I consider staying in bed all day. It would be easy to cover up my head and hide from the world.
I give this serious contemplation for a full five minutes before discarding the idea. Hiding from Carter isn’t going to fix things. Neither will pretending.
I’ve pretended long enough. I never challenged him when he talked about the world getting fixed. I never told him what I think. No, I played along, and now look where I am.
I’m not going to pretend anymore. The world is a shit hole and we have to figure out how to survive.
First and foremost is food. We need to gather food. I’m talking about organized scavenging, complete with zombie clearance, comprehensive inventory, and supply room. A gathering of everything even remotely edible in the Creekside dorm building.
I rise, pulling on a pair of clean workout pants. I don a light sweatshirt and head into the sitting room in search of my tennis shoes. A good workout will clear my brain before I dig into my project.
Carter is sound asleep on the floor, one long arm thrown over his head. My heart constricts. I wish I could snuggle up with him, but what’s the point? He’s still mad at me, or else he wouldn’t have slept out here on the floor.
As I grab my shoes and slip out into the hallway, I realize Kate isn’t here. Her blankets are in a neat stack on the floor by the sofa, telling me she’s already up.
I know where she is. She told me walking is important after an ultra. She’ll be in the stairwell, which is exactly where I was headed.
Should I go back to my room? Go straight into one of the dorm kitchens and get to work?
“Don’t be a wimp,” I mutter to myself. I’ve promised to get myself in shape.
I’m also going to figure out a way to make things right with Carter. When that happens, I want to be on good terms with his mom. That won’t happen if I avoid her. Besides, I kind of like her.
But does she like me? Maybe she thinks I’m total slime for treating Carter like shit.
Only one way to find out. And it’s not by lurking in the hallway.
“Hey, Kate,” I call, swinging open the stairwell door, going for my best chipper, friendly tone.
Her flashlight beam bounces off the wall as she climbs the stairs, smiling at me in greeting. “Morning, Jenna,” she replies. “I was hoping you’d join me for a workout.”
Several layers of tension slough off me. “How long have you been out here?” I ask, falling into step with her as we climb the flight to the third floor.
“About fifteen minutes. Carter snores. I’ve always been a light sleeper.”
Despite my sour mood, I find myself smirking. “He does snore, but only when he’s really tired. He denies it, though.”
Kate chuckles. “I know. His dad did the same thing.”
Kate limps along on her bad ankle without complaint, both of her feet bare. Pink patches of calamine lotion cover the poison oak on her arms and neck. Her skin is sallow, stretched thin from physical strain and not enough nourishment. The gray roots of her hair have grown out a full inch. She looks like hell, but for some reason, I like it.
I can’t help but compare her to my own mother, with her breast implants and BOTOX injections and bottle-blond hair. I can only imagine the nasty things my mom would say about Kate.
She glances at me. “Does Carter talk about his dad much?”
“Yeah. He talks about him a lot.” I pause, trying to find the right words. “I can tell he misses him. He talks about him even more since the zombie outbreak.”
“Yeah. He talked about him yesterday, too.”
Was that before or after our fight? I realize I’m not ready to talk about Carter with Kate. It’s awkward and skirts too close to my assholishness. I want her to like me, after all.
We hit the third-floor landing and turn around, walking back down.
“I have a plan for today,” I tell her, searching for a way to break the silence.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to start going through the cleared kitchens in Creekside. I’m going to gather up all the food and organize it. Once that’s done, I’m going to convince the others to help me clear more of the rooms so we can access those supplies, too.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Jenna.” Kate’s eyes flash with approval that warms me. “I have to tell you, it’s a relief to know that not everyone in Creekside is waiting around expecting to be rescued.”
I let out a breath. “I agree.”
“I’ll join you,” Kate says. “Maybe we can get Carter to help us, too. The three of us will be enough to do the clearance.”
“That would be great.” I glance at her, relieved she’s volunteered to rope Carter into this. “Tell me about training on stairs. I want to know more about ultrarunning.”
Kate’s eyes light up. It’s clear she loves the subject, even if running here almost killed her.
“Ultrarunning isn’t like regular road running,” Kate says. “For one thing, almost all ultras are on trails. That means you aren’t running on flat surfaces. It means you spend a lot of time climbing hills. That’s where stair training comes in.” She pats one hamstring. “You need to build up this muscle.” Her hand moves from her hamstring to her right glute. “And this muscle. Climbing stairs activates these muscles.”
“What about your calves?” I ask, noticing that I use those as I climb.
“Yes, those too. Stairs help you engage all those muscles.”
I listen, fascinated, as she talks about running. I ask her questions, listen to some of her stories about races. I barely notice when I work up a sweat from the exercise.
“Did you run track all four years in high school?” Kate asks.
“Yeah.”
“And your mom didn’t want you to run?” Kate’s brow furrows at this.
For her, I realize this is akin to not wanting your child to breathe. “I think it’s because my dad ran track in college when they met. She always said the guys who ran track were too skinny.”
“Huh.” Kate is too polite to say what she really thinks. “I take it your parents aren’t together?”
I shake my head. “Dad ran off with his yoga instructor.” Mom dealt with this blow by getting a tummy tuck and making all her daughters get push-up bras. Like I need a push-up bra. “I actually like my stepmom. She’s nice. Or was nice. I hope she and my dad are okay.”
“I hope so, too,” Kate replies, giving my shoulder a soft squeeze.
The gesture is so kind and so unexpected my eyes well up. I swallow and change the subject before I make an idiot of myself.
“Carter told me a lot about his Uncle Rico,” I say. “I’m sorry he didn’t make it.”
Kate nods, eyes dropping. “He was the best friend I’ve ever had, aside from my husband.”
We continue to talk. Kate tells me about Frederico and some of the crazy runs they did together. It’s with some surprise that I realize how easily conversation flows between us.
I laugh as Kate relays a story about Frederico having to drop several “deuces” in the woods after a night of bingeing on chili. I’m about to tell her the story about pulling over at a Denny’s in the middle of the night on a road trip so one of my friends could do the same thing when the stairwell door bangs open.
Carter stands there, looking at us with flat blue eyes. The mirth whooshes out of me. The shock of his bare, handsome face hits me all over again.
“What are you doing?” he says to his mom, ignoring me.
The dismissal is like having my legs swept out from under me.
“Just doing a morning walk,” Kate says mildly. “Besides, you snore.”
Carter scowls at her, his eyes never once flicking in my direction. It’s like I’m invisible.
I clench my jaw. I messed things up. It’s up to me to fix them. Carter is worth it.
“Carter,” I say, “can we talk?”
He ignores me. “I’m going outside to work on Skip,” he tells his mother. “Just wanted you to know w
here I was so you wouldn’t worry.”
“Alone?” Kate’s voice sharpens.
“Yep.” Carter strides past us, heading down to the first floor.
I leave my pride on the floor and rush past Kate to catch up with Carter. Falling into stride beside him, I say, “Carter, please, can we talk? I—”
He stops, giving me a look so cold and so angry it takes my breath away. I shrivel inside, feeling about two inches tall. When he turns and stalks away, I don’t try to stop him.
Kate gives me an apologetic smile. “We’ll have to scavenge for food another time.” She hurries after Carter, leaving me alone.
13
Scavenging
JENNA
I stare at the empty space only seconds before occupied by Carter. The memory of his hard blue stare hangs in the air.
I try to align the angry guy to the person I’ve dated for six months. I almost don’t recognize him, and not because he shaved off his beard and hacked his hair. He’s never looked at me the way he did just now.
I have royally fucked up. How can I fix things if he won’t even look at me?
Heart aching, I decide the best thing I can do is keep myself busy. It’s time to start stockpiling supplies and organizing them. I’m sure there’s a scientific ratio to figure out how much food is needed to feed the seven of us, but I’ll worry about that later.
I head to the dorm suite we cleared yesterday. Between that one and the partially burned one, I have two rooms guaranteed to be zombie free. Maybe when everyone sees what I’m doing, it will be easier to enlist help for the clearance of other rooms.
I dive into the nearest cabinet and pull out food. It’s a jumbled mix of refried beans, mashed potato flakes, cereal, and boxed cake mixes.
Eric will like the cake mixes. He’s good at making cakes on the barbecue, even if we don’t have eggs. He—
I stop, reaching back into the cabinet. My hand emerges with a bag of Carter’s favorite granola. Cinnamon apple from Granny’s Kitchen. Imagining him smiling at me as I hand him the bag, I hug it to me.
Against my better judgment, I go to the window that overlooks the back of the dorm. Peering through the slits of the cheap metal blinds, I see Carter and Kate with paint brushes and a can of blue paint.
It’s a gorgeous robin’s egg blue paint that I picked especially for our Ultra Brew logo.
It should be me down there painting with him, not Kate. Hell, we should be working on beer recipes, not preparing to survive the zombie outbreak. Life is shit like that, I guess.
“It’s you,” Reed says, wandering into the room. He grips a joint between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He’s shaped his afro into three mini mushroom plumes, each going in a different direction on top of his head. It’s the first time I realized hair could be multidirectional.
“I thought I heard a mouse in here,” he says.
“Really, Reed?” I gesture at the joint. “It’s not even ten in the morning.”
“Best breakfast a guy could ask for. What are you doing?” He flops onto the sofa, pulling a blanket around his shoulders.
“What does it look like I’m doing? It’s not like we can run to the grocery store and get food anytime we want. I’m going through all the kitchens in the building and organizing the supplies.”
“Jeez. Someone is testy this morning. But don’t worry, I get it.”
Thinking he’s making some stupid PMS joke, I whirl on him. “You get what?”
He takes a puff off his joint. “You and Carter got in a fight.”
I turn my back on Reed, not wanting him to see how upset I am. I move onto the next cabinet, which contains pots and pans. I slam the door and move onto the next cabinet.
“You want a hit?” Reed holds out the joint. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“No.” I fling open the cabinet. This one has a mishmash of stuff, everything from half-open rice bags, to trail mix, to crackers.
“You know what would make me feel better?” I say.
“What?” He blows two smoke rings.
“If you would help me.”
He wrinkles his nose. “I’m allergic to work. Besides, I promised to share my joint with Eric. Will you keep an eye out for pot while you’re cleaning? We’re down to the last few grams.”
And then he leaves.
Just leaves.
A scream of frustration builds in my throat. I’m trying to make sure we don’t starve to death, and all he can think about is weed. What would he say if I refused to share any of the food I gathered? That would get him off his lazy ass.
I don’t have it in me to pick a fight. The last thing I need is an argument with two people in the dorm.
This is not the first time I’ve pissed off a boy.
There was the football jock who lost his shit when I refused to shave my armpits, but I’d been hoping for that reaction. It was the only way to get out of the prom date my mother had coerced me into.
There was the journalism boy who had me fooled into thinking he was sweet. Then he went through my underwear drawer and posted pictures of my bras and panties on Instagram. That earned him a hole in the radiator of his car.
There was the rich dumb kid my mom bribed me to go out with because his dad was some fancy corporate lawyer. I should have known better. That asshole only wanted to take me to the restaurant where his ex worked to make her jealous. The prick got a pitcher of water dumped on his head. The new pair of track shoes I received for the ordeal had been worth it.
So yeah, I’m no stranger to having guys pissed at me.
But this is the first time I’ve hurt someone I care about.
It takes me several hours, but I finally have every scrap of food pulled from the kitchen and organized on the floor and table. There are groups of grains, pastas, canned vegetables, canned and dried fruit, desserts, and other snackables like granola bars, crackers, and chips.
I pick up the bag of cinnamon-apple granola, again hugging it to my chest. I peek out the window. Carter and Kate are still working on the van.
Maybe Carter is cooled off by now. Maybe the granola will make an effective peace offering. He must be hungry by now, right? It’s lunchtime, after all.
Steeling myself, I grab two energy bars and the bag of granola. I head outside to Skip, determined to make things right with my boyfriend.
14
Paint Job
KATE
“You know, some people would pay extra for texture from a paint brush,” I tell Carter as I smear paint onto the side of the van.
Carter snorts. “Yeah, right.”
I can’t believe I’m painting a van in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The only thing more unproductive would be getting stoned, but Reed and Eric already have that base covered.
“You know, it’s not every day a crazy mom runs two hundred miles to repaint a Dodge Caravan with her kid. You better tell all your friends I get to ride shotgun. Where are you planning to take this thing, anyway?”
Carter doesn’t rise to the bait.
I need my kid to get his head out of his ass.
“Carter, look.” I set down my brush and stand in front of him. “I know the van is important to you, but there’s a lot of other things we need to be thinking about right now.”
“Like what?” His mild tone rankles. He refuses to make eye contact.
“Like gathering food supplies. Like clearing the rest of Creekside. Like fortifying the bottom floor of the dorm so no one can break in. Like finding some solar panels so we can get a washing machine working.”
He shrugs. “You don’t have to stay out here with me.”
“You’re the one who made a big deal about coming outside. You know it’s not safe to be out here alone. We need to stay in pairs.”
“Are you taking her side?” He glares up at me.
“Sweetie, this has nothing to do with Jenna. This is about us surviving—”
“You’re taking her side.”
I bal
l my fists in frustration. “I’m not—"
“Hey, guys.” Jenna steps around the building, carrying something in her arms.
I turn toward her and smile, relieved for a break in my near-argument with Carter. Who disappears to the other side of the van as Jenna approaches.
“Hey, Jenna. What are you up to?” I make my voice chipper, hoping to dispel the tension.
“Hey, Kate. I’ve been going through the kitchen of one of the cleared dorms. I found some food I thought you might like.” She sets two energy bars just inside the open door of the van.
“Thanks. Good timing.” I rip into the bar, realizing it must be around lunchtime. “I bet Carter is hungry,” I add in a low voice, gesturing for her to go talk to him.
Her face brightens. She circles around the van.
I shouldn’t eavesdrop. I should just walk away. Go into the bushes to pee or something. Give them some privacy.
Instead, I slink toward the back of the van, head cocked to listen.
“Hey, Carter.”
Silence.
“I found your favorite granola in Kevin’s dorm,” Jenna offers. “I thought you might be hungry.”
More silence.
“Carter, please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Jenna. You’ve made your feelings clear.”
“No, Carter, I—”
“Go away, Jenna.”
“Carter—”
“Are you deaf? I said, go away!”
I emerge around the back of the van just in time to see Jenna hurl the bag of granola onto the ground at Carter’s feet. Then she stalks back to Creekside.
“Why did you do that?” Carter demands.
I decide to play dumb. “Do what?”
“Tell Jenna I was hungry.”
Guess I hadn’t been so quiet after all. Playing dumb was a bad idea anyway. “I thought some alone time would give you guys a chance to talk through things.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I don’t pretend to know the details of your fight,” I reply. “Whatever she did, Jenna is sorry. Just talk to her. Give her a chance to say whatever it is she’s been trying to say to you.”
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 41
