Zombie Threat

Some players have been surprised in "Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead" that zombies can show up around their "safe" base that, in theory, had been cleared of all the local zombies.

The reasons for fashionably late zombies involve the RNG and the reality bubble; say a zombie falls off a building into a rose bush and thus dies. That's the RNG. This could happen near the player's base, but just outside the reality bubble, and so time only advances when the player wanders through where that dead zombie is, so therefore it may take a long time for the zombie's time to advance enough for it to undie. Months, perhaps. Or, the zombie could be stuck inside a room or somewhere Brownian motion will take it a long time to get out into line of sight of the player, especially if the reality bubble only brushes past it as the player goes hither and yon.

Where did that zombie come from? Experienced players will instead always carry a weapon or three so that if something problematic and evolved does show up, it can be dealt with. This is "black swan event" or "what's the worst that could happen?" territory that players (myself included) tend to get sloppy about—I mean, there hasn't been a zombie here for months, so the area is clear, right?—combined with another bad player habit of loading themselves up with too much loot, so when the zombie does show up they're in no shape to fight, having to first drop all those duffle and dive bags and not wearing any armor (it's summer, it's hot). Have a shotgun, at least?