Power In Numbers

I had a friend mention to me an interesting fact that I figured would be appropriate to post. It has to do with the concept of why zombies always move in hordes. One of the scariest and most dangerous element of confronting a zombie is in large numbers. One or two zombies, even a small group aren’t that dangerous to your average person. They are easy enough to outrun, outmanoeuvre, or just plain kill when there are only a few. Things start to get dicey when the numbers start getting larger. Like anything there is power in numbers and it couldn’t be more true for zombies. No matter how prepared you are or how well equipped, if you run into enough zombies without a way to escape, you are pretty much toast.

So the real question is why do zombies move in hordes  It’s really one of the most basic concepts behind the zombie lore, but rarely if ever does it get explained, we just simply take it as fact and move on. It’s not like we can travel to a remote area and study zombies in their native environment to gain a better understanding. “Watch as the mother zombie shuffles it’s way through a field looking for brains to feed its young. The gait of the mother zombie is quite slow, but a zombie in it’s natural habitat has little to fear and is one of natures most dangerous predators” (I really hope you read that sentence in your best Australian accent)

So without any actual evidence to work from the best we can do is come up with our own theories and concepts. Zombies are reduced down to their primal instincts, they are driven by hunger and tend to hunt by sight, sound and smell. There isn’t a hell of alot of thought power going on besides, “What’s that noise? Can I eat it? I’m gonna try.” That’s it. So what does this have to do with why zombies end up roaming around together you ask. Allow me to explain.

Let’s start with a bunch of single zombie roaming around aimlessly. Not much of a threat just sort of shuffling around doing what zombies do. Now it won’t take long for one of those zombies to do something that will cause a loud noise. bumping into a car and setting off the alarm, knocking over a trash can, stepping on a cats tail, whatever. So this single zombie creates a noise loud enough that a few other zombies within ear shot come over to investigate. Now you have three zombies making noise. This means more car alarms, more trash cans, and more screeching cats. Which in turn means more noise to attract others that are in the area. It’s a chain reaction, as more zombies show up the noise gets louder which in turn attracts more zombies. I’m sure a few may wander away after a while, but they probably wouldn’t make it far before there was a large enough noise that would catch their attention and bring them back. So basically the theory is that zombie hordes are created because zombies by nature are noisy. Of course this is all conjecture but it seems like a sound enough theory and if it holds true, could give you a decent advantage if you ever found yourself trying to survive post apocalypse.