Ghost Run (15 page)

The radio communications I'd just received pumped me with adrenaline, pushing me in the direction of Tallahassee, to the highest building I could see on the city's meager skyline. It was idiotic and reckless, but our people were in Atlanta, possibly trapped. It was more dangerous to drive deeper inland to pick up the signal than it was to summit the high-rise in the city. I kept telling myself that as Goliath closed the distance to the city.

I kept the hammer down as much as possible, moving north until about midday, when the road became dense with abandoned evacuation traffic out of Tallahassee. Both lanes were clogged, making navigation via semi impossible. Giving up on forward progress, I pulled the rig behind a real estate agent's office building and shut her down. As the engine sputtered and quit, the Honda generator's small motor echoed off the brick building, amplifying the noise. I jumped out and shut that down too, satisfied with the charge the tool batteries had received since the hardware store. I snapped the battery from the charger and inserted it into the bit driver, placing that and a set of drill bits inside the GARMR's saddlebags. After loading the machine with things I might need, I led it down off the platform into the tall grass that surrounded Goliath.

Climbing up onto the hood, I sent the GARMR out into the field and around the building to see what was up ahead. The sunlight sort of washed out the backlit tablet display, but I was still able to make out what the machine was seeing through its advanced, multi-spectrum eye. The machine's “autopilot” weaved in and out of abandoned cars as it patrolled ahead on the highway. I'd not been using the road to travel, but I was curious what I might find if I had. As the machine moved ahead, a skeletal arm shot out to grab it, reaching too high as the GARMR trotted underneath. Panning the camera backward, I trusted the GARMR's collision avoidance capabilities as I watched the seat belted corpse flail inside an old Pontiac. Up ahead on the road was a group of them in all their
pixelated glory. If the machine continued, the creatures would take notice of the movement and pursue until they realized that titanium and carbon fiber didn't taste like human flesh. I hit the recall command on the tablet, sending the GARMR into a reverse maneuver back to my position.

Reaffirming that the main road into the city was still a bad fucking idea, I consulted my maps, taunted by the view of the top of the building I needed to summit beyond the trees. I had to get a stronger signal. Either higher or closer to Atlanta: Those were my only choices. I popped a chemlight, wrapped it with a single layer of tissue, and placed it on top of the cab. The naked eye wouldn't be able to make it out, but through my NOD it would shine like a beacon after nightfall.

With the rig locked up tight and my kit stowed on my back, me and the GARMR headed for the tree line in the direction of the tallest building in the city. If I had tried this before things went jungle, I wouldn't have stood a chance. It was going on two years since anyone mowed the lawn in Tallahassee . . . hell, anywhere. It wasn't hard to find cover in the city; one had only to run to the nearest patch of green, highway median or otherwise, to disappear. Nature would own everything in a few years when the buildings began to collapse in on themselves, crushing the ancient art that sons and daughters made for their cubicle-dwelling parents. Future explorers might uncover the caricature of a smiling, happy family standing alongside one another and wonder how the hell that could even be possible on this godforsaken rock. Thinking of this invoked thoughts of Tara and Bug, and how I smiled when standing next to them, and I hoped the future families might experience all that themselves.

If Phoenix found a cure . . . a vaccine . . .

My resolve was hardened and my pace quickened into the no-doubt-infested city.

The GARMR's electrically actuated motors pushed it nimbly through the tall grass behind me. The rhythmic clicks of its movement were somehow relaxing, providing the illusion that I wasn't alone out here. Its “custom” Krylon paint job made it look like a war machine, something you might find running alongside some snake eater. I ran through the small field into a wall of taller trees.
After a bit of hacking through the heavy foliage and sharp thorns, the tall growth opened up and I spilled out onto shorter grass. A nearby sign jutted from the ground at waist level. Carved into the painted wood was the number 7. I moved around the bend, discovering a large pond with pits of sand up ahead.

A golf course.

As I waded through the grass, I came upon a green and marveled at how different it looked without the care and attention it so desperately required to stay playable. On the lakeshore fifty meters ahead, two alligators sunbathed, their menacing heads out of the water, resting on the tall grass. As I carefully edged by, the reflection off their eyes shifted and they watched, not at all interested in the flimsy biped before them. Although I felt a kinship with the wild beasts, I knew firsthand what they were capable of. I gave them a wide berth and kept moving away from the water, from their domain. Leaving the lake, I came upon a golf cart that had been turned over on its side. Rusting golf clubs were strewn around the cart like dropped matches, and a decomposing corpse lay pinned beneath the overturned cart's roof. Despite the elements, the scorecard remained attached to the steering wheel. The legs of the corpse were eaten down to the bone by whatever roamed here day or night. The upper torso was more intact but still unrecognizable, other than the fact that its neck was broken at an awkward ninety-degree angle. There were a lot of things I thought about doing back in San Antonio when the shit hit the fan, but golf was not one of them. Hats off to this hombre who decided to go out in style.

Putting my back and legs into it, I flipped the cart back over on its wheels with a thud.

The creature's arm moved.

Despite its eyes, face, and nose being gone, some basic connection between the arm and brain still existed. I dispatched the corpse with my blade before climbing into the cart. I pressed the pedal and surprisingly it weakly rolled forward. The GARMR ran behind as I rode the cart for a couple hundred yards up the fairway until the battery died completely. It was fun while it lasted. Before getting out of the cart, I checked the scorecard. “Stephen” could apparently golf a lot better than I ever could.

I could see the roof of the clubhouse, so I decided to head in that direction. After shadowing the tree line and thinking I was about to get eaten by two imaginary alligators, I finally was in the line of sight of the clubhouse. There were half a dozen undead in hibernation around the building. A bird swooped near one of them, activating its primordial programming to hunt. This started a chain reaction, waking the others up, and they all started wandering, walking across the practice green to the fence that surrounded the large swimming pool full of the same color water that was in the lake. There'd be alligators in there too if the large fence had not closed the man-made pond off to the local fauna.

I dropped another chemlight on the fairway before ducking into the trees to skirt around the clubhouse and head north into the city. The tennis courts to my right were eerily normal with nets in place, as if a match were about to start.

After clearing the courts and the country club's large parking lot, I came out into the concrete jungle of what was Tallahassee.

I dropped to one knee and raised my carbine, scanning the immediate area. Coffee shops and clothing stores extended in both directions, walling me off from the objective.

I sent the GARMR into the nearby alley and watched, hopeful the machine would not be greeted by several thousand undead. Decomposed bodies, piles of bones, and debris filled the alleyway. I was hitting the return button, sending the machine back to my location, when I heard the engine.

At first it was faint, but the noise picked up quickly when the vehicle turned the corner several blocks away. I ran back to the tall grass and waited on the GARMR to return.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” I said under my breath, as if that would get the machine back any faster.

The machine broke out onto the street as what looked like an armored car rapidly approached. I sent the quadruped deeper into the brush and put it in standby mode.

I could hear the engine rev up before blue rotating lights illuminated on the top of the approaching vehicle. I almost stepped out from cover to flag it down before I noticed the corpse crucified across the hood.

The vehicle slowed and came to a stop. It sat there, running
for a full minute before the driver's and passenger doors swung open and two rough-looking men stepped out. I retreated back to the GARMR and commanded it to follow me back, deeper into cover. The machine and I relocated to a position two hundred meters up the road from the armored vehicle before I poked my head back out to see what the men were up to. The rotating blue lights were still on and the vehicle still sat parked. After a few minutes, one man broke from cover within twenty meters of where I was concealed. From my position, I could easily make out the conversation.

“Tracks end here. Some sort of dog,” said a man with a red beard.

“That wasn't no dog. It was somethin' else,” replied a voice coming from somewhere nearby.

The second man stepped out from cover. He was tall, well over six feet, and wore a dirty Hawaiian shirt over body armor.

“I thought I saw someone else. Might have been one of those things, though,” said Red Beard.

“We need some goddamned ammo. You should have took the shot,” said the other man.

My heart began to thump, making me squeeze my carbine so hard, I thought I might crush the grip.

“Yeah, but—knowing my luck—it would just be another one of those fuckin' pussers. Why waste more bullets.”

“I don't give a shit—we need ammo and chances are, if someone's out here somewhere, they have it. That, and food. Next time, you shoot. If they survive, they'll talk.”

The men turned their back to me and began walking the two hundred meters or so back to the armored vehicle. Although I was dealing with psychopaths, I just couldn't make myself shoot a living person in the back, not after all the death I'd seen and had to deal out. The two continued to banter until a couple dozen undead flowed out into the street between them and their vehicle.

For a moment, I thought my problem would be solved.

Just as the mob was about to close in on Red Beard and Parrot Shirt, the hatch on the armored vehicle clanged open and a third person, a woman, rose out with a machine gun, quickly mounting it to the roof. The group sprinted and jumped into the grass as the
gun began to bark rounds at the mass of creatures. I got low as the shots ricocheted in my direction with a whiz, shattering storefront glass and thumping loudly into cars. One of the rounds tagged a parking meter, exploding change onto the street like confetti. The gunfire only lasted maybe fifteen seconds.

Risking a glance out into the street, I could see the bewildered men stumble toward their ride.

“Hurry the fuck up—that's gonna bring the city on top of us!” she screamed from atop the armored car.

The two men increased the pace, dodging the remaining undead before reaching the vehicle. Two car doors slammed and they executed a three-point turn, speeding back in my direction. I remained low as they approached. As the vehicle passed by, I watched the crucified corpse on the hood swing its head from side to side and snap its jaws. Its legs were long worn to stumps by the friction from being dragged along in front of the vehicle. There could be no mistake—the driver had terror in his eyes when he sped past me down the road, back from wherever he'd come. As the vehicle escaped, the gunner again squeezed the trigger, sawing across the remaining undead at chest level, knocking them to the ground.

I had little time to prepare. A great chorus of moans now echoed through the streets.

“Checkers, follow,” I commanded before sprinting from cover to a nearby alley.

•  •  •

Once in the alley, with the GARMR not far behind, I risked a glance over my shoulder. The streets filled with the undead, attracted by the loud machine-gun fire from just moments ago. Glass shattered like pressure relief valves from untold hordes leaving buildings, agitated by the artificial noise. Although I'd never experienced it firsthand, I felt as if I was in a great draw in the dusty Midwest and a flash flood was nearly upon me; I just had no clue as to what direction this deluge of undead would come from.

Taking a chance, I rounded the corner and saw a vine-covered fountain ahead in the middle of a park. I ran to the fountain,
ignoring the splintering doors and shattering glass all around me. To the east, not far from my target building, was a hotel. Waiting would mean suicide, so I fled toward possible safety with every burst of twitch energy I had.

Over my shoulder, a dozen undead were locked onto my movement and began their pursuit. The sight of the growing mob shot adrenaline through my system, pumping my legs faster and with more resolve. My pack and gun bounced painfully all over my front and back. My rifle's stock struck my chin hard; I checked it with my right hand and my fingers were covered in blood. I slung the rifle over my head across my pack and just kept running, applying pressure to my chin as I did so. The closest door to the hotel was a side entrance. The undead, now numbering a couple dozen, were about a hundred meters back but closing fast. The weeds and brushes all around them shook, prompting birds to take flight in protest.

I slammed into the door and pushed the thumb latch to open.

Locked.

Without thinking, I ran to the GARMR and retrieved the drill from its saddlebag and inserted the largest bit in the set. At the door, I rammed the bit into the lock and squeezed the trigger. The drill tore through the softer metal and began to churn up the tumbler inside.

The undead were at about fifty meters.

I overzealously drove the bit into the lock at multiple angles to be sure to tear up anything that would hold the locking mechanism in place. Using the still bit, I canted the driver, releasing the lever inside the lock, and pulled the door outward.