I’ve only gotten through Frederico’s shoes when he throws open the door, eyes wild. I instantly shut off the hair dryer and leap to my feet.
“What is it?” I say, just as he says, “We have company.”
Outside, I hear catcalls and shouts. Stout is barking.
“Come on, you dead fuck!” I hear a man yell. “Come and get me!”
“You want some of this, motherfucker?” another man yells. “You want some of this fresh meat?”
“There’re four of them at the back of the house,” Frederico whispers to me. “In a truck. They drove straight through the pasture fence and went for the zombies.”
I crawl across the floor, heading for the window. Peeking over the sill, I spy four men. They look relatively normal—or as normal as guys waving blood-stained baseball bats can look. In jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps, they look to be in their mid-twenties.
As I watch, one of them swings the bat and whacks the mother zombie in the kneecap.
“Take that, you dead fuck!”
The bone shatters, and the mother zombie falls to the ground. She lands beside her eldest son, whose hands and elbows have both been battered bloody. The father zombie and younger son are also down, both with bloody kneecaps and legs that look like they’ve been broken.
“Yeah! Take that, you dead fuck!” says another of the men. He swings his own bat, breaking the mother zombie’s elbow.
My stomach turns. I’m no zombie fan—not by a long stretch—but there’s something twisted and dark about the scene unfolding below us.
The zombie moans, digging her good hand into the dirt as she tries to drag herself forward. Beside her, the teen zombie lifts his head and bares his teeth. Unable to push up with his ruined arms, he propels himself forward with his legs. Stout’s barking gains a fevered pitch.
“Shut up that fucking dog!”
One of the men pulls a handgun from the back of his jeans. Without hesitating, he fires into one of the kitchen windows. There’s the sound of shattering glass, a yelp from Stout, then silence.
My blood goes cold.
Eyes wide with panic, Frederico shoves my pack into my hand, then proceeds to jam his feet into his shoes.
I stumble in my haste to pull on my still-wet shoes. Landing on the comforter, I yank them on, then scramble back up. My hands shake in their haste to strap on the pack. Dammit, I hadn’t thought to put extra food in my pack while we were downstairs.
Wordlessly, Frederico grabs my sleeve and pulls me toward the stairs. The shouts and catcalls continue outside.
“Break her ribs!” one man shouts.
“Yeah, let’s see how far she can get with broken ribs!” says another.
Sick fuckers, I think.
As Frederico and I creep downstairs, my chest tightens with dread. Did that asshole kill Stout, or just injure her? If she’s injured, how are we going to get her away from here? It’s only a matter of time before those dickwads turn their attention to the house. If they’d shoot an innocent dog and torture zombies, I don’t want to think about what they’d do to us.
Just as we reach the bottom stair—and as the raucous laughter outside reaches new heights—there’s a soft whine. Stout limps into view.
I lunge past Frederico and throw my arms around our ultra dog. She licks my face, whining again. Blood runs down her right shoulder, but other than that, she’s in one piece. It looks like she was only grazed by the bullet.
Frederico rubs Stout between the ears and gives her a gentle pat between the shoulder blades.
“Should we search for weapons?” I whisper.
“No time,” he replies, voice soft. “We need to put distance between ourselves and those maniacs.”
He leads me and Stout into the family room. It’s on the north side of the house, opposite to where the men and the zombies are. He opens a window and pops out the screen, then deftly climbs out.
I hesitate, looking around for a chair or some other piece of furniture for Stout to climb onto. The dog surprises me by leaping out the open window after Frederico. She teeters and limps a few steps when she lands, but doesn’t make a sound.
That’s my girl, I think, scrambling after her. I land in dry dirt that looks like it was supposed to be a flower bed, even though now it’s only home to weeds.
A chorus of cheers goes up from the other side of the house. I don’t even want to think what they’re cheering about.
“Door’s barricaded,” someone calls. “Let’s break the window.”
“Think someone’s inside?” another voice shouts.
“If there is, we can make ourselves some more dead meat.”
A shiver travels down my spine. I meet Frederico’s eye and gesture north. Past the jumble of classic cars is an old vineyard that hasn’t seen a tractor in years. It’s unpruned, the gnarled vines growing in wild disarray and choked with weeds. It’s close, and it’ll provide good concealment.
Frederico nods in agreement. We break into a sprint, running as fast as we can. There’s life and energy in my steps, now that my body has refueled. I might pay for gorging later, but I’d rather be overnourished than hungry.
Glass shatters behind us. A minute after that, the front door creaks open. I glance over my shoulder and see a man step onto the porch, the floorboards protesting loudly under his footsteps. He’s wearing a plain navy shirt and a Giants baseball cap. He strolls onto the porch, swinging his bloody bat and looking around.
We are on open ground, only ten feet from the concealment of the car graveyard. There’s the barest instant when the man’s eyes meet mine. Fear makes my mouth go dry. I sprint for all I’m worth.
“Guys, I’ve found us some pussy!” he hollers. “Get the truck!”
Oh, shit. Shit-shit-shit.
Frederico and I streak through the cars and practically dive into the vineyard, hunching down into the waist-high weeds.
“We gotta hide,” Frederico says. “We’ll never outrun them. Come on.”
He leads me deeper into the vineyards. Stout is at our side, keeping up despite her wound. An approaching truck engine roars in our ears.
Frederico and I run in a crouched position, moving as fast as we can while trying to stay below the wild, tangled vines. Untrellised and untended, the vines grow every which way and slap at our faces. As strong as the wine industry is, there are still neglected vineyards.
“Dead ahead,” Frederico puffs. “We’ll hide in that.”
I hold up my arms to shield my face from the wild grapevines, trying to see ahead.
“All I see is a blackberry patch,” I pant.
“That’s right.”
As we draw near, I’m struck by the immensity of the blackberry patch. Left untended, much like the grapevines, it’s grown at least a hundred feet tall and twice as deep. It’s surrounded by tufts of poison oak.
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
The rows of grapes are too narrow for cars—or at least, that’s what I assume. Until the big four-wheeler plows straight into the first row of vines behind us. Gnarled wood and budding green leaves spray into the air in front of them.
Have they seen us? They’re heading straight for us, though with all the debris flying over the hood it’s just as likely dumb luck is leading them in our direction.
Without warning, Stout veers away from us. Her shrill bark lights the air. I hiss for her to quiet, but she’s too far away—running back in the direction of the truck.
I open my mouth to cry out after her, but Frederico grabs my hand.
“Move!” he snaps.
I obey, sprinting toward the wall of bristling brambles and poison oak.
Behind me, I hear the men hoot as they catch sight of Stout. The truck makes a sharp turn to the right, veering away on a new trajectory. Gunshots rip through the vineyard.
Instinctually I turn, Stout’s name forming on my lips. Frederico ruthlessly yanks my arm, pulling me to the ground.
>
“There,” he hisses, pushing me toward the poison oak. “Move.”
Another gunshot. More barking. Tires spew soft earth as the engine is gunned. More barking.
Tears brim in my eyes as I crawl through the poison oak. The bright-green leaves part, revealing an oddly large animal trail that leads into the brambles. It’s about two feet high and a foot-and-a-half wide. What sort of animal made this?
“Faster,” Frederico snaps at my heels.
I tuck my chin to my chest and crawl as fast as I can, heedless of the brambles scratching at my head and arms. The spikes claw at my pack and clothing. I yank myself free and keep moving, pushing deeper into the berry patch. There are parts so low that I’m reduced to wriggling on my belly and pulling myself along on my elbows.
Another gunshot.
A high-pitched yelp.
A sob breaks from my throat.
I keep crawling.
In the distance, the men shout. They’re too far away for me to make out their words. I strain my ears, hoping to hear Stout’s bark.
There’s no more barking, only the indistinct chatter of the men.
“You can stop now,” Frederico whispers. “They can’t see us.” His eyes are wet with sadness.
I collapse, curling up in a tight ball. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Tears stream down my cheeks. Frederico squeezes my shoulder while I shake with soundless tears.
Chapter 24
Bonging in the Brambles
She’s gone. That poor dog. Shot down for no other reason than the fact she’d been alive and a group of assholes was looking for violent entertainment.
I squeeze my eyes, trying to squash the images that race through my brain. God, I hope Stout’s kill had been clean. I hope she isn’t alive and in pain. The thought makes me cry harder.
We’d only been together—what?—maybe ten miles? But that had been a long, long ten miles. In that ten miles, we’d braved a zombie-infested hardware store, plowed through a nasty bonk, and eaten enough food to put normal people into a coma. I’d bonded with that dog in those ten miles.
I’d experienced similar bonding in other ultra races. When I ran the Lake Sonoma 50 miler two years ago, I’d had the misfortune of running during a heat wave. My stomach had rebelled, and I’d started puking at mile nineteen. A nice woman—Kara had been her name—caught up to me as I heaved into the bushes. She stayed with me the rest of the course, buoying my spirits with her nonstop commentary on the beauty of ultra boys in spandex. I still credit her with my finish that day and, truth be told, I’ve never looked at men in spandex quite the same way. Kara and I have never spoken or seen each other since that day, but she still has a special place in my ultrarunning past.
My running life is filled with countless stories like that—bonds forged with fellow runners in the midst of grit and determination. The only difference is that none of the runners has ever been shot and murdered.
Frederico smoothes hair back from my forehead, still holding me tight. He doesn’t speak, just holds me and strokes my hair, giving me the time I need to grieve. He’d done the same thing for me and Carter when Kyle died. He’d been rock solid and steady in the face of our incoherent grief.
By the time my tears dry, my eyes are swollen and my nose is so stuffy I’m forced to breathe through my mouth. Small pinpricks of pain—residuals from my frantic scrabble through the brambles—cover my body.
I turn my head, looking back in the direction of the vineyard. The men are still out there. It sounds like they’re arguing.
“One of the trunks from the grapevines got stuck in the undercarriage of their truck,” Frederico whispers. “I think something got broken. They haven’t been able to move the truck.”
“Did they say anything about Stout?” I reply.
“No.” He squeezes my shoulders. “Say good-bye to her, Jackalope. You need to get your head in the game if we’re going to survive. Those men out there are pissed. They blame us for what happened to their truck.”
I draw one last shuddering breath, closing my eyes. Summoning a mental picture of Stout’s black-brown fur, I mentally say my good-bye.
So sorry, girl. Sorry you had to die for us.
“Okay?” Frederico asks.
I nod.
“Good.” He gives my shoulders one last squeeze. “We need to move while they’re distracted.”
“You don’t think they’ll come in here after us, do you?”
“No, but they could shoot us through the brambles if they figure out where we are. Or light the briar on fire.”
Bile rises in my throat at his words. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“Follow these animal paths.”
I twist my head around, giving him my best skeptical look.
“Do you have a better idea?” he asks, raising his eyebrow.
A better idea than snaking around on my belly trying to find a way out of this massive blackberry bramble? I think for a moment, then wrinkle my nose in resignation. The only other option is go back the way we came, and death is the only thing in that direction. Danger, and poison oak.
As if in response, itching shivers along my arms. I ignore it. No doubt I got poison oak on me. I’m not going to make things worse by scratching at it. God, what I wouldn’t do for a bottle of Tecnu and calamine lotion right now.
“You know what they say,” Frederico whispers to me. “When you can’t run, walk.”
Despite myself, I smile. “And when you can’t walk, crawl,” I reply, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The ultrarunning community has adopted his sage advice.
Resigned, I flip onto my stomach and crawl deeper into the brambles. Sometimes the path is tall enough for me move on hands and knees, but most of the path is traversed on my belly. A few times, when the path dead-ends in what looks like an animal den, we have to backtrack.
“Did I ever tell you my bonging in the brambles story?” Frederico asks softly.
Bonging in the brambles? “No,” I whisper back. “I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that. Shit, get ready for another belly crawl.” I drop into the dirt. My elbows and hips are starting to get sore.
“It was something I did as a kid. My dad rented a little two-room cabin in Guerneville. It was right on the river. There was a big blackberry briar between our house and the neighbor’s. I used to sneak into the briar with the neighbor’s kids to get high. We called it bonging in the brambles. We thought we were so fucking clever, burrowing into that patch. We never considered the big pot plume we sent up with every bong hit. It was like a smoke signal. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for Dad to figure out what we were up to.”
“What did he do?” I ask.
Frederico snorts. “He confiscated all our weed but let us keep the bong. That night, he invited me to get high with him.”
“What?” Having spent my adult life married to a recovering alcoholic, I’m unable to censor my horror.
“Dad spent most of his days high. When he found out I liked to smoke, he saw it as an opportunity to bond. It was one of the few things we had in common.”
“You smoked weed with your dad?” I have to repeat this back to him out of incredulity, not because I have a hearing issue.
“Yeah. Of course, our bond went out the window when I went sober. By the time he died, we hadn’t spoken in almost ten years. He thought sobriety was only two steps short of suicide. We never could relate to each other once we lost weed.”
“God, Frederico. I’m so sorry.”
“I’ve come to peace with it.”
I don’t know what to say to any of this. In my own mind, I compare my straight-laced family to the image of a dad smoking pot with his son. Frederico’s experience is so beyond my own childhood, I can hardly grasp it.
We’ve been crawling around for nearly an hour when we hear the telltale sound of an engine firing to life. Cheers go up.
“They got their truck fixed,” Frederico says grimly.
&
nbsp; Minutes later, we hear the truck moving. As deep as we are in the blackberry briar, it’s hard to discern a direction at first. After a good thirty seconds, it’s clear they’re driving in our direction.
“Come out, little kitties,” one of the men calls out. “Come out and play!”
I flatten myself to the ground. As if that’s going to protect me. We’re so deep in this fucking blackberry patch, there’s no way they can see us. Even so, the animal part of my brain requires stillness and silence.
The truck rumbles by, skirting the briar, then continues on. The heckler continues to shout taunts, daring us to show ourselves. From the sound of things, they’re driving around the vineyard, trying to find our trail.
Frederico and I remain unmoving until the hum of the truck fades into the distance, then we continue our miserable crawl. Twenty minutes later, the truck returns. It roars past the briar patch, driving in the direction of the house. There’s no more taunting, and they’re moving fast enough to make me think they’re not looking for us anymore.
“Hopefully this means they’ve turned their attention to other things,” I murmur.
“Let’s hope. Kate, do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That.”
I strain my ears. At first, my attention is on the fading rumble of the truck. It takes a few seconds for me to focus on a softer, closer sound. It’s a low rustling of the briar patch.
“Animals?” I whisper.
“Yeah. Quite a few of them, from the sound of things.”
We remain where we are. After another hard listen, I determine Frederico is right. There are animals nearby. It sounds like they’re moving through the brambles and digging in the dirt. Then I hear a soft, distinct snort.
Frederico hears it, too. “Oh, shit,” he breathes. “Pigs.”
Chapter 25
Pigs
Dammit. Pigs. Did we escape from the baseball bat maniacs only to face off against wild pigs?
I should have guessed from the size of the burrows we’re following. They’re much too large to have been made by rabbits and too small to have been made by deer. They are, however, just the right size for pigs.
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