Zombieland was dead on with this one. Part of my plan accounts in for the Fatty Factor. 70% of Americans are overweight, 30% of those are obese. Skinny-fats, yeah, I mean just weighing less helps, but if you're puffin and wheezin from a short sprint... you're not gonna make it as long as you hope either. Phase one of ZA plan : Run in front of the fatties. Also, fat people will detain the zombies longer, and when they /become/ zombies, they'll be slow.

So did you do your workout today? The zombies don't care that you're tired. And ladies, the zombies don't care if you're on your period either, so just rest assured, your days of crying about your cramps are long over.

I workout every single day lately, zombies also don't care it's Sunday either.

Okay, so most of you all agree the first stop off is the Weapon Store. Good luck not getting trampled or subsequently shot by the gun shop owner who's suddenly decided he's not so keen sharing his stock pile with everyone else. Oh, he's still selling? Well how long before the people who failed to get guns attack the people with guns? Hmm? Lemme know how that works out.

If you don't already have weapons prior to the ZA, you're pretty much stuck with homemade and general purpose tools until you do manage to acquire firepower. Baseball bat, ehhh, I mean useful for keeping zombie mouth off your person, but requires that zombie to be close enough already for you to smell his stankin ass. Crowbar, awesomely useful, but heavy. And that's if you're a man--most women aren't wielding a crowbar for very long with much sense of accuracy. (We'll defer the rest of the man/woman equation to the section below labeled ZA Team.) Machete, lightweight, can take a bit of a beating, good. Sword--decorative isn't doing you shit of good. On the off chance you have a /functional/ sword, epic. Silent, but dulling can become an issue depending upon the amount of zombie resistance you're meeting up against... best to bring some sort of sharpening stone if you're using any sort of bladed weapon.

Personally, I'm hitting the pharmacy first and foremost, antibiotics are lightweight and a powerful bartering tool.

So okay, you've armed yourself. Are you all by yourself? Part of a group? Or best likelihood for tragedy, a family?

Who you roll with is likely to determine how long you last. For this, you want to select your smartest, healthiest, most trained, armed, and/or craziest friends. I have the benefit of a Charlie Sheen with oodles of martial arts, fighting, and most recently, kendo training. (sword, check) You and your friends must have a PREDETERMINED meetup point. People with USEFUL skills or otherwise street smart are a must. Mechanic, MEDIC-- a person with at least basic medical training can be the difference between a scratch and gangrene, people who can fish, butcher--he already wields sharp instruments with precision and has knowledge of anatomy, hunting buddy--this guy is a perfect candidate, but may be scarce dependent on geographic location, your buddy who likes to play paintball, I mean the list goes on and on of what constitutes useful.

Do these people have ANY idea you might want to join forces in the event of a ZA? May be time to have a heart to heart.

Next ZA Team issue: Women. If most of the women y'all know are like most of the women I know, they're just gonna stand there and scream their fucking faces off anyway til you save them. Best to shoot those ones in the face before the screaming attracts more zombies. Girly girls are a problem, they always need rescuing. If you wanna go all Captain Sav-a-Hoe, then by all means, take the pretty blonde with the big tits who's totally gonna let you get eaten by the first fucking zombie that tries to eat your throat from behind because she screamed instead of shooting the motherfucker or hitting it with a rock or at the /very/ fucking least say "Oh shit man look out! Zombie bout to bite yo neck!!!!!" Again, skills can also determine the difference between worth it and not worth it. Can she cook? When it's rat and frog for dinner, you're gonna hope that hoe can make it into something edible. Crazy women are the way to go on this one. They're usually just itching for an excuse to wreck someone's day, be it animal, vegetable, or zombie.

Family. This is the true horror of Zolumbine. Your friends and your family are not all going to survive. Most of them are probably not going to. For those of us with kids, this is probably the most bone-chilling factor of the whole ordeal. First off, if you have a child, they are defenseless, heavy, slow, and not best suited for combat situations. Travel options become more limited, and if you need to run, you now have either a very heavy weight you're dragging, or an added weight you're running with. If you have an actual baby, the rate of survival is minimal at best, you might do better making a nice Cream of Baby Soup. The elderly or anyone else who needs prescription medication to survive? Yeah... not such a hot idea either.

So what happens when the person who was your entire world gets bit? You have 2 choices here. A. Game Over (Please press Alt + F4 now) or B. Failure is Not an Option. A. Kill yourself or B. Kill every last zombie fuck you come across.

Also, is your loved one in danger of becoming a flesh eating freak since being bit? How familiar are you with the story "Of Mice and Men"? Just to really drive the horror home, you have to shoot your beloved to the head... twice if you're thorough... Up for it?

And never mind half your initial party got killed--you teaming up with strangers? Better decide now. A case by case basis might be the best approach there.

But where the fuck you gonna go to begin with?

Okay, now, how we play the rest of this game depends on which you believe to be true here :

A. Zombies are biological tissue and will thus rot after a period of time, making hotter locations the place to BE for accelerated rates of rot
or
B. Zombies are reanimated flesh and thus don't rot like normal people, making cold locations ideal due to the slowed mobility and frozen portions of the year.

If you believe A, you're gonna wanna follow the example of the birds and head south. If you're from a colder location, you are likely to be extremely uncomfortable and miserable with the extra heat. Be prepared for that.

If you believe B, you're gonna wanna head north, but remember that weather cold enough to freeze zombies is not guaranteed, and that you're gonna have to seriously layer up, limiting your own mobility right along with the damned zombies.

Vehicles are awesome except for the whole road jams and running out of gas thing. Bring a hose to siphon from other cars later if you're planning to seriously try and drive somewhere. A cow grate? Ain't that what them things on front of trains are? Yeah, best to have one of those welded on your vehicle. (Did you pick a welder during phase C? Hope so! I happened to marry one.) But eventually your vehicle will break down, or reach an impass, or run out of gas.

Did you start out in a rural area or an urban area? Good luck making it out alive if it was a large city. People in more rural areas stand the best chance since they are closer to actual wilderness compared with the city folk.

But really, why travel at all? Do you think you're gonna find some magical zombie free area? The CDC was a bust, the military couldn't hold their shit... So where, in all your infinite wisdom are you gonna go?

Okay yeah, there's the ocean, but I'm skeptical of the whole "I'm on a boat!" thing... Boats run on gas, which will be in short supply and eventually be rendered unusable except for floating... Man powered boat could be useful, quiet, ideal for sneaking on to shore and back out to the unreachable seas... but who's to really say that water's gonna stop zombies at all??

Perhaps staying put is the best option.
Do you have shutters on your windows? No? Now's the time to get them.
Throw some shit out on the lawn to make your home look pre-raided.
When your neighbors pack up and leave, immediately go raid their houses.
If you grow food, this is another benefit of staying where you are--renewable food source.
Materials acquisition for home reinforcement would be a cinch, start stealing other people's fences and decorative bricks.
The new color on the house would be "Dead Zombie Putrescence" to cover the scent of our delicious living flesh.
Also looks like dead zombie corpses on spikes in the front yard are coming back in style again this season.

Can you handle it? Well if you can't, you're probably already dead, either by zombie or your own hand. Personally, fuck em, they ain't people, they're fuckin walkers, 2 to the head and be done with the shit. No that zombie kid ain't phasin me either, I'd shoot that bitch right in her undead little fucking mouth, didn't like that bitch's bathrobe. If you're too scared to save your own life or the life of someone you care about, you don't deserve to live anyway.