Read Online Race to Refuge by Liz Craig - Free Book Online

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