Zombies

Belladonna gave me a quick tutorial on Zombies as I drove her back to school.

I still have many questions:

•  With no active immune system, why don’t they bloat like a road-killed deer or raccoon?
• Without an active immune system, how is it that they don’t rot like a freezer full of beef during a power outage?  They should be disintegrating after three days.
• Since they are cold blooded, they should freeze solid in the winter. Why can’t the survivors find them and delimb them as easily as breaking icicles off the eves of a house?
• Why are there so many of them?  They should be dying off like flies.
• Why are they so motivated?  Most of them would not have walked half a block for 40 ounces of Colt 45…After the virus, you can shoot off their legs and they will still drag themselves forward on broken arms.
• If the zombie virus or prion actually exists, can it be attenuated?  Freedom from adventitious infections and enhanced motivation are handy things to have.  It would likely become a mandatory inoculation for kids entering 6^th grade.
• If they are drawn to light, then how come all of the zombies on the east coast did not walked into the Atlantic ocean at dawn.  Same question for the west coast and the Pacific ocean at sunset.
• If their brains are not functioning, then why do you have to shoot them in the head to kill them?
• How is it possible for the zombie virus or prion to act so quickly?

In trade for her tutorial, I gave her quick lessons on

• Honey traps
• Fire sacks
• The benefits of firing upon enfilade targets
• The advantages of firing from an elevated position
• Typical patterns of travel (by wildlife) in eroded landscapes

The topography around lakes and major valleys is often a pattern of fingers of high land projecting out into the floodplains.  Those fingers of high land have a strong influence on the patterns of animal movement.

The most heavily traveled trails are at along the finger tips of the high land and along the top of the plateau parallel to the lake,  i.e. along the knuckles.

There are relatively few trails connecting the two major trails.  The connecting trails tend to be along the most gentle gradients that connect the two.  All animals must respect the laws of thermodynamics.  Energy must be conserved.

Stars are positions where non-zoombies are safe from discovery and are in near-optimal shooting positions for zoombies along the lake and traveling the minor path.  The star in the lower left position is in the optimum position for enfilade targets.  They should have the most firepower.  Opening fire from the right side will expose the zombies to enfilade fire from the lower, left star.

A fire (yellow circle with asterix) is the honey pot.  One of the elegant things about this set-up is that the light will attract the must vulnerable zombies, the ones from lower elevations.  The light is masked from the zombies traveling on the plateau.

I expect her to roll up the zombies the next time she plays Call of Duty.  I expect a report.