Hassig

My new cre­ative exer­cise book instructed me to come up with a sur­vival guide for when the inevitable zom­bie infec­tion strikes. I fig­ured as long as I am com­ing up with it, I may as well share it just in case…

The Ulti­mate Zom­bie Sur­vival Guide:

First off, this is not a guide on how to be well liked or how to save the largest num­ber of peo­ple. This is a straight, self-survival guide. Select agile, intel­li­gent peo­ple to aid you in your sur­vival. Now is no time for com­pas­sion. If you and a few other peo­ple sur­vive then you can make more babies and you will even­tu­ally become the elderly.

Sec­ond, time is of the essence. At the very first signs of an out­break it is time to set the sur­vival plan in motion. Any time wasted greatly decreases your chance of your sur­vival. Quickly gather what­ever weapons you can muster. Guns are best. Shot­guns are the best choice if you’re not a marks­man. Semi-automatic guns are an excel­lent choice also. Blunt objects are a fair sub­sti­tu­tion. Sharp objects are bet­ter than noth­ing, but they have a ten­dency to get stuck… so keep that in mind.

Third, secure a vehi­cle. A large, pow­er­ful vehi­cle like a truck or an SUV would be handy in case you have to break through things or off-road. But if those are not avail­able, any vehi­cle will do.

Alright, now that you have secured weapons, a vehi­cle, and pos­si­ble a team to aid you, it is time to start the next phase of the plan. There is a bit of flex­i­bil­ity from here on out, but be sure and mind the main concepts.

If time allows, head to your near­est hard­ware store. You’re going to want to get ply­wood, 4x4’s, con­crete, rebar (if pos­si­ble), ect. Basi­cally, you need to gather sup­plies to prop­erly for­tify entrances. Nails, screws, tools, ect… as long as time allows you need to get as much as pos­si­ble. This is your one and only chance to gather most of these sup­plies. (as stated sev­eral times before… if you are run­ning low on time then move on, you do not want to be stuck in hard­ware store)

Now, head to the near­est Wal-Mart. If you find that you can not make it due to lack of time, over­run with zom­bies, or already over­run with peo­ple, a Sam’s / Costco will work. If those are not avail­able, a large gro­cery store or super­mar­ket will be your next choice. You want some­where that is easy to for­tify and full of sup­plies. Wal-mart is your best choice because it is full of food, weapons and ammo, med­i­cine, other sup­plies, and does not have many entrances. If you find your­self there late at night or after most peo­ple have evac­u­ated to their homes, con­sider your­self in luck. Few peo­ple in the store means your sup­plies will last sig­nif­i­cantly longer. Dri­ving a truck into the store can be help­ful incase you have to make a hasty exit.

Once you are in the store, begin to for­tify the entrances imme­di­ately. If peo­ple are there and want to leave, do not stop them. Fewer peo­ple, longer last­ing sup­plies. Begin assign­ing peo­ple to gather mate­ri­als and bar­ri­cade entrances. Use any mate­ri­als you hope­fully secured from a hard­ware store, shop­ping carts, shelv­ing, and any­thing else you can find. You need to make sure there is no gaps and that it will hold for a long time. You do not want any­one get­ting in or out. Dou­ble and triple, and even go around a 4^th time to make sure every entrance is bar­ri­caded. Check other peo­ples work and make sure every­thing is secure. On every entrance is secured, go ahead and add to the bar­ri­cades. Mak­ing sure noth­ing gets in is the high­est priority.

When you are finally sat­is­fied with the bar­ri­cades it is time to move on to set­ting up the store. Divide peo­ple into teams. First, gather ziplock bags and put all fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles into them and then into freez­ers. Use the camp­ing sup­plies to get up liv­ing and cook­ing areas (even if your store has a kitchen, set­ting up propane grills / cook tops will help if you lose power). Gather all the bat­ter­ies, flash­lights and other sim­i­lar items in a cen­tral loca­tion so you can find them quickly if you lose power. Also gather up all the weapons and ammo and have that ready to use.

Try to find safe access to the roof. This will give you a look at what is going on in the out­side world, fresh water, fresh sun­light and air, and a chance at being res­cued. Put out cups, tubs and basi­cally any­thing that can hold water out all over the roof. This is for if and when you loose run­ning water. Also, set up some writ­ing on the roof so air­planes or heli­copters will know that you are there.

If you were lucky enough to have a store that sells plants, take the plants and spread them all around the store. If you don’t have many peo­ple with you then you can be fairly relaxed about food. How­ever, if you have more than a very small num­ber of peo­ple you will need to ration food. You could be here a long time so there is no rea­son to run out of food. Eat items that will go bad first. Use fresh food and items with short expi­ra­tion dates. Save food that will stay pre­served a long time till you’re out of every­thing else.

Now comes the wait… see­ing as how this has never hap­pened before, there is no real way to know how long it will last. Peo­ple will get impa­tient. As their impa­tiences grows, so will there stu­pid­ity and des­per­a­tion. Try to head this off before it’s to late and you find some des­per­ate per­son tear­ing apart your block­ades from the inside in an attempt to get out at 3 in the morn­ing.  Try to keep spir­its up with music, games, and a gen­eral sense of good leadership.

Well good luck, and if any­thing ridicu­lously unlikely and bor­der­line impos­si­ble should hap­pen, you know where to find me.

- Jason

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