Salary Survey Extra is a series of periodic dispatches that give added insight into the findings of our most recent Salary Survey. These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

If there's one thing that science has conclusively proven — and we're using "science" here in the "inexplicably popular movies, television, and other pulp fiction" sense of the word — it is that the zombies will be here soon. Maybe not this week, or even this year. The zombie apocalypse is inevitable, however, and the time to prepare for it is now.

Some people may tell you that zombies are pretend, and that you need not concern yourself with doing things like stockpiling undead repellent, getting really good at self-defense techniques that involve baseball bats and shotguns, or exploring the social dynamics of small groups in a confined setting.

That's alright. The naysayers and the pooh-pooh-ers will be the first ones to get eaten, which should buy the rest of us some valuable time to find and hole up in empty farmhouses or deserted shopping malls. Don't even feel bad for anyone who's determined to be a walking hors d'oeuvre. Zombie apocalypses aren't pretty, and only the strong survive.

Of course, some people may not be all that interested in survival. Once the zombies have you pinned down, then it's just a waiting game, right?

If you're still reading, then you may be wondering what all of this has to do with our most recent annual Salary Survey. Well, IT professionals are smart people, so we decided that we could probably shed some light on the pressing concern of how best to behave once the inevitable occurs and the streets are filled with reanimated corpses, or with infected hordes of the recently alive.

(It's kind of hard to say which it will be. Everybody used to kind of agree that zombies were dead people who rise up from the grave, but the totally popular thing now is that they're really just people infected by a secret government plague weapon, or what have you.)

Should you fight? Flee? Attempt to gather with like-minded individuals are rebuild society? We asked Salary Survey respondents to take stock of the situation and tell us what would be their most important priority. (No, it's not a standard survey question. This is us going back to the well of Not-So-Serious stuff that we always put at the very end.) Here's what we learned:

Look for other survivors so we can pool our resources. — 36.3 percent
Gather up all the guns and ammo I can find. — 20.1 percent
Stockpile food and water. — 13.3 percent
Relax and enjoy whatever luxuries are left. Que sera, sera. — 12.6 percent
Accept the inevitable, become a zombie and gorge myself on the sweet, succulent brains of the living. — 6.6 percent
Ruthlessly establish a new social order with me at the top. — 6.5 percent
Hide. — 4.5 percent

Original question: After the zombie apocalypse begins, my top priority will be to ...