TWD, Survival Rule Of The Week: Good People And Bad People

2) Bad People Will Lie.

Things would be easy if we had the ability to detect when someone was bad right out of the gate: We’d be able to know who was friend, who was foe, who was somewhere in between, and act accordingly. Sadly, that’s not how things work.

The reality is that people can lie, and, for the most part, bad people will lie; Masking their intent behind flowery words or relying on other bad people to make the flowery words for them. Think back to your classic lessons on “Stranger Danger” — How creeps and kidnappers will tell kids that they have candy or a puppy or that a kid’s parents have sent them to get them to come with them or into their car. If such people told kids, “I’m going to steal you,” no kid would go anywhere near them and instead report them to the nearest adult or police officer without a second thought.

The ability of people to lie will only be honed as the zombie outbreak begins. As order breaks down and supplies begin to dwindle, people will say anything to access food, shelter, or other necessities. The further along things go, the more insatiable (And frankly, lazy) people will go from one place to the next like locusts, saying whatever they need to get in with some trusting group before eating them out of the house and home and moving on to the next group, likely not being very kind to their hosts on the way out.

Because of this, you need to learn how to pick out liars from the rest of the pack and try to sniff out clues that the person/people you’re talking to are not on the level. Thinking back to The Walking Dead’s season two episode, “Nebraska,” what tipped Rick off that Dave and Tony weren’t as friendly as they appeared (Besides Tony’s impatient and angry outburst, though, that was a sign, too, if we’re honest) was that Dave kept asking Rick where Hershel’s farm was and wanting to know more and more about it. In a zombie apocalypse, curiosity kills the cat, but it’s usually someone else’s curiosity that gets the cat killed.

Another bad sign is someone whose story repeatedly paints them as a victim; It’s an attempt to gain sympathy and get you to lower your guard. Don’t fall for it.

Also, if someone’s really vague about things they’ve done, I wouldn’t trust that either, as there are probably many skeletons, they’re trying to keep in the closet.

The thing about bad people in a zombie apocalypse is that they have a tendency not to be stupid enough to tell you that they’re bad. You need to know this and learn how to sniff out these kinds of people before they can hurt you.