Take all social flaws and all the perks that speed you up. Grab night vision and good genetics: both are wonderfully cheap for the good they do. Ignore the npc, go for town, fast. Zombies won't spawn for a little while.
Things to grab like your life depends on it: backpack, utility vest, lighter, machete, pot (the cooking kind), pot ( the smoking kind) first aid, adderall, and painkillers (aspirin works but oxy is better). If you find a metal pipe, you are a lucky bastard, that and a rock gets you a crowbar, which is a decent weapon that allows you to break into houses without smashing windows/attracting zombies/cutting yourself on broken windows while fleeing said zombies.
Go melee. Guns will get you killed most of the time, but will save you whenever melee is impossible ( triffid queens *shudder*)
When your backpack is full of food, water, batteries, drugs, a good book or two, head for the woods. An ideal location is a lab/cave/house close to a water source (even if it is a toilet), far from town (too many zombies) and less far from a triffid grove (delicious!). if you see a triffid queen from your house, change houses. not because they are all that deadly (melee not recommended at all) but because you will fall asleep in a fortified lair full if food and wake up in a wooded grove which is growing virulently and quickly enough to pierce your body parts. oh and the queen will be a few tiles away trying to eat you.
oh and if you ever "smell fungus" and then feel funny, find some royal jelly (easy in a lab, less so in a hive) quick, or horrible , horrible things will happen (worth seeing once, i remember trying to cure it with antibiotics, it was my first ever experience with infection, i count when the spores started to appear as one of the most terrifying video game experiences ever)
also cheat. it is a lot of fun. mutate yourself into a literal spiderman, add all martial arts, horns and hooves and play a satyr ninja, become a badass treeman who lives in the woods and crafts all night and photosynthesizes all day. the game will still kill you eventually, but the cheat menu really lets you have a ridiculous sandbox experience