Mr. Lee found the six people that had rescued him at the entrance of his shop. After sating his hunger, he felt way more at ease and could think properly for the first time since this shitshow started.

“Mr. Lee, this is Chris, Jane, Janice and Donovan. Guys, this is Mr. Lee. He said he is the owner of the store”. Carl introduced them after seeing Mr. Lee exiting the shop.

It wasn’t exactly the safest choice to stay out there in the open, but the ones that rushed out of the place first, fleeing from the smell, were not thinking things straight. Luckily for them, the team had already cleared the surrounding area from zombies, so they were relatively safe for the moment.

“Hello Mr. Lee. It is nice to meet you.” The previously unintroduced members gave Mr. Lee their respective greetings.

“The pleasure is mine.” Mr. Lee said politely, while slightly lowering his head.

At the same time, Mr. Lee swept his gaze through his surroundings and felt his heart skip a beat when he saw the piles of corpses by the sidewalk, just a few meters away from him.

He could make out the uniforms that his workers had been wearing three days ago o that pile and could also recognize a few faces from his customers. They were all dead already and sported grisly wounds on different parts of their heads.

Mr. Lee was already suspicious towards his supposed saviors; thus, he had decided to take a cautious approach towards them and to show them a neutral face no matter what, keeping his cards close to his chest and keeping his inner thoughts hidden. However, once he saw that gruesome scene, he could not help but pale and take a step back, away from those strangers.

He had already been told by Carl that they had moved corpses outside, but he didn’t fully understand what he meant at the time, nor did his hunger allow him to think over matters other than to indulge in food. Besides, hearing about something and seeing it for himself were two completely different things.

The spilled guts and brain matter surrounded by the tainted concrete ground left very little for the imagination.

“What… what is that?” Mr. Lee asked stuttering and pointing at the heap of bodies.

“Oh, that. Those were the zombies we told you about. They were surrounding that room you came from.” Danny explained patiently, knowing fully well that Mr. Lee was just beginning to process the changes in the world.

“Zombies?! Boy you can’t be serious… I… I had been with them just a few days ago. They must have been sick. Yes! That’s it! How could you do that to sick people…” Mr. Lee looked at them with fear in his eyes, starting to regret his decision to impulsively get out of his hiding spot while taking a few more backsteps, as if the distance would save him from whatever Danny and company decided to do with him.

“That’s just how it is Mr. Lee. You don’t have to trust us, but you will see for yourself the truth very soon. We mean you no harm.” Danny said calmly, trying to pacify the agitated old man.

“How could this possibly be?! I don’t believe you. Please, just go away. Leave me alone, I… I won’t say anything to the police. I never saw you guys!” Mr. Lee said hurriedly, clearly mistaking them for opportunistic criminals that were making use of the chaos to indulge in their dark desires. He still could not accept the story told to him by them.

Seeing that Mr. Lee was not willing to hear them out, some members of the group merely shrugged, while others sighed in disappointment. They were already having a hard time taking care of themselves, they could scarcely afford to look over this elder in denial.

It wasn’t hard to understand why Mr. Lee was so reluctant to listen to reason as well. Aside from the fact that he only had their unilateral statement to make out the truth of the situation, Mr. Lee had spent his whole life dedicated to build up his capital, sacrificing anything else in favor of this endeavor to accumulate wealth and become a successful man.

Now that the world was falling apart and his perspective on society was being threatened by the chaos, if he accepted the words of Danny’s team as being the truth, where would that leave him? Wouldn’t that mean that he had wasted his whole life for nothing? That all his efforts so far amounted to nothing and it all went up in smoke? Mr. Lee couldn’t accept that.

At the very least, Mr. Lee would not face the facts until he was left with no other choice, until no other explanation for what he had witnessed could be found. Reality was too hard and cruel for him to stomach.

People were like that, the older they get, the more inflexible their thoughts become.

“Let us just ignore him for the time being and leave him some space to think.” Danny said to his allies when he saw they could not get through Mr. Lee for the time being.

Danny then added. “For now, we should start doing what we came here to do in the first place. Let’s split up and check out what we can find inside the store. Remember to look for things with a longer expiry date and also keep your eyes open for other useful stuff like batteries and so on.”

Upon hearing Danny’s voice, the rest of them merely nodded and headed towards the store. After working together for all this while, each individual’s role was already beginning to naturally set itself. Danny had started to more and more take a leading position, given that he had been the one who had the clearest mind and made the most solid choices so far.

It was also not that others could not take such a role, like Janice or Carl for example. They were not incapable people at all. It was just how things had unfolded, the result of their past experiences.

Different circumstances could lead to different outcomes in the end, even if they involved the same people.

Mr. Lee kept to the side, his heart in turmoil as different opinions warred inside his head while fighting for supremacy and to establish themselves as the single truth in his eyes. However, when the old man saw the youths going through his shop like hyenas, looting indiscriminately and taking without giving something in return, he snapped back to his usual self.

“What are you doing?!” Mr. Lee shouted at them angrily, forgetting completely about stealth and to keep his voice down. Luckily, his yell did not manage to attract any attention, but he was surely tempting fate nonetheless.

The group stopped their actions and stared at Mr. Lee in confusion, not sure about the reason of his outburst.

“Keep your voice down sir!” Danny’s expression took a somber outlook as he scolded the screaming fool. He was beginning to lose his patience with this elder.

Mr. Lee was not cowered by Danny’s scolding though, years of experience managing his own business had given him an air of authority, and an unyielding frame of mind. It didn’t matter if he was right or wrong, Mr. Lee stared back at Danny fiercely all the same.

“What do you mean?” Carl asked Mr. Lee, equally confused about his temper.

“You people surely have guts! Stealing from me right under my nose like that! Although I am grateful for your assistance, that does not give you the right to do as you please!” Mr. Lee did speak in a hushed tone this time though, given that he was not an imbecile and could understand Danny’s point. Even so, he did not apologize for his careless outburst.

Even though he refused to believe in that ‘zombie’ non-sense, he also did not want to attract anymore of those ‘ill-people’ there.

Upon hearing his words, the group froze on the spot, unsure on how to deal with the situation for the moment.

Mr. Lee’s reprimand was absolutely strange at the present situation. How could it not be? He was like a lumbermill company trying to charge them for cutting wood as the whole forest went out in flames. It was completely unreasonable! However, that did manage to give them pause nonetheless.

Why is that?

That was because Mr. Lee’s point of view aligned with their logic and morals from before the calamity. They could see the logic behind it and would even agree with said logic under normal circumstances. Despite that, it was already an outdated line of thought.

Even though Mr. Lee’s rebuke gave them pause for an instant, that alone would not be enough to prevent them from taking what they needed. It would be completely irrational to expect them to do so, abandoning the valuable provisions in front of them that they already had to fight for.

Their own security and survival chances were affected by those resources, so they would not give them up just because Mr. Lee had told them to.

Therefore, after the lull that followed Mr. Lee’s outburst for a few seconds, they resumed their actions, independently if they felt inwardly ashamed of their actions or if they felt them justified.

“Scoundrels! Just you wait until the situation is back to normal and the police arrives! You will regret it then!” Seeing that his attempts to put a stop to the looting had failed, Mr. Lee merely threatened them and did nothing else.

Mr. Lee was not a fighter, and they were not only stronger and outnumbered him six to one, they were also armed with melee weapons and firearms, while Mr. Lee only had his own two old fists, and had spent the last few days hungry.

Even if he was at his best condition, there was no way he could do anything to stop them other than curse and stare angrily at them. Any other course of action would definitely result in a world of pain for himself. Mr. Lee would not do something so unwise and place himself in danger like that.

“Just ignore the old geezer. We can’t afford to bother ourselves with this blind fool.” Carl said, devoid of any guilt. “Besides, I doubt that there is any court of law in this world that would condemn us for our actions. It is not like we are stealing TV’s or cellphones either; we are just looking out for ourselves.” Carl concluded.

That argument seemed to have an immediate effect on the more conflicted of their team mates. Indeed, they were not taking advantage of the situation in order to profit, they were merely doing their best to stay alive.

At this point in time, not even Jane, the most empathetic and generous of them, had any hopes for this old man joining the squad. They all felt utterly disappointed in the man’s inability to adapt to the situation, and felt it was better to just leave him be and do their own thing.

Therefore, after getting what they needed from the place and filling six bags – just like their previous outing – with foodstuffs and other essentials, the group merely carried their newly acquired goods outside and left the ransacked place behind while Mr. Lee glared at them all the while.

They did not care to say their goodbyes, neither did they look back to the furious old man, leaving him to fend for himself alone. Their relationship with the shop owner had already completely broken down, but fortunately it had not descended into hostilities. They could only wish the best of luck to the man as they went their own separate ways.

Although they returned safely to their camp in a fairly easier and more relaxed manner than their previous run, since they did not have to face too much opposition on the way back – given that they had preemptively cleared most of the way while advancing –, they could not feel too happy about the events of the day.

This outing had taught them all a valuable but bitter lesson: just because someone was alive and had manage to persevere as a fellow human, it did not mean they would be friendly to them.

Where there are people, there would always be conflicts.