In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak (14 page)

They
ran as fast as they could down the side of the building, running right past a
Zed that was so badly beat up that it barely maintained it’s balance as it
reached out for them. It never really got close. The three survivors pushed on
and rounded the back corner of the building to find that there were still a few
Zeds that hadn’t taken the bait and were still pounding on the back doors. That
was when I heard the other man shout at them, trying to get their attention.
The two Zeds heard him and started heading right towards him. The three of them
just stood there as if they were trying to draw those zombies closer to them.
At first I didn’t understand.

That
was when the back door swung open and Cody and Trevor came rushing out wearing
hockey pads. They were covered in shoulder pads, shin pads, and it looked like
they had shin guards strapped to their arms. The man yelled again and the Zed’s
focused stayed on him. That was when Trevor drove his axe into the back of head
of the one of them. Cody approached the other from behind and swung that bat
like he was trying to put one over the fence. He connected right in the back of
its head and it fell face first into the pavement. At that point, the three
runners ran straight for the doors, they ran right past the two corpses on the
ground, they ran right past Trevor and Cody and into the building. Cody
finished off the last remaining Zed before they went back into the store and
Shannon closed the doors once everyone was safely inside. That was the last
thing I saw before we all headed downstairs to meet our new guests.

When
we made it down there, the three new people were laying on the ground exhausted
for obvious reasons. Shannon had already gotten them bottles of water and was
in the middle of offering them something to eat when Paul interrupted her. He
wanted them checked before we offered them anything else. He wanted to make
sure that none of them had been bitten or that any of them were showing signs
of infection. So that was what we did. We checked them for bites or fever and
the three of them were fairly co-operative considering what they had just been
through. As it turns out they were all clean, no bites, no fever, no signs that
they were infected at all.

Once
we knew that they were safe we began with the introductions. The bigger guy, of
the two, well he was Derrick. He was a tall man, about six foot-three with a
husky build and came across as a little rough around the edges. The other two
were Jacob and Amy. They were a young married couple that looked to be a little
more respectable then Derrick. The two of them and Derrick looked like they
would have never known each other before the outbreak and as it turns out they
didn’t. How they came together was actually an incredible story one they were
more then willing to share.

We
had plenty of questions for them and they had just as many for us. Where did
they come from? How did they get here? What was happening out there? They sat
down and were willing to tell us everything. Not surprisingly they seemed just
happy to be somewhere safe for the time being and in return I think that we
were just happy to see some new faces.

Everyone
had their own questions that they wanted answered. I was more interested in
what was happening inside the city and what they had seen out there. Not the
stuff I was seeing on the news in other parts of the country, but what they had
seen in the neighborhoods that I knew, in the areas that I had lived in. I
wanted to know if they had come across any other survivors or if they had found
any area in the city that wasn't a disaster like it was around here. But first
they told us how they met and how they found their way to that gas station.

Their
stories didn’t disappoint. Jacob and Amy started things off with Jacob doing
the lion’s share of the talking. About two days or so before I left my place
they were sitting at home watching television one evening when Jacob noticed
his motion light had gone off in the back yard. When he looked through his
sliding glass doors he saw a woman standing out in the middle of his lawn with
her back turned to him. He opened the door and asked what she was doing or if
she needed help.

At
first she didn’t move. She remained completely still, that is until he asked
what she was doing for a second time. That was when she turned around and he
saw that terrifying look in her eyes. Her face was covered in blood and her
skin thin and grey, her clothes were ripped and her movements jerky and clumsy.
He slammed the door closed and yelled for Amy to call the police. The infected
woman charged for the doors and then started to bang on the glass with her head
and fists trying to break through. Jacob had never been happier about spending
the money on upgrading that door then he had at that moment.

They
waited in their home, terrified, until the two police cars arrived out front
with a military jeep following closely behind. Jacob and Amy ran out the front
door to meet them and told them what was lurking around their back yard. They
stayed with two of the officers out front, while two officers went inside and
the four soldiers went around to the back.

Then
they heard gunshots. What followed sounded like their kitchen table breaking,
glasses smashing on the floor and what must have been a terrible struggle. They
dragged out the woman with her arms handcuffed behind her back and her ankles
tied together with some kind of zip ties. The way he told it she was still
hissing and snarling as they carried her out.

That
was when the soldiers told them that they may be safer in one of the shelters
that had been set up and they should grab some clothes and other supplies and
that they would give them a ride to the nearest one. So that was what they did.
They packed up what they could, jumped in the back of the police car and they were
dropped off at a nearby church.

They
told us how the church had been barricaded with concrete blocks and makeshift
fences to help keep the Zeds out. The hall attached to the church was filled
with cots and there were already several people inside. There were a few
National Guard soldiers that were there for security and at the time they felt
like there were somewhere safe.

However,
keeping the Zeds out wasn’t the only problem. Jacob and Amy told us how they
had been letting in the injured and sick and were keeping them inside the church,
separated from where they were staying, but the medical facilities that had
been set up were about to become a danger to everyone in there.

Jacob
told us about how he had walked into a makeshift room in a part of the church
looking for an extra blanket for Amy when he came across an infected young
woman eating the stomach of an elderly man who was on a hospital bed hooked up
to several machines. Jacob ran out screaming, and a few soldiers ran in and
restrained her. That scared the hell out of him but as he said, things would
get worse.

They
tried tying down the infected, they tried treating those that had been injured
or bitten and soon the virus started spreading through the church like
wildfire. The shelter had become unsafe and the soldiers and doctors knew it.
They decided to move everyone who was able bodied to another shelter on the
outskirts of town. During the evacuations Amy said that the priest decided to
stay behind with the sick to offer them comfort. He locked the door after
everyone else was out and loaded into the trucks. They didn’t know for sure
what had happened to him, but it wasn’t hard to imagine.

While
on route to another shelter, their convoy was stopped by what Jacob described
as a huge multi-vehicle accident that blocked most of the road. The most
horrifying part of that was there were dozens of zombies out there feasting on
the people still trapped in their cars or injured out on the road. Once the
trucks came to a stop the Zeds turned their attention to the convoy and soon after
that the soldiers opened fire. They tried to protect the people, but there were
too many of them. So Jacob and Amy chose to flee.

They
ran for it, through the maze of abandoned cars they ran down the street and
then ducked through a small alleyway. They said that some of the others were
trying to follow them, but Jacob said he never looked back. He just held onto
Amy’s hand and kept on running. When they came out on the other side of the
alley there were Zeds everywhere in the street, but Amy said they were pretty
spread out so they ran right past most of them and kept on going until they
found a safe place to rest.

Eventually
they discovered a small office building where they held up for the night. There
they stayed until they found the keys in a desk drawer that belonged to a car
parked out front. They decided to try and get out of town and it was while they
were trying to find an open road they met up with Derrick.

Now
his story was a little different. Derrick had been at the hospital with his
wife visiting his daughter when it all went to hell. His daughter had been very
ill and Derrick had been spending most of his time at the hospital with her.
They had heard about the outbreak, they followed in on the news and heard the
rumblings in the hospital hallways but they stayed. They even stayed as the
National Guard came in and started setting up tents just outside and armed
soldiers started patrolling the hallways.

But
when the sick started to die and the dead started to rise, Derrick finally tried
to get his family out of there. Problem was that his daughter was dependant on
several different machines, most of which Derrick couldn’t even tell us what
they were for. He couldn’t move her despite his best efforts. Once things got
really bad everyone in the hospital that could leave, left.
 
He decided that he would gather all the
supplies that he could from his house and barricade himself inside the hospital
room with his family. He thought it was the only way he could protect them.

He
drove to their home and grabbed the things he deemed necessary but when he
returned to the hospital he found the place in a state of chaos. There were
soldiers and doctors running in all directions. Nurses and patients were
running for the doors and there were Zeds almost everywhere. He fought his way
to his daughter’s room only to find that it was too late. There were Zeds
already in the room and by the condition of his wife and daughter’s bodies they
had been there for a while. He pulled the Zed still wearing a hospital gown off
of his daughter and smashed it’s head in. Then he killed the one that had its
face buried in his wife’s midsection. He said he just wanted to curl up on the
floor and cry but he was never given the time for that.

A
Zed wearing a HAZMAT suit appeared in the doorway so Derrick stood up and
fought his way past him. He fought his way through the halls and out of the
hospital leaving a trail of dead infected behind him.

From that point on he had moved
through the city, staying hidden as best he could, trying to get back to his
house. He talked about never getting a moment to rest, never having time to
grieve, he was always on alert.

That
was until he came across a young couple trapped in a car that was surrounded by
a small pack of zombies. He used the small camping hatchet that he had found in
his travels and dispatched every one of them with violent blows to the head. It
was from that point on that they decided to stick together. Apparently they had
been driving around for hours trying to find a road that wasn’t blocked until
they came dangerously close to running out of gas. That was when they stopped
at the store’s gas station, it was the first one they came across, and well you
know the rest.

After
hearing those stories I was almost afraid to ask if they had any information
about what was happening in the city. But I asked anyway. They didn’t know
much, but what they did know was more discouraging then anything. They knew
that the military had pulled out a few days before and that the city was in
ruins. Fires had burnt out hundreds of buildings throughout the city and most
of the streets were filled with abandoned vehicles and rubble from collapsed
buildings. They said they had still heard gunshots out there in their travels
and believed they had seen signs of other survivors, but we were the first
people that had reached out to them.

The
other key piece of information that they shared with us would ignite a debate
and divide us all. Jacob and Amy had heard from one of the soldiers in their
convoy that the Navy was setting up along the Atlantic Coastline. We had heard
the same but we didn’t know what they were planning. However, the soldier had
shared with Jacob exactly what the plan was and actually told them if they
could get there, it was their best bet.

The
Army was protecting a few select ports and the Navy was using small boats and
helicopters to transport refugees from the mainland to large ships both
military and commercial that were housing survivors. That was where they planned
on going. They knew it was a shorter trip then it was to the camps out west and
there was something comforting about being out in the ocean far beyond the
reach of the Zed virus.

It
sounded promising and that was probably why some of the others like Anne and
Adam were so quick to suggest that we join them and all make the trip out east.
They saw it as a way out, a way to escape and find some place that would be
safe. However, Paul was against it and he had a few very good reasons. He knew
it was too risky, there was so much that could go wrong trying to get there and
I agreed with him. It was still a long drive to get to the coast and we had no
idea what we would encounter along the way. But before the debate became too
heated, Paul suggested that we put all discussions on hold until after we
showed the new comers around and gave them a chance to relax.