Ghost Run (9 page)

I didn't need to make so much goddamned noise
, I thought to myself.

I stepped out of the bathroom onto the hardwood floors of a bedroom. Throwing my NOD down over my eye, I scanned the dark, foreboding corners. There were no monsters under the bed or hiding in dark closets filled with dusty clothes and rat droppings.

As I moved around on the top floor, the ancient wood below my feet creaked. The sounds made me think of the people who used to occupy this place and how these noises would have been familiar to them. They probably would have avoided that part of the floor.

I quietly scrambled down the stairs to check the bottom floor. The house was empty; no food and only a couple inches of water inside one of the toilet reservoir tanks. The water looked bad, so I'd save it for its intended purpose along with the diminishing luxury that was toilet paper. Unless someone got a shit paper factory up and running again, this stuff was going to be worth a lot someday.

The house was eerily quiet. The creatures hadn't started pounding on the doors or windows yet. I checked the GARMR and moved it near the Jeep.

“Checkers, stay,” I said into the Simon.

I began checking the bottom floor for the HAM equipment. I turned the area upside-down for the radio connected to the antenna towering above the second-story roof. There was some radio equipment in the den, but nothing that would utilize the large array outside.

I leaned my gun against a nearby hutch and sank into a dusty
leather chair covered in fine copper rivets. Out of old-world habit, I reached down and to my right for the lever I just knew was there and threw it back, tossing my feet up as I reclined.

I didn't know I was exhausted until my eyes began feel heavy. I lay there in a state of relaxation somewhere between sleep and full awareness. Just as my mind began to let go, I heard a very distinct sound.

Creak
.

The same creak from just a moment earlier.

Something was inside the house with me.

I began to force myself awake, climbing up the rungs of my subconscious until I reached blindly for my carbine and sprung to my feet.

Creak
.

I walked slowly over to the base of the stairs and looked up. Like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, a silhouette passed by the vertical spindles under the wood handrails. I frantically pulled my NOD down to get a better look.

The obese corpse wore denim overalls and a white T-shirt covered in congealed blood. The floor creaked under its heavy steps, sending chills up my spine. How many times had I walked past the foul thing upstairs earlier?

As it reached the head of the stairs, it turned and looked down. I tried to duck behind the leather recliner, but it was too late. It began its descent, stumbling four steps down to the first landing. I raised my gun and fired off a single shot, hitting it in the face, tossing brains and hair onto a group of family photos arranged neatly behind it. The corpse teetered for a moment before falling forward and crashing into the stairs with great force. It slid all the way down to the bottom, hitting with a thud and spilling nasty, putrid liquid onto the floor. I pulled my shemagh over my face to lessen the stench and stepped over the large corpse back onto the stairs.

On my way up, something began to bang on the front door. Once upstairs, I realized that an open door had concealed another door and I'd missed an interior office in my initial check. I stepped into the dark room and hit the light on my gun.

I'd found the last Radio Shack on the planet. Everything from vacuum tubes to old solid-state sets were tucked into tubs or
stacked in corners like old shoe boxes. They weren't necessarily important, but the antenna connection damn sure was. I pointed the light around where the ceiling met the walls, eventually finding the white coaxial cable meandering down beside a window and into the back of a multiplexer that sat on a small desk full of equipment.

CRACK!

The floor shook from the impact to the front door. I left the office and went back downstairs to ensure the door was locked before continuing with the comm mission. After making sure the bolt was secure, I went over to the stairs to see if I could move the corpse in front of the door. There was no way I could drag it, given its weight, so I was forced to painstakingly roll it over to the entrance and leg-press it into place.

Back upstairs, I sat down in front of the dust-covered desk and unhooked the antenna line from the mux. I removed the portable radio from my pack and powered it on. Attaching the antenna lead to my radio, I heard strong Morse code fill the room from my small battery-powered speaker.

I began to copy.

•  •  •

“We have a cure. South of Atlanta, Wachovia Tower, CDC site B. Need assistance, position compromised. Doc, TF Phoenix sends . . . AR. BT BT.”

I kept reading it over and over again.

A cure? Impossible, isn't it?
I thought.

It must really be Phoenix; no one else knew about the task force. And Doc—I knew that name from the debriefs I endured after the Hourglass mission. Doc was the one in charge of the four-man team sent back to Hotel 23 to secure the remaining nuclear weapon. Doc had made the tough decision to launch that missile, disintegrating a group of lunatic eugenicists and potentially saving what was left of humanity from annihilation. Even the possibility that he was now alive in Atlanta and claimed to have a cure made this a rescue mission, and one that could not afford the wasted time of a round trip back to the Keys. There was nothing that could convince me to turn back now.

I was startled by another loud crash coming from the front door and rushed down to see what was happening. As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I could see daylight peeking through the cracked door.

White, bony knuckles gripped its edges, like massive hermit crab legs creeping from a shell. The late-afternoon sunlight shone on the bare teeth that flashed through the opening. I went over to the door and stood on top of the portly corpse I was using as a doorstop. I put my suppressor through the crack. The creature reached to grab it and I fired into its face, sending it to the ground. Another stepped up to the plate and received a similar fate. I repeated this six times, using the heavy front door like a medieval arrow slit.

I hurriedly returned to the HAM office and tossed the desk for extra paper. I then made two copies of the Morse decipher and put one in the bottom of my pack and the other inside the headband of my ball cap. With the sun low in the sky, I snuck out into the overgrown backyard and through the side gate to check on the GARMR. It sat undisturbed next to the Jeep. I commanded it to follow me through the gate and into the backyard, and then put it back into standby in the thick grass near the patio. The tall privacy fence kept undead eyes from spotting me. Not wanting to clear another house before sunset, I went back inside, locked the back door, and barricaded the stairs behind me with furniture as I went up.

As the light began to fade, I knew I needed to somehow find transportation. It had been well over a year since the refineries stopped turning crude oil into gasoline. Most of the gas sitting in the abandoned fuel tanks now was ethanol mixed, meaning the shelf life was very poor compared to real non-ethanol gas. Finding vehicles was the easy part. Finding good fuel and a battery with decent cells was the hard part. The GARMR had been hooked to that soldier's radio when I first discovered it; with any luck, I could put the GARMR to work on my battery problem in the morning.

Distant thunder coming from the west: another Florida storm.

Someone else had survived here for a while some time ago. Half-burned candles sat near the bedside table. A two-year-old pocket HAM repeater directory was in the middle of the bed, covered
in dust. A shotgun was propped in the corner near the headboard with a piece of toilet paper stuffed into the barrel. I'd have taken the old wood and blue-steel scattergun, but it was heavy and there weren't any shells besides what was already loaded in the gun. Inside the drawer were a few loose 9mm shells that I placed in my cargo pocket, along with fingernail clippers and a pack of AA batteries. I thumbed through the repeater directory, paying special attention to the highlighted repeaters. They all had handwritten scribbles beside them saying simply,
solar
. I placed the small book in my pack; it would make a good fire starter, if anything. There were magazines in the head, along with a yellowed local newspaper dated January twelfth.

There remains no explanation to the epidemic currently gripping our nation. Authorities have instructed residents to remain in their homes. If you or someone you know becomes infected, dial 911 immediately and wait for authorities to respond. Floridians should install all available hurricane wind shutters to residential windows and doors.

The following has also been recommended by FEMA and the CDC:

– Secure enough potable water for 96 hours of service disruption (one gallon per person and pet per day).

– Barricade ground-level windows and doors with plywood or furniture.

– Do not approach any infected persons.

– Do not discharge firearms.

– Remain calm and quiet.

– Turn off all non-essential electrical equipment.

•  •  •

All the corpses I kept finding, barricaded in their homes . . . they were told to stay. Even with the best of intentions, this was murderous counsel. Every home in this part of Florida was likely full of the undead: People sat huddled in corners with candles and high hopes that the authorities would somehow save them. No government on the face of the planet could have helped their people through this. The elected officials must have known that they were turning all these suburban homes into tombs when they gave
their directive. After all, it was much easier to move in after the outbreak to clear the streets if most of the former residents were locked inside.

I checked the top floor for other artifacts or anything that could be useful. The rain began to fall and the thunder boomed outside. I used this opportunity to toss the upstairs. In the guest room, I found a hunting rifle with a box of twenty 7mm mag shells. I also found a woman's diary and reluctantly opened it to the last written page.

January 19th
.

I closed it and put it back where I found it, not wanting to read the private words that likely talked of the undead all around and the large corpse that wore overalls. Those words were not meant for me.

I placed the shotgun and the rifle together, wrapped in trash bags and duct tape to keep them safe from the elements. I'd mark them on my map and place them under the propane grill on my way out tomorrow. They weren't worth the extra weight right now, but perhaps someday I'd come back for them.

With the heavy rain pouring down and the daylight getting low, I sat at the guest room window that overlooked much of the neighborhood. I could see the creatures milling about in the streets. After every flash in the sky and crack of thunder, they jolted and changed direction, as if somehow they could bite the lightning. These things were nothing more than biological machines running a kill program. Walking viruses looking for healthy cells so that they might replicate until there was nothing left to infect.

I had to reduce them to this. Looking at them in any other light was terrifying.

Day 6

Dawn came, sending beams of sunlight into my face from the east window down the hall. After forcing myself out of bed, I took my boots off and soaked my feet in collected rainwater, along with the salt I found downstairs. I hated sleeping with my boots on, but I also hated the sounds of doors splintering and the undead spilling into the house while I tried to lace up my footwear.

Although the water was cold, it felt good on my swollen feet. I enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face. I could hear the undead somewhere out there, stimulated by something, a cat or perhaps a butterfly floating on the morning wind. I dried my feet on a clean towel I'd found in a closet. In a moment of optimism, I turned on the upstairs shower but heard only a puff of air sucking back through the pipes. The gravity tower had long been drained.

I put on my freshest pair of socks and laced up my worn boots. I yearned for the flip-flops on the deck of
Solitude
but knew in my heart that the comfort of my boat was days away, if ever.

Taking advantage of the morning light, I dumped my bag onto the bed and began to re-sort. What worked yesterday almost never worked tomorrow when it came to kit. About the only thing that stayed in the same place was my sleeping bag.

In the assortment of things laid out in front of me was something I'd taken from Hourglass but never reported in debrief. A curious item from a time that I'd never know or could try to imagine. I kept the thing secured in an old leather holster in the bottom of my pack.

After arranging everything, I shouldered my pack and went downstairs. The smell of the overall-wearing corpse was stronger, prompting me to hurry up and leave.

Opening the door, I nearly shot Checkers. I didn't expect it to be standing there in the doorway, looking at me with that spinning sensor. Catching my breath, I used this opportunity to examine the machine's casing.

It didn't appear to have any way to draw from its nuclear battery that I could see, but I'd remembered connecting the solar panels on the saddlebags into the machine. According to the manuals, the RTG fed four integral-to-the-frame lithium polymer batteries that the GARMR used to pull any surge power requirements. Also feeding the batteries was the experimental and flexible solar array on the saddlebags. The combined power from the solar panels and the nuclear battery gave the GARMR a range above and beyond what I could cover on foot in any given day. I planned to leverage some of this power to somehow start a vehicle.

I then headed north in the general direction of Atlanta, out of the coastal suburbs. I kept a safe offset of a few meters to the undead-infested road. Up ahead through the trees, I could see the familiar signage of a Walmart. It took two hours to get there; I had to stay low most of the way to avoid being spotted by the creatures. There were too many of them near the road, and the rusted chain-link fence that separated us would not hold them back for long. With the GARMR slogging through the tall grass behind me, I had to find a way to get over the fence. The GARMR was too heavy (and radioactive) to attempt lifting it over the six-foot barrier. I began my attempt to cut through the chain-link material, but had to abort as six creatures walked up to me on the other side. I ran down the fence line to escape their attention and came upon a damaged section with just enough clearance to get the GARMR over.