Ginny looked terrified, but I must have seemed safe enough for her to hazard getting in the car with me. I unlocked the doors and she climbed in. She was wearing denim shorts and a pink tee shirt and for the life of me I couldn't tell how old she was.
"You're safe now," I told her, sounding confident although the truth was that I wasn't sure. "You're welcome to stay with me as long as you want. I'm on my way to a safe place—a house near the North Carolina/Virginia border."
Her eyebrows drew together as she tried absorbing this.
I continued. "I have friends there and we can join them. They grow their own food and they're in a very, very quiet area so there shouldn't be too many people there. Or no people there." I was starting to drive away again.
Her expression was alarmed. "But I can't leave here. Not for good. I've lost my brother and I've got to find him."
I'd been wondering what a small girl like Ginny had been doing out on her own. It sounded like she hadn't really been on her own at all. "Your brother? Is he in the area?" I parked the car in a hurry on the side of the road because it looked like Ginny was going to jump out of the car if I didn't stop moving.
"He's Ty. He's fifteen. He rescued me from my middle school and had loaded a van full of our stuff." Her voice started getting choked up, so I gave her a minute.
"What kinds of things did he have in the van?" I asked, trying to let her regain her composure on the easy questions.
"Stuff to make water safe. Food. Weapons. We were in good shape. But he had to go use the restroom, so he went into the woods and told me to just stay put. Then these zombies came up and they were chasing Ty farther into the woods. He was yelling back at me to stay put."
I nodded, looking down at my hands, which were folded in my lap. I didn't want her to see the truth in my eyes. The truth that her brother probably hadn't made it. That we really, really needed to get out of this area, especially if there were zombies close by. But I was going to let her tell her story first, before I started persuading her to leave with me.
"So you were alone in the van?" I asked. "Stuck, right? Did you ... did you leave the van to run away? Is it around here somewhere?"
Ginny shook her head. "I wasn't really stuck because Ty showed me how to drive. Not great driving, but enough to be able to get away if I needed to." She stared out the car window at the woods as if Ty were going to show up at any second.
I said gently, "He sounds like an awesome big brother. What happened to the van, then? Did you drive off with it? Did it maybe ... well, did it get wrecked?" Because if I'd been trying to drive a car at her age, I'd have wrecked, for sure.
"No. I waited, instead. The zombies were after Ty, they weren't after me. So I was sitting in the passenger seat with the doors locked and staring at the woods. Really scared. Then on the other side of the car, there was a knock on the window. Men were standing there and they had guns." She swallowed hard.
Now I wasn't really sure if I wanted to hear the rest of this story. This little girl was precious. I fervently hoped no harm had come to her. "Did they see you?"
"They did." She took a deep breath. "They told me to unlock the doors and open them and I did. Then they argued over me. One of the men kept grinning at me and he wanted to bring me with them." She shivered.
"But the others didn't?"
"The one who did want me was the man who got behind the wheel and started driving off down the road. So I'm not real close to where Ty and I were. One of the men didn't really care either way whether I was with them, but the third man was like the leader of the group or something. He didn't want me to come along because it was going to make more work or trouble for them. I was so glad when they just told me to get out of the van. Then they left. With all our stuff. The van, the food, the water, everything." A lone tear trickled down Ginny's face and she didn't bother to brush it away.
"So they're gone. Like, long gone, right?" I asked. I didn't like our chances against a group of armed men. Again, I felt that urge to start driving away with Ginny as fast as I could to the border with Virginia.
Ginny shrugged. "I guess so. They stopped and let me out and then took off. They were leaving pretty fast. There was a ...Mom had left a CD in the van. It was ABBA. They had the windows down and they were playing the music as loud as they could and whooping and hollering." Her face was more stoic now, even though I saw another tear join the first one.
"Your Mom and Dad. They ... you were separated from them?"
"My brother said they didn't make it." She looked gravely at me.
"And your brother ... Ty ... he didn't come back?"
"He's still in the woods," said Ginny in a matter-of-fact voice.
I really wasn't wild about hunting in the woods for Ginny's brother. In all likelihood, he had suffered the same fate as Ginny's parents. That meant, if we did find him, we'd be running away from him at top speed. And how devastating would that be for the poor girl? But I wasn't sure I was going to be able to persuade her to leave. And there was no way I was going to leave this child here. I felt an instant pull toward her, an instant connection.
"How about this?" I asked, slowly. "How about if we call for Ty for a few minutes and satisfy ourselves that he's not close by? Then ... well, where were y'all heading? Was there somewhere Ty was trying to get to? Because maybe he found a ride, too."
I could tell Ginny felt really torn. "I just don't want to leave him here. He came and got me from school and everything. But I guess we could go to Nana's. That's where we were heading. Maybe that would be the best place to meet up."
I listened carefully to her as she was working through it. Then I nodded thoughtfully. "I think you're right. The woods go on for miles and miles and you said Ty was being chased pretty far in. Then you were driven away from where you started out. So we could search and search and miss him. He sounds like a very smart kid. And a resourceful one. He would think to try to meet up with you at your Nana's house." If he was in full possession of his mind, that is.
"It's not really a house: it's a retirement home," she said. She was quiet for a few minutes and I didn't speak either.
Finally she said, "I want to look for him for a few minutes at least. I can't just drive away. Can we just walk through the woods for a little while?"
"Of course we can," I said, stifling a sigh. "But we can't be too loud. I think these zombies are attracted to noise. So let's look. And maybe we can call him really quietly. And if we see a zombie, run as fast as we can."
I pulled the car off the road. Actually, I was able to pull it into the woods pretty far, despite the tree cover. If there were bands of men roaming around and stealing cars and supplies, I didn't want to be the next victim.
We set off into the woods. Ginny's face was hopeful and apprehensive. I wasn't looking forward to the moment when her hopeful attitude was completely dashed. She walked slightly ahead of me, head turning from side to side as she searched for her brother. I took up the rear and was looking for any lurching figures that weren't her brother. Occasionally, we'd stop and she'd call out softly.
We saw no one and nothing until about thirty minutes into our walk. The sun was going down and I was started to feel uneasy. That's when a ramshackle shack came into view. It had what looked to be a galvanized metal roof with tattered curtains hanging in the window.
Ginny was staring at the shack as though it were a castle. "This is the kind of place that Ty might try to hole up in," she said, breathless from our hurried walk through the woods.
I wasn't so sure. This was a guy who had pilfered a lot of camping equipment and then headed into the woods. I was thinking that the great outdoors wasn't really a problem for him. And the shack looked ominous somehow. Like a cottage in the woods in a fairy tale. You always knew something bad was going to happen in those cottages. A witch was going to try to put you in an oven or a wolf was going to imitate your grandmother and try to gobble you up.
I was still staring at the cottage through the dim light and sizing it up when Ginny gasped and grabbed my arm. A zombie stood not even thirty yards away from us at the edge of the woods. She was an older woman in a long floral dress that had seen better days and her gray hair hung wildly around her face. She had a slack mouth and her eyes were staring at us with hungry determination.
"Come on, Ginny, let's go," I said forcefully.
But Ginny seemed somehow frozen in her tracks. I pulled at her arm. She was a small girl, but she was too heavy by far for me to pick up and run through the woods with.
"Ginny!" I urged, loudly now.
The disheveled zombie lurched toward us, reaching out an arm for Ginny. I grabbed Ginny around her waist, yanking her violently and then pushed her in front of me until she stumbled forward. Not fast enough, I knew.
That's when a shot rang out. I automatically ducked my head and so did Ginny, even in the state she was in. The report was authoritative and ringing and I turned fearfully to see the zombie woman was on the ground, no longer moving and eyes staring blankly at the darkening sky.
"Ginny, it's dead," I said. Not that it had really been alive before. "Come on, let's go." Because there was someone with a gun out there and I wasn't sure if we were going to be the next targets.
Ginny whispered, "Maybe the shooter has seen Ty. Can we ask him?"
I really wanted nothing to do with the gunman, whoever he was. I wasn't even sure I knew where the shot had come from. I scanned the area until I spotted the gun poking through a barely cracked window in the shack.
I called out, "Thank you!" toward the gun.
There was no response. The whole thing was making me jittery—the body on the ground, the attack, the gun, the creepy shack in the middle of the woods. The fact that it was now getting very dark. I was ready to leave.
But Ginny called out this time, "Have you seen my brother? He's a teenage boy. He was the one taking care of me."
The gun was pulled out of the window. Then there was a pause before a gruff voice said, "No. Go away."
"You heard the man," I said. I started moving away.
Ginny didn't follow. Instead, she moved closer to the shack. She looked like someone who had finally hit some sort of an emotional wall. "Can you help us?"
"Already did help you," came the voice.
"I'm very thirsty from the hike. Do you have any water?" asked Ginny.
Although I'd brought some water along for both of us, the day was warm enough that, in retrospect, it wasn't nearly enough.
There was another pause from inside the shack. Then the gritty voice came again, sounding a little less forceful and more difficult to make out. "Go away."
"Please," said Ginny firmly. "You know you want to help."
It was almost as if Ginny needed her faith in humanity restored. She needed to find a good person after having seen infection destroy humanity and seeing the worst side of humanity when she'd been hijacked.
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.
"Race to Refuge" under pen name Liz Craig is available now on Amazon (at http://amzn.to/1SCKnHa ) , Nook, Kobo, CreateSpace, and other major retailers. All of my books are also available at Amazon India at https://tinyurl.com/ohdbffq . I'll post a chapter each week, but if you can't wait, please visit one of the listed retailers for the completed book. Follow me on Twitter (elizabethscraig), sign up for my newsletter for a free ebook at http://eepurl.com/kCy5j , or visit my website at Elizabethspanncraig.com for more information. Hope you'll enjoy the book. Please vote on the chapter if you enjoy it.