Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Prepare, to survive

A zombie apocalypse WILL be terrible. However, that CAN be mitigated if you’re PREPARED. On this week’s Fear The Walking Dead we met someone who PROVED THAT.

Ooh, boy. For a long time now, I’ve been warning people to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse. I’ve written a book on the subject, and I can’t even remember how many of these articles I’ve written, all in the hope that people would think about how they’d survive.

It seems that, finally, Fear The Walking Dead has introduced a character who shares my appreciation for how important being prepared is, Mr. Jeremiah Otto.

And that is my point this week: Prepare. In fact, the title of this article is not a typo: I do not mean “Prepare to survive”, but, rather, that you must prepare, to survive; Mr. Otto personifies this.

Granted, Jeremiah was not preparing for a zombie apocalypse. As his video made clear, he was preparing for something much more along the line of a total societal collapse: Social, political, infrastructural, everything.

But…when you think about it, doesn’t that sound a lot like a zombie apocalypse to you?

The last century (at least) is littered with things like blackouts and natural disasters, after which, unrest, looting, and rioting became the order of the day. To assume these things couldn’t happen in the future is naive.

Furthermore, it’s not as if diseases, specifically epidemic ones, are fictional, either. Human history has countless instances of thousands, even millions of people being wiped out by disease.

You have to look at these things and prepare yourself as best for them as possible. Think of it this way: If you’re prepared for diseases, disasters, power outages, and societal collapse, you’ll be almost completely ready for a zombie apocalypse, too.

But, let’s go back to Jeremiah for a minute and look at what he’s done to prepare.

He lives out on a cattle ranch, far from any major city or point of interest. This means that if someone is going to find the ranch, they’d have to go looking for it.

Contrast that with La Colonia, all Marco had to do was bust out a pair of binoculars to spy someone (In this case, Nick) to deprive it of it anonymity.

Jeremiah also grows crops on his farm (Along with raising cattle), meaning his people aren’t relying on scavenging for food.

Another crucial step Jeremiah took was having like-minded people in his group (Or have them come to him, in this case). While being prepared is important, your chances of survival go up dramatically if you have other people. It’s difficult to raise and protect crops and livestock alone, whilst also defending them and your base from hostiles. Having extra sets hands who know what’s ahead of them is invaluable, because not only will it lighten the load, because they know what’s necessary, it minimizes potential conflicts.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Jeremiah taught his sons to be prepared, too.

Among the biggest fears in the zombie apocalypse is that, even if you’re ready, your loved ones might not be. If your family are unprepared, you’ll likely have to take serious risks trying to protect them, perhaps deadly ones.

If you teach those you care about how to survive, you won’t need to be afraid for them, because you’ll know that they are just as capable of surviving as you are.

It can’t be understated just how crucial preparation is to surviving a zombie apocalypse. Once the ball that is the outbreak gets rolling, it will quickly accelerate. Chances are, if things are getting to the point where you’re seeing the dead roaming around, it’s already too late.

Panic will set in, followed by civil unrest and violence. The numbers of the undead will quickly swell, and they’ll become too entrenched for the government to remove. Utilities will fail. Civil order will crumble.

You need to think ahead and prepare for the worst so that, should it come, you won’t be ambushed. You need to think of everything you’ll need and know how to get it. More importantly, you’ll need to ensure that those you care about most are as prepared for it as you are.

This is how we survive. This is why you follow…The Rules.

Next: The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Fight back

And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it will help you should you ever need it and give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.

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!