8 hours she is apparently awake and alert. This is a very good sign.
> she’s trapped underneath fallen shelves
Maybe broken bones, but definitely savable.
If we untrap her, we probably have to carry her.
> A small horde tries to reach her,
> but can’t get over the shelves Outside
If they have been trying for 8 hours, FAIL. Low Risk.
Step 1, stay alive, if zombies get close to coming between me and my safe room, run for safe room.
Step 2, as long as my exit path back to safe room is clear, continue trying to rescue her.
Pass or Fail, when complete I am back in the safe room with doors locked.
If I did rescue her successfully, then I’d spend some time attending to the injuries with the first aid kit in my backpack.
=== Food ===
More importantly, Water. Same plan as rescuing woman.
If I still have my backpack, then I’ve got a small supply of food and water, definitely enough to make it 48 hours.
And with a telephone, I’d be calling wife, parents, friends, someone in a position to stage a rescue.
=== Helicopter ===
> you hear a helicopter circling.
In all situations, Step 1 – Stay Alive.
I am not in control of the situation and it’s night time. If they are going to come rescue me, have at it. I’m not going to go outside and risk myself, from the phone call they already know I’m here.
==== 48 Hours Later ====
=== Outcome 1 ===
With violent strains of the infection localized to small areas the national guard was able to contain the situation quickly. The National Guard Arrived after 37 hours, cleaned out the Zed’s, and quarantined the building. Me and the injured woman are now killing time in a clean room waiting out the mandatory 72 hour quarantine period before we’re cleared to leave.
=== Outcome 2 ===
The infection had not yet spread to the north end of town and I successfully contact Brian around 8:30pm. He informed me that Rob & Megan were already at their house, I let him know I was safe but pinned down. With some time to prepare, Rob & Brian spent all night welding armor onto Brian’s 1 ton truck and loading up supplies. Around 4:30pm the following day they arrived at my location and successfully extracted me and the injured woman.
=== Outcome 3 ===
Dear Diary – Date: March 25, 2012
The Rescue never came and the phone-line’s went down around 9:30am yesterday. No one was answering their phone’s anyway. Things aren’t looking great right now, so I’ve decided to keep a diary in case we don’t make it. While scavenging for food and water I’ve had a couple of really close calls. The first time I went out was around 5:30am this morning because the woman’s leg needed antiseptic and some clean bandages. I had made sure all the lights in the store were off and with the store still dark I opened the door and started barefoot down the store to find supplies. At one point while I was following the outside wall, I was tiptoeing along when I realized that behind me was a floor to ceiling window pane, and looking in from the outside was a Zed staring right at me! I froze with my heart pounding and stool completely still! . . .he just kept staring for what felt like an eternity. . . eventually he turned, and walked away!! I’m guessing because of tissue damage they have worse night vision than we do. When I walked past the window he had detected the motion, but looking into a dark store with no motion occurring, I became invisible.
Dear Diary – Date: March 29, 2012
We’ve been resting here for 7 days now. The Zed’s are around, but they seem to have lost interest in the store. The womans leg seems to be improving. This store has pretty much everything we needed for camping out in the back room. The books up at the front of the store next to the magazine rack were a little hard, the Zeds are always mulling around outside near the front of the store. I couldn’t find the light switch to turn off the big bright store sign outside, and it seems that maybe because of their damaged vision they are afraid of the dark. At night they all huddle together quietly under the sign. In the daytime with nothing to do, they spread out and wander, but they never fully leave. Three or four more days and Barbara thinks she’ll be up to walking and maybe even running on her leg again. We’ve both been reading alot of books, the days seem to drag on forever. We’ve already loaded up our backpacks with a fresh set of supplies in preperation for when we have to leave.
Dear Diary – Date: April 1st, 2012
Were leaving at sunrise. I’ve been going outside doing a bit of scouting these last few nights. I’ve found a car with keys and a full tank of gas nearby and if we leave just before sunrise we should be able to sneak our way to the car and get on the road before they even see us. Not sure what will happen next, If you find this note and are looking for us, Our next 2 destinations are ### # St NW and #### Elizabeth Road SE.
I’m going for food! Grab me an improvised weapon (something that smashes a skull, pull up the bandana over the face and throw on the aviators (blood spatter is just as dangerous as bites) I’m not going to be afraid of the hordes either because I’m faster and more agile so I’ll use it. I’d also be a dick and let that woman die, I’m in fact going to help the Z’s by opening up the path to her so the horde forgets about me and my food mission. I’m sorry but in a survival situation all I have to do to survive is outrun the other survivors. I know its cruel and somewhat cowardly but I’m going to be an alive and no longer hungry coward and that is better than a hungry/dead hero anyday!
Also, As for hr phone and calling for help. I’m calling my friends and family. They WILL come and help me if they are still alive… I’d trust my designated Z team over any law enforcment/ military response. At least they’d know what they are dealing with.