Day 1 It began and spread with alarming speed. For
years after this day you and other survivors will try to piece together any and all information
you can remember and figure out when it happened, where, or even how. Some think it was another
virus flown in on a public airline flight, others are sure that it started right
here in the United States. Yet others think that it just happened all
over the world, all at once. On day 1 chaos reigns in cities around
the world. Many people try to flee, only to end up getting stuck in traffic or huge,
freeway blocking accidents and ending up as zombie bait. You're smart though, you are a devoted
Infographics fan after all, so you know the best thing to do if you aren't already in the
outskirts of the city is to shelter in place. In case of nuclear attack, you want to get as
low as possible and take shelter at the very core of a building as far from doors and windows
as you can get. However, in a zombie apocalypse it pays to have the high ground, so you enter the
nearest high rise and make your way as far up as you can go. The power will soon fail, and with it
the elevators, which means you'll have to climb dozens of flights of stairs to get up high- but
that also means a zombie will too. Barricading every door you come across, any zombie- or hostile
group of survivors- would have to cross a gauntlet of blocked doors to get to you. And being that
high up will help you avoid the attention of both zombies and any marauding looters who
may arise with the collapse of civilization. Every office tower in America is going to
be stocked with food and water, so you are set to ride out at least a week, maybe two, as
you wait for events to unfold below you. Maybe this is only a local event, and the military
will soon respond to contain the situation or at least fly out survivors. Just in case you
make sure to get to the roof of the building and make it clear to any airplanes or helicopters
that survivors are inside. It's relatively easy to set up a big SOS using brightly colored
objects looted from amongst the upper floors. Like an ancient king watching a
siege of his castle from a tower, you spend the day waiting and watching as
the city below you comes apart at the seams. Day 3 As predicted, not a single zombie has even
attempted to make the climb up to your temporary shelter. Why would they when the streets are
still swarming with poorly prepared survivors trying to make a run for it or hiding out in bad,
street-level shelters? By now though it's become obvious that this is not a local event. This is
it- a zombie apocalypse and the end of the world. There's been no response from the military, and
before the electricity died and your phone with it the last thing you heard on social media was that
the President had declared a state of emergency and taken shelter in an emergency bunker.
The reason for no military response is because military bases were as overrun with the
walking dead as any city. Some areas have been made secure, but there's still far too much chaos
to coordinate anything more than local defense. It'll be weeks, maybe even months before
there's any major attempt to lift the zombie siege of the big cities- if it ever happens at
all. There's tens of millions of the undead, and their ranks grow with
every freshly slain human. You take stock of your food and water. Before
the power went out you filled up every sink, pitcher, container, and even toilet you could
find with fresh drinking water. You need water far more than you need food, though thankfully
your food supply is pretty robust. Every officer tower in America has multiple small kitchens,
snack bars, and most even have restaurants. For the moment food and water won't be a
problem, but you can't stay here forever. You use your time wisely, setting out rain
catches on the roof of the building and keeping your SOS signal free of any debris
to make it clear survivors are inside. A few others from around the office building have
joined with you and you've got the start of a small group of survivors. In a disaster, it's
important to keep people occupied so they don't despair or do something stupid, so you take
a leadership role and assign people tasks. The first is to fashion some kind of effective
weapons and protection. You take a cue from prison inmates and using duct tape and reams of
paper, fashion some pretty sturdy body armor for yourself. Infection spreads via biting, so you
make protection for your arms and legs as well. The armor can make you stiff, so you only make
protection for your forearms, thighs, and chest. Just like a real soldier's body armor, you'll have
to make sacrifices for mobility. No amount of body armor will stop a swarm of zombies if you're
too slow or stiff to sprint or jump to safety. You fashion spears out of mops and brooms-
these are great because while they won't do much lethal damage to the walking dead, they
can keep them at bay pretty effectively. Sadly, there's just not much you can use for an
effective weapon inside an officer tower- what you really need is firearms or melee weapons
that pack a punch like baseball bats and axes. Those will have to wait, and for now it's better
to avoid a fight altogether if you can help it. You place people on rotating shifts, with
frequent checks of the stairways that lead up to your shelter area. In teams of threes
you start to scavenge the floors below you, being very careful with your progress to make
sure you don't run into a situation you can't quickly escape from. There's a few straggler
zombies up here, perhaps people who changed when the mysterious phenomenon that started this
nightmare struck, and they are easy to eliminate. You aim for the head out of habit from listening
to years of popular culture, but the truth is that the rest of the body is vulnerable too. If you
shatter a zombie's leg, it can't stand up on that leg anymore. If you smash its arm, it can't climb
or grab you. And if you break its spine then it's stuck on the ground for good. Sure, destroying
the brain is good, but breaking bones makes it incredibly difficult for a zombie to actually hurt
you. With your spears though, all you can really do is pin one in place while your buddy stabs it
in the head. This is a good strategy for the few you run into in the tower, but you know you'll
need better weapons to survive the streets. Luckily before the electricity went out you made
sure to plot out the location of every gun shop, army surplus store, and police station
within a few miles of you. You've got a crude map and a plan- you're far ahead
of the game versus other survivors. Day 7 Fires started days ago from unattended appliances,
car crashes, and other minor incidents that the fire department would normally attend to.
However, nobody is putting out the fires, and it's becoming increasingly dangerous
to remain in your tower shelter. Some of the group doesn't want to
leave, but you explain to them that if they stay they will inevitably burn
up when the fires reach this building. There's a myriad of underground service and
sewage tunnels that criss-cross a modern city, and you briefly consider using these to get
around and avoid zombies. And perhaps if you or anyone in your group actually
knew anything about these tunnels, like how to get into them or where
they lead, it might be a good idea. The reality though is that you don't have
the first idea of how to even get entry into the labyrinth like maze under your feet. So
instead, you'll just have to use the streets. The underground garage has cars, but you
have no idea where to find keys. Besides, cars will draw attention, and it's best to
move silently for now. The chaos outside has died down in the last few days as the zombie
all-you-can-eat buffet ran out of easy prey. You consider when to make your move. Day
time will give you much better visibility, but it will also mean that the zombies
have just as good visibility as you. Instead, you opt to move at night, and make
sure everyone is wearing dark clothing. Holding your spears and skirting
along the edge of buildings, your first destination is a police station only
four blocks away from your current location. Sticking to the shadows, you stay out of sight of
most wandering zombies. The bulk of the walking dead have followed the initial rush of refugees
out of the city- they're acting just like any predator would and simply following migrating
prey. This is of relief to you, because if not this city would be a guaranteed death trap.
There's the occasional zombie that you stumble into, but it's easy to overpower one or two of
them at a time with your group's long spears. Arriving at the police station though, it's
obvious others have had the same idea you did as it's been barricaded. You should've known.
Luckily the world hasn't lost all its good people because the survivors let you in. It's not
nearly as safe as your high rise tower, despite now having access to a few leftover
pistols, but it's a little further away from the encroaching fires. However it's clear to
both you and the survivors already sheltering here that this isn't a place you can stay.
Not only is the threat of being consumed by the raging fires growing closer every hour,
but if you're going to survive long term you need renewable food and water- neither of
which you can get in the heart of the city. It's clear you all have to
leave, but the question is where? Day 9 After two days deliberating, the group is split
on how to proceed. The fires are close now, and you need to leave in the next twenty
four hours or risk burning to death. One group wants to head towards the nearest
military base, hoping that it has held out or been reclaimed. This in itself isn't a bad idea,
but it comes with a pretty big downside- there's bound to be thousands of other people who had the
exact same idea, and all you're really doing is fleeing from one large concentration of people
to another, which is exactly what the zombies are also doing. If the base has held, it'll
likely be very secure at this point- shambling zombies are simply no match versus modern military
weaponry. But that's a very big if at this point. You've got another idea. You've watched
Infographics for years, and you know one thing about zombies that nobody else does- without their
hearts pumping warm blood around their bodies, zombies can't handle the cold. The moment
that the temperature drops to freezing, even the fastest zombie is going to become a
popsicle. You try to explain to people that it's no different than sticking a piece
of meat in the freezer- but they don't listen to you. They're sadly too brainwashed
from years of characters on tv making really stupid decisions during zombie apocalypses
and not doing the obvious: heading north. Agreeing to disagree, you decide to part ways.
You and your group load up two police SUVs with supplies- mostly food, water, and gasoline you
siphon from other vehicles. Surprisingly there's not much in the way of weapons or ammo left in the
police station- probably because the cops who were here when the world went to hell took it with
them as they acted on their own survival plans. Your goal is to get out of
the city and head north. Survival depends on you getting
as far north as you can go. Day 10 Your two groups wish each other luck and drive
in opposite directions. The streets are a mess, but you manage to navigate past wrecks
and small hordes of zombies. You wisely stay off the freeways as they are bound
to be full of traffic snarls and wrecks, and instead stick to surface streets
until you make it out of the city. Day 12 It took you a full 24 hours to get out of the city
thanks to having to navigate so many potential roadblocks, and there was no stopping your small
convoy for anything but refueling. You're taking shifts driving until you're in open country, and
today you raided the first gas station you came across for paper maps of the state and the north
american freeway system. Your goal is Alaska, and you need to get there before
winter comes or you could get trapped. You're tempted to loot some of the
big department stores you drive past, but wisely think twice about it. Sure, they're
bound to be full of supplies- but also full of zombies. You need to get out into more
rural America before you start thinking about looting big box stores that could
potentially be full of dozens of zombies. Day 15 You're making much better progress now thanks
to your paper maps. You use them to avoid the freeways and use backroads, where the area
is so free of signs of the apocalypse that you could almost swear it had never happened
at all. But then you inevitably come across a wreck or the signs of a family having been
torn apart and eaten by the walking dead. Still, you're out far enough from major
population centers that you take a risk raiding a big box store. You've been mostly hitting
small gas stations and convenience stores, but you really need to up your weapon game
and it would help to get more food supplies. You enter the building as a team and in formation,
no different than ancient Greek warriors would fight. You've been drilling like this during your
rest breaks- one of the oldest forms of warfare in the world has come back, and for good reason:
it works. Working together you present a wall of spears to any zombie threat, and easily hack
them to pieces without letting them get near you. Those on the first row stick their spears straight
out and impale zombies on them, then step aside so that those in the second row can lunge forward
and deliver killing blows with axes, hammers, or similar weapons. It's brutally effective,
and you see why the ancients fought like this. The number one rule of zombie survival is to
never split up, so while it would be faster for you to investigate the store as teams, you stick
together. You manage to score some badly needed camping equipment, a few rifles, and loads of
rounds for each. You also get practical survival equipment like fishing poles and lures- you'll
need those for your new life in the cold. And speaking of which, you make sure to snatch up any
warm weather gear and first aid kits you can find. Day 25 You've made decent time despite
having to keep off the major freeways, and that's good because fall will be here soon
and the first snow falls not long after that. You've made it into Canada, where the
situation is much the same as in the US. This isn't a national crisis, the
zombies don't respect any borders. Some of the group want to stop here, where
the weather will be a little better than in frozen Alaska- but you know better. Bad weather is
exactly why you're going as far north as you can. You need to stay far away from anywhere temperate
for at least a year, maybe two to be safe. By that time any reanimated flesh will have fallen
apart due to decay or zombies will simply have been eaten up by wild predators. Humans kind
of suck without guns, so predators like bears, cougars, and wolves must be having a field day
gorging themselves on walking corpses. Then a scary thought hits you- what if those animals
become zombies too by eating zombie flesh, or perhaps by getting bit while taking a zombie
down? The thought of a zombie bear sends a chill down your spine, and reinforces your decisions:
you're going to Alaska for two years minimum, after that nature should have run its course and
there shouldn't be many, if any zombies left. You continue siphoning gas from vehicles you
come across, and you take more than you need for the trip. You don't know how many vehicles
you'll encounter in rural Alaska, so you'll need plenty of gas for the future. In a dry, cool
environment gasoline can last for a few years before going bad due to oxidation, so you should
be fine storing it even over the winter. You do pick up plenty of fuel stabilizer though from
gas stations and mechanic shops you run across, as you'll need it for storing gasoline long
term. You also grab spare tires- there's a very real risk of tire rot while vehicles are kept
in storage. Just ask the Russians inside Ukraine. Day 40 The journey's been a lot slower than
it would normally be using freeways, but you've managed to beat the winter to
Alaska. Now it's a matter of finding a good place to shelter. Luckily coastal Alaska is
full of a lot of small resort communities or clusters of cabins for tourists to rent during
the spring and summer, and the coastal waters off Alaska are rich in all kinds of edible sea
life. There's rivers everywhere which are also teeming with fish- it's the last truly untouched
place in North America and life is abundant here. You pick a small cluster of cabins
on the coast not too far from a river using a tourist attraction map you can find in
most motels or gas stations. You also pick up plenty of canned goods that you add to your
sizable stockpile in the back of both SUVs. You've never hunted before, and the last time
you went fishing you were a kid. It's going to be a huge learning curve, but one that you can
pick up with time. Until then you're going to have to supplement your diet with canned goods,
especially during the long, freezing winter. Humanity has thrived in every environment on earth
except Antarctica for thousands of years though, you come from one of the greatest survival
success stories in history- even if modern living has dulled your edges. If
your ancestors could do it though, so can you- specially with the help
of modern rifles and fishing poles. As far as the zombie threat, not only is
your location remote, but as predicted when the temperature falls, the zombies you do come
across in supply and scouting runs all start to slow down. Without warm blood coursing through
their veins, the zombies get gradually stiffer and stiffer as the temperature plummets, and
killing them is as easy as smashing them to bits while they try to lunge at you in slow
motion. It's going to be tough surviving up here in Alaska, but if anything ends up
eating you up here it's going to be bear, wolves, or bigfoot- but definitely not a zombie. Now check out US Military Actually Has A
Zombie Plan, or click this other video instead!
