I was angry, I was depressed and I all I wanted to do was be alone. But Kerri had been pretty much attached to me since Trevor had attacked her and as much as it might have frustrated me I would have never said anything to her. I just couldn’t do that to her after what she had gone through. In a way I understood it and for me it was nice to have someone else that I could trust completely. Especially with all the possible plotting and scheming going around.
I even used the opportunity to ask her again about such plots or if she had heard anything making its way around the group. Once again she denied hearing anything or knowing anything and that time I really believed her. I should have just let it go. If I had been thinking clearly I would have at least entertained the possibility that there was nothing sinister behind what Paul had told me. He might have just heard something and asked me about it. Chances were that there was no plot or plan to leave and that the stress was just getting to some of the others including myself.
But there was a part of me that just couldn’t let it go. I wasn’t going to rest until I had answers. I couldn’t just ignore the possibility that someone was using me or planning on abandoning me here, even if I had no interest in leaving. That was the point when I realized that the one person who could shed some light on this whole thing was still sitting downstairs tied up in the entertainment department. If I could get information out of anyone I though Derrick would be that person. Besides I had something to offer him that I thought would be at least enticing enough to get an honest answer out of him.
I was going to promise him his freedom in exchange for whatever information he was willing to share. My guess was that if Jacob and Amy were planning anything surely he would have been involved and maybe he could tell me who else they had been talking too. So I waited until Jacob and Amy left Derrick’s side and Kerri and I moved in and sat down beside him.
I started by asking him why he never tried to escape or why he never fought or complained about being tied up. I mean he was a big guy and could have overpowered pretty much anyone of us if he really wanted too. I was trying to establish a dialogue before I started making any offers. But there was a part of me that really wanted to know why it seemed like he was okay with being a prisoner. He answered me quickly and honestly.
He understood what he had done was wrong. His breakdown had put us all in danger and worst of all, it cost Tanya her life. He knew there would be repercussions and felt he deserved to be restrained. He knew we did what he had to do and assumed that once we saw that he was no longer a threat that we would release him. But he wanted to earn that trust back and he knew that it would take time.
That was the point in the conversation that I realized that leveraging his freedom for information was the wrong way to approach it. He wanted us to trust him again before we let him go and with that I actually believed that he would offer up any information he had without being promised anything in return. So I decided to just ask him point blank. Unfortunately he didn’t have any answers, he hadn’t heard anything of the sorts and despite Amy and Jacob wanting to leave, they wanted everyone to go together. They understood the dangers out there and believed that we would all have to work together to even stand a chance out there.
I believed what Derrick was saying, but my heart dropped with what he had to say next. He looked at both of us and told me that he knew what had happened with Trevor. My facial expression probably confirmed the fact that I had been lying, but I tried to deny it all the same. But he knew that Trevor hadn’t turned, he told me he had seen the blood on my shirt when I walked by him to grab some clean clothes. Derrick had killed his fair share of Zeds and he knew what the aftermath of that looked like. The blood on my shirt didn’t look the same. The color was different and it didn’t look as thick or sludge like as Zed blood usually did. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought about that and I was more surprised that nobody else had caught on to it.
The two of us were terrified that Derrick was going to tell the others. We couldn’t tell the truth after we had lied. It would have made the two of look far guiltier then we already did. If Derrick told the others about our lie there was no telling what would happen to Kerri and I. People were already on edge and if they believed that we had murdered Trevor in cold blood there was no telling what they would do to us. I regretted our lie from the moment we decided to go with it and all of a sudden there was a chance it was going to come back to haunt us.
But as it turns out Derrick would be full of surprises. Our secret was safe with him or at least that was what he promised us. He didn’t tell the others and somehow he had even pieced together what had really happened. Derrick told us how he had seen the look in Trevor’s eyes the days leading up to the attack and thought that something was wrong with him. Once he heard Paul shouting about Kerri and Trevor not making it back after turning on the lanterns he actually feared the worst. Then he looked at me and told me that I had done what I needed to do.
That was when I untied Derrick. Now it wasn’t because I wanted to buy his silence or to gain favor with him so that he wouldn’t talk. It was because Derrick didn’t deserve to be a prisoner any longer. He had paid for his crime and as far as I could tell he might have been thinking more clearly then any of the rest of us.
He was hesitant at first. He didn’t like the idea of being release without the consent of the entire group but I assured him that it would be all right and that I could justify it to the others if need be. Trust me, once they found out they weren’t happy. Paul was outraged at first, but I told him how our numbers were down and that we needed everyone available in case of another emergency. I sold him on how Derrick was more useful to us free and moving around then tied up in a chair.
I could tell that what I had done had upset the others. Well, everyone except Jacob and Amy who were relieved to see their friend free. But Derrick addressed the group and apologized. He said it better then I ever could have and I think he eased most of their concerns and then once he had finished his speech, he remained free. Once everyone left he thanked Kerri and I and then went on about his day as if nothing had ever happened. Although not everybody in the group was willing to move on and let it go.
Paul approached me the second that everyone else had left and I knew exactly what was coming. He was surprisingly calm when he asked me what I thought I was doing. My first instinct was to call him out about trying to use me in his little game and accuse him of lying to me. But instead I chose to take a different approach and decided to try out a little plan of my own. I explained to him that I was getting nowhere talking to the others but that I had a feeling that something was definitely up. I watched his reaction carefully, trying to see if he really had been using me or if he was just delusional.
Then I told him that if something were going on that the two of us were on the outs and that we would need as many allies as possible. I lied to him and told him that by releasing Derrick that we had gained a friend and by association we would also gain Jacob and Amy. I couldn’t believe how Paul bought right into it and his reaction almost convinced me that he hadn’t been using me, but that he really believed everything he had told me.
His reaction scared me in a way. If he really believed that there was a plot then I was no closer to getting answers. I should have told him that I had found no evidence of such a thing and that I didn’t think that there was anything going on behind our backs. But that’s all in hindsight. Back then I was just as paranoid as he was and even more desperate to discover the truth about what was going on. I felt somewhat guilty about feeding into his beliefs and pushing him just a little bit further. But I don’t think that anything I could have told him would have calmed his suspicions.
But things were about to go from bad to worse when Anne came over and interrupted our conversation. She was visibly upset and accused both Paul and I of making decisions for the group without consulting everyone. She told us that she had been watching us and then accused us of being up to something. You can only imagine
what that led too. Paul exploded. Throwing everything Anne said back in her face. He called her a liar and untrustworthy and several other things that I won’t bother writing here. He let Anne know that he was on to her plans and that he wouldn’t let her get away with it.
I said nothing. Instead I sat back and listened to what both of them had to say. I was hoping that somewhere in their argument I could pick up something that would tell me who had lied and who was just confused. But each seemed more surprised by the others accusations and the longer it went on the more heated the conversation became. The degree to which those two despised each other caught me off guard and it was all coming out right in front of me. As important as it was to me to get to the bottom of who knew what, I started to feel like I needed to intervene before things got out of hand.
It was when Anne called Paul a coward and told him that he would be the death of all of us that I knew it had gone too far. I saw the expression on his face and the look in his eyes and knew that I needed to step in. I tried to diffuse the situation, but each of them fired off a parting shot before they walked away. I hadn’t learned anything useful and I had started to think that there was a good chance that both of them were victims of paranoia and misinformation. But if I learned anything from that exchange, it was that I couldn’t keep playing games like I had been. There was too much tension and far too much mistrust to try and manipulate any of these people. I was worried that it might lead to something that I wasn’t ready to be responsible for.
I wanted to clear my head after that and process what I had just witnessed. I went back to the one place that I always went too when I needed to think or simply get away. I went back to the roof and Kerri followed me once again. We briefly discussed everything that we had heard and seen before I grabbed the binoculars and checked in on Hal and I could see that he had been busy. Most of the wooden barrier had been torn down and only one piece of plywood remained blocking the door. Hal was violently throwing his body into the barrier and I was starting to sense that it was only a matter of time until he at least got to the door.
I was so curious as to what he would find once he made his way through. In truth, I really hoped that there wasn’t anybody inside that store. I hoped some family hadn’t taken refuge in there and that Hal would break in and let the hordes inside. But no matter what he might find I couldn’t stop watching. That was mainly because while I was focused on Hal, it helped me forget about Ray, Tanya and everybody else that I had lost. Thing was I would watch him so long sometimes that I would forget that Kerri was up on the roof with me.
That particular time I completely forgot she was there until she finally said something. When I turned around I noticed that she wasn’t sitting where she normally sat and instead was standing off by the ledge of the building. I dropped the binoculars and ran to her and I don’t need to tell you what my first instinct was. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She had found something that she wanted to show me.
It was hard to see what she was pointing at. There were just so many of those damn things down there. But she showed me again and in time I saw exactly what she had found. To describe this is difficult for me. What I saw was in such terrible shape that although I could tell there was something there it was hard to make out what it was. But that wasn’t why it is so hard to describe.
It had been human at one point but what was left on the pavement wasn’t. I could see it crawling along at a snails pace trying to get closer to the building for one reason or another. Its arms looked like nothing more then bone and tissue. Its legs were gone. There was nothing left of anything below its rib cage and as it crawled it dragged behind what looked like what was left of its intestines. Although it was crawling face down and was nothing more then a head and the remnants of a torso, it didn’t take me long to realize that what I was looking at used to be my friend. It was Ray.
Kerri walked over and grabbed the rifle. As she handed it to me I could see that this was something that she wasn’t ready to do. Kerri was strong, but I think she still had a hard time accepting that the thing on the ground was no longer the person she once knew. I tried to find Ray’s head in my sight through the dozens of Zeds that were still walking all around him. I took a few deep breaths and tried to compose myself. I tried to remind myself that it was what Ray would want, that it was something that I had to do. I knew the others would hear the shot and come running to see that I was responsible for the noise again. But I put that out of my mind and focused. My shot was on target.
I looked down to make sure Ray was no longer moving. I saw the Zeds around Ray’s body were searching for what had just made the sound. I found everything they did creepy. Most of the time they appeared to be nothing more then mindless monsters, uncoordinated and roaming around without purpose. But every so often they would do something that really made me wonder what was going on inside their head. But I think I had just been watching them too long and seeing something that wasn’t there. Creating something in my mind that I wanted to see kind of like Cody and his buildings.
As expected the others came rushing up the ladder, armed and ready to scold me again. I was waiting for them to call me a maniac and for someone to suggest that I was out of control and needed to be restrained. I tried to explain but I had a hard time getting the words out. Luckily Kerri was able to do the talking for me. She explained it to everyone and once Anne looked over the ledge and confirmed that what she was saying was true, everyone nodded in approval. Anne actually told me that Ray would have been grateful as her and the others walked back downstairs.
The rest of the evening was quiet. There was nothing new on the radio, just the same old dribble that we had been listening too for days. The information was most likely intended for those who were in areas that hadn’t been overrun by the Zeds yet. But without television we actually didn’t know if there were any places like that left anymore. That evening was the first time I gave up my turn on watch. I let whoever wanted to cover for me take my turn.
You can say that it was a conscious effort to try and get away from the strange attachment that I had developed with Hal. Of course I was worried about missing out on the conclusion of his efforts. I couldn’t imagine missing that after all the time I had invested in watching him. I desperately wanted to know what was inside that store or if Hal would finally prove that he did know something that the others didn’t. But there was a chance that he could be at that for days and there was a small part of me that thought it might be better if I didn’t see what was in there.
I tried to go to bed early that night and catch up on some desperately needed sleep. My body ached and I was mentally drained and I was praying for just a few uninterrupted hours of rest to try and recharge my batteries. Deep down I knew the nightmares would come, they always did. But every night as I closed my eyes I hoped that maybe, just maybe I would dream of something good for once.
DAY THIRTEEN
Whether or not a person can change has always been a subject of much debate. I have always thought that people can grow, they can learn, they can adapt but never change. I just think that people only show the world what their comfortable showing. Everyone has those little parts of him or herself that they keep hidden from others. Don’t get me wrong not everyone is like Trevor and has a monster hiding inside of them just waiting for the right moment to let it loose. But as society crumbled and the environment around us changed there were a lot of people who quickly became comfortable with showing the world what they really were.
I could easily see the differences in the people around me but I didn’t know any of them long enough or well enough to know if they had changed. But I was able to see what I was becoming, what I was turning into. The only question I had was if I had actually changed or if it just happened to be who I really was.
Bye the thirteenth day rescue seemed like a fantasy. All of the adversity and loss had taken its toll and it had become obvious that our group was starting to fall apart. Our small little world, the family th
at we had tried to create was gone as of that morning. But it wasn’t just because we were divided on a plan or fighting. It was because we had lost our mother figure.
Nobody could find Anne that morning. My first thought was obvious considering what had happened a few days before. Apparently she never showed for her turn on watch but Amy never gave it a second thought when she didn’t relieve her. There were a few nights when someone over slept and missed their turn for the late night watch in the early morning hours. So we searched up and down for her in a way that felt all too familiar. Because it all felt so similar we were quick to check the roof and the parking lot below. I never would have imagined Anne doing something like that. But then again I never saw it coming with Ray either. To be honest I had no idea what to think.
Paul suggested that she had left in the middle of the night. That she had been planning to leave for the past few days and probably saw an opportunity to get out without alerting anyone. I don’t think that anyone of us believed that especially as we looked around the building and saw the incredible amount of zombies that surrounded ever entrance and most of the parking lot. I knew that was highly unlikely and just dismissed it and decided to keep searching.
We checked every inch of the store and from the roof we walked slowly around the ledge and looked for anything that looked like a body just in case Anne had done the unthinkable. Amy thought she had found something, but through the thick crowd below it was almost impossible to tell. Adam and Sandy refused to believe that Anne would have jumped. I mean I had my doubts but nothing was impossible anymore and when we couldn’t find her it meant that she had either left like Paul had suggested or taken another way out.
In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak Page 19
