by Jason Offutt
Robert Morgan: Another day to live through. Better get started.
--The Last Man on Earth, 1964
Chapter 14: Preparing for the Apocalypse
Monsters have overrun the planet. Society has disintegrated. The government is defeated. Everything you’ve ever counted on is gone, even Chinese takeout. What do you do now? Survive. But know this— if monsters are a problem, they aren’t your only problem. There are a lot of things our fat, slovenly Western culture has taken for granted far too long. You still need food, water, shelter, and weapons, but most importantly, if you’re one of the few surviving humans, you need to make sure our entire race survives.[3] Of course, to help the species continue, you need to find people. Real, living people. Not the undead kind. They make lousy dates. We’ll work on that.
First, let’s take a step back, a step into the present, which is relatively monster free—at least on the surface. But the monsters are here. Oh, yes, they’re here, in our periphery, skulking down the dark alleyways and feeding on crack heads. You know there are monsters because you’ve battled them as they stalked high school couples walking home from a dance, hidden in gas station bathrooms (damn that weak bladder), and stood in line at the Googolplex for tickets to the next teen vampire movie. But are there too many? Yes, there are always too many. However, you realize something is amiss, so you check the local headlines: “Another Girl Found Dead in Local Cemetery,” “Blood Drained From Victim,” “Steve Buscemi a No-Show at Golden Globes.” Hey, Scooby, Shaggy, something isn’t right in Coolsville. Monsters—with the exception of space aliens—won’t overtake our society with one massive swoop of superior firepower like in the 1996 documentary Independence Day; they’ll take it over bit by bit, headline by headline, until they’re too strong for anyone to stop. Anyone but you. Pay attention to the world around you, because when the end is finally near, you have a lot to prepare for.
Get your Finances in Order
News flash: your finances are in as much order as they’re ever going to get. Sure, you could cash in your 401k, your CDs (even with the penalty for early withdrawal), and sell everything you have; it won’t matter when fighting werewolves. What do you have? Nothing you couldn’t get by without until society crumbles and you have the opportunity to loot Walmart. Money isn’t the answer. Survival is. First tip, when you know the end is near, spend all your money on things you won’t get when our culture dies an agonizing death—Super Bowl tickets, that redhead in accounting who wouldn’t normally give you the time of day, and, most importantly, a decent meal. Unless you’re Chef Emeril Lagasse, when the machines take over, you won’t see a decent meal in a long, long time—and believe me, you’ll miss a porterhouse smothered in mushrooms a heck of a lot more than you will society.
Elective Surgery
When rampaging dinosaurs, zombie-causing disease, or even radioactive giant monkeys start wrecking the world as we know it, don’t prepare for life after civilization simply by arming yourself and making sure you have a full pantry (but do those things, too)—take care of your health. Go to a doctor and get the works:
• A complete checkup.
• A recommended diet for someone who may not have a handy source of vegetables.
• A recommended multivitamin for someone who may no longer feel safe walking in sunlight.
• A CT scan of every inch of your body.
• An EKG test.
• A colonoscopy.
• A prostate exam.
• An eye exam.
• A dental exam.
• Prescriptions of every medicine you need: blood pressure, cholesterol, allergies, whatever. These pills will be lying around by the millions in drugstores around the country when the end comes. You just need to know how much you need to take of what. Don’t forget to ask about Valium. The doctor won’t give you a prescription for it, but what he doesn’t know doesn’t matter.
Then have the following things surgically removed:
• Appendix
• Tonsils
• Adenoids
• Ingrown toenails
• Large moles
• Wisdom teeth
• Any weird lump your physician thinks may give you trouble in the next twenty years
Sure, a doctor might advise against removing anything healthy from your body (or at least not as yet dangerous), but six months after the zombies take over, all the doctors on the planet may be dead, then your appendix ruptures. Great. Fat lot a doctor’s advice does for you then. The good thing is, all of these tests and surgeries are free. By the time it would take for these bills to run through your insurance company’s bureaucratic lumber mill, the only people left to bill you or even answer the phones will be zombies in India.
Stay at Home vs. Run
There are two strategies when it comes to surviving the monster apocalypse: create a fortress somewhere or keep moving. Both have their advantages, and both have their disadvantages.
Safe Haven
First, if you’re in a city, get out. A city is not a safe haven. The population of Chicago and its suburbs is close to ten million people. Ten mil-li-on. Sure, you might think, This is great. A virus has killed everybody but me. I’m king of Chicago. I’m going to live in the mayor’s office, drink champagne out of the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cups, and bathe in pizza. But slow down and look at the bigger picture.
1) Only thirty percent of Europe died during the Black Plague. In Chicago, that would leave seven million people alive, angry, desperate, and possibly horny. Of course, a zombie virus or serious vampire infestation would claim many, many more victims—but not all. The point: you won’t be alone and your company won’t be happy.
2) If the virus that claimed your city is fast-spreading, mainly because it makes the infected want to bite lots of people, the number of infected will grow geometrically until you’re not only really lonely, the chances of you making it out of your apartment to gather food and get back safely is making me cry.
3) If the virus (and later monsters) actually kills everyone but you, after a few days, a major city will produce a stink worse than a meth lab, an industrial hog farm, and Roman Polanski’s house combined. You do not want to stay there.
4) The good news? Although corpses are not fun to live with, what with the stench and limited conversation, dead bodies aren’t a health risk. According to a spokesperson from the World Health Organization, “The micro-organisms responsible for the decomposition of bodies are not capable of causing disease in living people.” So if Uncle Jim goes mad with the zombie virus, just smash him in the head with a lamp, wait a few hours for the virus to die, then dump him out the window. Just don’t kiss him good-bye.
So where should you go? A small town that’s just large enough to have everything you’ll need to survive: a number of gas stations, hardware store, public library, gun/pawn shop, Walmart, and a grocery store or two that will keep you in nonperishable food items for years. Not only will a small town give you a greater chance of survival, there will be far fewer monsters to shoot.
Stay on the Run … like Lorenzo Lamas in “Renegade”
On the surface, running sounds great. Hop on a motorcycle, or better yet, in a four-wheel drive vehicle hauling a motorcycle, and go, leaving all the bloodthirsty monsters in your dust. However, there are more problems being on the go than simply staying put, especially since you’ll find monsters at your destination and everywhere in between.
1) Food and water. Yes, you can find food and bottled water almost anywhere—a convenience store, grocery store, vending machine, someone’s house—but to get it, you’ll have to walk through unfamiliar territory and face a potential monster at the end of each shopping aisle. Yes, if you’re driving an SUV you can stockpile food and water in the back, but an Escalade doesn’t hold as many cases of Perrier as a house. You’ll have to stop sometime.
2) Gasoline. With a failing electric grid, you’re faced with the problem of filling your tank. No electricity, no pump. Yes, you
can siphon gasoline out of other vehicles, but considering it only takes swallowing about a tablespoon of gasoline to kill a person, it’s not safe. You can also get gasoline out of the underground storage tanks of a gas station with a hand pump, but that takes time, and in a world overrun by monsters, time is something you don’t have. Or you could pick up a Chevy Volt. Ha, ha, ha, just kidding.
3) Vehicle maintenance. In order to count on your vehicle when you really need it, such as with a dragon in high-speed pursuit, you need good tires, proper alignment, and to change the oil every 3,000 miles. Can you crawl under your car for an oil change with relative safety? Probably not.
4) Sleeping is a problem. RVs aren’t ideal for escaping a pack of velociraptors, and tents can’t even keep out mosquitoes. Motels? Yeah, maybe after you’ve checked every room and killed the nice couple from Wisconsin that used to not be zombies, but then the noise of your truck, coupled with the sound of your shotgun, and smashing the front of the vending machine that just wouldn’t take your dollar, have attracted more monsters. The best way to keep monsters from attacking is if they don’t know you’re there. Sleep on your side; snoring is a dead giveaway.
How to Stock Supplies
Whether you chose to create a stronghold or go on the run, you need to become the early 21st Century hunter-gatherer. Everything you need is just lying around waiting for you to pick up. Grocery stores are vital to your survival, as are everything-stores like Walmart and Target. These shops are filled with truckloads of bottled water, nonperishable food items, booze, all the medicine you’ll need to keep your blood pressure down for as long as possible, weapons, clothes, and survival gear. Take as much as you can from these stores, but before you loot, stick by the following rules.
1) Secure the perimeter. Drive around the building and run down any monster wandering the parking lot. A zombie lurking at the side of the building will give you a nasty surprise when you walk back out to your vehicle with armloads of toilet paper and canned chili.
2) Clean any monsters out of the store before gathering items. You don’t want “clean up on aisle seven” to mean your brains.
3) If you’re ever going to come back to this store, lock the building tight when you leave. Creating a well-stocked fortress will save you from repeating steps 1 and 2 every time you run out of mustard.
Get guns and lots of them. Your survival will depend on the type and condition of weapon you choose. There are three types of firearms an average American can find with little trouble.
1) For long-range combat, arm yourself with a rifle that fires a .30-06 cartridge. This cartridge is a favorite of hunters around the world and will be found in any gun shop, rural area convenience store, and the homes of most rednecks. This cartridge will take down game such as deer, mountain goat, and pterosaur at a distance of up to 273 yards, so just think what it can do to a zombie’s face.
2) For relatively short range, a 10-gauge shotgun can rip the ankle out from under most theropod dinosaurs and the head off a werewolf, plus shotgun shells are as common in America as Smarties.
3) For a last-ditch weapon, one you’ll use when a monster is uncomfortably close to removing your head, arm yourself with a 9mm pistol, such as those used by the United States military. If monsters have overrun the world, chances are the military has been dispatched to deal with them. Military vehicles, even military vehicles a Tyrannosaurus Rex has used as a chew toy, may contain the ammunition you need.
However, don’t be trigger-happy. If you’re worried you might not be able to get through life without Arby’s Horsey Sauce, don’t shoot the first thing you see in a fast food joint. It might not be a zombie; it might just be a teenage fry cook stumbling around in shock because he can no longer use his cell phone.
All of this may sound horribly depressing, but the one benefit to you of the death of mankind is the death of all of mankind’s illnesses. If you’re the last person alive, you’ll never get the flu.
How to Make Sure Your House is Safe From Attack
Okay, so you’re creating a safe haven, most probably your own home. This is good because it’s familiar. You know where all the weak spots are, the strong spots, and you won’t have to use somebody else’s bathroom. But that beautiful, plate-glass window in your living room that overlooks the golf course (miniature golf. You’re not a millionaire) has to go. Board it up. In fact, board up every window in your house. Bedroom, kitchen, basement, even that tiny window in the seldom-used attic. You need that attic space for food storage. We don’t want fifteen seconds of light while you go upstairs to retrieve a box of Hamburger Helper to alert all the monsters in the neighborhood you’re still alive. It also helps with the common housefly. Also, get rid of all the garden gnomes in the neighborhood. They’ll attract others.
Another effective method of home security is to make your house look like it’s not lived in. Much like avoiding bullies in elementary school, avoiding muggers in New York, and Han Solo avoiding Imperial cruisers, don’t draw attention to yourself. If you’ve chosen the Safe Haven method of surviving the apocalypse, you still have to go outside sometime. Follow these rules to make sure your yard isn’t full of monsters when you go on a food run/killing spree/jog:
1) When you see the end coming, turn your home into an eco-friendly solar-powered home. Install solar power cells, electric furnace, electric range, and electric water heater. Not only will you have electricity long after the power grid is gone, electric appliances are pretty silent, and smoke won’t roll out of your chimney all winter. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to claim this on your taxes. By April 15, everybody at the IRS will be a zombie.
2) Turn out the lights. Although you’ll have taken care of lights inside the house by boarding up windows, an outside light controlled by a motion-detector is as attractive to vampires as a neon Bud Light sign is to college students.
3) Don’t mow the lawn. A well-manicured lawn in a sea of prairie grass is a beacon to even the most stupid monster. If your house looks lived in, it probably is.
4) Depending on the monster, do or don’t build a ten-foot-tall safety fence topped in razor wire. Intelligent monsters will see right through this. However, it’s an effective deterrent for zombies. If zombies have taken over the planet, put up the fence. Then mount a deer stand on the roof and pick off wandering zombies with your .30-06. This will not only help rid your town of monsters, it’s a great way to spend an afternoon.
5) Since you have electricity, you also have music. Never crank Judas Priest, even if it’s “Breaking the Law.” Something’s bound to hear it, especially if it’s awesome.
How to Clean Water
When civilization goes, clean water goes with it, and unless you want to go through life like a tourist in a Third-World country, you need to learn how to turn now-untrustworthy tap water, well water, lake water, and stream water into something you can drink without all the diarrhea. Water is vital to your health and survival, not to mention it goes well with scotch and a twist of lemon. Here are four easy methods to purifying water:
1) Filter it. Although a professional grade water filter, or even a Brita, is best, a coffee filter will do in a pinch.
2) Boil it. Heating water to a rolling boil for three to five minutes will kill any microorganism that would otherwise wreak havoc to your gastrointestinal system. The downfall to this is the water will taste flat. Aerating the water by shaking it in a bottle should improve the flavor—or just add Kool-Aid. Oh, yeah.
3) Disinfect it with a few drops of household liquid bleach. This kills microorganisms and makes your kitchen smell like a swimming pool. Let the water sit a few hours before drinking. Remember, a few drops will purify it; a few too many drops will kill you.
4) Solar disinfection. Putting full plastic water bottles in direct sunlight for up to six hours will kill most microorganisms in the water. This method also works for brewing sun tea.
How to Make Bread
In “Chapter 9: Zombies,” I brought forth The Offutt Zombie
-Bread Hypothesis: if monsters take over the world, I’m still going to want a sandwich. So will you. If you can use a gun, you’ll have meat, but what will you stick the meat between? Maple leaves? No, as civilized creatures, we need bread. However, as soon as the packaged bread in your local grocery store grows as hard as a politician’s skull, sandwiches are not an option—unless you’re reading this book. Sandwiches are important to our survival because, while sitting on your roof picking off zombies wandering outside the periphery of your safety fence, you may have a moment of weakness and think, “What really separates me from them?” The answer is sandwiches. Sandwiches are civilization. Humans invented the sandwich because we were too busy doing civilized things—like gambling, driving, and watching TV—to take the time to have a proper sit-down meal. Don’t let a countryside crawling with reanimated corpses take that from you. Let’s bake bread. You look like you could use a sandwich.
White Bread
Ingredients
2 cups warm water
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cups flour
Directions
• In a bowl, stir sugar into the warm water, then stir in the yeast until creamy and really, really stinky.