In Hiding: A Survivors Journal of the Great Outbreak Read Free Page A

would push my couch in front of my
door and I slept with a baseball bat next to my nightstand. It wasn’t just to
protect myself from Zeds. One of my biggest fears was the increase in break-ins
and that someone would steal my flat screen television, my laptop, my tablet
and all the things I cared so much about. The police were too busy with the
outbreak to handle things like theft and there were plenty of people out there
who knew it.

 
    Then
just when things didn’t seem like they could get any worse, the economy went
into the toilet. I mean obviously there were more important things to worry
about at the time. But that came with serious consequences.

 
    People
around the world were starting to see that the situation wasn’t going to be
resolved anytime soon. Some pulled their money out of the banks, the stock
market started to collapse, and the price of goods started to rise. People were
hoarding supplies and rarely leaving their homes. Most businesses suffered as
employees just stopped showing up for work. Some stores and businesses just
shut their doors and hoped to ride out the storm.

 
    Some
stores did stay open however. They made a killing jacking up prices and gouging
customers on basic supplies. I know it was illegal, but who was really going to
stop them. There were bigger issues to deal with.

 
    With
everything progressively getting worse the governments of North America
mutually closed their borders. Many countries across Europe had already issued
travel bans and closed airports. Limiting travel was one-way most governments
believed they could stop the spread of infection. But travelers weren’t the
only things blocked from crossing borders. Trade had pretty much stopped
altogether. That meant that certain products and resources were no longer being
exported or imported. Prices on things like fuel spiked as the supply slowed
and the demand grew.

 
    I
remember watching plenty of stories on the news about people attacking gas
station attendants and grocery clerks, outraged by prices or not having what
they needed. It was ugly to say the very least. Luckily I never really saw too
much of that kind of stuff in my neighborhood. By the time things like that started
to happen around here it was already too late.

 
    It
was becoming obvious to me that we were on the verge of disaster. But watching
it all unfold on television is one thing. It really hit me when the unthinkable
finally happened. It was the moment the outbreak became all too real for me.

 
    I
was out on the balcony of my third floor condo sometime just around midnight. I
was having a real hard time sleeping with everything that was going on. Every
loud noise, every footstep in the hallway gave me an uneasy feeling that
someone or something was just outside my door. My imagination would run wild
throughout the night with the possible terrors that could be just outside my
walls.

 
    Well
that night I saw a Zed in person for the first time and to be honest they were
even more terrifying then the television made them out to be. I could see him
standing below just across the street. With the curfew in place there was
nobody else out on the roads. He just stood there, perfectly still, looking out
at nothing with a blank look on his face. His clothes were ripped and his face
a mess, he just stood there and it sent a shiver down my spine.

 
    I
didn’t move. I remember trying not to make a sound. Then for no reason that I
could see he started walking down the street. His movements were unnatural and
clumsy as he slowly moved away. He seemed to ignore all the buildings as if
they didn’t even exist.   I never
moved. I just watched him as he stumbled down the road and didn’t go back
inside until I was sure he was long gone. I never went to sleep that night and
in the morning the local media reported several incidents had taken place all
across the city.

 
    People
woke up in the middle of the night to find Zeds roaming around their