Race to Refuge

Chapter Twenty: Ty

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.