Undead Ultra (A Zombie Novel) Read online

  It was impossible for me not to laugh. I leaned back in the collapsible chair he’d set up for me, letting the humor ripple through me.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” He passed me a Ziploc filled with single-wrapped disinfectant wipes.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I rip open one of the packages, wiping the disposable cloth up and down my arm. My skin stung in response.

  The director of the Cactus Rose was famous for saying that everything on the course stung, scratched, or bit. There was no way to run this course without getting bloody. In fact, there was a demented pride that went along with getting beat up by the trail.

  “Where’s your dad?” I ask as I finished cleaning my arms. I leaned down to start working on my legs, which had twice as many cuts as my arms.

  “Napping in the car,” Carter replied. He watched in silence as I wiped up a long streak of dried blood. “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “Why do you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “This.” Carter gestured emphatically to the surrounding desert. “Ultrarunning. I mean, you could run half marathons or things like that. Easier races. Why do you always pick the hard ones?”

  I took a long drink of water, considering my answer. Carter’s question was one I’d asked myself periodically over the years. Sometimes I ran to burn off stress; sometimes I ran to work off a particularly large bowl of ice cream; other times I ran for the sheer joy of the sport. But underneath all that was another, more profound reason.

  “There are a lot of reasons,” I said at last. “If I had to boil it down, I’d say I run ultramarathons to learn about myself. To find myself. You can’t run one hundred miles without learning something. Crossing the finish line of an ultra . . .” I shrugged, struggling to find the right words. “There’s nothing like it. I find new places inside myself on every race.”

  Carter took that in introspective silence, passing me a clean pair of socks. “You should put these on. Dad says you don’t blister as badly if you change your socks halfway through.”

  I passed the socks back. “I’ll get them at the next aid station.”

  *

  Today, right now, I am running with a new reason. I run to find my son. I’m running toward Carter, toward my family. If ever I had a reason to suffer better, today is it.

  Perhaps the last twenty years have been nothing but a series of training runs for this, the ultimate run—the run to find my son.

  “I don’t think I really understood the meaning of suffering until today,” Frederico says. His voice is brittle, his face lined with grief and sorrow.

  I fumble with a front pocket in my pack and pull out a small paper towel filled with espresso beans. “Here,” I say, holding a few out to him. “I took them from the espresso machine in Rod’s Roadhouse. They’ll help us stay awake.”

  The corners of his mouth turn up, but the smile doesn’t touch his eyes. He plucks a few out of my hand and tosses them back like they’re pills. Then he starts to run.

  I fall in beside him. My body shrieks in protest. It’s a good ten minutes before things loosen up and I find myself slipping into a rhythm. The ankle, already swelling, tells me to sit the fuck down, but I ignore it. I push the pain to my periphery, focusing instead on putting one foot in front of the other. I hear Kyle’s voice in my head saying, Suffer better, babe. Suffer better.

  The road climbs away from Laytonville. Though it undulates, there’s a steady rise in elevation. We lean into the hills, pumping our arms to help propel us upward. The downhills bring some relief as we let gravity pull us forward.

  My calves burn. My lungs rasp. My arms ache.

  My ankle tells me I’m the biggest fucking idiot on the planet. I tell my ankle to shut the hell up.

  The sun sinks lower and lower. It becomes harder and harder to see. I lament the loss of our headlamps.

  “I think we’ve crossed into the part of the race where we can’t be wimps,” I say.

  “Are you kidding? I hit that point fifty miles ago. I’m just faking it till we make it to Arcata.”’

  Mile one hundred thirty-two.

  Pain is a state of mind. Running is a state of mind. I am the runner, not the pain.

  The road is dotted with big yellow and red signs advertising Confusion Hill. It’s one of the many tourist traps dotting the 101.

  Carter and I didn’t stop at Confusion Hill when I helped move him north to college. I’d battled a storm of emotions that day. Pride because I was sending a kind, responsible, hard-working young man out in the world. Joy because Carter was getting an opportunity I never had. Fear because I was afraid of how I would cope with being alone. Sadness because experiencing this day without Kyle felt fundamentally wrong.

  I dragged out the drive as much as I could. I forced him to stop at several goofy tourist traps, like the Drive-Thru Tree and the Chimney Tree. We hadn’t stopped at Confusion Hill, though.

  Tears well in my eyes. Why didn’t we stop? Why didn’t I insist on one more goofy memory before sending him off into the world? Why am I crying over some stupid tourist trap I’ve never been to? I don’t even know what Confusion Hill is.

  Mile one hundred thirty-four.

  It’s dusk. Another red-and-yellow sign looms in front of us. It says, Approaching Confusion Hill.

  The road curves. The left side of the road drops off in a near-vertical slope; the right side, equally steep, is terraced with a tall stone retaining wall. Between the darkness and the curve in the road, our vision is limited.

  As we round the corner, my eyes are dazzled by a sudden brightness. Before us is a jumble of neon lights, eye-tingling red-and-yellow signs, and brightly colored flags strung through the redwoods.

  Confusion Hill. We have arrived.

  The tourist trap is nestled next to a bridge that spans the Eel River. The river lies just past the parking lot, down a cliff tangled with redwoods and ferns. Anyone driving over the bridge can’t help but get an eyeful of Confusion Hill. It’s a prime location for snagging tourists.

  There are a few cars in the parking lot. Bordering the asphalt lot is a chain-link fence, presumably protecting the secrets of Confusion Hill from the unpaying populace. Behind the fence are a few zombies. Lucky for us, it appears traffic was light when the zombie apocalypse came through.

  The tapping of our feet has alerted the zombies to our presence. Trapped behind they chain-link fence, none are in a position to come after us. They rattle the fence at our approach, moaning and snapping their teeth. One lets out an awful keen that raises the hairs along the back of my neck.

  An answering keen fills the night. But it’s not from an undead in Confusion Hill; it’s from somewhere off to our left, in the woods.

  Something large and black blots out the forest to our left. I’d been so focused on Confusion Hill I hadn’t paid attention to the other side of the road.

  “What is that?” Frederico whispers.

  The big black shape solidifies in my vision. It’s a big tourist bus. The reason we can’t see it very well is because its laying on its side, its dark undercarriage barely visible in the night.

  Several more keens rise up from the other side of the bus. Then a rush of bodies swarm around the vehicle toward the road—coming straight for me and Frederico.

  Chapter 47

  Tourist Trap

  The zombie tourists are Asian, every last one of them sporting a camera around the neck. They rush en masse, cameras bouncing on their chests as they run.

  “Shiiit!” I squeal. “Run, Frederico!”

  I break into an all-out sprint, tearing toward the bridge. My fear numbs the pain in my ankle. Frederico hauls ass next to me.

  The foremost of the zombies—five of them altogether—come around the front of the bus and angle toward us at a run. Their blind trajectory will cut us off from the bridge if we don’t move faster. Another three dozen Chinese tourists pour around the back of the bus.

  Fuck. We can’t stop to fig
ht the zombies in front of us to clear the path. If we don’t beat them to the bridge, we’re going to be trapped.

  “Faster!” Frederico yells.

  I pour every last ounce of speed I have into my tired legs. My arms pump. My breath rasps. My legs churn as I lean forward, straining toward the bridge.

  The first of the zombies reaches us, arms outstretched. With a feral shout, Frederico angles his left shoulder and plows straight into the beast. The monster flies backward, skidding across the pavement on his back.

  Frederico never slows. I maintain my course, sprinting beside my friend. We outpace the other four zombies, our feet hitting the bridge before they catch us.

  Behind us, an eerie keen fills the dusk. We have an entire undead tour bus on our asses. There’s no hiding from them. A few well-thrown rocks won’t save us this time.

  “Push hard,” Frederico says. “Push hard and lose them. It’s the only way.”

  Mile one hundred thirty-five.

  Despite the hangover I know he has, Frederico sets a grizzly pace. We manage to put a solid one hundred yards between us and the undead. We’re not sprinting, but we are running hard.

  I’m not sure how long we can maintain the lead. Their awful keening follows us through the night. They are hunters, and we are the prey.

  No pain no pain no pain.

  This mantra rolls through my mind as I run. Mantras are an ultra trick I picked up somewhere, though now I can’t recall who gave the advice.

  No pain no pain no pain.

  If you lie to yourself long enough, you actually start to believe it.

  Mile one hundred thirty-seven.

  My mantra changes.

  Don’t be a wimp. Don’t be a wimp. Don’t be a wimp.

  Hunger gnaws at me from the inside out. It battles with my physical pain. I battle both of them. I can’t remember when my hydration pack ran dry, or when I had my last drink.

  I’m bonking—again. The last two days has been an unending series of bonks.

  Don’t be a wimp.

  The zombies are still behind us. They aren’t gaining on us, but we aren’t widening the gap, either. Frederico keeps a close eye on the zombies. He pushes us hard, so hard.

  Mile one hundred thirty-nine.

  The zombies have narrowed the gap to seventy-five yards. They’re gaining on us.

  We’re high in the mountains, the darkness a deep umbrella around us. I miss our headlamps. If we had lights, we could take to the forest and try to lose the zombies. With only the stars and a sliver of moon in the sky, there isn’t nearly enough light for us to risk the woods.

  They’ve only been chasing us for five miles, which isn’t all that far. If Frederico and I were at the start of this insane junket, we could lose them. I’m sure of it. But we’ve been on the move for almost two days straight. We’re beat to shit and exhausted.

  One foot in front of the other. That’s our only option.

  Are we just delaying the inevitable?

  Mile one hundred forty-one.

  Fifty yards and closing. My whole body hurts, from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes, and everything in between. My head screams for me to move, to pick up the pace, but my body can’t comply.

  I begin to think death wouldn’t be a bad option. Yeah, it would suck to get eaten to death, but with the throng of zombies behind us, it would probably be quick. Running another fifty miles at this pace seems like slow torture.

  What if we just ran off into the woods? How far could we go before one of us fell and broke something? Maybe, if we were lucky, we’d both run straight over a cliff and break our necks. Death would be swift. That wouldn’t be such a bad way to go. At least we’d die running.

  If only we could find a cliff.

  Mile one hundred forty-two.

  I try to focus on the road, on my form, on mentally managing my hunger and pain. I feel like the unraveling hem on an old pair of jeans.

  My eyes flick out to the forest. Should we try it? Brave the woods in the dark? I imagine tripping on a log and breaking my other ankle or knocking myself out on an errant, low-hanging branch.

  In the daylight, we’d stand a chance. In the dark, we’ll be dead meat.

  “I hurt,” I gasp. “Everything hurts.”

  Frederico, eyes glued to the road, doesn’t look up when I speak. “Yeah,” he agrees.

  I recognize the set lines in the profile of his face. He’s bonking, too. He might not have a fucked-up ankle, but he’s got his own physical pain.

  Mile one hundred forty-four.

  Twenty-five yards and closing.

  The zombies are running us into the ground. Frederico and I are barely holding on. We’re hungry, tired, and hurting. We’re two steps short of roadkill. How much farther can we get before the undead catch us?

  We’re nearing another bridge. Maybe we should jump off. Throw in the towel and just end it.

  “Kate.” When Frederico says my name, I sense the depth of our friendship in the word. “You’re a finisher, Kate. Don’t let yourself forget that. You might not look pretty when you arrive at the finish line, but you always arrive.” He pushes a small bundle into my hands. In my exhausted, pain-riddled state, I take the objects automatically, barely noticing them.

  Frederico smiles at me. The moon and stars cast the lean angles of his face into planes of shadow and light. Strands of his curly gray hair, escaping from his ponytail, create a fuzzy halo around his face.

  “Tell Carter Uncle Rico says hi.”

  Then he does something strange. He lets out a long, loud, wordless holler. Then he turns and sprints away from me.

  His yell lashes the night with sound. The zombies, zeroing in on the sudden noise, let out a collective keen.

  Chapter 48

  Run, Jackalope

  I sway on my feet, staring stupidly after Frederico in incomprehension.

  To the right of the bridge is a small, single-lane road. I hadn’t seen it until now. It’s onto this road that Frederico runs. The tourist zombies stream after my friend in an undead rush.

  Frederico bellows into the night. “Run, Jackalope! Goddamn you, run!”

  His words are like a pair of jumper cables to my brain. Understanding fills me with horror.

  “Run, Jackalope!”

  I turn and run.

  Gone is the pain of my swollen ankle, of all the little aches and pains that have accumulated over the last one hundred forty-four miles. Gone are the fatigue and the hunger and the thirst.

  Crowding all of it away is frantic grief.

  “Run, Jackalope!”

  His words, faint in the night, drive me forward. My legs churn over the black asphalt. I sprint over the bridge and away from my friend, tears running down my cheeks.

  The bridge spans a wide gorge, crossing yet another section of the Eel River. Free of the trees, the landscape around me brightens under the light of the moon and stars. Something moves to my right, off in the distance.

  Without slowing, I turn my head. Half a mile away is the narrow, single-lane road. It leads away from the 101 and winds down to the river below the bridge.

  Frederico sprints down that road, the horde of zombies on his heels. His wordless yells and whoops echo into the night, a beacon that draws the zombies the way flowers draw bees. The intensity of the noise sets them into a frenzy. They keen, voices filling the air like a discordant church organ. Frederico, pouring on one last burst of desperate speed, has perhaps fifty yards on them.

  But the zombies are gaining. Even when they trip or veer off the road and run into a tree or trip over a bush, they gain on him.

  I grind to a halt in the middle of the bridge, breath catching in my throat. I stretch out a hand, as if I can somehow reach my friend from here.

  “Frederico!” My throat, parched with thirst, turns the word into an anguished croak.

  He doesn’t hear me. He’s focused on the road—on keeping as much road as possible between him and the monsters. The gap has narrowed to
twenty-five feet. His body is giving out on him. The miles and miles of running have taken their toll.

  The tiny road disappears from sight, winding beneath the bridge. I race to the opposite railing, following Frederico’s progress with my eyes. His road snakes away into the trees, disappearing from sight. As he nears the trees, still shouting, there’s only ten feet between him and the undead.

  Maybe he senses my anguished gaze. Maybe he just wants one last look at the world. Or maybe he’s looking back at the zombie horde bearing down on him.

  Whatever the reason, Frederico pauses to look back, and up. Even in the dark—even with the distance separating us—I feel it when our eyes meet. A silent good-bye hangs in the night between us. That single word is a giant, imploding echo of nothingness.

  And then he’s gone, disappearing into the trees. Disappearing from my life.

  Tears pour down my cheeks. I turn, sprinting away.

  A single, solitary scream breaks over me like a crashing wave. I feel myself drowning in it. The screaming stops, abruptly cut off. I choke on a sob.

  I pump my arms, running away. Away from the death of my friend. Away from the sorrow that wraps around me like a constrictor. Away from every heartbreaking pain life has delivered me.

  Frederico dies so I can run.

  His nonexistent voice rings in my head: Run, Jackalope.

  Chapter 49

  BFF

  My eyes snap open.

  The first thing I see is a spider web. The multifaceted silk hangs delicately from small shrub, the strands bedecked with pearls of dew.

  Frederico.

  His name hangs in my mind like that spider web—shining and impermanent. There’s a Frederico-sized hole in my heart. Right next to the Kyle-shaped hole.

  Where am I? I push myself up into a sitting position. My body screams from the movement, demanding I lie back down.