It’s an all-you-can-eat zombie buffet out here. Apparently, if a zombie is feeding, it doesn’t care about other, more alive game. I file away this bit of info for later.
I pick my way carefully through the bodies on the road, carefully watching for any stirring that would indicate a zombie instead of a normal corpse.
The body of a girl twitches as I approach. She peels her bloody head up from the pavement, a low growl issuing at my approach. Something large rolled over her torso, crushing her from the shoulders down.
I bury my screwdriver in her head, putting the poor girl out of her misery. My heart aches.
The Creekview dorms are at the very end of Granite Avenue. I’m forced to put down two more zombies—both with ruined bodies that have rendered them immobile—before at last reaching them.
Crouched among the redwoods are the three-story dorms where my son lives. Like all the others I’ve passed, these dorms have black pock marks from gunfire. A wide oval parking lot sits at the base of the dorms. Like the other parking lots I’ve seen, this one is strewn with bodies.
But there’s something different here, a sight that makes my heart swell with hope.
Moving amongst the dead are four living kids. They’re covered in grime, soot, and blood, but they are most definitely alive.
Chapter 55
Finisher
The kids don’t notice me at first. They’re moving amongst the bodies, dragging them one by one into a gazebo on the far side of the parking lot. So far they’ve managed to clean up two-thirds of it, which tells me they’ve been at it for quite a while.
I count three boys and one girl. They wear jeans, hiking boots, and have wooden chair legs slung through belt loops at their waists. The chair legs have been sharpened to points, and all are stained with brown-red blood smears.
My heart thumps erratically at the sight of the spears. Carter had said he and his friends were turning chair legs into spears. I want to call out to the kids but resist, not wanting to spook them or inadvertently draw the attention of a zombie
The boys have the shaggy Humboldt look about them. One has hair well past his shoulders and wears a shirt with the silhouette of Bob Marley on the front. Another dark-skinned boy in a tie-dyed shirt has a spectacular afro that sticks out a good eight inches from his head. The third boy sports a T-shirt with a big marijuana leaf on it and has sideburns to rival those on Wolverine.
The girl wears her light brown hair in two braids, which she’s fastened into buns on either side of her head like Princess Leia. She wears a tight tank top covered with tiny skeleton heads.
It’s the girl who spots me first as I move into the parking lot. She calls a warning to her friends and draws her chair leg spear, lifting it into a defensive position.
The boys respond immediately, all of them drawing their spears. They don’t shout or call out—they’ve obviously learned not to make noise—but instead warily watch me approach. I hold up my hands to show I mean no harm, making my way toward them. The students exchange glances and whispers, watching me all the while.
I stop twenty feet away from them. Pitching my voice just loud enough to carry, I say, “My name is Kate. I’m looking for a student named Carter Stevenson. Do any of you know him?”
The girl’s eyes widen in surprise. Her lips part as if to respond.
A scream cuts off whatever she’s about to say. An Asian girl comes sprinting out of a nearby building.
“There were two in the janitor’s closet!” she shrieks.
As if on cue, two zombies roll out of the building after her. They move at a good clip, their bodies barely decomposed.
“Shit,” says one of the boys. “Can’t she learn to keep her mouth shut?”
The four of them move toward the girl, wooden spears raised. I run into their midst, brandishing my screwdriver and railroad spike. They glance at me, then apparently decide to let me join their posse.
The scared girl dodges between two cars. The pursuing zombies smack into one car, hitting so hard they bounce off and sprawl onto their backs.
The five of us form a semi-circle around them. The first girl—the one not screaming like a sissy—lunges in, swinging her spear sharply toward the skull of the nearest zombie. The beast snarls, sensing her approach. Her spear arches down toward his head.
The zombie flips onto his stomach and grabs her ankle. His teeth come down on her thick leather boot. The spear connects harmlessly with the pavement.
I have to give the girl credit. She doesn’t do more than gasp in fear, trying to jerk free while she raises her spear back into a defensive position.
I dart in and deliver a vicious kick to the beast’s head, effectively dislodging him from the girl’s boot. She skips back, leveling the spear for a killing blow.
I’m quicker. I sweep the screwdriver in a downward arc, burying it in the zombie’s skull. He shudders once, then dies. Blood oozes from wound, spreading down the head like a red egg yolk.
Five feet away, the boys finish off the second zombie, each stabbing the head of the beast in rapid succession.
“Thanks,” the girl says to me. She pauses to wipe sweat from her forehead. “That was a good kill. My name’s Jenna. I’m C—”
“Dude, Lila,” says the boy with Bob Marley on his shirt. “What the hell? You know better than to make so much noise.”
Lila emerges from behind the cars, clearly still frightened but equally indignant. “Dude, Eric,” she snaps. “I was all by myself trying to clean up the kitchen and those things practically fell out of the closet on me. I—”
“Mom?”
I spin around at the familiar voice. A bedraggled young man races across the parking lot. His beard has grown to massive proportions, the longest parts brushing the top of his chest. His jeans are ripped at both knees and blood stains the hem of his faded shirt. Wide blue eyes—so much like his father’s—stare at me in shock.
“Carter!” His name bursts from my mouth.
“Mom!” he says again. “You really made it!”
“Carter!” I sprint toward my son.
The two of us close the distance, dodging around cars and over a few bodies. We practically crash into each other. Our shoes squelch in a squishy pool of dried blood, but we hardly notice.
I throw my arms around my son in a bruising hug. He wraps me in an equally ferocious embrace, saying my name over and over. Tears dampen his beard—his, mine, I’m not sure whose.
I’m half laughing, half sobbing. My son is alive. He’s alive, alive.
I grip his face between my hands, studying him, assuring myself that it’s really him, that it’s really my Carter.
“That’s your mom?” someone says.
Carter’s face splits into a goofy smile, a few tears still shining on his cheeks. He glances past me at whoever’s speaking, then back to me.
“This is my mom,” he says, and I’m startled at the pride in his voice. “I told you she was tough.”
“It’s Carter’s mom.” The words ripple around me as the group of kids congregate, whispering loudly to each other.
“She made it,” someone else says.
“She ran over two hundred miles!”
The students crowd closer to me. There are six altogether, including Carter.
“Why is she covered in mud?” Lila asks, wrinkling her nose.
“What happened to her arm?”
“Dude, look at her ankle,” Eric says. “It looks really fucked up.”
Everyone looks at my ankle, which has swollen to twice its normal size. An uneasy silence falls, as though they’ve just now realized I’m standing here and can hear everything they’re saying.
“I fell a while back,” I offer. God, that was nearly a hundred miles ago. No wonder it looks like hell. “The mud is for the poison oak.” I lightly touch the crooked stitches in my arm, which has scabbed over. “I was grazed by a bullet here.”
“You were shot?” Carter asks, agape.
“No, not shot.”
I make my voice casual, not wanting my son to fret. “Just grazed by a bullet.”
Another beat of silence as the kids look me up and down, taking in my horrific appearance. And likely my smell. Hopefully, they won’t notice the bits of vomit spattered on my shoes, pants, and shirt. Possibly they’ll just mistake it for general grime.
The pretty girl with Princess Leia hair clears her throat. “We, ah, used your strategy to get rid of the zombies that had massed outside the Creekside Lounge,” Jenna says.
“My strategy?” I echo.
“Your Attack and Stack strategy,” Carter says. “The one you used to empty the RV.”
“We wedged open a door with some chairs and tables,” Eric says, gesticulating wildly. “We made the opening just wide enough for one of them to get through at a time. Then we made a bunch of noise and drew them through, one by one.”
“Carter told us about the time you ran that race in Utah and got caught in the snowstorm for ten hours,” says the boy sporting the shirt with the marijuana leaf. “We figured if some old lady could do that, we could take care of a few zombies.” He cracks up at this.
The eyes of the other kids widen as they look from marijuana boy to me.
Lila elbows him in the ribs. “Johnny,” she hisses.
Johnny, abruptly realizing what he just said, throws me a look that’s half panic, half horror.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I am old. I’m okay with that. It’s better than being dead.” I try to make my voice light, but for some reason the tension balloons.
“What Johnny is trying to say,” says afro boy, “is that you inspired us to get off our asses and survive.”
“Yeah, you really inspired us, Mrs. S,” Eric says.
Then tension melts away from the group, leaving me speechless. I inspired them? I don’t think I’ve ever inspired anyone in my life. Especially with running stories. I’m used to people telling me I’m crazy, not inspirational.
“Relentless progress forward, right, Mom?” Carter asks, quoting a famous saying by ultrarunner Bryon Powell.
I laugh, swaying on my feet. “I’m so proud of you all,” I say.
A frown suddenly creases Carter’s brow. He scans the parking lot, as if looking for something.
“Where’s Frederico?” he asks.
The strain of the last two hundred thirty miles come crashing down on me. My legs buckle.
“Whoa.” Carter catches me, easing me to the ground. “You okay?”
“Dude, that’s a dumb question,” Eric declares. “She’s just ran two hundred miles and has a fucked up ankle, poison oak, and a bullet wound.”
Carter glares at Eric before shifting his gaze to the afro boy. “Reed, can we borrow your water bottle?”
Reed nods, handing over the bottle that had been hanging from his belt by a carabiner. I take a long drink, steeling myself to answer Carter’s question.
I force myself to look into his eyes. Frederico is dead. That’s what I should say, but it’s not enough. It’s doesn’t even begin to encompass all that his death meant, all that he suffered on our journey.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Carter says at last. “Uncle Rico?”
I nod, somehow finding my voice. “He died so I could get here.”
Carter scrubs a hand over his eyes.
I pull out the melted Snickers bar I’d found inside the jeep we drove out of Laytonville. “Uncle Rico told me I should bring this to you.” I press the crushed candy bar into his hands.
Carter sniffles, once again scrubbing a hand over his eyes. Jenna puts her arms around him.
Even in my exhausted state, I see the familiarity and—is that affection?—in the gesture. My eyes narrow as I study the girl.
Carter catches my look. He pockets the Snickers bar and grabs Jenna’s hand. “This is my girlfriend, Mom,” he says. “Jenna.”
“Your girlfriend?” I say, stunned. And not in a good way. “Since when?”
Awkward silence descends. The boys scuff their feet behind us. Jenna chews on her bottom lip, eyes flicking between me and Carter. My son looks like I’ve just slapped him.
I take a deep breath, trying to get my emotions under control. “Sorry,” I say to both of them. “It’s just a bit of a surprise, that’s all.” I refrain from saying, You never mentioned her to me. Not once. Though the look I give him clearly communicates this.
Carter scrubs a hand through his shaggy hair. “I was going to introduce you the next time you came up to visit. I just didn’t expect your visit to come in the middle of an apocalypse.”
He’s got me there.
I give Jenna a thorough appraisal. From the smell of things, she doesn’t wear patchouli, thank god. A deodorant fan. Not that I’m really in a position to judge another human being by her smell.
A closer look reveals blondish tufts of hair poking out from beneath her armpits. I groan inwardly. God, all I wanted was for Carter to meet a nice girl who shaves her pits. Is that so much to ask? There are girls at Humboldt that shave. I’ve seen them.
Seeing apprehension seeping across Carter’s features, I realize I’ve been staring a bit too long.
Don’t get caught up in armpit hair, I scold myself. Give yourself a chance to get to know the girl.
I muster my best smile for Jenna. “My name is Kate,” I say, extending my hand to her. “Nice to meet you.”
Carter visibly relaxes, putting one arm around Jenna’s shoulders. “All my friends call her Mrs. S.”
“Hi, Mrs. S.” Jenna extends a hand in my direction, offering me a tentative smile. “Nice to meet you. Carter’s told me so much about you.” She laughs nervously. “He talks about you all the time.”
“He does?” My smile morphs from forced to genuine.
“Yeah.” She relaxes a little. “I can’t believe all the crazy running things you’ve done.”
“Carter told us you run so far that you sometimes hallucinate,” Eric says.
“Is that true?” Lila asks. “You’ve run so far you hallucinate?”
“Yeah. Sometimes,” I say.
“He told us you got attacked by hornets four times at another race,” Reed says. “He said they flew inside your shirt and bit you all over.”
The Quad Dipsea. I hadn’t thought about that race in a while. Runners ran the same route four times—twice going west, twice going east—and each time I’d passed that hornet nest, the little fuckers had come after me. Just thinking about it makes me itch.
“Yeah,” I say. “That sucked a lot.”
The kids make wordless sounds of awe and approval. It’s strange to have them all looking at me like I’m something odd and extraordinary.
“You should come inside,” Carter says. He disengages himself from Jenna and helps me to my feet. “We’re using the Creekside Lounge for a home base right now.”
I want to ask him what’s happened here. Why so many kids were murdered. How he and this small group managed to survive the last few days.
These questions and many others crash around in my head, but I hold back. The answers will be there later, and right now I’m tired. Really fucking tired.
I lean on Carter, letting him lead me to the Creekside Lounge. The rest of the students trail in our wake. I recall visiting the lounge on one of my earlier trips. It’s a big room with comfy chairs and a plethora of vending machines. It sounds like a nice place to rest. And maybe take a nap. I could use a nap.
As I half walk, half limp toward the building, I let myself appreciate this moment in time. Me and Carter, together, as a family should be. I appreciate our companions, the other five remaining kids. And a decent shelter.
Hell, I’m even grateful my son has someone special in his life. I’m grateful ultrarunning has given me the strength to come all this way and share it with him.
You can’t run an ultramarathon and not learn something about yourself. Throw in zombies, dehydration, crippling hunger, perverted thugs, a murdered dog, masochistic drug dealers, and a dead best frien
d . . . the learning doesn’t stop, no matter how much I wish it would.
I’m a finisher. This is the singular most important thing running has taught me.
I am flawed. I am as imperfect as they come. But I have grit inside me. I have the capacity to slog through the deepest, nastiest shit, on the trail and in life.
This is what Frederico was trying to tell me right before he died. I might not be pretty when I arrive at the finish line, but I do arrive. Though it’s rarely easy, I find a way out of hard times. This is my strength, my inner beauty.
I’ve finished what I set out to do. For Kyle, for Carter, and for Frederico, I have finished.
I don’t know what the future holds for our small group. But for the first time in my life, I know I have the strength to face it head on.
About the Author
Camille Picott has been writing novels since she was twelve. When she’s not working on a book, spending time with family, or whipping up a new vegetarian meal, you can find her trail running in Sonoma County, California.
Acknowledgements
It is with much gratitude that I thank my writing partners and beta readers: M.G. Alves Jr., who’s read more drafts than I can count; Arlene Ang, whose grammar and spelling expertise leave me humbled; Dinesh Pulandram, who isn’t afraid to tell me when something sucks; Lan Chan, whose candidness helps me weave a better story; Chris Picott, who, despite being my husband, is possibly my harshest critic; and Mike Albee, who helps me understand my audience and the book world. All of your advice and feedback is invaluable and eternally appreciated.
I also want to thank the ultrarunners kind enough to share their stories with me: Lori Barekman, my running coach and physical therapist extraordinaire, who really did have to shave scar tissue off the bottom of her foot after running the Fat Dog 120; Karen Hanke, who really did survive the Bear 100 in a ten-hour snowstorm in nothing more than a pink running skirt; Skip Brand, who really did have his shoes duct-taped to his feet when he ran the Leadville 50; and Ted Neal, who shared the finer details of bonking. Without all of you, this story would be devoid of the gritty details that make ultrarunning so fascinating.
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