We’ve talked quite a bit about zombie survival. You know, how to keep zombies from invading your settlement, how to keep zombies from chasing you down and eating you, and how to toss those really annoying people who just won’t quit whining over the wall into the zombie encampment. (Well, maybe not that last one. But you know you thought about it.)
But what if the zombie is someone who’s close to you? Maybe someone who’s part of your survival group? Or—gasp—someone who’s part of your family?
And not the annoying great-aunt who gives you tacky reindeer sweaters at Christmas and force-feeds you fruitcake after kissing you while making fishy lips, either. No, we’re talking close relatives here. You know, your mom or dad (if you’re on speaking terms with them), your sibling (ditto), your spouse, or your kids. And what about your best friend? Having your best friend try to attack you and make you lunch just might be worse than watching your mother turn into a brain-eating undead humanoid.
Don’t get me wrong, having your mother turn into a zombie can also be pretty bad.
Especially if you’re a kid. Like this little girl here, who wakes up one morning to find that zombies have invaded her town. And instead of making her breakfast, her mother is now trying to have her for breakfast. (Crappy, that.)
Anyway. So if the zombie virus breaches your inner circle and takes over your mom, what do you do?
First of all, let me remind you that the zombie now trying to eat you is no longer your mother (or your friend/spouse/whatever). They are now a zombie. And they will eat you for lunch (I hear your brain is a delicacy). And then they will infect you. Then you will be running around trying to eat your kids.
I don’t know you about you, but that actually sounds pretty terrible. So let’s try to avoid that fate, shall we?
The name of the game is, of course, survival. That hasn’t changed, even though the mother who clothed you, bathed you, and grounded you for weeks is now chasing after you because you look like a tasty snack (not because she’s making you change your clothes). And it might be tough, but you’ve got to detach yourself emotionally from the person barreling toward you. Remember: she is a zombie, who just happens to inhabit your mother’s body. She is not your mother—your mother died when she was eaten by that other zombie (who may or may not have been your father). She will try to eat—and infect—you. She will not try to protect you.
(Repeat after me: She is not my mother, she is not my mother, she is not my mother.)
Obviously, the ideal thing to do here would be to kill this zombie like all the others. But since this particular zombie had its start as your mother (or friend, or spouse, or whatever), that might be a little difficult to do. All those pesky memories and stuff. So do the next best thing, under the circumstances: run.
Run like the hounds of hell are chasing you (because they kinda are). Oh, and, get someone else to kill the zombie.
Because I’m sorry to say, it still has to die.
It’ll (hopefully) be better if you have a plan in place for just this sort of scenario. After all, you’ve got a survival plan for everything else, right? If there are zombies in your post-apocalyptic world, having a loved one go zombie is a very real possibility. So it’s best to be prepared.
I recommend having a living will of sorts.
Only instead of telling people when to pull the plug, it will tell people when it’s time to kill you.
(As morbid as that sounds, remember that they won’t really be killing you, they’ll be killing the zombie that was you.) And feel free to get creative with the method. Do you want to be shot? Ripped apart? Drawn and quartered? Killed in whatever way saves the most people? The possibilities are endless (on paper).
The living will idea will probably only work if the rest of your survival group agrees to it. It will only work for certain if your survival group actually follows it.
I also recommend zombie attack training. You and your fellow survivors will have to learn the quickest and most effective ways to kill a zombie. You’ll need to make sure everyone in your survival group gets this training—including the children. Because what if your spouse turns into a zombie and is now trying to eat you—and your seven year old child? That seven year old still needs to know how to kill zombies, just like everyone else in the group. (Though it’s going to be a lot harder for kids to kill their parents. Well, in theory, anyway.)
Would my kids be taught to kill zombies on sight? Oh yes, they would. Even if that zombie looks like me or my husband. It’s all about survival, people.
Of course, the best way to survive a zombie attack is to not get one in the first place. So have a contingency plan in place, but don’t get complacent.
Watch out for those zombies!
I think giving each member of the group a designated ‘zombie buddy’ is the way forward. Your zombie buddy is the person you are in charge of killing if they happen to turn. Make sure there’s as little emotional attachment between you and your zombie buddy as possible and you’re good to go 🙂
My mom dead already she died when I was 8