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KATE
Stomach full of bear, I lead the group away from our campsite in the dead of night. I did a tick check on everyone before we set out and removed seven of them in total. I can already see patches of poison oak flaring up on several of us. There’s a patch on my arm that itches like crazy.
Each of us still wears a headlamp, the beams cutting through the dark. We lost six hours with our stop. Even though the group needed the rest—and it was mandatory for Ash—it was still six lost hours of trail time. We should have been off the trail and on the road by now, well on our way to Alvarez and Fort Ross.
It’s been over twenty hours since I last spoke to Alvarez. His deadline with Rosario is almost up. As I power hike down the muddy trail, I try not to let worry for my friend take over.
My group is in rough shape today. Everyone is stiff and sore, myself included. The hard hours of travel combined with bad weather—not to mention a night sleeping on the ground—has left us all depleted.
There won’t be a lot of running today. Even if everyone weren’t exhausted, sore, and cold, the trail is choked with more thistles and poison oak. Some of it grows as high as my chest. My hope is to keep everyone moving at a fast power hike.
The rain has stopped. And we have cooked bear meat to keep us fueled for the journey. The ocean pounds against the coastline in a constant hum. The air smells fresh and clean. Things are looking better today than they had yesterday, even if the group is sore and exhausted.
My thoughts stray to Ben. He’s in the middle of the pack, keeping an eye on Ash. He’s taken it upon himself to be her watchman. Caleb, too. I don’t know what happened before the bear attack, but the two men appear to be on good terms now.
My mind keeps straying to our kiss. Kisses. I do my best to ignore the equal parts of thrill and terror that thunder through me. It’s my job to get my people off the Lost Coast. I can’t do that if I’m mooning over Ben like a high school idiot.
“Maybe we should ditch Arcata and move out here,” Susan says. “At least we know there are bears to eat.”
She hikes behind me, her gait uneven with her swollen ankle. She seems to have found a rhythm she can maintain. The fact that she’s upbeat enough to talk is a good sign.
“We can live in tents,” I reply.
“Tree houses,” Susan replies. “I’m not living on the ground where things can eat me. I can’t wait to tell Gary I ate bear.”
We pass a primitive campground overlooking the ocean. There are a few pieces of driftwood for benches and fire rings that haven’t seen a fire in months. There is no sign of people, no tents or backpacks of supplies for us to scavenge. We continue by without slowing.
The next campground we see will be Usal Beach at the southern terminus of the Lost Coast. That’s where we need to reach. I estimate we have ten to twelve miles before us. If I can keep everyone moving at a brisk pace, we should be able to make the journey in three to four hours.
The group falls silent as we hike, everyone focused on the job of moving. I monitor them, making sure to take regular breaks for food and water. We’ve been forced to fill our water bladders from the streams. The Lost Coast is remote enough that I’m not too worried about water-borne illnesses. Even so, I lament the lack of purification tablets and a proper means to boil water.
Three-and-a-half hours later, the group grinds to an abrupt halt. The sun has just started to rise, filling the Lost Coast with soft gray light. It’s just enough for us to fully see the magical sight before us.
We stand in awed silence as the trail opens up to reveal an ancient grove of giant redwood trees. Verdant green moss and ferns crawl across the ground and up the trunks of the most amazing trees I’ve ever seen. They have wide, squat trunks, each one adorned with a dozen or more crowns that pierce the sky like giant forks.
The trees stand in silent witness to our presence. All we can hear is our own breathing. Not a single leaf or animal rustles. The lack of sound presses in on all sides. It feels like the gentlest, softest, baby’s blanket.
“What is this place?” Reed asks in a hushed voice.
“The candelabra grove.” My heart lifts. In all my years of trail running, I’ve never seen a sight like this. In the panic and craziness of the last twenty-four hours, I’d forgotten all about the legendary candelabra grove. It’s part of the reason the Lost Coast was on my bucket list.
Frederico, I think, wherever you are, I hope you can see this.
“This is a redwood grove, but it’s the only one of its kind in the world,” I explain. “These trees were formed by the coastal wind storms over hundreds of years. Every time a gale broke off a crown, the trunk would produce another one. Each new crown had to contort itself to find an upward path to the sun around the main trunk.”
The result is the massive trunks spread before us, each of them peppered with a myriad of crowns that stretch skyward. They resemble candelabras. Hence the name of this place: the candelabra grove.
In the death and madness of the apocalypse, we’ve found a tiny slice of magic. Standing beneath the ancient grove gives me hope. It’s a reminder that not everything in the world has been rendered with rot and ruin. It’s possible to live, survive, and thrive. If these trees survived the logging massacre and everything else that has come and gone over the last five hundred years, we puny humans have a shot at making it, too. We have a shot at turning into something beautiful. Someday.
“I’ll be damned.” Ben’s shoulder brushes mine as he comes to stand beside me. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Really?” I tilt my head at him in surprise. “You’ve been all over the world.”
“In the Middle East and Africa. Nothing magic out there.” His voice drops to his usual grumpy mutter. “Just assholes and sand.”
Caleb, who overhears, raises an eyebrow. “Still plenty of sand and assholes around here.”
Everyone laughs. I relax into the moment, taking in the rare beauty. For once, we aren’t running for our lives. We aren’t hungry. We aren’t slinking around zombies or fighting them.
Dry sky, ancient candelabra grove, and family. It’s perfect.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Susan’s eyes are bright as she limps past me for a better look at the trees.
“No. What does it mean?”
She grins over her shoulder. “The candelabra grove is the end of the Lost Coast. Usal Beach and campground will be right on the other side of the grove.”
My mouth falls open. In my wonder of the grove, my brain hadn’t processed this piece of information. It only takes a moment for the shock to turn to joy.
“You mean we made it? We survived?” Reed asks.
“You can say that as soon as we get to Usal Beach,” Susan says. “Don’t jinx us.”
“It means you all completed your first ultramarathon.” Pride fills me. I glance down at my watch and do a rough estimation of the miles behind us. “I think it’s safe to say you guys traveled roughly thirty-three miles in twelve hours. That includes the time we stopped to build a fire and—” I throw a smile in Ben’s direction “—kill a bear.”
Eric lets out a whoop of joy. He and Reed slap high fives. They race down the trail. The rest of the group hustles after them, all of them energized by the first official finish line of our journey. This is a first ultramarathon for all of them.
The trail and its ancient trees swallow my people. I’m about to run after them when I feel Ben’s hand close around mine.
I stay back with him. We haven’t had a moment alone since our kiss over the bear carcass. It’s unlikely we’ll have another anytime soon.
“How long until Rosario’s deadline?” he asks.
I hold up my watch so he can see it. It reads twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. Alvarez only has four minutes until Rosario’s deadline. “I didn’t want to ruin their moment by telling them. They survived hell.”
Their accomplishment would be short lived, unfortunately. We may have reached the end of the Lost Coast, but we still have a long way to go.
“We’ll get to Fort Ross.” Ben puts an arm around my shoulders. “Alvarez will manage until we get there.”
I let out a long sigh and lean into his solid warmth. “I know.”
“Alvarez has survived this long without you to babysit him. He can hang in there another twenty-four hours. Or however long it takes us to get there. And we just survived the Lost Coast so quit sulking.”
Ben is right. When I look up, he gives me his eye-crinkle smile.
“This thing between us,” he says. “I’m not dropping it. Just so you know.”
“You’re not dropping it?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “I think that may be the most unromantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“You know I’m not good with words.” He huffs in annoyance, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m trying to say I’d take a bullet for you, Kate. A thousand times over, any day of the week. You look after all the little shitheads, but all I want to do is look after you. You know how hard you make that? For fuck’s sake, look at where we are.” He jabs a finger at the trees around us, scowling. “You make it damn hard for a man who just wants to make sure you see the next sunrise, you know that?”
I stare up at him, emotion making my throat tight. I think in his own way, Ben just told me he loves me.
His scowl fades as I trace a finger down the stubble lining his cheek and jaw.
“That was a lot better,” I whisper. “I’d take a bullet for you, too.”
His eyes warm, that smile crinkling along the edges again. He bends down and kisses me.
His mouth may not be great with words, but as I stand in the circle of his arms, I realize it’s definitely good at other things. He kisses me breathless, showing me just how much he cares.
I’ve so badly wanted this closeness with him. I resolve not to fight it anymore. I let the world fall away and lose myself in his kiss. There are no kids to tease us this time. It’s just me and Ben in the candelabra grove. It’s perfect.
My knees are weak by the time he pulls back. I wrap my arms around his neck, wanting no space between us.
He presses his forehead against mine, arms tightening around me. “I’m not dropping this. I mean it, Kate.”
“You’d better not,” I murmur. “I’m counting on you.” I think I could drown in his gray eyes. The warmth in them leaves me as weak-kneed as his kiss. It’s been a long time since a man has looked at me the way he does right now.
Ben kisses me one last time before breaking away.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s catch up with the little shitheads before they blunder into a pack of zoms at the campground and get themselves bit.”
I bark a laugh. “They know how to be careful.”
“Sometimes. There’s a reason you fret about them all the time.” The gruffness of his voice is softened by his eye-smile again.
It warms me all the way to my toes.
We surge forward, running through the trees.
Together.