Ghost Run (28 page)

It might as well be a million miles away.

The creature was vicious, tearing into the man like a starving animal. Unable to take the screaming any longer, I raised my weapon and popped a shot into the side of the thing. I listened to the round drill into its rib cage a few milliseconds after I pulled the trigger.

FWAP!

With my NOD back down I watched it pull itself out of the truck, its jowls covered with warm blood. It had a look of confusion as it scanned the darkness for who attacked it. The altered gray orbs sunken into its skull didn't reflect IR back at me like healthy retinas, but I could still see something different in there, something a few notches higher in intelligence.

The Geiger clicked with more intensity as the creature edged in my direction.

After looking around for a few more moments, it locked onto me without warning and craned its head forward before breaking out in a run. I raised my gun and placed a round into its nose, dropping the thing to the ground. Its legs kicked and spasmed for about ten seconds before the movement finally stopped.

I gave the creature a wide berth to avoid the radiation that was no doubt shooting outward in a half sphere. The corpse had endured a nuclear event, either weapon or power plant meltdown. I didn't bother to flip it over to read the words embroidered on its once-clean lab coat.

My heart began to race and then fill with dread as I approached the passenger side of the tow truck.

“Don't let it . . . don't let it eat me, okay?” the dying man begged, hyperventilating.

He was bleeding out fast; it wouldn't be long now. Warm black blood oozed from a wound on his forearm and his right cheek was gone, revealing white teeth underneath. His speech was slurred as his blood-starved brain began to shut down.

“What were you and your friend gonna do with that machine gun? Lie to me and I'll drag you out of there and fire off a few shots,” I hissed, trying to stave back the lump in my throat.

I felt sorry for him.

“We were going to kill everyone, take everything. It's what we are,” he responded between shallow breaths.

Another snapping of a twig caused me to turn and drop the NOD over my eye in one muscle memory movement. Here was one more creature lurking in the darkness, wearing the same type of lab coat. Light from the 12-volt spot beam shot up through the window like a Hollywood premiere beam, attracting the creature to the truck.

“Please, no!” the man screamed from the cab.

I instinctively broke contact and took a defensive position on the opposite side. The creature snapped its head to face in the direction of the man's pleas and began to charge. As the monster stepped onto the road, it tripped and slammed headfirst into the passenger door, rocking the heavy truck from side to side. I moved back around to the passenger side, unsheathing the long-knife bayonet and stabbing it deeply into the back of its skull as it attempted to stand up. The Geiger's piercing noise drove me away from the corpse. As I stepped back, I caught a glimpse of the slain creature's lab coat.

An atom was embroidered into the fabric right under the letters
Vogtle Electric
.

These were nuclear power plant workers and were obviously traveling together.

Wherever that Vogtle Electric was, I didn't want to be anywhere near it.

The passenger was gone, so I deliberated on whether or not to let him turn.

After pulling both bodies out of the truck from the driver's side and searching them, I put the vehicle into reverse and crunched over one of the creatures I'd just slain. I opened the gate and pulled the truck through it and back up the winding hill to the vineyard. I could smell the blood in the cab and heard more twigs snapping in the woods off to the left. My ankle ached from the recent strain and I needed something to calm my nerves.

The bright headlights cut through the darkness but thankfully didn't reveal any more lab coats lurking. I hadn't considered power plant fallout as a source for enhanced creatures before.

I was startled when I saw movement in my rearview mirror, but began to calm down when I saw the GARMR trotting behind the truck, trying to keep the vehicle's pace.

Just before getting to the vineyard, I turned off the lights and drove on NOD so that Mitch wouldn't shoot me. At the parking lot, I stopped the engine, revealing the sounds of gravel popping under my tires before coasting to a stop near Goliath. I got out but didn't shut the door. I could see the glint of Mitch's revolver pointed out the window and yelled up to him.

“Mitch, it's me. They're gone!” I said.

“I heard an engine rev . . . maybe a gunshot, too. Was that you?” Mitch asked.

“Yeah, that'll bring more of them. Get ready to skin out,” I told him.

We loaded his supplies into the tow truck. It would be a smarter choice if Mitch had to push a wreck out of the road on his way to the prepper stronghold, but I made it from there with Goliath, so it shouldn't be a huge deal for him. I gave Mitch the bandits' guns but kept the RPK and five full magazines. He wouldn't know how to use it anyway. It wasn't that much different from the machine gun I had mounted on
Solitude
, which I hoped was still anchored just off the shore back in what was left of Pensacola.

After debriefing Mitch on what happened, I went over the route back to the house with him again and told him to monitor the CB constantly. If he found trouble, shoot first. Don't hesitate, just do it. The types of people we were dealing with were savages, and they wouldn't hesitate with him or his children. Once he got back to the stronghold, I advised him to shelter in place and not draw the attention of anyone outside the iron fence, living or otherwise. Finally mentioning the bunker, I told him not to worry too much about it, as whatever was inside was behind a few inches of hardened steel. Mitch's eyebrow rose for a moment while that sank in.

I checked the VW one last time and saw the gate control clipped to the sun visor.

Tossing it to Mitch, I said, “Might want this. It'll make it easier getting in and out.”

After thanking me for remembering the opener, Mitch commented that he would be driving a tow truck and added, “Why not tow a good car behind me if the truck breaks down?”

He had an excellent idea, so we manipulated the hydraulic controls and loaded up the VW on the back of the tow truck. I shook Mitch's hand and patted his children on the back. Mitch handed me a custom IFAK (individual first aid kit), telling me that it was tailor-made for the apocalypse. We both laughed, and he reminded me to stick to my schedule with the codeine.

“The pain is in your head. Your ankle is healing fine . . . just no five-hundred-yard sprints,” he said.

“Roger that, Doctor,” I said.

Loaded up, they started the tow truck and pulled the VW out of the vineyard parking lot, loaded up with summer sausage and bottles of wine. I waved at Mitch and honestly hoped I'd see him and his children again one day.

I loaded Goliath with spare provisions and tied the GARMR down before I fired up the diesel and rolled down the vineyard road myself. As I left the gate, I could see a creature milling about the irradiated lab coat corpses. It was the tow truck passenger. I veered Goliath's wheel a few degrees to the right, slamming into the fucker and sending it thirty feet into the heavy foliage.

The radio crackled with Mitch's voice, “We're on the main road, hopefully headed to paradise. Probably out of range in an hour or so.”

I answered, again wishing him luck. Mitch knew to check his CB at the same time every day for contact. A team was being formed back at the Keys when I left. Its mission was to extract survivors from the mainland. A no-shit doctor would be high on their priorities list. Saien was to be the captain of one of the extraction teams. They offered me the job, but a baby will change your perspective on everything. Also, I don't work very well on a team.

Ask my old unit, or the ghost of what's left of them.

Day 23

1100

Mitch made last contact at around six this morning. He got to my first map landmark, an overturned feed truck. His signal was so weak that I could barely hear anything but managed to make out
feed truck
. He was making good time.

At about 0900, I saw a bridge in the distance. Bridges are bad, especially ones that are high over the water and long enough that you can't back off them fast. I coasted to a stop and glassed the span with my binos. There were vehicles on the bridge, but I couldn't see any undead or signs of a roadblock. Confident I wasn't about to get the old okeydoke, I rolled onto the long bridge, stopping on its apex. The two-lane span was a quarter mile long. The sun was bright, so I decided to get out and have lunch on top of the cab. My fingers were soon greasy from summer sausage and my lips purple from warm red wine. I watched the river water rush under the span. The banks were littered with skeletons, both human and animal. I found it difficult to imagine what this might look like to someone from two years ago.

Panning the binos along the shore, I saw a lone figure standing on the bank a few hundred yards away. Adjusting the focus, I could see that the figure was missing an arm. The corpse stood there, waiting for something like me to come along.

Unable to resist the urge, I called out, my voice traveling over the water at the speed of a fighter jet. I looked through my binos, waiting for the sound to reach the creature. After a few dramatic seconds, it began to stir and turned its once dormant head toward the bridge. Unable to triangulate the sound, it began to walk to the bridge, searching for the source of food it had heard. I threw my empty wine bottle like a German World War II grenade, watching it arc up and then down to the large river boulders. It hit with a loud shattering sound, making the creature veer its course to where the bottle impacted. Two more emerged from the trees lining the riverbank in search of the source of the noise. I decided to pack it in before they started making their own noise, eventually causing a chain reaction of undead to appear on the banks below.

2200

Troll

I had to make it through five different pileups and a pretty fucked-up situation to get where I am now. I spent most of the afternoon pulling cars apart so that I could squeeze Goliath through the openings. As I cleared the fifth wreck, I noted a sign peppered with shotgun blasts telling me that Atlanta was twenty-two miles ahead. Several miles behind, however, a large pillar of dust rose up above the trees. I'd seen this before and didn't like what happened after.

Swarm.

I let off the gas and let Goliath rumble down a large hill into a valley cut by a strong-flowing river. I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention: When Goliath ramped up onto the middle of the bridge, my head nearly hit the top of the cab. I slammed on the brakes, and the rig's large tires skidded to a stop ten feet before a three-foot gap in the road.

A goddamned drawbridge.

There were three cars sitting on the side of the road at the start of the bridge, so I used them to form a vehicle wall behind me so I could work the problem.

I grabbed my kit and headed to the bridge operator's box on the opposite side. Of course, it couldn't be easy. I made the jump across the steel span. The drawbridge portion was constructed of steel grates. The side I was on wasn't raised up very much, maybe a foot. It was the other side, Goliath's side, that was the problem. I began to analyze the situation, watching the dust cloud approach from the direction I'd just driven.

I hoped Mitch and his kids were doing okay, or at least better than I was right now.

I reached into my pocket and glanced at the wean-off plan Mitch had written down for me. It would be hours before I could have another quarter pill of codeine. The sadistic bastard had me on a tight schedule. With the shakes in full force, I threw open the door to the bridge operator's console room and began manipulating levers, hoping that the machine would work like the window washer lift did on the building in Tallahassee.

With the mechanical locks disengaged, Goliath's side of the bridge maybe dropped an inch before vibrating like a tuning fork and silently settling.

Reluctantly, I placed my feet on the rungs of the ladder leading from the operator's console down below the bridge. The catwalk was small, affording no room for mistakes. The waters were high and could sweep me a mile downstream before I found the shore, if I didn't get a chunk of my leg removed by the lurking dead that no doubt waited for me in the murky waters. I used my carbine as a balance pole before making it to the door leading inside the drawbridge motor room.

Cursing myself that I'd forgotten my drill, I reached down for the knob, expecting to find the steel door solidly locked. But the knob turned and then the door flew open toward me from the force of the undead that pushed behind it. Sunlight touched the face of these creatures for the first time in ages, and I nearly fell into the water along with the first one. The only thing that prevented my fall was a fire extinguisher box that jutted from the wall on my side of the door. I held it tightly with my right hand, bringing my carbine up to the ready.

Intimidated by the specter of low-ammo at the forefront of my mind, I kept myself from firing, kicking the second one off its feet and sending it tumbling into the brown waters. For a split second, I couldn't help but watch the two corpses bob and drift rapidly downstream fifty yards or so apart. They flailed and turned about unnaturally in the water. At a glance, they appeared human but drifted down the river like tsunami debris, uncoordinated and chaotic.

Then, as a third came out of the dark room, I forced open the
rusted metal and glass box containing the extinguisher and pulled it from its clips. The inspection tag hung soggily from the flexible firing hose and the needle in the circle gauge pointed to green when I pulled the pin and squeezed the handle down all the way to my fingertips. I blasted the bloated, slimy creature in the face, filling its gaping mouth and eye sockets with Purple-K dust. Wildly confused by what had just happened, it stepped itself off the platform into the water as well, bobbing and flailing like the others, but surrounded by a powdery circle as it followed its friends downstream. The wind blew some of the acrid dust back into my face, causing my eyes to water. The taste in my mouth almost made me want to wash it out in the river water below. Almost.