The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Dangerous by default

5) Some people will lose their grip on reality.

One of my favorite Walking Dead characters is, was, and will always be Morgan. Morgan was one of the first recurring characters we’d meet in The Walking Dead, and, his story was one of the most tragic.

After first losing his wife to the walkers, then, losing his son to the walker of his wife, Morgan snapped, devoting his life to “clearing”, i.e., killing just about anything that came within a certain range of the place he was living in, in fact, he was in this mode when Rick reunited with him in season three of The Walking Dead, and he nearly killed him twice just in that one episode, even thinking the Rick was “wearing a dead man’s face”. Clearly, Morgan was not all there at the time.

I bring this up because, in his crazed state, even without having malicious intent, Morgan had become incredibly dangerous to everything around him, and, you need to realize that, in a zombie apocalypse…people will end up like him.

Why wouldn’t they? People, millions of people, will lose everything in the zombie apocalypse: Their businesses, their homes, their communities, their friends, their families, the people that they love, and everything they ever cared about, if you think everyone who goes through that will come out fine on the other side, you are the one who’s crazy.

This sort of loss will cause some people to crack. They will probably become enraged, uncontrollable, maybe delusional, and, sadly, probably violent. They may not attack you because they want to hurt you, but, because they will be consumed, utterly, by an unquenchable rage, lashing out at anyone who gets near them. It’s possible that, having lost so much, they may slip into a delusion, thinking their loved ones are still alive, but, under constant threat, and may even see you as a hostile, or maybe even a zombie, out to attack, and will “defend” them to the death.

You need to be very careful when encountering other people in the zombie apocalypse, because, you’ll likely have no idea of what they’ve been through, and, even less of an idea how they’re handling it. While some people might legitimately just deal with it, others might try to put on a brave face, while inside they’re crumbling, while still others might be completely unhinged, and attack at first sight.

When meeting other people, proceed with caution, you never know who the crazy ones are.