I jerked away and ran to pull a sofa in front of the door. I covered up the window portion of the door by duct taping a blanket over it. I was perspiring like crazy at this point, shaking with revulsion and sadness and fear.
I headed for the front of the house again, figuring if I left that the creature that had been Annie would leave, too. But I knew one thing. I wanted to arm myself. It hadn’t seemed that important at the start of this whole thing, but now I had Ginny with me. I wanted to keep Ginny safe. And Annie, in her normal state, would want the same thing.
Jim had been too much of an animal lover to be a hunter, but I remembered him saying that he did keep a gun here as a “just in case.” Mostly because the area was so remote that he felt he needed something for protection since it would take the sheriff an hour or more to get out here. And now, of course, who even knew if the sheriff would, or even
could
, come at all.
I gave up on sleeping for the time being and went right to the master bedroom. I searched the bedside tables and under the bed and finally the neatly organized closet. That’s where I found the gun safe. Typical Jim—he’d carefully locked it up. But where was the key?
After some more searching, I located the key in a pair of shoes at the top of the closet. I opened the gun safe and found a loaded .22.
It had been a while since I’d been shooting. I’d been raised by my father—my mother had died in a car accident before I could really even form memories of her. But my father, now dead himself from cancer, made sure that I would have the ability to defend myself if I needed to. I was the only twelve year old girl at the shooting range. He taught me gun safety and the preciousness of human life and the responsibility of gun ownership.
Now I stared at the gun and tried to remember everything he’d taught me. One thing I knew—when it came right down to it—I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if I was defending Ginny.
I was awake the rest of the night. How could I sleep? Once the sun started coming up, I pulled the curtain back on a front window just enough to be able to look out. For hours, I saw nothing but birds and squirrels and even an occasional deer. They went about their normal activities as if there was nothing to worry about, nothing different about their world.
And then I heard the sound of motors and I tensed again. Someone was on their way into the driveway.
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.
Charlie murmured, “Whatever you say, as long as you’re not shooting at me.” He ambled toward the house, giving a short whistle to Mojo, who jumped out the passenger window to follow him. “Hey, I’m bringing a German shepherd in. Is that okay?” he called.
Ginny was already reaching out for Mojo, burying her face in his fur.
“I see he’s already made a friend,” said Charlie.
Mojo bounded beside Ginny up to the cabin. I saw that Mallory was looking watchfully out the door, but not at us—at the woods. I shivered a little and glanced behind me. I didn’t see anything. I don’t think Mallory did either, but she was still scanning. That made me wonder.
Charlie didn’t seem to notice that Mallory looked worried. That’s because he was stealing these sort of sideways glances at her. But he probably could have just outright stared at her because she wasn’t paying him the slightest bit of attention.
Still, as soon as I came into the cabin, she gave me a smile that made her eyes crinkle. “Ty, I’ve heard a lot about you. You don’t know how
happy
we are to see you.”
I did, though. Ginny was doing a happy dance inside the cabin, not able to really settle down. And I could tell that Mallory was glad too, even though she was tense. Too tense to really register Charlie. Charlie probably wasn’t too used to that. He wasn’t like a movie star or a male model or anything, but he was a real guy and a good looking one with his tan and his dark hair. Tall, dark, and handsome, wasn’t that what they said? He was all of those things.
Mallory was definitely distracted. And there had been that thing with the gun, too. Something had made her nervous and wary.
She seemed to suddenly remember that she hadn’t really given us a warm welcome when we’d arrived. “Ah, sorry about the gun thing.” She watched as Ginny chased after Mojo into the back of the cabin. Mallory added in a low, quick voice, “Ginny had had a run-in with some guys that had hijacked Ty’s van and thought about kidnapping her, too. So I guess I’m just jumpy.”
My eyes opened wide. I wasn’t sure what I
thought
might have happened to Ginny, but getting the van stolen from her and being threatened wasn’t something that I’d considered. “Was she—was she okay when you found her?”
Mallory nodded quickly and gave me a reassuring smile. “You’ve got a tough sister, Ty. She was shaken up, but she was fine. And we hit it off really well.”
I nodded. “It looks like it. Did you—well—was she okay when she saw our grandmother?”
“It was tough for her. She obviously didn’t know that your grandmother was experiencing any memory loss.” Mallory paused. “Did you know?”
I shook my head. “I guess Mom and Dad didn’t have a chance to tell us. Or maybe they didn’t want us to worry. Plus, sometimes they weren’t really good at keeping us in the loop. I felt bad about leaving her there.”
Mallory said, “Don’t. Because if your grandmother was anything like she was when Ginny and I were there, she wasn’t going anywhere, anyway.”
Charlie had been spending time looking around the cabin a little bit and now joined us again as Ginny and Mojo were playing with a tennis ball Charlie had found in one of the bedrooms.
Charlie said, “So, is this your country retreat, Mallory?” He tilted his head to the side questioningly.
Mallory’s defenses seemed like they were back up. “No. No, actually, it belongs to my friends. Annie and Jim are friends of mine from way back. They live in D.C. and then came out here on weekends and for vacations. I think they had a guy who was sort of a caretaker who came out some and took care of things around here while they were gone.”
Charlie nodded. “That makes sense. I saw some pictures around the cabin and I didn’t see any of you. Have you been in touch with Annie and Jim?”
Mallory got a little prickly. “They know I’m here, if that’s what you mean.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows but made his tone softer. “I wasn’t worried about that. Heck, I’ve taken to looting stores. It’s a whole new world. I was just trying to get a handle on where your friends might be and if they would be cool with a few extra guests, that’s all.”
I thought this might make Mallory relax a little, but instead she seemed even more tense. “They’re not the kinds to worry about extra guests. They wouldn’t even think of you as guests at all—they’d make you feel like you were family. The only problem is, I don’t know where they are.”
She cast a look behind her to make sure Ginny wasn’t coming in and then she said, “I was trying not to tell Ginny, because she was so glad about being in a safer place. It’s true that I don’t know what happened to Jim. I have the feeling he must not have been able to make it out of D.C. But I think Annie made it all the way here. And was attacked.” Mallory took a deep breath.
Charlie sat abruptly down on the arm of the checkered sofa. “You’ve seen her, you mean? You’re sure it was her?”
Mallory swallowed. “Positive. And her car is in the garage. But this place is so remote. We’ve been thinking of it as a safe place. I can’t think who would have attacked her here.”
“Maybe the caretaker,” I said. I understood why Mallory wouldn’t want to tell Ginny. For me, though, I’d never built this cabin up as a “safe place.” I was believing there were no “safe places” anymore.
Charlie obviously believed the same thing. “We need to be alert. But we can’t spend every day barricaded in the house.” He glanced around at the drawn curtains and blocked doors.
Mallory looked away. “I know that. I think it was mainly for my benefit. I couldn’t handle seeing my best friend like that.”
Charlie’s face softened and it looked like he was about to reach out for Mallory to give her comfort. But she quickly glanced up, frowning, and his hand dropped again. For some reason, these two didn’t seem to be hitting it off. Which was a pain, because I liked both of them and didn’t want there to be a bunch of tension in the house. I had gotten enough of that at home with my parents.
The rest of the day, we settled in. Charlie and I moved all of our stuff out of the truck and into the cabin. We did keep one eye on the woods, but didn’t see anything. Luckily, the cabin had plenty of storage space in the closets, the attic, and pantry. We settled in, putting some of our stuff away. It was a three-bedroom house and, since Mallory didn’t think her friends were probably going to be back, Ginny and I took the room with the bunk beds, Mallory took one bedroom, and Charlie took the other.
That afternoon, Mallory loosened up a little bit. But whenever Charlie would say something to her, she’d always get that tenseness in her shoulders again. I didn’t really get it, since Charlie was being nice and she didn’t even know him. But it made me wonder if she’d had a bad experience with a guy recently and was still trying to recover from that. Plus, of course, her whole life had been turned upside down in the last few days, just like everybody else’s.
After we’d eaten some canned vegetables for supper, Charlie rolled his sleeves up to wash the dishes. And that’s when Mallory
really
got tense.
“What’s that?” she asked, staring at his arm. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been bitten.” She looked like she wanted to grab Ginny and lock them both up in the back of the house.
Charlie sighed. “I should have said something. We were just so focused on getting here and then getting settled in. Yes, I was bitten when we were at the retirement home yesterday. But I haven’t had any kind of issue although the bite hurt like crazy.”
Ginny’s eyes were huge. “Are you okay?”
Mallory said harshly, “I can’t believe you’d put us all at risk like that.”
“I’d
never
put anyone at risk. That’s totally against my nature,” said Charlie.
“But you stayed with Ty after you were infected,” said Mallory.
Now Charlie was starting to look irritated. “I wasn’t infected. I was just bitten.”
“You couldn’t have known that you weren’t going to be infected, though. You
should
have been infected. Everyone else was,” said Mallory.
“He tried to stay behind,” I said firmly. “He told me to leave him there, outside the safe area of Crofton. But I wouldn’t do it because he wouldn’t have done it if it had been me. Besides, everyone else got infected immediately after being scratched or bitten. Charlie was fine. And he’d given me a gun, just in case he wasn’t fine later.”