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BEN
It’s a stop-action horror movie unfolding right before his eyes.
Ben sees the wave coming. He sees Kate standing in its path.
He opens his mouth, but there’s no time to shout a warning.
One second Kate is standing there. The next second, she’s gone.
His entire world stops spinning. No. She can’t be gone.
“Kate!” Caleb drops his artillery pack to the ground.
“Caleb!” Ash screams, but he’s already leaped into the water.
“Fuck this.” Ben drops his pack. He doesn’t give a shit if he drowns. If he loses Kate, there’s no reason to keep going.
As he splashes into the ocean, he finds Reed by his side. The boy’s mouth is set, eyes narrowed in concentration.
“We are not losing Mama,” he states.
“Fucking right we’re not losing her,” Ben snarls.
A wave rushes them. He and Reed grab onto one another. Ben bends his knees and braces himself.
The cold descends, sucking the breath from his lungs. It yanks at him, trying to haul him out to sea. Ben digs his nails into Reed’s arms and leans back, fighting the pull of the water.
The wave is gone almost as quickly as it arrives. He and Reed sputter in the surf, still hanging onto one another like lifelines.
Ben searches the waves. There. He sees Kate’s cropped hair. It disappears, sucked under by a wave. A second later he sees the sleeve of her pink shirt
Caleb cuts through the waves, snagging the flash of pink. Kate’s head appears as Caleb drags her upright. The younger man battles the waves, trying to drag them both to shore.
“Come on!” Reed cries. Caleb and Kate are no more than ten feet away, struggling toward them.
Ben and Reed fight their way through the surf to Kate and Caleb. Kate’s face is set, the fight in every muscle. Caleb looks like a spawn of Poseidon rising out of the surf, one hand still tangled in Kate’s shirt as saltwater streams down his face. Reed and Ben each grab one of Kate’s arms, freeing Caleb to steady himself.
The four of them fight their way through the waves that suck at their feet and legs. Kate heaves, throwing up water even as she forces her feet to carry her back to the shore.
As soon as they exit the water, she croaks out a single word: “Move!”
Everyone stares at her as she vomits up more seawater. “Move!” she snaps. “Reed, lead them.”
“But—”
“Go!” she screams.
Reed takes off, leading the pack. Ben takes up the rear with Kate, shouldering the pack of weapons.
“Leave it,” she wheezes beside him. “Too heavy.”
“No.”
She coughs, taking a few staggering steps forward. She should be wrapped in a blanket by a fire with something warm to drink, not trying to run down this godforsaken stretch of beach.
“You’re not dying for that shit,” she tells him.
“I’m not dying. Move, Kate.”
She glares at him, though not with any heat. He watches her set her jaw and plow forward. He glues himself to her side, matching her pace.
Now, finally, he has a true understanding of what she’s been training them for. Why she talked about the importance of relegating pain to a distant part of the mind and pushing on. Why she insisted they all be able to run for four hours straight without being tired or sore the next day. Why she made them run up and down the bleacher stairs. Why she made them sprint around the track.
It was all for this. So that when the day came, they could keep themselves alive.
The terrain is complete shit. It wasn’t made for running. Kate makes it look easy, springing along beside him. She might look like a drowned cat, but she moves like a gazelle.
Ben lumbers along, lungs burning. The pack drags on his shoulders. He refuses to let it slow him down. He’s hauled packs every bit as heavy as this before. Granted, he wasn’t running for his life from the goddamn ocean, but he’s logged lots of hours with heavy gear packs. They’re getting out of this place with their guns, no matter what.
Water splashes around his feet. Dammit. The tide has crept up even farther, pushing them up against the cliffs. He grits his teeth, moving several inches away from the water. They can’t afford to play chicken with the surf. It cost them precious minutes to save Kate. They might not be so lucky a second time.
The bleached remains of an enormous tree looms before them, ejected from the ocean on the Lost Coast. It sits perpendicular to the shore, blocking their path. The trunk is three feet in some places. Those in front of them clamber over before disappearing down the far side.
He and Kate tackle the tree, the two of them grappling with the smooth bark. Kate flings one leg sideways and slides over. Ben follows suit. They land on the other side and keep running, catching up with the rest of the group.
“See that spit of land?” Susan points, never slowing her pace. She limps on her twisted ankle, but manages to keep up with the rest of the group. “Just on the other side of those boulders. We’ll be safe there.”
“That’s at least a mile away,” Eric says.
No one has a reply to that. The water pushes them closer and closer toward the cliff. Motherfucker.
He grits his teeth and throws all his concentration into running. Left foot, right foot, watch that rock, left foot, sidestep that chunk of driftwood, right foot. His legs burn. His chest burns. His shoulders ache. He’s wet. He’s cold.
But he’s alive. He intends to stay that way. The pain and discomfort of trying to sprint down a rocky beach can go fuck itself.
Eric trips on a rock and sprawls. Ben grabs him by the back of his pack, hauling him up. The side of his cheek has a gash. The front of his shirt is torn.
“Don’t stop” Kate huffs. “Shake it off, Eric.”
He nods, pushes up his glasses, and keeps running.
Kate has conditioned the shit out of these kids. He doesn’t know any other barely-twenty idiot who could push hard like this without complaint.
Who would have thought that running for his life along a beach in the middle of nowhere would make him admire Kate even more than he already does? Life can be fucked up like that.
“Push!” Kate screams. “Run with everything you’ve got.” She follows her own order, picking up her pace.
Ben struggles to keep up. It’s obvious why she’s ratcheting up the tension.
The last five hundred yards is a field of massive boulders. Once they hit those rocks, it will be a full-out scramble.
And most of them are already covered with water.