Ultra (13 page)

“Spiderwebs are disgusting,” I said. “They come out of a spider’s bum, did you know that?”

Kara laughed. “I suppose that’s true, isn’t it? Hey, Bruce said I’m in seventh place, so you must be sixth. Have you seen any lights up ahead?”

“No,” I said. “But the guy ahead of me is a cheater.”

I told her about the Dirt Eater. “Is he the guy with those crazy socks?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Yeah, that dude looked shifty to me,” she said.

The moon, I noticed, had changed colour. It was now as orange as the inside of a cantaloupe.

“What happened back at Luther Marsh?” Kara asked. “I turned around and you were gone.”

“I bonked,” I said. “I needed to lie down.” I decided, for the moment, not to mention my conversation with the Wind.

Kara was still wearing a tensor bandage around her knee. “How’s your leg?” I asked.

“Iffy,” Kara said. “Your stomach?”

“Better,” I said. “But now my feet hurt.”

“We’re running a hundred miles,” said Kara. “Something
always
hurts.”

She took a plastic bag with little white pills out of her fanny pack. “Need something for the pain?”

“No thanks,” I said.

She swallowed two pills and then put the bag away. “I saw your friend Kneecap back at Ratjaw,” she said.

“Did you see my brother?”

“The little guy? He’s a cutie. He told me he’s your pacer.”

“He was,” I said. “But it’s past his bedtime.”

“That’s okay,” Kara said. “You and I can pace each other.”

We continued running. I took the lead, and Kara followed. The light from my headlamp splashed ahead of me into the forest. At one point we ran near a waterfall. The gurgling water was close to where we were standing, but when I shone my light around, I couldn’t find it.

“Don’t be doing that,” said Kara.

“What?” I said.

“Don’t shine your light into the forest.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Just trust me,” she said.

The temperature continued to drop. I was still wearing shorts and I was feeling the cold. I kept dreaming about the next rest stop. I had a drop bag there, crammed with tights, gloves and a hoodie, and I’d packed a chocolate bar. The thought of that chocolate bar made my mouth water.

“How far to the next rest stop?” I asked.

“Come What May? About sixteen miles.”

Oh, man, I thought. At my pace, that meant 3 hours of
running — at least.

“Why’s it called Come What May?” I asked.

“Because once you pass beyond it, you’re completely on your own. All the other rest stops have road access, but not that one. The only way to get there is on horseback, or ATV.”

“Or on foot,” I added.

“That’s right,” said Kara. “But nobody would do that. That would be crazy!”

We laughed and kept running. The pain in my feet got worse and worse. It felt like I was running on thumbtacks — thumbtacks that had been dipped in acid. It felt like the soles of my feet had been shaved off with a rusty chisel. It was incredibly painful. Ultra painful.

Flash!
A firefly lit itself ablaze and hovered between the trees like a green, glowing eye.

“That’s cool,” I said.

“Look, there are more.”

We stopped for a moment and switched off our headlamps. All around us, fireflies blinked on and off. The forest was almost totally silent, and I thought I could hear the clicking of the fireflies’ wings.

Kara flipped her headlamp back on. “Want me to take the lead?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

We ran some more and the pain got worse. It felt like a rattlesnake had bitten my feet, and the venom was racing up my legs. With every step, my brain screamed, Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, stop, stop, stop!

“I need to walk for a while,” I told Kara.

“Okay, we’ll walk then.”

For a moment we both strolled along. But it didn’t feel right.

“No,” I said. “You should run.”

Kara turned to face me. “No can do,” she said.

“Why not?” I said. “Because I’m a kid?”

“No,” said Kara. “Because you’re a friend.”

A warmth spread through my body when she said that. Still, I felt guilty for slowing her down.

“Listen,” I said. “I know that you’re a cop. But trust me on this. I’m totally fine.”

“I don’t mind going slow,” Kara said. “It’s a wonderful night for a hike.”

I reached out and grabbed her arm. “No,” I said. “If you’re feeling good, you have to keep running. You didn’t enter this race to hike. You could still win this thing.”

I didn’t mention my secret agenda: I wanted her to beat the Dirt Eater.

Kara stared at me for a very long moment.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’ll be fine. My feet hurt, that’s all. I just need to walk for a while.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” she said.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Just promise me you’ll beat that cheater.”

Kara grinned and gave me a hug. Then she set off down the trail. I watched the light from her headlamp bounce back and forth between the trees. Bit by bit, it got smaller and smaller. It disappeared, reappeared and then finally blinked out completely.

For a moment I felt like I was going to cry, I was so sad to see her go. “Kara!” I shouted.

No answer. No sound.

Kara was gone.

No, not gone, I told myself. She couldn’t be more than a half mile down the trail.

I walked and walked. The shadows around me seemed to vibrate.

To keep from getting scared, I sang:

Another Troutspawn song. I must’ve sung it for an hour. I wondered what creatures in the forest were listening to me.

Just keep the legs moving, I told myself. Don’t think about the creatures.

Maybe an hour later, I slipped and fell onto a rock. When I sat up, my hands were wet and sticky. Blood.

I sat on the ground for a few moments, giggling. My head hurt. My feet throbbed with pain.

“Kara!” I shouted. “Kara!”

Nothing.

“Dad!”

The crackle of twigs. A flurry of moving branches. Something was creeping around in the forest.

I forced myself back to my feet. Soon the rest stop will appear, I told myself. And after that, the finish line. Just keep moving forward. Just keep the legs moving. Soon the pain will end and the scars will heal.

I pushed on. Light from my headlamp flickered across the ground, and shadows shrank behind the trees. Sometimes it looked like the shadows were alive, and I realized that my brain wasn’t working quite right. My thoughts darted back and forth between the real world and make-believe, and it was getting hard to know which was which.

I thought about Kern, the bandit. He’d said that people were either running
from
something, or
to
something. And if they weren’t doing either, then they were blessed.

I wondered what I was. I sure didn’t feel blessed. And I wasn’t running to anything, since my future mostly looked like crap.

Did that mean I was running away from something? If so, what was it? Could I ever outrun it?

The trail began climbing a long, rocky hill. It seemed to go up for miles and miles. I stopped and ate a banana-flavoured gel and a handful of jelly beans. A needle of pain shot up my leg. My left hamstring felt as tight as a bicycle spoke, so I sat down on a stump and massaged it for a few minutes. I looked up from where I was sitting and saw a sign that said Mile 70.

Just 30 miles left, I told myself. Thirty miles — that wasn’t very much! Just a marathon plus another 4 miles. Easy-peasy!

I stood up and limped forward. Another hour passed. The moon disappeared. The sky filled with mist.

Then something exploded beside my foot.

PLOOOOF!

It was as loud as a thunderbolt. There were three more explosions.

PLOOOOF! PLOOOOF! PLOOOOF!

Holy frack! What was that!?

Something ran screaming through the leaves. I spun and saw three cabbages run across the ground. The cabbages had stumpy wings. They zigzagged crazily between the bushes.

My heart stopped, then slowly rebooted. I knew what these were.

“Stupid birds!” I muttered. “You’re lucky I didn’t step on you!”

The wild turkeys clattered away into the forest. My heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

Another hour passed. The sky turned as black as tar. At a certain point, I noticed that I stank.

“You reek, buddy,” I muttered to myself. “You smell like sour milk. With rotten cucumber thrown in.”

Keep the legs moving. Keep the legs moving
.

My back hurt. It felt like someone had whacked it with a crowbar. Still, I kept running. Well, sort of.

Keep the legs moving. Keep the legs moving
. And whatever you do — do not shine your light into the forest.

At some point, a memory came into my head. A memory from when I was 3 years old. I remembered this cat named Zeus we used to have. He was old and asthmatic and he wheezed loudly when he slept.

One night I begged Daddy to let me take Zeus for a ride in my stroller. Daddy said okay, but you’ll have to hang on to him tight.

Daddy lifted Zeus into the stroller beside me and then he rolled us down the smooth asphalt driveway on Champlain Drive. I cuddled Zeus in my arms as if he were my baby, and
he purred like Mom’s sewing machine as we rolled down the sidewalk. The stroller had rubber wheels that went
ka-thlump ka-thlump
as they rolled over the sidewalk cracks. The sky was as blue as our recycling box, and I could see the whole sweep of it behind Daddy’s face as he ran.

Keep the legs moving. Keep the legs moving
.

Zeus. Me. Daddy. The blue sky. I smiled at the memory and rolled my head sideways.

Instantly, the light from my headlamp played across the trees, and four yellow eyes stared back at me.

Two of the eyes were level with the ground, but the other two were high up in the trees. A cougar, maybe? Getting ready to pounce? The eyes blinked and went out. The ones on the ground kept staring at me.

A bolt of fear shot down my spine. I pointed my headlamp back down at the trail and kept running.

Keep the legs moving. Keep the legs moving!

Finally, when I thought I couldn’t run any farther, a pinprick of green appeared down the trail. I ran toward it. It bobbed back and forth between the trees. It was a glow stick, dangling from a tree branch!

I ran farther down the trail and saw another glow stick. There was another one after that, and then another one after that.

Ten minutes later, I saw the light of a campfire. Somebody zapped my eyeballs with a flashlight.

“Runner!” a familiar voice cried out.

It was the most delicious sound I’d ever heard.

It was two in the morning and I was still on my feet. I’d been running (and power walking) for 20 hours.

Two people clapped as I hobbled into the checkpoint. A horse whinnied somewhere in the darkness.

“You’re looking fresh!” a woman said.

“Don’t lie,” I growled.

A lantern was burning on a picnic table, and above it, a disco ball hung from a tree branch. The light from the lantern bounced off the twirling ball and fractured into a thousand pinpricks of light.

The woman took my water bottle and refilled it from a plastic keg. She was young and pretty and her hair was the colour of a banana. “I’m Kaylin,” she said. “And you must be Quinn.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. My brain was too fried to come up with an answer.

“I’ll bet you’re starving,” said Kaylin. “What can I get you?”

Two pots were bubbling on a camp stove. The propane gas made a high-pitched whistle. “I’ve got soup and lasagna,” Kaylin said.

“Maybe in a couple minutes,” I said. All I wanted was that
candy bar in my drop bag.

A short-haired man was sticking logs on the fire. I nearly fell over, suddenly realizing who he was. “What are you doing here?” I said.

He looked up. “Hey, kiddo,” he said.

I rushed over and he hugged me tightly. It was like being wrapped in pure sunshine. I instantly felt warmer, feeling the bulk of his belly.

“But how the heck did you get
here
?” I said.

“I grabbed a late flight,” he said.

I drank in the sight of him. The disco lights swirled across the backdrop of trees. This couldn’t be happening — not really.

“What’s wrong?” said Dad.

“You can’t really be here,” I said. “It’s not possible.”

He laughed. “Nothing is impossible,” he said. “You should know that better than anyone. You’re running a hundred miles in one day. Most people would say that was impossible.”

He took my hand and led me toward a chair.

“No,” I said. “I can’t sit down.”

“Why not?”

“Bruce told me to beware the chair.”

Dad chuckled. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ll make sure you get up and running again — that’s a promise.”

I sat down for the first time in what felt like weeks. It felt better than my birthday and Christmas morning put together. I stretched my hands toward the fire. The warmth of those flames was sweeter than sleep.

Dad knelt down on one knee and poked at the fire with a stick. The shadows of the flames licked grooves into his face.

“So you’re telling me you flew here?” I said, still not really believing it.

“Sure did,” he said.

“And how was your flight?” I asked.

“Long,” he said.

He had pebbles for eyes and his usual brush cut. He looked a bit older than I remembered.

“How long can you stay?” I asked.

“How long do you want me to stay?”

“Forever, of course!”

Dad laughed. I knew he couldn’t stay.

I looked over at Kaylin, who was standing behind the stove. She smiled and stirred her pot of soup.

“Anything wrong?” Dad asked.

“I’m cold.”

Dad unclipped my hydration pack and pulled it off my shoulders and refilled it at the plastic keg.