INFOGRAPHIC — Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

We may never come any clos­er to the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse than Black Friday at Walmart, but who are we to ignore the prompt­ings of pop­u­lar cul­ture? And, let’s face it, there are prob­a­bly zombie-crazed Walking Dead fans out there somewhere–injecting corpses with espres­so shots and Four Loko in the hope that they’ll rise again.

If one of these bud­ding Dr. Frankensteins suc­ceeds in wak­ing the dead, remem­ber these sur­vival tips (and watch Zombieland) and you’ll stand a mar­gin­al­ly less­er chance of wind­ing up as a rot­ting, drool­ing, flesh-frenzied corpse.

Befriend a Doomsday Prepper

They’re out there, the peo­ple with base­ments full of gold, under­ground food stor­age facil­i­ties and enough weapon­ry to take down Iron Man. If you want to sur­vive the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse (or hide out from an enraged ex for a while), then dooms­day prep­pers are excel­lent peo­ple to be on good terms with.

Most of them are a tad twitchy and bug-eyed, but they’ll sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase your sur­vival chances in a post-apocalyptic world. To befriend a dooms­day prep­per, start hang­ing out around at your local Precious Metals Exchange. Preppers gen­er­al­ly invest in hard cur­ren­cy, so you’ll be sure to meet a few there.

Strike up a con­ver­sa­tion about the inevitabil­i­ty of social col­lapse, the gov­ern­ment, or grow­ing pota­toes at home and you’ll be in the club. Build the rela­tion­ship to the point where you have an open invite to their fortress, and you’ll be all set for when the zom­bies come call­ing.

Zombie-Proof Your Home

Before you make it to a safe loca­tion, you’re going to need to buy your­self enough time to pre­pare your­self and gath­er your belong­ings. If you live in a first-story apart­ment with a lot of win­dows, then short of announc­ing to the world that you’re nuts by board­ing up all of your win­dows, your best hope is going to be a fast escape and easy access to weapon­ry.

If you live in an upstairs apart­ment, you can buy your­self more time by keep­ing heavy fur­ni­ture close to your door. When the zom­bies come call­ing, block the door­way until you’ve gath­ered your weapons and sur­vival essen­tials. Now, take a moment to ana­lyze your escape routes. Do you have a back stair­case? A handy para­chute? A secret tun­nel through the air vents? If so, then the next time you’ve had one too many glass­es of wine, do a prac­tice zom­bie attack drill.

In doing so, you will dis­cov­er how many pounds you need to lose in order to fit through your vent, and how up-to-scratch your para­chut­ing skills are. If all goes well, you will still be alive to wit­ness the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse after­wards.

Prepare Your Weaponry

Unless you hap­pen to be Usain Bolt’s faster cousin, then you’re prob­a­bly going to need some zombie-proof weapons in order to pull off a suc­cess­ful escape. If you live with your moth­er and don’t want her to find ninja-blades and a machine gun stashed under your bed, then you may have to make do with the best makeshift weapons you can come up with.

Traditionally, zom­bies are killed by a heavy blow to the head–although in some cases com­plete decap­i­ta­tion is required. Try tak­ing a stroll by your local lake or river. If you’re lucky, you will find a good zombie-bashing rock.

Using duct tape, attach the zombie-bashing rock to a hardy tree branch. If your moth­er asks, tell her you’re using it as a Gandalf staff for Halloween–considering the price of Gandalf staffs at the Halloween store, your tale will be quite believ­able. If you fail in your quest for an appro­pri­ate zombie-bashing rock, then a shov­el or a metal base­ball bat can be used as a viable zombie-bashing alter­na­tive.

Please note: Ask a doc­tor or phar­ma­cist before attack­ing zom­bies if you suf­fer from any of the fol­low­ing con­di­tions:

• high blood pres­sure
• car­diac arrhyth­mia
• bad cho­les­terol
• glau­co­ma

Stop attack­ing zom­bies and con­sult a doc­tor if you expe­ri­ence any of the fol­low­ing symp­toms:

• drowsi­ness
• red­ness or swelling
• dis­em­bow­el­ment
• insom­nia

For more tips and total­ly applic­a­ble tricks about sur­viv­ing the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse, check out the info­graph­ic below!