Zombies are here...what do you grab?

[ZorValachan]

As people pointed out earlier, while people may have and own these things, it is hard to believe someone could carry all of these things. 5 minutes to get where you need to be getting. One guy listed 14 pieces of 2.5'+ metal (swords, rifles/shotguns), you think people got their spacial reasoning from FPS games or bad character sheets. Plus ammo, water, food. People, we've only got 2 hands.

If I noticed they were at my door, I would be in the living room. If I am awake, it means I am fully clothed. 0 second mark. Scream to my wife to put 'American clothes' (shirt, shorts/jeans, sneakers/tennis shoes). Otherwise she'd get blouses, skirts, and high heels and her make-up case. "My baby is Russian made, born and bred in the Soviet days.." Of course, she wouldn't get anything, spending the entire 5 minutes deciding which shirt or shorts/pants or shoes to get (which eye shadow goes with zombie apocalypse?) or saying, "what? what? what?" over and over. I would open the closet and get my backpack (currently nothing in it) and leather trenchcoat (for winter) both over left shoulder then go to the other end of the room. Grab my car keys and put it in my right pocket, and my leatherman tool in left pocket (30 seconds).
Move to kitchen. Grab 1 gallon bottled water (left hand). Drop the coat, Grab granola bars, beans, and rice and stuff into the backpack. (at the 1 minute mark now). Grab my leather biker jacket/coat and put it on, put backpack over left shoulder. Grab trenchcoat again, take 2 steps into hallway. (1:20 now). Open closet, grab hammer, toss it into bedroom. Take step into Bathroom get deodorant, soap, razor, shaving cream and toothbrush (I need my teeth and I hate being dirty). Throwing it into back pack. Zip pack up. (2 minutes now). Got to bedroom. Open closet, get spare shoes (biker boots, if I am wearing tennies shoes and tennis shoes if I am wearing biker boots), also my moccassins. Get the biker chaps, I happen to have borrowed from my dad for Halloween this year (delete this awesome logic in a couple weeks, when I give them back..) Get my daisho and throw all this on top of the laundry basket, which is full of various clothes used only 1 time, both mine and wife's. Easier and faster than trying to get 2 pairs socks, 2 pairs pants, etc. Throw coat and hammer on it too. Move to the back room (probably 2:45 now) get WWII bayonete and heavy wooden Russian spiked mace. Bayonete in my belt and mace on the basket. Get keys from pocket, put in mouth. Grab matches, and my pipe-tobacco pouch-onto laundry basket (3 min mark-back room is small, easy to get all this faster). Pick up basket, run down steps to car. remote unlock, open door throw basket and backpack in. remote lock while I run back up stairs (so zoms won't get inside and wait for me. Spend the remaining 1:45 trying to get wife out to the car in her pajamas and flip flops. 10% chance of success, who am I kidding, we are zom omm nom nom... If no wife, I'd spend the 1:45 to get my bike and throw it into the truck. People tend to forget about bikes, but they are faster than people and less effort to pedal than to run.

[azazel1024]

If I could carvan it I'd take at least one bike. However, with 2 kids and a wife (both kids under 4 and a wife who sometimes acts like that), with everything we'd "need" there is no way to get a bike in the family car (Mazda 5).

With trying to get the kids in some semblance of ready and strapped in to their car seats, or hell even just thrown in the car, odds are good we wouldn't be able to grab much. I might be able to grab my hiking pack, ready food, fuel, tent(s) and sleeping bags if my wife could handle the kids. Possibly/probably able to fill up some water bottles tearing out the door, or grabbing some juice boxes, soda, beer. At least I have about 20qts worth of water purification tablets in my hiking pack at all times as well as a couple of empty hydration bladders.

Its not much, but it would be food and fuel for the 4 of us (about to be 5 of us) for 2 days of full meals (bought 8 freeze dried double meals from REI when they were on sale for backpacking a couple of months ago). My hiking pack has most of my camping gear in it, with the exception of food, water, fuel, tent and sleeping bag.

Honestly, to be "well prepared" I'd probably need 15-20 minutes so I can extras like filling all the water bottles, empty milk from jugs, cleaning and filling with water. Grab garden tools like axe, sledge hammer and shovels. Extra clothes, jackets and winter clothes, as much non-perishable food from the pantry as possible. Gas can out of the shed (doesn't have much gas in it, only has about a qt in it with a little fuel stablizer, but its something and it at least is a container to refill with fuel (2 gallon gas can)). All of my various knives (I only have a swiss army knife in my hiking pack at all times, the rest are in my sock draw, medium duty fixed blade, a couple of folding knives, a couple different swiss army knives, leatherman (also one in my car) and throwing knives). Extra matches, blankets, shoes, diapers, all the TP we can fit and a few toys for the kids (zombie apocalypse bad enough, 10x worse with the kids in the back fighting with each other and complaining that they played with the same toy for the last week).

Oh and solar powered battery charger, all my AA and AAA NiMh batteries and my iPad, car charger and battery pack for iPad (its lux, or the iPad is, but meh). I have a AA battery charger with AAA adapters as well as a small little 3w car battery "maintainer" solar panel. It would be enough to keep the car battery charged once we run out of gas and charge cell phones/iPad off the car battery here and there.

[Silveressa]

Reading these always makes me think I should have a bailout bag ready to roll all the time. If not zombies then for when Johnny Law comes kicking in the door.

It's a good idea for disaster scenarios if nothing else, or in the event an emergency takes you on an unexpected road trip you can grab all the essentials in one place and be good to go.

Once you have the bag "ready" the best thing you can do is grab it some weekend and take it out to the campgrounds and see how hard it is to hike and survive off the contents for a couple days. Otherwise you may find you're missing some essentials or drastically over weighted when the real deal comes down.

[King Newt]

Three aluminum softball bats and my kids. Maybe my wife............................ well ok my wife!!!

[Grell]

If Walking Dead has taught me one thing, it is this: condoms. Lots and lots of condoms.

[azazel1024]

Nah, just get snipped before the apocalypse goes down if you don't feel like you are ever going to attempt to repopulate the human race. That or hope your wife has gotten that done.

[Illendaver]

Dead Threads are the best ones! Does anybody have any different answers? For Example: I now live in a nice apartment building. Only problem is, it only has one main entrance. If they are at my door, I am once again zombie food (I have got to fix this.... it has been a few years and I am somehow even more certain to be dead if they are at my door than I was before) Also, I sold the old van after it the engine died on me. However my ford explorer is nearly as well stocked as the van was. Now I have a 4 year old, 3 year old, and 1 year old to watch after as well. I will have to make the phone call to some friends and pile everybody into the pantry for a last stand until they can make it to my place with some backup. I am still sooooo screwed.

[azazel1024]

I'll play your game holmes.

I actually live in a much more rural area now in a much bigger house. I'd actually consider holing up where I am. My backyard is completely fenced by a modestly high chain link fence (I'd have to decide real quick if I wanted to trust whether zombies can climb or not). I'd have to quickly baracade the front windows of my house, but only 3 windows are remotely accessible to something that sucks at climbing. The other 3 windows are all too high and one is too small for a person to really climb in at all (IE you'd need a ladder or some one giving you a boost). With materials on hand I could probably baracade the windows in 5 minutes or less with my wife to help.

That'd give me half an acre enclosed by the fence, which includes my rather large garden and most of my house is behind the fence as well (other than the very front of the house).

I live within a half mile walk of 5 different farms...so depending on the time of year, great prospects for resupply if there weren't too many zombies that I couldn't make it out on a run. I could also quickly expand my garden to cover most of my backyard for long term survival. My neighbors across the street have a 5 acre horse farm with a lot of it fenced, though the fence isn't chainlink, so it would let zombies in. It is a good start that if I could get some materials we could reinforce the fence so that zombies couldn't get through. It would likely be a several week project though, so it might not be possible to do even slowly if there are many zombies.

If I had to bug out, I would be in a better position, both being further from the city, but also interms of what I have an where I have it. I'd probably have my wife get the kids in the car, which would likely take about 2 minutes. Then have her grab clothes, food and water, grab my knives out of my drawer and throw it in bags in to the car. She could probably grab a motley of 2 or 3 changes of clothes for each person, some extra shoes/boots and probably a few bags of food and some of our drinks and get it in the car in time. I'd mostly be loading up things in the garage, like my wood axe, machette, tool kit, run to the shed for my 5 gallon gas can, run inside for my backpacking packs and camping supplies. I could probably do all that in 5 minutes as well.

Then book it further from the city through the backroads.

I also have a 5 1/2yr old, 3 1/2yr old and 1 1/2yr old. I'd really prefer if the zombie apocalypse could wait at least 5-10 years. I'd probably be in a much better position to survive then.

[azazel1024]

I do absolutely nothing. The nearest graveyard is miles away. The zombies have alot of people to chow before they get to me. When panic starts, I'll Quielty move to the now empty market warehouse and shut all the exists. Use the heavy machinery that's nearby to barricade or Mow ever zombies as I please. Just what exactly are zombies gonna do against Construction vehicles? try to spit on them?? fling their rot? .. opps, they're ground under it's shovel into a nice patte.
Bones ground to dust..soylent Green is made out of ZOMBIES!!!

Swarm it under to the point where you can't see where you are driving because they are all over the cab. Then possibly you run out of fuel and starve or die trying to get out.

Against a few, sure. Against a HORDE, I don't think it would matter much what you were in as it might get swarmed under to the point of not being able to see where you are driving and with a horde swarming over it, its not like you can just blithly step out of it later or even kick open the door or hatch, shot one or two off and run for it once you drive away from the horde. You might have dozens hanging on to the thing.

Just some thoughts on it.

[azazel1024]

My point though is any of them can climb in anyway, if you plow through a big crowd of them, you are probably going to get them climbing all over the thing. Get to that point, its not like they are just going to hop off. They'll stay on until they eat you are find something more attractive to eat.

Then its about having friends who can pick them off for you when you are done.

Otherwise just you and your zombie pals, the zombies might just win it in the end once you run out of fuel and have to come out.

If they can't climb for crap, you'd be pretty safe.

[whassupman03]

Hello...

Sorry, I cheated. Because it took around a week for the Wave to claim its first victims and then revive them as the first zombies, I reckoned that while a lot of people may have headed for the hills, many stayed at home (See Dead Reign, page 8 to see where I got this.). When the first cases of the outbreak became public, people who didn't have what they needed went on a shopping spree to get what they thought was necessary to protect their homes and their lives. Of course they weren't expecting the Creeping Death, fanatic cults, religious zealots, and such, but they were expecting bandits, raiders, and the other lunatics that follow. The wretched scum and villainy (What can I say, I'm a big Star Wars fan!) will spread chaos where there is none.

The somewhat vigilant, while unprepared for a deadly pandemic and the chaos included (Sadly including my family, at least at this time... ), would be buying whatever is necessary to survive it. For the pandemic, they would not only buy the construction materials necessary to quarantine their home to make it airtight, but the supplies to stay inside for a while. Of course these closet eleventh-hour preppers would easily be able to find the information they need to survive on the Internet, since it is still up for a while to their knowledge. And some already have it, stored in their bookshelves and their hard drives. In a nutshell, they have the knowledge necessary to build bug out bags, fortify their homes, survive in the wild, etc. Merchandise purchased by the closet preppers may include things that Joe Everybody wouldn't get, such as better weapons, ammunition, bullet-resistant vests, camouflage, outdoor survival gear, etc.

Personally, we would love to be well-equipped, well-trained, and otherwise well-prepared, but people like us do not have the physical ability or the financial resources necessary to become prepared pre-doomsday. Some of us tend to have serious health problems, which may or may not make us the zombies that infest the world of Dead Reign. Individuals who rely on prescription medication may get very sick or die without their meds, and some people have physical disabilities as well. We are just everyday citizens with a little bit of extra survival knowledge. Even though we have the research necessary, we do not use it. That is the pitfall that we in real life and in the game world must overcome. Now I do not advocate such a level of preparedness - if I and my loved ones were up to the task, we would likely do so, but closet preppers like me are in a sad place that we don't want to be in by living in the city with little to show for it. And when the times become tough, we may have to improvise - a lot - and dip into any resources that we do have.

Back to the topic at hand, some of the knowledgeable-yet-unprepared people will be making quick trips to get what we need. So some things that may be useful in this concept that we don't have we may have when the Wave begins to hit. Families with veterans may have simple weaponry and training, and such families may work together to survive. As such, we may have things in such a scenario that we don't have in real life, whether tangible or not. While I am not a gambler, I may bet that the knowledge we had in our personal physical and digital libraries may give us the info we need to do so. Our families already have basic necessities to survive, such as groceries, a basic stockpile of medications, and others. Even so, studying this stockpiled information may give our families the knowledge necessary to shelter-in-place successfully, and if the chaos reaches our home, bug out, and through this and our personal experiences, we will use what time we do have to teach each other what we can.

We would already expand upon our pre-Wave supplies from stores and dealers all around town, and some family members may have basic firearms to help defend ourselves that we may not have had before. The knowledge in our personal libraries speaks volumes about how to survive, what is needed, where we may need to go, when to be ready to go, and so on. Our family's best vehicle will be hidden in the garage to keep it safe in case of a need to bug out. Each family member will have go-bags at the ready, and the bug-out vehicle will be well-stocked with plenty of supplies and equipment, as well as some basic items to trade in barter deals if currently money becomes useless. If a mob comes a-knockin', we will have our go-bags packed, and we will blow out of the garage like the Grinch at the Annual Whoville Christmas Party. Sure we will be expecting human opponents, but even with the shock of seeing the Living Dead attacking our home may not take too much time to overcome. Five minutes may all that we need for our survival sense to take effect and tell us to grab our personal bags and get the heck out of dodge.

Anyway, that is all I have for today. Please take care; thanks a bunch, and have a good night.

whassupman03

[CarCrasher]

I grab BoB (Bug out Bag) first of all. The contents are: hatchet, multitool, a 6" knife, 10" knife, matches in waterproof container, flint and steel, compass, fishing line and hooks, 3 IMPs (the choice bits actually), 3 one liter steel canteens of water, water purification tablets, water filter pump, a metal bowl, waterproof hiking boots, thermal underwear, wool socks, long sleeve and tee shirts, pants, clean undies, towel (face, hand and body), sweater, toque, rain poncho, 9'x12' tarp, emergency blanket, a quality first aid kit, led flashlight, 6 glow sticks, 3 nine hour candles, headlamp, a hand crank FR-300 emergency radio (that baby can charge cell phones), cell phone, machete, duct tape, 200' paracord, 100' rope, pencil, paper, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, hand sanitizer, floss, bug spray, bandanas, twine, dust masks, AA batteries, surgical tubing, crazy glue, sewing kit, garbage bag, leather work gloves, binoculars, whet stone. Thats pretty much all I really need. Except for some crazy defensive thing like a firearm. BoB weighs at most 45lbs in the winter cuz certain additional eq. It's pretty easy to carry BoB around. A well made hiking bag has several areas that tie in together to disperse the weight evenly over the body. There is a BoB for all my loved ones too. My kids and wife so we want for nothing in a survival situation.

[whassupman03]

Hello...

I grab BoB (Bug out Bag) first of all. The contents are: hatchet, multitool, a 6" knife, 10" knife, matches in waterproof container, flint and steel, compass, fishing line and hooks, 3 IMPs (the choice bits actually), 3 one liter steel canteens of water, water purification tablets, water filter pump, a metal bowl, waterproof hiking boots, thermal underwear, wool socks, long sleeve and tee shirts, pants, clean undies, towel (face, hand and body), sweater, toque, rain poncho, 9'x12' tarp, emergency blanket, a quality first aid kit, led flashlight, 6 glow sticks, 3 nine hour candles, headlamp, a hand crank FR-300 emergency radio (that baby can charge cell phones), cell phone, machete, duct tape, 200' paracord, 100' rope, pencil, paper, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, hand sanitizer, floss, bug spray, bandanas, twine, dust masks, AA batteries, surgical tubing, crazy glue, sewing kit, garbage bag, leather work gloves, binoculars, whet stone. Thats pretty much all I really need. Except for some crazy defensive thing like a firearm. BoB weighs at most 45lbs in the winter cuz certain additional eq. It's pretty easy to carry BoB around. A well made hiking bag has several areas that tie in together to disperse the weight evenly over the body. There is a BoB for all my loved ones too. My kids and wife so we want for nothing in a survival situation.

Good for you! You seem to have it covered. But I have a question - what is an IMP like? I know a little bit about MREs and we have been wanting to try a Wise Fettuccine Alfredo freeze-dried packet that we have in our pantry (My Dad bought it for fun, since I love pasta ). Anyway, thanks for adding your insight, so please take care and have a good Valentine's Day.

whassupman03

[CarCrasher]

IMPs are individual meal packs. The Canadian military equivalent of MRE. Imo they are better tasting and superior in quality. They are high in calories for survival needs. Comes with an entree, dessert, salt, pepper, peanut butter, jam, bread, juice mix, coffee, tea, sugar, whitener, toothpick, cutlery, a chocolate treat and in most cases a mint or chiclet like gum. I may have forgotten what else it contains but you get the idea.

[dante144]

Been intending to make a go bag. But since I do not have one yet, I would grab all my guns put them in my large duffel which can be carried as a knapsack, I would grab all my non perishable foods put that also in the bag and grab my first aid kit in my Jeep. or just take my Jeep.

[Trent]

My hat ... because if I'm gonna get killed and rise again I want to be wearing a jaunty hat!

Peter Griffin ? Is that you ?!?

[Tirisilex]

I'd grab my:
Hammer
Dagger
Sword
Atlantis the second Age RPG
Dice
Knife, Fork, Spoon
Back pack
The books:
Yoga Immortality and Freedom
Dream Yoga
Buddhist Yidam Practice Booklet
Peace is Every Step

A few Pens and pencils
My Journal
Notebook
Sketchbook
Tent and Pillow
Keys to car and vrooooooom Car

[say652]

In Game. PowerSurge survival kit.
Beer. Dont have mead in 'Murica.
Cigars and several lighters.
Ok I'm ready.

[Trent]

thermonuclear warhead and a 6 pack

[say652]

Well if I need to save my girl also.
365 huskie. Full tank 45 minutes of mayhem. Three tanks later when her makeup is fixed and she's dressed. I grab a beer and sit back down to watch tv because all the zombies are dead.