As you can tell, the Zombiology
entries are hopefully used to dispel some myths for those who have not been
affected by this tragedy yet and get you adjusted to what you are dealing
with.
First, understand. Zombies do not
possess super strength. They are not stronger than they were in real life. If
you are imagining that these things have some sort of vampire strength, they
don’t. That is not to say that you are not going to come across some
weightlifter zombie in the future that has Olympic athlete strength. But near
as we can tell, these creatures are either as strong as they were in real life
or maybe less down the road when they begin to experience muscle deterioration.
Second: Hunting Techniques. Zoms seem
to hunt the same way we would – sight, sound, and smell. They don’t have some
sort of magical sixth sense where they can find life hidden in every rat hole. So
if you do your best to remain undetected, your odds increase tenfold. Which
means reduce your noise signature. Stay silent. If you have to get out,
camouflage is a big priority buy that I don’t mean throwing on a set of army
surplus duds and running around… unless you are talking about one of those
suits that snipers wear. Gilly suits? No, I mean hiding using physical objects
to mask your presence. But even then I wouldn’t trust that because we are not
certain how enhanced their sense of smell might be. And if they can sniff you
out, no amount of camo can save you. (Hey, we are learning here too.) I am not
terribly certain how to reduce your smell. I know dog do it by wallowing in
dead things. Cologne would clearly be the enemy. Screw it, just don’t go
outside…
But if you do have to venture out,
keep this in mind. What the zoms do
possess is a completely unnatural immunity to fatigue. They don’t seem to get
tired… ever. They don’t breathe heavy because they don’t breathe. They are
completely relentless. I would imagine that if you encased one in a
bullet-proof Plexiglas cube with fresh meat on the other side of the glass,
they would rail and smash against it from now until the rapture or until its
muscles simply rotted away.
What we do not know is how long it
takes for them to lose interest in you. For instance, you are running from a
zombie and get inside a house. You lock the door behind you. They cannot see
you. You are very quiet. And they cannot smell you because you get so far
inside. We do not know how long they will bang against the door to get at you.
For all we know, they will bang
against the door for eternity or until some other stimuli draws their attention
– such as another food source or the call of another zombie indicating another
potential food source. For all we know, they may just “power down” on your
front porch and wait for you to come back out.
We are still studying, learning. More
soon…
