Lost Coast Read online

  Lost Coast

  Undead Ultra, Volume 3

  Camille Picott

  Published by Camille Picott, 2019.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Lost Coast

  Prologue | Massacre

  1 | Shift Change

  2 | Caffeine

  3 | Pack

  4 | Practice

  5 | Hair

  6 | Spam

  7 | Mayday

  8 | Horde

  9 | Road Crossing

  10 | Marshland

  11 | Fairhaven

  12 | Highway 101

  13 | The Dodge Gap

  14 | Five Leaf

  15 | Wounds

  16

  17 | Horde

  18 | Yellow Light

  19 | Arm

  20 | Stand

  21 | No Way Out

  22 | Improvise

  23 | Rubble

  24 | Double Feature

  25 | Wake

  26 | Sixteen

  27 | Hang Over

  28 | Fortifications

  29 | Shark Bait

  30 | Foot Soldier

  31 | Idea

  32 | Carnival Game

  33 | Language Department

  34 | Company

  35 | Newcomers

  36 | Check In

  37 | Infrasound

  38 | Security System

  39 | Recipes

  40 | Surprise

  41 | Rooftop

  42 | Missed Call

  43 | Siege

  44 | Apocalyptic Bounce House

  45 | Out of Gas

  46 | Manila

  47 | Speedboats

  48 | Dead Waters

  49 | Open Water

  50 | Dead in the Water

  51 | Swim

  52 | Tide

  53 | Sprint

  54 | Impassable Zone

  55 | Inventory

  56 | Pacer

  57 | Chafing

  58 | Pain Cave

  59 | Confession

  60 | Old Friend

  61 | Hot Water

  62 | Deal with It

  63 | Candelabras

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Free Gift: the untold story of Alvarez

  Also By Camille Picott

  Lost Coast

  Undead Ultra

  Book 3

  By

  Camille Picott

  www.camillepicott.com

  Copyright 2019 Camille Picott

  Prologue

  Massacre

  BEN

  Six months ago ...

  That rat bastard Johnson was up to something. Johnson and his little weasel, Ryan. Ben was certain. Those boys had a charisma inherent to high school bullies.

  Ben was convinced they were going to go for the food. For the past week, Johnson’s lackeys had been sneaking off in the middle of the night in pairs. He suspected they were setting up a new headquarters and planned to steal all the supplies for themselves.

  Ben saw the way Johnson looked over the rations, at the way he leveraged the best food for himself and the soldiers. He liked having power over people.

  Just last week, he’d bullied the college kids into smaller rations.

  “Who’s going to keep you safe?” Johnson had reasoned. “If you don’t have us to protect you, the zoms will get you.”

  The rest of the soldiers were just as bad. They were all obnoxious pricks who subscribed to pack mentality. And Johnson was the leader.

  Ben was going to make sure the college kids weren’t left high and dry when Johnson made his move. In fact, if everything went according to plan, Ben didn’t intend for any of them to be around come tomorrow night.

  He made his way through the dark hallway and slipped into the dorm that had been converted to a stores room. He looked for things that could be carried easily. Powdered soup mixes and packets of Top Ramen. Bottles of aspirin. He scribbled a list with a broken pencil on a Post-It Note, making note of everything he planned to steal.

  He’d lead the kids away tomorrow night. Sneak out all the ones who hadn’t thrown their lot in with Johnson. Five miles north of here was a town. McKinleyville. He didn’t think Johnson would follow them all that way. Ben just needed to make sure they had enough supplies to hold them over a few days until they found a new home base.

  He considered recruiting other soldiers to join him. There were two on the outside of Johnson’s gang. The first was Ash. The fact that she was female put her at a disadvantage with Johnson. He respected her because she was tough, but she wasn’t part of the inner circle.

  The other was Caleb. The young man was close to Johnson for reasons Ben couldn’t fathom, but he wasn’t like the rest of the soldiers. He knew the way they bullied the college kids was wrong. But he didn’t do a damn thing about it, which in Ben’s mind made him as guilty as the rest.

  In the end, Ben decided it was too risky to trust Ash and Caleb. They spent too much time with Johnson. Ben had to pull this off on his own. He—

  “Stop!” someone yelled. It sounded like Caleb. “Don’t do this! Johnson, stop!”

  The sound of shattering glass sent a spike of adrenaline through him. Ben jumped to his feet just as gunfire peppered the air.

  No.

  He tore out of the room and sprinted to the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time.

  No.

  He flung open the door, running full tilt toward the sound of battle. Screams clawed at him, urging him onward.

  It wasn’t the screams of zombies. It was the screams of people. Of college kids.

  The double glass doors leading out into the courtyard were shattered. Ben threw himself through the opening, not feeling the shards that tore right through his clothes and his flesh.

  He burst into the courtyard, confronted by the sight of blood. So much blood. It ran toward the large drain near the center of the open area, bright red slashes against the gray pavement.

  His brain flashed through a sequence of scenes. Blood on the hard-packed ground in an Iranian village. Blood spurting through his fingers as he tried to staunch a bleeding friend on the desert ground. Blood spraying like a popped soda can when the grenade went off near the meat shop in Somalia.

  His life could be painted in a series of blood patterns.

  It took him several heartbeats to wrench himself free of the memories. He careened back into the present just as a bullet grazed the tip of his ear, sending a burn up and across his scalp.

  Ben leaped for cover in the doorway’s alcove. He gripped his Sig and peered around the corner.

  That’s when he finally saw past the blood and registered the bodies. The youthful bodies in brightly colored clothing.

  Erin. Jason. Scarlet. Andy. Ted. Ginger. What’s-his-name who never shut up.

  Their names scrolled through his brain in red kiosk lights. Red like the blood that matted their hair, marred their clothing, and drizzled across their skin.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” sang a voice.

  Johnson. That motherfucker.

  “Come join your friends, Benny.”

  “What the fuck have you done?” Ben bellowed.

  “I just expanded our rations,” Johnson drawled.

  That’s when Ben saw Caleb. The tall, handsome African American kid from San Diego crouched behind a pillar, gun in hand. He had a clear shot at Johnson.

  “Come on, Benny,” Johnson said. “You know that crew was just dead weight. All they did was take, take, take.”

  “You murdered them!”

  “Watch your voice, Benny. You’ll bring the zoms.”

  “I’m going to make you a zom, you sick fuck.”

  Johnson sighed loudly. “That’s why I didn’t ask you t
o join us, Benny. You pull your weight, but you’re a cranky fuck. Isn’t he, guys?”

  A chorus of voices answered in the affirmative. Ben saw them. The young soldiers and the college kids who had thrown their lot in with Johnson. They clustered around him like high school bullies guarding their ringleader.

  Ben counted them off in his head. Every last murderer. Every last fucker who was going to die for what they’d done.

  Across the courtyard, Caleb raised his gun. Ben watched him take aim at Johnson.

  Do it, he urged silently. Put that fuckhead in the grave.

  But Caleb only stood there, gun raised. And stood, and stood, and stood.

  With a sinking feeling, Ben realized he wasn’t going to shoot. The fucker was going to let Johnson walk.

  Rage clouded his vision. Ben leapt out, a gun in each hand. He fired blindly in the direction of Johnson and his lackeys, then dove back toward the safety of the building.

  Miraculously, he wasn’t hit. Sheer dumb luck. He charged back through the shattered doors and made a break for freedom. Gunfire followed him.

  As he fled, the last thing he saw was Caleb, still standing behind the safety of the pillar like a coward.

  1

  Shift Change

  BEN

  The sun comes up, staining the sky a deep pink. The clouds are dark puffs of gray, promising rain sometime today.

  It always rains in this fucking place. Ben is sick of it. Even if rain is one of the few things that anchors him when the flashbacks come.

  Like now.

  Like when the sky is a deep pink at sunrise.

  The color sucks him back thirty years, when the ink of his signature was still wet on the army enlistment papers.

  A similar pink sky stretched over him as his ground unit entered Kuwait to drive out Iraqi forces. He feels the vibration of grenades under his feet. His ears sting from the machine gun chatter. He feels the suffocating hot air of that desert hell.

  The fear of that day sucker punches him. It fills every segment of his body, making his hands shake. He’s a fresh recruit in Kuwait all over again, wondering what the fuck he’s gotten himself into.

  Ben never has been able to stomp out that old fear, no matter how old he gets or how many wars he fights in.

  He grinds his teeth and tries to focus on the smell of the rain clouds. It never smelled like this in the Sandbox. Ever. Just black plumes as petroleum fields burned.

  Ben stares at the clouds, willing himself to return to Arcata. Willing himself to leave the hell of Desert Storm and come back to the hell of the present apocalypse.

  Gunfire fades in his ears, replaced with the soft, distant moans of zombies. The explosions from rocket launchers and grenades diminish, leaving the roof of the Creekside dorm building in Humboldt State University solid beneath his feet.

  Somewhere nearby, a bird chirps.

  It chirps a second time, then a third. By the time the third chirp sounds, he’s returned to the present.

  His hands stop shaking. The old fear recedes, disappearing back into distant memory where it belongs.

  Ben wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

  Fuck. That was a bad one.

  He’s always dealt with flashbacks, mostly at night. It’s fine. Sleep is overrated, anyway. Shit, PTSD is practically a surrogate brother to him.

  He always shoulders the shit and moves on. But this fucking zombie apocalypse keeps triggering old memories. It’s a new card surfacing from an old deck every fucking day.

  He runs a hand over the familiar handle of his Sig. The weapon further grounds him, helping him focus on his mission for the day.

  This is how he survives. One mission at a time. Kate tells him what to do and he does it. The work keeps him sane. One job after another, until he’s so exhausted his mind can’t help but fall into a few precious hours of dreamless sleep.

  The hair on the back of his neck prickles, alerting him to an approach. Even though he’s expecting the shift change for watch, he can’t erase thirty years of paranoia learned in combat. He eases the handle of the Sig out of its holster and turns toward the hatch in the dorm rooftop, ready for anything.

  A lean woman with a ponytail climbs out. Kate.

  His slips the Sig back into place.

  He takes advantage of the thirty seconds it takes her to climb all the way onto the roof, admiring her lean muscles.

  She wears a tight tank top with a light jacket and running shorts. She’s always in those fucking shorts, even when they go out with the zombies.

  He has a love-hate relationship with her shorts. When he isn’t scared to death that she’s going to get herself bitten, he can’t stop staring at them. Or more precisely, at the legs revealed by those shorts.

  He’s never seen a pair of legs like Kate’s. She has leg muscles he never knew existed. Which is saying something; he’s spent his entire life with men who powerlift and do other shit meant to build muscle and decrease body fat.

  She’s wearing a new pair of shorts today. He knows this not because he pays any attention to the color or the design on the various things she wears. He knows this because an extra two inches of leg is exposed above her tan line.

  Honestly, he’d been pretty sure the only way her shorts could get any shorter would be if she dispensed with them altogether and started running around in her underwear. Which he wouldn’t put past her, if she thought it would serve some greater purpose. The crazy woman is always putting herself at risk for all the little shitheads she’s adopted.

  “Hi.” Kate gives him a tentative smile as she emerges fully onto the rooftop. Her body is haloed by the rising sun, which accentuates those perfect leg muscles.

  He stares at her. She looks so damn good.

  He wants to tell her this. In truth, he’s been looking forward to this very moment for days. This exact moment of the shift change, when he knew he’d be with Kate and she wouldn’t be surrounded by one or more of the little shitheads who all adore her. A moment when he could talk to her without anyone being there to watch or eavesdrop.

  The problem is, he hasn’t worked out what to say. Even though he’s had days to plan. Days to come up with some clever conversation starter.

  A dent appears between Kate’s brows as she watches him watching her. “Ben? You okay?”

  He wants to tell her that he’s more than okay whenever she’s around. He wants to tell her that he could watch her run for hours without getting bored. He wants to tell her she’s the craziest fucking woman he’s ever met, and when he lies in bed at night unable to sleep, he likes to recall the night he watched her take out Johnson’s entire poisonous nest with a bottle of laced brandy and three zombies. Thinking about that is more restful than sleep.

  God dammit, he’d settle for any comment civil and uncomplicated. Anything for a chance to talk to her, to keep the conversation going.

  Anything except for the words that actually come out of his mouth, which are: “Nice tan line.”

  Her frown deepens, sliding from her brow down to her mouth. He hates this look, mostly because it’s the only one he can seem to get out of her when he works up the nerve to talk to her.

  “I have to wear what I can find, okay? I ripped my favorite pair on that door hinge when we cleared out those zombies that congregated in the Depot. Jenna found these in a room on the third floor and they fit.”

  He should explain that he didn’t mean that the way it sounded. He should explain that she looks damn fine in those shorts.

  But she brought up the incident in the Depot, when she’d had a near-miss with a zombie. Just thinking about it pisses him off all over again. She risks herself too often.

  “You shouldn’t wear shorts when we leave Creekside. It’s too risky. I’ve told you that before.”

  “What’s risky is having to run hard and fast in jeans or stuff like that.” She gestures to his sturdy military fatigues. “It’s not the right gear for our lifestyle here.”

  “I run in
these just fine.” He won’t budge on the fatigues. He can’t. He was practically born in them. He never liked wearing civvies even when he was on leave. “I do your four-hour workouts like everyone else.”

  She pokes a finger in the direction of his waist. “Yeah, and I know you’ve got blisters and chafing. I’ve seen the bandages. Don’t try to deny it.”

  He’s torn between pleasure that she’s paid enough attention to notice the bandages and irritation that she’s seen through his bald lies regarding fatigue pants.

  He learned the hard way that there’s a big difference between clothes suitable for five miles of running and clothes suitable for twenty-five miles of running. Even so, the last thing he wants to do is wear a pair of those flimsy running shorts. He made up his mind weeks ago that he’d suffer in silence and keep his fatigue pants. That’s exactly what he’s done.

  She arches a brow at him. “Go ahead. Tell me those things are comfortable to run in.”

  Ben knows a challenge when he sees one. He wants to point out he did agree to the fluorescent orange and yellow running shoes she picked for him. Ben has never done fluorescent. Not ever.

  Those shoes make him look like a washed-out old man trying to be a Millennial. All he’s missing is ten pounds of hair gel. And maybe half a dozen piercings in odd places.

  All because of the apocalypse. And Kate.

  He wishes he could rewind the last sixty seconds and start over. Since he can’t, he does the next best thing; he changes the subject.

  Grabbing a thermos off the small table they keep on the roof, he holds it out to Kate. “I made you coffee.”

  She blinks. “When did you make me coffee?”

  “Last night, before my shift.”

  “Four hours ago?” Now she’s really frowning.

  She thinks he’s offering her cold coffee. “This is a Yeti thermos,” he explains.

  That doesn’t clear up her frown. Maybe she doesn’t know about Yeti thermoses. She barely knew the front end of a gun from the back when he met her a few months ago. Why would he assume she knows about Yetis?

  “This is the best thermos on the face of the earth. A friend of mine in the service was a hunter. He went on a hunting trip every time he was on leave. He’d go out into the backcountry for days. He always took a Yeti and kept ice cream in it.”