So I ran across this cool picture while…ahem…read Digg. Yes, I realize it’s become the breeding ground for people who want to jerk off to the smug self-superiority of hating republicans (not that they’re always wrong, but that’s another tangent), but boredom had won over my better reasoning. Anyway, there was this fantastic drawing of 4 kids defending themselves on a playground against a zombie horde of undead children:

Passing this on to my other zombie-phile (or more appropriately, phobe) he brought up a great question: Sure, we’ve all taken the “How many 5 year olds could you take in a fight?” quiz, but how many zombie 5 year olds do you think you could kick the crap out of?

Let’s make some basic assumptions. Let’s say you’re trapped in a general elementary school. You’ve got a relatively endless stream of zombies to fend against. They’re regular ol’ undead zombies, as opposed to 28 days later “rage infected”, so they’re rotting shambling corpses. That said, they’re 5 year olds, who are wont to bite, so you have a higher chance of being bitten and turned yourself. Still, they’re like any other undead zombie, i.e. slow witted, so you do have logic on your side. You yourself are an adult, but possess only make shift weapons from common objects around a school and can not lock yourself in any room for any long term defense (it’s “how many can you take?” not “how many can you avoid while being a giant pussy?”).

I figure my number to be about 22 before weariness and a lucky bite set in. First off, you have strength, at least for a while. I’m a man of decent build and run several times a week (gotta keep training for that eventual zombie apocalypse), so just utilizing basic hand to hand, I could fend off 4 or 5 of the little wieners. Kids don’t like getting kicked in the head, zombie or not. Don’t ask me how I know. Plus, you’ve got reach and height over them. With a good swing, you could knock 2 or 3 back at a time as well.

Bonjoooour, you brain eating surrender monkeys!

Weaponless and surrounded, I don’t care if they are 5, you’re going down fast. Your average janitor’s closet is a veritable “horn o’ plenty” for zombie slaying. Brooms and mops make great staffs for whackin’ a zombie in the noggin or just pushing them back. Plus, you can go all MacGuyver and start mixing chemicals to make your own molotovs (doubling for this are science labs). Bonus to that if your guidance counselor was a drunk like mine, you can probably find a pocket whiskey traveler in his office. His being a pedophile doesn’t help, though. Moving on, if your school was rich enough (and fuck you, by the way) you might have on staff groundskeepers, so chainsaws, hedgeclippers, hell even going “Dead Alive” on them with a lawn mower are all viable options, but as this is rare, we’ll consider these non-factors. More likely, you’ll have plenty of sports equipment in a gym, so bats and hockey sticks will suffice, maybe even the handle of a paper trimmer could be useful for hacking up some zombies.

Next is defense. Tight, narrow spaces are your friend, with easy escapes. Heavier desks could serve as good blockades along with bookshelves, staggering them to create small channels. Hockey gloves and football helmets could serve as makeshift armor, though in a pinch wrapping your arms in a towel is good against bites and scratching. Maybe even a strong fire hose could knock back a few swarming zombies. Fire escapes also make great getaways, but getting trapped on one is a sure way to get your brains gnawed on as well, so it’s a double edged sword.

Factoring maybe 7-10 zombies taken out with a molotov, a handful with a weapon as they start to trickle in and a few more before you’re overwhelmed, my guess between 20-25 seems about right. And if you think I’m crazy for planning this all through, you need to read up on stories like this. Let’s just hope recently inaugurated President Obama can institute a “No Zombie Left Alive” Act soon.

Come up with better ideas? Leave us some comments and tell us what you’d do.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 10:04 pm and is filed under headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.