Threshold Series (Book 1): Threshold

by Luquer, David

  “You mean they came back to life?” Helen asked.

  “No, they did not come back to life. The nerves in their body began firing, causing them to appear to be returning from the dead. In a way, I suppose, they are alive to some degree. But you have to understand, it is the nerves that are making them function. The original person is not present inside the body. The brain is made up of neurons as well as the spinal cord. So, the firing that is reanimating the dead out there is caused by a firing in the brain, down the spinal cord, eventually into all of the branching nerves from there. Since PEF07 went systemic, it’s causing every nerve in the entire body to fire.”

  “Why didn’t all of the dead come back to life?” Rob asked. “Not all of the graves were dug up.”

  “Because the others were too far gone. Their nerves had decayed. Since PEF07 causes nerves to fire, if the nerves are decayed away it has no effect on the remaining carcass, if you’ll excuse the term.”

  “Why did it go systemic?” Rita asked.

  “I believe it was because of enzyme-based chemical stimulants Doctor Johnson created called accelerators. He was the biochemist at the facility. The first generations contained accelerators that were not powerful enough and they either took too long to produce the desired outcome or else they fizzled out in a short period of time, like we saw with PEF06. Re-injecting them had no effect at all because the tissues had somehow built up a resistance to it. PEF07 had an accelerator called AC0191 that Doctor Johnson had developed on site. It was an extremely aggressive accelerator that he had hoped would cure all the problems of the previous PEF generations. It did, in a way, but it turned out to be too powerful to remain local, and it was too powerful to fizzle out, even in cases of passing from one host to another.”

  “What do you mean by passing from one host to another?” Reverend asked.

  “Well, I ran a few tests on the 07 generation on my own to see how powerful it actually was. I took one of the original rats before it was sacrificed. I then put it in a cage with a second rat and allowed it to bite the new rat. After that, I euthanized the second rat and put it in a cage to watch what would happen. I was a little surprised to see that he began to move around as well, so I left him in the cage overnight before placing two more rats in with him.”

  “Why did you wait overnight?” Rita asked.

  “Because I knew that the 07 generation was not only systemic in the first rat but also likely to be systemic in the second rat. I knew it was traveling through the nervous system, but for it to be passed to the second rat it had to be in the bloodstream as well. After death, the blood coagulates inside the body as well as any blood outside the body. That is why you will see bruising on the underside of anyone who has been dead for a while, the blood pools according to gravity. If someone is lying on their back when they die, eventually the blood will pool along their back and the back of their limbs. I wanted to see if it would pass to a new host when the blood had already been coagulated. Unfortunately, it did, showing that it was systemic even after clotting.”

  “So what happens to all of the people who are bitten by the dead out there walking around?” Rob asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

  “If they die, they will get up in about three to four minutes as well, and the cycle will continue on to whoever they bite and kill as well.”

  “What if they don’t die after being bitten?”

  “We have no idea what happens in that case.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lenny muttered. “The town will be overrun by morning.”

  “If it’s not overrun already,” Rita said. “You said they are not the people they were before, but if the nerves in the brain are firing, why are they not the same people come back to life?”

  “The soul has already left the body at the time of death, Rita,” Brighton said. “So, what was left in the casket was an empty shell. The person you may have known no longer resides within the vessel.”

  “I could not have come up with a better explanation myself,” Blake said. “But there’s still one thing that worries me.”

  “What’s that?” Brighton asked.

  “We have never dealt with the dead suddenly walking around before,” Blake explained. “What if they gain some sort of awareness?”

  “Awareness comes with having a soul.” The reverend countered.

  “Does it? People of faith often argue that animals have no soul. That was supposed to be something exclusive to humans. Animals have awareness and problem-solving ability. Cloned animals have awareness, yet the scientists cannot create a soul, even when making a carbon copy of a living organ system. So, is the gaining of awareness exclusive to having a soul?”

  “Awareness won’t make them any harder to take down,” Rob interjected.

  “That’s already proved to be a challenge,” Blake said.

  “How do you kill them, anyway?” Margie asked.

  “You can’t, because they are already dead. We had to incinerate the rats and all of the materials. Normally you would autoclave lab materials, such as bacteria to a standard sterilization temperature of one hundred twenty-one degrees centigrade to inactivate it, but in the case of tissues, especially the ones we had infected with PEF07, they must be incinerated at a much higher temperature to destroy all evidence that they were ever even there.”

  “So, we have to burn them,” Rita said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Why are they killing and eating people?” Lenny asked.

  “They have to feed,” Blake said. “Even small life forms need nourishment. Macrophages are white blood cells that eat foreign bodies. Bacteria metabolize proteins for reproduction. It’s a basic function that is necessary for survival. Even though the bodies out there are dead, the PEF07 in their system is keeping the nerve cells alive, and all cells need to feed to continue functioning to the fullest capacity. That’s the best explanation I can come up with, anyway.”

  “So, who do we hold responsible for this?” Rob asked.

  “That would be Doctor Benjamin Johnson and Doctor Franklin Benson. The only problem is, they’re dead. I saw them on the way out of NeurAx.”

  “Well, at least I won’t have to arrest anyone,” Rob said. “We’ll stay put, for the moment. Let me think about what to do. If you’re tired, rest on of the cots in the cells.”

  As the others moved off in their dazed state, Doctor Blake approached Rob. The two men looked out the window at the few dead who had made it to town, now walking in the street. It was a nightmare Rob had never planned on witnessing. Now, he had a group of people to keep safe with no idea how to go about it.

  “We can’t let this get out of the town,” Blake said.

  “I’m aware of that,” Rob said. “You said you had to burn the rats?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s something to work with,” Rob said, though he wasn’t sure how it helped against an unknown number of mobile corpses.

  .

  CHAPTER eIGHTEEN

  The college dorms were lit up on campus just like they were every weekend night. Students were having parties in their rooms, ignoring their studies and drinking heavily. It was, after all, Friday night, and there was no need to worry about picking up a textbook until Sunday. The hangovers would still plague them that day, but they could fumble through homework with headaches, dry mouths and bloodshot eyes.

  A group of students stumbled along the path to the dorms, on their way back from the bars on Main Street where they’d gotten drunk before even starting to look for the numerous parties they planned to attend. Every now and then one of them would fall down and the others would help them to their feet again.

  A blonde girl named Jane was shuffling along in the group, trying to keep up even though she was extremely intoxicated. Stopping long enough to vomit, she fell down as she wretched again and again until she was sure she had emptied her stomach of all contents. She tried to stand up but was far too weak.

  “I need some help, guys,” she
mumbled, dry heaving by this time.

  A dark-haired boy named Tony sputtered at her as he grabbed her arm to try and help her up. “Damn it, Jane! Why do you always get this drunk?”

  “Shut up!” she yelled back at him, trying to get her legs to work. “It’s not my fault the bartender made the drinks so strong.”

  Tony pulled her to her feet by putting his hands under her arms and hefting her to her feet. He tried to help her steady herself when she looked up at him with her eyes half closed. Before he could react, she leaned forward and threw up all over the front of him.

  “Jane, you bitch!” he yelled, dropping her to the ground. “Now I have to go change before hitting the parties!”

  “I’m sorry, Tony,” She said

  She started to giggle, then laugh uncontrollably at the sight of him with her vomit all over the front of him. She continued to laugh until she fell onto her back in the wet grass.

  Tony was raging by this time. “See if I help you again! You can lay there until morning for all I care.”

  Jane watched the group walk up the hill, leaving her lying on the ground beside the path. She pleaded for help, but they kept walking away.

  “Sorry about your shirt, you fucking prick!” she hollered after them and then sprawled out on the grass, unable to find the strength to move.

  She watched as another group approached Tony and the others. They looked drunk as well, shuffling along slowly, slightly hunched over and moaning as they moved closer to the group. She heard Tony getting agitated with them when they started reaching their arms out toward her friends.

  “What the hell is your problem, man?” Tony asked, pushing one of the strangers away. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  They continued trying to grab them, so Tony punched one of them in the face. As his head swung, Jane was sure she saw teeth fly out of his mouth, scattering across the paved path. The stranger was unfazed by the hit, immediately swinging around toward Tony again. Tony tried to push him away, but the stranger grabbed him, attempting to bite him. Tony pushed as hard as he could to break free, but the stranger finally overcame him, biting down hard on his throat and tearing his flesh. Tony finally dropped to the ground, his legs kicking as his blood drained out and pooled around him. The stranger bent down over Tony and began biting more chunks from him until Tony finally stopped moving.

  She watched in terror as the rest of the group was torn apart. One by one, her friends fell to the ground and bled out, just as Tony had. One by one, they stopped moving as the cannibalistic horde continued to feed on their lifeless forms. It had all happened so fast that she couldn’t believe she was even seeing this event take place. They were actually eating the bodies.

  The group of strangers finally stood up and moved on, lumbering up the path toward the college where they would undoubtedly find an unlimited food source in the form of college students too drunk to run away or put up much of a fight.

  She looked up at the lifeless forms of her friends, lying on the ground in a massive pool of blood. She was glad the strangers hadn’t seen her, still too afraid to move, fearing that they might spot her and decide to head back down the hill and finish off the only remaining member of her group left alive.

  She watched the last of them disappear from sight and let out a sigh when she suddenly saw movement. Tony’s body began twitching as if some electric current was being pulsed into it by an unseen force. It twitched a few more times before Tony began to sit up, then stood up and began to walk around. One by one, the others began to do the same.

  Without thinking, Jane began to scream, horrified by the sight of the dead students suddenly coming back to life. They all noticed her at once and began to move toward her, shuffling along with that same look that the strangers had worn on their seemingly oblivious faces. As they approached her she pushed herself as best she could to get to her feet. By the time she was standing Toby was upon her. She backed away but he continued to follow her.

  “Get away from me Tony!” she screamed but Tony kept coming, not even registering that he understood her. “Get away from me now, or else!”

  She noticed that the rest of the group was almost upon her, as well. She began to feel another surge of panic. She knew she could not fight them and she would not be able to outrun them in her current, intoxicated state.

  Tony opened his mouth, showing his teeth as he came closer to her, drool oozing from the corner of his mouth and down his chin.

  Jane found enough strength to kick Tony in the shin and punch him in the jaw, hoping the hits would buy her time to get away. Tony moaned in a way she had never heard before, in a manner that didn’t sound human as drool ran from his mouth. He hardly seemed to notice the impacts and he reached his arms out and closed his fingers around her neck.

  He had just begun to squeeze her throat when she heard the gunshots begin to ring out. She glanced over Tony’s shoulder to see campus security officers. They must have appeared when they heard the commotion and started firing their guns when they saw the murders taking place.

  Tony’s head jerked to one side as a bullet smashed into his skull. As he released his grip on Jane, she pulled free, choking from the brief moment of strangulation she had experienced. She had little time to recover, however, as Tony began to turn toward her again.

  “Hey, you!” one of the security officers yelled at her. “Hey, get the hell out of there!”

  She began to stumble away when the officer unloaded his gun into Tony, knocking the boy to the ground but failing to stop his body from attempting to get up.

  She finally recovered her senses enough to take another look around her at the carnage taking place. There seemed to be more strangers than the officers could keep up with, and they were tearing students apart all over campus. Once a student was killed it seemed only minutes before they were getting up as well and attacking other students. It was like something out of a horror movie.

  “What the hell is going on?” she heard one of the officers hollering.

  “I don’t know!” another answered. “I’ve never seen anyone survive that many bullets!”

  “None of them are affected by the guns.”

  “I know. We better call the sheriff and the state police. We can’t handle this situation by ourselves.”

  Jane watched as the officers ran back to the campus security office to call for help. She knew she had been lucky but she also knew that there would be no one to shoot the next attacker off of her. She mustered what strength she could and ran for someplace to hide until it was over.

  The campus was erupting everywhere with attacks and the sound of screaming. People were running frantically for cover, while others screamed and cried as they were torn open, bitten, tortured and even gutted. In every instance, the dead were rising up off of the ground again in a short amount of time.

  Jane realized the attackers must have gotten into the dorms because Jane saw screaming students crashing through windows and falling two and three stories to their deaths, their bodies smashing against the ground. The air was filled with the sounds of bodies thumping, people screaming, flesh tearing, bones breaking and the gurgled moans of the dying.

  Jane could take no more. fighting to gain the strength to escape the horror, she didn’t get far before three more attackers came out of the shadows and began to pursue her. She suddenly felt herself sober up a little more as she took off running as fast as she could for town, hearing screams and gunshots continue behind her.

  CHAPTER nINETEEN

  Startled by the telephone ringing, Rob snatched up the receiver, his stomach twisting in fear of what might be happening now. They’d already dealt with enough for one twenty-four-hour period and possibly enough for the rest of the week. He wasn’t even sure how they could possibly help anyone outside the office right now.

  “Sheriff’s office,” He said.

  “This is the campus security,” the voice on the other end said, sounding frantic. “We have multiple attacks up here. People are dyin
g. Our bullets are having no effect at all and we need help.”

  “How many attackers are there?” Rob asked.

  “I don’t know,” the officer answered. “I would say there were about twenty or so to begin with, but there seems to be a lot more of them now.”

  “You mean there are more of them coming to the campus?”

  “No, it’s gonna sound crazy, but the students who appear to be killed are getting up and attacking other students now. I know it sounds impossible, but I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “I believe you,” Rob assured him. “Listen, get on the PA system up there and tell the students to get in their rooms and lock the doors. Tell them not to let anyone in. Your guns are not going to do you any good. I’m going to call the state police in, but you need to make sure everyone locks themselves in. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Good,” Rob said. “I’ll let you know when I can get the state police in.”

  “What was that all about?” Shirley asked.

  “The college campus is about to be overrun,” he answered before turning to Doctor Blake. “This has gotten way out of hand. With the college being attacked, it sounds like there are going to be thousands of those things by morning. I’m sure they are getting to the locals as well. What do we do to stop this?”

  “I don’t know,” Blake said. “We need to burn them, but how are we going to do that with this many of them?”

  “I don’t know, but I want to get everyone here to a more secure building. And we need to get anyone else who may be alive to a secure location as well.”