What will happen when Zombies dominate the Earth?

What will the world look like after a Class 4 outbreak of the Solanum virus? It will lead to the destruction of civilization as we know it. But what happens to the rest of the earth? The balance of nature will shift and the world will turn to chaos.

Infrastructure

The structures made by humankind cannot last forever. Everything build by the human hand or machine requires regular maintenance in order to remain intact. After the Zombie Apocalypse there will not be many humans left to take care of these structures and they will decay.

The first thing to destroy the structures are the Zombies themselves as they work their way though houses, cars, etc to hunt down survivors. The structures will also be greatly destroyed by the military who will be the first to fight off the zombie hordes. In times of war a lot of buildings will be destroyed. This could be done by bullet holes to bombing an entire city.

The remaining buildings will be taken back by the forces of nature, eventually. This will either be done by weather, rain, snow, wind, temperature or plants and trees will attack the houses as well ass bacteria and fungi.

Water has the greatest power, especially against wooden houses. The moist wood will quickly build up mold and fungi and leads to the house rotting away. It will corrode metal by oxidizing metal and producing rust. This will eventually lead to the collapse of building. Floodings may also occur taking everything with it leaving nothing but destruction. Water can also freeze in between cracks, which will cause the water to expand and create even bigger gaps. This will weaken support for buildings or damage roads. Plants also have the capabilities to bring down a building. Vines can grow through cracks making them bigger or sprouting seedlings in tiny openings cracking everything open.

Concrete structures will take the longest for nature to take back. These buildings will take the longest to degrade in very warm or cold climates. The warm climates have slow natural degradation and in very cold and frozen places, walls could be covered in ice, protecting them from decaying. 

It takes around three to five years for a Zombie to completely rot away. Buildings on the other hand can last for hundreds of years. Therefore, survivors will have many buildings in which they can live after the Apocalypse and will then be able to rebuild the empty world.

Animals

Humans have had a big influence on the environment and wildlife, Zombies will probably have a much bigger impact on the world as we know it. After towns and cities are infected, Zombies will spread into the wild hunting down and, if they catch, animals and wildlife. Millions of undead will start stumbling after rabbits, dogs, birds, cats etc.

All animals will likely be able to sense the Solanum virus and will try to flee from it. They will only fight the Zombies when they are driven into a corner or when trying to protect their young. This will also have a great impact on their breeding and migration pattern causing the population of animals to decrease.

The greatest disadvantage of the wildlife is that the Zombies have ‘infinite’ stamina. They will never give up chasing an animal, even though most animals are faster than humans, they will get exhausted. This technique has been used by wolves for centuries.

Animals will turn into zombies when infected. If an animal is bitten or otherwise infected, it will die and nothing else. This will make Zombies a hard target for animals to kill, even for predators. If a predator bites and kills a Zombie, the infected blood will most likely be ingested and the predator will still die. For this reason it is almost impossible for a animal to successfully kill a Zombie and live.

The only animals benefiting from a Zombie apocalypse are scavengers. Vultures, craws and flies will have a never ending stream of food available from humans and animals corpses. After a Zombie really dies when shot in the head, the Solanum virus will become inactive and the corpses will become normal corpes which are decomposing and thus the scavengers will feast on them.

The Walking Dead will decrease the wildlife population greatly and some will go extinct. Not only from being hunted, but also the food chain will be interrupted causing some animals to not have food to eat. They species to survive are microbes and small insects, but also sub-terrain animals, birds and animals who live in trees.

Oceans 

One of the least affected areas of the world would be the oceans even though the zombies do not require oxygen in order to stay ‘alive’. They can walk into water without drowning and in this way they can cross rivers and lakes. That, however, is likely their only advantage in water.

Zombies can walk into the oceans like they can walk to any other place, but their impact in the water is small. Fish will think twice before coming close to a Zombie, and Zombies are way to slow in the water to actually catch one. The coordination of a Zombie is already very bad on land, so when in the water they pose no real threat to swimming creatures. Their eyes will also suffer greatly and they will not be able to see clearly. Their senses of smell and hearing are almost useless under water. Their only threat would be blood traveling through water, but this threat is fairly small, because it will dissolve fairly easy and the Solanum virus cannot live long without a host.

Zombies are immune to the corrosion of salt water, but not the other powers of the ocean. Most ocean water is cold, straining their muscles making their restricted movements even more restricted. If they get to water that is too deep they will be pinned to the ocean floor or they will be crushed by the water. This will make sure no Zombie will be able to cross from a great land mass to a island far off. Zombies wearing life jackets DO have the ability to cross large areas of water, so don’t think you are 100% safe when you are on an island.

While coastal sea life would be damaged from zombies, most of the ocean would actually benefit from a zombie apocalypse. The human population now is eating so much fish some species almost threatened to go extinct. With a Zombie Apocalypse the human population will decrease drastically and the fish will be able to reproduce freely.

Fleeing to the water for protection would be safe place to go. Fish will be abundant and you will have to deal with less undead. Be careful for where you lay out your anchor, because zombies will be able to follow a line to a ship.

I hope you enjoyed this post and as always: Support me by liking me on Facebook, let me know what you think in the comments & happy surviving!