Your Name: Ron James
Your "handle" should we look for you on the radio waves or web: n/a
Your location: Suburbs of Northern Virginia

Tell us:
Is your plan dependent on zombies in your home town, or anywhere?

Yes. As I live in a suburb, there's a few cemetaries about 10 miles away from me. Zombies could be on my doorstep in, at the most, two hours.

Will you be staying in your home or headed somewhere else?

Heading somewhere else. I always assume for the worst, which is that these zombies won't shamble like in the movies. I have prepared for them to be 50% better overall than regular humans, with some unnatural capabilities. The zombies in question will have unlimited stamina, will have honed hearing, sight, and smell, and will turn living flesh undead with a scrape or bite.

The place I'm headed to is Wyoming. A long way away from me, yes. The reason I chose it is because it has a low population (minimal zombies), lots of free-range animals (food, unless they're zombified) and many large plains, so zombies can be spotted and dealt with as fast as possible..

If you're heading out, how do you plan to get there? Got anyone you want to take with you?

First, I'll gather up some weapons, provisions, and comrades. I will take my pickup truck, and will start a caravan over to Wyoming. We'll be taking pickups with four-seating cabs, mostly, for one main reason- Many models have reasonable milage, they can carry four at a time, and gunners can be situated in the bed of the truck to kill zeds in a drive-by fashion.

I'll try to take as many other people as possible. My party will function mainly with the buddy system, so that everyone's back is watched. Additionally, the caravan will be divided into four sections, each travelling 10 minutes apart, after our first rest stop. At each rest, we will smoke our trail out, just in case my super-smell theory was correct. We will communicate via radio or walkie talkies if one part of the caravan is attacked, so the other sections can take a different route, or aid the party being attacked, depending on the number of zombies they are facing.

How will you communicate with the outside world, or do you plan to go the hermit route?

Basically, we're going to set up a small community in the middle of nowhere. That means no outside contact, except to raid supermarkets and hardware stores. If our radios still work, we'll listen for updates regularly.

Going on a tangent, we'll build small shacks to live in using lumber and fiberglas insulation stolen from the hardware store. The community will take turns watching the camp for zombies. We'll have a deep ditch on our outskirts, as well as fences topped with razor wire on the outside. Vehicles will be parked outside, in a seperate barb-wired area, so they don't have to be driven over the trench. If possible, battlements will be built on the inner part of the trench so that, even if zombies filled up the trench with their buddies, they'd still have to climb over. This will give us time to shoot them down.

How are you planning to get food and water?

Like I said, we'll raid the nearby supermarkets for all their goods. If they run out, we'll go to the next one down. If we can find a lake, we'll fill up all empty bottles there so we can purify the water.


What's your weapon of choice? Do you need to reload that thing? Gotta plan for that?

My party will use whatever weapons we can muster. The weapons I have at my hand are simple- a hatchet, sledgehammer, shovel, pool stick, baseball bat, and a few kitchen knives. That will easily be remedied with raids to all nearby gun shops or ranges. Ideally, all members of my party will carry a hand gun (preferably with a silencer), a main melee weapon that can be used to crush skulls, but is lightweight, and a knife in case they run out of bullets and are seperated from their melee weapon. Rifles and the like will be reserved for skilled shooters. Shotguns and other medium range weapons will be reserved if all other weapons are out of ammo, or if we're facing an unavoidable horde of zombies. Molotov cocktails are a no-no if they are made with gas- we need it for vehicles. Other incediaries like hairspray, lighter fluid, or strong alcohol will be used on large crowds.

Additionally, we will raid police stations for riot control suits. I think that, since they are packed with kevlar and cover all skin, these will be the best defense against hand-to-corpse action.

Got a survival philosophy?

It's not a movie. Although I have prepared for the worst, my plan aims to avoid confrontation. We are mortals, not heroes. I don't seek to purge the Earth of all zombies- doing so would be suicide. Rather, I want to keep the human race intact. We can only do that with vigilance.

Are you willing to hook up with other survivors?

It depends on how many. We can take in a few, but only after checking them thouroughly for signs of zombification. If a zombie bites an arm, it will be sliced off promptly. These people will have non-combat jobs around the settlement, such as gathering crops and the like. If someone has been infected by a zombie for a while, their brain will be destroyed with a crushing weapon.

I plan to have a group of 20 to start out with, and we'll expect to pick up more along the way. If there's a lot, we'll have to find more vehicles for them to travel in.

Is your plan based on a book/movie/blog/scientist we may have heard of?

Not a single source, no. I've been an avid reader of many post-apocalyptic survival situations, and zombie dystopias are my favorite. I haven't even begun to go into many other parts of my plan such as continuing the human race, moving once land is no longer arable, finding other civilizations of people who escaped the zombies.

If you're ever planning a survival strategy, always prepare for the worst. If it's possible, expect that most humans will be wiped out, and that nobody will come to save you. Be merciless and vigilant.