Undead Ultra (A Zombie Novel) (27 page)

This part of the river is wide and shallow, the water never rising above our shins. It soaks my pants and flicks against the bare skin of my stomach.

The first of the undead plow into the water after us. One of them catches his foot on a rock, doing a face plant. He’s crushed as the other zombies sweep forward, mowing over him like he’s nothing more than a part of the scenery. Which I guess he is, in a way.

I scan the river, hoping to see the water deepen. No luck. It remains wide and shallow. Between our splashing and the rattling bells, we’re sending up huge smoke signals for the undead.

“We have to outrun them,” Frederico says. “There’s nothing out here to slow them down and there’s no place for us to hide.”

It’s like we’re in a slow motion safari video, only with zombies instead of cheetahs. Frederico and I are the hapless gazelles bounding through a prairie with a beast on our heels. The camera tracks the chase, where ultimately the predator leaps gracefully onto the prey and rips its throat out.

We reach the opposite bank and begin a mad scramble up the slope. It’s steep and covered with a thick layer of dried leaves. My foot sinks a good inch into the loose debris.

I drop forward, using my hands and feet to claw my way up. Frederico also drops on all fours. For every foot we climb, we slide back several inches.

Glancing over my shoulder, I spot the first of the zombies climbing out of the water and fumbling their way to the slope. There’s no way to disguise our route, not with the amount of noise we’re making. The zombies zero in on us, moving inexorably in our direction.

“Fuck,” Frederico growls.

Turning my attention back to the hillside, I see the source of his ire: a huge patch of poison oak. Nothing for it. We plunge through the vibrant green leaves. I do my best to keep my head and neck above it.

As soon as we burst through the plants, my foot catches in a sinkhole. My right leg is buried up to my knee. I wrench it out, nearly losing the shoe.

Another ten feet, and we hit the railroad. Frederico and I land on the rotting ties at the same moment. We charge forward, plowing through the weeds and thistles that choke the tracks. The plants cut my hands and arms. More of them get stuck in my pants and worm their way in, chafing against the skin.

We’ve run just over half a mile when the first of the zombies scramble free of the hillside and reach the tracks behind us.

“We need to fuel.” I reach into my pack, pull out a precious energy bar, and hand half to Frederico. Scavenging from the bodies of those poor kids may have been a low point, but it might also have saved our lives.

“More.” Frederico pulls out the packet of dried fruit and passes a handful to me.

I pop the pieces into my mouth one by one, letting them soften on my tongue before chewing. It can be tricky to run and eat at the same time, especially when breathing hard through the mouth. I’ve bitten my tongue more times than I can count.

Mile ninety-three.

With the chest-high weeds and the twisting turns of the tracks, it’s hard to see the zombies behind us. Besides that, rail running requires me to keep my focus on the tracks beneath my feet, lest I take another fall.

I may not be able to see the zombies, but I can hear them: the grunts, the howls, the moans, and the occasional keen. There are times when I can even hear the pounding of their feet and the swish of the weeds.

Along the way, we come across loose railroad spikes. We bend down, scooping them up as we go. By mile ninety-four, we’re both reloaded with weapons. I feel much safer having them secured in the straps of my hydration pack.

Mile ninety-five.

The scenery begins to change. Oak trees give way to mountain pine. The tracks slant ever-so-slightly upward, indicating a rise in elevation. The smell of damp earth deepens. Mushrooms pop up in the soil.

“Do you see that?” Frederico asks.

For a brief instant, I raise my eyes from the tracks. A quarter mile up the road, suspended above the railroad, is a concrete overpass.

“Think we can lose them?” I ask. “Like we did back in the tunnel?”

“Maybe.” The word is barely a grunt. Frederico passes me another half of an energy bar.

“Do you think that’s Highway one-oh-one?”

“I hope so. I’m not in the mood for some desolate road in the middle of fucking nowhere. Fuck, I’m hungry. And tired. And pissed off.”

I fall silent and give him some space, knowing that’s what he needs. He’s bonking again.

We reach the overpass. Vibrant graffiti art spans the concrete foundation. A pink octopus grins down at us, a wine bottle in one tentacle, a shotgun in another.

I gently touch Frederico’s wrist as I step off the track. From the furrow on his brow, I can tell his mood hasn’t much improved.

He wordlessly falls in behind me. We move at a brisk hike, churning up the steep hillside. From the higher vantage point, I have a clear view of the zombies on our tail.

“We’ve dropped a few of them,” I whisper.

“There’s still over a dozen back there,” he replies.

Scrambling the last ten feet up a steep incline, we reach road.

It’s silent. Deserted. Tall pine trees line either side of the road, scenting the air with their boughs. I don’t know if this is Highway 101, or some other random road in the middle of bum-fucked Egypt.

I pull out the package of cookies I’d taken from the boy zombie, ripping it open and passing it to my friend. He stares numbly at the package. Then he takes two cookies from the package and pops them into his mouth. Relief spreads through me.

“How much food do we have left?” he asks.

I shrug. “I have one energy bar and one bag of trail mix. You?”

“Nothing. There was food in that father’s backpack, but I dropped it when those undead fuckers found us.”

“I have an idea. Come with me.”

I lead him down the overpass, picking up a few large rocks from the side of the road. With our pace at a sedate walk, the bells barely rattle.

I take a position directly over the tracks. Frederico, eyeing me, picks up a few rocks of his own.

“This worked last time,” I whisper.

Looking down, I spot the first of the zombies as they jog clear of the overpass. This is my first clear look of them. The three in the lead are young, perhaps in their twenties. They’re decked out in expensive REI hiking gear and daypacks.

The leader—a girl with a long brown ponytail—has blood all over her face. A long trail of gooey white intestines is caught in the waistband of her pants. Her companions are both twenty-something college boys.

They slow, turning their heads left and right to listen. I grip my rock, crank my arm back, and fling it as far as I can. Which isn’t all that far. It flies perhaps twenty feet before plummeting to the ground. But it makes a sufficient racket as it rattles down through the trees branches and thunks to the ground. The zombies growl and set off in the direction of the noise.

Frederico nods at me in approval, then plucks the second rock out of my hand. He chucks it into the distance. It travels nearly twice as far before rustling through the trees and hitting the ground.

The three lead zombies let out a keen and pick up their pace, heading toward the second rock. The girl trips on a root and crashes into a tree. It only takes her seconds to regain her footing. She moves swiftly with no apparent injury from the fall.

Another half dozen zombies appear beneath us, following those in the lead. They’re all dressed in casual camping clothes—shorts, jeans, T-shirts, and hiking shoes. They follow the keening of the three lead zombies, the pack of them disappearing into the trees.

I turn, sliding down against the concrete balustrade. Frederico slumps down next to me. Fatigue pinches the corners of his eyes and mouth.

After a few minutes, I pull out the last bag of trail mix and pass it to him. He scowls and refuses to take it. I push it against his hand. He ignores me for a few more minutes, then grunts and reluctantly takes it from me.

“We should conserve our fuel,” he grumbles.

“Fuel won’t do us any good if we’re dead. You’re bonking. You need to eat.” I give him a severe look. Not because I’m feeling cross, but because I know he needs a little severity from me. “I have to have you sharp, Frederico. I need you. I can’t do this on my own.”

It’s a semi-shitty card to play, but it works. He grumbles but obediently tears into the package of trail mix. Opening his mouth, he dumps two-thirds of the package into his mouth, then shoves the rest of the package into my hands.

“I’ve told you that I despise road running, haven’t I?” he asks around his mouthful of food.

“Yeah,” I reply. “Yeah.”

Chapter 37

Silver Buckle

There are many differences between road running and trail running, but the main difference is this: the road beats the shit out of you in ways a trail never will. Pounding on hard concrete for miles and miles does nasty things to joints and feet.

Frederico’s loathing of the road is the only reason he never tackled Badwater, the iconic 135-mile race through Death Valley.

I did tackle that race. Only once, and I was beat to shit afterward, physically and mentally. The 120-degree heat didn’t help things, either. But I’d take the pounding heat of a Death Valley summer over zombies any day of the week.

*

It was at the Death Valley ultramarathon that I got my nickname, Jackalope. Kyle, Frederico, and Carter had all been there to crew for that insane adventure. They rode in an air-conditioned van while I ran.

The race started at ten in the morning on the last weekend in July. It began in Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the United States, and ended at the portal to Mount Whitney. Temperatures were already over a hundred when I—along with ninety-three other nut jobs—crossed the starting line.

I ran covered head-to-toe in white SPF clothing. A white visor with a long strip of fabric protected my neck. An ice-filled bandana around my neck was my constant companion. I carried a water bottle, which I alternated between drinking and squirting on my head.

Temps pushed close to 120 degrees that day. I spent a great deal of my rest time inside a man-sized ice chest, soaking in ice water. There were a few times I actually thought I was going to keel over and die. Is it any wonder that ten hours into that race from hell I started hallucinating?

“Hey, Kyle!” I shouted, jogging along in the dark. “Sweetheart!”

“Yeah?” He stuck his head out the window of the van, which rolled along beside me.

“Check it out!” I pointed out toward the scrub brush bordering the left side of the road. “It’s a jackalope! They’re real!”

“What?”

“It’s a jackalope! Look how cute it is!” I pointed to the odd little creature that hopped through the brush only ten feet away from me.

Kyle’s forehead wrinkled as he stared at me. A minute later, he pulled the van over. He, Frederico, and Carter piled out.

“Get the camera!” I said, waving excitedly to the jackalope. “Can you believe this? Hurry, get the camera!”

The three of them stared at me like I had lost my mind. In all honesty, I was pretty sure I had lost my mind back at the starting line. Who in their right mind paid money to run this hellhole of a race?

“Mom?” Carter, fourteen, gave a slight shake of his head. “There’s no such thing as a jackalope.”

“That’s what I always thought, but look. There it is!” I laughed gleefully as the jackalope rose up onto its hind legs, sniffing at the air. The full moon illuminated his gorgeous antler rack.

“Mom, there’s nothing there.” Carter wore the appalled expression that only a teenager can muster for an embarrassing parent.

“You can’t see it?” I demanded. “Look, it’s right—”

Frederico, who had been silent all this time, burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he doubled over, leaning on his knees for support. Carter joined in, the two of them guffawing. Kyle, bless him, wiped a hand over his face, struggling not to smile.

I stopped dead, reality hitting me like a sack of rocks.

“Oh.” I looked from the jackalope, to my family, and back to the jackalope. Dammit, but it
looked
real. I could even see its black nose twitching as it sniffed the air.

“I’m hallucinating,” I said flatly.

Frederico and Carter laughed even harder, clapping one another on the back and wiping at tears. Kyle finally gave in to the hilarity of the situation, breaking into laughter.

“I’m hallucinating,” I grumbled.

“Babe,” Kyle said, “I told you this ultrarunning stuff was batshit crazy. You just proved my point.”

The three of them dissolved into more guffawing.

A few days later, I was able to look back at the situation and laugh. But at that moment, blistered and baked to a fucking crisp, it was
not
funny. At all. Scowling at my crew, I jogged off into the night.

The jackalope continued to hop along beside me. That furry fucker had the audacity to talk to me. About management.

“They need to put capitalists in charge of this race,” he said. “Then there wouldn’t be any of this pansy-ass bullshit happening.”

Even though I knew he was a figment of my imagination, I fired back at him anyway.

“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “There isn’t a single pansy ass out here on this course.”

“Look at you,” the jackalope replied. “You can barely stand up. Efficiency has gone out the window.”

“I’m efficient,” I growled, even as I wondered why I was arguing with my imaginary friend. “It takes physical efficiency to run one hundred thirty-five miles.”

“No, it takes stupidity to run one hundred thirty-five miles,” the jackalope replied. “Capitalists would consolidate this madness. What will the big bosses say when they see your low performance rates? What are you doing right now, fifteen-minute miles?”

“What the hell do you know?” I asked him. “You’re nothing but an imaginary animal.”

The jackalope cackled madly. “You just keep telling yourself that.”