In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak

by Michael Elliott

  The whole experience was surreal. There we were drinking, laughing and acting as if it was just an average Saturday in the middle of an average summer all the while a horde of zombies surrounded us just below. But as strange as it seems, for at least a couple of hours we weren’t thinking about what the next day would bring or what the next tragedy would be.

  We all tried to avoid talking about the outbreak or those we had lost. Instead we discussed movies and television shows and sports teams that constantly let us down. Cody ran the grill and Anne whipped up side dishes with whatever she could find. Amy offered to help but she didn’t let her. She didn’t let anyone help because she wanted everyone else to just relax.

  Ray was sharing horror stories about teaching. Derrick spent most of his time trying to convince a few of the others that some movie from the eighties that nobody had heard of was the greatest movie ever made. I spent most of my time talking to Paul about hockey and football and every so often Cody would throw in his two cents.

  The barbeque seemed to be going well, but a few hours into it something happened. I was standing next to the barbeque talking to Cody and Kerri when out of the blue I heard two people begin to shout. I looked to see Anne and Paul yelling at one another and the two of them appeared as mad as I had ever seen them.

  I didn’t see how it had started or who said what first but I could tell they had both been drinking and that didn’t help matters. Through the name calling and the vulgarity I was able to make out what they were fighting about. It was the one topic everyone had tried to avoid all evening, whether we should try for the coast or not.

  They went at each other like I had never seen before and neither one of them was holding anything back. They were vicious and unlike their previous arguments, that one didn’t look like it was going to end well. Tanya and Shannon tried to pull Anne away and Adam, Cody and me grabbed a hold of Paul. He was more hostile that time and I was afraid of what he might say or do. After we managed to separate the two of them they wouldn’t speak to each other until the following day when they both gave empty apologies as if to appease the rest of us.

  That brought an end to the festivities and once everyone finally left the roof I chose to stay up there and volunteered to take the night’s first watch. The first reason I decided to stay up there that night was to avoid the awkwardness of the fallout of Anne and Paul’s fight. The other reason I stayed up there was too check in on Hal.

  Through the binoculars I could see that he had been busy. To my surprise he had done some significant damage to the wooden boards that were being used to barricade the outside of the door. I felt bad for Hal. I could see the harm he was doing to his hands and arms as he smashed them against the wood repeatedly. I can admit that a part of me considered grabbing the rifle and putting a bullet through his brain. At that point I thought it would be an act of mercy, ending his suffering, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  Twice I thought about shooting Hal, and twice I talked myself out of it. The fact of the matter was that I had grown attached to Hal and in all honesty I found him fascinating. To this day I am still unsure what it was that separated him from the rest of the Zeds and why it was that I couldn’t stop watching him. I didn’t care about any of the other zombies out there. They were monsters, mindless, horrifying things that scared the hell out of me. But Hal was different somehow. Strange as it seems there were actually times I found myself routing for Hal to get through that door and see what was inside.

  I watched him for hours that night. I sat back and drank a few of the left over beers from the barbeque and tried to relax a little. I tried to block out the terrible noise that surrounded me and thought about everything that had happened and everything that was to come. It was hard to see a future in all of this. I questioned if the world would ever be the same or at least something that resembled what it used to be.

  Looking back I think that I had been in a state of denial, always thinking that this would end one day and everything would go back to the way it was. It had never occurred to me that things would never be like they were. That even if I did survive this outbreak that the world would be a very different place then the one I knew. My priorities needed to change from what they had been. It didn’t matter what was in my bank account anymore or getting a promotion at work. It didn’t matter what my plans were for the weekend or how the sports teams that I cared too much about were doing. Nothing was important anymore except survival.

  I needed to get over the guilt of being alive and about being one of the lucky ones. I had to stop worrying about things that I couldn’t control or what was happening in other parts of the country. I realized that night that if I was going to live through this I needed to shift my priorities and my way of thinking. Survival was all that mattered anymore, and if I didn’t adapt to the world around me then I would end up like poor Hal out there.

  Once Trevor came and relieved me from watch duty, I went downstairs to watch television with Ray. I didn’t feel like sleeping not with all of that on my mind and I assumed that Ray would have been awake like he had been most nights. Instead he was passed out in his camping chair with the TV still on. The programming was different that night. The usual news broadcast had been replaced with a woman in military garb reading instructions. It wasn’t a recording or on a loop, she was just talking and talking fast. She was trying to get out as much information as possible and instructing people where to go and what to do.

  She listed off refugee camps that were no longer considered safe and which cities should start preparing for evacuations. She told them how to prepare and when they would start. There were signs of the virus in Oregon, California and Arizona. She explained that people should avoid the infected at all costs and that the only way to stop them quickly was to kill the brain.

  I still didn’t understand how all of this could happen and how the world could fall apart so quickly. This outbreak had left the country in ruin and it was still spreading. From what I had seen on the news it had ruined most of the world. It was spreading from country to country, city to city and house to house and showed no signs of slowing down. Maybe we had waited too long to act or maybe our society wasn’t as strongly held together as we believed.

  But that night it didn’t matter how or why it happened, it became about what I was going to do to make it through. I needed to change. Others had changed, that much I had seen. Paul had stepped up and embraced a leadership role. I liked Paul, but I could tell that he had never been in a position of power before and in this new world he relished the opportunity to be someone of importance. I needed to do the same. I needed to become someone different and embrace the change.

  I just remember that night being a turning point for me personally. So much had changed in such a short period of time. But there were more changes ahead. What was to come would change everything for us. It was all coming to a head and this small world that we lived in, within the walls of the store, was about to change for all of us.

  DAY NINE

  Another night without much sleep. Like most mornings I struggled with what was a memory and what was a nightmare. But it didn’t matter. The ninth day is when I would discover just what kind of affect something like this could have on someone. I didn’t know what to expect as the days went on and it became harder to cope with the reality of the outbreak. I didn’t know what to expect from myself either in all honesty. I had heard stories of what happens to people who survive disasters or return from war and I was smart enough to know that the longer this went on that eventually someone would reach their breaking point.

  That morning I returned to the entertainment department to ask Ray if he wanted me to take his turn on watch. I could see that the news had returned to normal and they were showing the evacuation of Denver. The Army had a strong perimeter set up and they were using drones to monitor around the evacuation route. They were checking all the people for signs of infection and the people in line pushed and fought to try and hurry the process
along. There was machine gun fire and explosions in the distance as they fought to protect the large crowds from the incoming Zeds.

  I guess if the tide were going to turn it would have to start somewhere. The military was going to have to hold the line at some city if there was any hope of stopping this thing. I remember hoping Denver would be that city. But really any city would have been fine with me.

  I watched some of the news while Ray slept. He, like most of the others was still feeling the effects of drinking too much the night before so I just took it upon myself to take over the day’s first watch. It was nice to be alone but as much as I wanted my space I knew I couldn’t pull away from the rest of the group entirely or else they might end up pulling away from me. Being on an island could leave me out of the decision-making process altogether. Well that or if things did deteriorate I guess I figured it would be nice to have a few allies. So when Kerri and Cody came up to visit me on the roof that morning I didn’t fight it.

  The thought of building alliances may seem strange, but at the time I had a strong feeling that the group was on the verge of falling apart. Anne and Paul were clearly fighting over what our next move should be and some of the others were choosing sides. I could tell that there was still some bad blood left over from how the Bruce and Scott situations had been handled. I knew opinions on that had changed since it had happened but the way it had happened and the personalities were obviously still clashing. All it took was another divisive issue to bring the battle back to the forefront.

  So they joined me on the roof even though I wanted to check back in on Hal. I made sure not to make it look obvious that I was focused on one thing in particular. There was no way I could let them know what I was doing. As it turned out, my little pet monster had been busy over night. He was making serious progress and most of the boards that were in his way were already on the ground and at that moment I was starting to think that he actually might get in.

  While I watched him I tried to maintain a conversation with Kerri and Cody to give them the impression that they had my full attention and not some Zed who I was convinced was special. If they ever found out what I was looking at there was no telling what they would think. I assumed they would think I was insane. I assumed they would run and tell the others that I had lost my mind and that I should be restrained. Then again there was a chance that they would understand.

  But I played it safe. I never told anyone about Hal. Not then, not ever. So I continued to watch him and kept pretending that I was looking at something else. But hiding my secret from them would end up being the least of my concerns. My watch would end up being cut short when the three of us heard what sounded like gunshots.

  What we heard wasn’t just a single shot. It was multiple shots and it sounded like it had come from somewhere inside the building. We flew down the stairs desperate to know where it had come from and what was happening. I remember my heart racing as we went down the ladder and ran to the stairway. I feared the worst, that Zeds had somehow gotten inside and the others were trying to fight them off. It was the only thing that made any sense to me.

  Once downstairs, we ran right for the table where the guns had been stored. Don’t ask me why but I had left the rifle on the roof and that left the three of us unarmed and possibly heading into a dangerous situation. When we arrived at the table the first thing I noticed was that most of the guns were gone. That alone gave me pause and sent a chill down my spine. I thought for sure that it meant that they were inside the store.

  I grabbed the last shotgun and Cody grabbed one of the baseball bats. I handed one of the small camping hatchets to Kerri and then I led the way. Out the doors and onto the sales floor we followed the sound. Then just before we ran into harms way I stopped. That was when I thought about doing the unthinkable. I never said anything but I seriously considered running back upstairs to safety instead of charging into the unknown to help the others.

  For one reason or another I went against my better judgment and followed the other two towards the sounds. To my surprise it wasn’t coming from the front of the building or the back receiving doors. I had thought for sure that if the Zeds had made it inside they would have broke through one of those two doors. So we followed the gunshots as best as we could and ended up heading right for the automotive department.

  As we got closer we could hear shouting through the constant gunfire. We arrived to find everyone just outside the door yelling at someone or something inside the garage. It wasn’t exactly what I thought we would find when we got there but it didn’t take long to figure out what the source of all the shouting was.

  At some point Derrick had walked right into the garage with a small arsenal of weapons and opened one of the two garage doors. Then, he just let the Zeds outside come to him. I could see him blasting every Zed that stumbled in through the open door and a few already dead on the ground. I could hear him shouting in between gunshots at the top of his lungs.

  You killed them.

  You killed them both you bastards.

  You took them from me.

  You killed them.

  It was at that point I knew exactly what had happened. Derrick had lost it. He had been able to put the death of his wife and daughter behind him while he was out on the streets focused on his own survival every waking moment. But when everything settled down and he was safe and alone with his thoughts, it hit him and it hit him hard. Then I guess he needed to get revenge on who was responsible for his loss. The Zeds. I knew what had happened and why, but we needed to get him out of there and quick. If we didn’t shut that garage door there was a chance that they could pile into the garage and then through the door and into the store.

  I think Paul realized the same thing. He pulled open the door and ran into the garage and opened fire. Armed with one of the shotguns he positioned himself next to Derrick and continued to shoot at the Zeds as they entered the garage.

  Cody and Anne went in after that. They ran through the door and Anne stood next to Paul, raised the hunting rifle and took aim. Cody started to move along the wall towards the garage door hoping to get it closed before more Zeds made it inside. Then I did something stupid. I went in next. I ran to the far side of Derrick and started to make my way up the other wall heading for the button to close the door. I could see that Anne and Paul were choosing their shots carefully, taking aim and making sure that they conserved their bullets. Derrick was a little more reckless, shooting at any Zed that moved and seeing that I stopped dead in my tracks.

  I didn’t want to get any closer to the Zeds until I knew that Derrick wouldn’t just keep shooting randomly into the crowds. That and there were two Zeds moving in my direction. That was when the one on the left walked right into the oil pit as it tried to get to me. The stupid thing just kept walking until it’s front foot stepped right into the hole and it smashed it’s face on the other side of the pit as it fell to the bottom.

  I turned my head when I heard the door open again. That was when I saw Trevor enter the garage carrying the fire axe he had used so many times before. He charged right for a Zed that looked like it had already been through hell and swung his axe overhead and split its head wide open. A few more zombies started moving along the wall where Cody and Trevor were and the two of them met them head on. Then I looked back to see the other Zed that was coming for me was getting closer so I raised my shotgun and opened fire. That time I did everything I was supposed to do.

  The good thing about the shotgun was it’s stopping power. I didn’t need to be that accurate at close range. My first shot hit that Zed right in the chest and the impact knocked it down and onto its back. I could see it was still alive, just twitching on the ground, but it was struggling to get back up to its feet.

  I turned back and starting yelling at Derrick to calm down. I couldn’t risk pushing forward to the door with him shooting so recklessly. He couldn’t hear me through the sound of the guns and shouting in there, it was utter chaos. I could see Anne and just how grea
t of a shot she was even under pressure. She fired a bullet right through the head of a zombie that had just entered the garage. She reloaded and fired another round through another one that was heading for Cody and Trevor.

  They were starting to come in droves at that point. The sound of the gunshots must have drawn the Zeds in the surrounding area to the open garage door and for everyone we killed another two came walking through the open door. They came in pairs, and then by threes, and then it seemed like almost a dozen of them tried pushing through the entrance all at once.

  Paul was still shouting for Cody and Trevor to move forward and close the door. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Jacob come running up behind the two of them with a baseball bat in his hands. Trevor swung his axe again into the temple of what used to be a young teenage girl. Cody was swinging his bat down at a Zed on the ground, trying to smash its head in. Jacob ran between the two and swung his bat at the knee of another. It dropped to the ground and then he took out the brain with a couple of violent swings of the bat.