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for sure was that there was a growing
number of Zeds at the front doors and an undetermined number of them coming in
through the back door. I felt surrounded and I could tell that most of the
others felt the same way. Hiding probably wasn’t the best choice, but it seemed
like the only option at the time.

 
    All of a sudden I remember we were
all running towards the back end of the store. At the time I couldn’t
understand why we were running towards the area we figured the sounds were
coming from but whoever was leading us knew where they were going, so I
followed. We ran through the store until we ploughed through the swinging doors
at the back that said employees only and entered the store’s stock room. I was
still just following.

 
    I heard another loud sound, that
time I could tell it had come from somewhere close. We continued running
through the back room, past freezer doors and caged in areas that held tobacco
and alcohol. We ran past racks of clothing and shelves that contained
everything from bike helmets to televisions and before I knew it we were
running up a flight of stairs. The man behind me was pushing at my back trying
to make me run faster. We were so tightly packed together as we hurried up
those stairs that I couldn’t move any faster even though I desperately wanted
too.

 
    When we reached the top of the stairs
we went through a door that led to a long hallway. That hallway had several
doors on each side of it, but we blew right past them on our way to a door at
the end of the hall. When I got there I saw Paul holding the door open, waiving
everyone inside with his gun in his hand.

 
    Once inside I realized that I had
been led to an employee break room. There were tables and lockers, a microwave,
a sink, and a pair of bathrooms. The walls were covered with notifications and
safety posters just like you would picture most break rooms. Once we were all
inside, we barricaded the door by moving a few of the lockers in front of it.
We laid them on their side and piled them up four high. We were trapped. But at
least we were safe for the time being.

    I saw one of the girls grab a
first aid kit off of the wall. She immediately tried to clean and bandage
Bruce’s wounded hand. Her name was Kerri. I had no interest in being near the
blood and the virus that young man had most likely been exposed too. But she
didn’t think twice about it. I had to give her credit, she was a lot braver
then I was.

 
    Instead
of helping, I just stood around and listened to the discussions taking place
about what our next move should be. In all honesty I was just happy to be safe
for the moment, but Paul was quick to tell the others and me why staying where
we were was a bad idea.

 
    First of all, Paul made it pretty
clear to all of us that we didn’t have enough food or water to hold up in that
break room for any real length of time. Secondly, Paul reminded us that the
receiving doors had been left open. If we stayed upstairs for too long, there
was no telling how many of those things could find their way inside. At that
point we knew if we didn’t do something quick, there was a good chance we could
end up trapped in that break room until we all died of starvation.

 
    So
what we did next wasn’t out of some newly found courage. Believe me when I tell
you that several of the others were completely against it and I wasn’t exactly
thrilled about the idea of going back downstairs with god only knows how many
Zeds in the building. We did it because we really didn’t have any other choice.
It was what needed to be done if we were going to survive.

 
    Paul
convincing us what we needed to do was one thing. Getting everyone to agree on
how we were going to do it was another. There were several members of our newly
formed group that wanted to make break for it. They weren’t exactly keen on the
idea of being stuck in the store for an undetermined amount of time. After all,
they had family members and