“The advice is simple, but must be heeded: Get out of the city as soon as possible. Avoid the tunnels at all costs. Use the bridges if you must, but on foot (your car won’t help you, too many traffic jams). Best way to escape is by water. Zombies can’t swim.—Stephen King, author, Cell
“Stay inside your apartment, lock the doors, fill the bathtub with water. When you do have to go out for supplies, you want to be a response-ready individual. You can’t be out there walking and texting. That’s a great way to get bitten.”—Steven Schlozman, professor, Harvard Medical School, and author, The Zombie Autopsies
“Get out. There are way too many people in New York. Take off on foot or a really sturdy, light mountain bike. Your neighbors in their Hummers will laugh at you, but you’ll be pedaling by the abandoned hulks of their vehicles in a few hours as zombies gnaw on their bones.” —Kim Paffenroth, author, Dying to Live series
“New York’s cleanly gridded streets are definitely more survivor-friendly than, say, the twists and turns of London. Even with burnt-out evacuation traffic, the clean sight lines are going to make it easier to spot a horde before it spots you.” —Kevan Davis, creator, Urban Dead online multiplayer game
“Swim across the Harlem River. It moves the slowest of the three rivers surrounding Manhattan, and in most areas the current never rarely moves faster than 2 knots, which is basically 2 miles an hour. The other rivers, by comparison, can have currents as fast as 6 knots.] That may seem like a very small number, but for most people [2 knots] is like walking against an escalator, and most people can’t walk against an escalator. Jump off the old dinner pier at 107th Street across from Randall’s Island, swim across—it’s only about 230 meters with the current rarely ever faster than a knot either way. The shoreline there is reasonably accessible at low and high tide. Then climb out and walk north to where the railroad path goes over to the Bronx.”— Morty Berger, founder, NYC swim
“It depends on if you want to run over zombies with a big bike or just ride away really fast. For the latter, I would take a fast, comfortable cyclocross bike, like the Specialized Tricross Elite ($1,900 at Toga Bikes, 110 West End Ave., nr. 65th St.; 212-799-9625). It’s basically a road bike that’s made for off-roading. It’s nimble like a road bike, but has fatter, knobby tires that can handle gravel or grass. The aluminum frame is more durable than carbon, and it has disc breaks rather than break pads, so you’ll be able to stop faster for quick maneuvering.” —Eric Shadle, sales associate at Toga Bikes.