In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak by ichael Elliott

our group that were still
holding out hope that there was a fix in all of this. Even if all the evidence
pointed to the contrary.

 
    As
it turns out many of the governments around the world had been through the same
debate. Maybe that’s why it took them so long to bring in the National Guard,
why it took them such a long time to respond to this crisis with force. I guess
that could be one of the reasons this thing was able to spread as quickly as it
did. It’s hard to blame them. It’s hard to wrap your head around something
turning people into mindless monsters that were walking around killing
indiscriminately. They still looked like people for the most part and deep down
we had no idea what was left of those people.

 
    I
mean when you think of it, if you saw a family member, a friend, even somebody
you barely knew injured, hurt, bleeding or wounded. Your first instinct isn’t
to put a bullet in their head. It was to try and help them. People were only
trying to help and with that they exposed themselves to this terrible virus. I
wonder how many times basic concern for another person’s well being led to
death in all of this. It was an issue that everyone had to get past. It was an
issue that we certainly needed to get past if we had any chance of surviving
this.

 
    But
we weren’t at that point yet.

 
    So
I will spare you the details of our arguments for now. The name calling and
shouting about what was right and what was wrong. I will only tell you that our
discussions eventually led us to the sporting goods department and we managed
to get there without incident.

 
    The
reason we ended up in that particular department was because as one of the
employees mentioned, there would have been plenty of options for weapons there.
We found there was still ample stock of baseball bats, golf clubs, and a wide
variety of camping tools that we could choose from to defend ourselves. Not to
mention there were still a few shotguns and hunting rifles left in the hunting
department and despite our reluctance to use them, they were at least an option
for us.

 
      From there we came up with a plan to
search the rest of the building in the safest way possible. We would break off
into groups and each group would be responsible for a different area on the
store. We decided that if any of the groups did encounter a Zed they should try
and contain them or restrain them. Block them down an aisle or isolate them in
a confined area and wait for others to come so we could handle it together.
Killing them was supposed to be a last resort.

 
    We
divided up into small groups. We left Bruce behind in the sporting goods
department with an elderly woman named Sandy. She was in her late fifties and
looked much older then that. So it was probably better that she remained back
while the rest of us went out into harms way.

 
    Each
group was armed with one baseball bat or golf club and one gun. The guns were
not to be used unless it was absolutely necessary. We were afraid that if a
group encountered a huge number of Zeds out there, baseball bats might not be
enough. But with that many guns out there we had another major concern.
Friendly fire. So each group would follow a very specific path to and through
the department they were responsible for searching. That way one group wouldn’t
catch the other by surprise and well you get the idea.

 
    Especially
since very few in our group had actually used a gun before. Anne and Paul were
the only two that had any real experience with firearms and only a handful of
the others had actually fired one before. I had only ever fired a handgun once
at a range a few years back. I was a terrible shot then and I was pretty sure
that hadn’t changed. But Paul felt that experience was enough and he handed me
one of the shotguns.

 
    So
each group went their separate way. Kerri was partnered with me. Paul went out
with a young African-American woman named Tanya. Anne went with Ray and