Race to Refuge

by Craig, Liz

  Finally, the door to the shack was pushed open. Ginny walked right in and I followed with more temerity. But when my eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the home, I relaxed. The shooter was an old, frail man with a bald head and an old plaid shirt and khakis. Then I frowned. He was very elderly, yes. Maybe he wasn’t quite as frail as he appeared at first glance. He was wiry, actually.

  “I’ll get you water,” he said abruptly. He strode away from us and returned with two clean glasses full of water. He’d even put a cube of ice in both glasses.

  Ginny talked about Ty to the man. He listened with a stoic expression on his face. At the end of her story he said again, “I haven’t seen him.” But this time he added, “I’m sorry.”

  I was glad that Ginny hadn’t asked for any food because I had the strong suspicion that there probably was hardly any in the house. I didn’t think that this man stocked much food even before the crisis and he certainly hadn’t popped out to the grocery store since.

  I hesitated. Then I told myself that this man had saved our lives. I cleared my throat. “Ginny and I are going to head out to a retirement home where her grandmother lives. Her brother might be meeting her there. I don’t know … that is … would you like to join us? I’m heading on after that, but it seems as if a retirement home might be a good place to hole up.” I stopped speaking abruptly, feeling as though I was starting to ramble.

  He was already shaking his head. “Not going to leave. This is where I was born and raised.”

  I said, “But it’s not very safe here, clearly. And you probably don’t have enough food or water to survive for long.”

  His eyes were blank and he shrugged a thin shoulder. “When it’s time, it’s time.”

  A shiver went up my spine. It sounded as if he was planning on suicide. I was about to insist that he follow me out to the retirement home before stopping. It was none of my business. This was obviously a special place to him, despite the condition of the shack. If he didn’t want to leave it, that was something I should respect.

  So instead, I just nodded. The old man regarded Ginny for a few moments, a sadness in his eyes. Finally he said gruffly, “I hope you find your brother. I hope he’s okay. Don’t give up hope.”

  Ginny nodded. She walked out of the shack, after carefully looking around through the dark to make sure the coast was clear.

  As I was about to follow, the old man looked away and said, “The thing out there. Find supplies. Find a safe place. That thing I shot. It used to be my wife.”

  There was nothing I could say. I reached out and hugged him. And for a second, he clung to me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ty

  I watched as Charlie jogged up to the zombie family’s house. It felt creepy looking at it. You could tell it had been a nice family at one point—they had kids’ toys outside and a sandbox and even a garden with vegetables growing. It was so weird to realize that they probably just were hanging around outside, maybe watering their tomatoes or watching their kids bike around when they were infected.

  My family, on the other hand, had never really been like one of those wholesome family sitcoms. Mom and Dad were fine, but they weren’t all that involved with Ginny and me. We didn’t have a lot of time together as a family with both of them working … and because Mom and Dad just liked it that way. For the first time since this whole thing started, I felt sad, actually sad. Here was this nice, normal looking family and it got infected like this. Now the family was running around trying to infect other people. What a waste.

  Some movement out of the corner of my eye got my attention. I turned quickly in time to see the zombie family shambling in the direction of their old home. Did they have some fraction of memory left from before? Or were they just attracted to Charlie?

  Mojo started a low growl.

  I snapped to finally. They were definitely heading for Charlie. And when he put that garage door up, they might go right inside, which would mess up any plans Charlie might have for getting back in there.

  I put my fingers in my mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Sure enough, the zombies spun around and started weaving in my direction. Mojo snarled and barked and appeared ready to run for the house, which he knew Charlie had entered.

  This time I whistled to Mojo, who reluctantly followed me as I moved along the edge of the woods. The last thing I wanted was to lose Mojo. Right now, and after all I’d been through in the last few days, that might be the last straw.

  The zombie family stumbled after us as I led them away. We were now fairly far away from the house. Mojo gave me an anxious look. He wasn’t happy being so far away from Charlie.

  I have to admit I was pretty relieved when I heard the welcome sound of a car engine revving. When I turned my head, I saw it was an older model Ford pickup truck. The zombies turned toward the sound of the engine, but their faces stayed blank, not recognizing the vehicle as something that had once belonged to them.

  I whistled once more to Mojo and we started running in the direction of the truck. The zombies couldn’t keep up and we easily lost them. Charlie stopped and pushed open the truck’s passenger door and Mojo and I leaped in.

  “Are you okay?” asked Charlie, looking at both of us with open concern. “That took me a while. The keys ended up being on the floor under the husband’s jeans in the closet. Their house was pretty tidy except for that one pile. The keys I had didn’t fit the truck.”

  “It was fine. You know how slow these zombies are. Mojo and I could have run circles around them,” I said. But I was panting just the same, and so was Mojo.

  “Okay. So we’ve got the truck. Let’s head back on the road and get as close to our stuff as we can. We’ll grab it just to keep it safe since it’s so valuable now. Then I’ll follow you on the bike to the retirement community,” said Charlie.

  We set out on the road, trying to get as close as possible to the point in the woods where the equipment was. I felt a lot better about life from the seat of the truck. It was amazing how you didn’t feel as exposed when you were sitting up high in a truck.

  Charlie, who seemed like a really laid back kind of guy, was pretty tensed up until the point when we got back to the stuff and he saw it was still there. I guess once he’d had his stuff stolen, he was always going to think it could happen again. I helped him load everything in the back of the truck. Then Charlie drove to where he’d left the motorcycle, climbed out of the truck, and hopped on.

  “Why don’t you keep Mojo in the truck with you?” he asked. “He’s bound to be more comfortable that way.”

  I nodded. I was still trying to make sure I knew how to drive the truck since it was very different from the van. Actually, since I’d only driven the van, driving anything else was going to be a learning curve.

  Charlie looked like he picked up on this. “Hey, you know where all the stuff is on the truck? Can you drive it?” His forehead wrinkled.

  “No problem,” I said. At least I knew where the accelerator and brakes were. Luckily, it was an automatic. Anything else I could figure out later.

  We set out down the road with me leading. I wasn’t going very fast, considering I wasn’t used to driving the truck. The whole time we were leaving the area, I had my eyes peeled for Ginny. I still felt really guilty leaving the woods. I could only hope that somehow she’d taken the van to see Nana. I didn’t want to think about what might have happened to her otherwise.

  The retirement home was, as I’d told Charlie, kind of in the middle of nowhere. But there was a small town that I’d forgotten about along the way. It was the kind of small town that wouldn’t leave much of an impression on you if you were driving through on your way to someplace else.

  Charlie motioned at me to pull over and talk. I put the window of the truck down to listen to him and Mojo jumped on my lap and stuck his head out of the window to stare at Charlie with a big dog grin on his face.

  “Do you know anything about this town?” asked Charlie. “It looks really small, and
right now, kind of deserted.”

  I thought about it for a second. “I want to say that my dad mentioned that this town used to have a lot of people living here when he was a kid. They worked at a nearby mill. But then the mill closed down and years later a lot of the people in the town moved away. So yeah—it’s pretty deserted, I think. All the time.”

  Charlie nodded, looking toward the small downtown. “Makes sense. I was just thinking that it might be a good idea to shore up our supplies. If it was easy and pretty safe and if we’re not taking something that might belong to somebody else.”

  Especially since I was making a big dent in the supplies now. My mom always used to say that I ate her out of house and home. Teen boys are known for that. I wasn’t feeling real excited about taking supplies since the last time I’d done it I’d run into trouble. But Charlie was right. The supplies were only going to last for so long. And I wasn’t sure what the situation at the retirement home was. Maybe it was full of zombies. We should take this opportunity while we could.

  “Sure,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s check out the town.”

  Charlie drove to a side street and parked the bike next to the building. I pulled in next to him.

  We glanced around us for a few minutes. Then he said, “We probably need to always assume that there are zombies around. And even though we don’t see any people, we need to assume they’re here too, holed up maybe. I don’t want to break into any homes with people in them, so maybe we should knock on the door first.” He grinned. “Although that seems very polite under the circumstances. It’s just that I don’t want to destroy the windows or doors on somebody’s safe house.”

  I nodded, feeling relieved. That was something I was worried about too. It was good that Charlie and I were on the same page.

  So that’s what we did. We tried to be quiet, too, just in case there were any zombies to attract. The first place we saw was a diner right in the middle of the downtown. No one answered the knock and Mojo didn’t act like he heard anything, so Charlie knocked again—firm but not too loud. When there was still no sign of anyone, Charlie took his elbow and broke the glass in the front door. He reached in and turned the lock.

  I decided that Charlie hadn’t always been a medic.

  The diner was dark, so we hit the light switch. Nothing happened. Charlie cursed. “Looks like we’re already having some pockets of power outages. Let’s hope it comes back on and that it’s not too widespread. I’m not ready for the power to be out for good yet.”

  The deserted diner gave me the creeps and I reached down and rubbed Mojo, the feel of the big dog relaxing me a little. I whispered, “Why don’t you take the kitchen and I’ll see if there’s anything in the storeroom to take. And I’ll look for big bags or boxes, too.” I just wanted to get out of there as fast as we could.

  I found a box in the storeroom that was almost empty. I dumped the contents out on the floor and then started loading it up with soft drinks, hamburger and hot dog buns, chips—just whatever I could find to throw in there.

  “We’ll have a cookout tonight, Ty!” said Charlie with a whoop. “Some good stuff left here.”

  “Great,” I said, but I know I sounded less than enthusiastic. I was getting a bad feeling about this place. I glanced at Mojo, who trotted through the storeroom door. He looked relaxed and happy with his tongue lolling out. Maybe he was already picturing the feast he was going to have later on. I felt better seeing that the dog was so laid back.

  “Did you find any boxes?” asked Charlie.

  I grabbed one that was partially full of paper products, dumped it out and walked into the kitchen. Charlie was in the diner’s fridge and pulled stuff out as fast as he could. I slid the box next to him and he started flinging things in.

  We both froze when the bell on the front door of the diner rang. Charlie cursed. “I should have locked it behind us, deserted or not.”

  Mojo was no longer relaxed. The fur on the back of his neck rose up. Charlie motioned for me to hide in the janitor closet. I shook my head and opened a drawer. I pulled out a knife. Charlie frowned at me but also reached in the drawer for a knife.

  Charlie told Mojo to stay. The dog was about as obedient as I was. At least he waited until Charlie had stealthily walked out the door before he slunk along after him.

  We heard a chair knock over in the main room and Charlie and I glanced at each other. That wasn’t a good sign. Zombies were clumsy. We crept closer to the sounds we were hearing.

  We’d apparently left the lights in the on position because suddenly there was a power surge and the lights flickered on and off again. Finally they stayed on. We saw a figure weaving around the center of the room. It stumbled against a chair, knocking it to the side.

  “Do you think there’s a back door?” I muttered to Charlie, my voice shaking. Because even though we had knives, I didn’t really like my chances with a knife against a zombie. I didn’t want to get that close.

  Then the figure turned, and Charlie said under his breath, “I don’t think that’s a zombie.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Charlie

  The figure in front of us wasn’t a zombie but a middle-aged man wearing a button-down shirt and khaki pants. His clothes were stained and wrinkled. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy but not empty like the zombies’ eyes were. And his mouth wasn’t as slack as the zombies’ were, either. But he was stumbling around just like he was infected. Then I figured it out.

  “Drunk as a skunk,” I murmured to Ty.

  The man didn’t seem especially worried about Ty and me, despite the knives we were holding. He gazed at us and then said in a thick and slurring voice, “Thanks for getting me in here, guys. I’m Trent.”

  I lowered his knife. “No problem. Looking for something, are you?”

  Trent shrugged and seemed to concentrate very hard on sitting down. “About to run out of booze. Can’t face the end of the world sober, you know.”

  I sat down near Trent but Ty wasn’t as excited about hanging out with him. Instead, he walked over to the front door and locked it as best he could. At least a zombie wouldn’t be able to figure out how to make it through. I’d been so intent on our quick foray that I couldn’t believe I’d been sloppy about locking the door. And it would have been nice to have brought a gun inside, too. Next time I wouldn’t be so slack.

  I said, “Who else is left in this town? Have you been able to get out and assess the situation?”

  This man looked like he wasn’t really able to even assess his own situation. He said, “Nobody here.”

  Ty gave a shiver and I couldn’t help but agree with him. The idea of this being some sort of little ghost town was pretty creepy.

  “Nobody at all?” asked Ty. “Are you sure?”

  The man turned in his chair to look at Ty and nearly fell out of it. “Nobody alive. Just those infected dead people.”

  “Why haven’t you left?” Ty still lingered near the door.

  The man shrugged again. “No point. I’d have to keep running. If there are zombies here in this town, there are zombies in all the towns. That means I’d have to keep going from place to place to find supplies and escape infected people.” He stopped talking, shaking his head. Then he put a hand to his forehead like it hurt.

  I said in my most authoritative voice, “There’s a better plan. You could come with us.”

  The man looked at me unsteadily and then gave a short laugh. “Right. Because you’re not running.”

  “I’m getting Ty connected with family in a retirement community. That might be a good option since they would have food and rooms and living areas. Then I’m going to head out into the woods or another rural area and set up there. I can do some small-scale farming and hunting. You can come along.”

  The man gave me a scornful look. “And that’s a life?”

  I frowned at him. “Better than getting drunk and waiting to be infected.”

  “Says who?” Trent’s eyes were sudden
ly exhausted. “What have I got to live for? My family has been infected. I’m guessing that my friends are, too. My life wasn’t even all that great before this happened, and it sure hasn’t gotten better now.”

  Usually, I was a pretty chilled out guy. Everyone always said how laid back I was. But this guy’s hopelessness really got to me. He’d basically just thrown in the towel and given up—on the very first week of the zombie apocalypse. And, for whatever reason, there was just something in my genetic makeup that couldn’t leave this alone.

  “Look, it’s way too early in this crisis to just give up hope,” I said briskly. “Join up with Ty and me.”

  But my persuasive speech was cut off. Ty leapt back away from the door when suddenly there were loud thumps and knocks at the other side, along with a rattling of the doorknob. Mojo whined, ears back, tail down.

  “Zombies,” said Ty. “They won’t be able to figure out how to get around the locked door.”

  “Unless they just break the thing down,” muttered Trent.

  “Let me in!” demanded a frantic woman’s voice.

  I ran to the door.

  “I wouldn’t open it,” said Trent laconically. “Sounds like those things are chasing her.”

  I shot him a look through narrowed eyes and yanked the door open, pulling the woman, a frail brunette, inside as fast as I could. But before I could force the door shut, several zombies pushed their way in, grabbing at me. I reared back and lifted my leg up to kick one of them in the stomach as hard as I could, but it somehow managed to get my leg.

  I struggled hard to get away, sweat pouring out of me, hopping on one leg and trying desperately to get away. Until Mojo flung himself at the zombie, knocking it backward across the floor.

  “Run!” yelled Ty. “Come on, out the back!”

  The woman was already ahead of us, running for the back door. Ty was following her. “I’ll grab the stuff, Charlie,” he called to me.

  Trent sat calmly at the table as if there weren’t predators in the room with him.