Race to Refuge

Chapter Eleven: Ty

The store looked deserted, but that's the way I always remembered it being. Dad always used to mutter, asking how Bo could stay in business when it was so quiet here. The big thing I remembered from the store was Bo's fondness for country music—the cornier and peppier the better. He'd blast it so loud that I wondered the man was going deaf. Sure enough, as I stepped through the door of the store, the country music was playing away.

One thing I'd worried about was that looters might have come to the store and wiped it out before I'd gotten here. But apparently I shouldn't have worried because the stores were still stocked. This was a place where you could find almost anything—from live bait, to baby chicks, to to old-fashioned candy and soft drinks. The wooden floor sagged and I bet it creaked. That is, if I could have heard the creaking over the country music.

Now all I needed to do was somehow convince Bo that I needed a bunch of stuff from his store. Maybe if I told him that he could put it on credit to Dad? But there was something in me that made me hesitate to call out for him. Where was he? Could he hear the bell ring when I walked through the door? Or was the music really that loud?

"Bo?" I called out softly. As I walked and looked around, I felt a tingle up my spine. "Bo?" I reached over and took a baseball ball out of a rack on a shelf. Just in case.

There he was. Directly ahead of me. Leering at me with blank eyes from around a clothes rack. Name on his shirt. Spattered with blood.

He charged me and I swung the bat blindly in front of me. I took a deep breath, focused, and then poised the bat again as I backed toward the door. Bo advanced, moaning softly, stumbling toward me, undeterred by the baseball bat.

That was how the next few minutes went. In slow motion I walked backward to the door, brandishing the bat ahead of me and watching Bo as he kept advancing. When I got outside, I heard the car door open. My eyes still trained on the store owner, I said urgently, "Ginny, stay where you are."

"No, Ty," her voice pleaded with me.

I made my voice as calm and reasonable as I could. I noticed that the zombie in front of me didn't seem to be listening to our conversation at all. Its eyes were trained on me as its mouth worked open and closed. "Ginny, it's okay. He doesn't understand us. Listen, I'm going to lead him away from the store. He's not very fast. I'll head over to the far end of that field and then run back to the store. I'll go in through the front door and lock it behind me. Do you think you can drive the car around to the back of the store? Wherever the back door is."

Ginny's voice shook. "I don't know. I can try."

I backed slowly down the stairs, glancing behind me with each stair I took. "Remember the car is still turned on. So you need to grab the gear stick and move it to D for drive and then push real lightly on the accelerator and barely turn the steering wheel. The brake is next to the accelerator. When you're done, you need to move the gear stick back to P for park."

I knew Ginny would be frantically trying to remember it all. "Okay, Ty." There was a tremor to her voice, but she sounded determined, too.

I eased away from the staircase and backed toward the large field with Bo stumbling toward me. "Tell you what, why not get started now while I'm here. First, close that car door and crack the window just enough so you can hear me over the motor."

Ginny gently shut the car door so as not to attract attention to herself. Bo still eyed me hungrily. She rolled the window down a little ways and I slowly walked her through putting the car in gear with her foot on the brake (that part was important and I'd forgotten to tell her the first time). I sagged with relief as Ginny eased the car forward.