Race to Refuge (13 page)

Next I would need to recover as much of my stuff as possible from the parking lot and throw it into the “new” car while eluding zombies.

Maybe I needed to check and see if the mini-bar in my room was stocked.

My entire plan both scared me to death and made me very determined and focused. I did have a tiny bit of beer (because who knew the next time a cold beer might come my way?) from the mini-bar while I took a hot bath and got completely clean for the first time in days.

Then I headed downstairs to check out the ‘complimentary breakfast’ area. Usually it would just have cereal boxes, milk, eggs, sausages, oatmeal packets, coffee, and things like that. It looked like the looters had eaten up a good amount of the breakfast foods that had been put out by the staff so I went down a short hall to see if I could find a pantry or a storage area where the hotel kept its food. Bingo. And it looked like the looters hadn’t made it that far. They’d probably been too busy trying to find rooms to break into.

The hotel front door wasn’t secured and, upon quick inspection, didn’t seem to really be able to
be
easily secured. I guess that made sense, since when the business was operating normally, people likely would have been coming and going at all hours. But it didn’t make me feel safe. I pulled out a clean, clear garbage bag from a box in the storage room and put as many items as I could in it. Making sure the coast was clear, I took the bag up to “my room,” which I’d been careful to leave unlocked so that I could get back in if I needed to. I was so paranoid by this time that I even checked around the hotel room and bathroom to make sure there were no looters, no zombies, or just anything I didn’t know about in there before carefully bolting the door behind me. Being on the run like this must have done something to my mind.

I sat down at the desk in the room and started opening cereal boxes. I ended up eating a lot more food than I thought I would. I hadn’t even realized I was hungry before I started eating. I didn’t even want to think about how much sugar I was downing as I kept going through cereal boxes. Ordinarily, my diet would have been something I spent more time considering. Right now, I was just glad to have something to eat that I didn’t have to catch or grow myself. Because, if Joshua was right, that was going to be the next step.

After I finished, I stood up from the desk and pushed the curtains very gently aside to peer out. A quick check satisfied me that, as of right this second, there were no zombies wandering around near my car. My caution with the curtains made me wonder again if I was starting to lose it. I knew that these zombies were probably not staking out the hotel and looking for movement inside, but…maybe they were. I didn’t know anything at all about these things and I wasn’t sure where I could find any source of information. I remembered that an area downstairs near the lobby did have a couple of computers for travelers to check their email. I wondered if I felt brave enough to sit down there with my back to the room and try to find news stories on this epidemic.

There was always my computer, but I was guessing that was probably one of the things the looters flung from my car. I squinted across the parking lot. There was something black peeking out from underneath a quilt my grandmother made in a parking space next to my car. I had a feeling it was my laptop. And laptops didn’t do so well when they were flung onto asphalt.

Belatedly, I remembered my phone. Maybe I could find out some information by pulling up a news site. When I fished it out of my purse, though, I saw it was completely dead. That’s when discouragement set in. It was bad enough being alone. It was even worse being alone with no information about a frightening epidemic. Were there safe places to go? How widespread was the problem? Could I book a plane to Canada? Would they even let me in, or were they protecting their borders? Was Annie okay? Did I even have a shot at making it to their haven in the middle of nowhere? Were there zombies in the middle of nowhere?

Then I had a brainstorm. Surely there were chargers in some of these rooms. Right? Or maybe even at the front desk. I could take a charger, charge up my phone while sitting in a locked room, and check the news before … well—basically before stealing a car and trying to leave with at least some of my stuff.

I picked up my garbage bag of food, unlocked my door, and poked my head out. I saw no one and heard nothing from any of the rooms. I figured this probably wasn’t the best hall to find a charger on—the whole reason I’d chosen it, after all, was because it looked like no one had really been staying here. I headed down the staircase and back down to the second floor, peeking out the door to look down the hall. Again, I heard nothing and saw nothing. The eeriness of the empty hotel was scary in itself. I felt as if I were in a ghost town.

The first room that was open and had been inhabited by a guest didn’t have the right kind of charger for my phone. It took me a while to even find the charger because the looters had flipped the suitcase and I’d had to dig through the contents.

The second room had a charger plugged in. The charger had tape on it, as if the cord had some kind of a short. I figured beggars couldn’t be choosers. It looked too fragile to be able to successfully moved so I decided to do my charging in this room. I locked the door and used the chain, just to be on the safe side. I carefully put my phone on the charger, making sure it was charging before walking away from it.

The view was different from this window and I froze as I looked out—zombies. The perspective showed me a different section of the parking lot and gave me the opportunity to see it a lot closer, too, since I was on the second floor. I spotted the hotel employees in their uniforms right away. Now I also saw the looters—they were zombies themselves. I shivered. There were also about ten other zombies, wearing regular clothes, that I didn’t recognize. They must be guests. Maybe one of them even owned the broken charger I was using for my phone.

They were milling around, pacing back and forth in the parking lot. They didn’t seem interested in coming into the hotel. Maybe they realized on some level that they’d already cleared it of guests … one way or another. I hoped that some of the hotel guests had been able to get away. They must be looking for victims because they appeared to be scanning the parking lot, lurching forward and back as they went. I studied them. Some were in better shape than others. Some I’d have to look twice to even notice that they weren’t normal people. Aside from the fact that they were hanging out with a gang of zombies, there wasn’t too much about them to set them apart. A vacant expression in their eyes. A slack mouth. That was about it.

I watched them for about an hour as my phone charged. They were moving as a group and I was relieved when they slowly started heading down the road a little. Maybe they had given up on the hotel as a source of food.

I checked my phone. If the zombies were walking away, I wanted to take advantage of it. My phone was mostly charged. Quickly I pulled up CNN. The site was obviously overloaded, or else the connection here at the hotel was really bad. It was taking forever to load. Finally I gave up and pulled up a local news website to see if it would load any faster and was relieved when it popped up after just a short delay. The stories looked as if they’d been written on the fly, with no eye for editing at all. I skipped over the typos and the formatting and skimmed the text. My heart sank. It wasn’t just here. It wasn’t just the east coast. It looked as if it were spreading all over the United States and there were even early reports of the epidemic spreading into Mexico and Canada. It was going to go worldwide. There was probably nowhere safe to go.

The site also mentioned some shelters that were available and being guarded by National Guard troops and other military. Somehow, though, I just didn’t see myself going there. It was bound to be crowded. There were bound to be rationed supplies. I hated feeling trapped and was such an introvert that the idea of spending months or even years with wall to wall people wasn’t appealing.

I tried phoning Annie. No answer. I tried Jim. The same. I tried not to think what this might mean. Their phones were probably dead, just as mine had been.

I took the phone and slipped it into my pocket. A few minutes later, I picked up the garbage bag, slung it over my back, and hurried down the stairs.

I walked behind the front desk and started opening drawers. Had the hotel employees kept their keys in here? I didn’t see any on the desk and I had the feeling that the looters had likely gone through any purses that were around. I said a quick prayer that the employees didn’t have their car keys in their pockets. There was no way I’d try to get them that way.

Finally I found a box on a shelf where apparently female employees kept their purses out of sight. I rifled through and found a key fob on a chain of keys in a black leather purse. The logo on the fob was Honda. Now I just had to figure out which Honda went with the key.

I headed out around the front desk. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and stifled a gasp as I dropped out of sight behind the desk. My heart pounded. Had they seen me?

I peered out from behind the desk slowly and saw a small figure with long, brown hair walking away from me. A child…a little girl. Waves of relief coursed over me. I stood up and was about to call out to her when she turned around and stared at me—with vacant eyes and a slack mouth. And moaned.

Pity, revulsion, and fear made me shake. I grabbed my garbage bag of food, clutched my key in a suddenly-sweaty hand, and took off for the front door. No time for subterfuge now. I’d planned on carefully stealing around the parking lot, trying the key on every Honda while watching my back and listening for noises. Now I was going to have to hit the alarm button on the key fob and make a run for the car as fast as I could. I had the bad feeling that the sound of the alarm was going to attract the band of zombies to me.

Either way, it was my only choice. I hit the car alarm as soon as my feet hit the parking lot. Right now, I wasn’t going to have time to get my things. A means of escape was the most important thing. I heard the alarm coming from the back of the hotel and ran harder. It made sense that the hotel employees would park the farthest away, but it sure wasn’t helping.

I hazarded a glance behind me. The zombie girl was far behind me, but the group of former hotel employees and looters was heading my way faster. I stumbled, recovered my footing, and ran harder to the car with the blaring alarm.

I yanked the car door open, slid in, and locked the doors behind me with only about thirty seconds to spare before the zombies were at the Honda, pounding on it with the palms of their hands.

I fumbled with the keys for a moment before starting the car, putting it immediately into reverse, and pushing the accelerator hard. I felt like I was back at the apartment once more, trying to escape. Clearly, parking lots weren’t the best place to be. I sped out of the hotel parking lot, leaving the zombies stumbling after me.

But I didn’t go far this time. I drove down the road to a location just out of sight of the hotel…it was a big, empty parking lot with a boarded-up big-box store. There shouldn’t be any zombies here. I waited for about forty-five minutes there before driving slowly back to the hotel, searching for signs of the group of zombies. Seeing no one, I parked right behind the Subaru, hopped out of the car, and proceeded to throw as many of my belongings into the Honda as possible. I might have been more selective with what I kept and what I discarded this time, except I felt that there wasn’t enough time to pick and choose. I kept an eye out the whole time. When I thought I heard shuffling and moaning sounds, I stopped what I was doing, hopped back in the car, and left. Sure enough, the group was on its way toward me.

I’d had enough of the urban experience for now, I decided. The problem was that there were too many infected around. I needed to join up with Annie and Jim, safe in their getaway cabin in the middle of nowhere with the garden and the well. That was the plan. Enough deviation.

I drove out again to the rural highway to head toward the North Carolina/Virginia border. The highway was a somewhat poorly maintained two-lane road with woods bordering each side. I’d gone a few miles when I hit the brakes. There was a little girl with a blonde braid walking on the side of the road. Remembering the horror at the hotel, my hands gripped the wheel. But then she turned to look behind her and I saw the tears on her face and the frantic look in her eyes and I pulled right over.

I put the window down. “Do you need help?” I called. Of course she did. Didn’t we all?

She nodded, studying me carefully as to make sure I was someone safe. Apparently deciding that I was, she said, “Can you help me?”

I knew I wanted to. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Ginny.”

Chapter Seventeen

Ty

I gasped, flinging myself backward away from the glowing eyes. But as I pushed away from the creature, I backed into a tree that was behind me. I closed my eyes, half-sobbing, waiting for the attack.

And felt a large tongue licking my face.

I reached up with my hand and felt a furry body. A big one. I wished I had a flashlight, some way to really see. And someone must have read my mind because at that moment the moon came out from behind the clouds and shone down on a large German shepherd who was giving me dog kisses.

Relief flooded me and I put my face down in the dog’s fur and finally let the tears fall that I’d been holding back the last couple of days. It was so good not to be alone. Being so completely alone … that was what was tough to handle.

The dog must have felt alone too, because it curled itself around my back. I lay down again, this time a lot more relaxed, and fell asleep.

The first light of dawn woke me and I smiled before I even opened my eyes. I could feel the dog’s fur against me as I woke up. It sat right up when I did, grinning at me in its dog way. I spotted a collar and reached out.

“Mojo?” I asked him and he wagged his tail to confirm it. So this was someone’s pet. Had Mojo’s owner turned into a zombie? Or had he just gotten separated from him?