Salt Lake City
I think 80 percent of Utahns have weapons buried in the back yard and stockpiles of food in the house. The state even has a giant granite mountain panic room. Add to that a population of Eagle Scouts and a wicked army of stay at home moms and you have, bar none, the safest place in the country if the world is overrun with ravaging bands of mindless monsters.
Chapel Hill
A well-intentioned group of YA authors, Salinger experts and academics attempt to understand the zombies and open a dialog. This would of course yield devastating results except that you are still in North Carolina so, like, the cavalry’s coming, baby. You’ll be ok.
New Orleans
This all looks familiar to long-time residents. They call the zombies “brownie” and have zero illusion that emergency services will assist. But with enough bourbon, anything is possible. Zombie killing becomes a public attraction and the music…wow.
Phoenix
If we’re lucky the outbreak happens in July. Nobody wants to go to Phoenix in July. Not even zombies. This will be the first quarantine zone. Half of all refugees will die of heat exhaustion and thousands more from malaise when they realize they’re stuck in Phoenix.
San Francisco
The zombie influx will be slowed by Calofornia’s we-think-we’re-a-country border inspections and its crumbling infrastructure. This will buy time for your 16 million overpaid engineers. Within days San Franciscans will be tracking migrations with a mobile app and hailing uber-fighters with a single tap. Also, all the signs warning that consumption of raw brains is known to the state of California to be detrimental to your health may have some positive impact.
New York
Destruction spreads slowly but consistently in New York primarily because nobody seems to notice. Attempts to rebuff zombies with an angry “I’m waking here” prove surprisingly effective for a while but eventually fail. Tourists also provide a convenient buffer to hungry hordes.
Portland
Assuming there’s a vaccine to stop the zombie spread, Portland is screwed. They’ll be smearing coconut oil on Tommy’s forehead while he actively consumes Jenny’s brain. When it comes time to vacate, nobody knows how to pump their own gas which will seriously slow things down. On the bright side with their worst-in-the-nation dental health Portland zombies may have trouble penetrating all those thick skulls.
Archived Post
This post is archived from my account on li.st, a social media app that shut down in 2017. Some posts have been edited slightly to fix typographical errors and correctly represent the gender of some individuals. You can view the full archive here.