Safety. It’s no more than two hundred yards away.
A surge of water rises around us, soaking us up to our ankles. The world beneath our feet becomes inky black. We’re forced to halt and wait for the water to recede so we can see where to step.
“Don’t stop!” Eric yells. “Hurry!”
I grind my teeth, resisting the urge to shout back. As soon as the water clears, we’re off again. Ash leads the way, springing from rock to rock like a gymnast. She doesn’t even have to lean forward to balance with her hands like the rest of us.
One-hundred-fifty yards. We’re almost there.
Another surge of water gushes forward, this time rushing all the way up to our knees. I grab onto the side of the cliff for balance as the tide sucks back out, leaning and fighting for balance.
One-hundred yards.
Caleb stumbles on his injured leg. Ben catches him, keeping him upright. Seeing the two men work together gives me a surge of pride.
The feeling is short-lived as water once again gushes forward. This time, it comes up to our thighs.
This time, it doesn’t recede.
“Shit,” I snarl. To my people, I bark, “Move! The tide is in. Swim!”
Ash, still in the lead, is the first to splash down into the surf. The tide pulls at her. She fights to stay on course for the safe zone on the far side of the rocks.
Fifty yards. That’s all that lies between us and safety.
“Drop the packs,” I order. “Now.”
Caleb doesn’t hesitate. He slings off his weapons pack and chucks it as hard as he can in the surf. With any luck, it will wash up onto shore. Honestly, I don’t care what happens to the weapons so long as Caleb is okay. He jumps after Ash, long, sure strokes cutting through the water.
Ben hesitates.
There is no time for arguing. I summon every ounce of Mama Bear authority.
“Drop it, Ben. Right now!”
Cursing, he flings the pack into the water. He crouches against the cliff, fear plain on his face. I recall he’s not a strong swimmer.
“Hang onto me,” I order, grabbing his hand. “Don’t let go.”
I drag him forward into the surf. The tide is unyielding. First, it sucks us out toward the ocean, only seconds later to shove us back toward the cliff.
I do my best to stay upright, kicking off the rocks beneath my feet. I paddle with my free hand, gripping Ben’s hand in the other. Together, the two of us fight our way forward.
Twenty-five yards.
It’s the longest sprint of my life. Half running, half swimming through water, I hang onto my friend as the ocean tosses us back and forth like pieces of driftwood.
“Let go of me,” Ben gasps, sputtering as a wave douses him in the face.
“Not an option,” I grind out in response.
A wave rushes toward us. I coil my legs in readiness. Right before the breaker hits us, I push off, dragging Ben after me.
The water picks us up, hurling us toward the shore—
—and right into the waiting arms of Eric and Reed.
“We got you,” Eric yells, grabbing Ben by the neckline of his shirt.
“Come on, Mama.” Reed wraps both arms around me, dragging me toward safety.
Another wave hits us. The four of us tumble backward. A searing pain rips across my right hip as I’m sucked over a rock.
Reed and I tumble free of the surf, rolling onto a rocky shoreline. A heartbeat later, Eric and Ben wash up beside us.
Susan, Ash, and Caleb are all there. They help us to our feet.
Half staggering, half running, we rush away from the water. I nearly sob with relief when my feet hit sand. Granted, it’s not the fine sand you find at a tropical beach. It’s a thick-grained sand made up of hundreds of tiny pebbles. But it’s still sand.
As soon as there’s a hundred yards between us and the surf, we collapse in a heap. Wet, injured, and exhausted, we lay in a silent, gasping heap.
And just when I think we’ve finally earned a reprieve, it starts to rain.
55
Inventory
KATE
Tiny black pebbles press into my cheek as the first raindrops hit me.
My chest heaves. My body shivers with the cold. The arrival of the rain almost makes me sob. I swallow back the despair that presses at my gut. My people need me. I can’t let them know how scared and worried I am.
And just because I can’t resist torturing myself, I look at my watch arm. It reads twelve hours. It’s been twelve hours since the clock started ticking on Fort Ross.
Even though we technically just traveled four miles closer to Alvarez and his people, I don’t feel any further along. In fact, knowing more miles of the Lost Coast lies before us makes me feel like crying all over again.
Keep it together, I scold myself. Lives depend on you.
Sometime during our frantic flight across the impassable zone, fog has boiled up. Sea spray and rain clouds turn the sky to dull gray.
At least we’ll have daylight to travel the remainder of the Lost Coast. It’s the only positive thing I can find right now. It will have to be enough.
I sit up, brushing sand off my soggy clothes. “Inventory.” My voice comes out as a croak. “Inventory.”
“What?” Ash blinks up at me from where she’s sprawled on the sand. Even wet and covered with bits of seaweed from our near-death experience, she still looks like a CrossFit model.
“Inventory,” I say again. “I need everyone’s inventory.”
When everyone stares at me in confused silence, I realize I’ve slipped into running jargon.
“I mean, I need everyone to take stock of their bodies and report. Ash, you first.”
The list isn’t pretty. There isn’t a single one of us without some sort of wound.
Ash has a bad scrape on one arm and a tender ankle.
Susan’s ankle is already swollen from her fall on the rocks.
The gash on Caleb’s thigh oozes blood.
Eric has gashes on his face and hands.
Reed took a header with a rock. Blood covers half his face.
Ben’s clothes are ripped in several places, blood seeping through.
I have a scrape on my right hip, the jagged, bloody skin showing through.
It could be worse, I tell myself, ignoring the despair that threatens to suck me under. There are no broken bones. None of us got swept out to sea. We’re all alive.
“Hey, look!” Caleb points. “One of the weapon packs!”
Sure enough, one of the weapon packs has washed onto shore. Ben limps up to the edge of the surf to retrieve it.
“Everything is better when you have firepower.” He drops the pack into the sand and drops down beside it.
“Ash,” I say, “do you still have your first aid kit?”
“Affirmative.” She pulls off her sodden running pack. “I don’t know how much use everything inside will be.”
“Disinfectant on all the wounds,” I say. Seawater carries a lot of bacteria. We could each use our own personal bottle of disinfectant and a lifetime supply of bandages, but we’ll have to make do with what we have. “If anyone needs stitches, see to it they get them. Susan, I’ll wrap your ankle.” I glance down the beach, at the black sand the Lost Coast is known for. “We move out in thirty minutes.”
“What?” Susan stares at me aghast. “We can’t move out. None of us are in any shape to move.”
“None of us are in any shape to stay here,” I reply. “We have no shelter and little food. We’re wet and cold and we can’t build a fire in this rain. Any one of us could get an infection from our cuts and scrapes. Our best hope at surviving is to get the hell off the Lost Coast.”
“But my ankle—” Susan begins.
I cut her off, knowing how crucial it is to keep everyone in a suck-it-up mindset. “I’ll wrap it. The natural swelling will create a sheath to splint in. It’s possible to run on it.”
“Run?” Susan’s voice is a shriek.
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“Mama ran almost a hundred miles on a messed-up ankle,” Reed puts in. “You should have seen her when she arrived in Arcata. Her bad ankle was twice the size of her good one.”
Susan’s face turns incredulous.
Sympathy softens me, but I don’t let it show. “Pain isn’t relevant, Susan. I know you hurt. I know you’ll hurt more in the coming miles. But giving in to pain will get you killed. You can’t stay out here. Your only option is to keep moving.”
A mix of frustration and fear flushes the angles of her face. I remind myself she’s new to the running world. Until a few weeks ago, she didn’t even know what ultrarunning was. I put a gentle hand on her arm.
“Trust me, please. I’ll get you out of here if you let me.”
She nods, lips compressed. I open my pack and pull out a soggy shirt. Using my knife, which miraculously is still attached to my belt, I cut off several strips and set about wrapping Susan’s foot.
Reed and Caleb both receive stitches from Ash. There aren’t enough sterile wipes to go around, so I make sure those with the deepest wounds get them. I also wrap Ash’s ankle with the remains of my shirt, grateful hers doesn’t look as purple and swollen as Susan’s.
During this time, I mentally plot out our next steps. The Lost Coast trail is about fifty miles from north to south. According to Susan, we just exited the southern impassable zone.
Judging on what I know of the route, I estimate we have about thirty miles left to travel. Due to the time of year, we’ll have light for the next two or three hours. I hope everyone packed a headlamp.
From what I recall reading about this next part of the trail, we will have a shit ton of climbing. I need to make sure I pace everyone accordingly. We have to move fast enough to get off the trail by sunset, but not so fast I blow everyone up by mile twelve.
With all of us wet and cold, hypothermia is a real threat. The rain is only a light drizzle, but there’s no telling how long it will last or if it will get worse. At least if we’re moving, we have a chance at keeping our bodies warm.
Once we’re off the trail, we can find a house, a car, or some kind of shelter. We can scavenge food and medical supplies. We can regroup and figure out our next steps.
I check my pack for the small tape recorder Johnny gave me with the alpha command. It’s in a one-gallon Ziploc and appears to be intact. I don’t dare take it out in this rain to check it.
The recorder could possibly be the most valuable thing I have. I wrap it and the Ziploc in a pair of shorts, hoping to give it a little extra protection, then return it to my pack.
“I’m going to distribute the weapons,” Ben says. “That way we don’t risk losing everything in another disaster like we just had.”
Caleb nods in approval as Ash puts the finishing touch on his stitches. Ben distributes the various guns, rifles, explosives, and ammo. The rifles he brought are collapsible. It fits easily in my pack with the tape recorder and water bladder.
Who would have thought I’d ever run down a trail with a rifle in my pack? I wish Frederico were here to see this.
“Everyone, pull out any food you have,” I say. “I need to know exactly what we have so I can ration. That includes water.” Neither Ben nor Caleb have water or running packs, which means the rest of us will have to share. I don’t want to risk drinking from streams unless we have no other choice.
Two minutes later, I stare at the pathetic pile of food at my feet. Two cans of black beans. Seven granola bars. A bag of M&Ms. Two sticks of beef jerky. Ten litres of water to share among five people over thirty miles.
This is not good.
“We eat the beans now. Ration the rest for today’s journey. We eat every two hours. Small bites only.”
“How are we supposed to go thirty miles on that?” Susan gestures to the pathetic pile of food.
I share her sentiments, but I don’t let it show. No one can know how worried I really am.
“It will have to be enough,” I tell her. “It’s all we have.”
“We’ve trained for this,” Eric says. “We can do this.”
“You’ve trained for this,” Susan snaps. “I’ve only been running with you guys for seven weeks.”
“Couch potato to ultramarathon,” I reply, trying to make my voice light. “I knew people who specialized in that sort of training.”
“Couch potato training?” Ash asks. “What does that mean?”
“It means they don’t train enough. Sometimes because they’re lazy, but usually because life got in the way.”
“So these couch potatoes still showed up to run on race day?” Reed asks.
I nod. “It wasn’t always pretty, but people can gut out just about anything if they put their mind to it. Besides,” I add to Susan, “you’re in better shape than you give yourself credit for. You and Gary survived for months on the Fairhaven. You can’t tell me ship life was easy.”
Susan weighs my words. “It is hard work,” she says after a moment.
“There you go. Just think of it as cross training for the Lost Coast.”
She closes her eyes, a small smile wrinkling her mouth. “You are the strangest woman I’ve ever met. I can’t believe I actually feel inspired by what you just said. No one cross trains on a charter boat for ultramarathons.”
“They do now.” I refuse to back away from the sliver of optimism I’ve managed to instill in her. “You can start a new fad.”
“Johnny will write about it in his book,” Eric adds. “Couch potato charter woman to ultramarthon runner.” Everyone looks at him. “Yeah, that sounded weird, didn’t it?”
“Um, I think I just found another bear print.” Reed stands in the sand, staring at something directly at his feet.
I head toward him, my heart sinking at the large animal print filling up with rainwater. Leading away from Reed into a narrow canyon is a line of identical tracks. It’s even larger than the last one we saw, these easily five inches across.
“Black bear,” Susan confirms, voice flat. “I forgot to mention no one is allowed to backpack on the Lost Coast without a bear canister for food. Bears can smell food up to two miles away.”
No one speaks. Every single one of us is thinking of the various edible items stashed in our packs. The two granola bars in my pack make me feel like a bear magnet. Zombies, I can handle. Bears? No, thank you.
“We could eat everything now,” Ash ventures.
I hesitate then shake my head. “We’re moving away from the bear tracks.” I hope. “We need to conserve the food. We’ll need a constant source of fuel to keep us going throughout the day.”
We wolf down the two cans of beans, passing them around in pensive silence as the rain patters down on us. I toss the cans to the ground when we finish. It felt weird to toss garbage on the ground at the beginning of the apocalypse. Now, none of us is phased by it.
“Lace up,” I say. “We’ve got an ultramarathon to run.”
56
Pacer
KATE
There’s a time-honored tradition in the ultramarathon world known as pacing. Simply put, pacing is accompanying a racer on part of his or her race. I used to pace Frederico for as far as fifty or sixty miles when he ran hundred milers.
On a granular level, pacing isn’t as simple as just running with another person. It’s studying the route ahead of time and watching for flags so your runner doesn’t get lost. It’s monitoring the food and beverage intake over the long miles to make sure your runner keeps himself fed and hydrated. It’s helping him through rough spots—when he’s bonking, raging, or puking his guts out on the trail. It’s keeping an eye on the clock to make sure your runner doesn’t miss any important cut-offs.
On top of that, a pacer has to monitor his own food and drink intake. You can’t pace a person if you’re laid out on the side of the trail.
As I usher my group down the beach, I realize this will be the toughest pacing job of my life. Not only do we have to contend with Mother Nature and all she t
hrows at us, I have myself and six people to monitor. We’re starting out wet, cold, and injured with limited resources.
There are no aid stations waiting for us at regular intervals. There is no option to drop from the run if things get hard. There are no gear bags waiting for us with dry clothes and clean socks.
As we jog down the beach, black pebbles slowing our journey, I fall into step beside Susan. Her jaw is set. I have no doubt she’s in pain from her rolled ankle, but it’s good to see her sucking it up. She’ll need that grit to make it out of here.
“Have you hiked the Lost Coast before?” It would be helpful to have someone with knowledge of the trails.
She shakes her head, panting as she jogs. “Hike, no. Gary and I boated down here plenty of times for the fishing. I grew up with stories of the Lost Coast.” Her brow wrinkles. “Mostly of people getting washed away by the tide, or just lost. Or having a close encounter with a bear.”
Well, there goes that idea. Susan knows about as much as I do about the Lost Coast, which is just enough to leave me terrified.
I pull ahead, leading the pack down the black beach. Reed brings up the rear. My sweeper. Every race has sweepers, people who bring up the back of the pack to make sure no one gets left behind.
We enter a stretch of beach that is true sand, the fine grains glistening black beneath my running shoes. I shift a little closer to the water where the surface is firmer for running. The cliffs to our left are tall, tan, and vertical.
“Black Sands Beach,” Susan calls.
“No shit,” Ben grumbles.
“I mean, that’s the name of this beach,” Susan says. “The end of the beach marks the midway point of the Lost Coast Trail.”
“How much farther after that?” Eric asks.
“About twenty-five miles.” I let that sink in. No one says anything.
The rain continues to peter down. Even though I’m running, I’m cold. The wind from the coast, combined with the rain and clothes already soaking wet, are a bad combination. A glance down my line of runners shows me everyone in the same condition.
I mentally run through the list of hypothermia symptoms. Shivering. Slurred speech. Shallow breathing. Slow pulse. Clumsiness. Confusion. Drowsiness. And worst of all, unconsciousness.
Undead Ultra (Book 3): Lost Coast Page 29