Race to Refuge

Chapter Fourteen: Ty

"Hey, it's okay," I said. Lying to her, as usual. Things were pretty far from okay. "It's morning, but you can keep sleeping. I just needed to let you know I was going into the woods for a bathroom run."

Ginny's brow crinkled. "Okay. I need to go, too. But I hate going in the woods."

"Not many restrooms around here, Ginny." I shrugged.

"No, I don't mean that. I just mean that it's kind of ... it's scary in the woods." She said the words with hesitation, like she thought I might laugh at her. But I was far from finding anything humorous right now.

"Tell you what. When I come back, I'll just hang out on the edge of the woods in earshot and you can go, okay?"

She nodded, eyes drooping again sleepily.

"Maybe you can even go back to sleep while I'm driving to Nana's," I said lightly.

Ginny smiled at the mention of Nana. "She always has treats for us. Peppermints. And she makes that great pound cake. Do you think she can cook for us? It's been a long time since we've visited."

I was just hoping she hadn't been run out of the place. That she was still there. That I could offload some of this huge responsibility I had to an adult who was related to us. "Sure. You know how much Nana loves cooking for us. And she has a kitchenette on her hall." And she might even have total run of the big kitchen, too, depending on whether the staff deserted them or stayed.

I headed off into the woods after making sure that Ginny had locked the van doors after us. Now that it was daylight, the van was a lot more visible than it had been at night and I was ready to get out of there.

I hadn't gone far into the woods when I heard a soft groaning approaching behind me. My breath caught and I whipped my head around. It was a group of zombies. In fact, it looked like an entire family. A dad in a denim button-down shirt, a mom wearing a cheerful floral dress. Even a little girl in a Disney shirt and a toddler boy wearing overalls. Their eyes were hollow as they gaped at me.

I started backing off. They were slow, I reminded myself. Much slower than I was. But the woods were full of obstacles and I was outnumbered four to one.

The dad clumsily made a swiping motion at me and I scurried back a little. "Ginny!" I called out loudly. "Drive away!" There was no answer and I wasn't sure she could hear me. Had she gone back to sleep?

My heart sank as I heard a rustling behind me. I turned to see another zombie staring at me. That's when I jogged away, heading deeper into the woods. They grunted and jogged awkwardly after me, a good deal faster than Bo had been, but not as fast as me. I stumbled over a root but caught myself before I fell.

I couldn't seem to shake them. They didn't tire. They just blindly headed for me, loping behind me, training hollow eyes on me the whole time. The scariest thing was that they looked so harmless if you didn't see their faces. And that they were so hard to shake off.

I finally stopped panicking and started thinking. It took a while and I was pretty far into the woods at this point. They weren't fast. They were really awkward and hardly sure-footed. I spotted a steep, rocky hill covered with roots. I took a deep breath and sprinted up it and then down the other side. Sure enough, I could hear them muttering and groaning to themselves as they tripped over themselves and the hill. I didn't wait around. I ran as hard and as fast as I could back in the direction of the van. I was so glad I'd left the keys with Ginny. Maybe she drove away. Or maybe I diverted all of the zombies in the area away from her.

My lungs felt as if they were bursting. Running in unfamiliar terrain wasn't easy and I winced as my ankle turned going over a root. But I kept going, heading straight for the direction that I knew the van had to be in.