JACK KILBORN ~ ENDURANCE (3 page)

She looked back at her iPod and unpaused her game,
Zombie Apocalypse,
on level 64, with only ¼ of her health left. Kelly had never beaten level 65, and she’d been playing the game for more than a month.

“
Kelly?” her mom said.

“
Huh?”

“
That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“
What?” Mom was seriously breaking her concentration.

“
Go help Florence walk the dog.”

Kelly flicked the touch screen, pausing again. Mom had her bare arms folded, her muscles popping up like a man’s. Kelly subconsciously checked her own arms. She prided herself in being strong, but she never wanted to look like that.
Never.
Muscles on women were gross.

“
Grandma’s doing fine.”

The women both looked at Grandma. The sixty-five year old was tugging on JD’s leash. JD was sitting on the road, licking himself between his legs. At over a hundred pounds, the German Shepherd weighed about as much as Grandma did.

“
Kelly. Don’t make me say it again.” Mom lowered her voice. “Give her a chance. Please. For me.”

Kelly sighed loudly and rolled her eyes, even though Mom never said
please
. Then she tucked her iPod into her fanny pack and stalked over to Grandma and the dog. It was bad enough that Grandma was coming to live with them after the
Iron Woman
race, but Mom had also insisted Kelly give up her room and move into the much smaller third bedroom.

Totally unfair.

Kelly didn’t understand why Grandma was moving in anyway. She and Mom had some kind of falling out years ago, after dad died, and Kelly hadn’t seen her grandmother since she was six. She had no idea why they’d been out of touch for so long, but now here they were, pretending to care about each other. One big happy.

“
Stubborn, isn’t he?” Grandma let the leash go slack. Like Kelly, she was dressed in jogging shorts and a loose tee, though even at her ancient age, Grandma filled the clothes out better. “I don’t think he likes me.”

“
He only walks for me and Mom. If he didn’t like you, you’d know. He’d be growling and the hair would stand up on his back. C’mere, JD.”

At the command, JD’s ears pricked up and he pranced over to Kelly, the leash pulling out of Grandma’s hand. He bumped his massive head into Kelly’s hip, and gave her arm a lick. He then switched to licking the scab on her knee—a training injury from a few days ago.

Grandma walked up to them. She wasn’t as muscular as Mom, and just a bit shorter, but the resemblance was amazing. When the three of them stood next to each other, it was like looking at the same woman at different stages of her life. Each of them also wore their blond hair the same way, in a ponytail, though Grandma’s was mostly gray.

“
Want to go north?” Grandma said, pointing her chin over Kelly’s shoulder. “I hear a waterfall. We could go check it out.”

“
I don’t hear anything.”

“
You will, as we get closer. Come on.”

Grandma moved at an easy jog, cutting across the road, into the thick trees. Kelly lived her whole life in southern Illinois, flat as a bowling alley with no flora taller than corn stalks. West Virginia, with its mountains and forests, seemed like a different country. It was beautiful, but Kelly refused to admit it aloud, sticking her nose back in her iPod whenever Mom or Grandma pointed out something pretty during the long drive. She didn’t want to give either of them the satisfaction, still sore about the bedroom thing, which Mom sprung on her when they picked Grandma up at the airport yesterday.

Why didn’t Mom give up her room to Grandma? It was all a bunch of BS.

No, not BS. It was straight-up bullshit.

Just thinking about the swear word made Kelly feel older. She frowned, then followed her grandmother.

Ten steps into the woods, Kelly felt like she’d been swallowed. The trees were everywhere, and she lost all sense of direction. Grandma weaved through the forest like a jackrabbit, her pace increasing, and Kelly began to fall behind.

“
Slow down! JD can’t keep up!”

In fact, JD was doing fine. Kelly was also doing fine, at least in the stamina department. She’d trained for seven months for the triathlon, and was enormously proud to be the youngest contestant this year. But Kelly was used to running on asphalt, not rocky wilderness. Her steps alternated between jagged outcroppings and soft dirt that sucked at her gym shoes. Kelly spent so much time watching her footing she was afraid Grandma would get too far ahead and disappear.

“
Don’t look at your feet.”

Kelly startled, coming to a stop. Somehow Grandma had materialized right in front of her.

“
I’m gonna break my ankle.”

“
Look into my eyes, Kelly.”

Kelly did as instructed, Grandma’s eyes were blue, like hers and mom’s, but set in a valley of deep wrinkles. Kelly couldn’t remember Grandma ever smiling. Not that she was a mean woman. But she was serious all the time.

“
Can you see my hand?” Grandma asked.

Kelly glanced down at Grandma’s wriggling fingers.

“
No, Kelly. Keep looking at me while you do it.”

Kelly sighed, then stared at Grandma again.

“
Keeping your eyes on mine, can you see my hand?”

Kelly couldn’t see it, at least not clearly. But she could make out an indistinct blur.

“
I guess.”

“
What am I doing?”

“
Wiggling your fingers.”

“
Good. Now watch me.”

Grandma took a step back and stood with her legs apart, her hands at waist-level, one in front of the other. She quickly raised her arms up over her head, then brought each hand around in a circle. They met again at her belt-line, palms out. The entire time, her gaze was locked onto Kelly.

“
What’s that?” Kelly asked.

“
The beginning of a kata called
Kushan Ku
. It helps improve your peripheral vision. The goal is to be able to see your hands while looking straight ahead.”

“
What’s the point?”

“
To be aware of everything around you, and not just what’s in front of you.”

“
So?”

“
So then you’ll know if someone does this.”

Kelly felt wind on her cheek. She looked, and saw Grandma’s palm an inch away from slapping her ear. Kelly hadn’t seen Grandma’s hand move at all.

JD growled, baring his teeth.

“
Shush,” Grandma said. “Be nice.”

The dog whined, then sat down and began licking himself again.

“
Can you teach me how to do that?” Kelly asked. “To hit that fast?”

“
It’s up to your mother. She never really warmed up to the martial arts.”

“
Show me that kata thing again.”

“
Kushan Ku.”

Grandma repeated the move. Kelly handed over the leash and tried it. She could just barely make out her hands at the very edge of sight.

“
I can see them.”

She also thought she saw something else. Something moving in the woods. Kelly remembered the man she’d seen earlier, but kept her eyes on Grandma, as instructed. Besides, if there was a man in the forest, JD would be barking.

That is, if JD could keep his snout out of his own crotch for more than ten seconds.

“
Good. Now use your peripheral vision when you’re running over the rocks, so you don’t have to keep your head down. Keep your eyes ahead of you, but not your entire focus.”

“
I can try.”

Grandma took off, JD running alongside her. Kelly trailed behind, doing as Grandma said, and found she could move much quicker. She looked around for the man in the overalls, but only saw foliage.

Kelly smiled, relaxing a little. The summer breeze smelled like pine trees and wild flowers, and she enjoyed the stretch and pull in her hamstrings and quads. It was a brief run, barely even a warm-up, before Kelly caught up to Grandma on a crest.

“
Hey,” Kelly said. “JD let you walk him.”

Grandma wasn’t even out of breath. “Can you hear it now?”

“
What?”

“
Listen.”

Kelly heard it. A hissing, splashing sound.

“
The waterfall?”

Grandma nodded. “Which direction is it in?”

“
I can’t tell.”

“
Close your eyes. Open your ears.”

Kelly shut her eyes and listened. The sound seemed to be coming from no particular direction.

“
Try turning around. Tune out everything else.”

Kelly shifted slightly. She spun in a slow circle, eventually locking in on the direction of the water. When she opened her eyes, she was grinning.

“
It’s this way,” Kelly said, bounding off into the woods.

She jogged down a hill, around a bend, and then to a clearing, skidding to a stop because the ground simply ended. Kelly felt her stomach sink, staring down off the side of a sheer cliff. She wasn’t good with heights, and even though she could swim three hundred laps in the school pool she was terrified of diving boards. Standing on ledges just wasn’t her thing.

Then she saw the waterfall.

It was gigantic, at least fifty feet high. The vertigo made her back up two steps.

“
Lovely,” Grandma said.

Kelly hadn’t even heard the old woman come up beside her.

“
I don’t really like heights.”

“
Your eyes can make you afraid of things you shouldn’t be afraid of. Are you standing on solid ground?”

“
Yeah.”

“
What do you think you should trust more, your eyes, or the solid ground?”

“
The ground.”

“
So trust the ground and let your eyes enjoy the view.”

Kelly trusted the ground and stared at the waterfall. A fine mist hovered overhead and made a double rainbow in the rays of the setting sun. It was prettier than a postcard, and not so scary anymore.

“
Is this what Vietnam looked like?” Kelly asked. Then she immediately regretted it. According to Mom, Grandma never talked about the war. Kelly knew she was there for four years as a combat nurse, but that was all.

“
Parts of it. Parts if it were so beautiful it hurt.”

“
Is that where you learned that kung fu stuff?”

“
It’s karate. And no, I learned that after my tour ended. Let’s go back, see how Letti is doing with that tire. Can you find the way?”

“
I dunno. I don’t think so.”

“
Try it. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself. If you get confused, see if you can spot any of our footprints. The ground is soft and we made quite a few.”

Grandma’s eyes were serious, but kind.

“
How come you never smile?” Kelly asked. She watched Grandma’s eyes get hard again, and regretted the question.

“
It happened during the war,” Grandma said. “They shot my smile off.”

What? They shot her smile off?”

Then Grandma winked.

Kelly grinned, took a final, unsteady glance at the waterfall, then bounded back into the woods. Nothing looked particularly familiar, but she managed to spot a footprint so she knew she was on the right track, even though the footprint seemed rather large. Then she recognized a big tree she’d passed earlier, and she altered her course, picking up speed and growing more confident.

Abruptly, something snagged her shoulder, pulling her off her feet. Kelly landed on her butt, hard, and someone covered her mouth before she could yell out.

“
Shh.” Grandma was kneeling next to her, her hand over Kelly’s face. “Stay calm.”

Kelly didn’t understand what was happening, and she was about to protest, when she noticed JD. The dog was crouching down, ready to pounce, his teeth bared. All the hair on the dog’s neck stood out like spikes. Kelly followed the animal’s gaze and saw—

—
trees. Nothing but trees.

Then something moved. Ever so slightly, but enough for Kelly to distinguish the body from the surrounding foliage.

It was a man, hiding behind a giant oak. The one in the overalls she’d seen earlier. He was incredibly tall, wearing a plaid shirt and a baseball cap. There was something wrong—something horribly wrong—with his face. And his eyes...

His eyes look red.

The man stared right at Kelly, and she’d never been more frightened in her life.

JD barked, making Kelly jerk in surprise.

“
Hello,” Grandma said to the stranger. “We were looking at the waterfall. I hope we’re not trespassing on your property. If so, we’re sorry.”

Grandma didn’t sound sorry. She sounded tough as a barrel of hammers.

The man continued to stare. He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

What happened to his face?

“
We’ll be on our way.”