101 is a cluster fuck. No way to sugarcoat the mess of cars and undead tangled on the freeway.
“At least we don’t have to worry about scrambling down a twenty-foot embankment to get to the freeway,” Kate says. This part of the 101 is level with the land around it.
“That’s a shitload of undead down there,” Ben says. “We’re going to have to set off at least two car alarms if we want to get across that mess without getting killed.”
She nods in agreement. “Let’s go in closer for a better look.”
They cross the two-lane road that services the recycling center, stepping into the open marshland on the other side. The land starts as hard-packed mud before sloping down into cold water once again.
“Loving the hike through the marsh?” Kate murmurs, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
He’s pretty sure that’s sarcasm. He proceeds cautiously just in case. “I used to get athlete’s foot in the Sandbox. I don’t like having wet feet.”
She turns, looking him full in the face with a frown. “The sandbox?”
“Iraq. Kuwait. The Middle East. You know, hot places with lots of sand?” He feels like an idiot for using military slang.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows lift in surprise. “Where else have you served?”
“Afghanistan. Somalia. Pakistan. A short stint in Ecuador.” He looks away, not sure how to meet her direct gaze. “I enlisted when I was eighteen. Served right up until the night they ordered me to kill college kids.”
Silence drops between them like a wet blanket.
Fuck. Why did he have to bring that up?
“I went AWOL that night,” he tries to explain. “I saw a group of scared kids. I got them out of the hot zone. Took them to College Creek dorm. Tried to protect them and keep them alive . . .” His mouth goes dry as he remembers the massacre spearheaded by Johnson and Ryan. He’d saved Ryan, that little fucker.
Kate gives him a sad look. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he keeps his mouth shut.
One hundred yards away from the freeway, they stop. Ben pulls out the binos and sweeps them up and down the scene.
Fuck. It looks even worse up close.
“I see two fancy SUVs,” he says. “They’re close to each other and should both have car alarms. That’s the good news.”
“And the bad news?” Kate asks. He senses her tense beside him, bracing herself for the other shoe.
Unfortunately, he has more than one shoe to drop. “There are hundreds of undead out there. And the cars are a mess. There’s no obvious egress.”
They continue forward. The water forces them to move slowly lest they make any noise to alert the undead. At least they don’t have to crawl on all fours through the cold sludge currently sloshing around their ankles. There are occasional perks to dealing with blind zombies.
Kate has a light step, the water making the barest ripple around her feet. He realizes he’s looking at her legs again and returns his attention to the mess of cars. Getting distracted by a nice pair of legs is a good way to end up dead. He won’t think about how good the whole GI Jane look is on her.
“There’s a thing in ultrarunning known as a road crossing,” Kate says. “Most ultras are run on dirt trails, but sometimes we have to cross roads to get from one part of a trail to another. Those are road crossings.” She doesn’t look at him when she speaks, her gaze focused on the freeway.
Even so, Ben gets the sense that she’s sharing something with him. He stays quiet, willing her to continue.
“I ran a fifty-miler in Oakland in a park called Lake Chabot,” Kate continues. “There’s a gun range in the park. A bunch of gunfire went off and startled us as we crossed one of the roads. I tripped in a pothole and scraped the hell out of my knees, elbows, and palms on the pavement. I was so pissed.” Her lips pull back in a thin smile, though she still has yet to look at him. “I groused about road crossings for years after that. It feels stupid now when compared to this. Who ever thought I’d make a road crossing with zombies?” Her gesture takes in the long ribbon of asphalt cluttered with the dead and undead.
He knows he should respond. She’s sharing something with him. He’s supposed to say something, but damned if he knows what.
The seconds drag, becoming awkward. He’s blowing it. Completely fucking blowing it.
“I went into a pothole once,” he says, grabbing at the first thing that comes to mind. “In a jeep in Iraq. We broke an axel. Had to hoof it all the way back to camp through a hot zone. Had a shootout with some hostiles halfway home.”
The memory washes over him with hot poignancy. He feels the bitch-hot breath of the sun burning the back of his neck and sucking moisture from his body. He remembers the fear that rode his shoulders even as he tried to ignore it and focus on the mission of surviving. It hits him so hard he stops mid-step, eyes going hazy at the memory. He’d lost two friends on that shitty day under that shitty sun.
“What happened?”
Kate’s voice snaps him back into the present. He recalls he’s having a conversation with her. Or at least, attempting a conversation.
He forces himself to meet her eye. “We lost two of our own in the shootout.” He swallows, his spine hardening. “But we got those motherfuckers. And we got the bodies of our friends back to camp so they could go back to their families.”
She stares at him, eyes wide. “I thought my running stories were messed up.”
He barks a laugh. It flushes away some of the turmoil.
“I like your running stories. I’d rather hear about you eating it on a road crossing than talk about my shit.”
Her eyes widen even more. “Really?”
He blinks. Now he’s supposed to respond. Again. He’s never liked talking about himself. But if he wants to get to know Kate, he can’t do it by just staring at her and grunting. Even if that’s his preference to meaningful conversation.
“Yeah. I like your running stuff.” It’s the best he can come up with. At least it’s true.
Something catches in his peripheral vision. He turns, their conversation sidelined.
“Right there.” He lifts a finger to point at two blue sedans that collided head-on in the margin between north and southbound lanes. “That’s our best way through.”
A dent creases her brow. “I don’t see how ... oh. You mean just to the left of that Dodge Caravan?”
“Exactly.” He lifts the binos and inspects the scene. “There’s a good six-foot gap between the Caravan and the back bumper of the blue Charger. Our people will fit through there. All we have to do is clear it out.”
Kate flashes him a big smile. The first since they set out together. He blinks, taken aback.
“What?” he asks.
“You said ‘our people’.”
“Well, yeah,” he answers. “Isn’t that what they are?”
“That’s what they are to me.” Her smile deepens. “It’s nice to hear you feel the same way. Come on, let’s go get the others.”
13
The Dodge Gap
KATE
I’d rather hear about you eating it on a road crossing than talk about my shit.
Ben’s words repeat in my mind. I think, in his own weird way, that may have been his way of saying something nice. Hearing him talk about his experience in Iraq had been both chilling and heartwarming. Chilling, because the experience sounded awful. But also heartwarming, because it was clear the memory caused him pain and he shared it with me anyway.
Knowing how hard it is for me to talk about Frederico—let alone even think about him most days—Ben’s loss makes me appreciate his openness on a deeper level.
As I stand ankle-deep in chilly water, surrounded by my kids, Susan, and Gary on the stretcher, I push my thoughts away from Ben. I think about him too much as it is. I need my head in the game if I’m going to get everyone across the 101 to safety.
“It’s the Dodge Gap,” Reed says as he surveys the six feet of space we’ve chosen for our group to
maneuver through.
“Tell that to Johnny,” Jesus replies. “He can use it in his book.”
“Quiet.” I cut off Reed as he opens his mouth to reply. “Your job is to get the stretcher as close as you can to the gap between the blue Caravan and the blue Charger. Ben and I are going to set off the car alarms on two SUVs a quarter mile down the road. That should be enough to draw them out of the gap. When it clears, make a run for it. Ben and I will catch up. Everyone understand?”
Carter raises his hand. “I understand everything except the part about you and Ben risking your lives a quarter mile away from our opening.”
“Nothing to be done about it,” Ben cuts in. “This is the best way to draw them away from the opening.”
“Your job is to get Gary and Susan back to Creekside,” I tell Carter. “Understand?”
Susan wrings her hands, eyes flicking between Gary’s prone form and the SUVs Ben and I targeted for the distraction. “You guys are helping us. I should be the one to set off the car alarm.”
We can’t stand here all day arguing the finer points of this plan. I decide it’s time to pull out my trump card: my mom voice.
“This is not up for discussion.” I sweep a firm gaze across the group and give them my best no-nonsense mom look. “You all know what you’re supposed to do. Stick together. Watch one another’s back. Get our new friends back to Creekside. Ben and I will be right behind you.”
As if to back me up, Ben brings up his rifle. Without waiting for any more argument, we break away from the group
“I like how you do that,” he murmurs as we make our way to the SUVs.
“Do what?” I eye a clump of undead that cluster near the side of the road. There are so many of them.
“That mom whoop-ass thing you do.” Ben chuckles without sound, his chest and shoulders shaking with silent humor. “You’re like a drill sergeant, only with kindergarten kids instead of adolescent recruits.”
I wrinkle my nose in good humor. “I hope you’re the only one who’s onto me.”
“No, they’re all onto you,” he replies. “They’re all just so damn loyal they put up with it. They know when you mean business and when they can wheedle you.”
“They do not wheedle me.”
“Sometimes they do. Like when we had sleep deprivation training two weeks ago and you let Johnny talk you into giving out caffeine pills to everyone.”
“Caffeine pills are bona fide ultrarunning fare,” I argue. “They’ve gotten me through more than one hundred-miler. It’s good for them to know how their bodies feel with the extra kick.”
Ben raises an eyebrow at me. I huff again in annoyance. I was not wheedled. I am immune to wheedling.
“This is a good spot.” Ben draws to a halt.
Separating us from the two SUVs is fifty yards of open marshland. It’s a straight shot for Ben. We discussed the option of blowing out the car’s windows from a farther distance—preferably closer to the Dodge Gap, as Reed aptly named it—but in the end, decided it was better to shoot closer to the SUVs. That will narrow the focus area for the zombies, which will be especially important if there are any alphas out here.
“Try shooting out a tire or two after you hit the windows,” I say. “The deflation will make extra noise as the car shifts.”
“Good plan.”
The rifle cracks. A glass window explodes on the first SUV. The car alarm lets up a pulsating wail that rushes up and down the length of 101.
The reaction is instantaneous. Every zombie in site snaps around, pivoting toward the SUV.
Ben fires two more times, hitting the tires. Then he fires at the second SUV three car lengths down, just as we planned.
A nearby zombie raises its nose to the sky. It lets up a long keen. The sound dies away, but it continues to work its jaws. In my mind, I hear clicks rolling off its tongue. Based on the way other zombies gravitate toward it, I suspect it to be an alpha. Hopefully, the noise of the car alarms will be enough to distract them from us.
More zombies take up the keen, the sound traveling up and down the highway. They move, arms outstretched as they fumble their blind way forward. They crash into cars, trip over bodies and debris, but inexorably streamline toward the two wailing cars. I lose sight of the alpha in the churning horde.
Ben and I hustle back to the Dodge Gap. With the noise of the car alarms, we don’t have to worry about the little bit of noise we make. The splash of the water is lost in the rest of the racket.
I squint into the late afternoon sun, relieved to see my kids hurrying toward the gap. The zombies have scattered, leaving a wide corridor for them to slip through.
Their opening won’t last long, though. Another group of zombies from farther north lumbers in the direction of the car alarms; they’ll reach the Dodge Gap in a matter of minutes. Carter and the others will have to move fast to get safely to the other side.
Reed and Carter carry the stretcher with Gary. The rest of the group fans around them, weapons raised as they inch onto the blacktop.
Then something happens. Everything is too far away for me to see, but a new sound erupts.
It’s a third car alarm.
And it’s sounding right where all my kids are.
“Fuck me,” Ben growls. “A goddamn zom caught on the hood of that white Avenger.”
My gaze shifts as we pick up speed. A zombie bangs on the front hood of the Avenger, its pant leg caught in the crumpled metal. The Avenger is no more than twenty yards from the Dodge Gap.
My heart rises into my throat as dozens of undead whip toward this new sound, drawn like flies to shit.
“Fuck-fuck-fuck!”
I break into a sprint, not caring that I make a shit ton of noise and splash water all the way up to my face. Ben races beside me.
My kids, realizing the sudden danger they’re in, race into the gap between the Caravan and the Charger.
Carter is the first one through. The rest of the kids pour in after him. I lose sight of them as they charge into the narrow gauntlet.
Ben and I are 150 yards from the Dodge Gap. My breath burns, but I embrace it.
One-hundred yards. I run as hard as I ever have, desperate to reach my family and keep them safe.
Fifty yards and closing. We’re almost there, almost there—
Over a dozen zombies find their way into the gap, clogging it with their rotting bodies and surging after my kids.
“No!” The cry rips from my throat, drowned out by the three wailing car alarms.
Ben doesn’t hesitate. He brings his rifle up and starts firing into the mass, dropping them with headshots.
I’ve seen him shoot often enough during the last few months, but until this moment I didn’t realize he’s a great shot.
The mass of zombies is churning. He’s fifty yards away and moving, yet hitting them like they’re sitting still and he’s five feet away. The sight of his cold precision sends a chill through me.
The zombies go down, their bodies piling up in the gap. I keep running as Ben shoots. Heads bob on the other side. I see Jenna’s light hair, the gleam of Jesus’s leather jacket, the dark flash of Ash’s hair, and then a familiar, beloved face with shaggy hair. Carter.
He waves to me over the cars, gesturing for me to hurry. I watch in horror as he, too, draws a gun, clearly preparing to try and shoot an opening for me and Ben.
I shake my head and wave my arms, mouthing NO over and over even as I keep running. He needs to get the hell out of there, not waste precious seconds on me. Not risk himself by firing a weapon and drawing the attention of zombies.
To my relief, Carter seems to understand my message. He holsters the gun. Jenna latches onto him and they disappear from sight.
“Kate.” Ben grabs my wrist, dragging me back. “Kate, we can’t go that way.”
He’s right. More zombies have swarmed into the Dodge Gap, sealing off any hope we had of following the others.
Fucking would-be silencers that aren’t really silent
. On top of not being able to follow the Creekside crew, a small group of zoms is drawn by Ben’s gunshots. They peel away from the road and head straight for us.
14
Five Leaf
KATE
“We gotta go.” Ben grabs my forearm. “Move.”
I home in on the ten zombies stumbling toward us. With nothing but open marshland between us, there isn’t a lot to slow them down.
And one of them is keening and clicking, drawing the attention of its brethren. It’s a plump woman in sweatpants and a visor.
The rest of the zombies cluster tight around the visor zom, heads turned toward it as they await instruction. More zombies peel away from the freeway, drawn by the call.
My first thought is to tell Ben to shoot the alpha, but there isn’t a clear shot. There are too many zombies around the alpha with more coming. There isn’t time—or bullets—to gun down the growing pack.
CarterReedJennaJesusCalebAsh. Their names flash through my brain.
“Kate.” Ben’s breath is warm against my ear, his voice urgent.
An ache in my throat, I turn and run. I can’t care about the noise I make. Right now, it’s more important to be fast than it is to be silent.
Ben races beside me. “We should head—”
He never finishes. His foot catches in the mud. Ben does a somersault, spinning in mid-air before landing hard on his back with a splash.
I spin around, weapons raised as the zombies surge toward us. The alpha keeps up a constant stream of clicks and keens, spreading out the pack in a wide line. It’s a fucking zombie dragnet.
The group has swelled to at least twenty. I see two trip and fall but they get up just as quickly, hardly breaking stride in their desperation to reach us.
Ben, on the other hand, isn’t getting up so quickly. He groans, levering himself up out of the water.
“Can you run?” I ask, not taking my eyes from the fast-approaching zombies. Fifty feet and closing. “What happened?”
“Cut myself on something,” he grunts. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 67
