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KATE
I search inside myself, trying to decide how I feel about the fact that I just murdered two men. Not zombies, but real, living people. I killed them in less time than it takes to drop a deuce.
I should feel bad, or dirty, or remorseful. At the very least, I should be worried about karma or an impending trip to hell.
But all I feel is relief. Relief that my son is alive, and those two scumbags are vulture food. If I was handed a do-over, I wouldn’t change a thing.
I realize this says a lot about me and the person I’ve become over the last two hundred miles, but I don’t have the energy to care. Carter is alive and safe. That’s all that matters.
Anger hangs over the small group as I lead them through the lounge area. The comfy sofas and plush chairs I remember from my visits are still here, except now the room is adorned with bloodstains in several places. The fluorescent lights sit dormant, casting everything in a dark half-light.
Someone is handy with a screwdriver. The vending machines have all been dismantled, the big Plexiglas windows stacked against the far wall. The junk food has been raided. I notice a few of the healthier snacks—nuts and dried fruit—still stacked inside.
By the time we make it back to the dorm apartment on the second floor, the kids are ready to rip Reed a new asshole. Not that he doesn’t deserve it for putting them all at risk. I’d seen true remorse in him when he helped me dispose of the bodies, which infinitesimally alleviates some of my anger.
“You fucking asshole.” The boy named Eric, who has a fledgling potbelly, closes the apartment door. His voice is flat with rage. “What the fuck happened out there today?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Reed mumbles, heading toward the hall that leads to the bedrooms.
“No way.” Jenna blocks the entrance. “You brought home men who wanted to kill us. You owe us the truth. The full truth.”
I do my best to covertly study the tall girl with light brown hair who’s dating my son. I like the way she stands up to Reed even as I struggle not to be offended by her existence in Carter’s life.
“Later, I promise.” Reed tries to push past her, but Jenna stands firm. Another point in her favor.
“Don’t blow us off,” Carter says. “Those men chased us and shot at us, but not just because you stole their drugs. You need to come clean with us right fucking now.”
The severity in my son’s voice grabs my attention. Sweet, easygoing Carter doesn’t often lose his temper. Oddly, this sets me at ease. Hopefully, it means he isn’t waiting for a magical rescue by government officials like Lila and Johnny.
Reed slumps onto the sofa, looking like a kicked dog. He runs his hands through his poufy hair.
“Look, I come from a poor family in Oakland, all right? My dad is a truck driver. My mom took off when I was a little kid. The only way I could go to college was if I took out loans that would take me fifty years to pay back. I didn’t want to go into debt.” He rests his elbows on his knees, refusing to look at any of us. “One day, the guy I bought pot from said he knew a guy. If I agreed to sell stuff for this guy, I could make enough to pay for college.”
Reed continues to work his hands in his hair. Silence stretches. None of us offer comfort, even though his anguish is obvious.
When Reed speaks again, his voice is gruff. “The guy I work for is called Granjero. There’s always been a turf war in Arcata between Granjero and Mr. Rosario.”
“So, when most of the town was zombified, you decided it was okay to grab some of Mr. Rosario’s stuff?” Jenna demands.
“I didn’t figure anyone would ever know.” Reed shrugs as he rises, giving us all a defensive glare. “How was I supposed to know a few of Mr. Rosario’s guys were still around? Look, I fucked up, okay? I’m sorry. Now if you are all done glaring at me, I’m going to get high.”
“Not so fast.” I limp over to him. “Give me the drugs.” Reed may have thought no one noticed him retrieve the bags of acid from the ground, but I’d seen him scoop them up during the confusion.
Reed opens his mouth. Before he speaks, I hold up a hand. “Don’t try to bullshit me. I saw you take them. No one needs to be high on acid at a time like this.” Some might argue the end of the world is a perfect time to be on acid, but that’s not how I see it. “Now, Reed. Hand it over.” I might not be this young man’s mother, but if I talk like one, maybe he’ll comply. He did, after all, shed a few tears of shame outside when he helped me dispose of the bodies.
The sullen glare Reed gives me isn’t so different from the one Carter might give me. He slams the baggies of acid into my hand and slinks from the room. This time, Jenna doesn’t block his way. The quiet that follows Reed’s exit is thunderous.
“Kate,” Eric says, voice wavering in a brave attempt to dispel the tension, “you’re not by any chance covered in Lila’s weed balm, are you?”
“It’s athlete’s balm,” Lila says. She rises so easily to the bait, I get the impression that she and Eric go at each other on a regular basis. “And yes, she has some on her ankle. She’s helping me test my product.”
Eric snorts. “I’ll make you the best pot brownies you’ve ever had,” he says to me. “That will cure all your aches and pains.”
“She wants pain relief, Eric,” Lila says. “She doesn’t want to get stoned.” She hesitates, looking at me. “You don’t want to get stoned, do you?”
Eric doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “You can answer that question after you try one of my brownies. Besides, we need to celebrate not dying. Brownies are perfect for that. If you knew how many people lined up to write term papers for me in exchange for brownies, you’d be impressed.”
He and Lila continue bickering. I watch them, refusing to take sides, although I do not intend to eat the brownies.
Carter pushes off from the wall and stalks to the door. Tension makes the tendons in his neck stand up. He clenches his jaw so tightly his teeth grind.
Jenna straightens, eyes filling with concern as she takes in Carter’s stance. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“I’m going to work on Skip,” he replies.
I follow him out the door, limping on my bad ankle. I expect Jenna to come, too. She takes a few steps, sees me, and then falls back. I don’t know if this is because she’s uncomfortable around me, or if she’s trying to give us some privacy. Whatever the case, I’m grateful. I still haven’t adjusted to this new reality where zombies walk the earth and my son has a girlfriend.
“You should stay inside and rest your ankle,” Carter tells me. “We got you first aid supplies.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’ve heard that before. Usually it means you hurt like hell.”
I shrug, not bothering to deny it.
“Aren’t you going to put shoes on?”
“No.”
We both look down at my wrecked feet. It’s obvious they’re too swollen and fucked up for shoes right now.
Carter gives me a disgusted look that says, Whatever, Mom, then stomps down the hallway to the stairs. He pauses at the front glass doors to scan the area outside. Nothing moves besides the vultures and the flies. When he determines the way is safe, he pushes out the front door.
I follow him around the building to a small clearing of redwoods, stopping to survey the beat-up blue Dodge Caravan that sits beneath the trees. The hood is faded. Paint around the doors is starting to curl up, exposing the raw fiberglass underneath. The passenger side window is missing.
Carter stops in front of the busted van, glaring at the world at large. Then he spins around, focusing that glare on me.
I set my shoulders, meeting his angry eyes. “Just say it.”
“You killed those men!” The words burst from his throat. “Mom, you killed them!”
Anger and fear war in his features. I want to hug him, to comfort him like I did when he was a little kid. But a hug won’t fix what I’ve done.
“I did what I had to do to save you,” I reply. “I wish it could have been different.”
“What if someone finds out?” he bellows.
I’m not sure how to respond to this. “It’s not exactly a secret, Carter. Your roommates all saw it.”
“I’m not talking about them!” He swallows, gathering self-control. His voice drops to a whisper. “Mom, what if you go to jail?”
His question takes me by surprise. I absorb his features, taking in the fear in his eyes. I realize belatedly that he’s not angry at me for killing Mr. Rosario’s men. He’s afraid I’ll be caught and punished for it.
The idea of a surviving police officer coming to arrest me is laughable, but I do my best to digest Carter’s concern and address it.
“Sweetie, there’s no one around to arrest me. The only way to survive is to kill people. You told me yourself you’ve killed zombies.”
“That’s not the same thing. They’re already dead. You killed real people. What if someone finds out when this mess is cleared up?”
I finally understand what has him so upset. Like Johnny and Lila, he thinks our current state is temporary. He’s in full-fledged denial.
“If police come for me,” I say at last, “I’ll deal with it.”
His mouth twists. “That’s all you have to say? You’ll deal with it?”
“What else can I say? I’m not sorry. I didn’t run two hundred miles and lose Frederico to watch some dickheads kill my son in front of me. No fucking way.” My words come out too hard and blunt. I wish I could take them back, mash them up and soften them, but that’s not in the cards today. I’m too tired and too achy to find soft words.
Carter’s shoulders sag. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” he mutters, looking at the ground.
My irritation dissipates. My insides soften with love for my son. “It’s okay, baby. Thanks for caring.” I reach out and squeeze his shoulder. “We haven’t had a chance to catch up since I got here. Tell me how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine, all things considered.” He cocks his head at me, all remaining tension draining away. “You wanna meet Skip?”
“Skip?” I shrug, thinking he has another roommate. “Sure. Where is he?”
To my surprise, Carter gestures to the deplorable transportation specimen behind him.
“Mom, meet Skip. Reed calls it our soccer-mom-mobile.”
I take in the battered state of the minivan. “Why Skip?” I ask.
“Because Jenna and I are going to use it to skip from town to town when this semi-apocalypse blows over.” He opens the side door, revealing an interior stripped of seats and carpet.
Semi-apocalypse. I do my best to swallow the uneasiness summoned by that word, studying the interior of the van. The bare metal floor is exposed. Up against the passenger sidewall are three beer kegs. They sit inside a plywood holder bolted to the side of Skip.
“I paid a few guys to make these keg holders in the woodshop,” Carter says. “I’m going to drill holes and mount taps in the side of the van. Jenna and I are going to travel all over the country and sell beer at ultramarathon races.”
I nod, sitting on the lip of the open sliding door. “How long have you been dating Jenna?” I prop my bad foot up inside the van. It hurts like a son of a bitch.
“Six months.”
“Six months? You didn’t say anything about her the last time I was up here to visit.”
“Jenna was down in Southern California for her sister’s birthday,” he says with a shrug. “She didn’t come up in our conversations.”
“Carter.” He’s bullshitting me, and we both know it.
“Look, I knew you’d have a hard time with it, okay? It was hard on you when Dad died. It was hard on me and Uncle Rico, too, but the three of us found a way through it. I knew introducing someone new into our family would throw you off.”
He watches me warily. I swallow, waging a silent, inner battle. Everything he says is true, even if I want to deny it.
“You’re right,” I say stiffly. “I’m having a hard time with it. It’s my issue, though. I promise to try and get over myself, okay? If this girl is special to you, I want to get to know her.” That sounded okay. Now I just have to work myself into believing those words. “Tell me how you guys met.”
He sits next to me in the van. “We met one night at a dorm mixer in the lounge downstairs. I wasn’t really into the party. I was reading one of my beer-making books on the couch. She came and sat next to me and started asking a bunch of questions. Turns out she had an interest in learning to make beer.” A goofy smile spreads across his face.
In that single smile, I see how head-over-heels he is for this girl. I keep quiet, wrestling with churning emotions. I should be happy for Carter. I need to be happy for him.
“Anyway, we talked for hours. I agreed to let her help me make some beer.” He gestures at the three kegs behind us. “These are our brews. We call them Ultra Brews.” He grins at my lifted eyebrows. “Named after ultramarathons, of course. This is the DNF. It’s an IPA.” He taps the first keg. DNF stands for Did Not Finish, a racing term used by ultrarunners when they fail to complete a race. “This is the Vert, for the vertical gain of ultramarathons. It’s a stout. And this is the Finisher, a pilsner. Look, Jenna already has some labels designed.”
He pulls out a binder stashed between two of the kegs. Inside are dozens of pages, each filled with different label ideas for each of the beers.
“Jenna is an artist. She likes to draw,” he explains.
The girl has a gift. That much is evident from the first page. Her lines are strong and sure. She’s either spent a lot of time at races or a lot of time talking with Carter about them, because every one of them captures the spirit of an ultra. From steep mountain trails to a finish line ribbon, it’s all there.
“And look at these.” Carter’s voice lifts with excitement and pride. “There’s even a few ideas for our Ultra Brew logo. Once we settle on one, we’re going to have the graphics painted on the outside of Skip.”
“I love her work,” I say, flipping through the binder. It’s a relief to have something positive to say about his girlfriend.
“Jenna is double majoring in business and art. We were in the process of working up a financial plan for Ultra Brew when the outbreak happened. Maybe we’ll have time to finish everything while we wait for all this to clear up and return to normal.”
“You think everything is going to return to normal?” I ask.
“Our country has more resources than any other in the world,” he says with a shrug. “Things might be bad for six months or so, but it can’t stay this way.”
I look away, staring at the back of Creekside. The wood siding, painted to match the redwood trees of the campus, looms over us in big silence.
“Don’t you think it will clear up?” Carter frowns at me.
“I hope so, baby.” I smile at him. “I love everything you and Jenna have dreamed up together. I look forward to getting to know her.”
“She’s great. I know you guys will get along. She likes running. She used to run track.”
I hate the fact that this bit of information melts something inside me. I shouldn’t soften to someone because she likes running, but I can’t help it.
“I have some paint remover,” Carter says. “I’m going to start removing the bad paint, so Jenna and I have a clean canvas to work on.” He grabs one of the cans of turpentine from the back of the van, along with some old rags.
I join him, grateful to have something mindless to occupy my brain. I don’t have to think about Jenna, or Carter’s state of denial, or how we’re going to survive the next week, or the fact that my bullet wound hurts like a motherfucker. All I have to do is strip some paint.
It’s almost as blissful as running.
Almost.
*
IT’S DUSK BY THE TIME Carter and I return to the dorm apartment. The air has cleared of the earlier argument. Eric and Reed are eating brownies baked on the barbecue. Jenna and Lila are giving one another pedicures. Johnny sits at the kitchen table talking to someone over a ham radio.
The living room is a mess. Discarded pieces of clothing, mostly jackets, shoes, and socks, are scattered around the room and draped over various pieces of furniture. A mixing bowl and spoon have been added to the precarious pile in the sink.
It’s all eerily normal. Like a slice of old-world reality has been preserved in the delicate bubble of this apartment. You wouldn’t know several of the residents had been held at gunpoint. You wouldn’t know they’d all seen me kill two men a few hours ago. You certainly wouldn’t know the world had been turned upside down on its head by hordes of the undead.
“How does your ankle feel?” Lila asks. “Do you want some more athlete’s balm?”
Eric snorts. “Lila thinks she’s going to make millions on her pot lotion.”
Lila rolls her eyes. “Eric thinks he can scrape through life by trading pot brownies for term papers.”
“I’ll take some more of the balm.” I might not like smelling like a bong, but I have to admit it feels a little better than it did a few hours ago.
“What did you think of Skip?” Jenna asks, looking up from her pedicure. The smile she gives me is tentative.
“It’s the soccer-mom-mobile,” Reed quips.
“It’s great,” I say to Jenna, ignoring Reed. Now is as good a time as any to support my son in his relationship. “I think you guys have a great idea with your Ultra Brew concept.” I don’t mention there won’t be any more ultras.
“Here.” Carter hands me a first aid kit. “We got this from a guy studying to be a medic. You should go take care of yourself.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” My throat tightens as I consider the danger he placed himself in to get these things for me. “Next time, I’ll make do with whatever you have on hand, okay? You don’t need to put yourself at risk for me.”
He looks pointedly at my feet. “You have blisters the size of turnips. Were you planning to lance those with a kitchen knife?”
Johnny pauses in his conversation on the ham radio. “You lance your own blisters?”
I don’t bother trying to explain how painful and uncomfortable it is to walk on feet covered in blisters. “I’ll just go clean up in the bathroom.”
As I head down the hall, I swallow against a growing knot of anxiety in my gut. These kids, with their pot brownies and pedicures and beer, haven’t fully made the transition into the new world. It doesn’t take a genius to see they’re all sitting around waiting for things to get flipped right side up. If they can’t accept the new reality, they won’t survive.