In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak (5 page)

Eventually
we came to a consensus that we needed to arm ourselves to keep the infected at
bay. We weren’t going to use Paul’s gun. Not unless we absolutely had too. Then
we came up with a plan to get to the back door and once that door was closed we
could work on getting out to the cars safely.

We
scoured every drawer and locker looking for anything we could use as a
defensive weapon. We didn’t find much. Trevor found a broom and broke the
handle in half creating something that closely resembled a baton. Cody chose to
grab the fire extinguisher off of the wall and planned on using it any way he
could. The rest of us couldn’t find anything of use in the break room. We would
have to find things elsewhere.

Once
we all felt that we had worked up enough courage to go through with what we
were about to do, we slowly started moving the lockers out of the way. Once the
path was clear I remember my heart racing as Trevor pulled the door open.

Nothing.

The
hallway was just as empty as it had been when we passed through it only moments
before. I am not sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t an empty
hallway, that’s for damn sure.

So we opened every door in the
hall, searching for anything that we could use as a weapon. The rooms were
mostly offices and storage areas that were mostly filled with paper work and
old holiday decorations. But as luck would have it we did manage to find a few
things that turned out to be of some use.

We
found a box of triangular metal pieces that looked they were used for holding
up shelving. They were about a foot and a half in length and very thin, but at
least they were made of solid metal. They were narrow at one end so they were
actually very easy to hold in your hand and they grew wider towards the other
end. You know, the business end as they say in movies. They made for a fine
club, and the fact that they were light made them reasonably easy to swing. I
grabbed one and so did a man named Ray. He was an African American man who I
guessed was in his late fifties. Then most of the others followed suit and
picked one up.

Once
we were armed I remember standing at the top of the stairway waiting anxiously
for someone to lead the way. We couldn’t see anything at the bottom of the
stairs but we could definitely hear someone or something moving around down
there. The view of the back room was blocked by a concrete wall that enclosed
the staircase so we wouldn’t be able to see what was down there until we turned
the corner at the bottom of the stairs.

We
set out slowly for the bottom. Paul was leading the rest of us with his gun in
hand, while we all followed closely behind. My heart was pounding and I could
hear some of the others breathing heavily as we approached the bottom step. As
we got closer I started to make out what the sounds were that we had been
hearing. It was the sound of shuffling shoes on the concrete floor.

When
Paul turned the corner I didn’t hear the gun shot I was expecting. Even though
we had all agreed that we wouldn’t shoot the Zeds, I just assumed that he would
anyway. I know I probably would have. Trevor and Ray turned the corner just
ahead of me and we found Paul frozen in place with his pistol pointing at a
young man in tattered clothing.

Most of the flesh on his left arm
was either missing or shredded. His face was pale, his eyes looked empty, and
his body twitched as he moved towards Paul.

The
thing that had once been a young man was closing in on him and it was starting
to look like Paul wasn’t going to do anything about it. Paralyzed with fear, he
didn’t move. So Trevor and Ray ran to Paul’s aid and pushed the Zed to the
ground. I watched as Trevor started to beat on the infected young man with the
broom handle while he lay on the ground. The force of the blows seemed to have
kept the young man from getting back to his feet, but he mostly seemed unfazed
by the beating he was taking.

Then
just as Trevor stopped swinging his makeshift weapon to take a breath, the Zed
reached out with his hand and grabbed a hold of Ray’s ankle. He tried to pull
Ray’s leg close to his mouth but before he got too close Cody stepped in.

He raised the fire extinguisher
high in the air and brought it down with everything he had. The bottom of the
heavy extinguisher landed right on the forehead of the young man on the ground.
The sound of his skull cracking was awful. To describe it, well let’s just say
there are no adjectives that I can think of to describe it to someone who
wasn’t there.

He
just stayed on the ground, motionless. He wasn’t getting back up anytime soon
from what I could tell. Cody had a look of disbelief on his face as he looked
down at the corpse on the back room floor. Ray and Trevor both stepped away and
for a moment, probably from some form of shock. Maybe we were waiting to see if
that Zed was going to get back up or maybe we just couldn’t accept that Cody
had just killed a man. But we had all gone silent.

That was when Cody started to
panic. He had just realized that he had killed someone and before the outbreak
that came with terrible consequences. Despite that fact that the rules of the
old world didn’t apply anymore, we weren’t there yet. The guilt and the remorse
that you are supposed to feel, well that doesn’t just go away overnight.
Believe me I know.

Looking
back it’s hard to even remember that the Zeds were human, or at least they had
been at one point. They had lives, they had families, and they had fears and
dreams. I remember when we used to see them like that. Then over time they just
became things and monsters. It was easier to kill them that way. Maybe if they
didn’t look so human we would have accepted what we needed to do earlier. It’s
probably one of the reasons it spread so fast. We couldn’t get past the fact
that they weren’t human anymore. We wanted to cure them, we wanted to help them
and they only wanted to destroy us.

Cody
struggled with that for a while. He was having a hard time with what he had
just done. Paul, well he was having a hard time for a different reason. He was
visibly upset with himself for freezing in the face of danger and it took him
some time to snap out of it. But while the two of them were busy working
through their issues, the rest of us weren’t afforded the luxury of time to
cope with what had just happened.

Another
Zed was moving towards us and closing in quickly. A middle aged woman or at
least it had been, dressed nicely, and if it weren’t for her pale skin, sunken
eyes, and the blood stains on her shoulder, she looked fairy normal. She would
also be my first kill.

As
the Zed approached us, a woman in our group who worked for the store stepped
forward. Her name was Anne. She was in her mid-forties and a mother and maybe
that’s why she did what she did. She tried asking the woman to stop. Anne kept
telling her that we would find her help or get her to a hospital. I wonder how
many people made that mistake. The zombie-like woman just kept getting closer
and closer as Anne pleaded with her to stop and calm down. She didn’t.

She
reached out her arms and managed to grab a hold of Anne’s shirtsleeve. Then in
one jerky motion she tried to pull Anne in close and drive her teeth into her
neck. What happened next is kind of a blur for me. I remember hearing Anne
scream, then I remember swinging the piece of metal I had in my hand at the
woman’s head. I hit her so damn hard that I felt the corner of the metal
triangle go right through the side of her head. I drove that thing right into
her temple and she collapsed almost immediately.

I
hadn’t been in a fight since I was ten, if you can even call that a fight. I
had certainly never hit anyone with a blunt object before. I would be lying if
I said that the only thing I felt at the time was remorse. I mean I truly felt
guilty about what I had just done, but a small part of me was amazed that I was
even able to do it. But then like a wave I remember looking down at the
infected woman’s body and feeling so disturbed not only by my actions, but by
the whole situation itself. I didn’t move for a while. None of us moved for a
while. It was Ray that would get us moving again, we needed to keep moving.

We
started making our way towards the back receiving doors. The store was eerily
quiet. There was no music and it was almost completely silent except for the
sound of our footsteps as Trevor guided us to where we needed to go.

When
we made it to the back corner of the building where the doors were I could see
the metal double doors were wide open just like Trevor said they were. But the
area seemed to be completely clear of any intruders. For a second I thought we
had caught a break.

Trevor
and I cautiously stepped through the receiving doors and outside onto the
loading dock. At first glance I thought we had found our way out. The only
thing I saw originally was a small box truck parked about twenty or so feet
away and it was still running. Trevor told me that it wasn’t there before and
that it must have arrived while we were hiding upstairs. It would have been
perfect. We could have all jumped in the truck and made a break for it. I still
don’t have an idea of where we would have gone, but it was a way out.

That
was until Trevor and I saw what was beside the truck. I think we both saw it at
that same time because we both made the same sound of disgust almost
simultaneously. There appeared to be a man on the ground next to the truck and
a small group of people who were kneeling around him. They were all bent over
top of him and it didn’t take me long to realize what they were doing. They
were eating him. Blood covered their faces and the fronts of their clothing.
They pulled pieces of the man’s organs out of his midsections with their hands
and brought it up to their mouths without hesitation. I get sick to my stomach
just thinking about it.

The
driver should have never been there. Even though stores were still open during
those early days of the outbreak, shipments from most warehouses had stopped
due to safety concerns. Most stores hadn’t received deliveries of fresh produce
or dairy for weeks at that point. However Trevor informed me later that store
managers were using local vendors to help meet customer demands.

The
vendors were looking to capitalize on the business opportunity and were making
deliveries at inflated costs to many of the stores nearby. Most of those stores
had received a huge load of dry goods weeks before in kind of a last shipment
before deliveries became an uncertainty and drivers stopped working. The local
vendors were willing to take the risks for the extra money. It’s hard to say
why people did what they did when the outbreak started. But that poor driver
should have never been there.

We
stood completely still. We were both caught up in watching what was happening
on the ground in front of us. I couldn’t stop watching what those things were
doing. That was probably why I didn’t notice what was standing off to the side
of Trevor and I. There was a small group of Zeds that had gathered just a few
feet away from us and neither one of us had seen them.

That
was until we realized that they had already seen us and they were heading right
for us. We tried to jump back inside the store and slam the doors closed. But
one of the infected managed to get his body between the two doors before we had
the chance. Just as the monster reached out trying to grab a hold of us I heard
someone yelling from behind Trevor and I. He was yelling something about
getting out of the way.

I
moved just in time to avoid an employee named Scott charging at the Zed pushing
a truck. It was a metal cart that was about five feet long and waist high on
four small wheels. Trucks were usually used for loading up stock from the back
room and bringing it out to the sales floor. That day it was being used at a
battering ram.

Scott
came rushing between us, pushing the truck and rammed the front of it right
into the midsection of the Zed that was fighting to get inside. The impact sent
the thing flying back to the ground and he immediately starting rolling on the
pavement. We all watched, waiting to see if he would get back up. He did.

In
that split second, Scott made a decision that caught us all by surprise. He
ran. But not before he turned and looked at all of us and told us that he was
making a break for it. Then he just ran. He sprinted out the receiving doors
and right past the Zed getting up off the ground. He ran right past the small
group that was nearby and out into the open. He ran before any of us had a
chance to stop him or try and talk him out of it. He just ran. I watched him
until he made it to the far corner of the building and then he was out of my
sight. I wasn’t sure if he was brave or just crazy. Maybe he was a little bit
of both. But if any of us wanted to follow our window of opportunity had
quickly closed.

Not
only was the Zed that Scott had knocked over back on his feet. There were
several others who were closing in on us and blocking any possible way out. An
infected woman tried to reach out for me but Trevor struck her in the face with
his broomstick knocking her back a step. Before any of the others could get
inside we slammed the doors closed and quickly locked them. Then we all waited.
I am still not sure what we were waiting for but we all watched the doors
waiting for something to happen. That was when the banging started. Some of the
others wanted to believe that Scott had changed his mind and was trying to get
back inside. But I think that everyone knew that it wasn’t Scott on the other
side of those doors.