I’ve seen and read a lot of stories lately about people surviving either the zombie apocalypse or an economic collapse that leads to social anarchy. The protagonists always seem to have at least one of the following going for them:
- They have a safe full of Blastomatic 2000’s with a basement full of ammunition
- They happened to luck into topping off their gas tanks and pantries just before calamity struck.
- There is a gun guy/ country boy / grizzled veteran who has a vault full of guns and food and is willing to share
- They find an abandoned government bunker complex with a never-ending supply of ammunition, food, and clean water.
Honestly, I wish someone would write a more realistic story in the TEOTWAWKI genre. I want a tale about a suburban guy with a couple of kids and a wife who has to fight off the zombie hordes or eek out a living while fending off the Golden Horde with nothing but a Mosin Nagant 91/30, a spam can of Bulgarian 7.x62x54R, both of which are older than he is, a HiPoint 9mm, and a couple of boxes of Russian steel cased 9mm hardball ammunition. I’ll believe it if he has maybe a couple of weeks of groceries, tops, and one of his kids gets deathly ill because he either ate some bad food out of the now-defunct refrigerator or got some contaminated water. Bonus points if his jerk brother-in-law shows up and tries to be in charge, causing family stress at a time it’s not needed.
And no, I’m not going to write this myself. I’ve written two novels in my life. They both sucked so bad I burned them and swore to never waste that much of my time on something I am so bad at. I’ll just keep searching Amazon for the book I want to read instead of inflicting my “vision” on the rest of you.
DaddyBear’s Den 
MaddMedic
/ November 4, 2012Agreed…..
We’re all toast….(well at least you are! Not me!!)
Here, hold my beer, I wanna fetch something from the safe…
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daddybear71
/ November 4, 2012Oh, I have no illusions on how long I’d make it in case of the zombie apocalypse.
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julie
/ November 4, 2012Have you read the ‘Winter’ series by Thomas Sherry .. not 100% perfect but not bad (at least the first 2 books).
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daddybear71
/ November 4, 2012Thanks, I’ll have to check them out.
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Lazy Bike Commuter
/ November 4, 2012Hi Point? That’s kind of a deal breaker for me. Can I use my Makarov instead? Same price range, I paid $180 for it…
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daddybear71
/ November 4, 2012Sure. Good luck finding 9×18 after the apocalypse. And when you do, let me know, because my CZ is my favorite.
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Lazy Bike Commuter
/ November 4, 2012I can’t imagine 9×18 would be much harder to find than 7.62x54R.
I have heard people say that .357SIG would be a good TEOTWAWKI caliber, since there might be a lot of ammo left over since not many people use it. I’m not convinced that this is good logic.
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daddybear71
/ November 4, 2012I’ve heard the same said about .44 Magnum or .44 Special, but that makes a bit more sense to me. There are enough people who shoot .44 that it’s stocked, but not so many that the ammunition would be grabbed up. I haven’t looked for it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen .357 Sig in my shop.
I guess my logic is that you can still easily get a large pack of 7.62x54R surplus, even in gun stores, but I know of only a couple of places that carry 9mm Makarov here in Louisville, and they only have a few boxes of 20 in the store.
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Lazy Bike Commuter
/ November 5, 2012Good point, I’m used to plentiful 9×18 at gun shows, but when I have bought it at the range they just have a few boxes of Blazer. Which, by the way, is the ONLY ammunition that the gun doesn’t fully love. But that might also be because I was still using my promag last time I bought ammo there. This requires research, which means…Range trip!
…I would love my Mak even more if I could find more of the Russian manufacture 12 round mags for it (or even 10). I got one of the less-common double stack Maks.
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daddybear71
/ November 5, 2012The CZ-82 has the same problem. I pretty much have to buy CZ branded magazines, which aren’t exactly inexpensive.
And after much thought, I remembered that I read the story I was pining for last night: The Road. That father was pretty much either unprepared for the situation or was at the ragged end of his preparation in mind, body, and material. He even had the half loaded cheap gun.
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Drang
/ November 5, 2012Dean Ings “Rackham Files” is available in Baen’s Free Library…
…not a precise fit, but good nonetheless.
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julie
/ November 5, 2012Not free 😦 but for $5 i’m hoping it’s worth it 🙂 http://www.baenebooks.com/p-333-the-rackham-files.aspx
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bluesun
/ November 5, 2012Why did I just get a vision of Chevy Chase in “Zombie Vacation”?
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Al's Gal
/ November 5, 2012Yes I agree with bluesum. I see the screen play as a “National Lampoon’s” TEOTWAWKI. Chevy Chase can headline it.
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