Undead Ultra

by Camille Picott

  Heart pounding, I creep up behind one of the feeding zombies.

  This is for Carter, I tell myself. For my son, I can be strong. I will be strong.

  I ignore the fact that I am about to put a railroad spike through the head of a teenage boy. Old world rules don’t apply anymore. If I can’t be strong, I’ll never make it to my son.

  Adrenaline roars in my ears. I pant for breath, the way I might after a hard sprint.

  I come up behind the zombie and seize a handful of short dark hair. It snarls in surprise, rearing back. A chunk of skin dangles from his mouth.

  I sense myself mentally shifting into the space I reserve for ultra races; the mental space that allows me to push onward, even when things are hard.

  I ram the spike downward with all my might. I’m not a particularly strong woman, but I’ve got leverage on my side.

  There’s an instant of resistance as the spike connects with the skull; I feel the moment when the rusty iron shatters the bone and slides into the wet, squishy interior. The zombie teen drops to the ground in a motionless puddle, the chunk of skin still dangling out of his mouth.

  I get my first glimpse of the person he’d been feeding on. It’s a teenage girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen. Her stomach cavity has been ripped open, her insides shredded.

  Beside me, Frederico drops his zombie, the railroad spike buried in the teen’s temple. Blood sprays across his pink running shorts. He releases the dead zombie, moving toward the eviscerated girl.

  “Can’t leave her to rise,” he says softly, then hammers the spike down into her skull.

  My hands shake. I lift them, staring at the blood that flecks them. My empty stomach roils.

  “You did it, Jackalope,” Frederico says. “I knew you had it in you. Come on.”

  He steps over the bodies, heading through the gate. I follow with Stout at my side, adrenaline still hammering in my blood.

  Chapter 15

  Ace Hardware

  As we cross the threshold, a car horn blares. I freeze. Stout’s ears go flat.

  Seconds later, there’s a crash—the sound of shattering glass, crumpling metal, squealing tires, and a loud boom that makes me think a vehicle ran into a building.

  Frederico grabs my wrist, pulling me inside the fence. We’re in an outdoor storage area covered with corrugated metal. Floor-to-ceiling pallet racks hold building supplies—bricks, lumber, sheetrock, and the like. Frederico leads us down an aisle lined with different sorts of bricks and pavers used in landscaping.

  Stout’s collar makes a soft tinkling noise as it shifts on her neck. In this deathly quiet area, it’s like a gong going off.

  Ahead of me, Frederico turns right around a corner. Paranoid Stout’s collar may make more noise, I pause and wrap one hand against the jingling collar. With my other hand, I deftly unfasten the buckle. Taking care not to make any noise, I set the orange collar on the ground.

  As I stand up, a zombie shuffles into sight. I swallow a shriek, stumbling back a few steps. I bump against a pallet and accidentally nudge a brick. It shifts, making a soft grating sound.

  The zombie’s head swivels, tracking the noise. It’s a middle-aged woman with bangs teased halfway to heaven. She wears a red Ace Hardware vest. Her neck and one shoulder are gouged with blood and bite marks. Despite the obvious violence she’s endured, not a hair on her head is out of place—a testament to the amount of hair spray applied.

  The zombie moans and shuffles forward a few steps, reaching out toward the sound with her hands. I sidestep the grasping fingers and press myself against the bricks beside Stout. The dog slips her tail between her legs and cowers against the ground. I knot one fist in her brown-black fur.

  Neither of us makes a sound.

  The zombie stops just in front of us, sniffing the air. It’s so close I can smell the ten pounds of hairspray holding up her bangs. My heart thuds erratically.

  Her head rotates, white eyes rolling sporadically in her head. She inhales deeply, leaning toward us.

  My left hand inches toward the stake in my running pack. I hold my breath, afraid even a small exhalation will draw her attention.

  Fingers slick with sweat, I work them around the spike. Only twelve inches separate me from the sniffing zombie. Behind me is a pallet of bricks, which leaves me very little room to maneuver. When I draw the spike, I won’t have the leverage I had last time.

  The zombie snarls, lips peeling back from her teeth.

  Fear shoots through my bloodstream like a rocket. My sweaty fingers fumble with the spike.

  The zombie’s neck muscles bunch as she prepares to strike.

  I yank out the spike.

  A single red brick drops into the aisle. It lands ten feet to my left, making an obnoxious clatter against the cement.

  The teased-out zombie lurches toward the sound. A second brick drops farther down the aisle, drawing the zombie farther away. She gnashes her teeth, jerking toward the second brick.

  Seeing the sudden opening, a surge of adrenaline shoots through me. Not giving myself time to think, I leap at the zombie’s back. She turns, but my railroad spike is already punching through her skull. The rusty metal bores through the hard layer of bone before sliding into her brain.

  The zombie collapses. I lean over my knees, breathing hard. After a moment, I pull the spike out of her bloodied, hair-sprayed head. Only sheer willpower keeps me from throwing up. Now is not to time to indulge in revulsion.

  Frederico looks down at me from the top of the pallet rack, giving me a grin I can’t return. He gives me a thumbs-up, then gestures for me to follow him.

  Stout rises, ears pricking up at the sight of our friend. We start down the aisle, scurrying away from the dead zombie.

  A sudden, frantic gesture draws my eyes upward. Frederico mouths something to me, waving both arms at the end of the aisle. The look on his face says everything.

  More zombies.

  Beside me is partial pallet of cinder blocks. I scramble on top of it, squeezing between the cement rectangles and the rack above it. Stout hops up beside me, nostrils flaring. We lie side by side draped on top of the cinder blocks.

  Five seconds ticks by. Ten.

  Three zombies lumber into view. None of them have the red vests of Ace employees. They are—were—customers. They groan and emit soft, guttural sounds. Each has some sort of bite wound of varying degrees, one lady with half her calf chewed off. She crawls, her ruined leg dragging loudly against the floor.

  As the zombies wobble down the aisle, I feel stupid for even worrying about blisters, thirst, and hunger. Those seem like small, stupid worries in the face of three monsters.

  A spike of paranoia goes through me. What if the zombies have a supernatural sense of smell? What if they not only hunt by sound, but also by smell? Did teased zombie smell me only because I was close, or had she sniffed me out sooner?

  I delicately nudge my nose into my armpit—and immediately pull it back out again.

  Fuuuuck. I stink to high heaven.

  One zombie—a fat man in a tight wifebeater—smacks right into our rack. He bounces off and rights himself, standing only a foot away from where Stout and I hide.

  He tilts his head. At first I think he’s sniffing, but then he shifts his body by ten degrees and takes another step. When he runs back into the pallet rack, he turns another ten degrees. This time, he finds a clear path.

  He continues past us, letting out a soft moan as he does.

  I let out a breath, relieved. It doesn’t appear they hunt by smell. Thank god for small favors in the middle of an apocalypse.

  From atop the pallet rack, Frederico hurls another brick. The first one strikes the fat zombie on the side of the head. Blood oozes out of his temple, and he drops to the ground.

  The next brick misses its target, a white-haired woman with dirt-stained pants. She draws close to me and Stout, trips over the fat man, and falls to the ground.

  She’s close enough for me to touch. Climbing b
ack to her feet, she tilts her face upward and snarls.

  Frederico throws another brick. This time he aims down the aisle, drawing the old woman away from us. She follows the sound.

  I don’t know what Stout has been through, but it’s clear that somewhere along the way she got an education about the creatures. The flick of her ears is the only response to the close proximity of the zombie.

  Frederico throws three more bricks before, at last, felling the old zombie.

  All that remains now is the zombie with the half-eaten leg. She drags herself down the aisle, somehow managing to miss running into the fat zombie.

  A brick sails through the air and thunks into the back of her head. She goes still, the brick having crumpled the back of her skull.

  I remain where I am for another thirty seconds. When no more zombies appear, I cautiously extricate myself from the pallet rack with Stout.

  We make our way to the end of the aisle and find Frederico climbing down. I mouth a thank you at him. He nods, then motions for me to follow.

  There’s a bathroom ten feet in front of us, the door is closed.

  I press one ear to the door, listening. Nothing. I cautiously ease the door open. The room is dark and empty.

  I flip the switch, grateful to find electricity still working, and slip inside. Frederico and Stout follow me.

  I head straight to the sink, pulling off my pack and unfastening the seal on my water bag.

  Frederico stands over the toilet and turns his back to me. I politely look away while he takes a leak. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to piss in front of each other.

  I fill my bag, then stick my mouth under the faucet and take a long drink. Cool liquid splashes over my tongue, helping relieve the sticky, parched feeling. It does little to relieve the hunger gnawing inside me.

  I take my turn on the toilet while Frederico fills his water bag. After relieving myself, I take a minute to assess my feet. I pull off my shoes and turn them upside down. A thin stream of water runs out. Shit.

  In a race, I always have extra socks and shoes for situations just like this. No such luck now. I hadn’t thought of wearing my waterproof shoes. I reserve them for rainy days, since they trap heat around the foot.

  I gingerly peel off the socks, wincing at the sight of a giant blood blister that’s already formed on the side of my right foot. That’s not going to be pleasant in another fifty miles.

  There are other blisters, most of them along the tops of my toes. When those get bigger, I’ll start losing toenails. There’s another large clear blister forming on the top of my left foot. The skin on both feet is whitish and wrinkled from the damp.

  I wring out the socks and vigorously shake the shoes, doing my best to disgorge the water. I even stick my fists inside and press on the soles with the shoes upside down, trying to squeeze out as many droplets as I can.

  What we need is a hair dryer. I consider trying to find one in the store but immediately dismiss the idea. A hair dryer, even if I could find one, would make too much noise.

  Nothing to do but embrace the wet feet, the impending blisters, and move on.

  Frederico spends a little time tending to his feet. Stout sticks her head in the toilet and laps eagerly at the water. Poor thing. How long has it been since her last drink? How long has she been on her own?

  When the dog is done drinking, I crouch down next to Frederico. I hold my mouth very close to his ear.

  “We need to find food,” I whisper, voice barely audible.

  “There should be snacks near the cash registers,” he whispers back. “Candy, granola bars—something. Let’s try that.”

  He gets to his feet. I don’t bother asking about them; no doubt they’re as trashed as mine are.

  We stand in silence, staring at the bathroom door. Some part of me wishes we could stay here and hunker down, maybe wait out the shit storm. This tiny six-by-six gray room is the safest I’ve felt since we fled Healdsburg.

  But there’s no telling if there’s an end in sight. If this is the end of the world, hiding in a hardware store bathroom won’t solve anything. It certainly won’t help Carter and Aleisha.

  Steeling my nerve, I press my ear to the door and listen. Silence.

  My hands are slick with sweat as I rest my fingers lightly on the door handle. I just need to push the handle down, but fear petrifies me.

  Years ago, I ran Leadville, a one-hundred-mile trail race through the Colorado Rockies. I had the brilliant idea to ditch my jacket at the first aid station. I spent the next thirty miles getting strange looks from other runners. I thought I had mud on my ass or something.

  Then I hit the summit at Hope Pass and it started to hail. It rained for the next seven hours nonstop.

  “I feel like the idiot who shows up to race in Colorado without a jacket,” I whisper, my hand still frozen on the bathroom door handle. “We’re in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse with nothing more than running shoes and railroad spikes. We need Uzis, Frederico.” I lean against the wall, staring up at the cheap panels on the ceiling.

  “Do you remember how we dealt with the rain?” he asks.

  “What?” I frown at him.

  “At Leadville. Do you remember how we dealt with the rain?”

  “You got me a garbage bag from one of the aid stations.”

  “Yep. And when the mud separated the sole from your shoes, Kyle and Carter taped them together with duct tape. Then you finished the race.” He leans in, looking me in the eye. “We’re finishers, Jackalope. We finish and survive. Even if all we have are running shoes and rusty railroad spikes, we’ll figure it out.”

  I draw in a deep breath and nod. Yep. Survive. That’s what we have to do. Survive so we can get to Carter and Aleisha.

  “Besides,” Frederico says, “you forgot about Luggy.” He hefts the lug nut wrench.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Luggy?”

  “Yep. I’ve named him.” He grins at me. Despite everything, I can’t help my small return smile.

  After that, there’s nothing to do but suck it up and proceed with our plan.

  Chapter 16

  Storewide Clearance

  I push down on the handle, open the door open just a crack and wait, watching.

  The storage area is quiet. There’s nothing in my immediate range of sight. I give Frederico a thumbs-up, then ease out of the bathroom.

  I pull out my spikes, holding one in each hand. Frederico wields his lug nut wrench. We creep past the pallet racks toward a pair of double swinging doors that lead into the store, each of them set with a small window.

  Side by side, we peer through the windows. Stout sits between us, ears pricked forward.

  Oh my god.

  From the tiny windows in the door, we have a view down a wide store aisle. The shelves are filled with garden supplies—hoses, fertilizes, rubber boots, trowels, ceramic flowerpots, and pesticides. At the end of the aisle is an open space with a large fountain, plants and statuary arranged artfully around it.

  And around the fountains are zombies. I try to count, but they keep shifting in their blind wandering. There’re at least twelve. One zombie is a little boy in red shorts with a turtle on his T-shirt.

  Strung just to the left of the fountain is a bright-red banner that says Customer Appreciation Day, 50% Off Storewide.

  We’ve just stumbled into a zombie blowout sale. How’s that for luck?

  I think of the military jeep and police we saw earlier. They obviously didn’t realize how bad things are in Hopland. How long since these people were turned?

  “This is bad,” Frederico whispers.

  I chew my bottom lip. My body is running dangerously low on fuel. My stomach feels like it’s been carved out with a spoon. If I don’t get food soon, my energy is going to bottom out. I really don’t want to go into the store, but we’ll never get to Carter and Aleisha if we don’t find food.

  “The cash registers will be at the front,” I reply, keeping my voice to a whisper
. “What if we create a distraction and lure them to the back of the store?”

  “That might work.” He stares through the window for another thirty seconds. “What about getting some weapons?”

  I frown. “Do they sell guns here?”

  He shakes his head. “I was thinking hammers and screwdrivers. They’re easy to carry and would be better than our spikes.”

  He’s got a point. “Maybe we take a detour through the DIY aisle on the way to the cash registers?” I ask.

  “We should try,” he replies. “See those flower pots on the left side of the aisle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re going to run out and pull them off the shelves. Make a shitload of noise. Then run for it. Stick to the perimeter of the store and make our way toward the registers at the front. With any luck, the sound will draw most of them.”

  I roll this plan over in my head. “We may run into some between here and the registers.”

  He nods. “You gotta be ready to fight, Jackalope. Fight and get bloody.”

  He’s right, of course.

  Running shoes, railroad spikes, and flowerpots. Not much in the way of a zombie defense arsenal.

  Stout sandwiches herself between us as we carefully open one of the swinging doors. Two-thirds of the way open, the hinges let out a loud whine. En masse, the zombies around the fountain freeze. A dozen heads turn in our direction.

  Frederico and I exchange panicked looks, then charge forward. We hook our hands into the terracotta pots and bring them crashing down. They shatter on the linoleum floor, reddish pottery shards flying in every direction.

  I pull down one more stack of pots for good measure, then turn and flee. The zombies descend on the aisle in a chorus of growls and moans.

  Frederico is by my side as I double back to the end of the aisle and turn right. Stout, who was too smart to follow us down the aisle, rejoins us as we skirt the perimeter of the store.

  We haul ass, sprinting out of the garden section and into hardware. I scan the racks of crowbars, hammers, drills, socket wrenches—and there, just to my right, is a stack of screwdrivers.