By Popular Demand: The Zombie Contingency Plan

my roommate has two of the strangest phobias i've ever encountered in a person.

#1. he's afraid of cotton balls. to the point that you can chase him around the house with them. god forbid we have to walk down the 'first aid' aisle in walgreen's. they're *everywhere*..

#2. he's terrified of zombies.

while i could see no way to help him through his cotton ball issue, i decided to tackle the latter. tried to get him to go see the remake of dawn of the dead. no dice. then shaun of the dead comes out, and i say "Hey! Here's the feelgood zombie musical we've all been waiting for!" since it was billed as a comedy, i managed to get him to go. and he lurrrved it. we've since seen it something like 8000 times.

for his birthday this year, i purchased for him max brook's Zombie Survival Guide. as a joke, only to find him studying it.

one night, over our traditional thursday night meal of half price pitchers at the Chalet, he says to me, "I have a plan." in the interest of public service, i now present to you: The Zombie Contingency Plan.

anyone familiar with Kellogg, the main thoroughfare of wichita? everywhere else in the world it's know as highway 54. and on both the east and west extremes are car lots. literally hundreds of car lots. we live behind one that sells, among other things, hummers. step one of this plan, when we first hear of the invasion of the undead into our fair city, we go boost a hummer. we could fight our way to that lot in perhaps five minutes. if we're at a dead-ass run (more likely), it's down to maybe one and a half. we boost the hummer. yes, they're dreadful oil-guzzling yuppie status-symbols, but they also are rather high off the ground, and that bumper at waist height on a zombie makes quick work of anything on the road.

step two: drive east a biscuit, and stop at Dick's Archery and Outdoor Sports Emporium. while we have a shotgun, and some assorted knives, we'll need something a little bigger. loot said store for weapons and water, and head back into the city (seems dangerous? you'll see..)

step three: we forcibly take over the 11 story old-folks home on Douglas (i forget the name). as old people are, by definition old, they are frail and easy to toss out windows, should they be all zombified. 11 story building stairwells can be plugged with furniture, and elevators can be locked down, providing us with a bird's eye view of downtown, main streets and highways. moreover, old people hoard things. it's weird but true. band-aids, food, clothing, medicine, and likely cotton balls. hopefully liquor and fruit as well. this building also has a flat roof, ideal for spelling out SOS messages high enough that low-flying planes might see.

seems like an okay plan? it gets a little better. he tells me all of this, and i realize that said old-folks-home-cum-impentrable-fortress is right across the street from the hospital. where they have a life flight chopper fueled and ready to fly anytime. provided no one has taken this already, there's a chance in hell we could make an escape, should help not arrive. i tell him this, and he points out that neither of us can fly a chopper. alas.

within a week, i find myself sharing a table in a coffee house with a pilot (Air Capital of the US, it was an odds-on favorite that i could find a pilot anywhere in this town). he gives me his card, and take it, and have to make a snap decision if i can really trust this man. seems i can, at least enough to save my own skin if necessary, and i say, let me buy your next drink as i have a favor to ask of you. i give him the plan, up to the point where we don't have the skills to fly a helicopter. i ask him, can you fly a helicopter? and he, blessedly says yes. he's in. it's just wierd enough to help me make friends, is the zombie contingency plan.

new pilot friend also adds to the plan. his suggestion is that we take the copter to KC, where we could potentially find a plane capable of flying intercontinental. which is to say, if we can't fly far enough in kansas to find safe haven, we at least have a way to get farther. moreover, with a commercial aircraft, suddenly there's the opportunity to take 200 some of my good friends with.

so we were thinking hawaii perhaps? we feel that an island is potentially more easily defensible, at least in the short term. also worth noting, it's paradise, and some of the finest pot in the world is grown in hawaii. we'd be able to farm and fish to feed ourselves, and we can actually dispense with shoes altogether and maybe spend the rest of our lives confined to our island (which we will be renaming Greater Seamanland), but not such a bad place to live and grow old.

there is a lot more fine detail that i've left out (f'rinstance, there's a particular type of knife you want for close-quarters combat), but the above is the gist of it.

so maybe we're crazy, but we're prepared. he has a shotgun, and i have the cell-phone number of a pilot programmed on speed dial, just in case.