Race to Refuge

Chapter Twenty-Six: Ty

I felt better about life for the first time in days. After we left Crofton, even though I hated leaving Nana behind, I knew where we were heading. I knew Ginny was, most likely all right. And I felt good about where we were traveling. Ginny was usually a good judge of character, and she liked this Mallory lady. For the first time in a while, I felt pretty optimistic.

We drove overnight, although we did have to stop for gas. Then we stopped again at another small town that looked deserted, but had a local grocery store. The ground was flat and there weren't many buildings, so we felt safe going in and getting more supplies. At this point, we had so much stuff in the truck that we even put some things in the front seat next to Mojo.

Charlie motioned to me that he wanted to pull over. It was dawn by this point. When I pulled over, I saw he was tinkering with his phone. I rolled my window down. "Do we still have a connection?" I asked.

He shrugged, looking down at the device. "It comes and goes. I'm just trying to get GPS to come up for long enough to get a lock on my location and that address your sister gave you. Just so I can jot it down real quick."

We waited another couple of minutes while Charlie fussed at the phone and gave long sighs. Then he lit up. "Finally!" He swiped at his phone a few times to get the turn by turn instructions while writing them down. "Okay, it doesn't look far. And there aren't enough roads for us to really get lost."

I gave him a thumbs-up and he grinned at me and started the bike back up. Mojo, who always got restless when we were stopped, relaxed again and even took a nap on the last part of our trip.

It was daytime by the time Charlie pointed down a driveway, letting me know we'd gotten to Crepe Myrtle Lane. But I was so pumped that I wasn't even tired. The gravel driveway curved through the woods and up to a log cabin with solar panels on the roof, and a full garden. I started to smile. Plus, the thought of actually being back in a bed again sounded pretty good.

Charlie was already off his bike and I was opening the car door when the sound of a gun going off made us jump. Charlie muttered, "What's going on? I know I put the right address in."

"Maybe the lady taking care of Ginny doesn't recognize you and she's worried. Maybe it was just a warning shot," I said, although my heart sank. We'd come too far to run into trouble now. Now we weren't expecting it and that made it tougher.

Instead of sitting back down in the truck, I stepped away from it with my hands high.

"Are you crazy?" asked Charlie. "I'm thinking we need to get out of here, pronto."

I called out, being careful to be loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to draw attention from any zombies that might be in the area. "Is Mallory here? It's Ty. Ginny's brother. I'm with a friend of mine."

The front door burst open and Ginny sped toward me, tears running down her cheeks.

We didn't say anything, couldn't really say anything. We just held each other in a tight, tight hug.

Charlie reached out a hand to Ginny when we'd finally stopped hugging. "Ginny, I presume?" he asked with a grin, giving a low bow that made her giggle. "I'm Charlie."

"Nice to meet you. And that's Mallory, up there," said Ginny, motioning to the house.

Mallory was standing stiffly on the porch, still holding a .22 that was very similar to Charlie's. She said in a gruff voice, "Maybe we should make our introductions and have our reunions inside." She quickly walked in, seeming uncomfortable with the scene.