Marathon runners talk about “runner’s high” a lot. The point where they hit their groove and running feels effortless. The euphoric feeling they get when their mind is clear, their body feels lighter, and they truly come alive. Endorphins kick in. When they approach the finish line, it’s like an out-of-body experience. One so otherworldly that these same people keep doing marathons, to relive these moments again and again and again.
I am not a marathon runner. And those people who do them are stupid as shit. Getting to the finish line of this zombie competition was the fucking worst thing ever. No way would I ever want to do this again. Never. Ever. Again.
There was no groove. No effortless, light-bodied feeling. No high-as-a-kite euphoria. Where the fuck were my endorphins?
This was nothing like my cross-country or track meets. Gasping, exhausted, and panting like a dog in peak summer heat, I left Kate and the German in a hurry when I got the next and final wristband message. LEAVE NOW AND I’LL THROW IN ANOTHER $10,000.
Kate had already lost, so it was just the German and me. He had a runner’s physique, too, so with no time to think, I got out of there fast.
I’d meant to tell Kate I’d send her half of my winnings, but there was no time.
A quarter of a mile away, large yellow posts and black-checkered flags marked the end of the course. An ogling crowd of onlookers stood at the finish line. I was so close.
Boots stomping hard, I kept my eyes locked on those yellow markers. My heart raced, a frenetic rhythm stemming from pure panic, not from any runner’s high bullshit. In the final stretch, I tried to remember my one-hundred- and two-hundred-meter race coaching. Shoulders down and relaxed (relaxed?), hips pulled upward, knees up high, elbows driven back, pumping to the shoulder for momentum.
What I wasn’t supposed to do was turn my head, to see where the German was. Because then I’d see he was just a few paces away. Distracted, I would panic even more. Then my critical mistake would allow him to gain on me.
The yellow posts were my North Star. Staying laser-focused on them was the only way to win.
As I drew closer to the finish line, my legs nearly buckled when I came to the horrifying realization that the onlookers weren’t people.
They were zombies.
And they were all heading my way.
Oh-shit-ohshitohshit!
Panic stricken, instead of running forward, or retreating backward, I froze.
A distant, familiar voice shouted from behind me. “Use the stun gun!”
Kate?
Oh right. The stun gun. The one in my hand.
To my left and right, the zombies attacked, but the voltage blasts proved effective. Each zap to any part of the zombie disabled them, frying their metal innards. With the zombie corpse fortress around me, through the gaps in the body pileup I saw the German knocking off the zombies one by one using hand-to-hand combat. Because of all of his noisy grunting and commotion, all of the remaining dozen or so robots headed straight for him.
This was my chance. I pushed myself through the stack of putrid robot bodies and tore out of there like a bat out of hell. Go, go, go, Nate!
Shoulders down, hips up, knees high, elbows back, and pump to shoulder.
Shoulders down, hips up, knees high, elbows back, and pump to shoulder.
Shoulders down, hips up, knees high, elbows back, and pump to shoulder.
The finish line was finally clear of zombies. Just a few yards away. So close.
Behind my left ear, I heard panting as I approached the yellow posts. The German was back, and he body-checked me so hard I flew through the air, soaring forward, legs no longer upright. Where the fuck did he come from, this German Terminator? I landed on the ground, wristband arm outstretched, like those football players did in the Super Bowl to get that “by a hair” touchdown. Titans tried it versus the Rams in 2000. Too bad the Titans lost that one.
Still robbed of my euphoria, the world went black when my head whacked the ground.
* * *
“Nate? Can you hear me?” My eyes opened to a gathering of people encircling me. Robbie Anderson-Steele was one of them, along with a team of medics. The stethoscope squad.
“He’s awake, everyone!” Robbie shouted over his shoulder. Barely within earshot, he said to the closest doctor, “Make sure it’s just a minor concussion. And clean up those scratches on his face. Get him some water and food. We need him to look good for the cameras and be coherent for the evening news.”
With a steely scowl, Robbie Anderson-Steele watched me pull myself into a seated position. I was in the same place where I’d collapsed, on the finish line. The only difference was my wristband had been removed. Using my right hand, I rubbed the sore area where the band had been.
“What happened? Did I—you know—”
He interrupted. “What? Did you win?” An iciness in his voice made me shiver.
“Yes?”
He paused before answering. “We had to review our rules to be sure, but your wristband crossed the line by a few millimeters, according to the data collected.” For my ears only, he hissed, “You’re a lucky son of a bitch, you know that?”
The $50,000 grand prize. Plus $20,000 more for going solo. Plus the $10,000 bonus at the end. I’d won it all! A wide smile spread across my face as I ran through my mental checklist of the things I’d do with the money. First, save the house. Then, Mom’s car. College tuition and seed money for my survivalist prep business were also at the top of the list if I had anything to spare. And of course, I’d give Kate her share.
The nurse wiped my face and took my temperature while the doctor examined my eyes. “Follow my finger,” he said, moving his index finger back and forth.
He took my pulse and checked my tongue. “Clean bill of health,” he concluded. “He just passed out from a small concussion most likely, plus he’s dehydrated.”
The nurse handed me a full cup of water with the Zeneration logo on it. I downed it in less than five seconds.
“Could I please have more?”
“Wow, so polite! Your girlfriend must be lucky,” she said with a wink.
Girlfriend? The closest thing I had to a girlfriend was Kate.
Funny Kate. Whip-smart Kate. Lovable Kate.
Kate and her identical plaid shirts.
Kate, who saved me on that cliff.
Kate, who blasted Pete with the stun gun and kicked that other guy in the balls.
Rising to a standing position, I looked past the doctors, the corporate sponsors, the press, and searched for her. As my disorientation subsided and my mind regained clarity, I knew, with all my heart, I wanted to be with Kate. I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted to tell her about the money. OUR money. To say what had been weighing on my heart for so long. It was something so unfamiliar, I had no idea how to articulate it until now.
Kate was the one I wanted to celebrate this victory with because she made it happen. Because I was in love with her. God, where was she?
Through the bustling crowd, familiar faces appeared, but they weren’t hers. My dad, mom, and sister elbowed their way over to me, a mix of anger and worry etched on their faces.
Mom yelled first. “You were supposed to be at friend house! We worried sick! And you take my car!”
Then Dad. “You are grounded. Until you are graduated! Maybe longer!”
And Lucy. “I told them you leaved out of the house!” Her eyes cast toward my filthy boots. “I’m sorry you’re in big trouble.”
I squatted to her eye level. “Asking you to keep that secret was wrong, Lucy. That was all my fault. But when we get home, remind me that I have a gift for you.”
She squirmed her way between Mom and Dad and hugged me. “A gift? For me?”
When she let me go, I cupped her face and squished her cheeks with my thumbs. “I missed you, kiddo.”
I did. I missed her a lot.
I loved being her older brother.
“Can you come to my class tomorrow, Oppa? It’s share day. I want to show everyone your medal and trophy!”
“Sure, I owe you that much.” At least someone in my family was proud of me.
Standing up again, I found it hard to look at my parents’ disappointed faces. “Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry. I should have just been honest with you about where I was going. I wanted to make you proud of me. The good news is I have enough money to make a big payment on the house. I know you lost your job, Dad, and that’s because Pete Haskill got his dad to fire you, because of me. That was one of the main reasons I did this competition.” I turned to my dad. “And now we have enough to hire someone to fix the leaky roof.”
My parents exchanged looks. It wasn’t a look of joy, like I’d expected. More like complete confusion with a trace of melancholy.
Dad said, “I don’t need your money. I hate that job anyway and needed change. And I have good job now.”
“Wait, you do?”
Dad smiled. “I start tomorrow. A start-up company hire me. Can you believe this old man will be working with so many young people?”
Okay, so Dad had a job now and the house was safe. “Mom, I’m going to buy a new car for you then.”
She shrugged. “But I like my Honda.”
“But now you can get a new Honda,” I protested.
She crossed her arms. “But I don’t want new Honda.”
Surely Dad would get why she needed a new car. My eyes pleaded for him to help.
He shook his head. “Your mom like her car. I try to get new one. We test-drive new Accord every year, but she keep old one. She feel safer. She say new car with all electronic gadget thing make her nervous.”
I shook my head and sighed, like how I did when Lucy frustrated me so much that I wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Kim family rule, don’t argue with them, Nate. “Okay, fine. But we can still get someone for the new roof, though.”
This time, Dad snorted like a bull ready to charge. “I learn at Home Depot how to fix. I buy better tarp and better sealant this time.” A second snort, this one more sarcastic. Like a snort-cough. “If you know how to do yourself and workers come to fix, you know if they cheat you.”
Unbelievable. Here I was, an ATM dispensing free money, and they didn’t want any of it.
My dad gripped my shoulder. “We work hard, but we like our life.”
I said in a whinier voice that I’d have liked, “But I want your lives to be easier.”
The Zeneration PR spokesperson popped her head over my shoulder. Her perfect blond bob didn’t move, even in the wind. “Nate, we need to steal you away in about five minutes,” she said, then scurried away to talk to an eager local camera crew, adjusting her knee-length beige skirt as she left us.
My dad’s stern face softened, and his crinkly eyes brimmed with tears. I’d never seen him show any kind of emotion like this. Not even when he watched his favorite movie, Charlotte’s Web. “Jae-Woo-ya, you are good son. When I marry your mom, my mother and father—they tell me I am no longer part of family. They want me to marry someone else. Someone from family like theirs.” With a fist full of tissues, Mom dabbed her eyes and walked away from us.
Dad continued. “I come to U.S. for vacation and met your mom on airplane. She was in U.S. to study. She was so funny, I didn’t sleep on the whole trip home.” A single tear trickled down his cheek, but he was smiling. He quickly wiped it away.
“My family have lumber business in Seoul, many government contract all over Korea. My mother and father…they want me to marry someone from good family.” He sighed. “They introduce me to Sung Jung. She was very smart, Yonsei graduate. Nice girl. We had some dating, but she was not very fun. Not like your Umma.” He laughed. “I follow your mom back to U.S., and we marry at courthouse a few month later.” In the distance, my mom looked over her shoulder and grabbed free energy bars and sports drinks at the finish line and stuffed them into her purse. “My parents come to visit one time, when you were just baby, to tell me I will not have any family money. I was on my own.”
My heartstrings yanked so tight I barely breathed. How had they kept this from me so long? And how could my grandparents have done this to my dad? To my mom? To Lucy and me, their grandchildren?
“I give it all up.” He exhaled loudly. “So, we don’t have much. Everything we have is old, some is broken, but it is ours. Our family.”
My mom came back and handed me a chocolate-flavored protein bar. “Use contest money for college. It is yours. Dad and I don’t need. We be okay. Go enjoy your famous day.” She patted me on the back and pushed me forward.
The publicist swept me away for never-ending interviews and sound bites. For over an hour, I was bombarded with “How does it feel?” and “What did you do to prepare?” and “What are you going to do with all that money?” The fame and glory I’d wanted so badly was now my reality. With a glowing smile for the camera, I rattled off talking points I’d prepared for that very moment and promoted my soon-to-come product line of survivalist gear.
Even with so much attention on me, my mind drifted elsewhere. To what my parents had sacrificed for love. To what I thought I’d gained from this competition, but what I’d actually lost.
My fake smile dimmed with the realization that I might never see Kate again.
I broke away from the press and ran to the parking lot to find her. Stiff legged but determined, my heart thumped painfully with each pounding step. I’d left the doors to Mom’s car unlocked and was hoping Kate would be in the passenger seat, sound asleep, waiting for me to take her home.
But I found my car empty. I opened the driver door, and the car cabin gave off a stale, musty odor. It had been sealed shut for days.
With one bar of phone signal, I called her, but it went straight to voice mail, and she didn’t respond to my multiple texts. Luckily, as I reversed out of the parking lot and headed home, Zach picked up on the first ring.
He greeted me. “Your mom called.”
“I know, she’s angry.”
“You were on the news.”
“You saw I won, right? Did I look okay?”
“Yeah.”
Zach wasn’t a chitchatter, so I just got right to why I was calling. “You think you could help me with something? What do you know about cryptocurrency?”
He perked up. “You mean, you want to know how the cryptography secures and verifies transactions? Or how a blockchain works? Mining is a waste of time unless you know what you’re doing—”
I interrupted. “Dude. I don’t need advanced tech-splanation. Do you know how wallets work? How to transfer cryptocoin from my wallet to Kate’s?”
“Yes.”
I hit my hand on the steering wheel. “Great! I’m heading over.”
* * *
I stayed at Zach’s for a few hours, ignoring my parents’ escalating calls and threats as Zach figured out the logistics of my cryptocurrency transfer. My monthlong grounding had been pushed up to six months. But it was more important to me to get Kate the money I owed her. When he finally made the transfer to her wallet and verified it wasn’t traceable, I headed straight home.
Thirst and hunger gnawed at me to the point of nausea the entire drive. I took a swig of the God-knows-how-many-days-old water from the cup holder and fished around on the passenger side floor for my stash of Cheez-Its while stopping at a light. Kate’s birthday present to me had fallen off the passenger seat and onto the floor. She’d used plain brown kraft paper and the good kind of tape that made unwrapping it a breeze.
Her gift? A heather-gray T-shirt, in exactly my size. A mediumish large. Lardium. I held it up by the shoulders and laughed.
THIS GUY LOVES MAROON 5, with two cartoony thumbs pointing in. She’d left the price tag on it: “$10, originally $20.”
Hands down, the best and worst gift I’d ever gotten. The twinge in my chest came back, more forceful now. This stupid gift was perfect.
A horn blared behind me, snapping me to full attention. I slammed the gas pedal to ramp up my speed, awakened to the realization that I would do anything to win Kate back.