In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak (19 page)

It was starting to feel like we
were on a deserted island. A group of survivors trying to make the best of a
bad situation, isolated, and surrounded by a vast sea of death and danger. Yet
for some reason there was a faction within our group that wanted to build a
raft and try for civilization. If we left for the coast I viewed our chances of
survival as about the same as jumping on a leaky raft and drifting at sea hoping
to be found by some passing cruise ship. But around that time I was still
keeping my opinions to myself. The mood was already tense and the arguments had
grown more heated and I felt it was for the best if I just stayed out of it.
Especially since I was still trying to reestablish trust with most of the
others.

That isolated feeling that I had
wasn’t just limited to my surroundings and the situation at hand. Within the
group I had started to feel as if I was on the outside looking in. I couldn’t
be sure why, especially since Kerri and Paul and even Cody were still treating
me as they always had. Sure after I had fired those shots on the roof I could
sense that most of the others were concerned about what I might do next and
were watching me a little more closely. Maybe it was just how I was feeling and
the way I perceived my relationships with the others. It was hard to tell
anymore what was what. I can admit that my cognitive skills weren’t exactly
operating at their peak and I was struggling to focus. But I had a feeling that
from the group’s perspective I was on the outs and even thought I preferred to
just go off somewhere and be alone, I knew that I couldn’t.

To our surprise the emergency
lighting had remained on throughout the night and into the morning. I chose to
make my rounds and engage some of the others as I tried to fake my way back
into their good graces. I helped Paul reload all of our weapons and take
inventory of the ammunition that we had left. After what had happened in that
garage we were running low, and Paul wanted to make sure that every gun was
loaded and ready to go in case of another emergency.

He was having a hard time with the
growing division amongst the others in the store. He like myself couldn’t
understand why so many in the group wanted out as badly as they did. He also
knew that moral was down after losing Tanya and he was racking his brain trying
to find something to help lift everyone’s spirits. He was trying so hard to
hold everything together but I don’t think he could see that he was fighting a
losing battle.

Aside from taking inventory of
ammo and guns I think I was trying to take an inventory of everyone’s mental
state that morning as well. Moving from person to person trying to get a gauge
on what they were thinking or how they were doing. It varied from person to
person with Trevor at one end of the spectrum acting like he had mentally
checked out to Kerri who was still optimistic that rescue would eventually
come. Sandy had been drinking more then I had and that’s saying something
because I had been drinking a lot. Ray, well he was no longer the Ray I had
known those first few days.

The Ray I had known had
deteriorated into a complete stranger and had become a shell of his former
self. He looked as if he had aged dramatically in a very short period of time
and looked to be exhausted or drained. Anne who had been playing the role of
mother in our group had stopped teaching me how to shoot, stopped looking out
for others, and had become the leader of the movement to leave the store. Her
and Paul were fighting more then ever and she had stopped trying to hide her
distain for him.

I still had the feeling that Jacob
and Amy felt like outsiders and despite our best efforts to make them feel
welcome I am sure they were having a hard time with the person they knew best
being tied up and held in the entertainment department.

Adam was still quiet as he always
had been and then there was Trevor who had never been the same since he had
driven that axe through Bruce’s skull. He was distant and had a cold look in
his eye. Sometimes I could hear him mumbling to himself and he was coming
across as very standoffish. I just kept my distance from him most of the time,
it just seemed like it was easier then trying to understand what he was going
through.

After I made my rounds I spent
most of that day watching Hal. There wasn’t much new happening there, he was
still working away at those boards trying to get to that door. I was mostly
feeling lethargic that day and even watching Hal didn’t interest me as much as
it usually did. I was having a hard time caring about anything really and even
though I knew that I wasn’t in a good place there really wasn’t much I could do
about it.

I just kept volunteering to take
other people’s turn on watch and nobody seemed to mind. I just hid from
everything up on the roof watching Hal and hoping to snap out of whatever it
was I was in. That was until Paul approached me and asked to talk in private.
The first thought that crossed my mind was that I had freaked out the others by
staying on the roof by myself too long and Paul was coming to check in on me.
But what he was there to talk to me about, well it wasn’t exactly about what I
expected it to be.

He told me that he didn’t care
about how I had shot the rifle from the roof. He told me that he understood it
or least he understood the lie I had told him. It was his initial question that
had me puzzled and made me rethink my decision to avoid all the conversations
that had been taking place inside by hiding on the roof.

He asked if I was with him. He
asked if I agreed with his stance that staying in the store was best for
everyone and if I was willing to support him if he needed me too. I knew then
and there that my answer was going to have great bearing on our relationship
going forward.

Now if I had been caught off guard
by his initial question I was blown away by what he followed up with. He wanted
to know if I had heard about any of the others hinting at making a break for
it. He told me about how he had heard rumblings that a group within the group
had been planning an exit without him and a few of the others.

I assured him that I hadn’t heard
anything like that, all the while trying to process what that new information
meant for me. That was when I told him that if some group had been planning
anything, that I wasn’t included which in a way gave me more reason to side
with him. All of a sudden my fears about being excluded were looking me right
in the face. Would the others just up and leave and abandon Paul and myself
here to just ride out the outbreak or was Paul just spreading that rumor to
make taking his side more appealing then being left behind.

I told Paul how I wanted to stay
and how I thought that leaving was an unnecessary risk. I reaffirmed to him how
I hadn’t heard anything and that I believed we had it good inside the store and
that we were safe. I was telling him the truth. That was how I felt and I
hadn’t heard of any plans to leave. So when he asked me to keep my eyes and
ears open and to report back to him with any new information I nodded in
agreement.

That conversation had me
concerned. Had I pulled away too far and had my actions made me a pariah? I was
very worried about what Paul had told me and although I debated the validity of
what he was saying, I still needed to consider that it was true. If Paul had
been honest with me then that meant that people were planning on leaving me
behind and if they were willing to do that then I highly doubted that they were
going to consider my safety during the process. If he had been lying to me then
that meant that he was up to something and chances were that it wasn’t going to
be anything good.

I thought about who could be spear
heading such a plot and who was going along with it. Were Paul and I the only
two being left out of it, the only two that were going to be left behind? The
first person that came to mind was Anne. I knew that she wanted to leave and
had been fighting with Paul about it for days. I also knew that she would have
no reservations about leaving Paul behind, but I was almost taken a back that
she would consider not including me. Then I started to wonder if I was being
left out because I was so close to Paul. Maybe they thought I couldn’t be
trusted with the information or that I would tell him about any plans they
might have shared with me.

I decided to try and get some
answers from the two people who I thought I could trust and who I figured
wouldn’t lie to me about such a thing. I also knew that Anne was close with
both of them. After all, she had worked with Kerri and Cody before this and all
three of them had remained close during the whole ordeal. If she were behind
any kind of plan she would have surely involved them right from the beginning.
I only hoped that I was right about them and that they trusted me enough to
tell me about it.

I approached them carefully trying
to show them that I trusted them and doubted that they would plan such a thing
and not include me. They swore up and down they hadn’t heard anything of the
sorts and assured me that if such a plan were going around they would have most
certainly told me about it. I should have trusted them, but Paul had gotten
inside my head and I walked away doubting them and questioning if they were
planning not only to leave me, but something even worse.

The worst part of it was that I
could almost piece it together it my head. Days before they kept asking me my
opinion about leaving the store and wanted to know if I was willing to help
come up with an actual plan to get to the coast. But the night before on the
roof they never brought it up again, they actually went out of their way to
avoid it. I just thought that they were doing it because we were all tired of
talking about it and hearing the fighting. But I had begun to convince myself
that I had misread the whole situation. I started to believe that they didn’t
bring it up because I was out of the plan at that point.

Paul had planted the seed and now
I doubted everything that anyone told me up to and including the two people I
thought that I could always trust no matter what. I had grown paranoid and
starting questioning everything I had done and every conversation that I had
been involved in. It was the last thing that I needed given the circumstances.

So aside from having an imaginary
zombie friend, I was exhausted, and a loner, I had grown paranoid. I wasn’t
exactly trending in a great direction but I wasn’t ready to just sit back and
let something happen. I knew I needed to find an answer one way or another and
I decided the next person I was going to check with was Shannon. She had always
come across as an honest person and I figured since I had saved her in that
bathroom that she wouldn’t leave me behind. So I asked her and once again I got
nothing. She too, just like Cody and Kerri swore that she hadn’t heard anything
and a part of me truly believed her.

So I was getting nowhere asking
and I had started questioning whether Paul had just lied to me. Maybe his plan
all along was to start the rumor, have me spread it through the group and get
everyone asking questions. With so much paranoia and distrust infecting the
group he could just step up and play leader again and assure that we would stay
and that nobody would be left behind. I really hoped that I hadn’t been that
stupid. I thought I was smarter then that, to become a pawn in Paul’s game. But
then again, maybe he wasn’t using me and there was a chance that he really
believed that something was going on and trusted me enough to bring it up. Then
maybe everyone else was just lying to me and he was the only one that I could
actually trust. My head felt like it was going to explode.

You wouldn’t believe the time I
spent trying to get to the bottom of what was going on. I came up with a new
plan and tried to figure out who would have told Paul such a thing. It could
have been Ray or Trevor or even Adam. I questioned if Adam had been Paul’s eyes
and ears the entire time listening to what everyone had to say and saying very
little himself. There was a chance that Jacob and Amy were behind the rumors. I
am sure that they would have wanted out, especially with Derrick in the
position he was in. I was going crazy just trying to put it all together.

I spoke with Ray and again got
nothing. He was suffering from some kind of depression or anxiety and I highly
doubted that he was involved in anything. I tried with Amy and still I was
getting nowhere. I spoke to Jacob and realized that even if he wanted to leave
with Amy and Derrick he had no reason to bring any of us with them.

The strangest part of the whole
thing was that I didn’t even want to leave in the first place. I see that now
as I reflect on it. But at that point in time I couldn’t see that. If some of
the others wanted to take their chances out there and leave me here to survive
in the safety of the store I really shouldn’t have cared as much as I did. In
fact, it would have left more supplies for me and there would have been fewer
arguments to deal with. But I don’t think that it was being left behind that
bothered me the most. I think I just felt that if I was out of the loop on
something as big as that, there was no telling what other decisions I was being
left out on.

Also, if they didn’t care enough
to ask me to go with them, would they really care if they let Zeds into the
store as they left? Leaving me and whoever else was left behind to fight them
off. That was probably what scared me the most.