Race to Refuge

by Craig, Liz

  Wiping my mouth I yelled, “Mom! Stay inside! Mom, come here!” Legs shaking I ran down the stairs, taking them a couple at a time.

  It was too late. Mom had gone out to help Dad and was immediately attacked by two of the zombies. What was even more horrible … Dad was already turning. At least, his eyes were getting a hollow, hungry look and his motions were no longer fluid, but jerky. When he turned to Mom, and I realized—and she realized that he wasn’t going to help her—I’d seen enough.

  I locked the front door and pulled chairs and small tables to block it. Then I checked the back door to make sure that it was also secure. I jerked open the pantry door. Mom must have gone to the store yesterday, because it was full of food and water bottles. I ran around the house, pulling together tote bags and boxes and throwing food and waters and a first aid kit in them, trying to ignore the sirens and screams from outside. Did I just have minutes? How strong were these things? How smart? Would they think to break a window? Would they use teamwork?

  I knew I had to get my sister, Ginny. Would the zombies be at the middle school already? I needed Mom’s car out of the garage. Was the garage door open, or closed? Did Dad go out through the garage or the front door? Was his car blocking Mom’s? I could barely focus on what I was trying to do with all the questions flying through my head.

  I forced myself to look out the front window, trying not to see my parents. And I saw that Dad’s car was off to the side of the driveway. I could get Mom’s car out.

  I flung the stuff I’d put together into the back of Mom’s van, wishing I could stop shaking and think harder and clearer about what I needed. First aid, food, water. Maybe blankets. I ran back in the house and pulled blankets and bedspreads off the guest room beds downstairs and pushed them into the van.

  Weapons. Dad wasn’t much help here, since he never liked guns. Instead I grabbed my baseball bat and an ax and shovel from the garage.

  My camping equipment for scouts was in the garage, too, and as soon as I spotted it, I knew that was probably some of the best stuff to have. I even had water purification straws and that kind of stuff. I threw in a sleeping bag, tent, flashlights, and matches.

  And all the time, zombies were scratching at the garage door and moaning.

  Chapter Three

  Charlie

  I finished my new-employee orientation at the hospital. It was as boring as I’d figured it would be and I was ready to move on to the rest of my first day on the job. The reason I’d switched from being a salesman to being a paramedic was because I was ready for more excitement. The sales job, despite all the travel…the endless airports and planes…just wasn’t providing that.

  I joined my new coworker, Wes, at the ambulance parked in the hospital lot. We shook hands. He grinned at me and arched an eyebrow. “How was orientation?”

  “Boring,” I admitted with a laugh. “I was ready to get out of there.”

  Wes shook his head. “Just be aware that this job is ninety-five-percent total boredom.”

  I asked, “And five percent adrenaline, right?”

  Wes said, “We go on tons of calls where no emergency help is required at all. We think we’re about to get rescued from a dull shift, but then it ends up being something like a fender bender and somebody with a couple of scratches.” He glanced at his watch. “We’d better get in the truck. Do you want to drive?”

  I hesitated. I’d thought I’d really be more observing today. “Do you want me to?”

  “I’ve been driving my last couple of shifts and could use the break. Do you mind?” Wes was already heading to the passenger seat.

  For about thirty minutes, I could see what Wes was talking about. Nothing was going on in this town. Apparently everyone was driving safely, using excellent fire and stove safety, and treading carefully down staircases. Wes closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. While sitting there waiting for a call I started checking the gig for equipment and familiarizing myself with where everything was. “Wake me up if anything happens, okay?” Wes mumbled.

  Then something did happen. Our computer console on the dashboard notified us of a call. “Hey Wes,” I said. “I think we’re about to have our five percent excitement for the day.”

  Wes became fully alert quickly and his eyes scanned the data terminal for more information as I started up the truck to drive to the scene. “Huh. This sounds like a weird one, too. You always remember your first call, but this one sounds like one to remember anyway. The 911 call says some man was attacked by a person who started gnawing on him. Victim is in bad shape and needs transport to the nearest hospital.”

  “A person started gnawing on them?” The siren was going and my blood was pounding. It felt good to be here, good to be on my way to help out. This was what I craved.

  “That’s what it says. Someone mentally disturbed I guess. The neighbors came out and chased him off and called the cops.” Wes’s voice was uncertain. “You know, I thought I heard something on the news on the way over here. A similar report somewhere else.”

  “Maybe some kind of weird gang activity? Like an initiation or something?” I asked.

  Wes just shook his head. The rest of the time he only spoke to let me know when the intersection was clear on the way to the scene, just a few blocks away.

  It was a quiet neighborhood—ordinarily. But today was different. It looked like all of the people who lived there were either standing out in the street watching what was unfolding, or else they were looking out of their windows and doors. Their faces were tight and scared.

  We pulled up, lights still going on top of the ambulance and hopped out, running with a jump bag and stretcher to the victim who was surrounded by a group of people.

  Wes, although he was a basic EMT, was giving me information about the victim in short sentences. Still breathing. Seems to be in shock. Needs tourniquet. We worked together fast to treat the victim and get him into the ambulance.

  One of the neighbors wouldn’t stop talking. I was so focused on our patient that I wasn’t even listening. Then something she said finally sunk in. In a guttural voice, she said. “Look at him. Look at him! What’s wrong with his eyes?”

  “He’s in shock,” muttered Wes. He and I loaded the man onto the stretcher. But I looked closer at the victim’s eyes. They were glazing over with a thin gray membrane. The victim was thrashing around on the board and we had to put restraints on … with some difficulty.

  “Easy there,” said Wes in an even voice.

  We rolled him into the back of the ambulance. Technically, since I was the paramedic, I had more training than Wes, who was an Advanced EMT. But there was no question that he had the most experience. Wes automatically climbed into the back with the patient. The patient stopped moving. Wes looked at me. “I’ve lost a pulse. I’ll try to keep bringing him back … just get us to the hospital.”

  I hopped behind the wheel, blaring the siren as I sped to the hospital. Without Wes to tell me I was clear, it was pretty terrifying going through stoplights at those huge intersections. But then I started hearing crashing sounds in the back of the ambulance and that terrified me even more. I had a dead or, at the very least, dying patient in the back. What could be making those sounds?

  Should I pull over and check? Even though I needed to get this guy to the hospital before he ended up having to go to the morgue? There was a crash right behind my head and this time I spared a glance over my shoulder. I saw Wes, palms splayed on the glass partition between us. His eyes were covered with a thin, gray membrane, his mouth was slack, and he was covered with blood … and snarling. I turned back to glance at the road, and when I turned back to look at the back window, our victim was staring hungrily back at me. Whatever soul that had made it human before was gone now.

  There was no more indecision. I felt no responsibility to the creature in the back now. My mind grappled with using the word zombie, but it wasn’t long before I accepted it, at least mentally. Although I’d like to think that I had a r
esponsibility to Wes as a coworker, the truth was that the thing in the back was fast turning into something that wasn’t Wes at all.

  I decided to abandon the ambulance and drive myself back home. If I could get away from Wes and our patient before they attacked me, that is. Looking at the buttons on the driver door, there didn’t seem to be a way to lock the back doors of the ambulance from the front. But I was pretty fast when running on foot. I hoped Wes and the patient weren’t very fast.

  I pulled the rig over to the side of the road. Clearly it would be irresponsible of me to bring these creatures back to the hospital to inflict harm on helpless patients and staff. The side of the road was a better option, despite the fact it meant I’d have to jog a long ways to my car.

  Now the road was full of emergency vehicles. Police cars were screaming by, lights flashing, along with other ambulances and fire trucks. It seemed like too many rescuers for a car wreck, house fire, or other more ordinary emergency. Was this zombie threat spreading? How fast? Did I even have a shot at getting back to my house?

  As soon as I stopped, I yanked the keys out of the ignition. I was thinking maybe I could lock the back of the trunk manually before Wes and the patient could get out. Then maybe I could radio in and warn people about what was in the back before they could check it out and get hurt.

  But the second I stumbled out of the ambulance, so did the things from the back. They lurched toward me, mouths open.

  So I hopped right back into the truck, locking the doors with a shaking hand, and took off before they could get back into the back. At least they didn’t seem to have superhuman speed.

  I’m not ashamed to admit that I had my siren on, too. I wanted people to get out of my way. My plan at this point was to hightail it back to the hospital, dump the ambulance there, ditch the rest of my very first day as a paramedic, get into my pickup, and get back to my house to figure out where to go from there.

  Plan B was born the moment I got to the hospital and saw zombies had taken over the parking deck and were coming out of the hospital entrance. Driving over to my truck, I saw a couple of zombies standing right there. They became very animated when they spotted me through the ambulance windshield.

  That was when I decided the ambulance was going home with me. And wondered if this was the worst first workday in all of employment history.

  Chapter Four

  Mallory

  As soon as I got off the phone with Annie, I switched what I was doing. Instead of focusing on my books, I headed into the kitchen. I pulled out some garbage bags and started throwing in food from the pantry.

  Unfortunately, I’d planned on going to the store today. Before … well … everything. So the pantry was a little bare. I did get cereal, canned foods, and peanut butter. Then I realized I needed something to open the cans with, so I threw in a can opener. And all the while the sirens were blaring in the background.

  There were no water bottles in the pantry so I dumped out every container I could find and filled them with water. Then I was left with a bunch of really heavy things to be dragged out to the Subaru.

  I’d just filled all the containers when I heard a bunch of yelling in the parking lot at the other end of the row of apartments. “What’s going on?” I asked a woman who was standing nearby, hands clutched under her neck as she peered intently in that direction.

  She shrugged a thin shoulder at me, not looking my way. “There’s some woman who’s flipping out. She’s trying to bite people. Somebody said she was … growling.” She gave the kind of dismissive laugh that wasn’t really dismissive at all—it was just baffled. “I called the cops, but no one is coming. Can you believe that? How busy could they be?”

  Remembering all the sirens, I had a sinking feeling that they were a lot busier than she thought. That only strengthened my resolve to skip out of town and head for Annie’s spot in the country. There sure was a lot of yelling and screaming going on, that was all that I knew.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder and I jumped violently. Whipping my head around, I wasn’t relieved at all to see Brendan there instead of the growling, attacking woman. Which just goes to show how I felt about Brendan.

  His handsome, if rather spoiled, features were pointed into a frown. “Mallory? Why are you home in the middle of the day?” His eyes carefully avoided her bruise as if he weren’t quite ready to come to terms with his behavior yet.

  I didn’t feel as if he deserved an answer. And now the neighbor I’d been talking to was suddenly more nosily interested in Brendan and me than the woman and the yelling and screaming at the other end of the parking lot. Her gaze traced the bruise around my eye.

  “I just needed to come home briefly. I’m on my way out now, so I’ve got to run,” I said hurriedly. I dropped my keys and he bent to quickly pick them up, holding them tightly in his hand as he rose.

  He turned to the Subaru and his eyes opened wide as he saw it was packed to the ceiling with not only my stuff, but also a whole lot of food and water. “You’re not leaving me, are you? Over some tiny misunderstanding?”

  Now the neighbor folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against a nearby car. Settling in for the drama, I figured sourly.

  “Brendan, just hand me my keys, please. I told you I need to run,” I said. I noticed Brendan’s hand grip my keys even more tightly—they must have been cutting into his skin.

  Now he was angry. “So you sneaked over here during lunch to take all our stuff and leave? You don’t have the right to do that.”

  “I have every right to do that,” I sighed. Why didn’t I see this side of him in the previous months that we’d dated? “And it’s not our stuff. It’s my stuff. Some of my things I even left there for you.”

  His gaze narrowed again as he studied the things in my car. “Sure looks like a bunch of my food and a bunch of my containers with water in them.” He gave me a coldly calculating look. “I’m going to put this stuff back inside. We’ll talk it over after you get home from work.”

  “No!” My voice was louder than I intended. “No. You won’t take it back in and we won’t talk it over tonight. There’s nothing to talk over.”

  He didn’t respond to that, instead hitting my key fob and unlocking the Subaru. He proceeded to take out a suitcase of clothes, slam the car door back, hit the lock button, and started striding toward the apartment.

  “Want me to call the police again?” asked the woman, head tilted to one side. “Maybe they’ll respond quicker with a domestic.”

  “It’s not a ‘domestic’,” I said, the word distasteful in my mouth.

  “Sure about that? That’s some shiner you’re sporting there,” said the woman in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

  I was about to respond to that, but I never had a chance. Because right at that moment, the growling woman launched herself at Brendan.

  The woman I was talking to gaped at them. Then she grabbed my arm. “Look!” she croaked.

  The crowd of neighbors who’d been standing around watching the confrontation was now lurching toward us. There was blood covering them and their eyes looked hollow and soulless.

  Brendan was screaming now, too, and dropped my suitcase and keys on the ground in his struggle to get away from the creature—she no longer appeared human—who was attacking him.

  I didn’t even hesitate. I didn’t try to help Brendan. I didn’t call for help. Heart in my throat, I just edged up as close as I could while the thing … the zombie, unbelievable as it seemed … attacked him. As it was distracted, and as I was only feet away, I reached down and grabbed my keys. The suitcase couldn’t be recovered since it was lodged under Brendan.

  “They’re coming!” shrieked the woman behind me as she ran off.

  On legs that shook so hard I was terrified they’d collapse right under me, I fled for the car, locking the doors as I got in. It wasn’t a moment too soon as people—creatures—who used to be my neighbors converged on my car, eyes hollow, mouths slack, and moaning.

 
I stuck the key in the ignition and revved up the engine. I blared the horn. And then I thought, really? I’m treating these things as if they were human, or someone’s pet that I don’t want to run over. Who cares if these things get hit by my car on the way out? Maybe that will actually help to save some innocent person from being hurt by them.

  It was good that I came so quickly to this realization. At that moment, the zombies started pounding on my car, so hard that I was afraid the glass might shatter. I put the car in reverse, pushed on the accelerator, and flew backward through the crowd of once-human creatures. Some of them were on my windshield, mouths moving wordlessly, eyes gazing hungrily at me. But then I hit the road as fast as I could, jerking my steering wheel from side to side to throw them off.

  I looked at my hand where I’d written the address Annie had given me on the phone. 221 Crepe Myrtle Lane. Could I get the gas I needed to travel there? What about the roads? What kind of shape were they in? Would zombies overtake me? I had no idea if I could get there. But I was certainly going to try.

  Chapter Five

  Ty

  After I threw the camping stuff in the van along with batteries, I felt like I was seriously running on borrowed time. I searched a couple of minutes for a gas can. I did play zombie video games and I knew the kind of problems I could run into. Like no gasoline. Or nothing to put gasoline in when you were lucky enough to find some. I discovered a spider web covered plastic red container in a corner of the garage and picked it up. It had what was probably a splash or two of gas in it, but at least I had a gas can. I put it in the back, too.

  The zombies were still scratching and moaning outside the garage door. When I realized that these zombies could possibly be my parents, I thought my legs might fall from under me. Then I got it together. My parents were gone. Even if those things were my parents, it wasn’t the same. What I needed to do was get past them and get Ginny from the school before zombies attacked there.