Colin M. Drysdale's Blog, page 28

What Would You Do If … Dilemmas In A Zombie Apocalypse: No. 2 – The Best Friend Dilemma

You see your best friend running for safety but there’s half a dozen zombies chasing him; the nearest is only a few feet behind and you don’t think he’ll make in time. He calls out to you to do something but you’ve only got one last bullet left in your rifle. If you shoot the zombie closest to him he might just make it but if he doesn’t, he’ll die a long, terrifying and painful death, and all you’ll be able to do is watch it happen as he begs you to put him out of his misery. If you shoot him instead, his death will be quick and painless but you’ll be left always wondering if somehow he might have made it if only you’d done something different. What do you do?




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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 the UK, and available as an ebook and in print in the US from the 21st March 2013. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more.

The Group Paradox In A Zombie Apocalypse

When discussing what they’d do if a zombie apocalypse were ever to happen, many concentrate on the make up of their survival team (and indeed I’ve been done the same here on this blog). However, it’s important to recognise that being part of a group can create what’s known as a group paradox.

A group paradox is when what’s best for some individuals in a group is in direct conflict with what’s best for others or for the group as a whole. We can see this in flocks of birds where being in a group is good for dominant individuals, because they benefit from the increased ability to spot predators, but worse for subordinates because they get constantly harassed and have any food they find stolen by the dominant individuals. This is where the paradox comes in: Dominant individuals can only do better if they can persuade subordinate individuals to do something that’s worse for them.

For humans in a zombie apocalypse, you may well find similar group paradoxes operating. For example, fit, healthy and dominant individuals may keep weaker, subordinates around just to act as zombie fodder in case the group gets ambushed. After all, you don’t always have to out-run the zombies in order to escape, sometimes it’s just enough to out-run one of the people you’re with! While they might not realise it, these weaker individuals would probably be better off on their own because they’d be less likely to attract the attention of ravenous flesh-eaters than a large group of survivors and in a group they’ll always risk being the first to get killed when zombies attack.

Yet, you’ll probably find the dominant individuals will work hard to persuade the weaker individuals to stick around and stay in the group. They’ll do this by providing food and help and promises that they’ll be protected. Sadly, they’re not doing this because of what’s best for weaker individuals but because of what’s best for themselves and all the promises will evaporate the moment life gets tough. Only then will the weaker individuals realise that they’ve become the victim of a group paradox; and that’s likely to be rapidly followed by becoming the victim of a group of zombies.

Of course, group paradoxes won’t just operate between dominant and weak individuals but also when members of a group vary in their social connections or levels of relatedness. For example, if you’re the only stranger in a group that’s made up of family members or close friends, you may well find that it’s your butt on the line every tmie the group gets attacked because they’d rather defend those close to them than someone they’ve only just met. This means that they get all the advantages of having an extra pair of eyes to keep watch and hands to help out but you get none of the supposed benefits of increased safety in numbers and you’d probably be much better off on your own.

What does this mean for your chances of survival in a zombie apocalypse? Well, beware the promises made by others and think twice before joining up with any old groups of survivors you happen to bump into. Specifically, make sure you ask yourself one question: Are they’re welcoming me in because it’s in my best interest or because it’s in theirs?

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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 the UK, and available as an ebook and in print in the US from the 21st March 2013. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more.

The Wall – A Short Story Set In A Post-Apocalyptic World

A PDF of this story can be downloaded from here.

I stand staring north along the broad road as it disappears off into the distance. I’d always wanted to visit Scotland but now this is as close as I’d ever get; it’s as close as I’d ever want to get. Infected swarm around the base of the wall that has become our latest line of defence against them. I hope it will hold; we all do. It’s our last chance of keeping the disease contained. I hear the sound of an engine racing even above the groaning and shuffling of the infected that push against the wall in their hundreds, possibly even thousands. Those are just the ones I can see and I’ve no idea of how many others there might be out there, attacking the wall along its entire 73 mile length. I search for the vehicle but it takes me a while to find it; an RV, off in the distance, hurtling down the deserted northbound carriageway of the M74; the road that once connected Scotland and England and that the wall now cuts in two. I wonder how they’ve survived so long out there in what has become the badlands; where they think they’re going. Surely they must know that even if they make it past all the infected, we can’t let them through. Not wanting to watch what will happen to those inside, I turn away and light a cigarette. The smoking’s new. Before, I’d always been scared of getting cancer but now there are worse things to worry about, much worse, and anyway it gives me something to do with my hands while I’m on guard duty; just like drinking does when I’m off. I watch the end of the cigarette glow as smoke spirals up into the sky and I wonder at how much the world has changed in such a short space of time.

***

There’d been outbreaks all over the world but ours had started in Glasgow the week before. At first they’d tried to contain it there but the soldiers on the barricades couldn’t easily distinguish the infected from those that were just trying to flee and there weren’t enough of them to stop the mass of people who wanted to get out. They’d seen on the news the day before what’d happened in Miami when the infection, and the infected, over-ran the city and they weren’t about to wait round for the same thing happen to Glasgow. That just made the job of containment all the more difficult for those on the front lines; in fact it was impossible.

I think the Generals must have known this from the start because even before they’d ordered the first pull back they’d set us to work resurrecting the ancient wall. It had originally been built to guard the northern frontier of the mighty Roman Empire against wild Pictish warriors who tried again and again to expel it from their homeland. Now we’d rebuilt it to keep at bay a much more frightening enemy: a virus. It didn’t sound scary until you saw what it made people do to each other. It took over their brains and their bodies, extinguishing all traces of who they’d once been, turning them into something altogether different. Driven to pass it on, the infected would attack anyone without the virus but often they’d go too far: killing them, tearing them apart, even eating them. That was what happened if the infected found you one on one but if they got into a crowd it was different. All those people running around, panicked, screaming and shouting; it seemed to confuse them. They’d attack one person but only long enough to bring them down before running after another then another. In crowds, they wouldn’t kill; instead they’d just infect. This allowed the virus to spread and spread rapidly. That’s what had happened in Glasgow and what was now happening everywhere north of the wall.

When we were re-building the wall, it seemed like almost every soldier and reservist in the country was there, well all those not directly fighting the infected on the front line. Whether they knew it or not, their job wasn’t really containment, as it was being reported on the news, but rather to slow the spread of the virus and buy us enough time to get what we hoped would be our new frontier finished. Yes, the Generals were condemning anyone north of the wall to death, or worse, but what choice did they have? They were sacrificing five million but they were doing it to save 60. It was a tough decision but it was the right one; it was the only logical one.

It was amazing to watch the wall go up. Twenty-five feet high and ten feet wide, it had a scaffolding skeleton lined with almost anything we could get our hands on: plywood, tarpaulins, sand bags, bales of hay, anything that would hold back the rocks, the rubble, the earth and the sand we filled it with. Like the Romans before us, we used the natural features of the land to help make the defences as impregnable as possible. In some cases, we even used the remains of the Roman wall itself to help speed up the construction but unlike the Romans, we didn’t need to worry about gateways or forts: once it was completed, no one was going to be allowed through from the north, no matter what.

We completed it in two days but with nearly thirty thousand of us working on it, it wasn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds. That was when they started what they were calling a phased withdrawal. Well that’s what they were calling it to us; to the media and the public they were still talking about containment. They airlifted the troops out, starting with the ones closest to the action, but left the civilians behind. Three days later even that stopped: it was getting too risky. By then the gradual trickle of people fleeing southwards from the infected had grown into a raging torrent but we had to hold firm. We couldn’t tell who might be infected, but as yet unturned, and who was infection-free, and there was no way we could risk the virus getting through the wall. As far as I knew, there was no plan B so if that happened, the whole country was finished – that was how important the wall was.

If the ever-building crowds came too close to the wall, we’d fire warning shots to keep them away. It was heart-breaking to see them: men, women, whole families all trying to get away from the infection but there was nothing any of us could do. As we watched helplessly, they set up makeshift camps all along the northern edge of the wall; some with tents, others making use of cars, caravans and whatever else they could find. At night all I could see were thousands upon thousands of fires, burning in the darkness, stretching as far as the eye could see both along the wall and off into the north.

Then the infected started to appear. I don’t know where they came from, may be they’d followed those trying to flee south or maybe it was people who’d been bitten and had got this far before finally losing their battle against the virus. At first we tried to take them out, shooting at anyone who had clearly turned before they could attack too many others. When it was an adult it wasn’t too hard but when it was a teenager or, even worse, a child it was gut-wrenchingly difficult; yet it had to be done. Even then it didn’t really make a difference because soon there were just too many of them. Pandemonium broke out amongst the refugees. It was horrific watching all those people as the infection and the infected surged through the crowds below the wall but I couldn’t take my eyes off it. No one knew what to do; where to go. Some tried to climb the wall or tear it down and we were ordered to shoot them. Others called up to where we stood, asking for our help or holding up their children pleading for us to save them. Even if we’d been allowed, they were too far below to reach without risking our own lives and none of us were willing to do that. Then there were the ones that ran. They didn’t know where they were heading, they just took off and when one person started, others around them would follow, turning a frightened mob into a stampede that swept across all in its path. Anyone who fell or got in its way was trampled under foot.

That night almost no fires burned in the darkness and by dawn there were none. As the sun rose it revealed what was left of the refugee camps. Gone were the clusters of tents and people; in the night they’d been replaced by a roaring, swirling sea of infected. They lined the wall, forty or fifty deep all trying to get to the uninfected they could sense on the other side. They attacked the makeshift structure, beating and tearing at it until their hands bled.

***

As I finish my cigarette, I hear the RV screech to a halt. I turn to find it’s now close enough to the wall that the occupants must be able to make out the swarm of infected that line it as far as the eye can see. I watch as it sits there, it’s engine idling and I wonder what the driver’s thinking. The engine roars again and the RV leaps forward. When it reaches the first of the infected it doesn’t slow; it just plows through them. It doesn’t even slow as it approaches the wall itself; instead it slams into it. I feel a tremor pass under my feet. For a moment I wonder if the wall will hold but then I realise that one RV would have little impact on the tons of earth and rock on which I stand. I peer over the edge and see the infected crowding around the vehicle, trying their best to get in. Then the skylight on its roof opens and a pair of hands appear. A moment later, they’re followed by a head and then the rest of a young boy. Soon another person appears, then another and another. The last must have been the driver because he’s bleeding from a gash across his face that looks like it’s been caused by his head hitting the steering wheel. They glance around frantically, seeing that the RV is surrounded by infected on three sides whilst the front end is crumpled against the wall. They’re only a few feet below me but before they can do anything the RV shudders, causing one of the kids to lose his footing. As he scrambles back to his feet, the vehicle starts to sway violently as the infected attack it, trying to get to the people huddled on its roof.

Shielding his eyes with his hand, the man looks up and sees me watching from the top of the wall. He’s got a scrawny beard and lank, unwashed hair. There’s dirt ingrained into the lines on his face and his clothes are stained and grubby. At first, I’m disgusted, then it occurs to me that I probably look pretty much the same to him. He calls out, ‘Hey, can you help us up?’ His accent’s Scottish but I can’t narrow it down any further than that.

‘No.’ It sounds harsh but we have our orders.

‘But you’ve got to.’ The man urges me.

‘The sergeant made it very clear, we can’t help any one from north of the wall.’

‘Are you just going to stand there and watch them kill us?’ The woman shouts incredulously. Her dark hair’s tied back in a ponytail, revealing a pale, pinched face and sunken brown eyes. The two boys hiding between the adults are caked in dirt and are so skinny it looks like a light breeze would blow them away. I’m guessing survival rather than food has been the number one priority for this family since the outbreak started.

I turn and walk a few feet away from the edge of the wall to give me time to think.

‘Hey come back. You can’t just leave us here. Come back!’ There’s fear in the woman’s voice and kids start crying.

I blot this out as I try to work out what to do. It would be directly disobeying orders if I helped them but unlike all the others I could reach these survivors without risking my own neck. Surely I couldn’t let them get torn apart right there in front of me?

Suddenly there’s a scream. I run forward and look down. The weight of the infected pushing on the RV is now so great that it’s rocking wildly from side to side. In the commotion, the smaller of the two boys has been thrown from his feet and is now dangling over the edge of the roof. One of the taller infected has hold of his legs and is pulling the boy towards his gaping mouth. The only thing stopping the boy being dragged into the horde is the fact his mother and father have a hold of his arms and are pulling in the other direction. The boy’s screaming both in pain and in fear. Without thinking I shoulder my rifle and shoot the infected through the head. Instantly the boy is released, sending his parents tumbling onto the RV’s roof as they finally get him clear.

Lying on his back, the man looks up at me hopefully, ‘Does that mean you’re going to help us?’

‘I haven’t decided yet.’ I pause for a moment so I can think. ‘How do I know you’re not infected?’

‘We’re not. We’re all okay.’

‘That’s what everyone says, even those who’ve been bitten.’

‘But we are. How can we prove it to you?

‘You can’t.’

‘So you’re just going to leave us here?’

‘There’s nothing else I can do.’

‘There must be something you can do!’ The woman sounds desperate.

The RV tips sharply to it’s left, sending them all sprawling across its roof. This time only the man and the younger of the two children manage to hold on. First the older boy and then the woman slips over the edge and disappears into the arms of the infected waiting below. Blood and guts fly in all directions as the infected tear the screaming mother and child to pieces. The man gets up but the RV is shuddering so wildly he’s having trouble staying on his feet.

‘Please. You’ve got to help us. Or if not me, at least help him.’ he points to where the boy’s clinging to the roof. ‘He’s not injured, I promise you, he’s clean. You can check for yourself once you get him up there. Look.’ He pulls the boy to his feet and jerks up his jacket and shirt before spinning him round and round. I can see there are no bites on his slight torso.

I avoid the man’s eyes, ‘I can’t. How would I explain where he came from?’

‘I don’t know but surely you must be able to think of something?’ He shouts desperately.

The RV tips again and I can see from his face that the man knows it’s only a matter of time. He grabs the boy and holds him up. His eyes meet mine, ‘Please. Save him.’

Against my better judgement I sling my rifle across my back as I throw myself down and lean the edge of the wall. I stretch my hands down towards the boy but he’s too frightened to reach up and grab them. The RV lurches and the man only just manages to stay upright.

‘Come on, boy, take my hands,’ I shout as I slide as far forward as I dare. ‘Please,’ I say more softly and then smile.

This seems to do the trick and he unfolds his arms. I feel his tiny hands close on mine just as the man finally loses his footing and falls, yelling, from the RV. The boy squirms, trying to see what’s happened to his father.

Below him, I can see the man being ripped apart by the infected. ‘Don’t look down, boy, just look at me. You’re almost safe. I’ll have you up here in a jiffy and then you’ll be safe.’

Behind me I hear the distinctive click of a bullet being chambered in an assault rifle. ‘You’ll do no such thing, soldier!’

I know the voice and I know I’m screwed. ‘But Sergeant, I can’t just let him go.’

‘Well, you can’t bring him up here either. It’s too risky. What if he’s infected?’

I glance down at the boy. The left sleeve of his jacket has slipped and I can see blood on his forearm. I can’t tell if it’s from a bite but it’s definitely blood. Yet this is a living, breathing little boy, I can’t just drop him into the mass of infected that are seething around the base of the wall, the nearest reaching their arms up towards him. I can see tears welling up in his frightened eyes as he silently pleads with me to pull him to safety. I don’t know what to do next: no matter what, I know it’ll be the wrong decision for someone. All I can do is lie there, unable to decide one way or the other, the terrified boy dangling from my arms, the Sergeant standing behind me with his gun and the infected swarming below.

***

Author’s Note: This is story connected to another one I’ve written called Last Flight Out, which is can be found here . In that story, the concept of re-building Hadrian’s Wall (which is the name of the Roman wall that used to separate modern day Scotland and England more than 1,700 years ago) is introduced for the first time. Both these stories are based on extra ideas I had while working on the first draft of the sequel to For Those In Peril On The Sea. They didn’t really fit into the main story, which is about a group of people escaping from Glasgow during the very early stages of an outbreak of this virus, but I found them intriguing enough that I wanted to do something with them rather than just abandoning them altogether.

If you want to see where Hadrian’s Wall is and also see the exact location where this story is set, you can download a map layer that will allow you to plot these on Google Earth from here. In order to view this map layer, you have to have either Google Earth or a Google Earth Mobile app installed on your computer or ebook device. These are free and you can find the one that’s best for you by entering the phrase ‘Google Earth’ into an internet search engine.

Five Surprisingly Useful Skills For Surviving In A Post-apocalyptic World

When thinking about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, the useful skills that usually jump into minds are things like how to use a gun and how to fix a broken engine. While I agree these skills are likely to become incredibly useful, and I’ve had them on a previous list of skills you should think about learning now to help you survive when civilisation comes crashing down, they are all relatively obvious. In this post, I want to highlight five other skills you may not have considered before but that are likely prove to be surprisingly useful.

Knitting: The Ancient Art Of Turning Sheep Into Clothing

The first of these is knitting. I know what you’re thinking, in the immediate aftermath of whatever caused the end of the world, you’re not exactly going to have time to sit down with a ball of wool and a couple of knitting needles so you can finish that scarf you promised your Aunt Jenny for her birthday but I’m thinking about longer-term survival here. Once the dust starts to settle and you’ve solved as many of the problems of immediate survival as possible, you will need to turn your attention to what you’re going to do in the longer term, and one of the issue here is how you’re going to stay warm and clothed. This is where skills like knitting and the related ones of sewing, spinning fibres into yarn, weaving and so on start to become invaluable. In addition, it’s only a short leap from these to making things like rope (which is really just very thick yarn made from very tough materials), matting, walls and roofs for shelters (through weaving vegetation together), baskets and even things like fishing nets. All of these use the same basic skill sets as knitting and other similar hobbies.

Next it’s fishing. In most post-apocalyptic films and stories, food is generally found in places like supermarkets or is caught through hunting. Neither of these are very good long-term survival options. Take supermarkets. Firstly, they’re going to be dangerous places. They’ll attract all sorts of people and you’ll probably have to fight for access to any food they still have in them. Such confrontations are something you should aim to avoid wherever possible as there’s no guarantee you’ll come off best. Supermarkets and other buildings that are likely to contain food will also have lots of dark nooks and crannies where anything could be hiding, just waiting for it’s moment to leap out at attack you and, again, this is a risk you should try to avoid if you want to have the best chance of surviving. All this means you’d be better off avoiding places like this in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of civilisation. Secondly, supermarkets going to run out of dry pretty damn quick as everyone scrambles to get hold of whatever they have inside. This means you can’t rely on them as a food source in the longer term either.

That’s supermarkets out the way, so what’s wrong with hunting? Well, for a start, it’s very time-consuming and uses up ammunition that could be better used elsewhere, such as for defending yourself from whatever there is you might have to defend yourself against. It’s also noisy, meaning you’ll attract the attention of anyone, or anything, that’s out there, and you don’t want to be doing that, do you? In comparison, fishing is not only quiet but if you know what you’re doing it’s highly efficient. You can set lines, nets or traps, leave them to do their job while your off doing other things and return later to collect whatever they catch. This certainly beats having to trudge through the woods for hours trying to find something worth shooting. However, fishing isn’t just a matter of throwing a baited hook in anywhere and you’ll only be successful at it if you actually know what you’re doing.

The third surprisingly useful skill is sailing. When I mention sailing, you’re probably thinking luxury yachts and Caribbean islands, and wondering what could be useful in that, but, come the apocalypse, sailing could turn out to be one of the most useful things you’ve ever learned. If you know how to sail, it gives you a way to move around that doesn’t require any fuel, and sailing isn’t only useful on water. Using a knowledge of sailing, it would be easy enough to build something that would allow you to propel land-based vehicles along with just the power of the wind (those familiar with land-sailing or kite-boarding will already have a good idea of how this can be done). This having been said, moving around on water is where sailing’s really going to come into it’s own. This is because in almost any possible post-apocalyptic situation, you’re going to be safer on the water than on the land: on the water it’ll be easier to move around, to avoid trouble, to take your base and move it somewhere else if you need to (and especially if you need to do this in a hurry) and defend your base for any attacks. This is why I’d always make sailing a key element of my post-apocalyptic survival strategy, and why I used it as the basis for my book For Those In Peril On The Sea. You can find out more about why I think sailing’s likely to be so useful when the world comes to an end here.

After sailing comes star-gazing. There’s a lot of useful information up there in the sky if you only you know what you’re looking at. Almost every human civilisation there’s ever been has relied heavily on star-gazing at one time or another. It’s been used to tell the time, to tell the seasons, to predict the tides and to navigate from point A to point B. Few of us know how to read the stars any more but come the apocalypse this information will become vital to your long-term survival. However the world comes to an end, the chances are that within a very short space of time the GPS satellites will come crashing down and the batteries on things like watches will run out. Yet, you’ll still need to be able to know where you’re going, how long you have until the sun goes down, or comes up again, and when it’s the right time to start planting food or harvesting crops. The key to being able to do this lies in the stars above our heads but you can only unlock it if you know how to read the sky.

Finally, the last surprisingly useful skill is cooking. I’m not talking about being able to microwave popcorn here, I’m talking about being able to cook something hot and tasty from whatever ingredients you have to hand so I suppose this is really as much about food preparation as cooking itself. Nothing saps morale quicker than having to live off a monotonous diet of the same tasteless pre-packed food meal after meal, day after day, week after week (unless you’re a student who’s living off pot noodles because you’ve already blown all your money for the term on beer, in which case you’re probably already well adapted to this type of diet and it won’t really bother you).

Almost anything (even pot noodles and other pre-packed food) can be made to taste a lot better with a bit of thought and some culinary knowledge. This knowledge will also open up many food sources to you that you couldn’t successfully access without it. Think bird eggs in spring, pheasants in summer, rabbits in autumn and migrating salmon in winter. These are all things going to be out there, just waiting for you to come along and eat them but before you can, you’ll need to know what to do with them before you can turn them into something that’s both edible and, possibly more importantly, unlikely to poison you. Real cooking involves a knowledge not just of how to warm things up but also how to skin animals, gut fish, pluck birds, identify edible mushrooms and prepare all things vegetable. With a good cook on your side, you’ll be able to face the apocalypse with a full belly and a nice taste in your mouth, and you’ll feel so much better for it.

The thing all these skills have in common is that at first, they don’t seem like your traditional key post-apocalyptic survival skills but this is because they won’t necessarily help you survive in immediate aftermath of everything going horribly wrong. What you have to remember, though, is that the end of civilisation isn’t something the world will recover from in a matter of days or weeks. Rather it’s going to make months or years, and that’s if it even happens at all. These skills are the ones that will become ever more useful the longer you manage to survive. They’re the ones that have the potential to make your life in a post-apocalyptic world not only easier but much, much more bearable. Yet, they are also exactly the types of skills we’re likely to lose because, when planning their post-apocalyptic survival strategies, everyone only ever concentrates on short-term survival rather than what they’re going to do as days turn into weeks, then months, then years and they find that the world still hasn’t gone back to being the way it was before.




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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 the UK, and available as an ebook and in print in the US from the 21st March 2013. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more.