Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4

by Picott, Camille

  “Frederico, what the hell?” I stagger toward him, still clutching the wound in my shoulder.

  The crunch of boots on glass alerts me to Alvarez. The young soldier steps out of the bathroom, eyes wide as he takes in the scene. I barely notice him.

  “You shot me,” I snap at Frederico. “What the fuck? What happened to waiting for me so we could check out the scene before rushing in like kamikazes?” I’m too exhausted and in too much pain to properly filter myself. I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.

  “Sorry.” Frederico doesn’t even look my way when he delivers the apology. His eyes are pinned on his daughter as she thrashes beneath him. His fists are clenched into two white-knuckled fists atop the barstool.

  “Help Kate,” he barks, jerking his chin in my direction.

  Alvarez licks his lips, then nods. He approaches the bar where we stand, picking his way through the bodies, most of which were already dead before we got here.

  I sway, the pain getting the better of me. I’m sure in the realm of bullet wounds, mine is pretty minor. But fucking hell, this is the first time I’ve ever been shot, and it hurts like a motherfucker.

  I thump onto a tabletop, gripping my shoulder as blood boils past my fingers. Alvarez rummages behind the bar, tossing bottles onto the counter. Behind him is a giant chalkboard scrawled with a list of munchies sold by the bar. French Fries and Burger are nearly obliterated by gloppy spatters of blood.

  Alvarez finds a tiny first aid kit, the sort stocked at grocery stores. Gripping the kit in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other, he grimly marches toward me.

  “Let me see,” he says.

  I pry my hands off the wound. Using what looks like a paring knife, Alvarez cuts away my shirt sleeve. Next, he opens the vodka bottle and gingerly dumps the liquid down my arm.

  I yelp at the searing pain, then grit my teeth to keep from making more noise.

  Through my haze, I see Frederico reach for a bottle of tequila sitting on the bar. Never taking his eyes from Aleisha, he pulls out the stopper with his teeth and raises the bottle to his lips.

  Understanding what’s about the happen, I leap to my feet. “No!” The shout rips from my throat. “Put that down, you idiot!”

  He ignores me and takes a long swig, one foot resting on the bottom rung of the barstool to keep it in place over Aleisha.

  “Frederico!” I don’t care how much noise I’m making. “Don’t do this, please!”

  He throws his head back, chugging the golden liquid. I rush toward him, trying to wrestle the bottle away with my good hand. He shoves me away, his face twisted into a mask of fury.

  “Stop it!” I lunge back toward him.

  He lifts the bottle into the air, out of my reach. With his free hand, he snags the gun out of my waistband.

  I freeze. My friend—my best friend—gives me a wrathful look. With the tequila bottle in one hand and the gun in the other, he says, “Get away from me, Kate.”

  “Frederico,” I whisper, unable to staunch the sudden flow of tears. All his years of sobriety have just gone down the drain. My mind flashes back to that day so long ago when Kyle talked him off the ledge and kept him sober. God, I wish I knew what my husband had said to him that night.

  “Get away from me,” he repeats.

  “She wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself,” I whisper, gesturing at his zombified daughter.

  Frederico turns away from me. “Neither of us knows what she’d want.”

  “Kate.” Alvarez rests a tentative arm on my good shoulder. His eyes are wild as they dart between me and Frederico, though his voice has a semblance of calm when he speaks. “Come on. Let me take care of your arm.”

  “Listen to the boy.” Frederico takes another long swig from the tequila bottle.

  I stare at the scene, at Frederico. At my friend, who’s falling apart before my very eyes as he clutches a gun and a tequila bottle. At his zombified daughter, still snarling and pinned beneath a barstool. God, why did I agree to help him get inside this place? I should have dragged him away when I had the chance. Alvarez tried to warn us, but we wouldn’t listen.

  “Give me the gun back,” I say.

  “Leave it alone, Kate.”

  “Frederico—”

  “Shut up!” he bellows. “Just shut up and leave me alone!”

  I retreat, cowed by his display of emotion. I thump back onto the table and let Alvarez dump more vodka on my wound. The stinging pain is nothing to me now, not as I watch Frederico annihilate the tequila.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” Alvarez says. “You got lucky. I’m going to stitch it up.”

  My throat is tight with tears that threaten to overwhelm me. “Have you ever given anyone stitches before?” I ask hoarsely.

  He grimaces. “No. But I used to watch my grandma sew patches onto my jeans when I was a kid.”

  The same basic concept?

  “Woah.” I hold up my good hand to ward him off. “You mean to tell me you went through boot camp and didn’t learn how to stitch someone up?”

  “They save that stuff for the medics. Grunts like me learn basic stuff, like applying tourniquets and a treating heatstroke.” He shrugs. “I’m telling you, I watched my grandma sew all the time. I can do this. Besides, I have twenty-twenty vision and she had cataracts.”

  Cataracts. Fuck me. I close my eyes.

  “All right, Twenty-Twenty,” I say. “Do your best.”

  He lifts the vodka bottle and holds it in my direction, head tilted in a silent offer.

  Frederico thumps down the empty bottle of tequila. He reaches over the bar and snags a bottle of gin and takes a drink. I look away, sickened.

  “No thanks,” I tell Alvarez. Someone has to be sober.

  What am I going to do with Frederico? How am I going to get him back on the road when he’s shit-faced drunk? What are we going to do with Aleisha? And what the hell does he plan to do with that gun? I need to get it back from him. But how?

  “Ouch.” I make a face as Alvarez starts sewing my arm with a needle and thread from the tiny first aid kit.

  “Sorry.”

  “Sometimes when I get really bad blisters, I put super glue on them.” I only half hear myself as I watch Frederico systematically obliterate the bottle of gin. “After I lance them, I mean. Could I just slather some super glue on the bullet wound?”

  Alvarez drops his hand and stares at me as if I’ve completely lost it. Maybe I have. After all, I’m watching my best friend shatter twenty-five years of sobriety as he pins his zombie daughter to the floor in a dive bar.

  “What are you talking about?” Alvarez asks.

  I shake my head dully. “Nothing. Just running stuff.”

  For the first time, he takes in the details of my appearance: the running shoes, the hydration pack, the compression pants. Probably my smell and the vomit splatters on my shirt as well, or maybe he just chalks those up to the apocalypse at large.

  “Are you guys out . . . running?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  His lips part in surprise. “That’s why you’re still alive,” he breathes. “You’re not drawing attention when you move on foot. When my platoon moved in at the south end of town . . .” He shakes his head. “I think the jeeps drew them out. Wait.” His gaze sharpens on me. “You guys are planning to . . . run to Arcata?”

  I nod.

  “That’s insane,” he breathes. “How far have you come so far?”

  I shrug, then glance at my watch. “One hundred twenty-eight point three miles.”

  His eyes bug. “Holy shit. You guys are those crazy ultramarathon runners. I saw a documentary on people like you once. How long have you been running?”

  “We left Healdsburg around ten yesterday morning.”

  Alvarez levels a look at me. “You guys are fucking crazy,” he declares.

  “No more crazy than what’s going on in the world around us.”

  Alvarez purses his lips in response and conti
nues sewing. I do my best to ignore the sting every time the needle pierces my skin.

  Frederico continues to chug away on the bottle of gin. My heart breaks with every swallow he takes. For the first time since I lost Kyle, I’m glad my husband isn’t with me. It would kill him to see what I’m witnessing.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  Frederico’s broken voice is slurred. He leans over the barstool to look brokenly down at his daughter, the gun gripped in his hand. He’s finished off the bottle of gin. His curly gray hair, in complete disarray, shields his face. Aleisha growls, sightless white eyes rolling up toward her father.

  The gun. My eyes are locked on it. I have to get it away from him.

  Licking dry lips, I rise from my seat on the table. Alvarez shifts, clearly planning to join me, but I shake my head. No reason to risk both of us.

  “Frederico.” I take two steps toward my friend. “You need to put the gun down.”

  His head whips in my direction. His expression is wild and lost.

  He looks again at Aleisha. He lifts the gun. Panic seizes me. I have a flash vision of him blowing his brains out.

  “No!” I lunge, but I’m not fast enough.

  Frederico fires the gun twice.

  44

  Separate Ways

  THE BULLETS SLAM INTO Aleisha’s forehead.

  The silence that descends is thunderous.

  Frederico drops the gun to the floor and staggers into the kitchen. I hear the sound of plates breaking and pots being hurled against the wall.

  He’s going to draw every zombie within a ten-mile radius. If we haven’t already with all the gunshots and shouting.

  I force myself to look at Aleisha’s body. Her face is a bloody mess. I cover it with a bar towel, then hurry into the kitchen with Alvarez on my heels.

  I find Frederico winding up to hurl a serving platter against the wall.

  “Stop it!” I keep my voice soft and seize him by the wrists. “Dammit, I know you’re hurting, but you’re going to get us killed!”

  “Let them come,” he slurs, wrenching away from me. “I don’t give a flying fuck.”

  He flings the platter like a Frisbee. It connects with the stainless steel dishwasher, denting the machine before falling to the floor and breaking into half a dozen pieces.

  Frustration rises in me. “You may not give a fuck, but I do. Carter is still out there!”

  “Carter’s dead. Just like my girl. This was a hopeless quest, Kate. We both knew it. We’re both just too fucking stubborn to admit it.”

  He kicks at the remnants of the platter, sending them flying through the air like shrapnel.

  “I’m sorry you lost Aleisha,” I say desperately. “This isn’t the way to cope. Please. Please stop before you get us killed.”

  In response, he seizes a large stockpot and flings it. It hits a rack of cooking supplies. Four other pans are dislodged in the wake of the stockpot, all of them clanging to the floor with a racket that is nothing short of cataclysmic.

  Frustration gives way to a heated rush of anger. I’m never going to find Carter if he keeps this up.

  “You selfish jerk,” I snap, my voice rising. “Is this what you were like when you were a drunk? No wonder Aleisha’s been pissed at you for the last thirty years!”

  It’s a low blow. I know it as soon as the words are out of my mouth. Frederico rounds on me, eyes blazing.

  For a second, I think he’s going to hit me. Alvarez steps closer, as though he plans to insert himself between us.

  Then all the air goes out of Frederico in a rush. He sags, tears welling in his eyes. He turns his back on us.

  “Get away from me,” he says, voice half slur, half sob. “Just leave me here.” He retreats farther into the kitchen, shoulders shaking with grief.

  I start toward him, but Alvarez lays a hand on my arm and shakes his head. I hesitate, then nod reluctantly. We retreat back to the main room.

  “He needs a few minutes,” Alvarez says, as though he’s the authority on grief.

  Hell, for all I know, maybe he is. I trudge into the main room and thump onto a pool table. My eyes bleakly roam the room, so much of it covered with blood and bodies. Then I spot something smooth and red behind the bar.

  My spine straightens.

  “What?” Alvarez asks.

  “That’s a phone.” I hurry behind the bar, seizing the old-fashioned, bright-red plastic phone with white buttons. It must be at least thirty years old. “It’s a phone,” I repeat, hope rising inside me. “A phone with no password protection!”

  I snatch the receiver off the cradle, daring to lift it to my ear. The low buzz of an active phone line greets me.

  “It’s working,” I breathe.

  I dial Carter’s number, grateful I’d memorized it when I purchased his cell phone instead of just relying on my contacts list.

  It rings, and rings, and rings, and then—

  “Hello?”

  “Carter?” My voice is half sob, half breathless.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah, baby, it’s me.”

  “Where are you? The caller ID says Rod’s Roadhouse.”

  “We’re in Laytonville. Me and Frederico.” I lean against the wall, resting my forehead against the worn wood paneling. I can’t stop the tears of relief that drip down my cheeks.

  “Did you find Aleisha?”

  I exhale sharply.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah, sweetie. Yeah, we found her.” I lapse into silence.

  I don’t need to say anything else. Carter is a smart kid.

  “How is Uncle Rico?”

  How is Uncle Rico? The question is like a one-hundred-pound weight on my shoulders.

  “He’s . . . struggling,” I say. “I’m giving him a little space. How are you doing? Are you safe?”

  Silence.

  “Carter?”

  “I’m as safe as I can be, Mom.”

  What the hell is that supposed to mean? “What—”

  “Arcata is overrun, Mom.” His words are clipped and bleak. “Turn around and go back to Healdsburg.”

  “No fucking way.” The words come out harsher than I’d intended. “No way I’m going back.”

  Another long silence.

  “Mom, you need to listen. The school is overrun. My friends and I are holed up in the Creekside Lounge with a few other students. We’ve barricaded the doors, but the zombies are everywhere. The soldiers . . . they rolled in here with the Hummers and guns and other weapons . . . there’s been a lot of panic. The Internet is still working and Johnny’s laptop still has some battery. We’ve been tracking the news . . . it’s bad, Mom.”

  “I know,” I reply, looking at Alvarez. “I know Eureka has fallen, too. So has Laytonville.” And Aleisha, too, I think with an ache. “There’s no place safe out here, baby. I’m coming to find you.”

  A pause. “I’ll wait here as long as I can. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be safe here. Did your cell phone run out of battery?”

  “Something like that. I’m using a landline in the bar right now.” I take in a few breaths to steady myself. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to contact you again.”

  We’re both quiet for a long moment.

  “What shoes are you wearing?” he suddenly asks.

  “My Altras. The Olympus.” Carter has endured countless shoe talks with me over the years, so he’ll know which ones I’m talking about.

  “Your favorites.” I hear the smile in his voice.

  “Yeah, my favorites. They’re covered with mud and burrs.” And a little bit of blood from the bullet wound in my shoulder, but I don’t say the last part out loud.

  “What are you using for fuel?” he says.

  “Whatever we can scavenge,” I reply. God, it’s so good to hear his voice. I’m so lucky he’s alive and safe, at least for the moment. Why couldn’t Aleisha have been safe, too? “We raided an RV twenty miles back and ate everything we could get our hands
on.”

  “An RV, huh? No zombies inside, huh?”

  “No, there were zombies inside. Seven of them. A whole family.”

  Pause. “You guys killed seven zombies?”

  “Yeah. Remember the Stack and Attack racing theory?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, we applied that to zombie killing. Created a narrow opening and made them come out at us one at a time. Sort of.”

  “Wow. My mom the zombie killer. That’s . . . pretty cool.”

  I’m tongue-tied by the compliment. Unsure how to respond, I say, “Are you getting enough to eat?”

  “We’ve been eating out of the vending machines.” He pauses. “We had to break into it.”

  Poor Carter. Vandalism isn’t in his nature.

  “How long will the food there last you?” I ask.

  “A while, I guess . . . Mom?”

  “I’m here, sweetie.”

  “Do you remember that time we went spelunking for Dad’s birthday?”

  How could I forget? That trip took place less than a year before Kyle’s accident. It was our last family trip together.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Remember how he made you crawl first through the tunnels so he could, you know, frisk you?”

  Now it’s my turn to smile. More tears come to my eyes, but they’re happy tears. Kyle had tweaked my ass in those narrow tunnels, finding my squawks of protest hilarious. Carter had been thoroughly disgusted, as only a teenager can be in purview of his parents’ physical affections. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t actually see what was going on, but he’d been smart enough to figure it out.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “I’m glad you guys were happy together. When Dad was alive, I mean. I’m glad.”

  This feels too much like a good-bye. “Carter, you stay strong. You hold out. I have less than seventy-five miles to go. With any luck I’ll be there in less than twenty-four hours. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “What are we going to do when you get here?”

  His question stuns me. To be honest, I haven’t thought beyond getting to Arcata and finding him.