Cory vs. ZOMBIES!!!

Most people have planned out their lives as far out as five, maybe even ten years: marriage, job, kids, divorce, booze, hookers, depression, and brazenly wrapping their car around a telephone pole in Tennessee (in that order). Hell, I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow and I’ve already forgotten what I did yesterday. I’ve noticed in the last year or so not only do people need to plan ahead for the twists and turns of typical suburbia or atypical backwater voodoo orgies, but most of the general population having sprouted from the 80’s has a Zombie Apocalypse Plan or Z.A.P., as I’ll henceforth claim as my personal acronym I totally came up with by myself.

Recently, I’ve had reoccurring dreams of impending zombies ambushing this great nation and it’s forced to make me pause and ponder what my Z.A.P. would be. However, I’m not going to tell you the in’s and out’s of my plan for survival. Why? Because, I’ve come to terms with the very reality of this very fictitious situation.

I, Cory Heiple, will not be surviving the zombie apocalypse. Here’s why:

1. I work in a hospital

My current place of pretending-to-do-stuff-for-a-steady-paycheck is at a hospital pouring overweight, senile patients into wheelchairs from the Middle Ages and hauling them to and fro around the hospital. In addition to that I move patients being admitted from the E.R. to their room. Where do you take someone who has just been bitten by their friendly neighborhood zombie? The ER. Where am I? Waiting to greet that newly zombified person. Holy hell, that fact alone will make me one of the first staggering around town with a look of “This fucking blows” on.

2. My apartment would suck as an anti-zombie fortress.

Take a gander at Mr. I-Am-Legend’s stronghold. He has steel-plate timed windows and doors. Awesome… I have giant window’s very much lacking in the steel department. He has a booby-trapped lawn with floodlights. Well, I’ll still have a “lawn” but no lights flooding it because I own zero generators. He has a fucking laboratory/basement/gas chamber/morgue/pet store! I have a very crotchety old man named Paul downstairs and he is, in my opinion, probably already one of “them.”

3. I rarely fill my gas tank past half full.

This one is pretty self explanatory: I’m a cheap ass, McChicken gobbling goon. I’m hard pressed to find a day that I actually shell out the sixty bucks it takes to fill my Jeep especially in this January Midwestern weather when my boogers freeze upon exiting my vehicle. What’s worst than that? Well, zombies, but after that not much else. A well fueled vehicle well be key in escaping a zombie laden city which, friends, I will sadly not have.

4. I think I’m a much better shot than I actually am.

OK, so I’ll be brutally honest here. Up until last year I thought I was one hell of a shot when it comes to a gun. I was raised a slayer of all furry critters so a shotgun is naturally the weapon of choice giving me the greatest edge over my unarmed prey, be it a deer, duck, pheasant, or ginger kid. Now what happened last December made me realize I won’t stand a chance when shit hits the proverbial fan. I was doing the traditional Elmer Fudd impression when a big ol’ buck comes hauling ass in my general direction. I fire all five shots at it and miss every single one. OK, whatever, it caught me by surprise and it was running fast enough to give the DeLorean a run for its money, but that’s not my biggest concern. After all five shots had been slung, the fucker stops twenty yards away from me and looks me dead in the eye with a. “Hey, fuck you pal! I’m runnin’ here…. Fuckin’ shootin’ shit at me,” look. I fumbled, shakily, trying to reload the shotgun so I could quickly end this jive ass deer’s life but dropped not one, but two shells in doing so and by the time I had reloaded he was long gone. I was so rattled by the opportunity to kill something harmless I couldn’t reload quickly enough. Why should my reaction be any different when the thing I’m shooting at is actually trying to gnaw on my tender face? Oh and a deer’s torso, yeah, 'tis a much larger target than a zombie’s head.

5. I honestly don’t know anyone badass enough to keep other people alive.

If you look at the Dawn of the Dead remake, Zombieland, and basically any zombie movie for that matter, what’s one thing they usually have in common? Other than zombies, dumbass. They have a honest to goodness, badass in the form of Ving Rhames or Woody Harrelson. Do you know a Ving Rhames or a Woody Harrelson? I didn’t think so. Neither do I.

Got all that? Let’s pretend that zombies are in our midst tomorrow and it all goes to hell very quickly. I’ll most likely be at work when this happens because that building owns ¾’s of my soul and I’m too lazy to fight back. Let’s say I make it out of there unscathed. Where do I go? I can’t go home; that place blows. I can barely drive anywhere potentially safe because I’d be lucky to have just recently filled the tank to the halfway line, which in my gas guzzling Jeep will get me, oh say, an hour or two’s solid cryfest away from the hospital. I could go find a gun, but hey, that’s probably just a security blanket more than a weapon. Who do I meet up with? No one, because everyone else will be brainlessly believing they are going to survive this shit storm out on top. Therefore, my Z.A.P. is to become a zombie as quickly as possible so I may bite, terrorize, and scare the ever-loving shit out of every one I’ve ever loved and cared about and those I can’t fucking stand. Good luck, suckers!