The Zombie Apocalypse, Part 10: Can you spare a square?
What to do when you can’t run for things when you run out of things ~
Jonathan Glazer, 11 March 2016
“Do we have any advil left?” Running out of stuff today is a minor inconvenience. I have been known to dash out of the house 3 or 4 different times over the course of a day to get forgotten, depleted or lost items needed right away. Fortunately for me, I live within 5 minutes of a couple of big box stores, not to mention a choice of super markets and major chain pharmacies. What happens when the lights are out, the undead roam the earth and every other person with a pulse is competing with you for everything? Your biggest problem won’t be sneaking 13 items in the 12-items-or-less aisle. Scrounging will be an extremely valuable skill in the days when there is no more civilization. Even the best prepper will forget something, not anticipate the need for something that becomes invaluable or just plain run out of necessary items. Perhaps a badger will sneak in your shed and eat your spare fuel line for your generator just before you need it most. Where do you get a new one?
Walmart may seem to have everything in stock now, but once all goes to hell in a handbasket, your neighbors will likely forget their manners and chaos will ensue. A day or so after the big one hits, shelves will be picked clean quickly. In the days before the last two hurricanes here in the Northeast, things like batteries, flashlights and generators disappeared. Even a heavy storm makes people buy eggs, milk and break like there is a French toast bakeoff the next day. Once it is clear there are no consequences, people stop waiting in line and just take what they need. There are videos of the stores in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina and they were enough to give any retail manager nightmares. The scenes in many zombie movies of survivors entering supermarkets to find what they needed are not likely to happen. Markets, big box stores and discount clubs will look like empty warehouses with scattered debris everywhere. The only exception might be if an armed group takes over one of these centers of consumerism as a means of safeguarding the contents and using them until the cavalry arrives. In that case, you are looking at a hell of a fight to gain entry and get your hands on some toilet paper and baby wipes.
The major power technology are crystals. Tiny crystals provide light and minor power. Major crystals which are almost impossible to create can power large airships. Envision wooden Man-O-War flying through the air with cannons and inefficient power lasers. Hand weapons are hand sized power crystals and sabers. There are strange creatures, rare and unbalanced magic users who understand how crystals work, and daring traders, naval fleets and privateers flying the skies.
Unless you are actually in the moment, you will have no way of knowing what our Incredible Hulk looks, sounds or smells like. Once you have been in a number of those situations, you begin to recognize the consistent patterns that are a part of this process. Seasoned combat veterans know what happens when the lead flies. Over time, they gain control over the chaos. Guys who have been in the field too long have been known to fall asleep during firefights. This is because adrenaline is like heroin in that we build up a tolerance to it. When you spend a lot of time in crisis mode drinking the hormone like Gatorade, it eventually has less of an impact. The result is Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now not even noticing mortar shells exploding nearby and ordering his men to surf amidst a hot combat operation.