We near the solar center, a fenceless facility sprinkled with yurts and large chunks of greenery. Between the parking lot and the tracks is about one hundred yards of open grassland. From here, the center looks quiet and deserted.
On quiet feet, we move deeper into the tiny town of Hopland. Stout slinks along beside us, nose raised to sniff the air. Thank goodness she doesn’t bark.
The open land to our right is swallowed up, replaced by warehouses and some rundown buildings. To our left is the fenced lumberyard.
I spot a single bloody security guard behind the chain-link fence of the lumberyard. Fear grips my throat, making it difficult to breathe. Part of me wants to sprint, to get through the town. Another part of me wants to curl up into a tiny little ball.
Both options are stupid. Our best chance of staying alive is to move at a silent, sedate walk.
Beyond the warehouses, farmland opens up on our right. To our left are the backs of storefronts lining the main road through town. There’s an odd quiet that sets my teeth on edge.
Between the buildings on our left are long alleyways, giving us glimpses into the town. A group of older men in Hawaiian print shirts bump into one another just outside a wrecked Mustang convertible. They look like tourists. There are two smashed wine glasses on the ground outside the car. I can’t tell where the blood ends and the wine begins. A map of the Mendocino wine country blows across the tracks, bits of blood spattered on it.
What the fuck were we thinking? Why did we think it was a good idea to come into town? My parched mouth doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore. Neither does our lack of food.
How the hell did the cops and the military patrol miss these guys? What else have they missed?
Frederico reaches out and squeezes my hand. I squeeze back. We don’t speak or do anything that might draw attention to us. I indicate Stout with a flick of my fingers, still worried the animal will bark or whine. Frederico glances at her, then shrugs.
I ease both railroad spikes out of my pack, gripping them with sweaty hands. Frederico raises his lug nut wrench. We gingerly pick our way down the tracks. I step on the soft dirt between the ties in an effort to make as little noise as possible.
Stout seems to understand the need for quiet. She keeps her tail tucked between her legs and she pads along beside us.
Frederico waves his hand at me, drawing me to the edge of another alleyway. One hundred yards down the narrow street is Hopland’s only gas station. It perches at the north end of town, a cracked yellowed sign proclaiming GAS. It has two pumps, a mini-mart—and another military jeep in its parking lot.
One soldier has his back to us as he fills the car with gas. Another walks out of the store with a bag in one hand, his other hand resting on his gun. There are two more in the jeep, both of them scanning the town. One of them shifts, head turning in our direction.
I hiss and leap behind a wall, Frederico right beside me. My heart pounds erratically in my chest.
Taking a gulp of air, I turn and run, putting as much distance between us and the soldiers as possible. Even though I know they’re here to protect people and stop the spread of the outbreak, to me they’re nothing but a potential obstacle between me and Carter. No way am I going to let those men catch me.
Frederico and Stout run along beside me. Stout’s ears are pressed flat against her head. There are no sounds of pursuit, making me think—hope—the soldiers didn’t see us.
A few minutes later, a big red-and-white Ace Hardware sign rises into the air. A chain-link fence encloses an outdoor storage area behind the store.
Just outside the fence are two teenage boys in red Ace Hardware vests. They’re crouched on the ground, chewing on another person who once wore a red vest. Just beyond them, the chain-link gate hangs open.
Besides the two zombies and their victim, the back of the hardware store is deserted.
Frederico hoists his spike, giving me a look. I nod in understanding, lifting my own spike. We need to make our move here. This is the last store in Hopland, our last chance to find food and water. It’s not a great choice, but it’s all we have. If we don’t get food and water now, who knows when we’ll get another chance. Stout pricks up her ears, watching us.
Heart pounding, I creep up behind one of the feeding zombies.
This is for Carter, I tell myself. For my son, I can be strong. I will be strong.
I ignore the fact that I am about to put a railroad spike through the head of a teenage boy. Old world rules don’t apply anymore. If I can’t be strong, I’ll never make it to my son.
Adrenaline roars in my ears. I pant for breath, the way I might after a hard sprint.
I come up behind the zombie and seize a handful of short dark hair. It snarls in surprise, rearing back. A chunk of skin dangles from his mouth.
I sense myself mentally shifting into the space I reserve for ultra races; the mental space that allows me to push onward, even when things are hard.
I ram the spike downward with all my might. I’m not a particularly strong woman, but I’ve got leverage on my side.
There’s an instant of resistance as the spike connects with the skull; I feel the moment when the rusty iron shatters the bone and slides into the wet, squishy interior. The zombie teen drops to the ground in a motionless puddle, the chunk of skin still dangling out of his mouth.
I get my first glimpse of the person he’d been feeding on. It’s a teenage girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen. Her stomach cavity has been ripped open, her insides shredded.
Beside me, Frederico drops his zombie, the railroad spike buried in the teen’s temple. Blood sprays across his pink running shorts. He releases the dead zombie, moving toward the eviscerated girl.
“Can’t leave her to rise,” he says softly, then hammers the spike down into her skull.
My hands shake. I lift them, staring at the blood that flecks them. My empty stomach roils.
“You did it, Jackalope,” Frederico says. “I knew you had it in you. Come on.”
He steps over the bodies, heading through the gate. I follow with Stout at my side, adrenaline still hammering in my blood.
15
Ace Hardware
AS WE CROSS THE THRESHOLD, a car horn blares. I freeze. Stout’s ears go flat.
Seconds later, there’s a crash—the sound of shattering glass, crumpling metal, squealing tires, and a loud boom that makes me think a vehicle ran into a building.
Frederico grabs my wrist, pulling me inside the fence. We’re in an outdoor storage area covered with corrugated metal. Floor-to-ceiling pallet racks hold building supplies—bricks, lumber, sheetrock, and the like. Frederico leads us down an aisle lined with different sorts of bricks and pavers used in landscaping.
Stout’s collar makes a soft tinkling noise as it shifts on her neck. In this deathly quiet area, it’s like a gong going off.
Ahead of me, Frederico turns right around a corner. Paranoid Stout’s collar may make more noise, I pause and wrap one hand against the jingling collar. With my other hand, I deftly unfasten the buckle. Taking care not to make any noise, I set the orange collar on the ground.
As I stand up, a zombie shuffles into sight. I swallow a shriek, stumbling back a few steps. I bump against a pallet and accidentally nudge a brick. It shifts, making a soft grating sound.
The zombie’s head swivels, tracking the noise. It’s a middle-aged woman with bangs teased halfway to heaven. She wears a red Ace Hardware vest. Her neck and one shoulder are gouged with blood and bite marks. Despite the obvious violence she’s endured, not a hair on her head is out of place—a testament to the amount of hair spray applied.
The zombie moans and shuffles forward a few steps, reaching out toward the sound with her hands. I sidestep the grasping fingers and press myself against the bricks beside Stout. The dog slips her tail between her legs and cowers against the ground. I knot one fist in her brown-black fur.
Neither of us makes a sound.
The zombie stops just
in front of us, sniffing the air. It’s so close I can smell the ten pounds of hairspray holding up her bangs. My heart thuds erratically.
Her head rotates, white eyes rolling sporadically in her head. She inhales deeply, leaning toward us.
My left hand inches toward the stake in my running pack. I hold my breath, afraid even a small exhalation will draw her attention.
Fingers slick with sweat, I work them around the spike. Only twelve inches separate me from the sniffing zombie. Behind me is a pallet of bricks, which leaves me very little room to maneuver. When I draw the spike, I won’t have the leverage I had last time.
The zombie snarls, lips peeling back from her teeth.
Fear shoots through my bloodstream like a rocket. My sweaty fingers fumble with the spike.
The zombie’s neck muscles bunch as she prepares to strike.
I yank out the spike.
A single red brick drops into the aisle. It lands ten feet to my left, making an obnoxious clatter against the cement.
The teased-out zombie lurches toward the sound. A second brick drops farther down the aisle, drawing the zombie farther away. She gnashes her teeth, jerking toward the second brick.
Seeing the sudden opening, a surge of adrenaline shoots through me. Not giving myself time to think, I leap at the zombie’s back. She turns, but my railroad spike is already punching through her skull. The rusty metal bores through the hard layer of bone before sliding into her brain.
The zombie collapses. I lean over my knees, breathing hard. After a moment, I pull the spike out of her bloodied, hair-sprayed head. Only sheer willpower keeps me from throwing up. Now is not to time to indulge in revulsion.
Frederico looks down at me from the top of the pallet rack, giving me a grin I can’t return. He gives me a thumbs-up, then gestures for me to follow him.
Stout rises, ears pricking up at the sight of our friend. We start down the aisle, scurrying away from the dead zombie.
A sudden, frantic gesture draws my eyes upward. Frederico mouths something to me, waving both arms at the end of the aisle. The look on his face says everything.
More zombies.
Beside me is partial pallet of cinder blocks. I scramble on top of it, squeezing between the cement rectangles and the rack above it. Stout hops up beside me, nostrils flaring. We lie side by side draped on top of the cinder blocks.
Five seconds ticks by. Ten.
Three zombies lumber into view. None of them have the red vests of Ace employees. They are—were—customers. They groan and emit soft, guttural sounds. Each has some sort of bite wound of varying degrees, one lady with half her calf chewed off. She crawls, her ruined leg dragging loudly against the floor.
As the zombies wobble down the aisle, I feel stupid for even worrying about blisters, thirst, and hunger. Those seem like small, stupid worries in the face of three monsters.
A spike of paranoia goes through me. What if the zombies have a supernatural sense of smell? What if they not only hunt by sound, but also by smell? Did teased zombie smell me only because I was close, or had she sniffed me out sooner?
I delicately nudge my nose into my armpit—and immediately pull it back out again.
Fuuuuck. I stink to high heaven.
One zombie—a fat man in a tight wifebeater—smacks right into our rack. He bounces off and rights himself, standing only a foot away from where Stout and I hide.
He tilts his head. At first I think he’s sniffing, but then he shifts his body by ten degrees and takes another step. When he runs back into the pallet rack, he turns another ten degrees. This time, he finds a clear path.
He continues past us, letting out a soft moan as he does.
I let out a breath, relieved. It doesn’t appear they hunt by smell. Thank god for small favors in the middle of an apocalypse.
From atop the pallet rack, Frederico hurls another brick. The first one strikes the fat zombie on the side of the head. Blood oozes out of his temple, and he drops to the ground.
The next brick misses its target, a white-haired woman with dirt-stained pants. She draws close to me and Stout, trips over the fat man, and falls to the ground.
She’s close enough for me to touch. Climbing back to her feet, she tilts her face upward and snarls.
Frederico throws another brick. This time he aims down the aisle, drawing the old woman away from us. She follows the sound.
I don’t know what Stout has been through, but it’s clear that somewhere along the way she got an education about the creatures. The flick of her ears is the only response to the close proximity of the zombie.
Frederico throws three more bricks before, at last, felling the old zombie.
All that remains now is the zombie with the half-eaten leg. She drags herself down the aisle, somehow managing to miss running into the fat zombie.
A brick sails through the air and thunks into the back of her head. She goes still, the brick having crumpled the back of her skull.
I remain where I am for another thirty seconds. When no more zombies appear, I cautiously extricate myself from the pallet rack with Stout.
We make our way to the end of the aisle and find Frederico climbing down. I mouth a thank you at him. He nods, then motions for me to follow.
There’s a bathroom ten feet in front of us, the door is closed.
I press one ear to the door, listening. Nothing. I cautiously ease the door open. The room is dark and empty.
I flip the switch, grateful to find electricity still working, and slip inside. Frederico and Stout follow me.
I head straight to the sink, pulling off my pack and unfastening the seal on my water bag.
Frederico stands over the toilet and turns his back to me. I politely look away while he takes a leak. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to piss in front of each other.
I fill my bag, then stick my mouth under the faucet and take a long drink. Cool liquid splashes over my tongue, helping relieve the sticky, parched feeling. It does little to relieve the hunger gnawing inside me.
I take my turn on the toilet while Frederico fills his water bag. After relieving myself, I take a minute to assess my feet. I pull off my shoes and turn them upside down. A thin stream of water runs out. Shit.
In a race, I always have extra socks and shoes for situations just like this. No such luck now. I hadn’t thought of wearing my waterproof shoes. I reserve them for rainy days, since they trap heat around the foot.
I gingerly peel off the socks, wincing at the sight of a giant blood blister that’s already formed on the side of my right foot. That’s not going to be pleasant in another fifty miles.
There are other blisters, most of them along the tops of my toes. When those get bigger, I’ll start losing toenails. There’s another large clear blister forming on the top of my left foot. The skin on both feet is whitish and wrinkled from the damp.
I wring out the socks and vigorously shake the shoes, doing my best to disgorge the water. I even stick my fists inside and press on the soles with the shoes upside down, trying to squeeze out as many droplets as I can.
What we need is a hair dryer. I consider trying to find one in the store but immediately dismiss the idea. A hair dryer, even if I could find one, would make too much noise.
Nothing to do but embrace the wet feet, the impending blisters, and move on.
Frederico spends a little time tending to his feet. Stout sticks her head in the toilet and laps eagerly at the water. Poor thing. How long has it been since her last drink? How long has she been on her own?
When the dog is done drinking, I crouch down next to Frederico. I hold my mouth very close to his ear.
“We need to find food,” I whisper, voice barely audible.
“There should be snacks near the cash registers,” he whispers back. “Candy, granola bars—something. Let’s try that.”
He gets to his feet. I don’t bother asking about them; no doubt they’re as trashed as mine are.
We stand in silence, star
ing at the bathroom door. Some part of me wishes we could stay here and hunker down, maybe wait out the shit storm. This tiny six-by-six gray room is the safest I’ve felt since we fled Healdsburg.
But there’s no telling if there’s an end in sight. If this is the end of the world, hiding in a hardware store bathroom won’t solve anything. It certainly won’t help Carter and Aleisha.
Steeling my nerve, I press my ear to the door and listen. Silence.
My hands are slick with sweat as I rest my fingers lightly on the door handle. I just need to push the handle down, but fear petrifies me.
Years ago, I ran Leadville, a one-hundred-mile trail race through the Colorado Rockies. I had the brilliant idea to ditch my jacket at the first aid station. I spent the next thirty miles getting strange looks from other runners. I thought I had mud on my ass or something.
Then I hit the summit at Hope Pass and it started to hail. It rained for the next seven hours nonstop.
“I feel like the idiot who shows up to race in Colorado without a jacket,” I whisper, my hand still frozen on the bathroom door handle. “We’re in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse with nothing more than running shoes and railroad spikes. We need Uzis, Frederico.” I lean against the wall, staring up at the cheap panels on the ceiling.
“Do you remember how we dealt with the rain?” he asks.
“What?” I frown at him.
“At Leadville. Do you remember how we dealt with the rain?”
“You got me a garbage bag from one of the aid stations.”
“Yep. And when the mud separated the sole from your shoes, Kyle and Carter taped them together with duct tape. Then you finished the race.” He leans in, looking me in the eye. “We’re finishers, Jackalope. We finish and survive. Even if all we have are running shoes and rusty railroad spikes, we’ll figure it out.”
I draw in a deep breath and nod. Yep. Survive. That’s what we have to do. Survive so we can get to Carter and Aleisha.
“Besides,” Frederico says, “you forgot about Luggy.” He hefts the lug nut wrench.
I raise an eyebrow. “Luggy?”
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 10
