By Claire McCullough
Zombies have become widely known in international pop culture and have been published in what almost seems like every form of media. Zombies’ prevalence in media has led to many people strategizing and adopting their own Zombie apocalypse plans including students here at McPherson College. The students interviewed show a variety of forms these plans can take on in hopes of survival.
Grant Harned, an environmental stewardship major, plans to go to his old home, which has 300 hundred acres of land out in the country, and live what Harned calls “the homestead lifestyle”. Harned states “I would try to avoid highly populated areas, because out in the country there’s not many people close in person”. Harned believes his skills, some from his background and others he learned at the college, would help him out in a zombie apocalypse situation. “I know how to take care of plants. I know how to raise livestock. I build things. I know how to hunt. I would know how to survive without technology”. His immediate family, his girlfriend, and possibly a couple friends is all the company Harned would plan on taking. If zombies ever did attack the property, Harned’s family has firearms they could use to take their “last stand”.
Keirstyn Gilbert’s plan also involves some form of isolation. Her plan is to go to her home in Salina, KS to get her parents’ gun. Afterwards, Gilbert would hijack a Dollar Tree or Dollar General and barricade all entries into the store. Gilbert elaborates on her reasoning for choosing one of these stores, “Because if you went to like Walmart, or something like that it’s going to be a highly populated area. And I feel like no one would really think of a Dollar Tree or Dollar General to go to first.” The next and most lengthy part of Gilbert’s plan involves staying in the store for the next 5 years. By that point Gilbert hopes that a cure will have been made, and she estimates the store would have enough for her and possibly her family, unless they refused to go with her or had a better plan for 5 years.
While many have plans in case of a zombie apocalypse, no one can ever be fully certain about the future and how these plans might turn out in reality. All anyone can really do is wish for the best, and if put in grim situations, hope to get out the other side mostly unscathed. As Harned said, “that is my plan, but I hope I never have to use it. I hope that never happens”
