Race to Refuge

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.

"Race to Refuge" under pen name Liz Craig is out now on Amazon (at http://amzn.to/1SCKnHa ) , Nook, Kobo, CreateSpace, and other major retailers. 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.