Ginny smiled at the mention of Nana. “She always has treats for us. Peppermints. And she makes that great pound cake. Do you think she can cook for us? It’s been a long time since we’ve visited.”
I was just hoping she hadn’t been run out of the place. That she was still there. That I could offload some of this huge responsibility I had to an adult who was related to us. “Sure. You know how much Nana loves cooking for us. And she has a kitchenette on her hall.” And she might even have total run of the big kitchen, too, depending on whether the staff deserted them or stayed.
I headed off into the woods after making sure that Ginny had locked the van doors after us. Now that it was daylight, the van was a lot more visible than it had been at night and I was ready to get out of there.
I hadn’t gone far into the woods when I heard a soft groaning approaching behind me. My breath caught and I whipped my head around. It was a group of zombies. In fact, it looked like an entire family. A dad in a denim button-down shirt, a mom wearing a cheerful floral dress. Even a little girl in a Disney shirt and a toddler boy wearing overalls. Their eyes were hollow as they gaped at me.
I started backing off. They were slow, I reminded myself. Much slower than I was. But the woods were full of obstacles and I was outnumbered four to one.
The dad clumsily made a swiping motion at me and I scurried back a little. “Ginny!” I called out loudly. “Drive away!” There was no answer and I wasn’t sure she could hear me. Had she gone back to sleep?
My heart sank as I heard a rustling behind me. I turned to see another zombie staring at me. That’s when I jogged away, heading deeper into the woods. They grunted and jogged awkwardly after me, a good deal faster than Bo had been, but not as fast as me. I stumbled over a root but caught myself before I fell.
I couldn’t seem to shake them. They didn’t tire. They just blindly headed for me, loping behind me, training hollow eyes on me the whole time. The scariest thing was that they looked so harmless if you didn’t see their faces. And that they were so hard to shake off.
I finally stopped panicking and started thinking. It took a while and I was pretty far into the woods at this point. They weren’t fast. They
were
really awkward and hardly sure-footed. I spotted a steep, rocky hill covered with roots. I took a deep breath and sprinted up it and then down the other side. Sure enough, I could hear them muttering and groaning to themselves as they tripped over themselves and the hill. I didn’t wait around. I ran as hard and as fast as I could back in the direction of the van. I was so glad I’d left the keys with Ginny. Maybe she drove away. Or maybe I diverted all of the zombies in the area away from her.
My lungs felt as if they were bursting. Running in unfamiliar terrain wasn’t easy and I winced as my ankle turned going over a root. But I kept going, heading straight for the direction that I knew the van had to be in.
And it wasn’t there. I looked frantically around me. But this had been where it was, I was sure of it. I looked for tire tracks but it had been too dry to leave any. There was no grass in that area to tamp down. But the bushes looked like they’d been crushed down—was that from the zombie family stumbling through, or from the van?
I ran down the road, up a hill, looking for the van, peering into the woods to see if I’d just gotten the area wrong. But there was no sign of the van anywhere. I ran back the other way, craning my head, listening in the silence for the sound of the van’s engine rattling. But I saw nothing anywhere. How long had I been gone? It felt in some ways like hours, but I knew it must only have been about twenty-five or thirty minutes that I’d been chased and run back. Did Ginny run into zombies, herself? Or was I in totally the wrong spot? The woods all looked the same. There weren’t any real identifying factors. And I hadn’t exactly been looking for landmarks when I left. I’d never thought I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to the van. It has completely disappeared.
I kept going—far in one direction and then turning around and going far into the other. The light coming through the trees played tricks on me, the shadows sometimes looking like a human figure. Sometimes like a lurking zombie. But nowhere, nowhere did I see the van.
I heard gunfire not too far off and suddenly realized how exposed I was there on the road. I headed into the woods again on shaky legs. No Ginny. No van. And, while I was adding up the things I
didn’t
have, I now had to add food and water to the list.
I did have my cell phone in my pocket. It was almost out of power. Mom and Dad hadn’t let Ginny get a cell phone yet, so I couldn’t try to reach her that way. But I needed so badly right then to hear a friendly voice. I kept trudging into the woods until I found an area with lots of trees and bushes to shield me. I took out my phone, pulled up my contact list, and started dialing.
The phone rang and rang. Finally, an answering machine picked up. “Hi!” said a chirpy voice. “I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can!”
When the machine beeped I said, “Nana? Nana, it’s Ty. I don’t know if you’re okay or not. Listen, I might not have a battery on my phone for long. Mom and Dad?” I swallowed. “Nana, I’m sorry, but they’re gone. Ginny and I are okay. At least, Ginny
was
okay, but now she’s missing and I’m not in a great spot. I just wanted to let you know that she and I are going to try to reach you. So maybe look out for us? I need help. And … I love you, Nana.”
Even though I knew it wasn’t a good idea, I kept calling her machine after that. Not enough to run my phone battery down much, but just to give me a boost. I couldn’t feel lower than I did right then.
After I finally stopped calling Nana, I sat for a few minutes, trying to figure out what I should do. I decided I had a few priorities. I needed to find Ginny. I needed to find water…the running had made me super-thirsty. And third was that I needed to find some kind of weapon. Rocks, a big stick…something. Even if it wasn’t really effective against whoever or whatever my enemy was. Until then, I was going to feel really exposed and helpless and that wasn’t the way I wanted to feel.
I started walking, trying not to make much noise. I wasn’t sure how the zombies found us last time, but I wondered if sounds drew them. It would make sense. They were hunting, after all.
When I stopped panicking and finally started thinking, I stopped feeling like I was going in circles. I still hadn’t found Ginny or any sign at all of her, but I did see narrow trails where animals had traveled. Figuring there had to be some water nearby, I followed the trail until I found a shallow creek. I didn’t have any water purification equipment and I didn’t feel real good about making a fire to boil the water, either. That might attack zombies too—I didn’t want to risk it. So I just knelt down by the stream and cupped my hands and drank my fill. I might pay the price later, but for right now, that water was the best stuff I’d ever put in my mouth.
I walked the whole day. To keep from being too exposed, I’d hike through the woods and then peer out onto the road at different sections and scan the area for the van. Sometimes parts of the woods all looked the same, but I tried to make sure that I was systematically covering the area. The problem was that I wasn’t sure if Ginny had driven the van
forward
and parked, or if she’d made a turn and gone in the other direction.
I found rocks and put them in a pile in a concealed, wooded area that I thought might make a good place to bed down that night. I found a couple of heavy sticks and put them by the rocks. Simple weapons, but they made me feel better than not having anything. I even found some trash in the woods that I rinsed out in the creek and filled with water. No sign of Ginny anywhere.
When the sun started going down, my heart sank with it. Where was Ginny now? It was getting dark. Was she safe? Was she scared?
When it was totally dark, I crawled into the bushes where I’d stockpiled the homemade weapons and water and lay down. There was nothing to do but sleep. I stared at the stars through the branches, counting as many as I could see to distract myself and to try to relax enough to actually be able to sleep.
Finally, I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I woke to the sound of twigs snapping and a panting sound. My eyes flew open to see a pair of glowing eyes.
Chapter Fifteen
Charlie
It was, indeed, an entire zombie family. Although it was hard to look at them, they resembled the family that were friends of my friends and owned this land we’d hunted on. They looked extremely normal and suburban until you realized the infection had made them lose their humanity.
“Mojo!” I cried out. He was in full defense mode. He gave commanding, deep-throated barks and snapped his jaws at the air in front of them, backing off quickly as they reached for him before barking and snapping again. When I called him, he looked back at me with a pleading look in his eyes. It was a sort of:
I’ve got this, boss. You go! Go!
I didn’t pay attention to his doggy sign language. Instead I tried to get him back. That’s right: at that moment, fighting zombies seemed like a better idea than offering Mojo up to them. I aimed the gun and managed the calm precision to pick off the dad. Unconcerned by the fallen zombie, the other zombies turned their attention away from Mojo and trained it on me again. “Mojo! Run! Run!” I yelled.
He threw me a frustrated look. This wasn’t what he wanted. As the zombies lumbered toward me, he made a large loop around and then did this dodge and retreat move that was intended to herd them away from me. He snarled at them and snapped at the air in front of him with his impressive row of teeth. Somehow, although I wouldn’t have thought the zombies would be afraid of much, they seemed intimidated, backing away, hissing at the dog.
The mother zombie abruptly stumbled away and the zombie children followed. I called Mojo, but he wasn’t satisfied and continued herding them away into the black night. He apparently
would not
be satisfied until they were out of sight. Maybe even farther away than that. Who knew the dog was such a perfectionist?
Finally, he was satisfied and returned to me, panting. I poured some water from our supply (making a note to myself that I needed to filter and refill at the creek later today) into a folding bowl. He lapped it all up and then lay down beside me, still looking watchful.
Once again, I fell asleep…a testament to my exhaustion. And once again, I woke in the pitch black darkness to growling from Mojo. The difference was that this time Mojo was far away from me. He apparently had some kind of perimeter in mind that the zombies couldn’t cross. And I guess they had.
“Mojo!” I yelled, struggling to wake up. I cursed, fumbling for my gun and getting to my feet.
But Mojo was determined. I never could see him, never could see what he was guarding me against. I could only assume it was a zombie. If it wasn’t, it must have been some other night creature. Whatever it was, I could only hear Mojo’s snarling and barking as he advanced into the woods. And I felt totally helpless for the first time since this had started. Maybe I should have swiped night vision goggles because Mojo had a huge advantage in that he could
smell
the danger, but he could also
see
it in the dark. And whatever he’d seen, he was chasing after it.
I stood there, conflicted. I wasn’t sure how much help I’d be for him out in the dark. Wouldn’t he come back to our campsite? The dog was so smart, I was sure he’d be able to find it again.
So I waited. It felt like forever. What was more, it started raining just enough to give me a chill. I reached in the duffel and pulled out a windbreaker, yanking it up around my shoulders and zipping it up. A light breeze started up, which made things even cooler. There again, though, Mojo had an advantage with his fur coat. The cool rain probably felt refreshing to him.
I was wide awake now, not about to drop off to sleep. I waited for what must have been an hour. I couldn’t hear or see Mojo at all. Once I gave a piercing whistle, hoping to bring him back. When I realized what
other
creatures might be attracted by sound, I decided to hold off on any more whistling.
When dawn was just starting to make the terrain a little lighter, I put a canteen on my belt loop, took my gun, and set off to look for my dog. Even then I felt like any zombie could hear me coming a mile away as I stumbled over roots and sticks and rocks as I scanned for Mojo or signs that he’d made his way through.
And I saw and heard nothing. Apparently, I was making so much racket coming through the woods that I was even scaring normal wildlife because I saw no raccoons, no birds, no opossums.
After walking for over an hour, and with the light now pretty good, I saw a house in front of me. It was indeed the house of the family that had hosted me when I hunted here years before. And I figured it must also be the house belonging to the zombie family. It was a modest ranch-style house with a small garden off to the side and some riding toys scattered around in the yard. Seeing the toys made me feel a swift sadness for the zombie kids I’d seen. They were victims after all. I took a moment to remember them as they had been before their attack, when they’d just been hosts to me on a hunting trip. Because I couldn’t spare any sympathy on them in their current state.
I drew closer to the house and hid behind a tree as I studied it. The back of the house had no curtains at all and there were lights on inside so I could see in. I guess the residents had found their house private enough to forgo curtains or blinds. It sure was good to see that electricity was still working.
I saw no signs of activity at all in the house or the yard so I slipped up to the back door and listened for a moment. No sounds came from inside. The family must still be roaming the woods, looking for food.
Their
kind of food, since there appeared to be a perfectly good meal still sitting abandoned on their kitchen table. Had they been attacked at mealtime? I felt a pang as I thought about Mojo. Maybe I could scavenge more food for us while I was in here. I might be able to put up more of a search when I had some food in me, too. I locked the door behind me.