STEP FOURTEEN

In this step, you will be going out. So get your bad-ass outfit on, sharpen your knives, reload your guns, and prepare to kick zombie ass. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth day of the dead walking about killing your neighbours. So there will be more of them. There will also be more dim witted, scared shit-less people running around with no plan, making a big kafuffle for no reason.  But over time, the ratio to idiotic survivors to zombies will tip in the favour of zombies. So be on high alert at all times.

For this step, you are going down to the pawn shop. This step only matter if there are any in your area left that haven’t been completely robbed. Even if there are a few that look empty, get out and take a look anyways.

A pawn shop will probably be the best place to hide out for a zombie invasion; be careful when you enter. If you see a lot of blood or bodies by the front doors, do not go in. If the place looks deserted, but with unbroken windows, chances are someone has already claimed the pawn shop. DO NOT go in. The pawn shop has everything from sharp cymbals to fully functional guns. So who ever is inside, is deadly and won’t take kindly to strangers.

If the pawn shop looks like people have broken in, proceed with caution. Go in quietly with your group. Most of it will be taken, yes, but remember to think outside the box. There will probably be old knives, pens, shields, helmets, etc. Remember that anything can be a weapon. So take what you can. Check every inch of the store before leaving.

Hopefully you now have enough weapons and food to survive a little while.  

TIP: BITTEN PEOPLE

In the previous step, I mentioned to know procedures. Before the flesh eating zombies start to overcome the masses of people, you need to lay out a plan if someone becomes bitten.

 There will be no cure, you will like to think so, but there won’t be. Even if the government did invent a cure, it won’t get to you in time. Once a person is bitten/has the virus in their blood system, they will turn. It might take a few days, or a few minutes, but eventually, they will try to kill you. They will no longer be the person you once knew. They may look the same, but there will be nothing left of the person you once loved inside. If you hesitate to kill them, they will kill you. And if they get bit outside, and you bring them inside, once they turn you will have a zombie inside your fort. You NEED to kill it. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mum, lover, roommate, or cat; they will turn and try to kill you.

It is important that everyone in the group understands this. It only takes one stupid person to think their mum is still their mum, and let the creature into the base, brining in several others behind it. You need to have the law in the group stating: “Once a person is bitten, kill them”. It’s blunt, but it is what needs to be done. Kill them before they turn, so they don’t have to go through the pain of slowly dying, and then try to eat you alive.

STEP THIRTEEN

You have turned the outside of your house into a fort. You have boarded up the windows and blocked the doors/windows from the inside. Now you need to make procedures.

You need to get everyone familiar with exit plans. Make sure that everyone knows what to do when zombies break in from one side of the house. You need to chart out how/where you would go if zombies took over your fort. Have a backup plan. Remember, you want to go somewhere close, safe, and familiar. Like Ed from Shawn of the Dead says: “If we hole up, I want to be somewhere Familiar, I wanna know where the exits are and I wanna be allowed to smoke”. Make sure that where you plan to go next is just as safe and reliable as your current place. Have everyone know how you will get there, so if your group splits up, you can try to regroup. Know that the zombies will follow you, so you need to have a route that could potentially loose them. Even try to find a midway point to hide out for a bit, so the zombies continue walking on past you. Only leave the house when you know there is absolutely no way you can fight them off anymore.

Take only weapons and a little bit of water. The zombies won’t care about food; you can come back for food the next day. Remember that you have two exits, so each exit will probably need a different route. The location can be the same, but how you get there will be different.

I can’t stress this enough when I say, “MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO/WHERE TO GO WHEN YOUR FORT BECOMES OVERRUN”.  Don’t worry about leaving someone behind. Once the fort is taken, everyone get the hell out. Don’t be a hero and try to help everyone. There will be no need to be a hero for everyone, if everyone can be their own hero.

STEP TWELVE

If the cars you have found are drivable, find out its information. The internet is still running, Google the car and learn about it. Compare it with your current vehicles; consider gas mileage, size, how many seats, amount of storage, engine type, working parts, condition and color. You only need enough space for the people in your total group. It is a waste of gas if you try to maintain all the vehicles. Just use the cars that work and the ones you can rely on. The worst situation to be in is needing to escape a pack a flesh eating zombies when your car craps out. You also don’t want to use a car that sounds like a shot gun going off every time you start the engine. Also make sure the cars you keep have working locks/windows. You also need to make sure the car has a working radio; if the military/government is trying to send messages to civilians, they will be using radios.

If the cars you have found are not driveable, keep them. You can use them for spare parts for your working cars. Strip the car of its wheels. The rest of the car parts might not be needed, but the wheels are essential. Once you have taken the car’s main parts, you can use the car bodies to block up your house. Obviously you will have to roll the car to where you want it before you take the wheels.

Roll the cars to block off main entrances. It won’t be able to stop a person, but it will be able to stop a zombie. Block off the front door for sure, or a ground floor window. Depending on how many spare cars you have, block off any entrance to the back yard (unless you have a fence). You want to create only two enter/exit points to your house. You need two because if zombies get in the side door of your base, where are you going to go? You need two possible exits; if they come in the side door, you go out the back. If they come in the back door, you go out the side. So roll the cars into a position that blocks zombie’s flow of traffic. You need to seriously plan out where the cars are going; you only have limited cars and probably a lot of ground you need to barricade. Be wise.

STEP ELEVEN

Once you have cleared out the store and packed up the vehicle, have two people quickly do a second check on what you left behind. Make sure there isn’t useful left. Clear out all the water and anything that doesn’t expire. Make sure to grab any small items like scissors/knives/blunt objects. Don’t bother stealing the money/cash register; it will take ages to open without a key. Besides, money has no value anymore.

If the particular store you have broken into happens to have other stores beside it, take a quick look through the windows. Look and see if you can find anything interesting in the stores; stuff you haven’t already found. If there is one particular item you see, such a sword, break the widow, climb in, take it and leave with your group. I know I said not to break in and create noise, but if there is just one thing you need, take it and leave immediately. But if the stores you look into seems like there are many things you could take (like more food) remember the store and come back. There is no point trying to fit more stuff into your vehicles. If you’re vehicle becomes too heavy you will burn gasoline faster, and soon there won’t be much gasoline to spare.

Either way, if you find things or not, the next stop is home.

If you did find more things in the other stores, dump everything and go back. Don’t leave it for another day, someone else might take it.

Once you have finished all your trips, stay in for the night. Sort everything you have found in the past couple of days. Organize the food that will expire and the food that won’t. Sort the weapons. If you found cars at the auto shop, take a look and see if they are drivable. If they aren’t, keep them. There will be a use for them.

STEP TEN

Once you effectively break into the small-time store, slowly and quietly enter. Before stealing anything, check the entire store for zombies and humans. Obviously kill the zombies, and if there are any humans you need to kill them too. Whoever is in the store is also wanting to claim the food and will fight you before they let you take it. Kill them as fast as you can before they get a chance to kill you. DO NOT let them just walk away. They might come back with a bigger group. It might be tough, but you got to do what you got to do.  

Once you’ve made sure the store is empty, someone in the group get in the vehicle and back it up to the store front door. Open the trunk and all the door so loading is fast. Have someone watching outside from INSIDE the store. Don’t wait outside the store because if a group of zombies see you, they will come after you; trapping you in the store. But their brains are too damaged to recognize a backed up car to a store door. As long as someone knows it’s clear to momentarily walk outside and put stuff in the car, you will be safe.
 
Load up everything you can in the car/truck. Talk as little as you can about what to take. Whisper if you must talk but it won’t hurt to take as much as you can.
 
But be quick, people could come at any moment, and the zombie infection is continuing to grow.  

TIP: BREAKING IN

In this quick “TIP” you will learn how to properly break into a building without raising alarm.

If you are reading in continuation from "STEP NINE", you are just about to break into a local, small business. You are there to get supplies: Food, water, appliances, etc. But you don’t want to raise awareness to yourself. You need to break in, without being heard by zombies, or even worse, humans. If you are loud, someone might hear you, watch what you’re doing, and then once you have done all the heavy lifting, they’ll come up to you, point a gun in your face and force you to give them all your findings. You don’t want that. So you need to be SAS and infiltrate stealthily.

If you can pick a lock, great! See if that will work, but chances are it won’t: most businesses that lock up at night and go home, have better security than just a lock. Some places might have a few locks behind the door, as well as on the front.  Picking the front lock might not be enough. You will have to break a window.

Don’t be a dumbass and throw a brick into the window and jump in. That is loud. And people/zombies will come for you.

To break in properly you will need duct tape and a blunt object, like a brick or baseball bat. A brick would be the best.

First: find the smallest section of glass on the building. If you are going through the side window, pick one that is big enough for someone to climb into it. If you are going in the front door, only use the glass on the door, or at least close enough to stick your hand in and unlock the door.

Second: once you find your section of glass, cover it with duct tape. The smaller the glass, the less duct tape you use, and the easier it is to handle. Cover the section in two layers: going vertically and horizontally. Attach it to the window frame and leave a lip on the edge so you can peel it off.

Third: with your blunt object, lightly hit the window until you can hear it crack. Lightly, don’t hit heavy. Once you hear it crack, continue to tap the sides of the window until all the glass seems like it cracked off.

Fourth: slowly peel the tape off the window: the glass should still be stuck on the glass.

And there you go! Now you have opened the window without making any noise! You can now enter the building and loot!

Continue to “STEP TEN”.