Ghost Run (3 page)

With no time to dig my NOD out of my pack, I flipped on my weapon-mounted light, spilling five hundred lumens of searing brightness into the dark room. Behind me, the undead broke glass and splintered wood, forcing me ahead into a gloomy passageway. To my right, through a series of boarded windows, I peered through the slits and saw something run past outside. Panicking, I sprinted for the boarded-over glass doors on the other side of the building. My heart sank when I saw the chain and padlock holding them securely together. It didn't matter; one of those things was already tearing at the boards on the other side. I gave up on the chained doors, made for the stairs, and began to climb. Somewhere above me, a corpse that was already inside fell over, hitting the handrail behind me. It lay there, crippled from the drop, but still reached for my legs. I ignored it and kept climbing to the sounds of shattering glass and splintering wood on the ground level below.

At the top of the stairs was a red ladder situated against a wall behind an old desk. I climbed for my life, thinking of that airfield tower from what seemed like decades ago. I didn't have a parachute this time.

I could hear the undead now coming up the stairs. Some steps were far more rapid than others.

Irradiated.

I was on the ladder, twelve feet in the air, the light from my carbine illuminating the brass padlock securing roof access. I swung the light around as the first creature appeared at the top of the stairs and began to charge. Its lips and eyelids were gone, unblinking eyes locking onto me like an alcoholic to a bottle of whiskey. In
an act of desperation, I put my carbine up to the lock, touching the standoff end cap on my suppressor to the lock clasp. I was risking death from ricochet or, worse, falling into the arms of the radioactive demon now climbing the ladder after me. I squeezed the trigger, missing the lock but punching a hole through the hatch. A single beam of .30-caliber light shone through the steel. Feeling the iron grasp of a dead hand on my steel-toed boot, I squeezed the trigger again. The lock flew off; a tiny piece of steel struck me in the forehead, right between my mask and hood, splattering a few droplets of blood onto my mask and down into the fray below.

The undead went berserk.

I jammed my boot down blindly, striking bone and teeth, loosening the creature's bear-trap grip on my foot. Without looking, I threw myself upward, hitting the hatch with the back of my head and spilling light into the darkness below. Resembling strange deep-sea plant life, an ocean of hands reached up in unison to somehow will me back down the ladder and into their arms. One of them emerged from the array of limbs, flailing the lesser creatures out of its way. It looked up at me with its jaw hanging slack and growled before it began to climb.

I took the shot down the hole, sending the thing back into the waving sea of hands.

I slammed the hatch, hoping nothing else would come for me out of the darkness of the building. I was several stories up and surrounded by buildings of various height. The Geiger was still chattering away; the mask had to stay on. Condensation covered the inside; blood speckled the outside, degrading my view. The wind must be blowing from what was left of New Orleans.

I checked my chart and took another radio reading. The signal intensity was so high now that I could no longer estimate distance to signal. Hearing the hatch rattle behind me, I put my kit away and slung my rifle across my back. The building next to this one was only a few feet away and one story shorter, so I took a running leap, rolling and ending up on my back in a puddle of rainwater. I checked the perimeter atop this new building, noting that all roof accesses had been secured via locked ladder cages.

Fifty yards away, on the building from where I'd just jumped, was a silhouette outlined by the bright morning sun. It stood there
like a gargoyle, arms slack, staring in my direction over the gap between us.

Chillingly, it didn't walk off the edge.

Goddamn radiation. Scientists had no way of knowing its effect on the undead before the cities were nuked off the map.

Ignoring the creature, I took the chart from my pack and began to get my bearings relative to the signal source.

Looked like another two blocks or so.

After folding the map, I grabbed my weapon from my back, and turned to take out the corpse. It was gone.

Using a two-by-eight board leaning against a vent, I was able to traverse to the next building. As I carefully walked the plank, I saw them below, standing in undead hibernation. I was safely on the other side before I allowed myself to imagine the board snapping underneath, dropping me onto the sleeping dead. Best not to think that way.

My roof hopping was finished, though. The adjacent buildings were too far away, across the road. After verifying the coast was clear, I climbed down a metal conduit pipe on the north side of the building, listening to the crinkle of the potato chip bag I was wearing.

Staying low, I moved to the next spot of cover, an abandoned ambulance. My Geiger began to chatter. The metal ambulance was soaked with radiation. Crouched next to the metal monster, I felt it rock slightly.

Something dead was trapped inside. Keep moving. Can't stop here.

I made for the Perdido Spirits store across the street and was halfway there when I noticed something strange. Something very unexpected.

Day 2

A balloon, tethered by a small cable, floated in the middle of the street. An unidentified body lay sprawled out beneath it, between me and the liquor store. The corpse wore military clothing with a camo pattern I'd never seen. Some sort of spiderweb and hexagonal design. An M9 was jabbed into its mouth and a good portion of the back of its head was missing. Although a gas mask was still in the clutches of its left hand, the corpse wasn't wearing a radiation suit.

The bloodstained leg on its fatigue pants told the rest of the story. The soldier(?), or paramilitary operator, had been bitten. I think it was a man; tough to tell after sitting in the Florida sun for who knows how long. He must have swallowed a bullet after knowing all was lost. I'm surprised his body was still relatively in one piece, considering the varmints running unchecked out here in the badlands.

A large black box was tucked into his body's load-bearing vest, with an antenna jutting out across its cheek and up the tether to the balloon hovering above.

The distress signal radio source.

A pair of wires led from the radio in the corpse's vest to a rectangular-shaped object about ten feet away. The soldier's bag was draped over this unusual equipment. It looked like a large motorcycle saddlebag, heavy and adorned with small flexible solar panels covered in mildew and dust. I unplugged the electrical lead attached from the radio to the saddlebag and moved it to the deserted alley adjacent to the liquor store.

After making sure I had two ways out of the alley, I began to rummage through the bag. The gray digital camo fabric was stiff
and sun-faded from exposure. Expectedly, food and water stores were near the top. I'd need to Geiger those later before even thinking of consuming them.

Under the food stores was a tablet, likely what the electrical wires were feeding. Under that were a few odds and ends you'd expect to find at the bottom of a survivor's bag: cordage, folding knife, car slim jim, picks made from hacksaw blades, and a box of 5.56 ammo that was useless to me and my Blackout carbine.

I straddled the bag over a nearby concrete barrier and went back to the street to search the soldier's corpse. Thankful that I was wearing a suit and mask, I grasped the decomposing body under its arms and peeled it from the concrete. Realizing it was still attached via cable to the floating antenna, I disconnected the corpse from the carabiner. The antenna balloon floated slowly at first until it broke the tops of the buildings. I could hear the balloon drag the attached metal cable across a nearby roof and then it was gone.

I was pulling the corpse into the alley when something astonishing occurred.

Through the acoustics of my hood and mask, I heard the muffled sound of quiet servo motors spinning online. Looking over my shoulder, I could see that the rectangular power source was now covered in debris, had four legs, and was standing.

Months of dust and built-up grime dropped from its frame and joints as it began to run what I assumed was some kind of diagnostics program. Fearing the machine's low noise might bring the dead, I continued to quickly drag the body into the alley.

Once the mechanical quadruped's head retracted from its body, I saw what looked like a small but fast-rotating mirror where its eyes might be. The thing was the size of a rottweiler. Its recumbent legs flexed and it began walking in my direction. The eerie sound of the machine's metallic and carbon-fiber legs clicking on the concrete made me want to reach for my carbine and waste it.

With the soldier's corpse positioned, I stepped back and allowed the machine to do whatever it had been programmed for. The machine walked to within ten feet of the corpse and stood there for a moment before the motors quietly spun down and the head folded back inside the body. After this, the legs bent and the
machine slowly dropped like a mechanic's hydraulic lift, back to its compact rectangle state of dormancy. Hearing movement in the street, I quickly grabbed the saddlebag and dragged the soldier's corpse into the alley behind the liquor store. Once again the machine spun to life and walked over to within ten feet, stopped, and sat back down.

I checked the corpse for valuables. A fixed-blade knife, a large-face wristwatch with multicolored buttons, and body armor. The armor would stay here, as it was infused with months of putrid decomposing corpse by-product. I placed the knife in the saddlebag and put the watch in my suit's cargo pocket. Satisfied with the salvage, I yearned for the safety of my boat while pondering my current predicament.

The dead soldier was broadcasting on a Remote Six frequency. His organization had been wiped off the map, probably at around the same time this guy put a bullet in his head, but of course there was no way to know for sure. What was his mission? What was the purpose of this doglike machine? And what was making the machine follow him?

I marked the location of the corpse and odd mechanical quadruped for possible future investigation. The sounds coming from the street on the other side of the liquor store had decreased my curiosity about the present salvage.

There was undead nearby.

I slung the saddlebag over my shoulder and began to leave. The sound of electrical and hydraulic motors spinning up behind me got my attention. I turned and saw that the machine began to follow . . .

. . . me.

At first, it was a slow walk. As I sped up, it did the same. At full run, it too began to run, quickly catching up and pacing me within ten feet. I remembered seeing these things on internet videos and news articles before the undead came. A lab in the northeast was working on robotic battlefield assistants that walked like animals.

Moving swiftly through the alleyways behind the main thoroughfares, the machine nimbly and loyally followed. I climbed an embankment leading to a cemetery; it had no trouble following. I weaved inefficiently between the tombstones, and it chose a more
efficient route. The extra weight I carried was starting to tire me out, so I placed the scavenged saddlebag back onto the mechanical quadruped, securing it to the machine's chassis. It then followed unfazed, moving just as well with the saddlebag as before.

The machine was covered in battle scars. The bullet-damaged chassis and scratched carbon fiber told me it had been through hell and back. The machine had a checkerboard paint pattern on its breastplate, also blemished by unknown months of following that unknown soldier around the badlands.

I stopped and regrouped in the middle of the cemetery.
Solitude
was about a mile away. The machine seemed like a solution without a real problem. I didn't want a needy pack mule. It wasn't really that loud, but it still made enough noise to make me somewhat nervous near the undead. The second it became a problem would be the moment I'd pump it full of rounds and leave it sparking in the street.

Satisfied with my navigation plan back to the boat, I stayed low and egressed the overgrown cemetery, passing faded artificial gray stone flora. I could see a group of five or six undead standing along my route at the edge of the cemetery. I couldn't go around them. Either direction would put me deeper into a cluster of buildings overrun by corpses. No roof access from here, either.

I lay prone in the tall grass, the undead in my red dot sights. Confident I had enough ammo to blow if things went too kinetic, I started taking out the roadblock ahead. After my first shot, the machine stood up and started trotting out into the open concrete ahead of me.

It was running to the undead.

The creatures were temporarily drawn by the movement and began to shamble to the walking machine. I picked them off one by one while the robot distracted them. After the last creature was dropped, the robot turned 180 degrees and then began to walk slowly back to my position. Within ten feet, its head retracted into its body and it slowly settled to the ground. Its legs folded up into a compact but battle-evident chassis. I sat there in awe of the automated creation, not understanding why it was following me until I remembered.

The watch in my pocket. Of course.

My gloved hand fumbled trying to grasp the Velcro strap. Finally retrieving it, I noticed that it wasn't really a watch at all but some sort of wearable computer—a beacon, perhaps. I placed it on my wrist, careful to avoid pressing the four buttons clearly visible on the face. No telling if my futzing with it would cause an immediate shutdown, put it in berserker mode, or result in some other undesired behavior.

More noise behind me.

I stood and took a shot at the irradiated creature bearing down on my position. I missed. The robot dog machine came to life and again trotted to my target area, confusing the creature. It was clear to me at this point how it received the bullet damage to its chassis—it was programmed to protect its master.