Among all of the monsters present in horror stories, I think zombies have to be the least scary ones. They have nothing on humans. They’re usually portrayed as slow, they’re dumb, and they’re quite literally decaying bodies. 

Realistically, a zombie apocalypse probably wouldn’t even last long enough to kill most of the Earth’s population, as depicted in movies. Again, zombies as we imagine them are just corpses that can still move around, and decomposition begins immediately after death, where cells begin eating themselves from the inside out due to lack of oxygen. 

Additionally, rigor mortis, which causes muscle stiffening, sets in very quickly, which is likely why zombies are often portrayed as slow, less mobile creatures. Finally, about a month after death, nails and teeth start falling out, and the body literally starts to liquify. (I must say, the research I had to do to get this information made me profoundly uncomfortable.)

Furthermore, if zombies were to crawl out of the ground tomorrow, they would likely all be decomposed and unable to do further damage by April. 

I think the reason zombies in movies are so much harder to defeat is because the main characters always make the stupid decision to go out and try to kill all the zombies and save the world. Realistically, if there was a zombie apocalypse, I probably would just not leave my house. They can’t get me when I’m inside the comfort of my own home. 

Since their brains don’t work, they don’t have the capacity to learn to open a door, let alone a door that’s deadbolted shut. The biggest concern here would be if there were, say, 200 zombies all trying to get into my house. In that case, they could probably break the door down, or knock a window out of its frame, but like I said, they don’t have working minds. They would never be able to understand the concept of teamwork, so it’s still unlikely for them to figure out a way in, especially if you barricade yourself in by blocking all windows and doors. 

Another benefit of staying home is that you have almost anything you would need to survive. You’d have food, power, working pipes, and a bunch of stuff to keep you from going insane due to boredom. Not to mention there are so many useful household items that could be extremely helpful if a zombie did somehow get into your house. 

It takes three to eight weeks for a human to starve to death assuming they have water anyway, and with the availability of tap water and other drinks laying around the house, you’ll be fine. And I hate to say it, but in a zombie apocalypse you need to be prepared to drink your own waste if it means survival. Taking all these drink options into consideration, you will be well off for a short while if you ration out the food you have. 

And if you do stupidly decide to leave your house in the event of a zombie apocalypse, you could easily outrun and take out a few zombies if you’re in a car. Think about how easy it would be to drive to a remote location in the middle of nowhere. If there’s no humans there, there probably wouldn’t be zombies there either since the zombies would be after humans. 

Depending on where you end up when you’re driving away from zombies, there may be even more survival resources in nature. You can eat animals, find fresh water in ponds and trees, and there could be plenty of places to go if zombies do show up. 

Plus, there are way too many crazy people who have been planning for a zombie apocalypse for years for a zombie apocalypse to wipe out the population. People have bunkers with gallons  of water and plenty of non-perishable food stowed away for when the time comes. 

There are also plenty of ways to deal with zombies as a society. With the advancement of the military’s power, we likely have enough heavy machinery to take out most of the zombies pretty quickly. If we throw in some tanks and machine guns, we’re probably set. 

Of course, there’s no way to tell if any of this is how it would actually be in this kind of situation. We have no knowledge on how the zombies would actually manifest themselves, and if it’s nothing like the movies, there’s no telling what the outcome would be. All I’m saying is that if you prioritize survival rather than heroism and cinema, you’re so much more likely to survive in this kind of life or death situation.