Tag Archives: preppers

May 19 2016
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BQB's Bad Ass Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

BQB’s Bad Ass Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse – Chapter 1 – Section 3 – Packing a Bug-Out Bag

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When the zombies come for you, they’re not going to care if you aren’t ready for them. This isn’t the prom and these flesh chomping dirt bags aren’t going to park their butts on your sofa and make small talk with your mom while you put the finishing touches on your make-up in the bathroom.

They want your brains and they want them now.

Thus, in the event that it starts looking like your home is about to be overrun with more zombies than you can handle, then you need to be prepared to make a dash in a flash.

Or to put it more succinctly, you need to be ready to “bug out” of your pad and that’s where a bug-out bag comes in.

Only Pack the Essentials

Your baseball card collection. That trophy you got for coming in seventy-seventh place in a foot race with seventy six of your classmates. Your collection of potato chips that bear a striking resemblance to Phyllis Diller.

Be ready to leave all that and more behind, because if you aren’t ready to eat those Diller chips for sustenance, then they’re just bogging you down.

(Phyllis Diller, millenials? No? Crap. Who’s a crusty old funny broad today? I got it. Do you have a collection of potato chips that look like Lisa Lampanelli?  No? Too early 2000’s?  Ok.  Check it out. Do you have a collection of potato chips that look like Chelsea Handler? Yes. The millennials are nodding their heads. I can get out of this terrible joke and move on.)

The zombies are not going to give you a break because you need to grab a few things before you go. And they aren’t going to run slower to compensate for you carrying a bunch of crap that you don’t need.

Zombies are dumb animals who don’t understand concepts like fairness…or kindness…or hygiene.

So if you’re slowly struggling under the weight of bags filled with all the notebooks you used to write love letters to Harry Styles from One Direction, then I guarantee your brains are going to end up with zombie teethmarks in them.
Thus, you must fill your bag with a) life sustaining essentials and b) the sum total weight of which you can carry while you are running away from damn dirty zombies.
The great thing about diversity is that we all are, at the risk of sounding redundant, different. An item that can sustain my life may be of little to no use to you.

So only you know what you can or can’t get along with during the z-poc, but here are some suggestions:

Food and Water

We covered storing food and water a bit in the section on zombie proofing your home. Now we’re talking about packing it. You’ll definitely want a few store bought water bottles in your bag. Prepackaged foods will also be ideal. Granola bars. Some of that nutritional shake mix (something along the lines of Carnation Instant Breakfast, for example) might be good. Of course you’ll have to mix it with water. You won’t have any milk to mix in it unless you manage to kidnap a cow amidst the apocalyptic fallout, which if you do, go you. I applaud your resourcefulness.

Canned food will last awhile, not due to its nutritious value but because it is pumped full of more preservatives than the face of your favorite aging celebrity. Just remember too many cans and you’ll be weighed down. The slower your roll the more likely you’ll end up zombie poop (because a damn zombie will eat and digest you and yes, they do poop.)

Medicine

You’ll definitely want to bring your prescription drugs, though I can’t really recommend just leaving them in a random bag in your house. Drugs can be dangerous so you want to keep all that shit locked up in a safe location, far away from dumb little kids who explore the world by putting as much of it in their mouths as possible. (You parents who are constantly prying random, tiny pieces of floor junk out of your kids’ pie holes know what I’m talking about.)

Plus you want to keep your drugs out of the hands of untrustworthy adults, like your coke head brother-in-law, or your self-medicating hypochondriac buddy who jumps onto various health websites and diagnoses himself with a strange new tropical disease every time he sneezes.

In other words, your pharmaceuticals are for you, period. A medical doctor prescribed them to you based on his assessment of your condition and his judgment based on years of medical training.

So no, don’t leave drugs lying around your house in an unsecured bag. Keep drugs somewhere safe, secure, away from others but remember where you left them in case you need to grab them in a hurry when the zombies come.

As for over the counter stuff, these drugs can also be dangerous if you leave them just lying around in a bag.

Instead, maybe keep a mental list of what you’ll want to grab quickly when the zombies come a calling.

Do you want to bring your Nyquil in case you get a stuffy nose and/or a sore throat that keeps you from sleeping? Be my guest. However, keep in mind that the sleep you get from it will leave you less alert and more likely to become zombie chow.

Money

It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to leave a little bit of cash in your bug-out bag. During the first few weeks of the zombie apocalypse, people will retain their faith in the government’s ability to restore order. Thus, they’ll be willing to trade goods and services for cash, completely unaware that the president has already left us all for dead and is partying hearty in his underground bunker with a champaign flute in one hand and a buxom supermodel’s honkers in the other.

(Not gonna lie, world leaders will really be the only ones who totally make out like bandits during the zombie apocalypse, which is totally unfair, for as we will discuss later, if anyone is going to cause a zompoc, it’s going to be those asshats.)

How much money? The short answer is whatever you can afford to lose, because you’ll be keeping it in a random bag in your house and you just know that when the end times come and you need a hundred bucks to bribe a guard to let you through a gate that leads to safety, you’re going to reach into your bag and discover that one of your sticky fingered relatives already found it, swiped it and spent it on something stupid (candy, comic books, ticket to a Justin Bieber concert, take your pick.)
Lighter and/or Matches

From time to time, you’ll need to start a fire when you’re living in the wilderness. Maybe you’ll need to cook a squirrel you caught and never would have even eaten before but after months without fast food that furry little bastard is looking mighty good to you (and ironically, it will probably taste much like your favorite fast food chain’s burger.)

Some experts might tell you it is possible to make a fire using a flint stone, rubbing two sticks together, or by harnessing the power of the sun through a magnifying glass, but I’m not an expert on anything. I’m just a jackass with a magic bookshelf pulling random thoughts out of my butt.

At any rate, it probably isn’t very safe to leave flammable materials lying around in a bag in your house either, so…ok. Scratch this idea too.

First Aid Kit

This is a must have. Some bandages. Some gauze. Maybe educate yourself on how to treat a wound. I have no idea how to do that shit either so let me know if you do.

Weaponry

Ah, finally. The gun control debate that’s tearing our country apart finds its way into a Bookshelf Q. Battler book.

Folks, here in America, we have the right to bear arms. This right has been written into our constitution due to a rather abusive relationship we had with our pre-democracy ruler, the King of England.

I’m sorry but someone has to say it. King George was an epic douche. Always bossing us around and telling us what to do. Forcing us to house his damn redcoats. Taxing the shit out of our tea.

We don’t drink as much tea as we used to and today we have  taxed ourselves at rates that would make the Founding Fathers spin in their graves, but still. It’s the principal of the thing.

If we’re going to be required to take a portion of our hard earned moolah and feed it to the bureaucratic beast known as government, then we at least want a say in choosing via elections which public officials will fleece us and which song and dance routines we want to see as these officials promise they’ll do one thing with our money and then once elected, do something completely different with it. Pick the song and dance routine that complies with whichever preconceived notions you have about the world that will never occur because political types just do what they want in the end anyway.

Like an empowered woman who has escaped an abusive relationship but remains fearful her nasty ex might break down the door at any time, we Americans still sleep with one eye open, frightened that the King of England will either come back for us, or a new, scary form of government will rear its ugly head and make us yearn for the good old days with the King.

Thus, Americans are understandably hanging onto this right. And aside from concerns about hypothetical tyranny, there’s always people who are rightfully afraid of crime, street gangs, terrorists, and assorted perverts.

Personally, I don’t own a gun. I could tell you that it is because I am trained in a variety of martial arts, from Kung-Fu and Krav Maga to Nerd-Fu and Obla Dee Ma Da.

But frankly, the real reason I don’t own a gun is because I did a mental calculation of the pros and cons of gun ownership versus potential risks posed to me and determined that due to my general incompetence and stupidity, the likelihood of me accidentally shooting myself or someone I care about was high whereas the likelihood of me needing to protect myself or someone I care about from a mob of violent weirdoes was low.

I’m in a weird place on gun control. I don’t want a gun. I don’t want to blow a deer’s brains out or anything. But I don’t necessarily want to see the right to own a firearm go away. After all, every time we surrender a right, the government grows that much stronger, and though the government we have today seems reasonable, who knows what it might morph into tomorrow.

On the other hand, we do have a problem with mass shootings and other gun related crimes. I don’t have the statistics but generally speaking, I don’t recall there ever being as many instances of mass shootings when I was a young lad in the 1990’s as there are today.

We were better at handling our depression in the 1990s. We’d pop on some alternative rock. A moody as hell bearded dude dressed up like a lumberjack in his best flannel would sing a depressing song. All of us young folk would sort of half-dance by swaying a few inches to the left then a few inches to the right with our heads down. We essentially handled our depression by going out of our way to let everyone know that we were depressed all the time.

Today’s kids are different. Parents and teachers and shrinks and everyone pumps kids full of so much happy good time, sparkly sunshine, special snowflake, get a participation ribbon just for showing up bullshit that when they become adults and meet up with someone telling them no for the first time, they grab a heater and go berserk.

And yes, I do realize its not only the millenials losing their shit. Old people have engaged in mass shootings. Middle-aged people have as well.

So I do understand why many people today are throwing their hands up, declaring society as a whole can’t be trusted with individual gun ownership, and demanding that the right to bear arms be thrown in the trash.

I’ll have to paraphrase the late great Ronald Reagan here. He once said that “the closest thing to eternal life on Earth is a government program.”

I’d go a step further and say that the closest thing to eternal life is a right. Once the government says you can do something, it becomes difficult and practically impossible for that right to be taken away.

I don’t know what the answer to the gun debate is. A long held government right vs. too many people getting blown away by wackos. I’m just a mild mannered humorist so I can’t tell you how to resolve this debate, but I hope the various and sundry folks at the helm of our national ship figure out a way.

Did I have a point with all this? Oh right. So honestly, I am not going to tell you to go out and get a gun or a knife or some other kind of weapon to prepare for an apocalypse of any kind, be it a zombie apocalypse or an apocalypse generated by some other type of disaster.

The odds that you’ll shoot or stab yourself, or someone else, maybe even someone you love are high whereas the likelihood of you needing a gun or a knife or another weapon to fight zombies are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. Shit, that’s a lot of zeroes, but that’s also how unlikely zombies will ever become anything more than make-believe.

Should you feel dumb for buying this book then? Probably, but it’s too late. I have already spent the money you shelled out for it on a delicious wings and skins sampler.

Burp. Excuse me.

If you are already a gun and/or knife or other type of weapon owner, I hope you’re exercising your right to bear arms cautiously. If you are, then surely you know it is a dumb idea to keep guns, knives and other weapons lying around in a bag in your house. You must, must, must keep all weapons locked up in a safe, secure location, and there is plenty of information out there on how to do that.

Bottomline

Hmmm. So I have determined it is a bad idea to leave weapons, fire starting implements, and medicine in a bag that’s just lying around your house. Perhaps this section was a waste of time.

Or maybe it wasn’t. You can still pack a bag filled with bottles of water, nonperishable packaged food, and as much cash as you can afford to lose. In the unlikely event that the zombies come, you can at least grab your food/water/money bag and run like hell.

During the first few weeks of post-apocalyptic survival, you’ll be able to survive off of the food and water you bring, and you perhaps could even trade some of your food and water with other survivors for goods and services.

Your money won’t be there because you always knew your buddy Doug was a dirty, dirty thief.

Up your nose with a rubber hose, Doug. You know you spent my zombie apocalypse money on hookers and blow. #WorstBuddyEver

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Apr 07 2016
6 Comments
top ten lists

Top Ten Warning Signs Your Girlfriend Might Be a Doomsday Prepper

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Your girlfriend will kick so much undead ass during the zombie apocalypse.

She thinks it’s the end of the world as we know it…but do you feel fine? 

Alas, to all good things must come an end.  Just as the dinosaurs were wiped out when they plugged in their curling irons all at once, so too may humanity cease to be one day.

But probably not while we’re alive.  It’s those future suckers who’ve got problems.

Or is the end closer than we think?  Your girlfriend sure seems to think so.

From BQB HQ in fabulous East Randomtown, here are the Top Ten Warning Signs Your Girlfriend Might Be a Doomsday Prepper:

10.   Attempted to get you to drink your own urine to, and I quote, “get you used to the robust flavor.” Not only did you hurt her feelings with your emphatic refusal, you’re also not able to look at lemonade the same way ever again.

9.  Refers to The Walking Dead and Mad Max as “training videos.”

8.  Every piece of clothing in her closet is camouflage.  In fact, if you were to wear camouflage and then stand in front of all of her camouflage clothes, you’d disappear.  Trippy.

7.  Her basement is filled with enough tin cans to give a hungry billy goat an orgasm.  (Get it?  Because doomsday preppers store canned food and billy goats like to eat tin cans and…oh.  I guess the cans have to be empty for a goat to want to chew on it.  You know what?  Forget it. When it needs to be explained, it isn’t funny.  Moving on…)

6.  She has more guns than your local run of the mill street gang…and she knows how to use ’em.

5.  She packed his and her bug out bags filled with survival gear to grab in a hurry when the zombies, aliens, machines, invading troops, catastrophic weather event, nuclear meltdown or other to be named tragedy unfolds, causing a need to “bug out” the door in a hurry.  Feel loved, my friend, because that means there’s no one else she’d rather spend the apocalypse with than you.

4.  Forget diamonds.  All she wants for Valentine’s Day is a gas mask.

3.  From hang nails to a steak dinner, she does all of her cutting with the same machete.

2.  Claims an ability to patch up wounds with bat guano (in case you were wondering why she keeps feeding ex-lax to that bat.)

  1.  Built an underground bunker.  Connected a hot tub, disco lights, and a recording of Barry White to a gas powered generator because hey, the world may have come to an end, but the romance is just beginning.
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Oct 18 2015
2 Comments
#31ZombieAuthors

#31ZombieAuthors – Day 18 Interview – Deirdre Gould – Maine Prepping and Self-Publishing

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FIND THIS ZOMBIE AUTHOR ON:

Amazon             Website

  Twitter

My guest today is Deirdre Gould, who has strategically placed herself in Maine, where cold temperatures make the zombies run slower and remote isolation means zombifying viruses take longer to spread.  Better yet, harsh storms make it so no one thinks Deirdre’s crazy for prepping.

In other words, she finds it to be a primo spot for writing the After the Cure series, which chronicles a world in which “the December Plague” has turned humans into violent, bloodthirsty, cannibalistic monsters.

I just hope they don’t eat me.  I taste awful.

Let me see if I can Deirdre on the space phone.

Q.  Hello Deirdre.  Are you a prepper and if so, I’ll ask the question I’ve posed to other prepper authors this month.  Why?  Are we all doomed or is it just a better safe and sorry thing?

A.  Hello BQB, things are getting pretty dodgy for you and your comrades! I hope I can help! Am I a prepper? Well, yes and no.  What lots of folks forget about Maine is that most of it is very, very rural.  And in the winter, when the tourists go home, even the cities are kind of rural.  There are some places, like my home town, that first got electricity within my lifetime (and I’m in my 30s).  Not only was a significant portion of my childhood spent without running water or electricity, but even after we got put on the grid, it wasn’t reliable. For a long time, it wasn’t unusual for the power to go out at least once a week.  It’s still pretty normal for it to go down once a month or so. And although our power workers are truly the best, it’s a big state (landwise) and once the power goes out, it could be out for a few hours or several days.  

As recently as the 1998 ice storm, my family spent two full weeks with no power and no running water.  And winter up here is no joke. You know that Stephen King book. The Storm of the Century?  Yeah, we have one of those at least every year.  Really. Had to turn one of the kids over to Linoge like six years ago. So almost everyone has a wood stove, most rural places still have an old hand pump well (and someone that lives there knows how to prime it and is constantly reminding people not to fall in), and lots of us have pantries stocked full at any given moment.  Especially because we can our own goods. And because for many people, the closest grocery store is forty five minutes to an hour away (everything is very spread out here).  Solar panels are big here, when people can afford them. Homemade windmills too.

But I don’t know anyone who has a bunker, unless it’s been turned into a root cellar after the Soviet Union collapsed.  Or a gun unless it’s for deer hunting. While a packed pantry is good, I try not to store more than about six months worth of anything, it’s just not practical for my particular family. And while Mainers have a reputation for being curt or crotchety, we really do take care of our neighbors instead of try to hide what we’ve got from them.  And I know there are lots of very generous preppers out there who do the same, but I’ve also heard stories about secret storehouses and guarded water sources. But probably somewhere in the back of almost every Mainer’s mind is the memory of someone helping them out when they most needed it.  Whether it was being rescued from an icy accident, sharing water with each other during the ice storm, or that emergency delivery of wood or oil in the worst part of February, we’ve all got them. Even in this modern world, we wouldn’t survive out here without each other. Besides, having the neighbors over is an excuse for a party. I like to think of us more as the Hobbits of the Prepper world. We do it because it makes good sense, and because we are always expecting company.  Not because we’re all doomed. 

Q.  Soap.  Water.  Tacos.  iPads.  Netflix.  Showers.  All these great inventions become lost in a zombie apocalypse.  Why do zombie fans fantasize about a world where all these things we take for granted are lost?

A.  I think it’s that old urge to pit man against nature. We want to imagine that we are tough enough to measure up without our crutches. We’ve conquered every bit of this old earth (there’s even a litter problem on Everest and tourists in Antarctica), so there’s no place left for those that feel that drive to explore, to prove that rugged individualistic streak. Much of apocalyptic fiction is concerned with the end of civilization, of course, but why? Is it because there is something inherently wrong with showers and readily available bacon? For the majority of these stories, no. It’s not really about damning our current way of life (though lots of these stories contain “warnings”), it’s about wanting to do better. About wanting to be better. But we all know we are creatures of habit. We won’t stop what we like unless we’re forced to.  We won’t make a better world until the one we live in is destroyed.  These stories aren’t about losing technology and history and massive portions of the population.  That’s just a byproduct.  The real story is about the people that emerge when they are forced to do without.  To do without modern implements, without the convenience and interconnectedness of society, even to do without the most basic and precious commodity we have, other humans and their brain power (cause it’s being snacked on).  It’s about being alone in an unfamiliar world and not only surviving, but making that world a better place.  Starting fresh.  That’s what we all really want to do. Start fresh.

Q.  You provide your readers with an interesting spin on the zompoc genre, namely, your series begins “after the cure” has been found.  This cure turns the Infected back to normal, regular humans but alas, they have to live with the realization of all the horrible things they’ve done.

I hate to ask for spoilers, but here’s the question that pops into my mind.  A zombie turns back to normal.  Should we blame him for eating other humans or should we be all like, “It’s cool, man.  You were a zombie.”

A.  No worries, that’s not really a spoiler, that’s one of the biggest questions of the series and why I started writing it in the first place.  Remember that the non-zombies aren’t totally innocent either.  They would have had to kill to survive as well. In the world of After the Cure, some of the Immunes killed even when they didn’t have to. But they didn’t know that the zombies would be cured. Should we blame them too?  How does a society function when everyone is a killer? You’d think that it would just fall apart. But we know, from our own human history, that it happens. We don’t have zombies, but we do have war and atrocity and cruelty. But when the war is over, when the conflict is resolved, people still have to go home. Maybe their neighbor was on the opposing side. Maybe their boss at work betrayed them to the opposing side. Maybe their grocer was their prison camp guard. But somehow, life goes on, people still interact, even when it seems incomprehensible.  So that’s a running theme throughout the series.  Who is guilty? Who is evil? How do people live not only with their neighbors, but with their own memories?

Q.  In the first book of the series, a court psychologist and a defense attorney work to bring those responsible for the virus to justice.  I could be wrong here, but I can’t think of another zombie apocalypse series where the reader actually gets to see a zombie apocalypse end and people turn their attention towards rebuilding society.  How did you come up with the idea for this?

A.  Actually, it was from reading truckloads of zombie books! I love them, I can’t get enough of them, even the ones that fall into a sort of formula. But after tome number gazillion and one, I realized that the causes of zombieism were always kind of limited.  For the most part, it was either a deadly virus or some chemical spill that caused zombies (with an occasional voodoo spell or electrical malfunction thrown in).  But I’d never seen a zombie story where a bacteria was involved.  That’s it, that was where it started. I started to wonder why nobody ever used a bacteria, and I realized that it was because a bacteria had the potential for an antibiotic, a cure, where a virus didn’t. It violated one of the most cherished rules of zombieism: They can’t be cured, so all you can do is kill them. It’s part of the “fun” of zombie fiction. There is no moral quandary about killing them because they can’t come back. They aren’t “people” anymore.  Zombies who can’t be cured might as well be a tornado or locusts or a volcano, just a natural disaster to be avoided or beaten. But what if that rule changed? What if people discovered that not only could the zombies be cured, but that once they were cured, they could remember everything that had happened while they were sick? And what if they found out late? Really, really late. 

If they were anything like us, the first thing they’d do is try to find someone or something to blame for what had happened. Something to excuse their own guilt. That’s why the trial became the initial frame for this world. But are the defendants really guilty or just convenient scapegoats? 

Q.  What motivated you to start writing?

A.  I’m one of those weird people who never wanted to start doing this for real. I mean, I’ve enjoyed writing since I was a little girl, but I never wanted to be a writer. I went to school for something very different, but when I was in college my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I took a year and a half off from school to help her. It meant many, many really long days of driving and sitting in doctor’s offices and hospitals (remember, everything is far away in Maine!). So to amuse myself, I started writing a novel. I didn’t finish it and set it aside for a long time, but I thought about it often and I’d add a bit here and there. Finally, the year my oldest child was born, I heard about Nanowrimo and decided I was going to finish this book (I think it had been about 7 years since I started it at that point).  At the end of November I had a draft and put it away. Three years later, I’d been laid off from my copywriting job and struggling to find something else and honestly just couldn’t find anything. So I sat down and worked on the book for another year. I pretended it was just going to be for me, that I didn’t care about anyone reading it, but I started reading all these sites by agents anyway. Finishing the book made me more confident and I started working on other things, just for fun. I submitted a few pieces but everything I was reading on the agent sites convinced me that I shouldn’t even bother trying. Nobody ever took on new writers any more. I had a better chance of winning the lottery as being picked up by even an agent, let alone a publisher. And then I heard about KDP. I decided I had nothing to lose, and posted one of my finished novels, just to see what would happen.  It was addictive. I got sucked in.  I still considered it a hobby, something for my spare time, pretty much until last year when I started hearing from readers. Then it started to get serious, because someone besides me actually cared what happened to my characters. I’m now firmly entrenched and I actually sometimes feel guilty because I enjoy doing this so much, it feels like I’m goofing off instead of working a “real” job. 

Q.  Thanks for talking with me today.  Before I go, do you have any last minute advice for my friends and I that might help us survive the East Randomtown Zombie Apocalypse?

A.  Well, you are a couple of weeks in now, you’ve probably got some nicks and scrapes by now. You are going to want to keep any wounds clean and free from infection. In a world where antibiotics will be hard to find, you are going to need some easy alternatives or else that blister on your foot could mean amputation in a few weeks, or worse.  Honey is a great topical antibiotic. It can be rubbed directly onto small wounds to fight off infection before you bandage them. For internal or systemic bacteria (like listeria from that bad deli meat you ate from the mall after the coolers lost power), if you have a silver dollar or a piece of real silverware, some water, and a battery, you can make some colloidal silver to fight that nasty bug off.  Use too muc, though and your skin will turn a lovely shade of blue, permanently. If you listened to Sarah Lyons Fleming on day one, you probably have some baby wipes to clean yourself, but what are you doing about those nasty blood spattered weapons? Those things are crawling with zombie virus. Washing them won’t completely kill the germs, so you’ll need to find some copper. The pipes in your building probably aren’t doing much good now, if the electricity is off. Hack off a length of copper pipe. At night (or whenever you stop to flop down, exhausted from the near constant run/slaughter/run combo) place your pipe over the weapons. In two hours or so, almost all the germs will be gone, even a foot away from the actual copper!  Here’s hoping you make it to day 19!

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Oct 01 2015
9 Comments
#31ZombieAuthors

#31ZombieAuthors – Day 1 Interview – Sarah Lyons Fleming – Packing the Perfect Bug-Out Bag

sarah lyons fleming

FIND THIS ZOMBIE AUTHOR ON:

Amazon

Facebook          Twitter

Website             Blog

Kicking off this zombie author interview series in style is Sarah Lyons Fleming, the writer behind the Until the End of the World series, billed as “a story of survival, humor and true love.  And zombies.”

Reading Order:

1 – Until the End of the World

2 – And After 

3 – All the Stars in the Sky

She’s also the author of the novella So Long Lollipops, but recommends you read Book One first before delving into it, unless you’re a sucker for spoilers.

NOTE: BOLD=BQB, Italics=Sarah

Q.  Hello Sarah.  BQB here.  I’ve called you because my friends and I find ourselves in quite a predicament.  We’re locked up tight in Price Town, a Wal-Mart-esque store with everything you could ever possibly want under one roof. The security gate is holding for now, but zombies continue to fling themselves at it in an effort to break in and feast on our sweet, sweet gray matter.  I doubt we’ll be able to stay here forever. My colleague, Alien Jones, has suggested we all pack a bag full of supplies in case we need to make a run for it.

On your Amazon Author page, you note that you have “an unhealthy obsession with bug-out bag equipment.”  So please enlighten us, what is in the perfect bug out bag?

A.  You are in quite a predicament, BQB, but you might just be in the best place. The perfect BOB (bug-out bag, not to be confused with “BQB”) should have everything you need for a situation where you have to leave your digs. Of course, your situation is zombies, so you’re going to need weapons, and fast. Let’s do that first.

Tools/Weapons:

Thankfully, Price Town has a camping/hunting section. Find a good knife, preferably full tang—one in which the metal of the blade continues to the end of the handle. Guns and ammo (your choice). A machete could work.

Thank God! Price Town has a two machetes for the price of one deal!

Thank God! Price Town has a two machetes for the price of one deal!

You might as well throw a few more quiet weapons in there, because guns will only call zombies your way.

Good screwdrivers: great for an eye socket and screwing things.

Maybe a hammer: Plus, you never know when you’ll have to board up a few windows.

Axe: firewood and skull-cracking, it doesn’t get any better than this.

You should have some tools anyway, or a good multi-tool, so these are dual purpose.     

Never a flame thrower—Moving zombie torches? No thanks!—although I think Price Town stopped carrying those after that one incident, as I’m sure you remember.

BQB EDITORIAL NOTE:  I do.  It was all over Network News One.  A sad day for the flame-throwing industry.  Back to you, Sarah.

But will it hold my action figures?

But will it hold my action figures?

You’ll need a large backpack. Remember, weight is going to be a big factor. Only put in the things you think you’ll need, and only get a bag as big as you can carry for long distances (and run from zombies while wearing). Use that waist belt to keep the load stable and take the strain off your shoulders. Cool looking? No, but you’ll thank me for it.

Now, what else do you need? Water, food and shelter, right?

Grab some bottles of water, along with a way to filter more. Water is heavy, and if you know you can reach a natural source of water and make it safe to drink, all that weight won’t slow you down. I have a UV filter, a hiking filter and a Lifestraw. They’re not all in my BOB, but, obviously and possibly frighteningly, I really like water filters.

Food: Try to go light on this—cans are great, but they’re heavy, so look for things that come in packets or things such as nuts and dried fruits and protein bars. MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) are a wonderful invention. Not having to cook is always a plus. You can get a backpacking stove if you insist on warming things up. And, let’s face it, a hot cup of coffee or tea may just give you the sanity you need to survive another day. But there’s always a campfire for that.

A light cooking pot and metal utensils so you can cook and eat that food. Don’t forget you’ll have to clean out the pot, so you might want a sponge.

Clothes: Shelter your body first. What’s the weather like? Pack for it. Stay dry. Ponchos/rain gear may not be the height of fashion, but they keep off rain and zombie guts. Extra socks and underwear (because when being chased by the undead, there are bound to be a few accidents). Also, GLOVES. Make them leather—good for the cold and rough handiwork, as well as keeping those zombie teeth off your skin.

BQB's stain resistant teflon underpants, designed by Dr. Hugo himself. Resistant to all zombie related accidents!

BQB’s stain resistant teflon underpants, designed by Dr. Hugo himself. Resistant to all zombie related accidents!

Shelter: A tent? Maybe, and only if it’s very light. A tarp? That works, too. Don’t forget rope to string it up—actually, just don’t forget rope in general. It’s a useful item. Emergency blankets will help to keep you warm, and they weigh next to nothing. Wool blankets would be better, and insulate even when wet. A light sleeping bag is awesome. Garbage bags can be stuffed with leaves to make a sleeping pad and get you off the wet/cold ground. Be creative if you don’t have room for the fancy stuff like a tent.

Heat: Don’t skimp on this. How much does a lighter weigh? Yeah, next to nothing. How about matches? Put them all in a waterproof container and hunt down a flint fire starter. You should have three ways to make fire. You can make your own tinder but, hey, you’re in Price Town. Get some of that emergency tinder. Or a tube of Vaseline and a bag of cotton balls—works like a dream once you’ve soaked the cotton balls with the petroleum jelly.

First Aid: We all know there’s no coming back from a zombie bite, but other situations might arise where you’ll need to play doctor. Throw in some pain-killers, digestion-related meds, and any medicines you take regularly. If you can scavenge them, get some antibiotics. Yeah, you’ll need Band-Aids, bandages and ointments, but you could also need blood clotting agents, gauze, moleskin, tourniquet and a suture kit. These things can be expensive, but, right now in Price Town, they’re free. Go for it!

Hygiene: I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but showers may be a thing of the past. Get wet wipes and antibacterial wipes. All purpose camp soap. A small towel and washcloth. And you’re gonna need some toilet paper. Maybe a trowel to bury your, um, leavings. A small mirror can help you to make sure you look your best and be used for signaling. On second thought, don’t look in the mirror. You’re a mess.

Lighting: Flashlights, headlamps. Spare batteries (or get a hand crank light). You can’t see in the dark, and you’ll need to see what’s coming. In my BOB, I have several ways to light up my world, and so should you. I also have a solar charger with which to charge batteries/phones. It’s handy and pretty awesome, but it doesn’t need to be at the top of your list.

Other things: You’ll want a map of the area. Paper and a pencil to leave a note when/if the gang gets separated, or you’re suddenly inspired to write a poem. A compass and whistle. I have a small monocular as well.

It might do you no good in the zompoc, but a BOB should have some cash in it, preferably in small bills.

Two-way radios would be great. You want to be able to talk across long distances without screaming—unless you want to end up as dinner. Also, you might want a regular or shortwave radio. You’ll want to hear where to go when the government opens those Safe Zones, or know how to avoid them when they’re overrun by zombies. Because they will be.

Happy packing!

Q.  How did you come about this unhealthy obsession anyway?  What’s up with being a “wanna be prepper?”  Are we all doomed or is it a better safe than sorry thing?

A.  We’re all doomed, BQB. Every last one of us.

Nah, I really like camping supplies and survival stuff. And I like to be prepared—or at least semi-prepared—because I get edgy when I’m not. I call myself a “wannabe” because I don’t have a bunker or five years’ worth of food, but I do what I can. It’s easy enough to buy an extra box or can of something at the store and stick it in your pantry, right? You’d be surprised how quickly that adds up.

Q.  While everyone’s packing, let’s talk about your books.  How did you get into the writing game?

A.  I wanted to read a post-apocalyptic book with regular characters who were like me (slightly goofy, pretty snarky and definitely not military experts), so one day I decided to write it. Some of the characters have a leg up in that they have access to supplies, but they’re regular folks who face very irregular events.

As the story grew, I became so invested in the world and characters that it turned into a series. I’d never written fiction before, and now I can’t imagine NOT writing. It’s my happy place, even with the zombies.

41vqvdKyrfL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Q.  Your tale begins with Cassie Forrest who, according to Until the End of the World’s description, “isn’t surprised to learn that the day she’s decided to get her life together is also the day the world ends.”  Isn’t that always the way?  Irony, I tell you.  I often find myself lamenting that if something good happens to me, something bad must be lurking just around the corner to equal things out.  Why is that?  Are we all just saddled with bad timing?

A.  Stop being a pessimist, BQB! You won’t survive the zombies with that outlook. Even with all the hardship and loss, I think you’ll find it will all work out in the end, even when it doesn’t seem possible, even when people you love die. There isn’t always something bad lurking around the corner. Although there probably is a zombie, so look out!

Q.  Cassie’s obviously made some bad choices, chief among them dumping her fiancee Adrian and dating a jerk instead.  To make matters worse, she has to escape a zombifying virus outbreak with said jerky ex-boyfriend in tow.  To her credit, she longs to fix her mistakes.  Do you think readers identify with a protagonist who isn’t perfect?  I know I’ve made a few doozies I’d like to sweep under the rug, so I can relate to someone who longs to take back a bad choice or two.

A.  For sure. I can definitely relate to that. No one is perfect, as we all know, but I think most of us respect someone who learns from their mistakes and strives to be the person they want to be. Plus, perfect people—or people who think they are—are annoying. They make good zombie bait, though, so you might want to have one stashed away.

Q.  You’re into humor.  I try to be.  I heard a rumor this blog made one person in Ohio laugh once, but to date it’s unconfirmed.  Where does your sense of humor come from and how are you able to weave laughs into a story about people trying to avoid being eaten by vicious beasts?

A.  Ha! You’ve made me laugh, so now you’re up to two people. My humor? I suppose it came from my family—no one is safe from teasing, and to make fun of yourself is comedy gold.

I think that you need to laugh, even in the zombie apocalypse. If you can’t find anything to laugh about, you might as well lie down in front of the zombies and call it a day. I’m the kind of person who thinks of jokes at completely inappropriate times, so it comes easy for me. Of course, there are plenty of parts that don’t call for humor, but you have to laugh at some point. When I reach that point, I take it.

Q.  On your blog, “Whatnot,” you talk about all the research you did for All the Stars in the Sky.  At least one or two of my 3.5 readers are aspiring writers.  Do you have any tips on tracking down the information required to bring a sense of realism to their tales?

A.  I can’t imagine doing all the research I’ve done without the internet. I’d have to live at the library. Google Maps Street View is my best friend, as are a multitude of random websites. But I also pester unsuspecting people with emails and phone calls. I’ve gotten some good tips that way. I wanted to see the inside of a grocery distribution center for my third book, so I found one by me and contacted the company. And what do you know? I got a tour of the inside by an amused manager who liked zombies. You never know until you ask!

Q.  Thanks for taking the time to speak with me.  Before I go, do you have any last minute advice to help me brave the East Randomtown Zombie Apocalypse?

A. Head shots. Always.

Also, don’t forget to laugh, and never forget you need to surround yourself with good people. You don’t want to laugh by yourself—that just looks crazy. So you’ll need them, both for companionship and to watch your six.

Thanks for calling, BQB. Good luck!

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