The alpha hisses, peeling itself away from the truck. The teenage undead pushes through its fellows and lets up a keen, cocking one ear to listen.
Answering keens sound. More zombies turn in the direction of the Tacoma.
Chills inch their way down my back and a dozen more zombies plow into the side of the truck, causing one of the wheels to lift off the ground. I latch onto Reed and dig the soles of my shoes into the floor, struggling to maintain my position.
Reed returns my grasp, the two of us clinging to each other as the zombies plow into the truck a second time. It’s shoved several inches across the sidewalk.
Holy shit. My mind races. If they do that another few times, they just might manage to flip the truck onto its side. Should I risk using the recording in my pack before that happens?
A shoe repair shop stands no more than five feet away from the truck. The glass window is shattered. Inside are two corpses, desiccated and rotted from many months left exposed to the elements.
At least fifteen zombies fill the narrow space between the truck and the shop. Could I use the alpha recording to cut a path from the truck to the shop? How we’ll hold them off once we’re inside the shop is beyond me, but at best we wouldn’t be surrounded on all sides.
The Tacoma bucks and slides again. Nails grind against paint. Our little group clings to one another, all of us smashed into the center of the bed.
I study the front of the shoe repair shop, weighing our odds. Another push from the zombies will put us another few inches closer. That, combined with the alpha might—
The truck rocks again, this time struck from the other side. It’s pushed back in the other direction, sending several of the street-side zombies sprawling.
Smoke gathers around us, growing thicker by the second. I tip my chin forward and suck from the drinking straw, willing myself not to cough. Sound will rile up the zoms even more.
Eric rubs at his throat, working his jaw. I push the straw toward him, angling my body so he can drink.
The others see what we’re doing. They all take drinks from their packs.
A boom echoes across the landscape, followed by a blinding flash of light. A rumble rolls through the ground. All around us, zombies are thrown to the ground.
I turn my head just in time to see a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire bloom from the north, coming from the heart of Braggs. Seconds later, fireworks start to explode.
They whine into the sky and burst open, letting loose a show of colorful sparks against the smoky backdrop. Dozens and dozens of fireworks, all of them showering us with a beauty that contrasts the horror around us. The ground trembles with each detonation.
“Fireworks are legal in this county,” Eric hisses to me. “I drove down here with some buddies freshmen year to get some and take them back to Arcata.”
Something happens. A handful of zombies break away from the truck, stumbling away into the smoke. They make their way toward the fireworks that shred the air with sound.
I hold my breath, not daring to hope.
The alpha hisses, lips peeling back from teeth. It stalks away from the truck, moving in the direction of the fireworks. It clicks as it goes, calling to its horde.
The truck vibrates as the zombies pound and scratch at it in frustration. Then, one after another, the monsters lumber away in clumps. They follow their alpha while showers of light explode in the sky above us.
Finally, the way is clear. The last of the zombies breaks away like an iceberg sloughing off a glacier.
As a unit, we surge to our feet. We leap out of the truck, each of us landing lightly on the ground. The edge of the city is still littered with the undead, but the bulk of them have moved on to the firework show. It’s early evening now and the sky is darkening. It makes the flames and fireworks look even brighter.
I lead my people out, heading south. Once again, we zigzag down the highway. The little noise we make is masked by the fireworks. Another boom rakes the air, followed by another burst of fire light. Another gas line, no doubt, or something equally flammable.
As I dodge around a cluster of bodies heaped on the side of the road, it occurs to me that I’m exhausted. Physically and mentally exhausted. My body aches. All I want to do is curl up and go to sleep somewhere safe.
Frederico’s voice patters in my brain, his words from so long ago rising to the surface.
Don’t think about the pain. Think about the finish.
That had been spoken to me at a one-hundred miler in the Arizona desert on a day when temps blistered well above one-hundred degrees. I was tired. I was hot. I was sunburned. Crystals of salt covered my clothes, having leached out of my body during the long hot, toiling day.
How about I just lay down on a cactus? I had asked. It’s a legitimate DNF if I’m covered with cactus quills.
What did I say about pain? Frederico replied. Quit thinking about it. Focus on the finish.
I can practically feel Frederico running by my side. My friend might be dead, but he isn’t gone.
I set my jaw and will myself to see the end of this zombie-infested town. The safety of the open road lies ahead. Just one more mile. One more mile, and we’ll be free.
We head into a narrow tunnel of cars. Stray zombies bump around, struggling to find a way toward the fireworks. We cut them down as we run.
Three-quarters of a mile.
We hit a patch of dead bodies. There must be at least three dozen of them. We jump over and around them. When one latches onto Reed’s ankle, Eric is there. His knife crunches through the skull, spraying blood across his face.
Half a mile.
I see the pinch point of Highway 1, the four-lane road narrowing to two. Dusk looms large and welcoming, open coastal land rolling out beyond the town.
Quarter mile.
Ash and Caleb cut through three zombies that wander too close to our group. They make no sound as they attack. All I hear is the crunch of bone and the thud of bodies.
The sign reads: Thanks for Visiting Braggs. Come Back Again Soon!
And just like that, Braggs ejects us from its depths.
We run into the cool evening, smoke from the fire boiling after us and clinging to our clothes.
We don’t speak. In silent consent, we keep running, putting distance between us and the town.
Finish line. We made it. I send a silent thank you to Frederico.
Wherever he is, I know he hears me.
18
Why
JESSICA
I have a perfect view of Shaun through the open window. It’s nearing dusk. The fence surrounding the fort sends long shadows across the ground.
The team of fishermen and gardeners are just returning to the compound, herded at gunpoint by Rosario’s minions. The smell of beans permeates the air, a sign that dinner is being cooked. The idea of Rosario and her pack of leeches eating our food makes my blood boil.
Chill, salty air pebbles my skin with gooseflesh. I don’t close the window. I like the cold air. Makes it easier to forget the heat of the skin of the men who have been in here.
And Shaun. The asshole. I know he heard everything. He’s the real reason I opened the windows in the first place. No reason for me to suffer alone. I know my fate hurts him every bit as much as it hurts me. Just like his fate is like an open wound in my chest.
We might not be married anymore, but we still love each other. It’s not the same kind of love that existed when we first met, when we were two dumb college kids getting wasted at frat and sorority parties on the weekend. It’s evolved into something darker and infinitely more complicated. But I still love that man more than I love life itself.
It’s too bad the loathing and resentment outweigh the love.
I run through the list of STDs I remember studying in high school. Syphilis. Chlamydia. Hepatitas. Gonorrhea. Herpes. Crabs. I don’t even remember what most of that stuff is.
AIDS.
I push that thought away as soon as it creeps into my brain. T
here’s nothing I can do about it.
At least I can’t get pregnant. I hang onto this knowledge. I had an IUD put in after Shaun left me. I had vague ideas about trying to meet someone on a dating website. I never got around to creating a profile for myself.
The thought of Bella and Steph getting impregnated by the monsters who have enslaved us makes me want to burn shit down. That’s another thing I’ve saved them from. At least for the moment. I have the men entertained for now, but I’m not stupid enough to think it will last. Sooner or later, they’ll turn their eyes to other women in the fort.
They’ll turn back to Steph and Bella.
We can’t exist in this new state as slaves. It’s no way to live. I, for one, would rather die than endure another hour inside this awful motorhome. Alvarez is going to have to make the hard call, and soon. He’s going to have to accept that he can’t save all of us. We’re going to have to fight even if Rosario’s minions are stone-cold sober.
“Jessie.”
The voice, cracked with thirst and infused with pain, carries to me through the window.
I turn, looking out at Shaun.
“Jessie,” he croaks.
I stare at him without responding. His wrecked body is a perfect mirror to my wrecked soul. Combined, we would be the perfect embodiment of ruin and waste. It’s the first time in a long time we’ve been on an even playing field.
“Jessie, I’m—”
“What did you say to him?”
Shaun hangs his head. I didn’t think it was possible for his shoulders to sag any lower, but they do. He doesn’t ask me what I’m talking about. He understands my question perfectly.
Silence stretches. Somewhere in the distance, I hear crying. Even more distant is the pounding of the ocean waves.
“Fort Ross was going to fall no matter what I did,” Shaun says.
“Don’t bullshit me. You know what I mean.”
Shaun says nothing. When he looks across the ten yards of hard-packed dirt that separates us, I see the truth in his eyes.
Seeing it isn’t enough. I want to hear him say it. “What did you say to get him to let you pretend to be the leader?”
Shaun raises his head. The waning light glistens off his open wound. Much of the blood has scabbed over, but parts of the bite wound still seep fresh red.
“I told him to take care of you.”
It’s the confession I wanted, but the words don’t make any sense. I try to grasp them, to study them for better understanding, but the meaning eludes me.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re too angry these days to notice how he looks at you.”
I recoil from the screen.
Surely Shaun doesn’t mean what I think he means. I must be at least ten years older than Alvarez. Besides, there are plenty of women in the fort who fawn over him and flirt because he’s ... well, he’s Alvarez. Our leader. Strong. Capable. Caring. Good looking. A perfectly eligible bachelor in every sense of the word. Hell, he would have been a catch before the apocalypse. Now that the world’s ended, he’s the gold standard.
“Jessie, you deserve to have someone. I want you to be happy.”
“I would have been happy if you’d let me die!” My words stab across the distance like a striking snake.
Shaun flinches at the force of them but doesn’t back down. “You two would be good together. You both like taking care of other people. It’s what you do best.”
I snort. “I don’t take care of anyone anymore.”
“Bullshit. You’re taking care of Steph and Bella right now. Don’t deny it. It’s what you do, Jessica. You nurture. You love. You protect.”
His words ignite a fire inside me, and not in a good way. I’m so angry I feel like hellfire might blast from every pore in my body and raze Fort Ross to the ground. My hands tremble with the force of it.
I slam shut the window and yank the curtain in place. I can’t look at Shaun.
I flop onto the bed and cover my head with a pillow, grinding my teeth as my heart races in my chest. My hands shake.
I’m almost relieved when the door to the RV opens and another stinky, rotting man climbs inside. I rise up to face him, refusing to let him see fear or submission.
There’s so much fire inside me that I half expect him to burst into flame when we make contact.
He doesn’t, of course. Science doesn’t work that way.
But he will. All these fuckers are going to pay. Somehow, someway, if I have to burn Fort Ross down myself to make it happen.
19
Rest
KATE
I don’t stop until we’re a mile out of town.
I pull to a halt beside a green sign with reflective white letters that reads, Mendocino, 10 miles.
I’ve been to this area enough over the years to know that it’s mostly unpopulated. There are miles of open land that snake alongside the ocean. There may be the occasional home or ranch interspersed along the highway, but there will be no more big towns to contend with.
Until we get to Mendocino. The town is a fraction of the size of Braggs, but it’s a tourist destination. There’s no telling how many undead we might encounter within those city limits.
My people stand in a loose circle in the middle of the road, everyone breathing hard from our brush with death. Caleb leans over his thighs, sucking in great gulps of air and wiping sweat from his forehead. Reed crouches on the far side of the road, puking. He’s never had a good stomach for running.
Ben stands off to one side, staring back in the direction of Braggs while he catches his breath. Watching him stirs the kernels of fear I felt earlier when he nearly died on the bridge. But the fear is small compared to everything else I feel for him.
I touch his shoulder. “Hey.” When he turns around, I step into his warmth. His arms come around me.
“I’m sorry.” I knot my hands in the fabric of the sweat jacket he wears and lean my cheek against him.
His arms tighten. He holds onto me like he’ll never let me go. It feels so good.
“I told you I wasn’t dropping this,” he says gruffly into my ear. “A little temper tantrum isn’t going to deter me.”
I laugh silently into his chest. When I look up at him, the skin around his eyes crinkles. I love the way he looks at me.
“Just don’t almost die on me again and we won’t have a problem,” I say.
“Ditto.”
I plant a quick kiss on his lips, trying to shake the fear of losing him. Despite my apology, it still looms large and scary in my mind.
We congregate with the others. They’re smudged with soot and look exhausted.
Reed swishes his mouth out with water and spits it to one side. “Dude. That sucked.”
“Could be worse.” I try to keep my voice light. “I once saw a man at an aid station who’d tripped on a root and snapped a bone in his foot. The bone stuck out of the top of his foot.” The story is meant to make everyone feel better, but I can see by the widening of eyes that it’s having the opposite effect.
“Let me guess,” Ben says. He leans against the road sign, shoulders hunched with fatigue. “The motherfucker still managed to make it to the finish line.”
I shake my head. “No. He had to ride a horse out of the canyon where he fell. We were miles away from a road.”
No one speaks. The distant keen of zombies fills the air. Where are crickets when you need them?
I want to kick myself. I should have lied. I should have told Ben the guy managed to drag his ass to the finish line with a bone sticking out of his foot.
“Mama,” Reed says, “you just ruined our ultrarunner illusion. I thought you guys were supposed to keep going no matter what.”
Maybe that hadn’t been the best story to tell. I try again. “There’s a race through the Colorado mountains called Hardrock. A few years ago, one of the front runners fell and dislocated his shoulder thirteen miles in.” That piece of ultrarunner history had left me and Frederic
o awestruck for days. “Not only did the guy finish the race, but he won it.”
“How far is Hardrock?” Caleb asks.
“A hundred miles.”
“Maldita sea,” Ash breathes. “That is some crazy, fucked up shit.”
I rake my gaze over the group. “You guys are all ultrarunners. Every single one of you. You all ran thirty-three miles on the Lost Coast. We just ran another five to get through Braggs. You guys are all badasses.”
“And we’re not even done yet,” Ben mutters.
“And we’re not even done yet,” I agree.
“Does it count since we rode a car from Usal Beach to Braggs?” Caleb asks.
“Hell, yes. It’s called a stage run. It means we’re running in stages. It’s a different kind of ultra.”
They look at one another, exchanging slow, pleased grins. Thank God. So long as I can keep their heads in the game, I can get them to the finish line.
“It’s another ten miles to Mendocino,” I say. “After that, it’s a good seventy-five miles to Fort Ross. None of us are going to survive this trek if we don’t decide, here and now, that we’re going to finish. Understand? It’s mind over matter. Every single one of you has to make the decision that you’re going to finish. That’s all it takes.”
No one answers. Ben looks like I just kicked him in the balls. Even Reed, ever upbeat, looks like I deflated his inner tube.
“Can we go back to that part about there being eighty-five miles between us and Fort Ross?” Caleb asks. “Are we going to run the whole way?”
I shake my head. “There are long stretches of open road. If we can find a car that works, we can drive. Or maybe we can find some bikes. But no, I don’t think we’re going to have to run the whole way.”
“Thank fucking God,” Ben mutters. The rest of the group lets up a collective sigh of relief.
So much for my pep talk. I had meant to inspire them. Instead, all I’d done was scare the hell out of them.
We take a reprieve to eat, drink, and relieve ourselves. We don headlamps and flick them on. Reed finds a stream that runs from the open grassland out to the ocean, which we use to refill our packs. No one asks if the water is safe. There’s no telling if water out of a faucet would be any good, either. All we can do is keep hydrated and hope for the best.
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 105