Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule of The Week: Friends

In a zombie apocalypse, it pays to have friends. But, if they cuts you loose at the first sign of trouble, they are…NOT your friends.

On Sunday’s Fear The Walking Dead, Travis and Chris learned how fleeting friendship can be when everything goes to Hell. Even friends who’ve known each other their whole lives can be made fickle once the zombie apocalypse sets in.

People start dropping like flies, the number of zombies skyrockets, political and social order start decaying, and supplies dwindle. Throw these things together and you can start to see where some people’s sense of self-preservation can get a little overdeveloped, and start thinking more about saving their own skin rather than pooling their efforts with those around them.

Having Friends

If you’ve never heard me say it before, let me do so now: In a zombie apocalypse, eight out of ten times, you’ll be in better shape with other people than you would be alone.

Having other people around means you now have extra sets of hands doing multiple necessary tasks at the same time, it also means that you have people to watch out for you when you’re most vulnerable, and, if worst comes to worst, it means you have someone to help you should you get surrounded by the dead or injured by the living. You have none of these things if you’re trying to go solo.

Along with these benefits are the psychological ones, specifically, being able to trust the people around you. If you find yourself in a life-threatening situation, who are you more likely to trust: A friend…or a complete stranger?

With that trust comes the comforting knowledge that you can rely on your friends to have your back, more so than one might have if their group consists mostly of strangers. You know that your friends will do everything they can to help you should things get hairy. If you run into trouble, they’ll come to help; if you get hurt, they’ll do everything within their power to help you…

…You hope.

Be Careful Who You Trust

Sadly, we can all mistakes, and put our faith in people who may not deserve it. The fact is, when the chips are down (Which they will be in a zombie apocalypse), that is when we see a person’s true colors.

The zombie apocalypse may expose our friends, or even us, as selfish cowards, who may not be as reliable as we or our friends had hoped. Watching people who are supposed to be dead get up and eat other people can shake the spine of a lot of people, and our friends may abandon us (Or we them) when the need is greatest. Case in point: When we get injured.

A good test of our friends’ reliability in a zombie apocalypse comes when someone’s injured, as it makes them put aside their needs to ensure the recovery (And possibly survival ) of another.

One who sticks by the injured as long as they need to recover, is someone who can be relied on.

But, should people start talking about the injured being “a burden” or “dead weight” or something like that…yeah…whether you’re the injured person or not, you’re next move should be figuring out how to get yourself away from them. A.S.A.P..

Because, ultimately, if a friend is gung-ho about leaving one of you to die…what’s to stop them from doing the same thing to the rest of you?

Of course, this is where the amount you trust your friends really comes into play. For example, have you ever had any unresolved issues with your friends? Any old beefs? Maybe you’re dating a person they liked?

These might seem petty, but, a zombie apocalypse has a tendency to bring out the worst in people. When things become a matter of life and death, old grudges have a way of coming back; and the hatchets you thought buried, you discover have been…in your back.

Pragmatist’s Folly

Now, on the other side of this coin is the person who might decide it’s in their best interest to bail on injured or unfortunate friends at the first sign of trouble. I could call them “That Guys“, but, I’ll be generous and simply say they’re just…pragmatic.

Now, I’m not averse to a little pragmatism here and there — it’s smart. But, when people are deciding to leave friends to die the moment there’s some zombies or if they get injured? That’s not smart, and those who think it is…are fooling themselves.

Think about it: If your friends think — Not even know, just think — that, if they run into trouble or get injured, that you’re going to abandon them, what reason do they have to help you?

Hell, what reason do they have to have any loyalty to you whatsoever?

Would you really expect them to help you if they knew you’d kill them just for an injury? Would you expect them to save you if they knew you’d abandon them in the same situation?

When things become a matter of life and death, old grudges have a way of coming back; and the hatchets you thought buried, you discover have been…in your back.

If you do, God bless you, but, that sort of thinking gets people killed. The fact is, such thinking goes beyond the point of pragmatism and into the realm of stupidity.

A group’s only effective if its members believe they can rely on one another to help should the worst happen.

If the group doesn’t believe it can trust it’s fellow members, no matter how well they may knew them prior, it’s doomed. In the absence of trust, paranoia creeps in. If people start thinking their friends will either leave them to die or kill them outright, they may just take the initiative and launch a preemptive strike. Before you know it, the whole thing has broken down into abject civil war.

Next: Fear The Walking Dead Theory: Is Chris The New Shane?

So, the rule for this week: It pays to have friends in a zombie apocalypse. But, make sure they’re ones you can actually trust. If they’re overly selfish, cowardly, or pragmatic to point that they’re more concerned about meeting timetables than the survival of their friends, it’s time you cut them loose…before they cut your throat.

If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!