fuckin ghosts man

The overlay of his visor flickered and went out. He swore, and it made him cough for his trouble. He heard a whisper over the tortured groan of spinning metal and turned. He was surrounded by crumbling brick buildings, human residences before the Rise. Empty windows watched like hateful eyes. Birds could be heard chirping, though he was the only living thing within miles. Most of the world belonged to the dead now.

Behind him, the wreck of the helicopter was still smoking. The rotors spun slowly, almost lazily, now bent and shattered, moaning in pain. The aetheric wards on his armour were humming softly. The Dead were coming. His ex-companions, now mangled bags of flesh in the ruin that had been a Vigilator-EH4 helicopter, were lucky – when the Dead claimed their souls, they wouldn't have to have them torn out first.

One of the empty window frames shook. Glass shards, jutting like teeth, snapped from the frame and tumbled to the ground as something unseeable climbed through. He slammed a hand into the side of his helmet. Damned visor, work! Work! The wards hummed more urgently, a resonance that went into his bones.

The window frame stopped shaking. Dust rose from the dry mud as it dropped invisibly to the ground. With a curse, he turned and ran best he could, the broken rib grating in his chest with every step. Without the visor working, he'd have to rely on luck to not run in to any of the Dead.

He jogged through a narrow alleyway and came out on a high street. A few human skeletons still dotted the pitted concrete next to the rusted hulks of cars. He stopped and listened. No whispers. His wards hissed almost silently to themselves. Slowing to a walk, he passed beneath a tree. Birdsong came from the empty, skeletal branches, even as the delicate bones of birds crunched beneath his feet. The world wasn't for the living, now, but they held on nonetheless. The wards hummed in indecision as he passed before settling down.

He squatted by an ancient vehicle and took a slug of lukewarm water from his canteen. There was a warded waystation in ten miles up the road, but they had been the team sent to maintain it, so whether it still worked or was repairable by one man was unknown. The Bastion they'd launched from was the other direction, and a hundred miles at least. He'd never make it before some roaming Dead thing ripped him apart and melded his souls to its congregate. He looked into the sky. It was a bright blue, irregularly studded with clouds. The sun had started its descent; if he was out of wards after night he would die for certain. He lurched to his feet and started down the road, watching carefully for the signs of movement. His wards would warn him of any approaching Dead, but if they were close enough the wards could feel the direction chances are they already had him.

As he walked, his mood only dropped. Snatches of sound drifted on the air. A child laughed, then screamed before fading. A hound barked, the sound cutting off abruptly mid-way. He could feel Dead watching him; without his visor, he'd couldn't look back. Little aggregates couldn't harm him for his wards, or even the bird-Dead he'd passed might have happily tore him slowly into pieces with immaterial beaks. It was when the waystation was only a mile off his wards began to scream.

Something big. A thousand whispers burst into his head, voices and languages, babbling and moaning or laughing, playing a memory each over and over again. He hissed a curse and ducked into a building. He prayed to God the wards would hide him. Next to him, something said “Mother?” Even as he began to spin, a Dead was clutching his arm. He felt a mouth, two, three, bite down, and it let go with a cry as the wards flared so bright and hot they burned him through the insulation. “Mother!” He was already running, sprinting, even as the Dead-aggregate outside wrapped invisible tendrils around the front of the building and pulled it off. He yelled, a nameless shout of terror and pain, as bricks rained down from the collapsing building. He burst out the door as the cloud of dust exploded from the destroyed ruin.

He didn't dare look back, but ran, feet pounding on the old cracked concrete of the road. The waystation was ahead – the bright red paint of the safe-sign was on the walls of the abandoned buildings. All around, the Dead were stirring early. A Dead-aggregate barked, a dozen dogs yapping as one. It snuffled and began to approach, mud imprinting with a mess of pawprints as it stumbled ungainly towards him. He dodged around the aetheric monster and continued. The wards on his armour were glyphs of pain on his arms, his legs, his chest and back, burning, trying to guard against Dead far too large for it to stop. Behind him, the tarmac of the road cracked as the almost-weight of the huge aggregate pulled itself in pursuit. The whispers in his head grew to a scream. There! The blue line of the warded zone! With a sob of relief, pain and exhaustion, he threw himself over the line. The Dead screamed in frustration, yelping and laughing and screaming and crying.

He was safe. He lay exhausted for a moment, hearing the Dead scraping around the edges of the waystation's wards, too powerful for even the large aggregate to defy. Slowly, he picked himself up. Inside, he found autoheating food, a radio, and a pair of sensorgoggles. He put them on and looked towards the ward-line. He reached for the power-switch. The plastic was rough through the thin weave of his gloves.

He shook his head and took them off. Some things were best unseen. He clicked on the radio and called for help. “Mayday, mayday, this is waystation twelve, in Dead-zone forty-three...”