When I was little, I loved the book The Boxcar Children. I’m talking the original book here, not the 700 books that came later in the series, where they were solving mysteries and fighting Nazis and what have you.

There was something I just loved about these kids living in this boxcar, making a go of it. They’d scavenge things from the junkyard and modify them to make their life a little more comfortable. I remember how it blew my mind when they made a little refrigerator by putting their milk in a little cave under the creek. It was awesome. I loved it.

For me, the zombie apocalypse is like a modern day Boxcar Children. It’s the ultimate you’re-on-your-own scenario. It’s imagining how you could adapt things to a different use. How you could carve out your own little comfortable castle in the middle of the chaos. It’s the ultimate exercise in self-sufficiency.

In fact, I think they should redo the whole book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies style. The children hiding out in their boxcar while the zombies groan outside, scratching out a living until Mr. Henry comes and whisks them away to his island compound.

This would fit so perfectly, that I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t the original intention of the book. It was originally published in 1924, so zombie books probably weren’t quite so common back then. But even as a kid, I could read between the lines.

Boxcar fortress. Zombies. Think about it.