How long do you guys think a zombie apocalypse would last?

Seems like the zombies would decay after a while. If they are out in the sun all the time, getting rained on and such, the rotting flesh would be exposed to the environment quite a bit. How long does a normal body take to decompose? I would think a zombie apocalypse couldn't last more than a year, probably much less.

Even after the flesh decomposes, if the skeletons were still moving around, I suppose it would turn into a skeleton apocalypse. But even the bones would break down after a while. Muscles and such are needed to prevent bones and joints from being damaged. Once the zombie flesh is gone, there isn't much to cussion the bones from jarring impacts when walking around, or banging fists on doors and such.

So if there is a zombie apocalypse, how long do we have to hide out in the woods or in our underground bunkers?

What kind of zombies? Voodoo zombies? Daemonic zombies? Sci-fi virus zombies? Parasitic zombies?

If they're magical or demonic, then it could last forever (a wizard did it).
If they're grounded in science, then it would depend on their diet ;)

The modern take on the zombie apocalypse (ala 28 days later, Left 4 dead) seems to be essentially an extreme form of rabies in humans.

Assuming this kind of zombie, it would depend on pretty much the same factors that affect any contagious disease:

Population susceptibility: what percentage of the population is naturally immune?
Transmission medium: airborne, skin contact, bodily fluids (bites?)
Mortality rate: how quickly do zombies die?

Then you have factors which are external to the disease itself, such as populations density at outbreak point, travel patterns of "patient zero" and so on.

Given the similarity to an actual disease, governments have actually issued joke press releases about zombie pandemic plans as a ruse to get people thinking about the spread of real diseases.

Even in absence of magic, you're not guaranteed that zombies won't live forever.

In the "Resident Evil: Extinction" movie, one of the scientists reports to that secret world ruling conspiracy group (Umbrella supervisory board??) that other than expected, T-virus infected can apparently live for literally decades, possibly forever, without food or water. Which is why they need to find a cure, as the situation will not solve itself by waiting.

(Though, if you're talking about a real zombie, i.e. a tetrodoxin-paralyzed, buried, and dug-up-again human, obviously the zombie is not a living dead, but a plain normal human.)

This sounds like a job for SCIENCE!

As long as there are fresh, juicy, brains left.

I was always confused about why zombies don't attack each other ever. Specifically when people first get infected. You see a zombie horde mass over a person eating them, and then that person comes back later as a zombie. Why would the zombies not just eat all of them? What makes them suddenly stop?

Even after the flesh decomposes, if the skeletons were still moving around, I suppose it would turn into a skeleton apocalypse. But even the bones would break down after a while. Muscles and such are needed to prevent bones and joints from being damaged. Once the zombie flesh is gone, there isn't much to cussion the bones from jarring impacts when walking around, or banging fists on doors and such.

Muscles are also needed to move the organism, so the skeletons would probably lie completely still, not posing much of a threat besides being obstacles one could stumble across.

I was always confused about why zombies don't attack each other ever. Specifically when people first get infected. You see a zombie horde mass over a person eating them, and then that person comes back later as a zombie. Why would the zombies not just eat all of them? What makes them suddenly stop?

IIRC in the first resident evil move, the red queen explains that the zombies can smell infection and avoid eating that sort of stuff.

Me and my wife look for a proper place to settle down these days. I always argue for good vantage points in the case of a zombie apocalypse. Walls surrounding the lot as well as a 2nd floor are big pluses, while swimming pools would probably just get the infected in a pool party mood, which I'd rather avoid...
For now she doesn't care much for a zombie apocalypse, but it's nice to be prepared, right?

I've never really understood how a zombie apocalypse could happen given that their food source is also their source of new recruits. That said, I think that the movie Fido offers the most realistic view of zombie apocalypse--if you haven't seen it, you should.

I'm all for the zombie apocalypse. I could use more practice with moving targets.



What?