Living In The World Of Survival Horror

[Theme from John Carpenter's The Thing From Another World by Ennio Morricone] 
I chose this track in honor of the inches of ice and snow blanketing Seattle and for the morose tone of the article. Plus the energy-efficient streetlamps make me feel like I'm in Outpost #31. Enjoy!

Your zombie plan will fail. If you think otherwise, you may as well put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye now. Plans never stay that way for long, especially when it comes to traversing the depraved new world. Wave goodbye to mass transit, modern convenience and microwave burritos as it's all going right into the toilet.

Take Seattle this week for example: Few inches of snow and the city shits itself and shuts down (3.5" fell in my neighborhood). The city itself is ill-equipped to handle a disaster, any disaster if this is all it takes.

Many of us dream of the day when the dead will walk without giving much thought into the horrors that lay in wait as a result. The people you love will die. The things you cared for will no longer exist. Money will mean nothing anymore, food and bullets, though, will be worth their weight in gold if not more. When civil order fails and martial law goes into full effect it will only get worse. When those designated to serve and protect jump ship and forsake the safety of the masses to protect their own asses and families, anarchy will reign supreme. All those bad elements will no longer be held in check and will run rampant. In short, it's going to be a one way ticket to chaos and literal Hell on Earth.

The term Survival Horror was coined in the very first Resident Evil game back in 1996 and it's aptly fitting. Unlike action games where the object is to shoot shoot shoot kill kill kill, survival horror places the player in a desperate situation with the odds stacked formidably against them with little to no weaponry or first aid items. Art imitates life and life imitates art. One can expect a similar situation when the real disaster strikes, but as stated previously and will be once again for emphasis: this is the real world, there is no reset button. If you fuck up here, it's Game Over for real.

So plan to fail. Never make one plan and expect it to go off without a hitch because it never will. One could make a hundred different plans, trying to account for as many different variables (weather, traffic, supplies etc) and always you'll run into the one scenario you didn't plan for (didn't expect that gas tanker truck to jackknife into a line of city buses packed to the gills with people trying to escape the city did you?).

Point being: it's not going to be as easy as you may have seen in the movies or played in the videogames. You won't be able to run to the never empty gun store and arm yourself to the teeth, swing by the camping store for all the dehydrated food and survival gear you'll need to survive, hotwire the nearest truck and book for the countryside. This is just one half of the phrase though, this is just the survival part... we haven't even gotten to the horror part.

Pick someone that matters a great deal to you. It could be a friend, a lover, a parent or sibling. Now imagine bearing witness to their gruesome screaming evisceration by a group of walking corpses and not being able to do a single thing except either sit and watch hopelessly waiting for them to notice you and be eaten yourself or force yourself to run, to leave them. Or imagine the one you love trying to take chunks of your flesh with their bare hands and teeth and being the one that's forced to put them out of their misery. Imagine the kind of lasting damage this would have on a person and leave them with.

Oh yeah and no handy dandy headshrinking doctors to help you cope or any drug they can give you to help you with the depression or traumatic stress following any of the encounters.

Feeling hopless yet?

Good! That's the point.

The Apocalypse isn't going to be a shiny glossy romp through dystopia on a Twinkie-hunt where no one gets hurt unless it's for a plot point. Don't fail to plan and do plan on failing. Being equipped for a zombie apocalypse means at least you'll be adequately prepared for any other sort of disaster whether it's fire, flood or earthquake.

Do

-Plan for failure (Expect the worst but hope for the best)

-Be as prepared as possible/Get Emergency supplies (food, water, radio, blankets etc)

-Be serious, this is your life and perhaps the lives of others who may be depending on you

-Expect your 'escape plan' to fail 99 times out of 100

-Have plenty of backup plans

Do not

-Expect this to just blow over and that you can get back WoW and 711 by week's end

-Expect this to play out "...just like that movie (game)", sometimes there is no such thing as a happy ending

-Be one of the people that goes running for the hills at the first sign of trouble, it will only get you killed

-Plan for success, like everything will be alright (your car WILL run out of gas, the freeway WILL be blocked, and you WILL run out of ammo at the WORST possible moment)

So prepare, plan... and pray you'll live through it. Sleep well kids!