There comes a time in every young man’s life when he has to start planning for the future: what better way to avoid doing this than planning for the survival of a deadly plague of zombies?
Introducing The Three F’s: Flight, Fight and Fortify
Flight
If you find the city a bit constricting and over-crowded normally, it’s going to be a hell of a lot worse when it’s full of the undead…particularly the Scouse undead, who would probably be twice as loud as other zombies.
My first priority would be to flee: I’d steal a neighbour’s 4×4 (and someone who knew how to drive) ransack the Tesco on Smithdown Road (I feel like the Asda would be too crowded) and hit the road.
Vital supplies would include canned goods, Razzle and/or Club magazine, lots of paracetamol and as much hard liquor as I could carry. That and a few choice acoustic musical instruments for when I’m holed up and all the ‘leccy runs out – melodic, guitar, glockenspiel and if there was room, a didjiredoo.
Fight
It’s not like I’d go looking for a scrap with legions of the undead, but it would inevitably have to happen at some point.
Due to the relative unavailability of guns in the UK, my ideal weapon would be something that allows me to dismember my ghoulish foes without having to get too close and increase the risk of being bitten.
Therefore I would plump for either a burning mop, a weed killer spray full of sulphuric acid or one of those poles they used to open high windows in junior school, with the end made super sharp.
That and I’d take Balloons keysman Dave along: a Swiss-trained Super Soldier who could kill a man with his bare hands at 50 kilmometers…
Fortify
It’s a schoolboy error to think that one can survive a zombie apocalypse just by boarding yourself up in the nearest Costco: every zombie within 100 miles will be clamouring to get as well as marauding gangs of wankers intent on having off all your lovely supplies which will inevitably run out anyway.
Therefore I would flee to somewhere with good natural defences with the choice of hoarding stuff whilst learning to grow crops. My three choices:
1. Hillbre Island, West Kirkby
Protected by water half the day and easily fence-offable
2. Fort Perch Rock, New Brighton
It’s a f*cking fort for gawd’s sake!
3. some sort of Welsh mountain. With a perimeter established, it’d be a case of sitting back and watching the world go to shite. After a year or two most of the undead would have rotted away or gone to hassle someone else, and I could get to work writing page after page of tawdry erotic fiction to bequeath to post-apocalyptic survivors, Other activities would include origami, kite flying, and shouting obscenities through a megaphone at the corpuscular masses.
by Benjamin D. Duvall Ex Easter-Island Head & Balloons
First published in ye fabled debut issue of Uber zine Spring 2010. Uber zine – loved by neurosurgeons and feared by hipsters. Not for sale, not available anywhere.
Buy issues 2, 4 and 5: https://eightfold.myshopify.com/collections/all/zine