Undead Ultra

by Camille Picott

  Mile one hundred seventy-six.

  I run to myself. That’s the simplest distillation of my obsession with long distance running. Somewhere, in all the countless miles, I find myself. Every time I lace up my shoes and roll out the front door, I connect with myself. Through pain and joy, I find me.

  Mile one hundred seventy-nine.

  The road is silent and beautiful, the redwood giants the only witnesses to my solitary passage.

  I jog into Pioneer Grove, a stand of the beautiful giant trees on the northern end of the Avenue. Some of the trees are as much as eight to ten feet in diameter.

  The Grove is deserted. No zombies. No death. Just beauty and life.

  A tree stump about twenty feet wide stands before me. It was cut down in the heyday of the logging industry. Every inch of the stump is covered with carvings.

  I run my fingers over the carvings, searching, searching, searching.

  There. Facing away from the road, about five feet up: a carving.

  Our carving.

  *

  “What are you doing, sweetie?” I held a long twig in my hand, snapping off little pieces as I wandered through the redwood grove toward Carter.

  My son was dressed in loose jeans and a plain blue T-shirt. A ball cap sat atop his shaggy hair, the ends of which curled around his cheeks. He’d trimmed his beard recently, though it was still full and bushy.

  In Carter’s hand was a pocketknife, a high school graduation gift from Frederico.

  He glanced up at me from a heart he’d carved on the tree trunk. His eyes were unfocused, distant. I could tell he heard me speak, but he hadn’t heard my question.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said vaguely, returning his attention to his carving.

  Coming to stand beside him, I gave his shoulder a squeeze as I watched him work in silence.

  With infinite care, Carter carved the letters K, K, and C inside the heart. Kyle, Kate, and Carter. My chest tightened.

  He leaned forward, blowing away the loose shavings, then spent a few more minutes smoothing out the letters. When he finished, he looked at me. His eyes were wet, but his cheeks were dry.

  “We’re together, Mom,” Carter said. “Doesn’t matter where we are. You, me, and Dad—we’re always together.”

  It took all my willpower not to burst into tears. I dragged the trip out, doing everything I could to delay Carter’s inevitable drop off at college. He knew it, but he never complained.

  I sniffed and nodded, running my fingers over the letters my son had carved with such love.

  This was my fate: to drop off my son and drive home to an empty house. I couldn’t let him see how much it terrified me. He shouldn’t have to take care of his mother.

  “Thanks, sweetie.” I gave him a hug, trying not to clutch him. “Dad loved the redwoods, you know.”

  “I know.” Carter flashed me a quick smile. “He would like it, the three of us here together.” His fingers caressed the carving.

  “Yeah. He would.” I turned away, willing away my tears. I forced my voice into a cheerful tone. “Come on. We should get going if we want to make it to campus before dark.”

  *

  Now, two years later, I find Carter’s carving in Pioneer Grove. I run my hand over the heart and letters. The carving has faded and blended in with the dozens of other initials in the wood beside it.

  I pick up a small rock and press it against the stump. I chip away at the bark, carving a rough F next to my family heart. I take my time, wanting it to look nice.

  When I finish, I stand back to admire my crude handiwork. Then I close my eyes and imagine they are all here with me: Kyle, Carter, and Frederico.

  I can almost smell Kyle’s soap and see Carter’s bushy beard in the corner of my eye. I hear Frederico say, Get moving, Jackalope.

  I let myself pretend, if only for ten seconds, that we’re together. That I am with the three people who matter most to me.

  It feels good to pretend. Here, in the avenue of ancient giants, a sense of peace washes over me.

  Something rustles in the grove. I open my eyes and see the jackalope. He hops resolutely toward me, ears wilted.

  The blood on his head has dried to dark lumps. A new set of antlers has already begun to sprout. They are two pale nubs on his forehead.

  Five feet away from me, he draws to a halt. We stand there, staring at each other in silence.

  The weight of my life hangs between us. Everything I am, everything I’m not—it’s all there. It’s so heavy it could crack open the earth.

  But it doesn’t. The earth remains solid beneath my feet.

  I know what I have to do.

  I swallow and take a step forward. The jackalope tenses, ears swiveling toward me in alarm. I pause, keeping my arms at my side so he can see I mean him no harm.

  The jackalope’s ears relax. His nose twitches. I take two more steps, closing the distance between us. Slowly, gingerly, I stoop down and lift him into my arms.

  He tenses. I cuddle him, pressing my nose into his dirty, bloody fur. After a moment, he relaxes and nuzzles my chest.

  We don’t speak. We don’t move. We just stand there, wrapped in the silence of the redwoods.

  And then the jackalope disappears, vanishing from my arms and dissolving into a puff of mist.

  Chapter 54

  Arcata

  The jackalope does not return. I am a lone runner on the road, slowly and steadily making my way north. The highway climbs, steadily rising with the mountains.

  I fall into a pattern. I stick to the asphalt as much as possible, only veering into the woods when I see zombies or wrecked cars on the road.

  Mile two hundred one.

  Where the fuck is Arcata? Where the hell is that fucking town?

  Two hundred and one point three miles. That’s how far Frederico said it was from Geyserville to Humboldt University.

  Here I am, at mile two hundred one, and there is no fucking college campus anywhere in sight. For that matter, there isn’t anything in sight. Just trees and mountains and the goddamn Eel River.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Who knows how many miles we added to our run on the various side trips we took? I could have another fifteen miles to go, or fifty. I don’t even know where I am.

  The thought makes me mad. Really mad.

  I glare at the world at large, my stride never faltering.

  “Fuck you, world,” I say. “I’m finishing this. Just try to stop me.”

  Mile two hundred five.

  Dammit. I need more water.

  I veer off the road, jogging down a slope to the Eel River. Ignoring the fact that I’ll likely manifest symptoms of dysentery, giardia, or schistosomiasis in the next day or two, I fill my pack up with river water.

  As I fasten the pack back into place, I see it: a dull glint off to my right, on top of a small rise.

  I squint, peering up the slope. Could that be . . . a railroad track?

  I scramble up the hill. Sure enough, there in front of me are the crooked, rusty tracks of an abandoned railroad.

  I stare at it dumbly. I recall bending over the map with Frederico and noting the point when the railroad gave up following Highway 101 and veered east to end in some faraway town. We never looked to see if there were other tracks. It makes sense that there would be, though. Logging was once the life blood of northern California. Trains would have been used to haul the lumber.

  I weigh my options. Sticking with the road has a lot of risks, especially considering some of the larger towns in front of me: Scotia, Fortuna, and Eureka. There’s a good chance they’ll be overrun with zombies.

  Following the tracks has its own set of risks. It will be much harder to forage for food. Water, too, if the tracks veer from the river for long batches of time. And the tracks are a bitch to navigate. But they are safer.

  I deliberate for a long minute. Road or rails? Rails or road?

  “Fuck it,” I mutter. I’d rather face starvation, dehydration, and injury
.

  Setting my jaw, I step onto the tracks.

  They’re as brutal as I remember them. Uneven. Clogged with foxtails and stickers and weeds as tall as I am. And here, farther north, are vicious blackberry briars. It’s too early in the season for there to be fruit, which make the bushes both annoying and useless.

  Even without my injured ankle, it is a race from hell. I run when I can, but most times I am forced to move at a brisk hike.

  The miles blur. I focus on the monumental task of putting one foot in front of the other.

  The tracks roughly follow the Eel River, giving me plenty of water to drink. I pass the occasional house or trailer home on my trek. There are times when the tracks draw close to the road, bringing me near cars. I forage for food when I need to, killing zombies when I can’t avoid it.

  My feet are bricks of pain. The swollen ankle is just one of the many aches. My injured knee has also swelled up. An old injury has resurfaced on my right foot. It feels like someone is ramming an ice pick into the top of it, right at the base of my toes.

  Blisters on the toes push against my socks and shoes. There are other blisters on the top and bottom of my feet. I wish I had the energy to stop and tend to them, but I don’t. I’m pretty sure I’ll have no toenails left by the end of this trip. Fuck it. They’ll grow back eventually.

  My arms are leaden weights at my sides. Achy soreness crawls along my back, neck, and abdominals. There’s chafing along my inner thighs, under my sports bra, and along my shoulders and armpits.

  The poison oak has spread up both arms. A few patches have also popped up on my neck and cheek, too. In an effort to combat the itchiness, I’ve slathered mud on the rashes. I look like a crazed golem.

  My bullet wound throbs and aches. I embrace that particular pain. It’s a reminder of a time when I still had Frederico by my side.

  The sun sets and rises. Still, I run.

  Sometimes I cry for long stretches of time. Occasionally I laugh madly at nothing in particular. Mostly, I keep my head down and slog forward.

  Do I stop to sleep? I wish I knew.

  Mile two hundred twenty-nine.

  Arcata. Population 17,697.

  After seventy-eight hours and forty-seven minutes, I have arrived. The railroad tracks have, at long last, delivered me to my destination.

  I’m filthy, in pain, hungry, thirsty, bloody, and covered in mud, but I’m here. I’m here, and I’m alive.

  A dark cloud of smoke sits on top of the town. Ash flicks fill the air. Somewhere, a fire burns. A big fire.

  I half limp, half jog into this strange town of hippies, artists, druggies, anarchists, and college students. Most of the buildings and homes are colorful and ornate relics of the once-booming logging industry.

  The tracks have taken me into the west side of town. The college is, of course, on the opposite side, but that seems like a small obstacle in light of everything.

  I easily navigate the streets of Arcata, having run through most of them whenever I visited Carter. A hush has fallen over the college town. It’s a hush of necessity—a hush adopted by prey.

  I move at a walk, partially because running is too much of an effort, partially because I don’t want to make noise.

  The zombies moan and wander the streets in blind packs. Their numbers thicken toward the center of town. I steer clear of them, a few times hunkering down and hiding until they pass.

  I find remnants of military presence. There are two Hummers near the town square. One of them is half buried in a storefront; the other lies on its side. I count eight zombie soldiers, all of them bloody and ghastly.

  There are dead bodies—real dead bodies—in the street, all them partially or mostly eaten.

  Some houses have clearly been vandalized: shattered windows, busted doors, driveways and streets strewn with discarded loot. Other homes and shops have been boarded up. In a second-story window of a blue house, a pair of eyes watch me as I pass. When I meet the person’s gaze, the blinds immediately snap shut.

  This is a cowed, dead town.

  Mile two hundred thirty.

  Finish Line.

  Humboldt State University.

  It’s in ruins.

  I stand at the entrance to the university, staring at the remains of the once-beautiful white-stucco student apartments. These had been new buildings, built to attract more students. Most have burned to the ground.

  There isn’t a living human in sight.

  A giant football field nestles in the crux of the apartments. Dozens of zombies mill around the field, many in military uniforms. Students and faculty are among them. Wrecked and burned military jeeps dot the landscape.

  My worst fears dance before my eyes. I crouch behind the broad stucco sign bearing the university’s name, taking a moment to steady myself.

  Keep it together, I tell myself. You’re almost to the finish line.

  Luckily, there are four lanes of traffic and a wrought iron fence between me and the zombies. I veer to the far margin and creep past the fence. I break into a run when there’s a pile of rubble between me and the undead, following the road that runs along the perimeter of the campus. Strangely alert and awake, I scan the surroundings for signs of danger, my screwdriver and railroad spike in hand.

  I head toward the dorms where my son lives, hoping the Creekside Lounge is still standing and not a pile of rubble. Hoping Carter is still safe and alive.

  How long has it been since I spoke to him from the old phone in Rod’s Roadhouse? One day, I think, though my sense of time has been completely blurred.

  A scattering of bodies lies in the road ahead of me. Most look to have been students, but there are a few soldiers in their midst. There are chunks of torn flesh everywhere, strewn body parts, and way too much blood. They look like they were killed by some sort of explosion. God, what happened in this place?

  I approach cautiously, wondering if any have turned into zombies. But in the growing morning light, none of them move. They’re all dead. Really dead.

  I continue on. The road is quiet. In the air is a mixed scent of rot, blood, smoke, and pine. I pass other dead bodies, as well as a dozen or so abandoned cars that show evidence of violence: smashed windows, smears of blood, and occasionally a living zombie trapped inside.

  There are no signs of living humans anywhere.

  The fire appears to have been focused in the front part of campus. Buildings farther north are untouched by flames, though they bear other scars of conflict. One looks like it was hit by a grenade or rocket launcher; half its roof and western wall are gone, reduced to piles of debris. Other buildings are riddled with bullet holes.

  There are bodies and blood everywhere. So may dead kids it makes my heart ache.

  I at last arrive at Granite Avenue, the road leading up to the Creekview dorms where Carter lives. I power hike as the road angles uphill. Tall redwoods crowd the side of the asphalt.

  There are over a dozen different dorm buildings along Granite Avenue. They’re reddish-brown, three-story buildings with dark green window trim tucked into the trees and ferns.

  My breath catches as I draw abreast of the first dorm.

  Dozens of bodies are scattered in the parking lot and along the road, all of them riddled with bullet holes. Some of the bodies look like they’ve been crushed by something large and heavy, like a car. Flies mass above the bodies in thick swarms. Carrion birds have already begun their work, pecking at eyes and open wounds on the bodies. Besides the flies and the birds, nothing moves. If there are zombies out there, I don’t see them.

  The dorm buildings bear similar signs of abuse, pocked marked with bullet holes and broken windows. There are dead kids on the steps.

  I double over and gag, throwing up the little bit of food in my stomach. Tears blur my eyes.

  These kids have been massacred. I have no doubt. There may have been zombies among them, but most look to have been alive when they were killed. What the hell happened here? Had they been mowed down by a mil
itary force?

  I recall Carter saying something about the military showing up with Hummers, guns, and weapons. He’d mentioned a lot of “panic.” Is this what he’d meant by panic? Had that panic been this massacre?

  God, Carter is so much like his dad sometimes. Details are not their strong points.

  I grit my teeth, put my head down, and keep moving. The road is littered with bodies. Kids, all of them in their late teens or early twenties. There are soldiers among the dead, but only a few.

  Farther up Granite Avenue, I spot movement among the bodies. One is a girl with short red hair. Both her legs have been crushed, pulverized into mashed red stumps. She’s dragged herself into a cluster of bodies, where she feeds on the arm of a boy with bloody dreadlocks. If she hears my approach, she’s so busy eating that she ignores me.

  The second is a boy with shaggy black hair. The right half of his body has been shredded by bullets, but both of his legs appear to be in working order. Lucky for me, he’s feasting on the body of a chubby girl. He briefly raises white eyes in my direction, then returns his attention to his meal.

  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.