Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule: Stranger Danger

Fear the Walking Dead season 7, episode 16

The larger a group of strangers are, the more suspicious you should be of them.

At the close of the Fear The Walking Dead season seven finale, Morgan and Madison were being taken to P.A.D.R.E., with the intent of rescuing Mo from them.

There’s a problem with their plan, though: If P.A.D.R.E. is capable of arranging for multiple people in different parts of Louisiana (If not the entire gulf coast) to participate in their kidnapping ring, and have access to Coast Guard ships, then they’re probably a lot bigger than either Morgan or Madison realize.

As I’ve discussed before in a couple of my Walking Dead theories, this fact about P.A.D.R.E. suggests that they’re not simply a ragtag collection of survivors who happened to stumble upon a government program and name themselves after it but, more than likely, are a highly organized group unto themselves, who have the resources and manpower to comfortably run that whole operation.

This brings me to my point: If you should run into a group or a group representative in a zombie apocalypse that is very big (Like 500 strong or more), you should be very suspicious of them. Why? Well, with how chaotic the apocalypse will have been in its earliest stages, it’s unlikely that a group of ordinary survivors would get that big. Think about it: At the beginning of the apocalypse, the way you’d most likely get a regular group of survivors hundreds-strong would be at a massive government safe zone; the problem is that early on, the government probably wouldn’t know what they’re really dealing with, and accidentally let in someone who’s infected, who would then turn and cause the safe zone to break down, almost certainly killing (Or at least scattering) most of the people in it.

If a group has gotten to the point where they can sustain that massive population, they would need a suitably massive military to protect them, and, this being a zombie apocalypse, would likely develop a “Shoot first, ask questions later” policy when dealing with other people. Furthermore, they would need massive levels of resources to sustain such a population, meaning that they’d probably be the ones who would roll up to a place that had supplies or food or water and either destroy anyone already using those resources or “encourage” them to share…at the point of a gun.

So, should you happen upon a massive group in the zombie apocalypse, tread lightly because there’s a very good chance that they reached that size through highly organized hard militarism and, likely, conquest, using their ability and willingness to employ deadly force to either entice survivors or forcibly absorb them into their ranks. By the time you’ve met them, they’re likely at a point where they can afford to just kill anyone who questions them or stands in their way and so hardened that doing so is as casual to them as drinking a glass of water.

The bigger a group is in a zombie apocalypse, the larger a shadow they’re likely to cast.

And that’s our Walking Dead Survival Rule Of The Week! Surviving a zombie apocalypse alone is tough. It gets tougher when you realize how dangerous hostile people can be in it. It gets tougher still when you realize that anyone you don’t know could, potentially, be another hostile waiting to attack, and if you’re not careful, they will. If you want to survive the apocalypse, always be wary of strangers. If you want to know more about what to watch out for in the apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!