Race to Refuge by Liz Craig

putting the car in gear with her foot on the brake (that part was important and I’d forgotten to tell her the first time). I sagged with relief as Ginny eased the car forward.
    “That’s right, just coast,” I said louder since now I was at the field and Ginny was driving away. “Then drive to the back of the store and push slowly on the brake and put the car back in park.”
    Once Ginny had coasted around to the back of the store and I didn’t hear any crashing sounds, I kept focused on Bo and his arms reaching toward me. He didn’t look as badly decomposed as you’d think a dead body would look. Maybe he’d just recently gotten infected. That didn’t make me feel any better since it meant that maybe other zombies were still hanging around.
    Bo lunged at me every now and then so I held the bat in front of me like a lion tamer holding a chair. We continued slowly like this as I backed out across the field until the country store was in the distance. I was conserving my energy for the big sprint.
    When I felt like I’d have a strong head start, I bolted toward the country store, running as fast as I could. Bo gave a surprised grunt and started lumbering after me. Panting hard, I glanced back over my shoulder. There was no way on earth that he was going to catch up with me. But that wasn’t really what I’d been worried about all along—I really was worried that he’d finally reach me when I was loading up the car with all the stuff from his store. Although I guess it wasn’t really Bo’s store anymore, since it wasn’t really Bo anymore.
    I stumbled up the stairs of the store, looking for a way to lock the door behind me. Bo didn’t have a bolt lock, I realized, feeling frantic. Where would he have put his keys for the deadlock? I looked around me, head swinging from side to side. Did he have them on him? My stomach had a sinking sensation.
    Finally, I spotted them near the cash register and partially covered by a magazine called Country Living . He must have been reading it before he was attacked. I swiped the keys and, hands shaking, locked the deadbolt. I glanced out the window and saw that Bo was about halfway across the distance to the store.
    I ran in the storeroom, yanked out some boxes, and started pulling things off the shelves. I skipped the kitschy country stuff and went right for the weapons, which were locked up behind the cash register. And yes, the key was on the same keyring. I grabbed a tomahawk (although I wasn’t excited about the idea of getting that close to a zombie), another sleeping bag and tent, a bunch of seeds of different kinds (and here I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I hoped the sheer volume would make up for any errors), lighters, a hand-crank flashlight/radio combo, gas cans, and even Ginny’s toilet paper for being such a good sport. I was heading out when I spotted something I didn’t recognize and I spared half a second reading the label. When I saw what it was, I smiled and threw it in the box. The only thing I didn’t see was water or water purification and that was really our biggest need. I craned my neck, searching high and low, feeling my heart thud in my chest. Finally, I gave up. Bo had returned to the front porch and the sounds of him pounding on the door made my blood run cold.
    I didn’t even know where the back door was, but I figured there had to be one, right? I hefted the box, shifting it slightly to make it easier to carry. Then I hurried to the back of the store. I saw the storeroom I’d gotten the boxes from, a small restroom, and then I did see another door that looked like it might go outside. I tried it … and an alarm went off. I guess Bo had it tied to the alarm system to prevent shoplifting. My heart jumped into my throat.
    I stumbled outside with the box and Ginny was there in the car, face white, eyes huge. I heard the car doors unlock and I ran to the van. Glancing to the side, I saw him at the same moment that Ginny screamed my