So you wake up one day in your suburban neighborhood that's close to the city, but not too close, and there's a zombie invasion.

Well one you're in luck, you have been living in a very survivable area when the zombies decide to strike. Now, you must be thinking, "But wouldn't we be the first to die and have our flesh gnawed upon?", but that answer is no. You see, if you live miles from the city, you're still safe because it will be months, maybe years until the hordes undead finish eating the flesh in the cities. So you won't be facing thousands of zombies at once, but you might be facing hundreds. So, to be safe in this kind of situation, you're going to need shelter, food, and weapons. Luckily for me and you, we live in an area where business is high, where there's about 5 schools, restaurants, and stores for the outdoors.

Present time:

First, you're going to need to assemble/list a team of people that are LIVING to help you, aid you, fight alongside you, and maybe even give birth to your child. So the type of people you're going to need are going to be athletic, intellegent, and the type that you're able to get along with for weeks, months, years, maybe even the rest of your life. For instance, I'd take a priest or two, my family and friends, and anybody who seems worthy and non-threatening to me.

Week 1 of infection:

Now, you're going to have to get shelter fast. Before you go, find make-shift weapons for your team to wield, just incase of a horde or the occasional zombie. Look for lighters, mathces, airsol cans, swords, crowbar, aluminum baseball bats, LONG knives that may or may not be throwable, and maybe if you have guns. Don't worry too much about these, they should only be temporary. If you have backpacks, I'd suggest you'd bring them packed with food, water, sleeping bags, matches/and or lighters, and put whatever you want in it, like for entertainment because you may not be sane for long. Bring your GameBoy, PSP, DVD player (with DVDs, of course). Make sure you have enough, but not too much to weigh you down, you're going to need to be swift and agile and be able to retain any bodily movement if you weren't wearing that backpack.

Now, you're now going to find shelter. This is where you're probably going to live the rest of your life, so hopefully you've brought that attractive girl you've been crushing on or that stud that you watch play football on Friday's. In a perfect world, your area would have schools (with at least 2 floors), restaurants, shopping centers, office buildings, and supermarkets. These are all key places where you can survive, so let me review them, with pros and cons.

Schools:
Pros-
-built to withstand riots
-contains food and cafeteria
-books/movies/library
-computers
-2nd+ floor?
-lots of things to barricade
Cons-
-1 floor?
-cafeteria on 1st floor
-no weapons
-too big/too small

Restaurants:
Pros-
-food
-lots of things to barricade
Cons-
-1 floor
-No weapons
-too small

Shopping centers:
Pros-
-lotsa food
-lotsa stores
-lotsa barricades
-weapons?
Cons-
-way big
-too much to cover
-stores are made to show what’s inside

Office buildings:
Pros-
-right size and room for people
-can get rid/barricade elevators/stairs
-a lot of rooms
-technology?
Cons-
-no weapons
-no food

Supermarkets:
Pros-
-a lot of food
-weapons?
-barricades
-shelter/area to hide/upper area?
Cons-
-too open
-too many people will raid
-electronically open doors

House:
Pros-
-you feel comfortable
-chop down stairs
Cons-
-Lack of food/weapons

In my plan, I take about 10-30 people to an office building for shelter. If I am right and we all bring backpacks with food, medicine, and entertainment, we should have enough food to last us for about 1-3 months. But that guess is barely accurate, and we could run out at any time and we wouldn’t know it. But we’d reside in an office building, which is literally ten minutes away on foot. But if we find it is too small, then we will go to the high school which is literally 3 minutes away from it, as long as there is no threats, zombies, raiders, or the doors are locked. We will barricade the stairs and elevators if we find that we can’t break them ourselves.

After 2-8 weeks:

The first month or two is the pivotal point of surviving against zombies. You see, by the first two months, the military will decompose to the infection, and only small groups will survive. The virus will have transported itself around the globe and virtually 75% of the world will be dead, and the all of the first world countries will almost be destroyed entirely, such as the US, UK, Spain, France, etc. You will find more zombies will be coming to your area, looking to sunk their teeth into your nice and juicy flesh. By now, you’re going to need these important materials in order to further survive into the zombie apocalypse:

-(A) heavy duty vehicle(s) filled up with gas, such as a jeep, hummer, or truck. Feel free to go “Dawn of the Dead” style by pimping your vehicle with a plow, chainsaws, turrets, etc.

-Guns, for killing the dead when the get too close.
-You’ll need a few snipers for sniping out threats to your fortress.
-Some handguns which are portable and do the job of killing very nicely. They are good, but be sure to have -a great shot into the skull, for that will bring the zombies down.
-possibly a machine gun. Although some people may disagree with me, they are awesome for slowing down zombies and weakening them. I would only use them when you are surrounded by zombies, then you should aim for their legs, because the height difference between all zombie will make it hard if you are just going to go for the head. Going for the legs will make them fall, not kill them. But they are good for getaways when you are surrounded.

-A copy of “The Zombie Survival Guide” book. It tells you the details on how to survive. Although I disagree on subjects discussed in the book, I recommend you have it, just in case.

-An actual guide to wilderness survival, medication, and cooking. Just don’t try to make anything with a scent that will attract zombies.

-A source of energy would be nice. It would certainly make life less stressful for you. It’d be used to charge up entertainment devices and whatever else.

-More food, definitely. And water too.

-More medication

-pen and paper, and lots of them. They will keep you sane, you can write notes, and whatever else.

-a radio/transmitter, to listen to other people still alive

-walkie talkies will be the best communication, but just make sure to keep your information secret, and use codenames. Some other people will be listening on other walkie-talkies to that station, or you may find yourself some visitors, infected (but not totally zombies yet), raiders, and A LOT of people.

Now, my plan goes as this for weeks 2-8 weeks:
Week 2: Assemble special ops team. Eliminate all zombies around the vehicle(s), then make way to the wilderness store/camping store/gun store. Take weapons, mainly guns, with ammo, and any other things we may need. Drop off things if we feel we took a lot of (for more space in vehicles), then with whatever firearms/weapons we are good with, make our way to the local supermarket. Try to take A LOT of food without killing/getting zombies’ attention. Shoot only if we have to, we don’t want any loud noises to grasp zombies’ attentions. Take any other things we may need that we find, then come back to shelter. We may find ourselves doing this trip a lot in one day to stock up on food before others raid the supermarket. Set up a wired, metal fence so that zombies are outside of the shelter and they aren’t even inside, which makes it even easier for you. It’s like a shelter inside a shelter.
Weeks on: try to eliminate zombies whenever we see them with silent weapons, like swords, knives, and aluminum baseball bats. Only fire if there is a life at stake. Go find some stores with a lot of DVDs, games, and whatever we may find entertaining. Keep people at constant watch at sniper posts in case of raiders or other threats. We must also try to remember people’s sanity and keep people emotionally stable. We have to be nice, and I will keep itching myself to that one girl that I like, keeping in mind that we still have a priest(s), just in case we decide to tie the knot and start a family. I will still try to keep people religious so that our morality is the same and we will be clean of being harsh to each other, but still be taught on our military and defenses. There may be firearm training, but we must remember to conserve ammo, just incase of raids, or zombies breaking through. In the midst of weeks two to 8, we're going to scout the local schools to see if anyone currently is living there. We'll try and take them.

Next, we have months 3-36:

You will need to keep taking continuous trips to the supermarkets and stores if you haven’t tried to raid them entirely. Try to keep exploring out of your area at low, you don’t want to alert raiders, zombies, and any other camp(s) to avoid a full blown war, as you may have seen in the comic/graphic novel series of “The Walking Dead”. If you haven’t, what happens is that one camp wanders off too far, when they find themselves another camp, but the problem is that they are psychotic, watch people die for entertainment, and running out of resources. Their camp is also weaker, and so when they hear of the arriving camp, they eventually strike the other camp, kill over half of the people, and almost ruin the fortress. It’s things like that may motivate you to stay where you are and take what you have. Only explore when you are dead out of food and resources. Running out of your GameBoy batteries doesn’t count. You’ll have to deal with pen and paper until you’re totally out of resources. Also keep in mind your vehicles’ gas tanks. You’ll need to refuel every once and awhile.

I’d eventually get married by now (I’d be 16-19) to that girl, have kids, and teach them. I’d follow what is above to the fullest extent. Hopefully our camp doesn’t shoot ourselves or go crazy by now. Our paper and energy supply should be okay, maybe somewhere under the halfway line, but we’d be good. We should still be keeping watch, but maybe the zombie numbers are going down. It depends if we’ve already killed the ones coming from the city. If you haven’t already gotten a BIG horde yet, you have to be especially watchful, and the security should be as tight as the start of the infection, if not tighter. This war will not only be against huge numbers or zombies, but against other humans. These years are called the “Survival of the Fittest”.

Months 36-60:

The initial zombie count is now depleting, and you should’ve already have had that huge zombie war. If not, keep a lot of watch. Less and less flesh is available, and you are one of the few, if not, the last left. They will come after you, but on a usual scale, there should be a little amount every day. Now is the time to start exploring, but little by little. Don’t explore a huge area, but if you find a good store stacked with supplies, keep going to that same one until you’ve taken everything from it. Then move on in the same area to a new store, and keep on doing that, just don’t go too far. Also keep in mind your entertainment, keep stocking up on DVDs, batteries, pens, and paper.

Months 60-84:

Most zombies should be dead, eaten by bacteria. There will be little, if none, left, but still keep in mind the threat. The last thing you need is your camp to be infected when the infected/zombie rates have gone down hugely. Keep doing what you’ve done in months 36-60. Still keep the exploration rates VERY LOW. There will probably be other survivors, but they maybe psychotic, like those one’s described from “The Walking Dead”. There are still threats of raiders to keep in mind.

Months 84+

Almost all zombies are gone, if not all. Still keep exploration rates down very little, there maybe camps that are psychotic still, our of resources, and a war may occur. The last thing you want to happen is to survive the zombie apocalypse and die of human ways. Until you are sure there are no zombies and raiders, then you may explore. But don’t ditch your camp, please. These people are your friends, and to repopulate the Earth, you’re going to need their help too. You may find it fitting to move to an area with fish, to fish of course. Maybe even start a farm, grow crops, and maybe even in a few years, establish a small town. Just remember to pass on the knowledge of what happened in the zombie apocalypse, for the threat is never dead. It never dies. For all you know, there are still infected roaming the Earth. Make zombie drills, make safe zones, maybe even find a cure if this ever happens again.

I’d like to thank George A. Romero, Max Brooks, and every other person who has brought the zombie infection threat upon the world, and we can always plan to be safe. I know I’ll be safe, and if you follow this plan, so should you.

Plan on me editing this, it may have a few holes. Also feel free to comment and submit any other ideas to make this a better plan.