The Squawking Dead: How to Survive The Walking Dead Apocalypse

AMC’s hit show, The Walking Dead, follows former sheriff Rick Grimes and his group as they fight to survive in a post apocalyptic world filled with zombies, or as they’re known in the show: walkers. The show is based on Robert Kirkman’s comic series, which has been made into several TV series and games, all of which have gained a large following. In my periodical (which I have oh so cleverly titled “The Squawking Dead”), I hope to talk about the show, games, and characters in this universe. In my first installment, I’ll be giving you a quick guide on how to survive if this apocalypse were to become reality.

Firstly, you have to know your enemy, so I’ve made a list of the things that make walkers unique, both good and bad. Even though they might look human, they can’t really think about much. They’re very slow and dumb, which means outsmarting them will be easy. And as the characters in The Walking Dead TV series have done many times, you can trick them by covering yourself in walker guts, essentially masking yourself in their scent, and walk past them undetected. Also, if you do end up needing to kill one, all it takes is a hit or two to the brain, as that’s what’s keeping them “alive”. However, they aren’t so easy to deal with when they’re in groups. They often group together, and migrate in large herds that can prove to be quite problematic and have caused many issues for characters in the show. Another thing that makes them dangerous is that they can survive underwater without air. So if you ever had a fear of a hand reaching up and pulling you underwater, that would be a definite possibility.

Secondly, there are some supplies you are going to need if you plan to stand any chance in the apocalypse. The obvious requirements include nonperishable food, clean water, and weapons. The best way to get the first two would be to find canned food and bottled water in some sort of abandoned store or home. However, if you can’t do that, growing your own food and collecting rain water are also options. As for weapons, they would be pretty plentiful with all the cannibalistic dead people walking around, so the question of which weapon to use is more important than where to find them. While guns are fine, they make a lot of noise, which draws walkers. A better alternative would be a bow or crossbow. This would also be the better option if you’re looking to conserve ammo. Another very good option is a blunt weapon. Something similar to the iconic “Lucille” in the show (which is a bat wrapped in barbed wire) would be a great choice. It could also be a good idea to wear body armor, seeing as the more protected your body is, the less likely you are to get bitten.

All this considered, you must factor in that over time many supplies would go bad. Once enough time passes, batteries would stop working, food would go bad, and gasoline would be unusable. Diseases would also be much worse since access to proper medicine may or may not be available, and doctors would be scarce. Even the flu, which you can get vaccinated for now, could quickly turn fatal. Although supplies would become more and more scarce, time passing is not all bad. After an amount of time unknown as of yet in The Walking Dead community, the walkers will all eventually starve to death and decompose. What this means is that, the more time passes in this apocalypse, the harder scavenging will get, but the less walkers there will be.

As far as where you should relocate to, typically some place rural is going to be a safer bet than in a city. The higher the population was before the apocalypse, the more zombies there will be wandering around. It would be good to get to an island (if said island has a source of freshwater) , into the mountains, or any other difficult to access place. This would make it harder for both the dead and the living with bad intentions to sneak up on you. A fence or moat could also help fortify your base of operations. A moat would be effective because while walkers can sort of swim, they’re most likely going to get stuck in any water that is not shallow.

These are all of my basic tips on how to survive The Walking Dead apocalypse. You must know how to deal with walkers, get weapons, food, and water, and go somewhere remote. If you want a more in depth guide, there are actually entire books about survival in the case of a zombie apocalypse. Not to mention the countless Youtube videos on the subject (many of which I watched before writing this).