“Yes. You can usually feel them bite you. If you feel a bite, stop and check.” Frederico and I picked countless ticks off ourselves and one another over the years. “A very small percentage of ticks carry Lyme Disease. Even if they do, they have to be embedded in your skin thirty-six to forty-eight hours to transmit the bacteria. Just make sure you get them off as soon as you feel them bite and you should be fine.”
Six sets of eyes stare at me in horror.
“I’m not sure what’s worse,” Reed says. “Getting bitten by a tick or getting bitten a zombie.”
“Tick,” Caleb says. “At least with the zombie it’s over quick.”
Reed opens his mouth to respond, but I cut him off.
“Stay alert. Keep your eyes on the trail. I estimate we’ve traveled anywhere from seven to eight miles today already. We have another twenty-five miles to go. Today, you guys are going to finish your first ultramarathon. We stay together. We look out for one another. We get the hell off the Lost Coast and survive. Everyone understand?”
I wait to see everyone nod. “All right. Let’s go.”
I drop gears into a power hike, leading the group at a brisk walk up hill. Even though every part of me yearns to run—to fly up the hill and soak in the beauty like I used to—I force myself to moderate my pace. There will be plenty of time for running. The last thing I need to do is burn everyone out at the beginning of our journey.
I’m the first to reach the short summit up from Black Sands Beach. Everyone has their heads bowed as they march up hill. No one is paying any attention to me, not even Ben.
I take advantage of the momentary privacy to exhale, letting fear out of my chest. It washes over me in a hot wave so potent it almost has me on my knees.
Frederico. I wish he were here. I wish we had done this trail together.
Help me, Frederico, I say silently. Help me get everyone out of here alive. We’ve trained, but not for the Lost Coast.
His reply comes clear as a bell in my head. You’re never completely ready for any race, no matter how hard you train. There’s always a surprise or two on race day.
How many times had he said something similar to me when he was alive? More times than I can count.
Then, as though from a great distance, I hear him again. You got this, Jackalope. I’m not sure if it’s Frederico’s voice or just the crash of the ocean.
Tears prick the back of my eyes. It feels like he’s here. Maybe a part of him is.
A strong hand grips my shoulder.
I squeeze my eyes. I want it to be Frederico. I miss my friend so much.
But it’s not Frederico.
“You got this, Mama Bear,” Ben murmurs.
Footsteps sound on the trail behind us. Ben shifts. To anyone coming up on us, it looks like he’s falling in line behind me on the single-track trail.
But I know better. Ben is shielding me with his body, giving me a few precious seconds to gather my fear and stuff it back down a deep dark hole. He’s giving me a moment to find Mama Bear. After what I just did to him, he’s still looking out for me.
I’m an idiot for turning him down. I want to kiss him. I want to kiss him almost as badly as I want to get off the Lost Coast. And I squandered my chance like a coward.
There’s nothing I can do about it now. I take off, jogging down the slope to the open trail beyond. It winds through a grassy meadow, the greenery bending under the weight of the pattering rain.
The group follows in my wake. Everyone is silent, our footsteps and breathing the only sounds of humanity.
Something happens over the next few miles. Tension sloughs off me. Anxiety recedes to a distant part of my mind. It’s just me and the trail. My old friend. Everything is better when I can run.
God, how I’ve missed the wilderness. How I’ve missed running for hours on end through the trees with nothing but my thoughts and labored breath for company. Being here on the trail is like returning to a long-lost home.
I breathe in deep. I can almost see Frederico running ahead of me, gray ponytail bouncing with every step.
I draw to a halt after an hour. It’s still raining and the mist from the ocean hangs low in the air, decreasing our visibility to only a few hundred feet.
“Five minute break,” I say. “Time for food and water.”
I take out two of the granola bars. I break them into small pieces and hand them out as everyone arrives. After everyone eats their small bite, I make them drink.
We’re going to run out of water at some point. This is a fact I can’t change. We can move on very little food, but dehydration is riskier for us than a water-borne illness.
Well, I drank river water on my way to Arcata and didn’t die. There’s a good possibility the water out here is clean. It’s remote enough that the risks should be low.
Should be.
“Bathroom break,” I call. “Girls on the right side of the trail. Boys on the left. Stay within eyesight of each other.”
As I drop into the grass with Susan and Ash, the dark-haired woman turns to me.
“I have to go number two,” she grumbles.
“Oh, my god,” Susan says on my other side. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand back up. My legs are already killing me.”
“Just squat and let it out,” I say to Ash. To Susan, I say, “I’ll help you up, don’t worry.”
“I think my muscles are frozen in place,” she replies.
“I’ll get you up,” I reassure her, not for a second letting her see sympathy or worry. I’m her pacer. I need to convey confidence if I want her to feel confident.
“I can’t poo in front of people,” Ash says. “I have poo anxiety. Seriously, when I traveled with my girlfriends to Las Vegas and shared a hotel room with them, I didn’t go all weekend.”
“Just relax and let it out. Trust me when I say you don’t want to be carrying any extra weight with you.”
“How did you go at Creekside?” Susan asks. “We’re all crammed in with one another.”
“I go when everyone is either asleep or out during the day. My butt cheeks won’t relax unless I’m alone.”
I purse my lips. “Ash, you have to go.”
“It’s no use. It won’t come out.” Ash pulls up her shorts and stands.
I frown, trying to think of what to do for her. “Just call out if you need me to stop.”
“No puedo creer esto,” Ash grumbles, moving back to the trail.
I help Susan to her feet, making it a point not to ask her about her ankle. She needs to focus on being strong, not on the pain.
“Motherfucker,” Susan groans. “Oh, my god. I thought I was sore after that first week of running with you guys.”
I chuckle knowingly. “Yeah. Trail and beach running will beat you up in ways a track never can.”
“I have muscles here.” Susan prods her ribcage. “I didn’t know it was possible for ribs to hurt from running.”
“Just think of the story you’ll have for Gary when we get back,” I reply. “He may have survived a shark attack, but you’re surviving a run down the Lost Coast.”
Susan frowns “I haven’t survived yet.”
I tap her gently on the temple. “Survival is up here, Susan. If you can survive for months on a boat, you can survive a day on a trail. They’re not all that different. Besides, the hardest part is behind us. There are no more impassable zones.”
She opens her mouth—no doubt to argue—but the boys return to the trail and cut off whatever she was going to say.
“Mama Bear, you should have told us to pack toilet paper,” Eric complains.
“We should have practiced shitting in the bushes,” Caleb says. “It’s hard to wipe with grass.”
“You should have gathered stuff from the forest and had us practice wiping,” Reed adds.
“You all went number two?” Ash demands.
“Hell, yeah,” Caleb says. “It’s not like I could drop my pants when we were running for our lives from the
ocean. I’ve had to go for a while.”
“Animales,” Ash says under her breath.
“Try shitting in the desert and wiping your ass with sand,” Ben says. “You haven’t lived until you’ve wiped your ass with sand that’s a hundred degrees.”
“Yeah, yeah, old man,” Caleb says. “Always have to one-up us, don’t you?”
“You wouldn’t complain about wet grass if you’d ever wiped your ass with sand,” Ben retorts. “It’s like comparing Charmin to sandpaper.”
Everyone bursts out laughing. Even I join in, embracing the brief moment of mirth with the trails stretching out on either side of us.
Then a chill travels across my body, reminding me that I’m cold and wet.
“Let’s keep moving. We have to get off this trail by sunset.”
57
Chafing
BEN
He doesn’t know how long they’ve been at it. Two hours? Three? It feels like a thousand.
The beam of his headlamp illuminates the land around him. The southern trail of the Lost Coast is beautiful. Giant Douglas fir trees march up and down the undulating terrain, breaking apart every now and then to give them a glimpse of the ocean far below. Ben might actually enjoy being out here if he didn’t feel like shit.
His body screams with every step he takes. How the fuck does Kate find joy in this shit? He’s pretty sure it would be less painful to be trampled by horses.
“Mama, wait—” Reed staggers a few steps off the trail and dry heaves into the dirt at his feet.
This is the fourth time they’ve had to stop for Reed. He has a reputation for a weak running stomach for a reason.
Ben doesn’t complain about the momentary break, though he doesn’t miss the covert glance Kate steals at her watch. She can’t stop worrying about Alvarez.
“Water.” Kate holds out the straw of her hydration bag.
He drinks, mindful not to take more than a few mouthfuls. There isn’t much left and he doesn’t want to think about what they’re going to drink once it runs out. He’s had dysentery and giardia, one in Somalia and the other in Afghanistan. It hadn’t been pretty. And that was with first world medicine at his fingertips.
“Think we could find some berries or something to eat?” Eric asks.
“Are you kidding?” Reed straightens up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t you remember the part about bears being out here? Bears eat berries.”
“Humans eat berries,” Eric replies. “I’m fucking hungry, man.”
“Let’s all keep our eyes out for berries.” Kate steps between the two boys, who glare at each other.
Ben doesn’t recall ever seeing the two friends quarrel before. It’s a sign of how fatigued everyone is.
“There might be other edible plants. Let’s just keep our eyes out.” Kate doesn’t say what they should look for. Ben has a sneaking suspicion she knows as much about edible plants as the rest of them. But she won’t ever let herself crack in front of her kids.
“We have to keep moving,” she says. “Come on.”
A few people groan, but everyone falls in line. Ben grits his teeth and focuses on the trail at his feet. His thighs are on fire, chafed from the stupid boxer briefs Caleb found him back in that bunker. This is what he gets for being vain and worrying about what Kate thought. Hell, he couldn’t even talk her into a kiss. Why the fuck was he worrying about his underwear?
With hours of silent running, he’s had ample time to process the rejection. It chafes almost as much as the underwear. Even though Kate is too good for him, and even though he can’t list one compelling reason why she might want to be with him, it still smarts.
Partly because it took him days to work up the courage to apologize to her, but mostly because his infatuation with her is reaching epic proportions. Never in his life has he been so crazy about a woman. Not even when he was a horny teenager. For fuck’s sake, she turned him down right to his face—twice—and he still can’t move on.
The searing pain around his thighs is almost unbearable. Should he ditch the underwear altogether? That will get him ridiculed, but he’s beyond giving a shit.
The only thing that stops him is the fatigue pants. He doesn’t want to imagine his balls bouncing against the thick fabric. The last thing he needs is a chafed ball sack.
His waist also itches and burns from the chafe marks that have accumulated over the weeks. He’s added quite a few new ones today. In some areas, bits of his skin have thickened like calluses from the constant abuse.
He should have brought the stick of Secret deodorant. He hasn’t touched it since the day Kate gave it to him. It sits on the small nightstand next to his bed, a token from Kate that fills him with a weird sort of pleasure.
“Where’s a stick of deodorant when you need it?”
Someone next to him barks out a laugh. It takes him a beat to realize he’s spoken aloud.
“My bodily odor is the least of my worries,” Ash says.
“Not for that. Kate gave me a stick of deodorant. She said to use it as an anti-chafe.”
“Then I could definitely use some, too,” Ash says. “My toes are killing me. I can feel blisters forming.”
The light, misting rain covers Ash with a thin layer of sheen. Her skin is pale.
“You alright?”
“I’m freezing my tits off, but yeah, I’m okay.”
The trail has widened, letting them run two abreast. Ben alternates between monitoring the trail and scrutinizing Ash.
“You look like shit,” he pronounces.
“Back at you, old man.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I got dunked in the ocean and have been running in the rain ever since. What do you expect?”
Ben searches for the right words. They all look like shit. Hell, they all feel like shit.
But Ash is looking worse than shitty. She’s looking like shit to the power of three.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says at last.
She gives him a sidelong look. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Nice isn’t my go-to.”
“I don’t know why. You’re a good person.” She coughs, hunching over as she runs. “I remind myself of that every time I want to tell you to go fuck yourself.”
“That happens a lot?”
She coughs again. “What?”
“That you want to tell me to go fuck myself?”
She chuckles. “Not as much since you started chasing Kate around. She brings out your nice side.”
He decides not to comment on that. Apparently everyone in Creekside knows about his infatuation. He has no doubt they’ll all soon know the color of his underwear, too. If they ever make it back.
“So where are you chafing?” Ash asks.
He grunts, deciding not to comment on that, either.
“Thought so,” she replies with a knowing look. “If it makes you feel better, I have chafing down there, too. The inside seam of the shorts. And I think the skin under my sports bra is rubbed raw.”
“The saltwater stings like a son-of-bitch.” The crusty white deposits all over his clothing make everything worse.
“Gives a whole new meaning to rubbing salt in a wound, huh?” Another shiver runs over Ash’s body. “You know, as shitty as I feel, I actually like it out here. No zombies.”
“No zombies yet,” Ben corrects. “Kate said there are some campgrounds farther down the trail.”
“You know what I mean. There are no piles of dead bodies. No stink. We don’t have to whisper and look over our shoulders for fear of drawing zombies.”
“We just have to watch the tide so we don’t get swept out to sea.”
“I’ll take the tide over zombies any day.” She glances over at him. “Would you rather drown to death or get eaten by a zombie?”
He considers his answer. Honestly, he doesn’t really care how he goes. When it’s his time, it’s his time. “I j
ust want my death to mean something when it happens.”
“You don’t want to die of natural causes as an old man?”
“I’m not sure any of us are slated for death by old age.”
“That’s negative thinking. I’d rather drown in the ocean than get eaten by a zom. I don’t ever want to be one of those things.”
“Would you rather get bitten by a zombie, or by a shark, like Gary?”
“That’s a fucked-up question, Ben.”
He’d been trying to be sociable. He doesn’t see how his question is any worse than her question. This is what he gets for trying to make civil conversation. Every response that comes to his head isn’t pleasant, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Ash gives him another sidelong look. “I’d rather get eaten by a shark. At least my death would nourish another living creature. Anything is better than feeding the undead.”
They lapse into silence after that. Ben stays near her, doing his best to keep an eye on her without being obvious. She’s sucking it up, but she still looks like shit. And she keeps coughing.
The ground beneath their feet is becoming muddier by the minute. Ben has mud splashed up to his knees. His clothes are damp and encrusted with salt. The salt makes his clothing rough.
The chafing gets worse by the minute. He also feels it starting to burn on the inside of his upper arms, too. He steels himself against his discomfort when he sees Ash shivering.
“We should stop,” he says. “Build you a fire.”
She shakes her head. “It’s still raining.”
“We can still build a fire.”
“We both know I need more than a wet fire.”
Ben doesn’t reply. He doesn’t know what to say. It’s obvious Ash has hypothermia. He’s known it for the past few miles but doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Even if we do stop, we barely have any food,” she continues. “We can’t afford to stop.”
“I don’t know if you can afford not to stop.” Ben looks farther up the trail. Kate plows up another rise in the land.
Ash follows his gaze. “I can hold on. Please don’t say anything. I don’t want anyone to suffer or die because of me.” She puts her chin down and keeps running.
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 89
