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."
"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.