Ghost Run (29 page)

I led with my gun blasting its 500-lumen light into the dark room, under a bridge for which I was now the resident troll. The walls of the motor room as well as the motors themselves were covered with slime. The dead had been cooking inside here for two summers, coating everything with shit. Ugh. It was a new kind of nasty. Should have brought my mask.

I worked quickly, searching for the motor that controlled Goliath's side of the bridge, eventually tracing the wires to what I thought was the correct motor. With the grid perma-down, I pulled the wires from the electrical box and scavenged the cord from a nearby work lamp that hung over the motors. With the motor wired up to a 110-volt plug, I made my way back up to the bridge. The creatures I'd put in the river had disappeared downstream, hopefully skewered forever on a fallen tree somewhere. As I climbed the ladder to bridge level, I noticed the swarm's dust cloud had gotten noticeably bigger.

I had to make a choice: cut my losses and bring the GARMR and the rest of my kit to the other side and abandon Goliath . . . or lower the bridge, keep Goliath, but potentially build a pathway for whatever evil approached.

The cumbersome generator was strapped tightly to my back as I made the three-foot skip across the bridge opening. I felt a pang in my ankle as I landed. The generator's fuel sloshed around inside its small one-gallon tank and I could smell the fumes of gasoline coming off the small 2-kilowatt Honda power plant. On Goliath's side of the bridge, I couldn't see individual corpses yet,
but there was a plasma-like mirage line of mayhem at the base of the dust cloud.

I hurried down the ladder and shimmied across the catwalk to the motor room, leaving the generator outside to vent its deadly gases in the open air. I started the machine, leaving it in full-power mode, and pulled the power cord I'd rigged over to the generator. After a moment of hesitation and repositioning myself near the door, I plugged it into the generator.

Son of a bitch, it was working. The bridge motor began to run, turning the massive manhole-sized gears very slowly. The 110-volt generator was obviously having trouble supplying enough juice to the motor, but it was going anyway. I could see the large gear catch the next cog.

I inspected the gears and removed a bit of torn clothing from the teeth, not wanting to think where that came from. It took four minutes for one complete turn of the main gear. I had no idea what that might equate to the topside on the bridge. I left the generator to do its work, and climbed the ladder to check the progress. The bridge moved like the minute hand on a clock: only perceptible if you compared it to what was behind it. In my case, I watched Goliath's horizontal chrome grille sections appear one by one as the bridge slowly dropped.

I went again onto Goliath's side and my heart skipped a beat as individual corpses came into view a thousand yards distant. I ran for Goliath and tossed my kit in the passenger seat before starting the rig, positioning the front bumper over the slowly falling edge. I thought the rig's weight might ease the strain on the spinning motor below.

I left the rig running and grabbed the heavy RPK and two extra magazines. Knocking out the window glass, I set up a pillbox in the bridge operator's station with a clear field of fire to Goliath's side of the bridge.

The familiar chorus of moans rasping from undead tracheas reached my ears as the distinct but unsettling noise engulfed the bridge. This was the only artery across the river for these creatures, and they moved in unison as if they knew it. Just like water, they flowed down the path of least resistance, consuming everything with a heartbeat.

I checked my Rolex, something that used to be valuable but nowadays you could pick up anytime you wanted one. With the second hand at twelve o'clock, I began to watch the bridge. The hum of the generator competed with the penetrating barrage of undead noises.

One minute elapsed. Six inches lower on the bridge.

I'd need ten minutes to get the bridge low enough to drive Goliath across the gap.

Eight hundred yards . . . maybe. Maybe less.

The mega-horde kicked up dust and debris as it pressed forward, unstoppable. I could hear the screech of protesting metal as the river of corpses wrenched a vehicle aside somewhere under that dust cloud. That kind of force doesn't come from just hundreds.

My adrenaline began to flow as I put the RPK machine gun into battery and became acquainted with the sight picture. I didn't dare yet fire, as the sound would laser-focus the creatures to me. Right now they simply moved like a school of fish following each other down the road, reactive to one another's movements.

The road the undead traveled was covered on all sides by thick foliage. Those I could see were only the faster-moving tip of the iceberg. As I looked down the long sight picture of the machine gun, I noticed the raider's inscription in the wood stock: BITCHKILLA.

In addition to the rifle's name, there were dozens of tick marks, no doubt representing the number of lives the poorly named weapon had taken.

I began to make out the different colors in the approaching horde, and estimated that the leading edge was at about five hundred yards and closing. The smell began to defy the winds, reaching my nostrils as more loud bellows from the mass shook the air all around me.

The bridge was nearly low enough to cross as the creatures began to reach the vehicle barricade I'd made just before. Leaving the RPK in the makeshift pillbox, I hopped over the guardrail and the narrowing gap before putting Goliath in gear and giving it the gas. The front wheels cleared the gap and I upshifted, putting the pedal to the floor. The rig's frame shuddered and creaked as it became nearly high centered on the bridge. As soon as I felt my back
wheels clear, I skidded to a stop, grabbed the extra RPK mags, and sprinted to the pillbox and down into the motor room.

Working as fast as I possibly could with my multitool and electrical tape, I switched the polarity on the motor input and plugged the jerry-rigged connection back into the generator. The motor began to spin in the opposite direction, turning the massive gears slowly along with it. I hoped the generator had sufficient fuel to keep up the fight as I stepped back out onto the catwalk and up the ladder to the pillbox.

Tired of getting my ears blown out with automatic weapons, I remembered to pack some foamies in my cargo pocket. I rolled the plugs into my ears as I opened fire on the dozens of walking corpses that now managed to clear the barrier. I fired the RPK in controlled bursts, trying to do as much damage per magazine as possible. Shell casings flew around the bridge control box, bouncing off the ceiling and walls, some finding their way down my collar, of course.

The machine-gun noise caused a frenzy in the horde. I could see the mass of a hundred thousand bodies move like a stadium wave at my small barricade. I kept firing and firing as the first barricade vehicle succumbed to the immense pressure of the horde.

Crushed and pulverized bodies spilled onto the road, their still-animated replacements using them as floor mats as they advanced onto the rising metal drawbridge.

I changed mags again. I could smell burning oil and lacquer coming off the gun, and the barrel smoked underneath its hand guard. Even the left bipod arm I used as a grip was warm from the heat transfer coming off the barrel.

I just needed to keep them back for two more minutes; that was it.

Two more mags remaining.

I slapped in a new mag and laid waste to thirty more creatures with it, spraying the tops of their heads as judiciously as possible. The remaining barricade cars were being pushed inward. I'll never forget seeing all the scalps I'd shot off sitting on top of the barricade cars along with pieces of brain and skull fragments.

The swarm again surged forward, buckling the cars, using their own numbers as rams. The frontline undead were crushed
to a pulp and again the ones behind them slogged forward. The creatures seemed to go on forever in the distance, and the dust in the air was starting to be a problem.

Last mag.

I squeezed the trigger, giving the advancing wave what for, arcing the weapon back and forth until the last round left a searing-hot, cherry-red barrel.

The creatures were looking at me. They approached hungrily, with their arms out front, stepping blindly until the first group came to the gap. One of them moved across the opening and actually touched my side before tumbling into the current. I pulled my Glock and pressed out to the line, waiting for one of them to make it over the void.

The next thing I knew, I was being shoved into the river side of the operator console. On my back looking up, I saw the wretched creature start to bend down to take a bite. I put two rounds of 9mm into its switch box, turning the lights out. With all the excitement on the drawbridge, I forgot one of the most important survival rules.

Look behind you.

On my side of the road, a dozen undead had wandered out of the woods, attracted by the noise of gunfire. Another creature was attempting to leg over to the walkway leading to me in the operator station. The thing was frail, nearly down to bone and tendon. I gave it a swift kick, sending it over the side into the drink to join the growing flotilla of corpses.

The drawbridge was getting high enough that the undead horde wouldn't be able to make it to the edge. With little time to spare, I cut the genny and hauled ass back up to Goliath, dodging corpses down the path to my air-conditioned biosphere. Safely inside the truck, I began running down the remaining creatures on my side of the bridge, eventually clearing it out and making another barricade. That was too close.

That night I was lulled to sleep by the pounding of undead hands on the cars up ahead and the never-ending splashes as the horde drove itself into the near wall of the bridge, spilling over the guardrails into the water. Ammo is critical. I'm gonna need to be creative.

•  •  •

I awoke to the sight of a few creatures on my side of the barricade. I reached for my codeine and Mitch's instructions; I was due. After taking the tiny dose, I pissed in a plastic water bottle and I stepped down out of Goliath, grenade in hand. I threw a Hail Mary at the corpse standing near the barricade and pegged it hard in the head with the full yellow bottle. The cap busted off and the bottle spun into the air, splashing urine all over the creature and the cars. It turned its head, scanning from side to side before locking onto me. As it began to march, I pulled the sheathed bayonet, revealing the glinting and still-sharp carbon steel. Stabbing the thing with a hunting knife or most tactical blades would just get me killed. A true blade for current times was the bayonet, or an ice pick. I waited for the creature to get danger-close before I leveled the blade in front of its eye, letting it walk right into its switch. Lights out.

The other two rounded the front at the same time, so I retreated behind the fifth wheel of Goliath, just a few inches from the edge of this side of the bridge. There was only enough room for single file around the back end, so I edged around and waited. I grasped Goliath's steel frame and hung half my body over the edge. The first creature fell for it and just walked off as it came directly for me. The second saw the first fall and became more cautious, hissing and clawing at me from the corner of Goliath's fifth-wheel frame. Getting braver, it stepped out toward me and I quickly climbed the truck and kicked it in the face, sending it flipping end over end into the murky waters.

With the bridge clear, I began to hook up the towing straps to the vehicles as I waited for some water to boil so I could cook the last of my powdered eggs and dehydrated meat. I tried not to draw too much attention, as I could see corpses moving about beyond my shitty barricade. They'd be alerted the moment I started the rig, so I had to get everything pre-staged.

After breakfast, I once again pulled my kit out for inventory. Laying the contents of my pack out on a blanket in front of Goliath, I began to wonder how much time I had left out here. It'd been nearly a month since I left the Keys, and I knew that I'd either be
divorced or dead when Tara saw me. I just hoped she realized how important this was to . . . well, everyone, I hoped. I mean, a goddamned cure? Even a one percent chance at my daughter not having to sleep in a metal cage would be worth it all. Before the shit hit the fan, I had gone to the range all the time. I loved shooting. I supposed that would never really change, but it'd be nice to not have to sleep with a rifle someday.

I pulled the battleship-gray mag from my carbine, tracing with my finger the number Kryloned to the side: 300.

After checking the action on my pistol and topping off the 9mm mag, I began to thumb the rounds out of the gray carbine mag.

Ten rounds. Ten bolts in my quiver. Ten rocks in my sling. Ten.

The chance of finding more 300 Blackout subsonic ammo anywhere would be pretty much the same chance as me finding a fueled and maintained aircraft in the field up ahead.

I loaded the metal mag and shoved it back into the well. Staying low, I crept up to the vehicles I'd used for a barricade. The door was locked, but I had some ceramic ninja rocks on me. With a light toss, the window spiderwebbed. I used my carbine to clear enough glass to reach inside and unlock the door. I quietly swung it open and checked the backseat before I climbed in.

Never know.

Nothing in the glove box but insurance, proof of registration, and the vehicle's owner's manual. I slammed the glove box shut in frustration and pushed the trunk latch button. Nothing happened. Frustrated even more, I climbed into the back and began to pull the seatbacks to access the trunk. I shielded my eyes for a few seconds as I shined my carbine light into the dark opening. I was trying to charge the glow-in-the-dark trunk escape handle. After shutting off my torch, I climbed into the trunk and pulled the glowing T-handle, releasing the emergency latch on the trunk. Painfully, I squirmed back out into the car and out the door.

All for nothing.