Undead Ultra (A Zombie Novel) (25 page)

Cool morning fog chills my bare stomach. We pull our packs back on. Fatigue pinches the corners of Frederico’s mouth and eyes.

There’s a crash somewhere behind us, followed by several moans. Exchanging a brief look, we set out again at a run.

I wish I could say Frederico and I were like wood sprites, gliding soundlessly through the underbrush. The clanging of our bells might be muted, but we still make a considerable amount noise as we thrash through the forest.

Branches and twigs snap beneath our shoes. Leaves crackle and bushes rustle as we barrel through them. In all honesty, we still make enough racket to wake the dead. Or in this case, bring the undead down on us.

The zombies follow us like hounds on the hunt. I glimpse one off to my right, moving at a trot down the slope. It’s a middle-aged man in plain jeans and a polo shirt. He crashes into a tree, falls down, and gets right back up again.

“Should we try to hide?” I wheeze. “Climb a tree?”

“Too risky,” Frederico replies. “If we get surrounded we’ll have to fight our way free. I have more faith in my running skills than my fighting skills.”

I can’t argue with that.

“We have to get to the railroad,” Frederico continues. “We can move faster and might be able to lose them there.”

Gritting my teeth, I throw all my focus and energy into the forest before me. I am not going to die out here. I am
not
.

I jump over a branch, landing on a patch of leaves. My feet slide on the humus. Rather than fight the slide, I lean forward and push off. I barrel down the incline, riding the pull of gravity and relying on the tread of my shoes. I land lightly on my toes, barely touching the ground before pushing off again.

My quads burn and my chest heaves. I swing my left forearm, knocking aside low-hanging branches. A cluster of thistles springs up before me. I lift my arms, raising them above the bristles while my legs slice through them. Prickles snag at my clothing and cut at the skin beneath. Frederico curses softly under his breath as he tears through the thistles beside me.

We cut sideways, veering around a thick clump of pine trees. A zombie, only ten feet to our right, thunks into a boulder at a dead run. I hear the crunch of bone. The beast snarls, struggling to get to its knees, but it’s clear he’s broken one of his legs. We dash on, swerving around several more trees.

Snagging the straw on my pack, I take several quick drinks between gasps for air. I leap over a rock, crash through waist-high poison oak, and duck a low-hanging branch.

Another zombie comes through the trees to our right, holding out her arms as she runs. It’s a thirty-something woman in a loose sundress.

I scoop up a rock as I run and lob it with all my might, aiming for the head. The throw falls short. Fuck. I throw like a girl.

Frederico lobs his own rock. It clocks the zombie right in the chest. The unexpected blow causes her to reel backward in surprise. Her foot catches on a fallen branch.

She goes down, impaling herself on a fallen tree limb. The wood pierces her through the chest, though of course she doesn’t die. It does make it difficult for her to move, which pisses her off. As she struggles to right herself, she lets loose a high-pitched keen that raises all the hairs along my neck.

We speed away as answering keens fill the air around us. Most are behind us and on our flanks, but at least one is somewhere downhill of us.

“Shit,” Frederico murmurs.

I bend down and pick up a thick branch. “We have to shut her up,” I say. “She’s going to bring the whole horde down on us.”

The sundress zombie has managed to get onto all fours. She crawls in our direction, keening as she drags the branch with her.

Instead of running away, I run back uphill. The zombie, hearing my approach, manages a quick and eerie spider-like crawl with the branch hanging out of her body. She lets out another high-pitched keen, which is again echoed by her fellow undead.

I swing the branch with all my might. I might throw like a girl, but I have a decent swing. The wood crushes a hole in the side of her head. Blood sprays across my legs as her body smacks into me.

I fall backward, instinctively curling my neck to protect the back of my head. A rock digs painfully into my right ass cheek. The zombie woman lands heavily across my shins. Blood from her crushed skull drizzles onto my pants.

I bite back a scream, kicking and shoving at the zombie body. Frederico grabs her ponytail and hauls her off, then pulls me to my feet.

“That’s a good branch. You should hang onto that,” is all he says.

We keep running. My ass throbs from the fall; if it’s not scraped, I’ll definitely have a nasty bruise. At one point, Frederico pauses to scoop up his own branch.

We spot a few more zombies. Rather than confront them, we zigzag back and forth through the woods, doing our best to avoid them. None of them get close enough to send up that unnerving keen.

My eyes are in constant movement, flicking between the forest floor and the woods around us. I watch the ground to keep myself from eating trail; I watch the forest for the undead. An ache develops behind my eyes.

Then, without warning, the railroad tracks bloom before us. One second we’re barreling through shrubs and dodging tree branches; the next, we burst through the undergrowth and find ourselves standing on the rotting wood of the tracks. Twenty feet to our right, two zombies stumble out of the woods.

I never thought I would be so happy to see these fucking tracks. Too bad the two zombies had to ruin the moment. Other than bits of leaves and twigs in their hair and clothing, they’re miraculously unscathed by their trek through the forest.

Wordlessly, Frederico and I point ourselves north. We push hard, moving much faster now that we have a relatively clear path. Yes, there are still waist-high weeds and thistles to plow through, but even a rotting railroad is better than a forested hillside.

I glance back a few times. Though we managed to lose the bulk of the zombies to the natural obstacles in the forest, a dozen more have broken free of the forest. They follow the sound of our passage and the soft rattling of our bells. Several are badly wounded, dragging broken legs and awkwardly swinging broken arms. Any advantage is a good one at this point, even though there are plenty still on their feet. Maybe, just maybe, we can outrun them.

“Fucking tunnel,” Frederico snarls.

I jerk my attention forward. One hundred yards ahead is the same tunnel that got us into this mess.

“We have to go through it,” I reply. “It’s our only chance to gain ground on these undead fuckers.”

“I know,” he replies tersely. “It just pisses me off.”

The tunnel swallows us. The wild graffiti art that only a few hours ago had seemed artistic now appear sinister. The gaudy colors and larger-than-life images loom high up on the walls. I feel like they’re trying to smother us.

Silently lamenting the loss of our headlamps, I run into the darkness. After a quarter of a mile, the tunnel takes a sharp turn, and I lose all sight of the entrance behind us. We also lose all ambient light.

“Shitballs,” Frederico says. “I guess we’re on level ground with those blind fuckers now.”

“Let’s feel our way along the wall.” I keep my voice soft so it won’t echo off the walls. Following my own advice, I step carefully off the track and grope for the wall. After a few seconds, my hands connect with the cool stone.

“At least if we’re walking we’re harder to hear,” Frederico says. “That’s something.”

He’s right. Now that we’re forced to walk, the bells are—finally—silent. The only sounds are the soft crunch of our shoes on gravel and the rasp of our breathing. For the moment, I can’t even hear the zombies. It’s just me, Frederico, and—

A loud
thwack
sounds in front of me.

“Mother fucker.”

“What happened?” I whisper.

“I hit my head on something. There’s something in front of us . . . Kate, come here.”

His hand, fumbling in the darkness, finds my elbow. I let him draw me forward, an icy shiver of dread making a pit in my stomach.

“Put your hands out,” he says.

I obey. Where there should have been open tunnel, my hand connects with moist earth.

Oh, shit.
My breath comes fast, rasping through my nose.

I move sideways, searching for an end to the mound of soil in front me. Frederico moves along beside me, presumably also feeling out the parameters of the cave-in.

I find what feels like a twisted chunk of track. Then more and more dirt.

My heart pounds.

When I hit the tunnel wall on the opposite side, I bite back a wail of despair. I stand my toes, feeling as high up as I can.

“It can’t be,” I whisper. There must be a way over the cave-in. There
must
be.

Frederico and I bump into each other. My forehead connects painfully with his elbow. A sob catches in my throat as the truth of our situation settles on my shoulders.

“Goddamn motherfucking asshole.” Frederico swears a lot when he’s stressed. “It’s a goddamn dead end. Fuck!”

Chapter 34

The Next Right Thing

Kyle was sixty-eight days sober.

We sat together on the couch. Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
played in the background. It was one of Kyle’s favorite albums. Carter, nearly four years old, had long ago fallen asleep.

Kyle and I didn’t speak. We just sat there, holding hands. Our relationship had only recently emerged from a near-fatal collision; we were doing our damnedest to patch things up. Sometimes that just meant sitting together. Just
being
together.

“I want a drink,” Kyle said, breaking the silence. “Really bad.” He turned his gaze to me, eyes wide and desperate with the longing that coursed through him.

I stared back at him, anxiety knotting my belly. I squashed the instinct to cajole and comfort him, to kiss him and tell him everything would be okay. To rush to the store and buy him a six-pack. The words of my Al-Anon sponsor rang in my ears.

“You have to DETACH, Kate,” she’d said. “That stands for Don’t Even Think About Changing Him. Worry on changing yourself.”

With this advice looming over me like an avenging angel, I bit my lip and kept my mouth shut. I gripped his hand, determined to meet my husband halfway on this painful journey we were on. That meant staying silent and DETACHed, letting him work through his anguish as I worked through mine.

“My sponsor says I have to concentrate on doing the next right thing,” he said at last. “I guess for right now, that means sitting here and not drinking.” When he looked at me, the wildness in his eyes took on a new edge—a determined edge.

I saw in his face a rising will to resist. To survive.

In that moment, my love for him surged. It was a white ribbon of joy flowing through me.

We could survive. We
would
survive. We just had to do the next right thing—together.

*

“Son of a bitch.” Frederico’s string of virulence continues, “Cocksucking, no-good, assfuckers. Dammit all to hell and back.”

His fear and frustration fade to the background as I focus on the feeling expanding in my chest. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts or guardian angels or anything like that, but in that moment, I swear I feel Kyle’s presence with me. It fills me with a comforting warmth.

“Cocksuckers,” Frederico snarls. “Of all the fucked up bad luck—”

In a distance, a growl ripples through the tunnel. I squeeze Frederico’s arm, silencing him.

The next right thing.
That had been the mantra to save ourselves and our marriage, and it had worked. Why couldn’t it save me and Frederico from zombies?

I draw a steadying breath, summoning the determination and focus of that time so long ago. I’m going to need it if we’re going to survive the next ten minutes.

Right now, only one imperative thing must happen.

“We have to get back around that corner,” I whisper in his ear. “If they pen us in back here where we can’t see, we’re dead. Our only chance of fighting free is to get someplace where we can see. Come on.”

I tug on his arm, urging him back along the tunnel. After a few steps, he grunts in acceptance. One hand on the wall to guide me forward, I move quickly, staying light on the balls of my feet.

Within minutes, we’re back at the bend in the tunnel. Something in me loosens at the sight of the exit. It’s little more than a fist-sized white smudge, but it sheds enough light to cast our world into shades of gray. Since my eyes have already adjusted, I can see.

“Look for spikes,” I say. This is our next right thing: arming ourselves. “Or rocks.” I heft a large one and pass it to Frederico.

I continue forward, scanning the ground. Ten feet later, I find a railroad spike sticking halfway out of the ground. It comes free after a few tugs. A few seconds later, I find a fist-sized rock for my other hand. Frederico finds his own railroad spike.

Another growl ripples down the tunnel. I stare into the darkness, scanning for zombies.

Silhouetted against the light, something in the distance moves. I can’t tell how many there are.

Frederico gives me a tight-lipped nod, gesturing toward the entrance. We pick our way forward. Now that we can see, we move back onto the railroad. Using the wooden cross ties as stepping stones, we’re able to move quietly. The bells are thankfully silent, muted by the dirt and our shirts.

In another two hundred yards, the zombies become clear. There are six of them bunched together, steadily making their way in our direction. More follow behind them, though I can’t get a clear count.

Now that they can’t hear us, they move at a slower pace, occasionally moaning or grunting.

I chew on my lower lip, trying to figure out our next move—our next right thing.

We’ve been lucky so far with our zombie encounters, but we’re a long way from being proficient killers. I’m not stupid enough to think we can take out an entire pack. Maybe if we had machine guns, but all we have between us is two rocks and two railroad spikes. Direct confrontation is not our best bet.