Samurismallz wrote on Jul 1
st, 2011 at 9:44am:
You really are a big pessimist. Every time we come up with a good idea you shoot it down. The zombie plague would kinda have to spread person to person, or maybe in the water. Once you know that, everyone in the country with a well is safe. They would provide the manpower to resist the zombies.
Sure, I may be a pessimist, but I also like to think I'm rational. There are ideas in this world that just won't work. How would you like to be the last man on earth, geared up to execute a foolish, half thought-out, under-engineered plan only to have it blow up in your face, in the process eradicating any hope for humanity? Anyway, I only rose to the challenge presented.
Okay, say you're right, say the virus is spread person to person and by water. Heck, say it originates in the deepest darkest regions of Africa. Eventually, some person carrying the plague, but not yet having presented symptoms will get out and when he does turn, he will be with other people. Say he infects three people before he dies, and those three infect three. Panic will ensue, and people are going to flee the area. The process continues until the continent is near uninhabitable and people will flee to other, perceived safer landmasses. It's likely that at least one carrier will make it across the ocean and turn on North American soil (and others will likely reach other continents). Airports and harbors are usually located in or near cities. So if he turns and infects three city folk before he is destroyed and they infect three, eventually the city will be half-infected and again, people will panic and run. Most likely more than one carrier will escape. They will spread to other cities (maybe they were running to relatives in another town or they heard that somewhere else was safe). They will turn and infect more people, the cycle will continue, and eventually all but the most isolated and defensible locations will be infected and/or overrun.
Say farmer Josephus has a well and a rifle with stockpiled ammunition and supplies to last him until kingdom come. In the beginning, he will be doing just fine; holed up his farmhouse, picking off the occasional infected who comes his way. Say he is lucky enough to avoid being in the path of a large horde of beasties, and so he persists, while lesser men are devoured and all of the communities for miles in all directions are infected and zombified. Once the zeds have exhausted their food elsewhere, they will eventually stumble upon the abode of poor Josephus. In large numbers they assemble and surround the dwelling, drawn by the ravenous moans of their fellow infected. Josephus, not being an engineer, never constructed a system of pipes from his outdoor well into his humble residence. He promptly perishes from lack of water. Or, if by providence, he had the foresight to stock enough water inside to keep him hydrated until the end of time, eventually, his rifle will prove ineffective against the numbers that face him, and its futile report will serve only to draw more of the sorry stricken to its location. In due time, the malicious meat puppets will congregate in sufficient numbers to either rend the door from its hinges, or given the proper circumstances, drive our poor agriculturalist out of his tree, resulting in a straight-forward suicide, or a much more interesting and unpredictable chain of events that will lead eventually to an untimely death. Either way, poor Josephus had himself a well, but still ended up little more than sun-baked road kill himself.