Race to Refuge

Chapter Five: Ty

After I threw the camping stuff in the van along with batteries, I felt like I was seriously running on borrowed time. I searched a couple of minutes for a gas can. I did play zombie video games and I knew the kind of problems I could run into. Like no gasoline. Or nothing to put gasoline in when you were lucky enough to find some. I discovered a spider web covered plastic red container in a corner of the garage and picked it up. It had what was probably a splash or two of gas in it, but at least I had a gas can. I put it in the back, too.

The zombies were still scratching and moaning outside the garage door. When I realized that these zombies could possibly be my parents, I thought my legs might fall from under me. Then I got it together. My parents were gone. Even if those things were my parents, it wasn't the same. What I needed to do was get past them and get Ginny from the school before zombies attacked there.

I ran inside one more time to get my wallet. I had a feeling I didn't need it anymore, that we were heading in a direction where driver's permits and cash wouldn't get us too far. But I'd just gotten my permit. I'd only, in fact, driven by myself twice. It wasn't going to be the smoothest ride for Ginny, but it was going to serve its purpose.

I locked the door leading into the house—just in case someday I wanted to come back home. I didn't want it overrun with zombies. I got in the car. I started it up. I locked the doors. I...yes, I put my seatbelt on. Then I took a deep breath and I hit the garage door opener.

It was an instant attack. Four or five of the things, a couple of them who used to be related to me, ran at the minivan. They put their bloody faces right up to the glass, scratching the panes with their fingers. And I put the car in reverse and backed up just as fast as I could, running over one or two of them as I did.

I drove off, wondering if that was going to be the last time I saw the house I grew up in. If the last sight of it was going to be my parents, arms reaching out for me hungrily.

I put it behind me. The next step was to get to Ginny's middle school. And since there were police cars, ambulances and fire trucks whizzing by me, I figured the roads weren't going to be too easy to drive. I pushed the accelerator, forgetting how sensitive it was. I zoomed past, almost into, a woman who stared at me as if I were a zombie myself. Hadn't she ever seen a fifteen year old behind the wheel?

I fiddled with the radio to see if the news was picking up any stories about the zombies. The last thing I needed was for the middle school to go on lockdown. I could barely hear the radio over the sirens, so I turned the volume way up. "...some reports of a virus of some kind that may be spreading rapidly. It's been suggested by a law enforcement spokesman that it could be related to rabies."

Not. They only thought it was rabies because they couldn't think of anything else that might make people attack and bite other people. Anybody could see it wasn't rabies. Nobody was foaming at the mouth. And people got sick right after being infected—not like rabies, where it took a while.

I get to the middle school and pull right up to the front of the building, I fumble in the glove compartment for the notepad and pen that Mom always kept in there. I was still shaking so it took three tries for me to write: Please release Ginny Parsons to her brother for an orthodontist appointment. Thanks, Shelia. I hop out of the van, and run up to the school, clutching the note.

I took a deep breath, pushed my hair out of my eyes, and tried to look older. Old enough to be driving solo, old enough and responsible enough to have my sister released to my care. When you're fifteen, this isn't easy.