Absolutely the last place you’d ever want to be. Everyone loots stores, it’s safer to loot locally first. Best case scenario everything is cleaned out. Worst case, you find other people. Or other “people”.
I suppose but for me I wouldn’t want to waste a pick on something I’d use for extreme cases. Sure it’ll help in a bind but I’d rather prep to not be in that bind to begin with.
Everything changes with context but I made my picks with “The Walking Dead” scenario in mind. They all walk, everyone’s infected, it only takes effect if you die with your brain intact, they roam in hordes. But hey, we may never know and it’s probably for the best.
Fire Axe requires you to be pretty dead on with every swing. You miss or misalign the edge coming down and it bounces off their skull. They feel nothing and now you’ve got to lift up that axe for another swing. You’ll tire yourself out pretty quickly but if the edge lasts long enough I suppose it could be used to make spears as well. Spears, even just makeshift ones from sticks, are light and if you miss it’s almost effortless to get another go at it.
Ah but see, a firearm requires cleaning, oil, and ammunition. The suppressed sidearm will lure in your neighborhood while anything unsuppressed is going to call everything within 8 blocks right to you. Dog is a mouth to feed, mess to clean, and is also loud unless you’ve trained them very, very well. Making light isn’t hard but everyone can see light - including zombies. NVGs are just for you. Water you can clean yourself but I assume you mean boiling which would need a fire… and everyone can see the light and smoke.
If we’re going on “brain damage to kill” rules you’re going to need to clean sweep their head off or find a way to the brain. As cool as it is, that’s a big ask for something designed for one swift body shot. I’d look for the spear since it’s the most effective peasant weapon and be real, we’re all about peasant skilled.
And should you be abducted by the gravity of any celestial body you will feel pain unimaginable for however long your nerves last, stranded on something that nobody else will ever discover to live out the heat death of the universe in a constant cycle of pain (if you can regenerate lost nerves) or as a mangled sentient* meat pile (if you can’t regenerate) all because you were given Immortality and not Invulnerability.
Assuming you haven’t entirely lost your mind by now.