I think all of life seems to have an
inherent need to congregate. Humans obviously gather together. Fish have
schools. Birds have flocks. Lions have prides. I saw an Internet posting one
time that asked why a group of squids are not called a squad. I thought that
was pretty darn funny. Well, apparently, the need to stick together as a group
seems to carry over to the undead.
We saw a very large shamble of zombies
staggering and stammering along Highway 82 late this morning. For a reason that
they cannot explain, this shuffling horde came in from the north along Highway
82 and then turned on Highway 28 to head towards Adair. We do not know where
this group came from. I supposed it could have been a horde from Vinita. Afton
maybe? They could have staggered in from Miami way up in the northeast corner
of the state. Perhaps they are a collection of “city zombies” that decided to
migrate on after the food sources ran out.
Thankfully, the majority of the horde
just shambled on past. There was a few that staggering into the parking lot
looking for potential food but we just stayed buttoned up and quiet. This does
kind of smash the theory that zoms seem to have some sort of ESP when it comes
to tracking down living humans.
Keep in mind that we were also on the
roof, out of sight or deep inside the store. They did not seem to be able to
smell us or deduce that we were inside. They just are not that smart. Still, I
would not want to run into a pack of these things out in the open. But how
smart are they?
For instance, say you are out in the
woods and you stumble into a small grouping of these things. Through some
miracle, you are packing around one of those ghillie suits like snipers wear
but it is in your backpack. You climb a tree to escape. So now all the zoms are
clustered around, arms stretched out towards you but they are not smart enough
to climb the tree.
You then put on the camouflage suit
and blend into the tree. Are zoms like babies and you can play peekaboo with
them? By putting on the suit, do you disappear off their radar provided they go
long enough without being able to smell you, hear you, or touch you? I mean, in
that walnut sized brain, if you hide from zoms in a building, they may think
that you went out the back or found some other mode of escape. But could you
just hide in a tree and get away with it?
I am interested but not interested
enough to try it. If we start venturing outside, will we start finding corpses
in places where the zoms just waited them out until they died of thirst?
We may never know. But I guess the
larger, more looming question is: Who was leading that shambling horde? Why did
they turn towards Adair instead of heading to Spavinaw? Do they have an Alpha
Male leading the horde and if so, what does it take to qualify as an Alpha
Zombie?
