The Walking Dead, Survival Rule of the Week: Never Assume

Tales of the Walking Dead – Evie/Joe

Never assume the way is safe.

Traveling in a zombie apocalypse is a perilous thing to do. Go anywhere for long enough in one, and you’ll discover a whole raft of problems awaiting you along the way.

Obviously, the first thing you might be thinking of is zombies, and they will be a serious hazard on the roads, but I’m thinking more along the lines of things like barricades or traps. Remember why Joe wound up meeting Evie in the first place? It was because, as he drove down the road, he stumbled upon a spike trap some careless individual had left on the road for unsuspecting passersby. Joe got lucky that whoever set that trap was either sleeping on the job or long dead and didn’t arrive to ambush him, but you can’t count on being so lucky. If a barricade or trap has been placed on the road, it’s a safe bet that whoever set it planned it as the first stage of an attack and will probably be lying in wait for whoever is forced to stop.

The thing is, do you think Joe ever anticipated that trap? No. Joe was familiar with the roads in that part of Ohio and never thought they’d be booby-trapped, and that is the biggest mistake of all. Just because you’re familiar with certain roads and routes before the zombie outbreak, don’t assume they’ll be safe afterward because everything changes once the apocalypse sets in.