“What happened to Carrie and Melissa?” Ben demands.
Ash dissolves into another round of coughs. She looks worse than ever, though this time Ben doesn’t think it has anything to do with the hypothermia.
“I have never been so scared as when I was living in that maldita frat house with all those boys. I’d face a hundred zombies before I’d put myself through that again. Caleb did his best to shield me.” Her face crumples. “But he couldn’t be with me every second of the day. Johnson made sure of that.”
Ben wants to hit something. “What did that fucker do?”
“Not as much as he wanted to do. But a lot more than I wanted.” Her face is wet with rain, but Ben doesn’t miss the tears snaking down her cheeks. “Johnson and Ryan killed Carrie and Melissa. They caught the girls and dragged them to the library. I—I found their bodies. They’d been raped before Johnson and Ryan killed them.” She chokes on a sob. “I didn’t do anything to stop them. I could have told you. I could have intervened, but I was a coward.”
Something inside Ben cracks open.
God dammit. He’d known. In his gut, he’d known Johnson and Ryan had done something to those girls. The tally in his head goes up. Instead of sixteen kids on his conscious, he now has eighteen.
“Why are you telling me this?” His voice comes down like a hammer. He couldn’t hold his anger back even if he tried.
“I’m sorry I lied to you that day,” Ash whispers. “If I’d told you the truth—if I hadn’t been a coward—I could have saved the rest of the students. If I’d told you the truth, you could have gotten the rest of them away. You could have taken them to Creekside, to Kate—” Her voice breaks. She stops in the middle of the trail, body convulsing with shivers. “It’s my fault all those students died,” she gasps.
Ben has no words. He’d failed Ash. That was the simple truth. He’d seen the fear in her eyes when he questioned her about the disappearance of Melissa and Carrie. He’d suspected she knew more than she let on.
Yet he had done nothing.
Every day he’d stood by and done nothing. He’d been in denial as to how dangerous Johnson was. He’d stood by with his thumb up his ass and all those kids had been slaughtered.
Anger and self-loathing boil up within him. He can’t speak. He doesn’t know how to tell Ash how very, very sorry he is.
“Ben,” Ash murmurs. “I just wanted you to know the truth. Don’t hate Caleb for something I did.”
Her knees buckle. Ben catches her as she falls.
60
Old Friend
KATE
“Kate!” Ben’s bellow grinds me to a halt in the middle of the trail.
I spin around and find him running toward me, Ash clutched to his chest. She’s unconscious, her body flopping with his cadence. Caleb tears down the trail back in their direction.
Hypothermia. The word flashes through my mind. The wet. The cold. The exhaustion. It’s gotten the better of Ash.
“We need a fire,” Ben shouts. “Right fucking now.”
I spin on my heel, taking in the soaking trees, the soaking trail, and the soaking ferns. Rain continues to patter down from the sky. The fog sits low against the land, compounding the dampness.
Caleb takes Ash’s limp body. Ben sprints toward me. “Fire,” he shouts again. “We’re going to lose her if we don’t get fire.”
“There’s nothing to burn,” Eric whispers, face riveted on Ash and Caleb. “Everything’s wet.”
Something in me hardens. No way am I going to let Ash die.
“We burn a tree down if we have to,” I snap. So what if our world is drenched in water? So what if we have no food and are on the brink of running out of water? “Whatever it takes. We get a fire started.”
Eric wipes at the water on his glasses, eyes wide. “Come on, Reed,” he cries, bolting off the trail and into the greenery. “We need to find a place to start a fire!”
Thirty minutes later, our party crouches inside a tight ring of Douglas firs a quarter mile off the trail. The ground beneath the trees is the only piece of relatively dry land we’ve found since emerging from the ocean.
Our fire is pathetic. Finding dry wood has been a joke. The only thing we’ve been able to burn are pine needles.
“Come on, girl,” Caleb murmurs, his face twisted in anguish. “You’ve survived worse. A little cold isn’t gonna get the best of you.”
He’s stripped out of his wet shirt, his bare chest pressed to Ash’s back. She’s been stripped to the waist, in nothing but her sports bra. The sight of the chafe marks under her armpits and along the bottom of her sports bra makes me wince. The salt in the clothing has been brutal on all of us, but somehow it all looks worse on Ash. Her arms and legs are covered with tiny cuts from the thistle patches we pushed through.
“Shit.” Ben leaps to his feet, stalking out of our shelter. He marches up to a young pine tree, running his hands over the wood. “Fuck me. I can’t believe I didn’t see these earlier.”
“What is it?” I join him at the tree.
He pulls out his knife and begins prying out a section of bark. “See these?” He points to a few dried white streaks on the outside of the bark.
“Bird poop?”
“No. Dried sap. See these bumps in the bark? They’re filled with sap. My old man showed me how to make fires with bark like this when he took me camping as a kid.”
Realization dawns. Tree sap. It’s flammable. With sudden hope filling me, I yank out my knife and also begin prying up a section of bark.
In less than two minutes, we have two large handfuls of bark. We rush back to the shelter.
“Everyone, get back,” Ben orders. He begins snapping the bark into smaller pieces, revealing small, gooey pockets of sap.
I’ve never seen Ben so focused. He crouches before the small pile of burning pine needles, holding a raw edge of bark over the flames. Within several seconds, the sap ignites.
“No way! How did you do that?” Reed gapes.
“Tree sap,” I explain. “Ben’s idea. Go find some more bark like this.” I hand Reed a sample from my harvest with Ben.
He wordlessly takes the bark. With a nod at Eric and Susan, the three of them hurry into the rain to find more bark.
Ben stares at the fire with fixed intensity, steadily feeding it larger pieces of sap-infused bark. He also throws handfuls of pine needles onto it, sending up huge puffs of smoke and steam every time he does. Eric, Reed, and Susan return with another armload of bark.
I kneel on one side of Ash, working my hands up and down her bare arms in an attempt to warm them. Caleb rubs her stomach, trying to do the same. Every part of her is damp and chill, her skin sickly white.
Susan, Reed, and Eric all strip out of their running shirts and have pulled extras out of their packs. They hold the pieces of clothing over our fire, trying to dry them so Ash and Caleb can use them as blankets. Ben curses under his breath, worried eyes constantly flicking to Ash.
If this had been a real ultra, Ash would be in a medic tent right now. That’s what happened to me at the JFK fifty-miler when I got hypothermia. A thunderstorm had shown up at the start of that race and decided to stick around for the duration.
By the time I staggered to the finish line, I hadn’t been in much better shape than Ash. The race director put the medal around my neck and hustled me off to the medic tent, where I spent the next five hours. They packed hot water bottles around me, layered me with blankets ...
Wait. Water bottles.
I snatch my pack off the ground and stare at the water bladder inside.
“Does anyone have a pot or something we can heat water in?” I ask.
“I have a collapsible metal bowl in my pack.” Reed dives into his pack, rummaging inside. He produces the bowl and pops it open.
“Figure out a way to hold it over the fire,” I tell him. “We’re going to heat water.” I stand, grabbing the running packs dumped in a pile on the ground. The bladders inside all need to be
filled.
Ben looks at me sharply. “Where are you going?”
“Water. We need to heat water and put it in our bladders and pack them around Ash. Maybe get some hot water into her.”
“You can’t go out there alone,” he says with a scowl.
I scowl right back. “There are no zombies out here. Hell, there are no people out here. You need to focus on the fire. Get it nice and hot. The rest of you, keep drying out clothing. And figure out a way to suspend that bowl over the fire.”
I turn my back on Ben, ending the conversation. I march out from beneath the trees before anyone else can argue with me.
In my head, I retrace the route we’d taken to get here. About a half-mile back, we crossed a swollen creek that came up to my knees. That’s where I’m going to get water.
I take off at a run, charging through the water-laden grasses that grow close to the coast. I dodge around trees and clumps of thistles, making a mental note to check everyone for ticks again when I get back.
What’s wrong with me? Why am I worried about ticks when Ash’s life is on the line?
I shake my head, struggling to get my emotions in order. I can’t slip now. My kids need me.
I burst through a clump of fennel and clear a mess of cobwebs out of my face. The trail looms in front of me, a muddy track stretching to the left and right.
“Finally.” I leap onto the dirt path and take off at a sprint, my headlamp illuminating my way.
It’s the fastest I’ve moved since first setting foot on this trail. It doesn’t take long before I realize just how depleted I am. Between the near-miss with the ocean, the stress of all the events leading up to the shipwreck, and the short supply of food and water, I’m wasted. My body is sluggish, refusing to move as fast as I know it can move.
Ash. Ash. I say her name over and over in my head. I charge through puddles. Mud and water fly up, soaking me all the way to the waist. Ash.
I hear the creek before I see it. I tear around a corner and drop to my knees at the bank. My cold, wet fingers fumble with the first bladder. The plastic opening keeps slipping in my grasp. My fingers are too numb to grip properly.
“Dammit!” I hurl the bladder to the ground in frustration, breath rasping.
Ash.
Tears sting my eyes. I got her into this mess. I can’t fail her.
I snatch up a bladder and flip it upside down, pinching the seal between my knees. This time, when I pull at the plastic, the opening slides free.
I push the first bladder into the water. The creek is flowing so fast it almost rips it out of my hands.
Crouched there on the side of the bank, alone in the rain, it all comes crashing down on me.
The helplessness of our situation. The fact that I have six green runners in my care and that I’m trying to keep them alive on one of the toughest trails on the west coast. The odds are stacked against us, and no matter what I do, things just keep getting worse.
My breath quickens. I swallow back tears. Now is not the time for self-pity.
Something moves on the far side of the bank. I blink, trying to clear water out of my eyes. The world is blurry from all the rain, which seems to be coming down harder than ever before. Just great.
I fill the rest of the bags, wondering if there’s a way to warm the water inside without melting the plastic. Reed’s bowl won’t fill more than one liter of water at a time. That’s not fast enough. It—
I see movement a second time. My chin jerks up.
An animal materializes on the other side of the bank, staring at me. He stands about a foot and a half high—if you don’t count the antlers. The elegant set of antlers sits like a crown on his furry brown head.
“Hola, chica.” The jackalope cocks his head at me, watching as I fill the water bladder.
I lick dry lips, queasy at the sight of him. The fact that my old nemesis is here tells me exactly how stressed and exhausted I am. The last time I saw him, I’d run over a hundred miles and lost my best friend. I haven’t even gone twenty-five miles, yet here he is.
Hallucinations aren’t unusual on an ultra. Now that I think about it, I have been up for nearly twenty-four hours. I’ve been shot at. Shipwrecked. Nearly drowned. Then forced to grind away on a trail for hours in the rain without proper food and water. No wonder I’m seeing things.
I finish filling the water bladder, all the while ignoring him. When I finish, I get to my feet and turn my back on the hallucination.
“Don’t rip off my antlers,” the jackalope says, then leaps over the creek and lands beside me. I flinch away from him, running back down the trail.
There’s no way to drop a hallucination. He hops along beside me, not even breaking a sweat. The little fucker isn’t even wet.
Of course, he’s not wet. He’s not even here. He’s a figment of my imagination.
“Go away,” I snarl.
“You need me,” the jackalope says.
“I don’t need you.”
“Do you remember that time you worked the aid station at Bryce Canyon and a thunderstorm hit?”
“I don’t have time for this!” I scream, clutching the bladders to my chest.
I spin on my heel and keep running, retracing my steps back toward our camp.
“Fine. Whatever,” he shouts after me. “Just don’t forget what happened to your canopy.”
My mind races back to a time when the world was normal, when the most I had to worry about was getting injured on a training run or making sure Carter did his homework.
My memory hurtles me back to the reddish-brown landscape of Bryce Canyon, a national park in the state of Utah. The towering cliffs and sweeping vistas of that place were nothing short of magical.
I was supposed to run the hundred-miler with Frederico, but a bad fall on the trail a few weeks before had left me with a broken wrist. Rather than stay home and sulk, I volunteered to work one of the aid stations. Little did I know one of the biggest storms of the season was headed straight for us.
The late spring storm had been brutal. Rain. Hail. More rain. I spent the day ladling out soup to soaked, muddy runners with chattering teeth. The worst part had been at two in the morning when our aid station canopy, laden with water from the storms, had tipped over—
I grind to a halt, mind racing.
Yes. The canopy. Water had collected in the canvas. It created a giant bowl.
“That’s it,” I breathe. I snap my head around, searching.
The jackalope is gone. All I see is the rain and trees.
It doesn’t matter. I know what to do. I know how to save Ash.
61
Hot Water
BEN
He alternates between swearing at the fire, worrying about Ash, scanning the area for signs of Kate’s return, then swearing some more.
“I think this shirt is finally dry.” Eric moves around the fire and drapes it over Ash and Caleb.
“More wood,” Ben says. “We need more wood.”
Eric turns without a word, leaving their makeshift shelter to search for more logs. With the help of the sap-filled bark, they have a decent fire going. They can feed it regular logs now so long as they aren’t too sodden.
“Come on, girl,” Caleb murmurs, rocking Ash in his arms. “You’re too strong to give up now. You didn’t make it through hell to die like a deer in the woods.”
Ben feeds another log to the fire. It’s wet. Not soaking, but wet enough that it sizzles and sends up a gush of steam as soon as it hits the flames.
The interior of the fire is burning steadily. What he needs now is a poker to break apart the logs and expose the coals within. That’s the best place to put the new logs.
He casts about the dark shelter of the trees, searching for a branch that can be used as a poker.
There’s nothing. Everything serviceable has already been fed to the fire.
He spots a Douglas fir tree twenty yards east. Eric crouches beneath the boughs, picking up pieces of wood.
“Be right back,” Ben says.
Reed and Susan glance at him. Caleb never looks up, continuing to rock Ash back and forth.
“I need a long branch,” Ben tells Eric as he arrives at the Douglas fir. “Something that can be used as a poker.”
“Like this?” Eric extracts a branch from the stack in his arms. It’s a sturdy piece of wood two inches thick and three feet long, the length covered with green lichen.
“That’ll work. Give me what you’ve collected so far.”
“It’s kind of dry,” Eric says, passing the bundle of wood to Ben.
“Good work. Find more.”
Back at the fire, he uses the branch to stoke the fire. The larger logs break apart, exposing orange-yellow coals. The newest log catches fire, long tongues of flame licking upward.
Perfect. Ben moves around the fire, adding more logs to all sides. Within fifteen minutes, the fire has doubled in size. Heat roils off it in steaming puffs.
“Nice work.” Reed fans steam and smoke out of his eyes. He fiddles with the bowl, attempting to tie a fresh sapling around it to create a holder.
It’ll never work, but Ben doesn’t say this. From the look of anguish on Reed’s face, it’s better if the kid has something to preoccupy his thoughts.
At least Susan is doing something productive. She stands next to the fire, a shirt in each hand as she dries them over the flames. It’s slow work, but Ash already has two other shirts draped over her.
Where the hell is Kate? He peers into the drizzly gloom. There’s no sign of her anywhere.
He does his best to ignore the knot of anxiety forming in his chest. Kate is more than capable of taking care of herself. Hell, she made it all the way to Arcata without his help and she’d been alone for much of the time.
None of this makes him feel any better. He should have gone with her. How long has it been? At least thirty minutes, probably more. How long does it take to get water?
The wait is killing him. He straightens, intending to go search for her. There’s nothing else he can do with the fire right now. Besides, maybe he can find some more dry wood while he’s looking for Kate. Anything is better than standing around watching Ash struggle. It’s more than he can take.
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 91
