Johnny doesn’t even try to keep up with me. Misery paints his face.
“There are some ultras that require runners to carry a certain amount of gear for safety precautions,” I say, attempting to distract him from his physical discomfort. “Solar blankets, crampons for shoes, even extra food and water and emergency kits. Stuff like that. Just think of this as a chance to get strong enough to carry everything essential for survival on your back.”
“How ... can ... you ... talk ... so ... much?” Johnny bursts out, taking in big gulps of air between each word.
“Practice,” I reply.
When the timer dings, Johnny throws the pack to the ground and collapses beside it.
“I am one out of shape fucker.” He sags against the wall.
“For now,” I say. “Just keep up the work. It will get easier.” Then I’ll crank up the workouts to make them uncomfortable again, but I don’t say this last part aloud.
Out in the stairwell, Carter and the others gather to drink from the pitcher and cups I set up. Lila passes around her container of CBD salve. Everyone is sweaty and tired.
Eric in particular looks pissed. “That was fucked up.”
“She’s trying to help us,” Jenna cuts in.
“I know!” Eric shouts. “But it totally sucked.”
I down a cup of water and return to the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Carter asks.
“I have another few hours of exercise.”
“Show off,” Johnny says.
I ignore the comment. These kids have to see where each of them needs to be. What they have to train their bodies to do in order to become stronger.
When I reach the second-story landing, I hear Reed say, “Fuck this. I don’t want to die.”
His feet tap on the stairs as he hurries to catch up with me. I wait for him.
“How long do you plan to go?” he asks me.
“Three hours, maybe four.”
“I’m doing it with you. Fuck this interval training shit. I want to be stronger right now. If Mr. Rosario’s goons show up, I want to be able to run far and fast.”
Pride swells in my chest. I grin at the young man beside me, at the sliver of a future ultrarunner peeking out from behind dark eyes and nuclear cloud afro. “Let’s go.”
REED AND I BECOME A live action show. Everyone, even Lila, brings out folding chairs and takes up residence on various landings to watch us.
Johnny has his ham radio, relating a blow-by-blow of our workout routine to Alvarez on the other end. Eric, not surprisingly, has a fresh joint in his hand and puffs away, slumped in his chair with his eyes closed. Reed and I are about forty minutes into our workout when Carter and Jenna show up with fresh popcorn.
“Who knew you could make popcorn on the barbecue?” Jenna says, grinning at me as we head upstairs to the weight segment.
“Mom, we brought you some trail mix,” Carter says, handing me a bag as we pass him.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I hold the bag out to Reed. “It’s important to stay fueled. Eat some.”
He does, and we head to the third floor to grab the weighted bags. We finish the set, then start all over again.
I’m starting to feel good, to slide into the state of a runner’s high. I’m leaping over zombies, pumping my arms, and enjoying the feeling of my body’s exertion.
That’s when Reed doubles over and pukes all over the floor.
The sound brings everyone running.
“Dude, Reed is now puking all over the feet of a zombie corpse,” Johnny reports into the ham.
“That’s twice now,” Jenna observes.
“Mom always pukes during her ultras,” Carter adds.
“Not always,” I reply. “Just sometimes.” I pat Reed between the shoulder blades. “It happens as your body diverts energy to fueling your limbs. There’s nothing left to digest the food.”
Reed heaves again, bits of trail mix and a brownish mix of whatever he had for breakfast also coming up. I’d say the smell was bad, but it isn’t even a blip in the all-encompassing stench of the zombie bodies.
Jenna produces a towel from one of the rooms, handing it to Reed so he can wipe his mouth and face. Carter hands him a bottle of water.
“You okay?” I ask Reed.
He nods, holding himself steady with one hand against the wall.
“Good. Let’s finish the set.”
“You’re making him do more?” Lila asks, mouth hanging open.
“If zombies were chasing you, would you stop because you threw up?” I reply. “There were points last night when stopping wasn’t an option.”
Reed, face pinched from discomfort, shakes his head. “I’m good. Let’s go, Mama.”
34
Sleep Deprivation
KATE
I slip into the suite where Jenna has organized all our food. Lila found a survival book in someone’s bedroom and calculated we have enough food for six weeks. That’s a good haul, and this is just the stuff Jenna pulled in from only a dozen or so rooms in Creekside.
We’ve since cleared all the dorms on the second and third floors and have begun to organize and inventory the additional supplies. Creekside is officially a safe zone.
Ultramarathon training camp has been going well. Except for Lila, all the other kids have committed to getting in shape. After two weeks, they’re up to one-hundred-twenty-minute workouts.
It’s time to introduce a new phase in their training: sleep deprivation.
I dig through the supplies and extract a bottle of vodka I found a few days ago tucked underneath a bathroom sink in one of the neighboring dorm rooms. Rain patters against the window as I hold up the bottle to examine it in the dull light. Ketel One.
“Time for a new training technique,” I announce as I return to our apartment. Everyone ignores me, wrapped up in the excitement of Call of Duty. It’s an evening ritual. So long as they’re exercising and participating in the necessary chores during the day, I don’t mind if they have downtime in the evening.
I set the bottle of Kettle One on the kitchen table, letting it bang against the particle-board surface.
Heads turn. Simulated gunfire cracks out of the flat screen, but I have everyone’s attention.
“Sleep deprivation is part of ultrarunning,” I say. “You won’t finish a hundred-miler if you pull over to sleep the night away. You need to be prepared to be awake and moving for twenty to thirty hours, sometimes more. Sleep deprivation hits us all in different ways. It makes us hallucinate. It makes us exhausted. Worst of all, it makes us want to quit. To throw in the towel. To take the easy way out. That’s not an option for you. We need to be prepared and trained for sleep deprivation.”
Reed is the first to crack. “You’re not going to make us climb the stairs all night, are you?”
There’s a collective sigh of relief when I shake my head, forcing me to smother a grin. Their heads had gone straight to the stairwell.
“Nope. We need to practice staying awake for twenty-four-hour intervals. What time did everyone wake up today?”
Looks are exchanged. We don’t worry too much about time these days, but there is still a functioning battery-powered clock on the kitchen wall.
“I think we were all up by nine,” Jenna says.
“Right.” I nod. “Nine in the morning. We are going to stay awake until nine a.m. tomorrow. I’ll sweeten the deal with this.” I tap the lid of the Kettle One bottle. “We can start with shots.”
They shift in a collective mass toward the kitchen table. Johnny is the first to sweep up the bottle, embracing it like it’s a beloved stuffed animal and he’s a little kid.
“Where did you find that?” Carter asks.
“In one of the cleared bedrooms,” I reply. “I wanted it for a rainy day.” I gesture at the kitchen window, where rain makes a smeary pattern across the glass. A punch of lightning follows my words.
“It’s definitely raining,” Eric says, wrestling the bottle away from Jo
hnny. “Kate, you are the coolest old person I’ve ever met. Minus the crazy workouts you make us do.”
I grin, rounding up some glasses from the kitchen. Everyone gathers on the sofa and floor of the sitting room, Call of Duty forgotten.
Eric does the honors, pouring a small shot for everyone. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have considered serving alcohol to minors. These days, I figure they’ve all proven themselves adults. At least a little. Even Carter grins as the clear liquid sluices into his glass.
“Bottoms up,” Reed calls, holding up his glass. We raise our glasses in a toast, then throw back our heads and down the liquid.
Lila sputters and coughs, laughing in embarrassment when Jenna calls her a lightweight. Reed flops onto the floor, moaning in mock ecstasy.
“Oh my God,” he says. “All we need now are some of Eric’s brownies and we’d have a legit party.”
“No brownies,” I say, giving Eric a stern look when he starts to rise. “This is a training exercise. Brownies will have us all passed out on the floor.”
“Vodka can leave us all passed out, too,” Eric argues.
“Vodka can turn this into a pleasant training exercise,” I reply. “Or we can all just sit around and stare at one another.”
“Strip poker!” Reed cries, jumping to his feet. “I’ll get the cards.”
“Only if you promise to keep your underwear on,” Jenna calls to Reed’s disappearing backside. “There’s only one man around here I want to see in his birthday suit.” She and Carter smirk at each other. It’s nice to see them happy together, even if the last thing I want to hear is the two of them talk about birthday suits.
Reed shouts protests from the hallway, where he digs in a closet. “I look fucking hot in my birthday suit. You don’t know what you’re missing!”
“I’m pretty sure we’d all be underwhelmed,” Lila replies.
This brings a round of laughter. Lila cracks a smile, something she doesn’t do much these days.
“Any more out of you, and I’m going to eat your cannabis salve,” Reed announces, strutting back into the room.
“Dude, I’m pretty sure I have dibs on the salve,” Eric puts in. “How else are we going to get any decent brownies? We’re almost out of buds.”
“My salve is not for brownies,” Lila retorts.
“We could mix the buds in the vodka,” Eric suggests.
“No!” we all shout.
More laughter. The cards come out. The Kettle One makes its rounds. Thunder crashes outside like a punctuation.
Satisfied, I settle in for a long night.
Away from the strip poker game.
35
Library
JENNA
“Was I hallucinating, or did I hear Carter say that you shit yourself at a few ultras?” I slump down at the kitchen table late the next afternoon, reaching for a bottle of water to combat the hangover headache hammering at my temples.
Everyone else sits at the table in an equal state of discomfort, water bottles clutched in hands. Kate passes out Tylenol. She alone looks un-phased by the long night of drinking and strip poker.
“Mom thought it would be a good idea to have Indian curry before one of her races.” Carter throws the Tylenol into his mouth and chugs down half a bottle of water.
“I’m pretty sure we should save the Tylenol for real illnesses,” Johnny says. His sideburns stick out at a severe horizontal angle from his face, giving him the appearance of having stuck his finger in a light socket.
“Your first round of sleep deprivation training is a legit reason for Tylenol,” Kate replies, patting his shoulder.
“How come you aren’t hung over?” Eric asks Kate.
“I stopped drinking while everyone still had their clothes on.”
“Sucks for you,” Lila says. “I can’t imagine seeing these losers naked without my drunk glasses.”
“While you all recover, I need to go to the library,” Kate says. “We have a few hours before sunset. Alvarez asked me to find books on farming and canning. His people are having trouble getting their seeds to germinate.”
“I’ll go with you,” Carter says.
“Me, too,” I add. Some fresh air might help dispel the headache.
“You sure?” Kate asks. “The library isn’t far.”
“Very sure,” Carter replies, throwing me a look of thanks. “Maybe we can find stuff on hydroponics while we’re there. If we can move solar panels to Creekside, maybe we can turn the first floor into a garden. There’s too much rain in Arcata to grow a decent vegetable garden outside.”
He isn’t wrong. It rains nine months out of the year in Arcata.
Kate’s brows lift in approval. “That’s a good idea. We can’t rely on scavenged food forever.”
Johnny perks up. “A field trip? Count me in. I just finished writing about our trip to Trading Post. It’s practically a novel by itself. Villains, monsters, kidnapping, suspense—I’m telling you, the story has it all.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m glad our near-death experience gave you something to write about.”
“Think of it this way,” Johnny replies. “You are officially immortalized.”
Carter snorts. “Yeah, in your notebook.”
“Don’t knock the notebook,” Johnny replies, unruffled.
Carter, Kate, Johnny, and I exit Creekside, leaving the others behind to nurse their hangovers.
“How’s your Thrive book coming along?” Kate asks Johnny.
“Still working on it,” he replies. “I’m a multitasker. The other night I talked to some people in Canada. They’ve been living in the family tree house for weeks. One of the guys spent an hour telling me all the different ways you can poop and pee when living in a tree house.”
Before the outbreak, this topic of conversation would have grossed me out. Now, as we make our way onto a campus littered with decomposing bodies, I find myself curious. “There’s more than one or two ways to go to the bathroom in a tree house?”
“He described exactly fourteen different ways to defecate off the side of the platform.”
“Good thing you wrote it all down,” Carter replies drily. “It could come in handy if we get stuck in Creekside for some reason.”
Kate stops, raising a hand to signal silence. We all stop talking, clustering behind her. I study our surroundings, a feeling of unease stealing over me. We’d been chatting like stupid college kids instead of paying attention. Stupid, stupid.
“What is it?” Carter whispers.
Kate shakes her head. “Just a feeling. Come on. No more conversation until we get back to Creekside.”
No one argues. We move deeper into campus. There are some undead wandering around, usually in clumps of three or four. We dispatch any within our direct path and leave the rest.
When we pass the Depot, I shudder at the sight of the soldier impaled to the tree. A vulture sits on his head, pecking at the dead man’s eyes. It’s a gruesome sight. I wish we’d taken the body down the last time we were here. I consider doing it now, but Kate hustles us by the Depot before I can make up my mind. The dead soldier is left behind with his carrion companion.
We reach the library. The building is a two-story mass of gray cement with big pillars in the front. The glass windows and automated front doors are all shattered. We stop in front of the building, scanning the immediate interior. Six corpses litter the front entryway.
“There’s a good chance we’ll run into zombies inside,” Kate says. “We need to stay together and watch one another’s backs. No splitting up. Agreed?”
I don’t relish the idea of wandering around the stacks alone. “Agreed.”
“Agreed,” Carter and Johnny say.
We draw our weapons. My spear is in my right hand, the knife Kate got me at Trading Post in my left.
Inside the wide entryway, past the check-out desk, is a wide staircase that leads to the second floor.
“Let’s see if the vending machines are still intact,” C
arter says.
“I wouldn’t mind some food myself, especially if we’re going to be here a while,” I say. “Searching through all the books to find the stuff we need on hydroponic gardening and preserving food could take forever without the electronic catalogue.”
“They’re by the bathrooms,” Johnny says. “This way.”
We all look to Kate. It occurs to me we’re waiting for her approval. Somewhere along the way, she’s become our collective mom.
“Vending machines,” she agrees.
The first-floor vending machine has already been raided, the Plexiglas smashed. Several bodies lay nearby in a pool of dried blood.
“No go,” Johnny says. “Let’s try upstairs.”
We climb the stairs in a tight knot, all of us scanning with our weapons out. I hear a few moans, telling me there are zombies upstairs. Luckily, it doesn’t sound like too many.
We creep up the last few steps and pause, listening.
“Doesn’t sound like more than a few,” Carter whispers. “We should go see where they are.”
The rest of us nod in agreement.
At first, all we see are rows of tall bookshelves and study cubicles. The moan sounds again, drawing our attention to the left side of the room. Creeping forward, we find three zombies, each of them in a different row.
“We should get rid of them,” Kate says. “Clear out this floor.”
Sticking together, we move into each of the aisles. Kate takes the lead on the killing, using her screwdriver to dispatch the undead while the rest of us cover her. It doesn’t take long to eliminate them.
“Vending machine,” Johnny says when we finish. “I’d kill for a bag of Cheetos.”
“Glad the zombies didn’t ruin your appetite,” Carter replies.
“Admit it,” Johnny says. “You’d kill for a bag a Cheetos, too.”
Carter lets out a long, mock sigh. “Yeah, okay. You got me. I’d kill for Cheetos.”
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 51