Zombie Apocalypse Tomorrow - You get ONLY 5 items

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have zombies on the brain after catching up on The Walking Dead and then starting to play the game :smiley:

Zombie Apocalypse happens tonight on your way home from <insert task> and you have just enough time to grab 5 items and ONLY 5 items, all of which you have to carry on your person.

What do you grab? Assume you can loot/buy from any store or generally get anything reasonable.

I will go with:

A Big Axe or sturdy pointy tool - guns need bullets
A big box of protein bars - dense calories
A portable water purification device - duh
Best pair of steel toed boots I can find - going to be walking a lot
A Tinder Box - starting a fire without is not as easy as in the movies!

2

Water purification filter
Magnesium firestarter
Leatherman multi-tool
550 “paracord”
Machete

I don’t think a Zombie Apocalypse would be fundamentally different from any other survival situation. When you really boil it down, the Zeds are just an environmental hazard like any other predatory fauna. Food, water, shelter, etc. remain important considerations.

3

Good call! damnit :smack:

4

I’d take tools over food. Food will be quickly eaten, but a tool will last much longer. A person can operate for quite a while before starvation sets in. I’d take a tool in hopes of finding food along the way, rather than take food, eat it, and have no tool.

5

Presumably, one would be able to loot/trade/rob commonplace items like matches in the future. So, the 5 things should be stuff of immediate necessity or stuff that is rare or valuable enough that it will be difficult to find once society collapses and everybody sacks the stores.

  1. Synthetic-stocked, stainless steel rifle with a scope and bayonet. Kills men, zombies, and tasty animals.
  2. Hiking clothes: boots, big hat, nice jacket, gloves. Because I’m now on a permanent camping trip.
  3. Antibiotics. Once you need them, you’re too sick to go looking for them.
  4. Night vision googles. Loot at will while the bandits are sleeping and the zombies can’t see you.
  5. 38’ sailing catamaran with water maker, windmill and solar panels, in addition to the fishing gear, charts, tools, and radios.

Live on the boat and make forays onto land for additional supplies. Move as the weather and pirate activity dictates. Trade smoked fish and dried seaweed for food, ammo, or pretty much anything.

Is this a cheat? Probably, but it’s the freakin’ zombie apocalypse. I’m through playing fair.

6

A fully gassed/armored assault vehicle, with extra gas cans
Warm clothing and sturdy shoes (I can count this as one item, dammit)
My Son
My Daughter
My Husband

(I would load them up with additional supplies. Strength in numbers)

7

well played sir… well played. :slight_smile:

8
  1. Machete- hacks heads, wood and is sturdy enough to suffer a fair amount of abuse
  2. multi-tool with flint and steel- as above
  3. self-charging flashlight- batteries aren’t always available.
  4. henderson hammock- self contained sleeping space that can be suspended out of harm’s way
  5. Recurve bow w/ quiver and fletching kit for making more arrows.
    I’m not sure if clothes would necessarily count in your five items would they? Otherwise I would say two pairs of good hiking/ military boots and socks, 50 ft of para cord wrapped into a belt, a small day pack and a decent hat might be on the list somewhere…
9
  1. Full set of motorcycle leathers. Keeps the Zeds from biting ankles and arms.
  2. Water purification system (bottle and filter assembly)
  3. Long handled straight claw framing hammer. Kill a Zed or build a house.
  4. .22 rifle and several bricks of ammo. Light easy to carry and reload
  5. Backpack.
10

One of those long steel ice chippers used on sidewalks

LED headlight with batteries

Small hatchet

Firestarter of some sort

My .45 Colt with 50 rounds

11

Can we add one vehicle?

If so, a houseboat on a lake waiting for me. Seriously, zombies can’t swim, right?

12

I suppose that depends on what zombie mythos you ascribe to, but I think they certainly can and would. They don’t have to worry about breathing underwater, do they? Scary! :eek:

13

I’d only need one item: my already loaded TEOTWAWKI pack.

14

Load the wife and cats into truck and go. It’s already loaded.

Against slow zombies I’d probably toss a couple of swords into the truck as well, since the kukri allows them to get just a bit too close.

15
  1. 10/22 rifle.
  2. Brick of high velocity solid point ammo.
  3. Team Gemini Light Brigade knife (if it’s good enough for Daryl, it’s good enough for me).
  4. Fire steel.
  5. katadyn filter.

If I’m permitted to scavenge along the way, among other things I’ll assemble a field expedient silencer for the rifle.

16

1 case of top-shelf booze.
1 bag each of cocaine, meth, mushrooms, and LSD.
There’s no way I’d survive the zombocalypse, so I intend to spend my last few peaceful days living it up. If I’m lucky, I’ll die of a drug overdose right before everything goes to shit.

17

Everyone should have a ‘bug out’ kit in case of emergencies. Might be a power outage, earthquake, or zombies.

I have a water proof container of strike-anywhere matches, the container has a lanyard with a clip and had been filled with parafin wax. These are going to remain water proof even if I fall in the water, and the wax can be used to start the fire. This is a basic part of my fishing vest. Then fishing lures, etc. Just grab the fishing vest.

Coffee filters. The paper kind. They can be used to filter water to prevent Giardia. You might be on the run and looking at clear flowing water. But if there are livestock or wild deer around the water will be contaminated, the Giardia is large enough to be filtered out of the water. Boiling is best, but filtered will do.

http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/feb1b02.html

.22 caliber weapon of choice. I like my Ruger Mark III target pistol. When I run under a couple thousand rounds I go shopping. The other guns are too heavy to move quickly with and the ammo is heavy.

Whatever dry food you have on hand. If you have nothing like jerky or dried snacks, put some flour, oil and SALT into some traveling containers. With those 3 ingredients you can make a lot of meals. Oh, and grab your most versital cooking pan.

I would take a machete instead of an ax because it’s lighter and you are going to be carrying this stuff wherever you go. But you will take what you have.

Zombies are slow, formerly dead people and everyone should be able to out run them.

Preparing for disaster however is a useful mental exercise.

If you are in a major city you are fucked as soon as the supply trucks quit running, you have maybe 3 days before all supplies are either used or stolen. You are not going to be walking out, nor driving out. At least in hurricanes Katrina and Sandy you knew that eventually the Federal government would show up.

What if you do not have that assurance?

I am not a survivalist, but these things are worth thinking about. A few cases of bottled water, a little portable food, a bug out plan, is worth at least the mental exercise.

18

This hurts my feelings. You think I wouldn’t send someone to save your ass during the zombie apocalypse?

:frowning:

19

<slight hijack> After I run thru a zombie can I use them for food? Is it like mad cow & I’ll become a zombie by eating the tainted meat? Is their meat too deteriorated? What about someone the zombies got to & devoured their brains but the rest of the flesh is fresh?
Hey, it worked in an Andes plane crash?

20

Some disasters, like hurricanes and snowstorms, have plenty of advance warning nowadays. Just drive in a safe direction for few hours and get a hotel room. Back when I lived in hurricane country, that’s what tons of people did. The only folks who got into trouble were the ones who waited too long and got stuck in traffic on flooded roads.

Disasters like earthquakes, power outages, and river flooding give no warning, but unlike a big storm they won’t close every road in the region. Again, just take an unplanned vacation.

In a world where zombies are a possibility, bug-out kits sound useful, but I’m not sure they’re really all that necessary for real life emergencies in the industrialized world, as long as you have a car and some money. The willingness to say “The house is insured, let’s leave town before the traffic gets bad” is far more important than commando woodcraft.

What kind of events are you preparing for that will require fire-lighting, subsistence fishing, delicious scratchmade biscuits, water purification, and shooting a few thousand rounds of .22LR? Sounds like a fun long weekend of camping, but kind of overkill for chilling out at the Holiday Inn 200 miles from one’s temporarily unlit/flooded/engulfed in flames house.