Are You Prepared For The Zombie Apocalypse?

The practice portion of this is dead simple. Take opportunities to get yourself out in the woods or up in the mountains and do things like building fires, fishing, trapping food, shooting, cleaning and cooking bunnies, squirrels, gophers and lizards, setting up shelter and building your general survival skills. Just make sure you get at least a basic hunting license and make sure whatever you’re planning to bust a cap in is in season. You want to get good at surviving on your own, not get busted for poaching.

When you go out, there are a number of things you’re going to have to take into consideration. First and foremost is always safety. You’re not going to be any good at all to the survival of the human race and the crushing of the zombie uprising if you go out and get yourself killed now, are you?

When you go out, you need to make sure people know where you’re going to be and when to expect you back. Check your maps and make notes of grid coordinates or, if you can manage it, latitude and longitude. Give that information to someone who is supremely trustworthy along with an exact time at which they should start to worry. They should be instructed that they are to call emergency services and give your location to search and rescue if they haven’t heard from you by that time. Now here’s the kicker…it’s up to you to make absolutely positive that you contact them before the time expires. If you don’t they’re going to have the entire world out looking for you and you’re going to have some explaining to do.

You’re also going to have to make sure you take all of your first aid and safety gear with you. Yes, you’re going to have backup out in the real world but that’s not going to do you much good if you slice your arm open and are in the process of bleeding to death. Train as you fight because you WILL fight as you trained. Make sure you do it right when you’re out “camping”.

On to the camping portion of it. You need to make sure you select an appropriate site for your commune with nature. You’re not looking for any place completely inhospitable but you don’t want to be staying at the Howard Johnson’s either. You want to find THE place. The spot you’re going to head off to when the zombies are using your neighbor’s guts for double-dutch. The perfect spot would have a water supply close by but not so close that you’re constantly going to have to contend with bears and other predators who’ve stopped in for a sip. It will also be near some animal paths, if possible and have plenty in the way of natural resources, such as wood and edible vegetation (Remember when I told you to get a book about local plants? This is why.).

You do NOT want to try to set up your future home on the side of a hill or near any cliff faces, either at the top or the bottom, because you don’t want to fall or have rocks and debris falling on you. If you can find a nice, flat patch of earth with shade, trees, plants and a nearby stream or river, you’re golden!

Once you’ve selected your location, you’re going to want to set up camp. Again, do this the same way you plan on doing it after you’ve escaped from the zombies, with your life and unbitten. Get your basics under control – Water, Fire, Shelter, Security, Food. Keep practicing getting these things squared away until it’s second nature and you can do it without thinking. Set up, tear down, set up, tear down, rinse, repeat over and over. You want to be able to do this in your sleep, injured, frightened, stressed, hungry, bleeding, thirsty and in serious need of hanging a deuce.

Once you’ve gotten the set-up part down, you’ll need to work on resource gathering. Find sources of firewood, animal trails, alternate water sources, natural shelters, fallback points, lookout spots, etc…Work on building traps and snares, scout for hunting areas and locations for fishing and then do some hunting. Kill a rabbit or a squirrel or a fox or a snake…catch a fish. Clean and prepare your prize and have a hearty meal. Dig a latrine. Use it. Clean your gear and get a nap so you can start over the next day.

While you’re doing all of this, you want to use as few of your own resources as you can get away with. Remember; the idea here is to learn how to survive with very little and to get comfortable doing so. You’re not going to have much luck if you’re sitting on your duff drinking soda and eating store-bought steaks…all that’s going to do is make you comfortable which will lead to stupid mistakes and end up getting you and everyone you meet up with eaten or turned into maggoty sacks of bones and teeth, dead set on eating every human being that gets in their way and that’s not good, is it? No, it’s not, so don’t do it.

Speaking of the people you’ll be meeting up with, it’s a damned good idea to get your group together for these practice runs on a somewhat regular basis. We’re not talking weekly or even monthly but once a quarter may be a nice thing. If you go out with a group, each person will be assigned a set of tasks and you’ll all get things done much faster which means you can get to the fun part…CAMPING! Do a rotation and go through the set up and tear down a few times, allowing each person the opportunity to rotate through the roles of getting the camp set up, then go out and do some trapping, hunting and fishing, cook up some dinner and have a nice relaxing evening under the stars and away from the possibility of a dirty zombie menace.

For those of you who aren’t very well versed on survival techniques, here’s a link to one of many wilderness survival websites containing a wealth of information and knowledge designed to help you stay alive out in the wild.

Next up, how to do the killin’ and stay alive in the process!