Race to Refuge (7 page)

This sporting goods store was called Outbound Outfitter. And it was something to see. It was a kind of mecca for outdoorsmen. The whole design of the place was to attract attention to itself. It had the world’s biggest fishing rod on one part of its roof, a fake boat on another part of its roof. It was on the top of a huge hill next to the interstate so that you couldn’t miss it driving by. I can bet that any husband on his way to a family wedding, reunion, or something else was probably begging his wife to take the exit just like a kid wanting to go to Disney World. But silly as it looked, it was chock-full of guns, ammunition, and camping equipment.

At least, it
had
been. Right now it looked as if a few guys had the same brainstorm I had. There were definitely cars and trucks there, and some of them looked like they were already loaded to the gills with merchandise from the store. The only thing I was unsure about now was if we were in looting mode or legitimate purchasing mode. Then I saw a guy rushing out with his arms full of ammunition. He was wearing a forest green Outbound Outfitter golf shirt. Yep. Looting mode. Especially if we’d gotten to the point where employees themselves were doing the looting.

I cut the engine and was about to tell Mojo to stay with the bike when I realized that nobody was probably going to say a word to me about a German shepherd coming into the store. So when Mojo’s eyes pleaded with me to take him in, I did. When I whistled for him to come, he joyfully bounded off the bike, grinning his dog grin, and ran into the store with me.

The first thing I needed was one of those huge duffel bags that you can either carry or wear on your back. The kind the military uses … like a 30x50. That way I could cram as much stuff into it as possible, heft it onto my back, and hopefully still be able to handle the bag and the dog on the motorcycle until we could get to a spot where I could stash everything.

There were probably half a dozen guys in there, flinging stuff in boxes. I was hoping they weren’t being real organized with it so there would be something left for me. There weren’t many guys, but the ones that were there looked like they were serious stockpilers. The store was huge with a hardwood floor and vaulted ceilings that were supposed to make you feel you were in some kind of lodge. It had a ton of equipment and carried equipment for fishing, hunting, boating, and camping with ATVs and even tractors thrown in to boot. Mojo trotted after me as I hurried over to where I knew backpacks and duffel bags were. The large duffel bags were still in stock, I saw with relief. When you don’t have a Plan B, it’s good to see that Plan A will work.

I wasn’t going to randomly throw stuff in my bag like the other guys in there. I hurried over to the water purification equipment first. That’s when I realized the men in the building with me were not thinking things through. That’s because
all
of the stocked water purification equipment was on the shelf. There were iodine tablets, personal water filters, water bottles fitted with filters, and even some very expensive water filtration systems that looked longer-term. I quickly started sticking them in the bag.

A minute later, one of the other “customers” came to his senses. At least, that was my interpretation of the unexpected shove in the middle of my back. “I’ll take one of those,” he said in an ominous voice. Mojo’s fur stood up on his neck again and he made a low growl that best showed off his impressive collection of extremely sharp teeth. I could see that Mojo was giving the guy second thoughts about roughing me up, although it was an indication of how desperate he was that he didn’t immediately back away. Considering that he was well over six feet tall and looked like he worked out every day, I generously decided to let him grab the last one on the shelf. I moved away, hoping he wouldn’t demand to look in my bag. He didn’t. I guess he figured that the other men had pilfered the rest of the equipment.

Mojo and I moved through the rest of the store, picking up the most important stuff in this first go-round. After the water purification, I went for the first aid kits before I ended up at the hunting section of the store where all the firearms were stored. Unfortunately, this had been one of the first things that the men in the store had thought about … weapons. And, don’t get me wrong, weapons are very important in a zombie outbreak. But you can’t drink weapons, eat weapons, or bandage yourself with them.

Luckily, the other men in the store had again proved their lack of foresight. They’d decided to swipe the biggest firearms the store carried. I guess that was just their gut reaction: those creatures are scary and I need a big gun. They were going for shotguns and all I really wanted was a .22 and a box of 500 rounds of ammo. It wouldn’t be too big to carry, wouldn’t recoil much, and wouldn’t be very loud. I suspected lots of noise might attack the zombies, and I didn’t want anything that was going to make too much racket. I picked up a crossbow and stuck it on my back under the duffel bag. A sharp knife also went into my bag. No one was interested in the ski section at all, which I thought was a mistake. The ski goggles could come in handy if you were trying to avoid getting zombie bits in your eyes. I also picked up a lot of rope, a compass, a mess kit, a folding shovel, a pouch-style water container, a tent, a tarp, a poncho, emergency blankets, hand-crank flashlights, a pair of binoculars, and flint to make fires with. And duct tape. Here, the guys in the store probably just went on autopilot when they headed for the duct tape because there were only two rolls on the shelf. That’s automatically what you get in almost any crisis: lots and lots of duct tape. Even if you can’t immediately think of a reason for it.

The camping section had MRE type foods in pouches. I stuffed my bag with as many as I could. They were light to carry and I wouldn’t have to worry about cooking them. And the meals were good for forever. I wasn’t sure if they
ever
really went bad.

Finally, I headed for the fishing section of the store and got one of those really tacky looking fisherman vests with all the pockets and put it on. I figured I could use as many pockets as possible and being a fashion plate wasn’t going to help me survive. I took some of the smaller things out of the duffel and stuck them in the pockets.

I whistled to Mojo and we jogged for the door. Like I said, I had every intention of returning for round two of looting the outdoors store, but as Mojo and I were trying to get out, a crowd of people forced their way in, pushing each other, eyes wide. They weren’t going to be happy to discover there wasn’t much stuff left on the shelves and I didn’t want to be one of the people holding supplies when they figured it out.

Since the two huge front doors were jammed with people trying to force themselves in, I headed for a smaller, emergency exit on the side of the building and Mojo and I slipped right out. But now that we were in the parking lot there was another problem. Some guy was hovering over my bike, messing with the engine. Trying to hot-wire it and take it for himself.

I wasn’t going to moralize. I just looted a store, right? But I wasn’t going to meekly give up that bike to some middle-aged guy trying to hot-wire the thing, either. “Mojo,” I said softly. “Get him.”

Mojo was a sweet dog. He was the kind of dog that would lie on his back for a tummy-rub from strangers in the street … at least, strangers that I was speaking kindly to. But let’s face it—he’d had a stressful day. Mojo was only too happy to hear a command to rough someone up a little. He launched himself, snarling and snapping and looking like a holy terror, at the middle-aged guy with the bald head and the full beard. The guy, of course, had no idea that snarling and snapping was as far as Mojo was likely prepared to go in terms of an attack. He jumped away from that bike as if he’d been shocked, hands up in the air like he was trying to persuade the cops not to shoot.

Not much in the mood for conversation, I just got on the bike with Mojo, balancing the huge duffel on my back. Then we took off to find a quiet place to bed down. Because, as of that moment, I was officially exhausted.

Chapter Ten

Mallory

The funny thing is that, back at the apartment I never really was a great sleeper. I’d try different things, like going to bed earlier and setting my alarm to wake up early. And going to bed late and sleeping later in the morning. Exercise in the morning. Exercise at night. Fast at night. Eat at night. No matter what, I spent restless nights staring at the clock and feeling like the only person in the city who was still awake.

But at that makeshift campsite that Joshua set up, I slept like the dead. Maybe it was because the dead had been chasing me all day long, but I slept harder than I remember having slept for ages. You’d think I’d have had horrible nightmares. But, despite the situation and what really was a pretty grim outlook, I felt safe.

When I woke up, Joshua had already gotten up. His white hair stood around his head like a halo in the gentle breeze. He’d even made a small fire, waving the smoke away with a book as it burned—I guess so that it wouldn’t alert anyone, living or dead, to our presence. Over the fire he’d taken some of the bread from the car and the ready-to-eat bacon I’d thrown in and made toast and bacon.

He spotted me coming out of the tent and gave me an apologetic smile. “I would have trapped something, but it sounded like you weren’t really at the point where you were ready to eat fresh meat yet.”

I nodded wryly at him. “That day will, unfortunately, probably come. But for right now, eating out of the car is all right with me. Thanks, Joshua.”

We ate in a companionable silence, the sounds of the woods making a peaceful background noise for us. Finally, I said, “Joshua, this is none of my business and you can remind me of that.” I hesitated. “It’s just that—well, I was wondering—it’s just that you seem so organized and knowledgeable.”

Joshua gave me an understanding smile. “You mean, how did I end up being homeless? It’s okay, don’t worry. Your question is only natural. And it’s one that I’ve asked myself many times. If I’m knowledgeable, as you say, it’s because I’ve really honed my survival skills as a homeless person. But how did I
end up
this way? It all really comes down to one single thing: bad decisions. That must be hard for you to understand, since you seem to be a very professional person who probably doesn’t have much experience with poor decisions.”

I shook my head. “On the contrary, I made a really bad decision less than a year ago. I got in a toxic relationship with someone—a relationship that was bad for me in every way. Everyone could see it but me. Somehow I either
couldn’t
see it, or just couldn’t own up to the fact that I’d made a mistake.”

“Stubborn?” asked Joshua.

“And how.”

“That’s something we both have in common, then,” said Joshua, carefully cleaning up the napkins and the paper plates that we’d used and putting them in a makeshift trash bag. “I’m exactly the same way. And, like you, I made bad relationship decisions. I also made bad decisions in every other aspect of my life, too. I wasn’t a good father. I couldn’t stop drinking, even though it kept me from holding down a job or being a good husband or parent. Plus, I stubbornly refused to seek help or even acknowledge there was a problem to begin with.”

I sighed. “If I’d only paid attention sooner and realized that I wasn’t in a healthy relationship.”

Joshua said kindly, “But the big difference between us is that you didn’t allow your bad decision to continue impacting your life. You said that it was less than a year ago. In my case, my bad decisions compounded and impacted my life and my family’s lives for decades.”

“But you seem well now,” I probed.

“Lack of funds can definitely help contribute to sobriety,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I think you need to pat yourself on the back for having the strength to get out of your situation instead of beating yourself up about it.”

He finished putting the small fire out as I enjoyed its remaining warmth. Suddenly I was reluctant to leave this basic campsite. The unknown out there seemed very … unknown. “I don’t suppose we could just stay here for a while?” I asked. I reddened after I asked, feeling a little silly. “I mean, it seems really quiet here and peaceful. Safe somehow.”

Joshua said softly, “But your friends are waiting for you, aren’t they? Won’t they worry if you don’t show up soon?”

They would. They definitely would. But after the terror of yesterday, seeing people who had started out as innocent victims themselves turn into vicious killers, I hung back.

“I understand why you’d want to stay here. There is water nearby. And there are animals we could trap. Plus, it’s very quiet,” said Joshua.

I nodded. So where was the downside?

“The only problem here is that we’re totally exposed,” he continued. “There isn’t any type of shed or abandoned building that we can stay in for protection. And the water supply, although it’s decent, may not always last if we don’t get regular rainfall.”

“It’s just a temporary solution, then,” I said, disappointed.

“It would be better if we had land we could farm, too. Eating a diet of game meat would probably get old after a while,” he said, eyes twinkling. “It’s very shady here and the soil is rocky. It’s not a great place to farm.”

I took a deep breath. “I guess we should head for Annie’s and Jim’s place. That was probably the best plan all along. I know they keep a garden there. And it’s still very remote. I think they even have a well or something.”

Joshua’s face grew serious. “One thing that we do need to take care of is getting gasoline. I noticed that you weren’t exactly sitting at a full tank.”

I suddenly wished I could just go lie back down again. My head was throbbing. “Right, it’s only got about a quarter of a tank. And the car drinks gas down pretty fast. There’s no way that’s going to last until we get to their house.” Then I remembered something else. “I don’t even
exactly
know where I’m going. I know the general direction, but we’re probably going to have to hunt around for the house a little while, since it’s been about a year since I’ve been there. I meant to use my GPS to get an exact location, but I got distracted.”