Colin M. Drysdale's Blog, page 21

What Readers Have Been Saying About ‘For Those In Peril On The Sea’

For Those In Peril On The Sea available from http://www.amazon.com/For-Those-Peril-The-ebook/dp/B00BRLF8PS/

As of the 3rd of July 2013, For Those In Peril On The Sea will have been out for six months. With the Kindle edition being available for just $0.99 from now until the 7th of July 2013, I thought I’d take the opportunity here to summarise how it’s been received so far.

Overall, those who have read For Those In Peril On The Sea have enjoyed it, and found it to be an interesting take on the traditional zombie apocalypse novel which brings something new and unique to the genre. Many have also noted that it is appealing to readers who are not necessarily into zombies, finding that it reaches out beyond the zombie genre, and even beyond the wider post-apocalyptic one. This is highlighted by the fact For Those In Peril On The Sea was selected as one of only five finalists in the ForeWord Firsts Winter 2013 competition for debut novels!

There’s only really been one critical point which has been raised in some of the reviews, and this is that there were a couple of typos which had been missed in the final copy editing process. These have now been sorted in the Kindle ebook edition and, thanks to the wonders of modern publishing, in the international print edition (available from Amazon.com).

So, what have readers actually said about For Those In Peril On The Sea? Well, here’s some excerpts and links to the reviews themselves:

ForeWord Clarion Review: ‘…For Those in Peril on the Sea is not a mere imitator of currently popular zombie books and films. Drysdale’s novel proves different and superior in concept as well as content. The infected are unusual in ways that make them seem terrifyingly real, and the idea of the survivors being trapped offshore is an imaginative and effective twist. While some scenes in the book can be graphic and brutal, Drysdale never allows them to become gratuitous, and each disturbing moment serves a purpose in the plot. The tone of barely suppressed terror is emphasized by the author’s willingness to write as ruthlessly as his story demands: readers will quickly learn that even those who seem most deserving of survival can quite easily fall victim to the infected. …’ Five Stars out of Five. Click here to read the full review.

Literary Wealth Review: ‘… For Those in Peril [On The] Sea by Colin M. Drysdale was a gripping tale of loss, triumph, heartache victories, but mostly the will to survive in a new world with so many challenges. The book was intriguing, and sometimes terrifying enough that I had put it down so that I could absorb what I had read. Mr. Drysdale’s writing is smooth and wonderfully descriptive. He has an impressive knowledge of boats, sailing, and of faraway lands. For Those in Peril [On The] Sea is a terrific read …’ Five Stars out of Five. Click here to read the full review.

Zombiegift.com: ‘… For Those In Peril On The Sea takes a fresh and unique approach to the typical zombie story. The characters aren’t just using the sea to get from one location to another. They’re living on the water to take advantage of the fact that the infected won’t tread into deep water to pursue them. They rely on the sea and become part of a floating community that depends on the resources the sea provides while simultaneously struggling to overcome the obstacles it throws their way. … There is just the right amount of gore and blood without it being gratuitous. One of my favorite aspects when reading this book was being drawn in by the mistakes characters make when escaping from the infected. Like a good horror movie this novel has a few “why on earth would you do that!?” moments that leave the characters trapped and facing certain death. …’ 4.25 Stars out of Five. Click here to read the full review.

Buyzombie.com: .’.. [The] narrative voice is very strong. This is quite reminiscent of the books of David Moody in places; the poignancy and the business of day to day survival, mingled with the fact that like the Hater books, these ‘zombies‘ aren’t actually dead. … All in all this is a very welcome addition to the genre and is solidly written. Drysdale’s experience as a marine biologist certainly adds a new dimension to the zombie novel. A good read.’ Click here to read the full review.

The Student: ‘… The author is a self-professed lover of the zombie-apocalypse genre … However, the narrative of the story is alluring to readers of other genres as it shows depth on an anthropological and philosophical scale. It successfully extricates the reader from the comfortable plateau of reality, and introduces the chilling notion of complete division from society and self-navigation. …’ Three Stars out of Five. Click here to read the full review.

Goodreads.com – Overall rating 4.67 stars out of five based on six ratings:

‘… Although post-apocalyptic literature is not something I usually read, I enjoyed this story about a virulent strain of rabies that infects most of the global population, leaving the survivors isolated from the rest of the world…. The author does a wonderful job at creating a frightening world where the fears and uncertainties plaguing the characters reveal the deepest terrors of humanity when pitted against horrific odds, and the lengths one must go to survive. I was especially interested in the author’s description of sailing and the sea that he draws from his own personal experience. Fans of dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature are in for a treat.’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘Well, this is the first post apocalyptic zombie book I’ve read, so nothing to compare it to. But, I’ll have to say, the book hits the spot. …’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘…The author does a wonderful job at creating a frightening world that reveals the deepest terrors of humanity when pitted against horrific odds, and the lengths one must go to survive. I was especially interested in the author’s description of sailing and the sea that he draws from his own personal experience. Fans of dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature are in for a treat.’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘… For Those in Peril on the Sea by Colin M. Drysdale was a gripping tale of loss, triumph, heartache, victories, but mostly the will to survive in a new world with so many challenges. The book was intriguing, and sometimes terrifying enough that I had put it down so that I could absorb what I had read. Mr. Drysdale’s writing is smooth and wonderfully descriptive. He has an impressive knowledge of boats, sailing, and of faraway lands. …’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘rrrrrrrrr………..sdssds………. Is that the kind of noises zombies make? ..Hopefully I never get to find out. Anyways! This book scared the crap out of me – in a good way. …’ Four Stars out of Five.

Click here to read the Goodreads.com reviews in full.

Amazon.com – Overall rating 4.5 stars out of five based on six reviews:

‘This is a quick read and fun for those into the zombie genre … I found I couldn’t put the book down and whizzed through it, while sitting on a sunny deck with a drink in my other hand. The author has obviously thought a lot about the practicalities of being stuck on a boat during a zombie infestation. …’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘… For Those in Peril on the Sea by Colin M. Drysdale was a gripping tale of loss, triumph, heartache, victories, but mostly the will to survive in a new world with so many challenges. The book was intriguing, and sometimes terrifying enough that I had put it down so that I could absorb what I had read. Mr. Drysdale’s writing is smooth and wonderfully descriptive. He has an impressive knowledge of boats, sailing, and of faraway lands. …’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘I was attracted to this book by the zombie theme and the fact that I had recently visited Hope Town, one of the major locations in the book. … I found the book well written with a good plot and good character development. Mr. Drysdale is a very good writer and For Those In Peril On The Sea was a good little read.’ Four Stars out of Five.

‘For Those in Peril On The Sea is a welcome and refreshing unique new take on the zombie genre. Drysdale’s novel does a brilliant job of taking the same old zombie story, keeping the right elements and putting just the right spin on the core survival story elements. This book has a near perfect balance of gore, horror, personal struggle, character development and suspense. …’ Five Stars out of Five.

‘A very fun and well-written book with some unique and new perspectives on surviving a zombie apocalypse. Among the best of the genre.’ Four Stars out of Five.

‘Zombies and boats, two great things that actually go great together. I like the occasional zombie book but the real attraction for me was the boat as survival tool. He got the boats right, so that’s a big thing for me. Good twists on his version of zombies. Moments of true terror. …’ Four Stars out of Five.

Click here to read the Amazon.com reviews in full.

Amazon.co.uk – Overall rating 4 starts out of five based on one review:

‘As a long term fan of post apocalyptic fiction (The Stand, The Passage, World War Z etc.) I’m always keen to try out a new author. However, I must confess to a growing weariness with zombie fiction as it so often involves the same old stereotypes and locations – it’s been done to death – no pun intended. So I was pleasantly surprised that For Those in Peril [On The Sea] served up some genuinely fresh ideas. So often tales of the zombie apocalypse centre around a group of survivors trapped in some urban location trying to escape to some safe haven, quite often the ocean, and when they finally get their hands on a boat they either suffer some cruel last minute attack or sail off into the sunset. But what happens next? Well that’s where this book comes in, exploring the consequences of life after the apocalypse. …’ Four Stars out of Five. Click here to read the Amazon.co.uk reviews in full.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

What Would You Do If … Dilemmas In A Zombie Apocalypse: No. 18 – The Passenger Next To You Dilemma

You’re on a plane. It was the last flight out so you had no choice but to take it. If you hadn’t the zombies would have over-run the airport before you could get away. The man in the set next to you has a bandage round his hand and is sweating heavily. You look out the window, you’re now high above the sea and it will be another five hours before the plane can land in the safe zone. You look back at the man, he seems to be lapsing in and out of consciousness. He could just be ill but you have a horrible suspicion he’s infected the with the virus that turns people into zombies. If he is, he’ll turn into a before you’re back on the ground and there will be no getting away from him in the close confines of the cabin. What do you do?

Take Our Poll

As always, this dilemma is just here to make you think, so there’s no right or wrong answer. Vote in the poll to let others know what you do if you were in this situation, and if you want to give a more detailed answer, leave a comment on this posting.

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

The Day Job – Or What I Do To Earn A Living When Writing Isn’t Enough

Like many authors, I don’t as yet make enough money from writing fiction to have been able to give up my day job completely. Even if I did, though, I don’t think I would. You see for the last twenty years I’ve worked as a marine biologist who specialises in studying whales and dolphins. Now I know what you’re thinking, that sounds idyllic and that I must spend most of my time swimming in the waters around some tropical isle somewhere watching the dolphin play. While there have been times in my life when this was true, life as a jobbing marine biologist is usually much more mundane. I do, however, find it quite fascinating. So what would my typical work day consist of?

Well for a start, I don’t work Monday to Friday, nine to five. Depending on exactly what I have to do, some days I’ll work nine till twelve, giving me time to work on my fiction writing, others, especially if it involves field work, might run from sunrise to sunset, and in Scotland in summer, that can be as much as 20 hours seven days a week for several weeks at a time! If I’m working at sea, much of the time will be spent on the bridge of a ship, binoculars in hand, staring out to sea, looking for whales and dolphins. It’ll generally be two hours on, one hour off and while at times it can be very exciting, mostly when there’s animals around, at others it can seem like the ocean is dead and there’s nothing but endless rolling seas out there. Every fifteen minutes, I’ll log the position of the ship, so we know where we’ve surveyed, as well as information about the weather. Whenever I see something, I’ll log the position again, along with information about what species it is and how many there are. If I get the chance, I’ll take a few photos or shoot some video. At the end of the day (and before going to bed), this information is all transcribed into a spreadsheet and a summary of the day is written.

If I’m not working at sea, like pretty much everyone else I’ll start my day by checking my email. A lot of it will be fairly boring, routine stuff like requests to review academic papers or people asking to data, but every now and then it’s something much more interesting. The ones I like best are the ones where people are asking me to identify something. Sometimes it’s living animals, sometimes it’s a dead one on a beach or a skull. These always present a bit of a challenge but it’s like trying to solve a mystery from a load of little clues. You see, I happen to be a bit of an expert on an obscure group of whales known as beaked whales. There’s 21 species in all (or at least as far as we know at the moment!) and we know very little about them. In fact, some of them have never been seen alive and a few are only known skeletons found cast up on beaches. This makes identifying them a bit tricky, hence the reason my expertise is requested, and I may spend a happy hour or two pulling out books and academic papers, looking through photographs and digging up old measurements trying to work out which one it is this time. Much of the time, I can get an identification, but at others there’s no way to know because a vital piece of information is missing from the photos. One notable occasion it was because I was pretty sure that it was either something no one had ever seen before or that it was in completely the wrong ocean (this happens from time to time!).

Once the emails are out of the way, it’s down to work. Depending on exactly what I’m working on, this can be anything from analysing data and running statistical tests (always a bit boring, at least until you get the result), writing an academic paper or a presentation for a conference, to giving lectures to students, creating maps showing where different species occur and writing articles for magazines, books and encyclopaedias. None of this is necessarily fun but it has to be done. This is because doing science isn’t just about collecting data and hording it. Instead, it’s about communication what you’ve found out to the rest of the world. At the moment, much of my research revolves around trying to work out how whales and dolphins are going to be affected by climate change, and what we can do to stop these things happening; unfortunately, so far the rather depressing answer to this is not much unless we address climate change itself but I, along with many others, none-the-less keep trying in case we can come up with something that will work.

It’s my research on the effects of climate change on whales and dolphin which has probably led to the biggest change in how I do my work over the years. You see scientists like doing two things: science and flying to interesting places to talk to other scientists about science. This means that going to academic conferences and meetings to present your work to others is a big part of being a scientist (it’s also a great excuse to get drunk with friends and colleagues from far off places who you don’t get to see very often). However, this means a lot of jetting all over the planet. A few years ago, I took the decision that I couldn’t really criticise other people for their impacts on whales and dolphins which I was studying when I was part of the problem. This means I now only attend these meeting if I can do it remotely through video feed over the internet rather than in person. It’s not as much fun (having a beer at lunchtime with a bunch of old friends is one thing, drinking it at home on your own is quite another!) but it keeps my carbon footprint down.

Anyway, that’s probably enough about what I do to earn a crust when I’m not writing about zombies. While these may seem like quite different worlds, there’s a surprising amount of overlap. For example, while academic papers and talks can be quite dry and boring, they actually have a very similar structure to works of fiction. Both need to tell a story, have interesting characters, and have a beginning a middle and an end. It’s just that in academic writing, the story is the hypothesis you’re testing, the characters are your study animals and the beginning, middle and end are called, introduction, methods and results, and discussion. Similarly, it takes the same type of discipline to sit down and write a scientific thesis as it does to write a novel. You also need to know how to edit your work so that it flows nicely, and get used to dealing with both rejections (from publishers for fiction writing and from journals for academic writing) as well as hatchet-job reviews from people who, for whatever reason, don’t want you to succeed. Actually, I’ve had a lot more of that in academia than I’ve had with fiction writing – academics tend to get very territorial if you show that the cherished theory they’ve based their entire career on is wrong!.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

A Zombie Haiku

It lurches towards me,

Flesh rotting and blood dripping.

My end is coming.

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While I usually post a short story in this Wednesday slot, I thought I’d do something a little different this week and post a zombie Haiku. A Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that consists of 17 on or morae laid out in a five, seven, five format (that is five on in the first line, seven in the second and five in the last). When written in English, an on is usually taken to be a syllable (although the two are not strictly synonymous). I wrote this as a bit of fun, just to see whether a zombie Haiku would work, and I was pleasantly pleased with the result. If this gets your creative juices flowing, feel free to post your own zombie haiku in the comments section below.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

How Do Zombies Know Where You Are?

I watched the World War Z movie on Friday, and there were a couple of scenes which got be thinking about how zombies know where people are. I won’t discuss the scenes themselves in case you haven’t seen it yet (and I’d definitely recommend doing so), but I think this is an interesting question and it’s one I’ll explore in this post. As humans, we are primarily visual animals and, for most of us, our eyesight is the main sense we use to find out about the world around us. To a lesser extent, we also use sound while our remaining senses, smell, taste and touch, are usually only used once we’re already aware of what’s going on.

With zombies, things might be different, but this will depend on the type of zombies we’re talking about. If we’re talking about living humans infected with some sort of disease, sight and sound will still be the primarily senses by which they will detected uninfected humans. The more traditional risen-from-the-dead type zombies, however, will be differ. While in some cases, it appears that these dead zombies can still use their sight, as a rule they seem to be less visual creatures. In particular, in many cases the eyes are specifically portrayed as being clouded over (as an indicator of death), meaning that such zombies are probably limited to seeing changes in light intensity rather than any actual images. This means the best they can probably do visually is detect movement and orient towards it. In contrast, sound seems to be a much more important sense for dead zombies, and in almost all zombie scenarios, it’s unintended noises which alert zombies to the presence of humans. There’s the possibility that such zombies might also rely more on other senses such as smell to tell if humans are nearby but given the limitations of the human nose, this will, at best, be an imperfect mode of detection.

However, when it comes to zombies knowing where you are, there’s more to this than just whether zombies can tell you are there or not. In particular, there’s the question of how zombies tell the difference between normal humans and their fellow undead, since almost every scenario presented in films and books suggests that zombies don’t attack each other. Well, I think there’s two options here. The first is through something like smell. If we’re talking about infected type zombies, many diseases cause humans to give off specific odours, and indeed this is the basis for diagnosis in some cases, while if we’re talking about dead zombies, they may also smell different because of decomposition. This means zombies could tell who’s normal and who isn’t by their scent. This possibility is the basis of the scene from The Walking Dead where the characters cover themselves in rotting flesh from dispatched zombies to allow them to walk through the undead which surround them. However, this would only work across small distances and it seems even over longer distances, zombies can tell the difference between their brethren and normal humans, pursuing the former while ignoring the latter. This suggests zombies can also tell the differences through movements. In almost all cases, zombies, whether fast or slow, and humans move in very different ways and these differences may allow zombies to identify their prey from a great distance. This possibility is the basis of the scene in Shaun of the Dead, where the eponymous hero and his friends cover the last few yards to the Winchester through a mass of zombies by mimicking their movements.

Yet, this still leaves some apparent problems. For a start, zombies seem to be able to know where humans are from greater distances than they could possibly see, hear or smell them, and they seem to be drawn towards areas of human habitation from great distances and across landscapes where lines of sight are limited. How else could you explain the hordes of zombies which tend to descend on and surround the safe houses where humans are hiding? Well, I think the answer here is what I’ll call the ‘vulture’ effect. Vultures hunt by soaring on thermals and scanning the ground below them searching for dead or dying animals. Yet, they don’t devote all their attention to what is going on below; they also watch the other vultures in the skies around them. When one detects food and starts to dive towards the ground, those around them know what this means and do the same, and so do the ones around them and so on. This means hundreds of vultures spread over great distances can descend on a potential food supply within minutes. Zombies, I suspect, would operate in a very similar way and when they hear or see other zombies reacting as if they’ve detected humans, they will be drawn towards the same point. This means that once one zombie detects your presence, you are likely to find yourself inundated within a very short space of time as all the zombies within the local area follow each other towards your location. Interestingly, this concept is depicted in the World War Z book, where they drop soldiers into a location, have them form a square and keep shooting until all the zombies which are drawn to the location from all over the place by other zombies are dead.

So what does all this mean for your survival if you’re unlucky enough to find yourself caught up in a zombie apocalypse? Well, firstly, if even one zombie detects that you are there, the vulture effect is likely to come into play, and many other zombies are likely to be drawn to you very quickly. This means you will only have a very short space of time to escape before you’re surrounded on all sides by hordes of flesh-munchers intent on tearing you limb from limb. If you can’t get away fast enough, there’s an outside possibility that you might be able to disguise yourself in some way so that the zombies can’t tell you are a normal human. You could try mimicking their movements or covering up your scent, but without knowing exactly how they are telling human from zombie this will always be a very risky strategy. In addition, this will probably only work for dead-type zombies and it’s unlikely that the infected type will be fooled so easily. In this way, infected-type zombies are probably more difficult to evade than the dead ones. Either way, however, your best chance of survival is to make sure the zombies don’t find out you’re there in the first place, so keep quiet and keep still!




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

World War Z – Does The Film Of The Book Work?

A while ago, I posted an article here about whether the movie of Max Brook’s World War Z would work or not. Now, the long-awaited day is finally here (exactly six months to the day from its original release date) and the film is finally out. This meant that rather than do the work I should have been doing this afternoon, I snuck out to see it at a little neighbourhood cinema near where I live. So, to return to the question in my previous posting, does the movie work?

Well, I have to say, and I’m aware this may be a controversial point of view amongst fans of the book, I really liked it. It’s fast-paced, it has a good strong plot, the zombies are good (well for the most part – a few sketchy CGI bits here and there but nothing which made me want to throw things at the screen) and, probably most surprisingly of all, it actually adds something completely original to the zombie genre that I hadn’t come across before. I can’t tell you what it is as it would ruin the movie – but the hastily-reworked last third of the film revolves around it and I thought it was a really interesting idea. Certainly, it made me stop and think, and I think it’s one that zombie fans will argue over for years to come. Once the movie’s been out a while, I’ll even need to write a post exploring the concept they’ve introduced as it’s quite interesting from a scientific perspective as well as a zombie one.

I have to say, I’d gone into the cinema with my fingers crossed, hoping that it would at least be a passable action movie, but right from the start it became clear this wasn’t the potential turkey a lot of people in the media had been making it out to be. This is a genuine zombie movie which manages to bring something new to the genre, while remaining appealing to a wider audience. While it’s not up there with the likes of 28 Days Later (but then very little within the zombie genre is!), it’s definitely much closer to that sort of level than I expected. If we take 28 Days Later as the gold standard and say it’s a 10, then World War Z is a good solid 8. In my books, this would put it in the same sort of league as 28 Weeks Later (nowhere nearly as good as its predecessor, but a good film in its own right).

I think the biggest problem for the movie version of World War Z, and this was always going to be a major stumbling block, is the title. With the book being so good, and so unfilmable, this title was always going to bring an awful lot of baggage with it and I don’t think the movie quite gets away from it. With a different title, I think zombie fans would be all over this film, saying how great it is to see a good mainstream zombie movie. However, going under the title of World War Z is always going to have those who loved the book complaining. This is because, as I’ve said before, this is quite clearly not a film of the book. Instead, it’s a film set in the same world as the book (although even some of the basic zombie lore has been tweaked so the two worlds don’t quite match up), and a different title would have made this clearer.

Anyway, having finally seen the movie, I think that as long as it can get out from under the formidable shadow of the book, it will be a hit. However, it’s still unclear whether it will manage it, and if it doesn’t that would be a shame because it’s a genuinely good movie in its own right and it’s one that I think will definitely have people talking.

Of course there was one other thing that disappointed me a little. This was that I didn’t managed to catch myself on screen! I saw a few of my fellow extras from the opening scene, and in particular I spotted my friend Mike the delivery driver (who, having time off his real job as a delivery driver to be an extra on the movie, arrived on set only to find he’d been cast as, you guessed it, a delivery driver!), but alas not myself. I might still be in there somewhere, but it will have to wait for the DVD to come out so I can have a closer look. So much for my career as a Hollywood movie star!




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

What Would You Do If … Dilemmas In A Zombie Apocalypse: No. 17 – The Donner Party Dilemma

The three of you have been locked in the warehouse for months, surrounded by zombies that batter and tear at every door and shutter, scratching their fingers into bony stumps in their efforts to get in. You ate the last of the food six weeks ago and you know you’re dying from starvation. Then you hear the news you’ve been waiting for coming over the little wind-up radio you found: what’s left of the army are finally making headway against the undead hordes and if you can only survive long enough, within a few weeks you might finally be free. You look round at your companions and realise one of them has finally succumbed to the lack of food. You glance at your fellow survivor, then back to the dead body. That’s when something occurs to you: there’s enough meat left on him to allow you to last until the army get to your city and clear out the zombies. This means that if you eat him, you’ll survive long enough to be rescued. If you don’t you will die in a matter of days. What do you do?

Take Our Poll

As always, this dilemma is just here to make you think, so there’s no right or wrong answer. Vote in the poll to let others know what you do if you were in this situation, and if you want to give a more detailed answer, leave a comment on this posting.

This dilemma was inspired by two previous posts on this blog, both of which considered the scenario of cannibalism within groups of people trapped in buildings during a zombie apocalypse. The first considered the likelihood that this would happen, while the second was a short story based around this type of situation.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

Family – A Young Adult Short Zombie Story

A PDF of this story can be downloaded from here.

I hear my Dad stumble through the front door and collide with the coffee table sending empty wine bottles skittering across the floor. He’s drunk again but for once he doesn’t swear. I know what’s coming next: the argument with my step-mom, the fighting – she drinks in the house while he goes to his usual sports bar – followed by my little sister crawling into my bed so she feels safe. If it hadn’t been for her I’d have runaway years ago but I stay to protect her until she’s old enough to come with me. I fold my pillow over my ears, trying to enjoy the last few seconds of calm before the inevitable storm which happens around this time almost every night. Tonight it doesn’t; there’s no yelling, no sound of my Dad lashing out. I’m just beginning to wonder what’s going in when the silence is shattered by an ear-piercing scream. I know from the pitch it’s my sister, Sally, and I leap from my bed, grabbing the baseball bat I’ve kept behind my bedroom door since the night my Dad slapped me around. As I’d nursed my split lip and black eye I’d decided I was never going to let him hit me ever again without giving him back a lot worse than I got. That was five years ago and he’d yet to try it. I think he could see from the way I looked at him that it wasn’t worth the trouble, not when there were others he could take it out on who he knew wouldn’t fight back.

I enter the narrow corridor linking all the rooms in our apartment and find Sally standing at the entrance to my Dad’s bedroom staring open-mouthed. She must have been on her way to my room when something stopped her in her tracks. My step-mom had passed out the sofa at nine and as usual we’d carried her through and dumped her on their bed so I can’t understand what Sally’s so transfixed by. There are noises coming from the room but they don’t sound like anything I’ve heard before. I tiptoe over to Sally, the baseball bat loosely held in my right hand, put my arm around her to try to steer her away and glance into the room. Instantly I freeze. My Dad’s on top of my step-mom, biting at her neck; tearing at her with his teeth. Blood’s spraying all across the white sheets and the magnolia walls, and for some reason the first thought that enters my head is that she’ll be real mad when she sees the mess. Then I think this is bad, even for him. Sally whimpers as I draw her to me and this seems to get my Dad’s attention. He stops gnawing on my step-mom and turns to face us. That’s when I see his eyes for the first time. They’re burning with something I’ve never seen before; not even when he’s at his worst. A second later he’s on his feet and racing towards us. I don’t think, I just take a step forward and swing the bat. I feel it connect with his head and even though he’s my Dad, it feels good. Everything I’ve been bottling up since my mother died, and I realised what a mean drunk my father really was, comes bubbling to the surface; the time he beat my step-mom so badly she couldn’t get out of bed for three days; the fact I feel trapped in my own personal hell, unable to grow as a person, to become the adult I so much want to be while I’m still under the same roof as him. I put all of it into swinging the bat again and again until he stops moving. Only then do I realise what I’ve done.

He lies motionless on the floor, half in the bedroom, half out of it. I glance from his body to that of my step-mom. She’s pale and still, and I know she’s dead. Suddenly her arm trembles. Maybe it’s more of a twitch but it’s definitely movement. Given how much blood she’s lost, I know she can’t still be alive but she’s moving. I crouch down and examine my Dad’s lifeless body. His eyes are open and I can see the whites are a deep red; not the blood-shot red of when he was drunk or hung-over but something all together different. Hesitantly, I reach out and touch him then quickly draw back in surprise: his skin’s cold; not just cool but as cold as ice. Then my step-mom sits up and slowly turns towards us. That’s when I grab Sally’s hand and run.

I don’t know where we’re going, I just know we need to get out of here. I race down the stairs of our apartment building and within seconds we’re out on the street. It’s dark, but all around us I can see shadows moving. My brain’s spinning, trying to process what I’ve just done; trying to work out what’s going on all around me. Then I realise Sally’s crying. I crouch down so I can look her in the eye, ‘Look I don’t know what’s happening but no matter what, I’ll keep you safe,’ I tell her, ‘I promise.’ I try to pull her towards me, to hug her but she resists.

She sniffs and wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her pyjamas, ‘You killed Dad!’

‘I had no choice, you saw what he did to her. He’d have done the same to us.’

‘But you killed him!’

I understand why Sally’s upset; She loves him and she’s too young to really realise what a drunk he is, or rather was, and how crappy this made our lives. It’s partly my fault, I try to keep as much of it from her as I can, and make sure that he never hits her the way he hits Macy, that’s my step mom’s name. Well, that was her name. Suddenly Sally’s eyes widen as she stares at something over my left shoulder and she screams again. I hear a noise behind me, a sort of low guttural groan and spin round to find Macy staggering towards us. The gaping wound on her neck is dripping blood onto her pink nightdress and her eyes now look red and empty like my Dad’s. Still not quite knowing what’s happening, I pull Sally behind me and lift the baseball bat. Macy’s eyes seem to stare straight through me and her head lolls slightly to one side but she seems to know we’re there because she’s moving faster now. I wait until she’s within reach and swing the bat. She goes down and instantly I feel sorry. She wasn’t a bad person, not really, she’d just made some poor choices in life – the main one being marrying my Dad. I don’t think he even told her he had two kids before she moved in and found us there but she always did her best. It’s just that her best wasn’t much good.

A movement catches my eye and my head whips round. There, shuffling out of the darkness and into the pool of light cast by the nearest street lamp, are three people. I stare at them in disbelief: one has half his face missing and the other two have blood-stains on their clothes and around their mouths. Like Macy, they’re lurching towards us, arms out-stretched, quickening their pace with every step. I glance round and see another two coming from the opposite direction. I know we’ll soon be surrounded but I can’t see a way to escape. All I can do is try to keep Sally behind me and raise the bat in readiness. Just before I can take my first swing there’s the squeal of tyres and the people staggering towards us are gone, replaced by a black car. Not needing to be asked twice, I pull the back door open; I push Sally in before throwing myself after her. Almost as soon as my feet leave the ground I feel the car accelerating away. It swings to the left and there’s a dull thud as it hits something before bumping over it. I struggle to sit up and strap Sally in. While I do so, I call out to the driver ‘D’you know what’s going on?’

‘Zombies!’

‘What d’you mean zombies?’

‘You know,’ he looks at me for a second but I’m busy trying to deal with Sally, ‘The dead come back to life, walkers, flesh-eaters …’ There’s something familiar about his voice but I can’t quite put my finger on what.

I interrupt him, ‘But zombies don’t exist!’

‘They mightn’t have done before but they sure do now. I don’t know why but they’re everywhere. That’s why I’m getting out of here.’

Only then do I get a chance to check the driver out properly at and my heart drops.

I stare at the back of his head, ‘You!’

He glances in the rear-view mirror, ‘Yeah, me.’

There’s an awkward silence. I’ve known Nick since before I can remember. When we were little we played together all the time because his Mom was friends with mine, but she stopped coming around after Mom died. I still saw Nick at school but as we’d grown up, we’d grown apart. I’d been so embarrassed when last year, completely out of the blue, he’d asked me to the prom. I don’t know what possessed him because I’d worked so hard to become one of the cool kids and he’d grown up to be a geek, he must have known there was no way I could possibly go with him. I’d felt so sorry for him when he’d had to slink away back to his locker as my friends sniggered but there was nothing I could do about it.

Now sitting there behind him in his car after he’d just saved my life, I figure I should say something, ‘I could have handled them myself you know.’ I can’t work out why I said that; it’s so not true and we both know it.

Nick smiles at me, a sad look in his eyes, ‘You don’t have to do everything yourself you know, you’re allowed to let other people help you.’

I get the feeling he’s not just talking about tonight and I look at him curiously. He keeps his eyes on the road as he carries on, ‘I know about your Dad. I’ve known for years, even before that night. I heard my Mom talking about him but no matter what I tried, you never let me help you.’

That’s when I remember something I haven’t thought about in years. The night my Dad hit me I’d run away and it was Nick’s house I’d run to. I’d knocked on his bedroom window and he’d let me in. I didn’t tell him what had happened but he could see the state I was in. He cleaned me up and then just hugged me as I cried. When I woke in the morning I felt embarrassed both about what my Dad had done and about the fact that I’d fallen asleep in Nick’s arms. I’d snuck out and walked home because I didn’t know where else to go. My Dad was still asleep, passed out on the sofa in the living room. I found Sally curled up in my bed – she was the only one in the house who even realised I’d been gone all night. After that I’d never felt comfortable with Nick again. Outside of my family, he was the only one who was aware of what my Dad was really like and I couldn’t bare to be around someone who knew my darkest secret.

Trying not to blush at the memory, I glance out the window.

‘You want me to drop you off somewhere or you want to come with me?’ I turn to find Nick looking at me expectantly. Sally’s doing the same.

I think about this for a moment. I’ve got friends, lots of them, but none of them are real friends. If any of them ever found out what my life was really like at home, none of them would speak to me again. They’d think I was too weird, too abnormal; they wouldn’t realise I was the same person they’d always known. It’s so unfair, it’s not my fault my Dad was a vicious drunk; I didn’t choose him. That’s when I realise that ever since my Mom died I’ve felt alone. I’ve pushed away anyone who really cared about me, I’ve put up barriers and specifically chosen to hang out with people who are so shallow they wouldn’t notice I never asked them round to my house or that I had to look after Sally all the time. Then I realise Nick knows about me, the real me, about how screwed up my life is. He knows all this and he still likes me. This gives me a warm feeling inside.

I glance at him, noticing for the first time that he’s not bad looking really, ‘Where you heading?’

‘My uncle’s place. He’s got a farm out in the country. He’s got guns and stuff there.’ He flicks the steering wheel to the right and ploughs through a pair of zombies that are shambling down the middle of the road. ‘I figure it’s as safe as anywhere is now.’

I’ve never been out of the city before, or at least not as far as I can remember. There are some memories with my Mom that might have been on a beach but I can never see them clearly – there’s too many others in the way, bad ones. For some reason the thought of leaving the city excites me. I guess it’s because I’ve wanted to leave for so long and now it’s actually happening.

Nick slams on the brakes, ‘Oh, ffff….’ He glances at Sally and stops himself. ‘… Flip!’

Ahead there’s a solid mass of people all shuffling towards us. Even over the sound of the engine I can hear them moaning and groaning. Sally clings to me, terrified by the sight, and starts to cry again.

I look at Nick, ‘What’re you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Let me think for a minute.’

‘I know, take a left up that alley there.’ Whenever my Dad drove drunk, and that was a lot, he always kept off the main streets; choosing the back alleys instead. He said it was because they were safer but as I got older I realised it was so that he didn’t get stopped by the cops. On the plus side, it means I know them better than the back of my own hand and I know the one up ahead will take us safely round the people, or rather zombies, that are blocking the street. Without questioning it, Nick does as I tell him. I guide him between the tall tenement buildings and back onto the street about a mile further on. As we rejoin it, I twist round and stare in the direction we just came. I can see the mass of zombies off in the distance, still staggering forwards and I know we’re clear of them.

***

We’re out of the city now and the car’s racing through the night. Despite everything, Sally’s fallen asleep in the back seat and I’ve climbed into the front alongside Nick. We haven’t seen a zombie since the suburbs; in fact we haven’t seen any one else on the road. It’s like the three of us are the only people left in the world. Nick’s got a CD on, something quiet and mellow I haven’t heard before, and I’ve got the passenger window open: I’m playing with the air that’s streaming past. It smells different from city air: cleaner, almost crisp. All around us there’s darkness while above our heads are stars; millions of them. I can’t believe how many there are. I’ve always known they were up there but I’ve never seen so many before because of all the lights in the city. Nick sees me staring up at them and grins. He seems to know what’s going through my head and he starts telling me about them. ‘See those ones there; they make up a constellation called Orion, and the ones over there that look like the letter W, that’s Cassiopeia.’

‘Cassiopeia?’ I know the name from somewhere but I can’t quite place it.

‘Yeah, she was an ancient Greek queen who boasted about how pretty she was and the gods punished her by making her sacrifice her daughter, Andromeda, to a sea monster but Persius saved her because he was in love with her. They’re up there too. That’s Persius over there and that’s Andromeda there.’

I try to follow where he’s pointing; I can’t make out which stars he’s talking about but somehow it’s nice to know they are up there, immortalised forever. Nick doesn’t seem to notice I don’t know which stars he’s talking about, ‘See that bright star there in the middle of Andromeda, it’s 97 light years away. That means the light we’re seeing now left there at the start of the last century.’ He glances at me as if trying to judge what I’m thinking. He must be able to see I’m interested because he carries on. ‘But that’s nothing. See that star there, that’s Deneb, it takes the light from it more than a thousand years to get here. The light we’re seeing left there more than five hundred years before Columbus discovered America, then there’s…’

‘Nick,’ I interrupt, ‘Where’d you learn all that stuff?’

‘Don’t know, I just sort of picked it up. I find it interesting. I guess my Dad told me a lot of it and the rest I got from books.’

I thought about this for a few seconds. All my Dad had ever taught me was never to wake him when he had a hang-over and to keep out of his way when he was drunk. At that moment, I feel both angry and sad, and then for some reason I miss him and I start to cry.

Nick puts his hand on my shoulder, just for a second to let me know he understands and then puts it back on the wheel. I pull myself together and wipe away the tears before clearing my throat. ‘So where d’you think the zombies came from?’

He looks at me, ‘I don’t know. I was out on the roof trying to see the meteor shower and I saw Mr. Lafferty from next door staggering up the street, only he died last week. I know because Mom went to his funeral on Monday. I went inside and told her but she wouldn’t believe me. I wish she had because the next thing I know Mr. Lafferty crashed through the front door and grabbed her by the hair and sank his teeth deep into the back of her neck. It was horrible, there was blood everywhere and she was screaming like I’ve never heard anyone scream before. Dad tried to stop him but he couldn’t. I wanted to stay and help but Dad told me to take the car and go. I think that’s the only reason I got out alive. The last thing I saw was Dad hitting Mr. Lafferty over the head with a frying pan but he was bleeding a lot and I could tell he wasn’t going to survive for long.’

There’s sadness in his voice and I think about what he’s just said. That’s the difference between our Dads: When the dead started walking his saved his life; mine tried to kill me. It takes me a second to realise there’s tears running down Nick’s face. Knowing he’ll be embarrassed if I mention it, I stare out the window for a couple of minutes. When I turn back to him, the tears are gone but his eyes are still red. ‘How long will it be ‘till we get to the farm?’

‘About an hour.’ His voice breaks and he tries to cover it up by clearing his throat.

‘You think we’ll be safe there?’

‘We should be, it’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s no one around for miles.’

‘What about your uncle?’

He shifts uncomfortably in the driver’s seat ‘He’s … errr … away on business.’

I figure that’s a lie but I don’t push him further on it. Instead I ask another question, one that’s been eating away at me ever since it first popped into my head. ‘Nick,’ I hesitate for a moment, ‘Do you think everyone who’s dead has come back? Or only some of them?’

He seems to know what I’m thinking and avoids looking at me. ‘I don’t know but it’s probably only people who’ve died recently. None of the ones I’ve seen were rotting or anything like that. They all seemed … you know … fresh.’

Despite its gruesomeness that makes me happy. I don’t want my Mom to have come back as one of them.

I turn towards Nick, ‘But what about my Dad?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘When my Dad came home tonight, he was one of them. He killed my step-mom and he tried to attack us. I had to bash his head in with that just to stop him.’ I point to the baseball bat in the back seat. It seems weird to be telling someone what I did but I know Nick will understand ‘He didn’t die or at least I don’t think he did. How did he become one of them?’

‘I guess he must have been attacked and got bitten. I think it might have started with dead people but when they bite live people, I think they infect them with something and then they turn into zombies too.’

That certainly explained what went on with my step-mom.

I think about all that’s happened in the last few hours and try to work out how I’m feeling. As I’m figuring it out something odd strikes me. The dead might have risen and taken over the world but I’ve finally got the escape I’ve dreamed of for years. It doesn’t matter that my Dad and my step-mom are dead or that they tried to kill me, what matters is that I’ve finally broken free. I know life isn’t going to be easy now the world’s changed but I’ve survived this long and now I’ve got out I know I can keep going, no matter what. I glance first at Nick and then at Sally. They are my family now and despite all that’s happened, I’m happier than I’ve been for a very long time. It might have taken the world coming to an end but finally I realise that your family doesn’t have to be the one you were born into, it can also be the people you choose it to be.

***

Author’s Note: This story was written as a brief venture into the rapidly expanding and ever-popular ‘Young Adult’ or ‘YA’ genre: that is one aimed at a teenage audience. This means it couldn’t be as grim and gruesome as many of the other zombie stories I write, and it had to explore themes that would both appeal and be familiar to younger readers (well, ones substantially younger than I am!).

I chose the theme of a dysfunctional family because I think this is something many teenagers can relate to. I also wanted to explore the rather depressing fact that for some young people a zombie apocalypse, bad as it would be, could actually improve their lives rather than make it worse. In this case, it gives the girl telling the story the chance to escape from her drunken and violent father. Who knows if her life will be better in the long-term, but for the moment, for the first time since her mother died, she feels free.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

Finding Your Way Around In A Post-apocalyptic World

If all your electronic gizmos stopped working, would you still be able to work out how to get to where you needed to go?

In the last few years, GPS receivers have become an almost universal part of daily life. They’re integrated into our phones and tablets, and the term sat nav is now common parlance for anyone who drives. Combine this with the ever-spreading ubiquity of online mapping apps, such as Google Earth and Google Maps, and you soon realise that our ability to find our way around unfamiliar places has become almost entirely reliant on electronic navigation. Think about it: when was the last time you unfolded a paper map or flicked through a physical road atlas to work out how to get somewhere rather than turning on a computer? While this might not matter as long as the power’s still on and the satellites keep whizzing around the planet far above our heads, the question remains, if these failed, would you know how to get to where you needed to go?

Basic navigation is a skill that you should learn if you wish to have any hope of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world regardless of whether you worry about having to survive amongst rampaging zombies, in a post-nuclear wasteland, or just your average plague-ridden collapse of civilisation. It also wouldn’t you do you any harm in your real life because you never know when you might find yourself stuck in an unfamiliar place with no cell phone signal or running low on battery power.

So what are the keys to basic navigation? Really it’s all about knowing how to tell which way is north without pulling out some fancy electronic gizmo. The easiest way to do this is to use a magnetic compass. Magnetic compasses don’t require batteries so they’ll never run out of power and you can easily slip one into your pocket without it taking up much space. The best ones for navigation are usually map compasses, which, in addition to telling you which direction is north, can be used to work out everything you need to know get to where you want to go. This puts the functionality of a mapping compass on par with your average sat nav, and at around $10 they’re a lot cheaper!

Using a map compass, you can work out how to get to places without all those modern electronic gadgets you usually reply on.

You can use a map compass to help you navigate in two basic ways. The first is to use it to work out a route to where you want to go. To do this, you place the compass on the map and use it to work out which direction (also known as a bearing) you need to go in to get from where you are to where you want to be. Sometimes this will be a direct route; other times, you might need to travel through a series of intermediate waypoints to get there.

Either way, once you’ve worked out your route, you can use the compass to help you navigate along it. To do this, you don’t simply walk along staring at the compass all the time (this is a great way to accidentally walk over a cliff or get chomped on by some lurking flesh-muncher). Instead, you use your compass to identify a clearly-visible feature off in the distance (such as a distinctly-shaped hill) that’s in the direction you want to travel and use this as your target. This way you can keep your wits about you as you move through the landscape (all the better for watching out for pesky zombies trying to creep up on you!). Once you reach your first target, you get your compass out again, and repeat the process until you finally reach your destination.

The second way to use a compass to navigate is to use it to work out where you are if you get lost. This is done by taking bearings to obvious features in the landscape around you, such as mountain peaks, and drawing lines on your map through these features on your map. If you do it properly, and accurately, the point where these lines converge will mark your position. In reality, you usually end up with a little triangle (known as a ‘cocked hat’), but it’ll generally give you a pretty good idea of where you are without having to rely on your GPS-enabled phone.

If you are not lucky enough to have a map showing where you want to go, a compass can still be useful. In particular, through the type of triangulation you can use to work out your own location, you can also build up relatively accurate maps of your local surroundings, and in fact this is the basis of the method used to make maps in the first place. Similarly, you can us a compass to help you travel in a general direction. For example, you may know that you need to get to the coast to have the best chance of surviving, and that it is to your southeast. Even without a map, your trusty compass can help you get there.

What, you might ask, do you do if you lose your compass or if you don’t have one in the first place? Well, there’s other ways of working out which way is north. At night, you can use the position of Polaris, the Pole Star, to tell you where north is (in the northern hemisphere) or the Southern Cross to tell which way is south (if you are in the southern hemisphere). During the day, you can use the position of the sun. In particular, if you are not too close to the equator, the shadows of any vertical object (such as a stick stuck into the ground) will point towards one of the poles a midday (the northern one in the northern hemisphere and the southern one in the southern hemisphere). This means you can use the direction the shadow falls in to tell which way is north. While you might think this is dependent on knowing the exact time, this isn’t the case. All you need to do is mark the end of shadows cast by the same object at two times at least 15 minutes apart. Since the sun moves from east to west (although, technically, it stays still and we move from west to east, but you can ignore this for the moment), a line connecting the first point to the second will run from west to east. Stand with your toes on this line and point your arm directly in front of you and no matter where in the world you are (except the North Pole of course!) it will always be north.

Incidentally, you can also work out other things from shadows, like when local noon is just by examining the length of the shadows of a vertical object. This is because the sun will be directly over head, meaning the shadow cast at noon will be shorter than that cast at any other time of day. The length of the midday shadow of an object of a known height on a specific day of the year can also be used to work out what your latitude is to quite a high level of accuracy (not quite as good as a GPS receiver but close enough). Alternatively, if you know your latitude, and the height of your object, you can use the same information to work out what day of the year it is. Who would have thought shadows could be so useful?

Finally, sometimes you don’t even need to be able to see the skies to know which way is north. There’s certain organisms which can tell you which direction north is (and I’m not thinking of the debate over ‘magnetic’ cows here). Instead, I’m thinking about organisms that like shady conditions. The ones that are most commonly-used in navigation are lichens. Lichens are plant-like organisms that grow on rocks and trees, and because they don’t do as well in direct sunlight, they grow more abundantly on the northern side of rocks and trees in the northern hemisphere and the southern side in the southern hemisphere. This means that in some parts of the world, you can work out which way is north by examining lichen growth on the rocks and trees around you.

So, what does all this mean? Well, as useful as all those modern sat navs and GPS receivers and digital mapping apps are, they’re only navigation aids and you should know how to get around without them just in case you find yourself in a situation where they no longer work. While this could be because a zombie apocalypse has engulfed the world, it could just as easily be because of you’ve got a dead battery on your cell phone.




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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.

What Would You Do If … Dilemmas In A Zombie Apocalypse: No. 16 – The Stranger Saviour Dilemma

You’re trapped by a small group of zombies but just as it seems like you’re going to die, a stranger appears and kills them all with ruthless efficiency. You thank him and start to walk away. That’s when he asks if he can come with you. If he does, you’ll have to take him to your safe house and then he’ll find out about all that food you’ve got carefully stashed away there. You already know he’s armed and capable of great violence, after all look what he did to all those zombies, and he might try to take it all from you. Yet, you do owe him your life. What do you do?

Take Our Poll

As always, this dilemma is just here to make you think, so there’s no right or wrong answer. Vote in the poll to let others know what you do if you were in this situation, and if you want to give a more detailed answer, leave a comment on this posting.

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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.

To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.