Oh Hell No! (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 3)

by John Freitas

  She leaned down over Danforth and paused. The chemical smell of beer and other alcohol was thick on him. She wondered if he had spilled it on himself when he fell. Then, even through her mask, she could smell it stronger each time he exhaled.

  Loriei leaned in with the canister and extraction nozzle.

  One of his arms flopped over away from his chest. With his hands flexing open and closed, two of his fingers caught the eye hole of her mask and yanked it away from her face. The rubbery plastic slapped the ground with the sound similar to shedding skin.

  Danforth’s muscles flexed into tight cords past the ends of his sleeves and up along his neck, but he was unable to move from the sedative. She saw the strength of the former soldier that Brady Danforth was and according to the journal, would be again. His eyes widened and his lips pulled back from his teeth as he looked up into her exposed face.

  As she feared when she stared down at the picture of the model on her way back to the laboratory, he did not see one of his descendants in her face. He did not even see her as human anymore. She was a monster attacking him in his home in the night.

  The dog gave two more barks and then dropped to whimpers. Loriei blinked at moisture forming around her eyes. The animal was barking and whimpered because he cared about this man and his safety. Loriei wasn’t sure that anyone in the world – her time nor any other – cared about her that much anymore. If she died here and was incinerated in the past, those in the lab would be disappointed by the failure, but not really at the loss of her as a person.

  She whispered. “None of them care for me as much as that dog does.”

  Danforth narrowed his eyes and his jaw relaxed.

  She heard the violin again. She turned and looked at the black screen of the television thinking it was back on, but it was blank. She listened to see if it was the whimper of the dog through the ringing in her ears. She heard it again in a long, strained note and realized it was a train. Her father played a similar sound for her when she was little so she would know what the world used to be like. That was why the violin had drawn her out of her shadow mind out on the streets – her father’s train recordings.

  Salvo said, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  She startled at the sound of his voice. “Yes … I mean, no … fine.”

  A part of her feared that time would suddenly collapse the trailer on top of them to ensure their failure. She looked up and saw the bullet hole.

  She leaned down and pressed the suction nozzle against his head at the line between his bare scalp and the remaining hair. She smelled something different from the beer and realized it was urine from Danforth wetting himself on the floor. The canister lit up on the display that they had a sample.

  She pulled the nozzle away revealing a purple mark on the skin of his head. “Let’s go.”

  They stood and made for the door. Corsin held the door. “Should we move him to the bed or something?”

  Loriei shook her head without looking back as the dog started barking again. “He’ll be safer, if we just leave him where he is until he recovers.”

  She looked down at the broken glass under her boots before walking out and down the stairs to the violin sounds of the distant train whistle.

  ***

  The light dissipated and they were standing under the same pine tree only in the daylight. Loriei waited to catch her breath as she held the canister up to her eyes. The display indicated one sample within. It was the same louse she had pulled from Danforth on their last trip to the past, but now it had the spliced gene that would spread through the population and destroy the rise of the super lice.

  She felt the stir against her scalp as if her flock knew what she was trying to do.

  “We should have gotten more than one sample,” Salvo said.

  Loriei looked at the taller man with the camera mounted on his forehead. She had many things she wanted to say in response, but knew they would all be recorded. She just said, “It will be enough. Let’s go. We need to plant this ahead of the gravity wave.”

  As they walked along the fence, Corsin asked, “Why are we cutting it this close?”

  “The destruction from the wave passing through the Earth will cover our escape,” she said. “And that is when lice began to spread. We need our modified gene introduced into the gene pool when it won’t end up treated.”

  “Treated?” Corsin asked.

  Loriei nodded. “Ancient lice could be killed using a chemical bath available for purchase.”

  “I can’t imagine.” Corsin shook his head. Loriei saw movement under his cap from Corsin’s flock.

  She realized the dog wasn’t barking. She looked over the gate and saw the stake and collar, but no dog. Loriei scanned the lot and saw the trailer tied down with heavy chains. The truck was chained down by a crisscross of chains as well. Danforth had gotten the news and was prepared for the coming wave.

  Loriei whispered. “Be ready. I think the dog is inside with him.”

  Corsin brought out the syringe with the sedative-paralytic inside.

  The gate creaked as she pushed it open. They approached the stairs, but heard no television this time. The door was covered with taped down cardboard where the glass hand been.

  Loriei moved to her knees on the wood platform and took hold of the handle. It was warm from the sunlight. She couldn’t see through the cardboard. “Be ready.”

  Corsin moved up beside her.

  Loriei tried to turn the door handle, but it was locked. She then activated the high temperature device and pointed to the handle. The knob started glowing silently.

  The hot handle fell inside the trailer and Loriei opened the door quickly, hitting the wall violently.

  Danforth shouted. “Oh, hell no!”

  He was chained down to bolts embedded in the floor. He began fumbling with the locks around his waist.

  Corsin charged in and toward Danforth.

  The dog barked from another room deeper in the trailer and Loriei heard his body slamming against something. She hoped it was a door.

  Danforth broke loose from the chains and pulled open a lockbox on the floor. As Corsin held out the syringe. Danforth with one hand grabbed his cheap cell phone and started taking pictures of the invaders. With his other hand, he drew out his gun and fired twice into the center of Corsin’s chest dropping him to the floor. The syringe rolled out of his hand up against the base of the kitchen counter.

  Danforth growled. “I’ve been sober since the day you creeps left. I never miss a target when I’m sober.”

  White light surrounded Corsin’s body and Danforth covered his eyes with his forearm. Loriei bolted for the syringe. The light dropped leaving a black scorch across the floor.

  Danforth brought the gun up. Salvo grabbed Loriei around the waist and rolled with her behind the recliner. The gun went off punching a hole through the floor where she had been. Another tore through the leather above them blasting out matted stuffing.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  Salvo said, “Because you will save us all.”

  The dog barked and whimpered from deeper within the trailer.

  He ran out and grabbed the syringe before diving past the counter. Danforth fired and blood erupted from Salvo’s leg. He slid leaving a bloody smear across the linoleum.

  Loriei felt gravity go. She lifted off the floor. The recliner spun in the air. Salvo and Danforth lifted off the floor. Blood ribboned out from the wound on Salvo’s leg in a manner that was almost beautiful. The television and cabinet pulled against their bungee cords, but held to the hooks screwed into the floor. One crushed beer can floated up from behind the cabinet.

  Salvo kicked against the chained refrigerator with his good leg. Glass jars jostled against one another inside. He held out the syringe as he floated across above the counter. Salvo swept envelopes and coupon flyers out of his path in the air.

  Danforth raised the gun and fired. His body rocked backward punching a hole in the wood panel
ing and he grunted. Salvo took the shot to the head blasting matter out the back of his skull through the air. A giant louse crawled out of the hole in the cap before white light engulfed Salvo and the creature.

  Loriei pulled off her wrist band to buy herself time even if she was shot.

  Dark ash floated out where Salvo had been. The syringe was gone with him.

  Loriei kicked off the recliner and sailed toward Danforth. She held out the canister and he brought up the gun. She braced herself for the shot and concentrated on planting the louse anyway. The gun clicked empty. She reached for his scalp and sprayed the canister. The louse was now on Danforth’s scalp.

  Danforth immediately put his hand on his head, searching for anything extraordinary, but found nothing.

  Loriei heard the violin note again. Through the pain, she listened for the train, but then realized it was the trailer pulling against the chains.

  The metal chains on the trailer snapped vibrated through the entire structure. The trailer tipped up onto its end and Danforth lost his grip on her and the gun.

  She saw him rub his head near the faded, purple spot. The drawers opened and utensils poured out into the air. The television broke loose with the bungies which slingshot across the room.

  A plastic kennel with the dog whimpering inside floated past her. Danforth grabbed the kennel and clutched it to his body.

  A velvet picture of an elephant tumbled past her from the back room and scattered the floating utensils. A model train drifted by her in pieces. Loriei was getting weaker. She let the canister go.

  She saw the rubber mask that had hidden her face on their last visit. It stared at her with empty eyes as it drifted through Salvo’s ashes.

  Then for the first time in her life, she felt the itch on her head subsiding. The plan worked and the mutated lice were gone. There was no tingling in her head or interference in her thoughts. She felt as if her eyes were suddenly uncovered. There was a realization of being awakened, a happiness of being alive. A sentiment of love inundated her. Love for everything around her. She closed her eyes, in an attempt to keep this feeling for a few more seconds.

  But she had a job to finish.

  Loriei put the wristband back on. She said, “Sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused.”

  She pulled the snap cord and was surrounded by light.

  Brady Danforth clutched the kennel to his chest and kept whispering. “It’s going to be alright … It’s going to be alright … It’s going to be alright …”

  He wasn’t sure if he was talking to the dog or himself.

  The canister floated past him and he saw the lit display read: One live specimen.

  “What specimen?” He whispered through the floating debris.

  A massive pine tree slammed through the wall crumpling the trailer.

  He held on as the trailer impacted the ground again and fell back level with the tree speared through the side. As he floated back to the floor objects fell around him. An empty beer can rolled and stopped close to him. He whispered. “Don’t start drinking again … Don’t start drinking again … Don’t start drinking again …”

  ***

  Other existing and future works from the author:

  Pulse: When Gravity Fails - When the Alpha Centauri star system begin to collapse gravity waves reach our planet, creating strange phenomena around the globe leaving the people who are affected by them wondering what in the world is going on. Objects are disappearing, flying into space, hovering above ground, and swirling vortices appear in the seas. Gravity seems to come and go at unexpected intervals. No one can figure out what is taking place on Earth. A scientist in an isolated observatory sees clues that tell him what is happening to the world may be bigger and more deadly than a few earthquakes and a few floating objects. Dr. Paulo Restrepo will have to race against time and the doubts of a world used to gravity behaving the same everywhere at every time. By the time he figures out the cause and what that means for the final approaching event, it might be too late, but he has to try.

  The Quantum Brain (Pulse series #2) - free ebook available for download on smashwords.com. When an IT technicians finds out that a great disaster is going to strike earth, he uses the opportunity to commit a crime that will set him for life and comes up with an ingenious and infallible plan.

  Or so he thought.

  Oh Hell No! (Pulse series #3) - the struggle of people from the future going back to our time to try to correct a terrible mistake.

  The Quantum Brain Returns (Pulse series #4) - after losing their first prototype, a technology company recreates an updated version of the Quantum brain with disastrous results.

  Home (Pulse series #5) - an American doctor ends up stranded in the Middle East.

  Saci (Pulse series #6) - tells the story about an African entity that goes after abusive slave owners.

  About the author:

  About the author:

  John Freitas is an author of speculative fiction that lives in Southeast Texas. He has a background in electronics and computer science.

  Published works:

  Pulse: When Gravity Fails

  The Quantum Brain

  Oh Hell No!

  On the web scifibookseries.com