Ghost Run Read Free Page A

The panels attached to the exterior of my pack served to maintain the batteries for my night optical device, tablet, comms, Geiger, and flashlights. After taking a radiation reading, I took off my hood and mask and placed an N95 mask snugly over my nose and mouth and some goggles over my eyes. I took this time to catch my breath and let the condensation on the inside of my gas mask evaporate. The radiation levels were relatively safe here on the top of the bistro.
    After eating two cans of Vienna sausages, I did more reconnaissance from the rooftop in all directions. I could see the small radar dome and wind vane on the apex of Solitude ’s mast to the south. Across the street to the north, a dilapidated bank—near collapse, actually. Chunks of its brick walls and every pane of glass had been blown outward long ago, along with a large circular vault door that lay halfway on the sidewalk. The bank’s blast damage was old but told a story. Mutilated undead bodies still writhed in the brick rubble below like the dying reflexes of smashed spider legs.
    A bright blue duffel bag sat in stark contrast on the street near the massive rusting vault door. Some poor bastard actually thought money would get them through or help them in some way. Even in the early days, the time when John and I had first met, money was the last thing on my mind.
    According to my transceiver and charts, the distress signal wasn’t far from my position. Still north by northwest. Stationary. I had approximately two miles of suburban traveling to do andit was getting dark fast. My night optical device, or NOD, would allow me to see in the dark, but not very far and not with a very wide field of view. Jan was our resident super-nurse, and according to her and the rest of her doctor cadre, those creatures had some sort of close-range thermal vision adaptation. Knowing this, moving at night among the enhanced irradiated undead was not at the top of my list of fun things to do.
    I could risk heading back to Solitude for safety, but that was nearly three hundred meters away.
    Making my decision, I descended the ladder far enough to kick the dumpster out from under it and went back up to make camp for the night.
    The moldy wooden pallets leaning against the bistro’s air circulator made good fuel for a small stealth fire. This was sunny Florida, but hypothermia never seemed to care. By the glowing pallet wood light, I checked and rechecked my kit for tomorrow’s trek.
    Between the pops of burning wood, I could hear the undead in the streets below. I’d made a little too much noise with the suppressed shots I’d taken. The undead’s throaty moans and clumsy movement made unholy noises that cut through sanity if one let their mental guard down too long. Would I rather be in Tara’s arms, hearing the breath of my newborn nearby right now?
    Yes.
    But there are some out here like me who will never feel at “rest” until they’re hugging a ventilation pipe on a roof somewhere in the badlands. Like those shambling creatures on the ground below, part of me had died through all this. I’d left a piece of myself out here somewhere in the ether, between what was then and what surrounds everyone now.

Rooftop Diplomacy
    Day 2
    I awoke before daybreak to the sounds of distant tide and the wind. No aircraft, cars, or any other sounds made by man. Like Pripyat before, this was a dead place. I put on my mask and hood and made ready to descend into whatever mayhem awaited below.
    I lowered my pack to the ground and then climbed down with my pistol in my right hand. Reaching the deck, I switched back to my M4 and checked it. Comforted by the yellow tint of brass inside the chamber, I started moving to the RF-geolocated area marked on my chart.
    I had nearly two hundred rounds of subsonic ammunition on me, and a mag or so of supersonic. Black-tipped quiet stuff on the left side of my vest, red-tipped loud stuff on the right.