Her voice had slowed down to half speed and had an edge to it that made her sound mad. Actually, every person who spoke had that angry edge to their voice. It didn’t matter what they were saying or who they were saying it to, the tone took on that edge and all I wanted to do was sit down and put my hands over my ears to stop from hearing it. I just wanted quiet, why couldn’t we just keep moving and be quiet. I could get through this if we would leave this place and everyone would quit talking. I looked up at the sky and said to Jane, “Please, can we just keep going. I just need to keep going.”
Jane gave me a sympathetic look. “Don’t take deep breaths. You’re going to want to, but don’t, it makes it worse. This is nothing but your brain hiccupping. It’s making everything seem scarier than it really is.”
This isn’t exactly the truth. I have looked up panic attacks since this episode went down. I still have no clue what set off the attack, but if it ever happens again I will be far more prepared to handle it. That morning it felt as if I were going to die. I was doing my best to hold it together and not let anyone see how badly I was freaking out. I guess what they did see was bad enough, but I didn’t want them thinking back to this moment and questioning my orders later. I didn’t want this moment of weakness making my job as leader even harder. They saw me wide eyed and sweating and pleading with Jane to just get me away from K-mart. Inside my head the voices were getting angrier the further into this thing I went. Towards the end it sounded like everyone was screaming at me. I could hear the metal pipe bashing what had to be cash registers to tiny pieces. I knew that this couldn’t be true though because, were that happening, Amanda would not be standing there looking into the store so nonchalantly. I felt like I needed to puke, but thought if I did the force of it would knock me over onto my back and I knew if that happened then I would never be able to get back up. The world was slowly spinning under my feet. Jane took my head in his hands and said to me “Close your eyes, point your head towards the ground, quick short breaths. Keep your breathing even, set a pattern and keep to it.” As I did what he said he cupped his hands over my ears mercifully blocking out a good portion of the sound that was ripping through my mind. I could feel my fingertips tingling. I kept asking myself “What the hell is happening to me?” over and over this question echoed through my head. Then Jane took his hands away. “Better?” He asked, and his voice sounded like his voice. His real voice. I still felt dizzy and like I could throw up. I felt drained, I felt like I had just took a school yard beating.
“What the hell?” I asked. Jane handed me a bottle of water and said, “Drink. I’m not asking.”
I drank.
“That was a panic attack young Charles.” I shot him a look for calling me Charles, that’s not even my name but he knows I don’t like it. I think he was checking for my reaction and he liked what he saw.
“Your brain was thinking about something being inside this scary, dark, empty building. Then, for some reason, your body decided that the fears which were in your mind were real and began to react accordingly. At that point your body began to convince your brain that the danger was present due to all the defensive systems that your body was bringing online. As soon as that happened, to you, the perceived danger was real. Your body made your brain believe and your brain acted accordingly.”
Again, this isn’t technically correct, but I liked Jane’s explanation better than anything I read in the three books I stole from Barnes and Noble on the subject.
“But, I could hear them.” I said.
“It’s not uncommon for a person having a panic attack to lose touch with reality while the attack is going on. I don’t know how common hearing and seeing things are, but I had a buddy down in Texas that had a panic attack once and shot a man in the head. After the attack was over he swore that the man had been his dead father and he was coming to beat him like when he was a kid. He was terrified. He had been shaking all over when he shot poor Jackie. I was amazed he hit his mark he was shaking so badly.”
“You’re saying I could kill somebody while having one of these?” I asked.
“That is a very extreme example Charlie. And this guy actually had what is called panic disorder. Imagine panic attacks on steroids and they like to visit often.” Jane said.
I looked at the others, I felt like such a tool. “Sorry guys. That has never happened to me before.” I said.
“No big.” Sass said and gave me a one armed hug. “You had me worried man.”
I looked back down at the ground, “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Amanda said as she walked back out of the store. “Anyone can have a moment of repose or weakness. It happens to all of us.”
“You?” I asked.
Amanda looked at me for a moment and nodded before walking towards the far corner of K-Mart again.
“Dude, you’se scared the crap out of me man. I thought you’se was have’n a heart attack or something.” Marky Mark said to me as he walked passed. He clapped me on the shoulder and smiled. “Glad you’se okay. I’d hate to have ta take orders from the commando twins.” This actually made me laugh a bit.
Everyone had already moved on. The only one still standing with me was Big Lou. He walked up to me and licked my hand.
“It felt so real Lou.” I said quietly. Lou cocked his head sideways and looked at me then walked to the door of K-mart and looked in. After a few seconds he turned to look at me then looked back into the store. I walked over and stood beside him, looking into the dark of the store. There was nothing there. It was just an empty department store. I lingered a moment more before leaving the doorway that had sent me over the edge and far, far away. I didn’t understand it, but I knew that I needed to fear it. If that had happened while we were fighting zombies I would be dead now. I would have to research this thing and find a way to deal with it if it ever happened again.
Turning to leave, I saw Big Lou standing about four feet away watching me. As I began to walk towards him he shook himself all over as if he were wet and was trying to dry himself. I patted his head as I got to him and he fell in line beside me as we made our way to the other end of the building where Amanda had already stopped, and the others were slowing down to stop as well. Whatever crisis was waiting for me a hundred yards further down this parking lot could wait. Big Lou and I were in no hurry at the moment, and it felt just fine.
TWELVE
When I got to the edge of the building the others were looking out across the vacant expanse of blacktop that lay between us and the road.
“Sooooo, what we doing?” I asked.
“We need to figure out what direction we are going before we jump out into the open.” Amanda said without looking back to me.
“Down the hill leads back to the car and I am guessing none of us want to go in that direction. We can go across the road and into that set of shops or we can go on up the hill. Does anyone know what sets up the hill?” Jane said.
“I imagine it leads to subdivisions.” Sass said.
“Our options are as follows; houses, the car, or stores. Which way should we go?” Amanda asked while looking at me. It took me a while, but I had finally started getting used to this. It strikes me funny that she and Jane are so much more qualified to keep us alive out here and still they continue to look to me for decisions. They are in essence saying “We have survived more combat situations than you will ever know and have killed more men than you have known in your life time, but let’s trust this decision to the guy who just had a panic attack about walking in front of an open door at a K-Mart. It’s kind of scary if you stop and think about it.
“I say we stick with the stores.” I said.
“That’s not how I came when I made my way from the Med Center.” Fred said.
“And what way did you come?” Sass asked.
“We stayed in residential areas, cutting through yards. We avoided roads and shopping centers because we were afraid of running into masses of zombies or patrols from either
the Head Hunters or from the Med Center.”
“You came out here then?” Jane asked.
“No. We came to a main road up at the next exit. We got up on the interstate then worked our way back down to this exit. That’s when we saw your tents on top of Wal-Mart and decided to see if we could stay with you.”
Amanda noticed that I was looking at her. I shifted my eyes towards Fred and gave her a questioning look. She cut her eyes over to Fred and then looked straight up, raising her eyebrows as she did it. Seeing that she wasn’t buying his story either made me feel less paranoid. Then I heard Sass in my head saying, “You’re using Amanda to prove to yourself that you’re not paranoid. Isn’t that kind of like hugging a snow man to prove you’re not crazy for thinking its cold outside?” I smiled at the phantom Sass voice in my head and told him to shut up.
“Why did you head towards town instead of towards Elizabethton?” I asked Fred.
“We lived in Gray. I guess I had it in my mind to go to our house and try to get some supplies before figuring out where to go next.”
“Wait. You took your daughter and ran away from your power mad, psychotic, wife and you decided to go to the only place in all the world that she knows you might go to?” I said.
Fred frowned at me. He was getting tired of me questioning him and my underhanded accusations. “I didn’t think she would look for us all the way in Gray because, in my opinion, she would have never thought we could have made it there by ourselves.”
“You’re telling us that you gave up on the plan that you feel gives you and your daughter the best chance to escape in order to live with us on the roof of Wal-Mart? I have to ask, what the hell?”
“Charlie, what exactly does this have to do with our current situation?” Fred asked without hiding the tone of irritation in his voice.
“It has everything to do with our current situation.” I said. “I didn’t bring you along because of your stunning good looks or amazing zombie fighting abilities. I brought you along to answer my questions, and you will answer my questions.”
Fred sighed and let his shoulders sag a bit, “Fine. You’re the boss Charlie.” He had tried to say that in a way that would be hurtful or insulting to me. It’s a shame that he hadn’t been with us when we had made our way to Johnson City on that first day. He would have met Daniel and he would have known that there was really nothing he could say that would have topped Daniel on the nasty comment meter. Let’s just be really honest here, once you have been called Hitler by an angry Jewish man you have pretty much reached the bottom of the nasty comment barrel.
“The trip had been really hard on us. I wasn’t sure that we could make it all the way to Gray. At first, I thought that we would just stop for a day or maybe two at the most. I figured we could get some rest and see if you all would give us some supplies before we pushed on to Gray. One day turned into one week, one week turned into one month. By that time, we were comfortable here. In the back of my mind I probably knew we should have moved on, but I had made friends here and so had Samantha. I ignored that voice telling me that we needed to leave. I just wanted to give Sam as normal of a life as I could give her, and this seemed to be it. Is that a good enough answer for you Charlie?”
I thought about it. Thought about how he had said that. He wanted to make me into the bad guy; maybe he honestly thought that I was the bad guy. I didn’t care either way. As far as I was concerned he was no better than the kidnappers. He had taken his daughter and ran away from his wife. He had run right to us and drug us into the middle of this situation that could easily get us all killed. He was not a man to be pitied or trusted. Also, there was that unanswered question, how did they get Samantha? That question spun slowly through my head over and over. How did they do it? Getting on the roof was an impossibility. Jane would have killed them.
“It will do for now.” I said then added. “We are going straight through, into the shops directly across from us.” Fred frowned, he didn’t like my decision.
“That keeps us really close to the Head Hunters.” He said.
“You said that you didn’t know exactly where they lived.” Jane said giving Fred a look.
“I told you they were on State of Franklin Road. If we stay in the strip mall we stay right beside State of Franklin. That puts us near them. You don’t have to stumble upon their home to get dead; you just have to be close.” Fred said.
Everyone got quiet at that comment. I counted ten in my head and said, “We ready?” Amanda nodded to me, “Jane, take point.” She said and fell in line behind him.
Across the road from where we stood, was three tiers of stores. Each tier sat further up the hill. The bottom set of shops were crawling with zombies. It was the overflow from the monster mash at the intersection. These were the zombies that hadn’t followed us to the Fidelity building, and having finished their breakfast, were now wandering around looking for another tasty treat. Maybe they thought that they would find it inside a building call Red Hots on the bottom level of shops. It claimed that it was “Chicago style food.” I wondered what the heck that meant. What exactly is Chicago style? Deep fried meat or something? I thought about asking the group, but the odds of three Tennessee boys, a guy from Jersey, a Texan, and Amanda, who we still had no clue where she was from originally, knowing what Chicago style meant was not very likely.
Also, on the bottom level was a patio store. On the morning of the first day of the rest of our lives the employees must have set the outside items in the parking lot before the dead showed up. There were zombies milling around these brightly colored patio decorations. I found the whole scene funny and wished I had thought to bring a camera with me. These pictures would have been priceless. The absolute best was the zombie that was sitting at the patio table under the multicolored umbrella. I don’t know if he fell into the chair or if he just decided to sit down. Either way it looked like he was waiting on his Chicago style order from Red Hots to be brought out and I couldn’t help but smile at what I was seeing.
“You think he just decided to sit down there?” Sass asked me, and I realized that the others were taking in the surroundings as well.
“I don’t know, but that’s awesome.” I said. Big Lou walked out into the middle of the road and looked at the zombie sitting in the chair down below us and shook his whole body again like he was trying to dry himself. He looked back at me and gave me that sideway “what the hell” look that dogs have and then yawned before walking over to the parking lot we were heading towards and laying down in the shade.
The middle set of shops had a good number of stores. From where I was standing, I could make out a hair cutting place, a restaurant named Barberitos and a place called “Natural Pet Supply.” I pointed it out to Sass and said that maybe we should go get Big Lou some snacks, but Amanda gave me a look, so I put that on the “to do” list for after we were done saving the little kidnapped girl.
There were several clothing stores on this middle level as well. I could make out a place called David’s Bridal which either meant they sold wedding dresses or something for a horse. “You use bridals on horses, don’t you?” I asked Sass, but he just called me a crackhead and walked off. There was also a Men’s Warehouse and Tux shop which I thought was a horrible name for a store, but it must have been doing well before the dead popped into town for a quick visit because there wasn’t a going out of business sign on the door. It also made sense in a way I guess. Go get the dress for your wedding then go a few feet down the side walk and get the guy his tux. Wham, Bam, let’s get married!
There was a set of stairs leading up the hill from behind the Bridal shop and it lead to the lone building that sat on the third tier. From up on high a restaurant named Cocula ruled all. The sign said that it was a Mexican restaurant which kind of disappointed me. I had imagined Count Chocula running his own eating establishment and talking like the Count from Sesame Street. You would come in and he would say “Blah Blah!! Will that be a table for…TWO?!” Then, once sea
ted, everything on the menu would either be chocolate or dipped in chocolate. My god, what a restaurant that would have been.
“Blah Blah!! Today’s specials are as follows; Number one! Chocolate muffins iced with white chocolate. Number Two! Fruit! Dipped in Chocolate! And Three! The number three special of the day is Chocolate, double dipped in chocolate with a cup of chocolate dipping sauce! Count them! Three! Three yummy specials for you!”
Okay, maybe I am going a bit over board with the whole Count thing, but in my mind the idea was hilarious. Cocula existed as the lone zombie free spot that I could see.
Jane was crossing the road and heading directly for the shops. I imagine he thought staying right up against the structures would give us a lot more clutter to obscure us. On the second level all I could see in the way of zombies was a group of five that, for some reason, were standing at the far end of the parking lot around the poles where all the businesses had placed their signs. They stood there as we silently slid by in the bright hours of early morning. The building formed a sort of L shape and as we neared the bend I could see that we had a clear run all the way out to the main road. That was the good news. The bad news was that we were going to have to go to the main road. I had hoped that maybe this parking lot would connect to the next and we could just skirt around from one to another. That wasn’t going to happen. Setting in between us and the next set of stores was a large area of woods with a Wendy’s sitting smack in the middle of it. I weighed the danger of traipsing through the woods against the danger of approaching the road and found that no matter how scary the thought of the road was, the woods would be worse. Bad things live in the darker areas of the world now a days and it isn’t in your best interest to try to find out just how far lady luck will let you push her patience. I have seen that patience fold and watched what happened as a result. It was nothing I ever wanted to experience personally.
A Good Distance From Dying_Book 2_Samantha's Song Page 13