Survival 101

Well, it’s that time of year again. Everywhere you turn, it seems there is no escaping the soulless, blood sucking, life draining creatures hell bent on destroying life as we know it. No, I am not talking about the midterm elections next week. I’m talking about Halloween.

Just about every channel on TV has been playing scary movies for the past two weeks or so. You’ve got your teenie bopper slasher films. Your vampire films. Your zombie films. Your werewolf films. Your demented, psycho serial killer films.

The Queen is a big fan of scary movies. She will watch pretty much anything except for the really gory demented psycho serial killer genre. I’m a little more selective. I like the zombie movies and some of the vampire/werewolf movies. Slasher/psycho killer movies…not so much.

As I write this, The Queen and I are watching the much anticipated premiere of the AMC series, The Walking Dead. So far, it’s pretty good. We’ll see if they can maintain the pace over a series.

Now, I know others smarter than I have already written several rules for surviving encounters with the undead/psycho killers. It’s well tilled but fertile soil. In fact, one of the premises of the movie Zombieland was The Rules. However, as a connoisseur of the genre (and listening to The Queen shout “That doesn’t make any sense!” at the TV/movie screen during key moments), I thought I would offer up some (hopefully original) observations on how to survive your next encounter with the undead/psycho killer.

1) No rescues. They’re a bad idea. Invariably, you lose more people than you save not to mention the fact that one of the people you save will have been bitten and will change into a zombie/werewolf/vampire any minute. If they can make it to you unscathed, great. More people to fight off the horde. If not, it was nice knowin’ ‘em.

2) Never trust what you hear on the radio/TV/internet. Just because some voice on the radio says “There are no zombies here. Come join us” doesn’t make it so. It might be an automatic signal transmitting on a loop. The people who recorded it might already be dead, or they may not be very nice and want to enslave you, eat you, use you as their personal sex slave, experiment on you, etc. Remember, trust is earned.

3) Learn from the experience of others. If someone took the time to spray paint a warning on a locked door. Don’t open it.

4) If you wake up in a hospital room wearing nothing but your skivvies and a hospital gown, get dressed and gear up to the extent you can before trying to explore. Does it make any sense to you to go walking around the post apocalyptic world in your bare feet with all that broken glass on the ground. It’ll put a dent in your ability to run from the undead.

5) Focus on the task at hand. Distractions and multi-tasking will kill you. Fly the plane, drive the car, ride the bike, shoot the gun, etc. first, then do something else like look behind you, talk on the radio, pick your nose, change your underwear, etc.

6) If it don’t go bang, slice and dice or sustain life, leave it behind. Family photo albums are nice but not particularly useful when fighting off the hordes.

7) If someone you know and love it bitten, they are no longer someone you know and love. It’s more merciful to put them out of their misery.

Remember, preparation and having a plan are key to survival.