Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down( A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse)

by Griffin, Forrest

  • MULTIPURPOSE TOOL: Personally, I like Leatherman and Gerber (or anything a manufacturer will send me for free . . . hint, hint). Whichever tool you decide upon, it should come equipped with a knife, a screwdriver, some type of sexual aid, and a pair of pliers, which will come in handy in case you need to hot-wire a car (see chapter 4).

  • MRES: This stands for “Meal, Ready-to-Eat,” and they are lightweight, self-contained, filed rations that you can eat while on the journey to your safe zone. Deciding how many to include should be based upon how long it takes to reach your safe zone. I would recommend planning on three per day, and then adding a couple of extra on top just in case you encounter some unseen obstacle. Chances are you are either going to be running or walking at a very fast pace along your escape route, and it is very important to keep your energy high.

  • PEANUT BUTTER—It is high in calories and protein and doesn’t spoil. And if I see you dehydrated on the side of some trail with a mouth full of peanut butter, in utter and complete agony, it will provide me with a good belly laugh.

  • WATER: How much water to bring should be based upon the time it takes to reach your safe zone, as well as if there are any water sources along the journey. In either case, I would bring at least three sixteen-ounce bottles for each day you will be traveling, even if there are available water sources. Water adds serious weight to your Go Bag, but it is something that you absolutely cannot live without.

  • WATER PURIFIER: These days, water purifiers are small, light, and easy to use. Even though a water source may appear clean, in the wake of a natural disaster or viral outbreak, you can never be too careful.

  • MAP: Packing that topographic map you bought, which charts out your escape route to your safe zone, is extremely important because you might need to take a detour due to an unseen occurrence. Later in the book, I teach you how to read topographic maps, because trust me, you won’t be able to figure it out on your own.

  • COMPASS: Just like having a topographic map, this navigational tool might very well save you from getting lost and dying a horrible death in the wilderness.

  • WATERPROOF MATCHES: Fires should be avoided when possible because they can give away your location. However, a small fire could save your life should the weather turn bad. Waterproof matches are just awesome. In fact, why wait until the apocalypse to start carrying them!

  • GOGGLES: They seem like a very postapocalyptic thing to have, so I threw them in my bag just in case.

  FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM

  Bar fighting makes you tough, without a doubt. Even if you win, you are often carted off to jail, where you are usually required to participate in more fighting. And if you really mess a guy up in a bar fight, you get to go to prison, which makes you super tough because you have to spend all your time trying not to get raped . . . As a side note, I am not down with that saying “Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I am pretty sure getting raped in prison makes you and your bowels a little weaker.

  • GLOVES: Gloves are an absolute necessity when navigating through a postapocalyptic wasteland. However, they should not be so bulky that you have a difficult time holding and firing your weapon.

  • WOOL SOCKS: If your feet are fucked, you’re fucked. I recommend bringing five pairs of wool socks and putting on a fresh pair every eight hours. If the weather is warm, strap your wet socks to the back of your backpack so they can dry.

  • BOOTS: The reason I included a pair of boots in your Go Bag is that you might not have enough time to put them on before fleeing your home. The first step is to always get the hell out of Dodge—when you reach a place that is somewhat safe, remove the shoes you are wearing and put on your boots.

  • WOOL BLANKET: If at all possible, you do not want to stop and sleep while making your escape to your safe zone. However, if the terrain is too dangerous to traverse at night, you might need to bed down for a few hours. While there are some excellent sleeping bags currently on the market, nothing retains heat in wet conditions better than, or is as durable as, a wool blanket.

  • FLASHLIGHT: You don’t need to go crazy and stash a floodlight in your Go Bag. You just need something that is bright enough to show you where you are going. If you find a flashlight that doesn’t suck through its batteries in twelve minutes, e-mail me the name of the brand.

  • TOOTHPASTE: If you have never heard of this handy little device, you are a filthy fuck mongrel. For those of you who have been using a toothbrush your entire life, I just want to reiterate the importance of taking care of your teeth. Later in the book I give instructions on how to pull a rotten tooth, but you want to avoid this at all cost. Granted, a few days without brushing won’t do you any harm, but if you are unable to reach your safe zone for whatever reason, you will be very glad you brought some toothpaste.

  GET INTO SHAPE, YOU FAT SLOB

  As you’re fleeing from the apocalypse you’re almost certainly going to need to be on foot for some of the time; therefore, it’s crucial that you’re in Armageddon-ready shape at all times. There are two ways you can get in shape to survive the apocalypse. You could be like me and train in a climate-controlled gym on a treadmill, which is obviously the pussy way out. The only reason I do this is that this type of preparation actually helps speed up the arrival of the apocalypse. Here is my routine: I overconsume food, and then go to the gym to burn off that food on an electric treadmill in an air-conditioned room. I figure that if enough people follow this layout, the apocalypse will be here before you know it, which is a good thing.

  However, if you want a more manly approach, simply walk out into the woods and see how far you can go in any direction. You could buy a weight vest to increase resistance, but again, that is pussy. A much better approach would be to simply gather all the shit you would need in a real survival scenario and haul that shit instead. Remember, there will be no CrossFit during the apocalypse. There will also be no trendy diet-and-exercise programs. Having the ability to hike long distances and sprint really fast will be the most important attributes you can possess. Being a good hiker will allow you to travel for long distances to reach sources of food and water, and being able to sprint really fast will allow you to outrun predators. When it comes to jump squats, Thai kicks, and all that nonsense, leave it in civilization.

  VEHICLE OF DEATH

  While being in shape is good, your own two feet will only get you so far. Remember how I was telling you to chart a drivable escape route to your safe zone? Well, if shit hits the fan big-time, chances are you won’t be able to make that drive in your family sedan. In order to make it out of your driveway and over the rubble, you are going to need to build a Vehicle of Destruction (VOD). I toyed with the idea of coming up with my own step-by-step instructions on how to build this monster, but realizing I should probably give you something you might actually be able to use, I decided to bring in an expert. Trying to find the perfect expert could have been rough. In addition to his being knowledgeable about automobiles, I also wanted him to be a dirty, mean fucker. You know, the kind of guy who lives out in the mountains like Gargamel and spends all his waking hours dreaming up sinister ways to exterminate his enemies. A guy kind of like me, except he knows a thing or two about cars. Luckily, I knew the perfect man for the job.

  Let me tell you about this fucking guy. Certain that it was only a matter of time before the world as we know it crumbled and fell into the fiery pits of hell, he purchased his own mountaintop outside of Los Angeles, on which he built a bunker and a recording studio. The bunker is so him and his family can survive the end of days, and the recording studio is so he can compose the dark symphony of the apocalypse, which will inspire people like you and me to press on. I have never seen this guy’s parents, but I am pretty certain one is a Hell’s Angel and the other is Thor, god of thunder. The guy is six two, 235 pounds, and one terrifying son of a bitch. I mean, his beard alone is enough to make children cry. It looks like something a plumber would remove from a clogged drain in a crack
house.

  Seriously, how this guy gets his beautiful wife to mate with him is beyond me, but he’s got three kids that resemble him enough to convince me that it wasn’t the milkman. Anyway, after reading the lyrics to his songs “Destruction Overdrive” and “The Blessed Hellride,” and hearing rumors that he themed a room in his bunker after the movie The Exorcist, I put a silver cross around my neck, armed myself with a Bible and some garlic, and approached him about giving my readership some pointers on constructing a VOD. Who is this mechanical visionary I have brought into our friendly picnic? None other than Zakk Wylde, Ozzy Osbourne’s lead guitarist for the past twenty-five years and front man for Black Label Society, the kind of band your mother warned you about. So put on your thinking caps, I am now going to turn you over to the modern-day Viking.

  ZAKK WYLDE’S DO-IT-YOURSELF DEATHCORE WARMACHINE

  What’s going on, brothers and sisters of the Berserker Nation? Here’s the situation: You’ve never been through a catastrophic disaster and you need some advice for gettin’ yourself from point A to point B without some Mad Max motherfucker hunting your ass down and then killin’ and grillin’ you like it’s the fucking Fourth of July at the Dahmer’s house. Don’t want your organs to become a shish kebab? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Before Mr. Dahmer gets hold of your loins, Father Zakk here is gonna open up the Black Label Garage and explain how to build the ultimate postapocalyptic, land survival vehicle, or as I like to call it, the Deathcore Warmachine (DW).

  Since I brought up Mad Max, remember Mel Gibson’s black-on-black “Interceptor” from the movie? It was the makeshift car he drove around through the decimated terrain of Australia. His base vehicle was a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT hardtop coupe with a 351-cubic-inch V8 that was supercharged and modified to put out six hundred horsepower. Cool car, am I right? Wrong. The only part of that ride we have any use for in our design is the paint job; at least Mel got the colors right. Nothin’ for nothin’, the Deathcore Warmachine will run Mel’s car right-the-fuck over.

  I’m using the exact truck I drive today for our base vehicle, a black Ford F-350 Super Duty. Yes, I suggest you start saving your pennies now so you can go out and buy one.

  The F-350 has a 6.4L Power Stroke turbo diesel engine that runs stock at 362 horsepower and delivers 650 pounds of torque. It has a towing capacity of 25,000 pounds and can haul over 6,000 pounds in the bed. Although this is a pretty powerful monster, you are going to want to do some modifications to get it outfitted for Judgment Day.

  In order to begin the transformation of your DW, you want to get a turbo supercharger under the hood, increase the intake and exhaust velocities, and install a superchip specifically fine-tuned for increasing the horsepower and torque of your ride. My DW already came with a turbocharger, but we needed a better one. The upgrade kits they make, with all the specialty hardware and fittings, can be installed at your local performance shop (not the oil-change place guys). If you consider yourself a gear head and want to save a few bucks, you can order most of this stuff online and do it yourself. All you have to do is pick up a copy of an auto performance magazine next time you’re gazing at porn mags at the liquor store—the performance magazines have tons of ads in the back selling this shit. (While you’re at it, you might as well check out the ads in the back of the porno mags, as they also contain some pretty cool gadgets.)

  Once all these modifications are complete, take your ride into a performance shop and have a superchip installed. The guys there will check the tuning and program the chip to optimize all the modifications you’ve made. I know what you are thinking: “This sounds fucking expensive!” Well, it is. All of the modifications will cost you between $7,500 and $12,000, depending on how much of the work you do yourself. But you can’t really put a price tag on power.

  Why do you need so much power? Suppose you, Forrest, and I are out in the DW hunting down something to eat and we come upon a roadblock caused by a fallen tree or some giant boulders. Instead of Forrest getting out and moving that shit off the road himself, we wrap the DW’s heavy-duty winch and cable around that motherfucker (the tree, not Forrest), and tow it out of our way. Five minutes later, we’re all back to hunting caribou.

  Seeing that I’m already talking about killing shit, let’s talk about the next round of modifications. Since most living things on the planet will be dead, it will probably take you quite a long fucking time to hunt down a food source. So it is important that your DW is capable of traveling for long distances without having to refuel. To ensure this, you want to install two fifty-five-gallon, heavy-duty drums on the bed of the truck. One drum will serve as your water supply, and since you don’t want to drink toxic waste or some bacteria that cause you to shit yourself for a month, I suggest you purchase a filtration kit at your local camping store. Next, you want to install that filter directly to the drum, so you will also need to pick up the proper fittings, a pump, and the appropriate length of half-inch polyurethane tubing, all of which you can find at a pool supply store, or if you are on a budget, you can simply steal them from the next koi pond you come across. I recommend the pool store, though. Those goldfish do some crazy shit.

  If you think water is for pussies and prefer beer instead, you’ll want to ignore what I wrote in the previous paragraph and turn that first drum into a fermentation tank so you can brew your own beer, which will be great when there’s not a bar left on the planet. Just remember, the goal is not to make a nice-tasting beer, but rather a beer that will get you fucking plastered. Luckily, beer is the easiest thing to make on the planet. I mean, you can even make that shit in a plastic bag in prison. There are four ingredients that you need, and these can be purchased online or stolen from microbreweries across the globe:

  INGREDIENTS

  Specialty grains

  Malt extract

  Hops

  Yeast

  Here’s what you do:

  1. Put the specialty grains into a large grain bag (like a giant tea bag) and boil it in a pot for thirty minutes to an hour at 150 degrees.

  2. Add the malt extract before the boil and add the hops just after, creating a subtle, yet vibrantly bitter taste. Ahhhh yes!!!

  3. Next, cool the boiled mix down to about eighty degrees, at which point it is ready to transfer into the tank.

  4. Stir in the yeast while the mix is still warm in order to start fermentation. Once you have agitated the mix, you’ll need to cap off the container so it is airtight, and then let it sit for about a week.

  The second drum you install on the back of the DW will serve as a mixing tank for biodiesel, a clean-burning fuel derived from a hundred percent renewable resources. I strongly recommend this modification because our current fuel reserves won’t last forever, and the DW won’t do you jackshit if runs out of gas in the middle of the fucking desert.

  With the fuel situation sorted out, the next step is to battleproof the DW. I recommend a full metal jacket made from depleted uranium plate metal like they use on the M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks. If you can’t get your hands on some of that stuff, any heavy-gauge sheet metal from your local metal shop will suffice. Ideally, you want to reinforce the hood, front wheel wells, and sides of the truck. You will also want to add a firewall between the cab and the truck bed to protect your ass from explosions or impacts from the rear. Next, on the front of the DW you want to install a heavy-duty plow so you can charge and knock shit over. A variety of plows can be purchased for trucks—a grand will get you one of the basic models, and $4,500 will get you a badass plow with a robotic arm and joystick controller for the cab. I recommend going with the joystick plow, as tearing shit out of the earth will be the closest you get to video games in the apocalypse.

  Now let’s talk about hardware. Not that geeky computer intra-Web shit all those iPhone-carrying twittering twats run around with in their sophisticated world of nonfat soy lattes and Bluetooth wireless whatever-the-fucks. Remember, it’s fucking D-Day and all that shit is out the fucking window. I’m tal
king about the arsenal of weapons we’re gonna outfit this motherfucker with in order to keep your heart beating another day.

  In addition to stocking your cab with the guns Forrest and friends explained earlier, you want to mount the tripod of a 7.62-millimeter, multibarrel machine gun to the center of the truck bed. This piece of hardware has Gatling-style rotating barrels, and is electronically driven by the small generator running off biodisel fuel. Not sure where to get one? Try the same Soldier of Fortune magazine that you used as a kid to buy ninja stars and nunchucks. In fact, get some of those too. You never know when it’s gonna come down to hand-to-hand combat.

  Once your vehicle is equipped with all the essentials, the last item of importance is the rear seat. While this could serve as another area to store food, equipment, and weapons, you are going to need a place to shag your old lady. Remember, it’s all about survival, and without a good spot to bang one out with your girl, your seed-spreading days are over, end of story. To make sure your gene pool survives, install a long, spring-cushioned seat in the back, without any obstacles that will jab you in the nuts or become uncomfortable while taking the skin boat to tuna town. Make sure you have proper height in the back area as well. This can be accomplished by standing on your knees and then measuring the distance from the cushion up to about two inches above your head. With the proper room, you can not only bang your girl doggie style, but also have the space needed to easily get a thumb in her ass and then reach up and give her one of those Dirty Sanchez mustaches. Hey, if it’s the end of the world, you ought to be able to stuff her like she’s a Thanksgiving turkey and have some fun with it.