It's here, the zombie apocalypse.
The dead roam the streets, and whether it
was a plague, an ancient curse, fungus spores,
or mutated rabies, none of that matters now,
what matters is survival.
But how are you going to survive in a world
where you're now the main course for billions
of flesh-eating zombies?
As usual, The Infographics Show has your back,
and today we're gonna teach you how to keep
from being the main course with our top ten
zombie survival lifehacks.
10 – Go north.
No, even further north.
Our first lifehack is not really a hack, more
just a general, survive-this-nightmare-and-don't-get-eaten
tip.
When the zombie apocalypse hits you're going
to be joining millions of survivors all trying
to figure out their next move.
Some guy is always going to suggest you go
to a 'government safe zone', because like
he totally hears they've been working on a
cure there.
Don't listen to him, he's just going to send
you on a pointless side plot and probably
get a person or two killed while he's at it.
Forget the government, because you're on your
own.
Now obviously you're going to want to get
out of the cities, seeing as that's where
most people live and those people are now
zombies.
Staying put in a city will be like rolling
up to a fresh lion kill and wrapping yourself
up with the carcass, so while you may be tempted
to be near places you can scavenge for supplies-
don't.
You're going to want to find a place with
abundant natural resources, because from now
on your meals are coming straight from mother
nature herself, and she doesn't deliver on
UberEats.
But more importantly, you want to go somewhere
that zombies are going to have a difficult
time following you, or at least eating you.
Flesh of any kind has a pretty hard time dealing
with the cold.
It tends to freeze and become very rigid and
inflexible, and with no blood circulating
through their dead limbs, zombies that freeze
are going to become undead statues in no time
a tall.
That's why you'll want to be going north,
really, really far north.
Like literally as far north as you can get-
if you've hit polar bears you're on the right
track.
Sure, survival will be a bit difficult in
those extreme latitudes, but you know what
else makes survival hard?
Being eaten alive by zombies.
In the far north of Alaska or Canada you'll
only be dealing with approximately three months
of mild temperatures before that thermostat
starts dropping, and once it does any zombie
that's followed you up there is going to turn
into a frozen popsicle, and at that point
it'll be as simple as leisurely knocking heads
off one at a time.
9 – Learn to get clean drinking water
Ok, so you've taken our advice and decided
to head north into the wilderness- now you're
going to have to deal with one of the basic
necessities of life: clean drinking water.
Obviously if you can hit up a local army surplus
or survival gear store then you absolutely
should do that and get yourself some handy
water filtration systems.
But if you missed out, or if man-made filters
are just like, too mainstream for you, then
fret not, we're going to teach you how to
make a basic water filter with nothing more
than a plastic bag and a bunch of rocks and
dirt.
First you want to cut a very small hole at
the bottom of the bag.
Then, line the entire bottom with a layer
of rocks.
Above that make a layer of sand, and then
a layer of rocks again.
Repeat two more times to make a total of four
layers alternating between rocks and sand,
and voila- you have your own homemade brilla
filter.
Sort of.
It won't get rid of microscopic contaminants
like bacteria, viruses, and polar bear pee,
but it'll do a great job of filtering out
larger particulates and make water mostly
safe to drink.
8 – Don't hit up an army surplus or survival
store
You remember how like thirty seconds ago we
told you to hit up a surplus or survival gear
store?
That was a test, and you failed and now you're
dead.
In fact, you should be doing any zombie prepping
now, before the actual zombies hit, because
trying to do so after the fact is probably
only going to get you killed.
See, it's like when you visit an online forum
and see posts by hundreds of people all proclaiming
how they would hit up their local gun shop
first thing and become some sort of badass
zombie-killing vigilante- except literally
everybody else is going to have the exact
same idea, not to mention, you know, the gun
shop owners themselves... who by virtue of
owning a gun shop are probably pretty heavily
armed.
Rather than heading to a place full of desperate,
terrified people who are now heavily armed,
just use that time to get away.
You're going to have a pretty narrow window
of time to actually use highways and city
streets before they become a congested mess,
and it's far better to use that time to get
out of dodge while all the internet tough
guys fight each other at the gun store.
Besides, you'll probably be able to hit up
similar shops in much smaller population towns,
long after the initial wave of panic has hit
in and most of your competition is... well,
dead.
7 – Stop aiming for the head
Everyone knows that the golden rule of zombie
survival is to aim for the head... for some
very weird reason.
I mean, we're dealing with the living dead,
the brain at this point is just a bunch of
dead tissue- and yet the golden rule is zombies
can't die unless you destroy the head.
Well, we'll leave that for the hardcore zombie
lore fans to figure out, but for the rest
of us we're worried about two things in our
zombie apocalypse: survival and conserving
resources.
Aiming for the head is notoriously difficult
thing to do, you may be a whiz in PUBG, but
firing a weapon in real life is quite a bit
more difficult than video games make it out
to be.
There's a reason why police officers and soldiers
are taught to aim center mass instead of to
take sweet headshots, and that's because center
mass is far easier to hit, and will seriously
ruin somebody's day.
Now a zombie may not have vital organs functioning
anymore, and can't bleed out, but they do
still have to obey the laws of physics and
if you manage to destroy a vertebra or blow
out a kneecap, that zombie isn't walking anywhere.
Our skeletal system is easy to overlook, it's
on our inside and literally just sits there
your entire life doing a whole lot of nothing-
but one of the things it does do is provide
structural support for your muscles, and without
that support we'd all basically be fleshy
bean bags.
For zombies, destroying that support is going
to drop them faster than Taylor Swift drops
number one hits about ex boyfriends, and while
it may not be a killing blow that doesn't
really matter if the zombie can't move around
anymore.
6 – Learn first-aid
You're gonna get hurt in the zombie apocalypse,
it's pretty much inevitable.
Now though there's no hospitals to take care
of you, and no 911 to call and get an ambulance.
On the one hand, it's kind of nice that you
won't be shelling out your life savings just
because you had to visit the hospital once,
on the other, you're probably going to die
now from totally preventable causes.
We've largely forgotten our ancient past,
and the modern wonders of civilization have
insulated us from just how terrible life is
in the wild, but also just how terrible our
bodies are for living in the wild.
We're pretty much the slowest and weakest
of animals amongst our weight class, and our
bodies are just lousy at surviving in the
wild- our bones are basically made out of
glass in comparison to thick, tough cow or
bear bones, and our ridiculously thin skin
has no thick fur to protect us from the cold
or cuts and scrapes.
It's going to be pretty important to learn
how to take care of yourself and others, so
learning some first aid now before your neighbors
are trying to eat your brains is going to
do wonders for your survival.
5 – If nothing else, learn tourniquets
Every American soldier receives some basic
first aid training, but the one thing that
every soldier learns how to use and apply
to themselves or others is the tourniquet.
Our bodies are not only weak and pathetic
in comparison to the other animals, but they
have a lousy habit of gushing blood everywhere
that should really stay inside your body.
For minor to moderate cuts and wounds, applying
direct pressure with makeshift bandages and
perhaps elevating an affected limb will do.
When the wound is serious enough though and
your body won't stop pumping all its blood
out onto the floor, no matter how much you
ask it not to, you're going to have to take
some drastic measures.
In these circumstances you're going to want
to shut the flow off as soon as possible,
and the best way to do that is a tourniquet.
Simply tear a shirt into a long strip and
tie around your limb with a knot.
Then place a stick over the knot, and tie
a second knot over the stick.
Now you're going to crank that stick in a
circular motion, tightening the strip of shirt
tied around your limb.
You're going to want to really crank that
thing, because your goal is to shut off blood
flow, but you need to ensure that you're shutting
off the flow from deeply embedded arteries,
so you're going to require a great deal of
pressure.
Once the blood has stopped doing its best
to vacate your body, you're going to want
to secure the stick with a second strip of
cloth and tie that as tightly as you can as
well so that the stick doesn't unwind and
loosen the tourniquet.
4 – Store up fuel, but only if you plan
on using it within a year
In every zombie apocalypse show or movie there's
always the scene of survivors hotwiring cars
and making a last-minute escape from a horde
of angry zombies.
In the real world, depending on how long ago
the apocalypse began, trying to do that will
only leave you trapped in a very much dead
car surrounded by... well, the dead.
That's because gasoline can and does break
down over time, and trying to store it for
later use is going to prove difficult under
the best of circumstances.
You can use some commercially available stabilizers
to extend the lifetime of gasoline, but the
best you're going to get is maybe a year and
two or three months.
Same goes for diesel fuel, so if you are hoarding
fuel up then good job because you're being
proactive about your survival, but also make
sure you use it soon as possible before it
becomes useless sludge.
3 – Learn to make fire without matches or
a lighter
Yep, the fuel inside a lighter will eventually
break down too, and matches, well they can
get ruined by the weather or zombie attack
victims rudely bleeding all over them.
Your best bet will be to learn how to make
a fire the way our ancestors did, and if a
bunch of prehistoric cavemen could make fire
then c'mon, how hard can it be.
Well actually, it's ridiculously difficult
to make fire the old-fashioned way, as many
people who have had to pass a military survival
course have learned the hard way.
Even if you know how to create a bow and stick
contraption to start fire, and happen to have
great kindling, it can still take a very,
very long time to get even a tiny ember going.
Instead, get your hands on a magnifying glass,
which should be easy enough to find at any
science classroom.
You can also use a highly polished crystal,
which you can find in any new agey mystical
mumbo jumbo store.
As long as the crystal can focus light the
way a magnifying glass does, you'll be able
to get fires started in no time with nothing
more than the sun.
While this won't work very well on cloudy
days, even with just a little bit of sun you'll
very quickly be setting fire to everything
and anything you desire- just remember, forest
fires are still a thing and this time there's
no fire department coming to put it out.
Be a shame to survive the walking dead only
to roast yourself alive because you didn't
listen to Smokey the Bear.
2 – Turn 2 liter soda bottles into cordage
There's few things in the world more useful
than rope, and in a world gone all zombie,
having rope can be a literal life saver.
You can use it for everything from harnesses,
securing doors, making leashes for pet zombies,
and tying off limbs that refuse to stop bleeding.
In the survival community rope is known as
cordage, and you're going to definitely want
to get your hands on some.
Typically you can make pretty decent cordage
from tough, stringy plant fibers, pulling
them off in long strands and wrapping them
together to make a thicker, single rope.
This can be time consuming, and depending
on where you are geographically, impossible.
While it won't make a rope though, you can
get a decent length of cordage that you can
use for a variety of things from something
that thanks to mankind's refusal to actually
put trash in the trash bin, is now a part
of every natural environment: 2 liter soda
bottles.
Simply take your trusty knife- you did pack
a knife into your survival kit, right?- and
then cut off the bottom part of the soda bottle
so that you're left with what's essentially
a giant funnel.
Then cut down into the plastic on one side
of the bottle for a thickness of the cordage
that you want, and after that it's as simple
as cutting the plastic into a long, unbroken
strip.
The trick is to keep the thickness even, but
with a little practice you'll easily get the
hang of it.
Besides, it's not like discarded plastic bottles
are uncommon or anything- there's literally
millions in the ocean alone, keeping all the
sea turtles company.
1 – Build a shelter
So by now if you've taken our advice, you've
left the cities behind and you've headed up
north like you got klondike fever.
Civilization tends to get a bit sparse the
further north you go, but because we're turning
you into a bonafide zombie apocalypse surviving
bad ass, you don't need no home- you'll make
your own.
While wild animals can sleep perfectly fine
in the elements, we're pathetic, weak creatures
who can't even survive one rainy night in
the wilderness without the hides of other
animals to protect us from the cold.
Pretty high on your list of priorities, somewhere
in between 'don't get eaten by zombies' and
'find food and water', you're going to want
to put 'build a shelter'.
Your shelter should be tailored to your environment,
and you'll need to learn how to make shelters
suitable for the season you find yourself
in.
If you've headed up north, then during winter
shelter will actually be pretty easy.
Simple snow caves can be deceptively warm
and comfortable, as snow is a fantastic insulator
and the chill of the snow outside your inner
chamber will help keep the snow on the inside
from melting due to you heating the place
up with your body.
You can even make small fires inside snow
caves, though of course you'll want to ensure
that you have proper ventilation.
To create a snow cave simply dig into a deep
snowbank about three feet down, then level
off for a foot or two and make a sharp right
or left turn, followed by one more sharp turn.
The U-bend you create will help keep out chill
winds and trap heat.
On the ceiling you'll want to bore out a small
ventilation shaft just a few inches wide,
because even if you don't light a fire snow
caves can get lousy with CO2 from all your
breathing.
In the warmer months, building a mound-type
stick hut is easy and quick, plus surprisingly
sturdy and good at keeping out rain and wind
if built correctly.
Start by finding large, sturdy branches to
act as the foundation, and lay them against
each other so they form a large dome.
The weight of the branches leaning against
each other should be sufficient to keep them
propped up, so your initial foundation is
probably going to require a lot of large,
thick branches.
After this layer though you'll want to find
smaller, leafy branches to cover up the first
layer thoroughly.
Then simply repeat for at least three more
layers to create multiple layers of leafy
branches over your foundation of thick, strong
branches.
Once that's done, add a final layer of thick,
strong branches to make sure that a strong
wind doesn't blow your thinner, leafy branches
away.
In essence what you've done is created a multi-layer
structure that will be very effective at keeping
wind and even rain out, though you may have
a few small leaks in places.
If you want to take your shelter-building
game to a whole new level though, fill buckets
with fresh, wet river mud and smear a layer
of mud in between the leafy layers and the
final layer of thick branches.
Once the mud dries and hardens you'll have
waterproofed your makeshift house, and you'll
be riding out the apocalypse in true hobo
fashion.
Got any other great diy lifehacks for surviving
the zombie apocalypse?
Let us know in the comments!
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